Mike Portnoy’s Cunning Plan

Dream Theater, the American, five piece prog metal band, have been around for some fifteen years now. And not too long ago, it wouldn’t have been unusual for most people reading this to say, ‘Who?’ But it now seems that the tide has finally begun to turn as their last album, ‘Metropolis part 2, Scenes From A Memory’, has gained them critical acclaim from around the world, and has also sold well in excess of a million. They were also able to tour this country, (which the band themselves admit to being a difficult nut to crack), twice this year. Having spoken to singer James La Brie on their earlier visit in April, I spoke to drummer and mainman Mike Portnoy at their re-sited Sheffield gig on their latest visit, to ask how things were going and if they were making headway over here.

“Well, we knew when we were over here in April that that was gonna be a quick scratch on the surface thing, and we knew we’d come back and do a few more dates. This is actually our fourth leg through Europe, only two of which included the UK, so considering how many times we’ve been over to this side of the Atlantic, it was inevitable that we’d do more in the UK. But yeah, the market does seem to be getting better and better for us. To be honest I think a lot of that is a direct result of magazines like Classic Rock and media such as yourselves; things that are giving us some exposure, whereas normally we would never have had that if we were completely relying on Kerrang or whatever y’know. So it’s some of these new magazines that are concentrating on this type of music, and not all the other trendy things that are out there, that are helping us finally get the proper amount of exposure that we get everywhere else in the world”.

So why have you done this part of the tour as a ‘Greatest Hits’ kind of thing? Did you not consider doing more ‘Metropolis 2’ dates to attract even more newer fans?

“We’ve done that to death. I mean, we’ve played Scenes From A Memory a hundred times now, and we knew when we reached the Grand Finale at Roseland in New York City that that was gonna be the last night that we’d do it. Y’know, any fans in the UK who are true fans and who wanted to see that I’m sure made the trip to one of the shows in April. We don’t wanna go into the same market as doing Scenes again, and really there’s only so many times we can do it before we’re bored out of our heads. And you can’t please everybody. There may have been some out there that would have liked to have seen it again, but there are probably a lot of people who would have said we’ve already seen this and we wanna hear some other stuff. There’s no plans to do it again but you never say never. Of course, it could be resurrected for a special show here and there, but we don’t plan on doing it any time again in the near future”.

What sort of area do you think you will be going in for the new album?

“Well, we don’t know y’know. We’ll find out when we get there. When we make a record, we kinda just think about making something that’s different from where we just came from, and this one will be no exception. We’re not gonna try and top Scenes because I think we put all of our heart and soul and blood, sweat and tears into that album. I don’t know if we can necessarily top it, so we just hope to make another good record. We know that we’re not going to do a concept record, so I guess it will be a fun opportunity to get back to focusing on individual songs, and see where we can take that”.

So how will you write it, individually, in the studio or do you write anything on the road?

“We don’t write on the road at all because we write together and it’s really hard to have that writing environment on tour. Basically we’ve been on the road a year now and we don’t have a single note for the next record, and when we reconvene in February that’s when we’ll start from scratch. We’ll do it how we’ve done it for the last fifteen years. The four instrumentalists, guitar, drums, bass, keyboards, will write all of the music first with the vocal places in mind, and then one of us will go off and write the lyrics and the bulk of the melodies, and then we’ll bring James down and start to apply the vocals into the song. That’s the way we’ve always done it and we have a good chemistry of doing it that way, so were not gonna mess with the formula. We should be able to deliver a record by mid to end of summer and have it released by fall time”.

Tell us about the live video and DVD, which I understand you directed.

“Yeah. Well that should be out early next year, probably in February, and for me it’s a dream project. I’m thoroughly enjoying every minute of it and I’m knee deep in it. It’s a lot of work but I’m enjoying it”.

Is that something you want to do, the Peter Gabriel thing, going into the film side a little bit deeper?

“I’ve always wanted to. I mean, I’ve always overseen all of our home videos and I’m just a film fanatic. That’s my biggest love, even more than music. To be able to incorporate that and this together is a dream come true, especially when we were making this album. I knew how much potential it had to be turned into a film, or in this case, more of a home video. Even being one of the producers of the album was very much like directing a movie. When we made the record there were so many details that had to be overseen; the sound effects, the timeline and the way the story was told, and with the video I get to take it to that next level”.

