What’s Hot For 1997

After spending the bulk of 1996 writing as a band, Dream Theater are finally ready to start recording in anticipation of a summer release. “We have an over-abundance material at this point, and we’re itching to go,” said drummer Mike Portnoy. “Things keep getting pushed and everything, and I think a lot of the personnel changes at the label have delayed things, but I think we’re ready to go. I’m going to try and fight for a double album, but it’s yet to be seen if that will actually happen. If it ends up getting cut to a single album, we’ll fill it to the max – 75 minutes. Whatever’s left we could use as either an EP, in between albums, or b-sides and stuff.

In contrast to the recording of their previous albums, Portnoy said he’d like to record this album one song at a time, rather than one instrument at a time. “That way it’s not one drum sound on the whole album and one guitar sound on the whole album, each song can have a different feel, a different sound, and a different identity,” he said. “Also, it will really keep us focused on one song at a time and help the band’s vibe, for us to always be together.” The project will be keyboardist Derek Sherinian’s first since joining the band for the Awake tour. “There was never any questioning his playing ability, that’s the reason he got the gig to begin with. The next question was his writing ability, and he’s a great asset to the band’s writing. He’s got a lot of ideas ready to explode because, for so many years, he was a hired gun with KISS and Alice Cooper and he was never really able to contribute musical ideas. Now he’s got 30 years of ideas ready to come out.”

Until the summer release, Portnoy can be heard on the Rush tribute album Working Man, where he played drums on six tracks and was credited as the album’s Creative Consultant, gathering musicians and putting the song list together. Singer James LaBrie provided vocals for two tracks on the Queen Tribute, Dragon Attack, “Sheer Heart Attack” and “One Vision” (where Portnoy played a part in the production, recording the vocals). Guitarist John Petrucci also appears on the Queen album, lending his six-string to “Another One Bites The Dust.” “We’ve been out of the public eye for a year and a half now,” said Portnoy, “but we feel confident enough in the material that we can go to the next level with the new album.”

Metal Wire: Teaching A Dream

Clinics are nothing new for Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy and guitarist John Petrucci, but when the bandmates appeared together at Tuxedo Junction, in Danbury, CT., it was the first workshop of its kind on American soil.

“We did a few clinics in Europe together in March, but that was the only US clinic we’ve ever done with me and John together,” said Portnoy a few days after the Nov. 25 event, which was sponsored by the East Coast Music Mall. “I’ve done almost 100 clinics in the past year and a half that the band’s been off the road. It keeps the band’s name alive, and I can test the new material at the clinics – fans are getting to hear the new material, getting a Dream Theater fix while we work on the album, and hopefully learning something as well.”

In Portnoy’s portion of the clinic, he detailed the use of time signatures and how he manipulates them in Dream Theater’s songs. To demonstrate, he drummed to a tape of “Just Let Me Breathe,” a new track that was written as a response to the current state of the music industry, and to an instrumental track of “Raise The Knife,” another new cut. “I’d like to take this opportunity to field some questions, since that’s not something we usually do at our gigs,” he joked before answering a series of questions from the crowd. His advice to aspiring drummers? “Don’t try and imitate other players – do what’s best for you, that’s how you get your own style.” And when asked where he does his best writing? “I’ve written some of my best parts on the toilet, the acoustics are great.”

After starting his portion of the clinic by detailing his warmup techniques to the guitar players on hand, Petrucci went into a demonstration of scales and how he breaks them down and restructures them to create his “signature” sound. “Once I come up with a technique, I just mutate the idea,” he said, scattering his explanations with “all you do,” “everybody got that?” and “that’s it.” “You’re finding out what I’m all about, and it’s not that much,” he said to the wide-eyed crowd. “When you break down what I’m doing, it’s really quite simple.”

Why did it seem like he was the only person there that believed that!?

– Paul Gargano

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In addition to the tribute albums that are detailed in the ‘97 preview and reviewed in Playback, Mike and John kept busy with other projects during Dream Theater’s down time last year. Mike can be found on the Lessons With The Greats Vol. III instructional drumming video, and John wrote and recorded two songs for Sega video games. The band plans on entering the studio to record their fourth studio album later this month.

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Clinics weren’t always easy for Mike Portnoy. “I shied away from clinics for a long time,” he explained, “I was intimidated. I finally got cornered to do a couple in Germany, and I figured, ‘What the f.ck, they can’t understand me anyway, I’ll test it out.’ It felt really comfortable, I realized that all I had to do was go up there and be myself and that’s all they wanted to see.” Mike and his wife Marlene are expecting their first child in May. If it’s a girl, Mike wants to name her Randi, a cross between his mother’s and grandmother’s names. They still haven’t decided on a boy’s name.

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John Petrucci opened his portion of the clinic with “Lost Without You,” a song he wrote for his wife. John and Mike jammed together before and after their portions of the clinic were done.