Dream Theater: To Infinity And Beyond

It’s been a long time since Dream Theater rock and rolled, and it seems that everyone in and around the band realizes this. Merely weeks after recording was completed, a copy of Falling Into Infinity, Dream Theater’s fourth studio album and their first in three years, was rushed to my doorstep. Days later, the group’s leading triumvirate--guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, and drummer Mike Portnoy--huddled ‘round a speaker phone in East West/Elektra’s New York office to discuss their brand new opus. I’m going to go out on a limb here--methinks the record company really wants a new album out. Now!

“Actually, I think everybody wants an album out now!” responds Portnoy. “We want it out now, and the fans want it out now. There’s an urgency on everybody’s part to get this album out.” As with its predecessors, ...Infinity was recorded relatively quickly.

“Well, it was recorded in two months, but it was written over the period of a year and a half” asserts Portnoy. “The writing process was very long and involved, which is good, because it gave the songs the chance to evolve. The recording process was quick--we really wanted to get it done, get it released, get back on tour. But I don’t think it sacrificed the sound quality of the recording. In fact, I think it’s the most involved production we’ve had, believe it or not.”

What amazes me is the fact that they’ve rarely spent much time in the studio on an album, yet have always obtained consistently great-sounding records, as if they’ve locked themselves away for a year with Mutt Lange...

“We’re pretty particular in the instruments we play, the sounds that we get,” reasons Petrucci. “The same gear we use live is what we record with. So, we know that it sounds good, and if you have a great engineer/producer, it doesn’t take much to transfer that sound on to tape. The studio time is better spent in getting the right performance and being creative.”

For ...Infinity, Dream Theater once again adopted a great “engineer/producer”. Kevin Shirley, who has worked with artists as diverse as Rush and Silverchair, and produced Aerosmith’s most recent album, was tapped to man the board this time around.

“He was really great to work with,” Petrucci notes. “He kept a good vibe in the studio. I think he’s an awesome producer. His influence on this album was a very positive one.”

“He’s a hot producer to work with right now,” Myung opines. “He’s coming off a pretty big record. There’s a lot of positive things to be associated working with Kevin, and the label’s really excited about us working with him. It was just timing,”

And fans won’t be disappointed with the results. As usual the New York based band’s offering--an eleven track, 79-minute record--is a veritable cornucopia of ear candy. But, as with their decision to work with Shirley, the band have many more tricks up their collective sleeve. Take “Lines In The Sand”, a twelve-minute track in which King’s X vocalist Doug Pinnick trades vocal lines with James LaBrie.

“When we wrote ‘Lines in the Sand’ last year, we heard this call-and-answer thing on the chorus, and we always heard Doug’s voice,” explains Portnoy.

“When we were doing the demo, we told James to ‘try for the Pinnick sound, that bluesy, soulful sort of thing’. So James sang both parts on the demo. When we were in pre-production, we started saying, ‘you know, it would sound great with that Pinnick vibe, why don’t we just give Doug a call’?’ We know Doug, met him several times, and have always been big King’s X fans. So I gave him a call, and he was into it. We flew him out, and he came down and did thirty different takes of the chorus, and we took the best ones.”

Another song is a surprise of a different variety. For the first time ever. Dream Theater employed an outside writer. The results can be heard on “You Not Me”, the band’s collaboration with--hold your hat for this one--Desmond “every song I write sounds the same yet it always ends up a hit so ha-ha-ha on you, ya losers!” Child! But, before you go scrambling for the bathroom to throw up in disgust (and protest?), there’s a story to be told.

“Kevin Shirley had suggested him, because he worked with him on the Aerosmith album,” says Portnoy. “And I think under normal conditions, we probably would have been completely turned off and completely close-minded to the idea. In fact, we were--the label had suggested working with a writer last year, and we said, quite strongly, ‘absolutely not!’ But it was more after-the-fact. ‘You Not Me’ was a song called ‘You Or Me’, and Kevin asked if we would mind if Desmond just had a look at it. It was very different than as if he were to write it from scratch. So, I think we were open-minded in that respect. In fact, I don’t think we were even planning on using that song on the album, so it was sort of like, ‘well, what have we got to lose?’“

Nevertheless, it’s still somewhat strange. After all, I’m shooting the breeze with the guys who write 99 and 44/100 percent of the lyrics as it is. An additional writer is the proverbial fifth wheel...

“Well, that’s the way we felt, believe me,” Portnoy agrees. “We already have too many chefs in the kitchen as it is. But, I suppose Desmond’s role was really not much different than the role of what a producer’s input would be for a song, a suggestion here or there, it’s Just that Desmond gets co-writer’s credit. In the past we’ve worked with producers who’ll make suggestions to the arrangements of song, and that’s really what Desmond did. I don’t think we would be interested in working with anybody from the inception of the song, but being as it was an after the fact thing, we were a little more open to it.”

Another person who gets a credit as wordsmith is the group’s own James LaBrie.

“James wrote the lyrics to ‘Anna Lee’, the first time he’s written lyrics by himself,” Petrucci reveals. “Everybody has to step to the plate with the lyrics, as we do with the music...”

It may be an awkward question for Myung, Petrucci, and Portnoy, but I wondered why James, the man who gives a voice to all of their images and words, hasn’t been more involved with this avenue of writing.

“The three of us have been together from the beginning, so I guess there’s a writing chemistry that James respects,” Petrucci speculates, while also admitting, “I think he would like to be more involved, but he lives in Canada, and he also doesn’t play an instrument, so that’s somewhat limiting. Of course, he has input with the melodies with the individual lyricist... But, you know, we’ve always been a very musician-oriented band.”

As expected, my three interview subjects actually wrote the lion’s share of the prose. One of Myung’s strongest contributions is the epic “Trial Of Tears”, which the bassist describes as “a lot of different ideas. The first part deals with ego, the next with regret, and the third with the concept of heaven being here and now, a place that is here. Life is really what you make of it, and it can be a beautiful experience, but there’s also a lot of sadness associated with it. It’s a whole mosaic of different themes going on.”

Meanwhile, Petrucci penned the words to “Peruvian Skies”, but appears reluctant to reveal too much about the song. “Vanessa is a poor child, who is potentially being abused, but the people that are hearing this, they’re not really sure. It’s about a potentially abused little girl. You have ears—you hear things...,” he offers cryptically.

The verbose Portnoy, on the other hand, has no problem with explaining “Just Let Me Breathe”, a sarcastic, opinionated take on the industry.

“If anybody gets in trouble, it should be me, not the band,” he candidly admits. “I don’t necessarily speak for everybody. When it comes to the music, there’s a lot of compromising, and a lot of collaborated ideas, but when it comes to the lyrics, it’s one individual’s voice. Frankly, I don’t care if I get flak for it, it’s just my view, and it’s not so much even a negative view on the musicians named (Kurt Cobain and Shannon Hoon), it’s more a slap to the media that makes them heroes, and bases careers on image and overdose, as opposed to the music and the content.”

His “New Millennium” is a more personal angle on the music business.

“That particular song is more about change, a new direction, and a new beginning. It’s not a literal comparison to the world now entering the new millennium, but it’s more of a metaphor, I suppose, for us and our career. Dealing with., the stuff we’ve been through in the last couple of years with the industry. That’s been my biggest frustration, so that ends up in my lyrics.”

One person who didn’t contribute lyrics at all is the newest member to join the fold--keyboardist Derek Sherinian. Though Derek’s been with the band for almost two years, this is his first studio album with the Theater. So, what did he bring to the table?

“A lot of mockery!” jokes Myung.

“Yeah! A lot of sarcasm and personality in the studio,” agrees Petrucci.

“No, seriously, he was very inspirational, to come into our lives at that point,” Myung corrects. “He came in with a lot of energy, and a lot of great ideas, and I think you can hear it on this record.”

“He definitely contributed a lot, he really stepped in and had a lot of ideas, so there’s a big contribution on the musical side,” Mike observes.

It seems that Derek has quickly filled the void left by the departure of the influential and beloved Kevin Moore, the band’s other original member who quit the Theater sometime after 1994’s Awake.

“I agree, and from a playing point of view, to be honest, I think he’s even better,” Portnoy states. “Not that there’s a competition, but I think his playing is phenomenal, he’s very innovative with his sounds, but also his writing contributions. He’s into the jazz fusion stuff, but he’s also really into straight-ahead rock stuff. A lot of his favorite stuff is Van Halen, Aerosmith, Ozzy...so there’s a lot of heavy, guitar-oriented keyboard parts.

“He was totally excited,” he continues. “He’s always been a ‘hired gun’ with Alice Cooper and Kiss, so he’s never been able to actually collaborate and write. For him, it was really exciting.”

“Exciting” is an accurate word to summarize Falling Into Infinity. With any luck, the record will reach the potential new listeners outside of the group’s rabid fan base. It’s not as if the band doesn’t have an accessible edge that would appeal to a more universal audience, and Falling... combines this element with the band’s trademarks of pristine performance and labyrinth arrangements.

“Hopefully, people will hear the sound and have an open mind, ‘cause I think that this album really shatters a lot of stereo types that might be attached to us,” echoes Portnoy. “I think if this record was released, and it didn’t say ‘Dream Theater’ on it, a lot of people wouldn’t even believe that this was the type of music we do, rather than immediately think just from the name that it’s progressive music. There’s a little bit of everything in there, as always.”

“I think we’re getting better at what we do. We’re always trying to become better at what we do,” contemplates Petrucci. “If we can write an album that’s like Dark Side Of The Moon--totally intense but it’s also a part of so many people’s lives-that’s a great balance of the two worlds. We’re striving towards that”