Who are the guest singers that appear on it?

“Well the basis of the video is gonna be the Roseland, New York City show. And at that show we had the choir that appeared on the album, we had Theresa Thomason who was the guest vocalist on the album, a couple of actors to act the parts as well as a huge screen, the size of the stage, to show all the things. So we basically took it to the grandest production level that we were able to and documented it. And now along with that footage of the show, I’m working in a lot of extra live action sequences that we’ve shot to help tell the story, and answer a lot of questions that the fans have been wondering, the people that have actually followed the story of the album’s concept”.

Do you think after this success that the future’s going to get hectic for you?

“Oh it’s been seriously hectic. It hasn’t stopped for years now. For me, Dream Theater’s schedule is busy enough as it is, but I’ve been doing the side projects, instructional videos and clinics and it’s just one thing after another. I would love a break actually y’know. Right now we’re not looking to make our schedules busier, we’re looking to get some time off. After this tour ends I have to put the finishing touches on the DVD and I have to finish, I’m doing this right now in the dressing room, I have to finish compiling this year’s fan club Christmas CD, we do one of those every year, and then I have a little clinic tour in Argentina. So after that I put my foot down and said ‘y’know what, November, December, I’m completely off. And then January I do another Transatlantic album and then February the Dream Theater album, so I’ve taken off November and December. But of course, even if I’m sitting at home, there’s still the telephone and the computer, so there’s really never time off. But I’m doing my best!”

Talking about Transatlantic, how big will you allow that to become?

“As big as it wants to become, as big as people want it to become. I initially formed it for one album just out of fun y’know. It was just kind of like a little pet project to get together a meeting of the minds of all the heads of these modern day progressive rock bands. And initially I had no intention of taking it any further than just one album and to see where it would go, just for the fun of making music together. And then it’s sort of grown into a life of its own now y’know, where people want a follow up and people want live dates and tour dates. And so as long as there’s a demand for further albums and dates, and I suppose as long as I can work it into my schedule from Dream Theater, I’d like to do it. But it should be stressed that Dream Theater is my day job, that’s my bread and butter, and that’s where I focus all of my, erm, leadership obsessions y’know. With Transatlantic, for me it’s nice that there’s already leaders in that band. Neal, (Morse, Spock’s Beard) and Roine, (Stolt, Flower Kings), are very used to leading their own bands. So, rather than me going in there and forcing my control freak nature onto them, it’s kinda nice with that project to show up and just play drums. When I formed it that wasn’t originally the way it was, I was very hands on with it, but now if it’s gonna continue, I’m gonna actually enjoy having that outlet, not being in such a stressful environment where I need to be so hands on with everything. I’d like to just show up and play drums”.

So what are the chances of live dates over here for Transatlantic?

“It all depends on our schedules, that’s the hardest thing with this project. Right now we all decided we had this hole in January and we said, ‘OK, we could either come to Europe and the UK, and do some shows, or we could do another album’. And we made a decision as a band to focus on another album ‘cos we figured that would be a more advantageous focus. That’s our next priority, and then after we do another album if we find another hole in our schedules we’d love to do some shows over here. The ones we did in America were a lot of fun, and it really helps make the band be perceived more as a band than some sort of studio project”.

The term Progressive is often derided and ignored a lot, in this country at least, but Dream Theater seem quite happy to wave the flag. Does it ever bother you that you are termed Progressive?

“Well it only bothers us when we come to England and we have to hide the fact. Everywhere else they kind of enjoy it. The ironic thing is that the English were the ones that invented it y’know, ELP, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd. So what am I gonna say. But y’know, we’ve never applied that tag to ourselves, it’s been applied to us. To us that’s only one of many influences. Of course it’s a predominant one, and because the songs are long and because there’s a lot of instrumental sections, yes it’s a predominant part of our sound, but so is the metal edge y’know. The Metallica, Pantera influences are just as evident in our sound, and also the more commercial, poppy edge, the U2, Peter Gabriel, Elton John and Beatles influences. It’s all a big, giant melting pot and the progressive side is just one of many sides of us. And we’re not ashamed of it, we’re ultimately proud of it. I mean we love all those progressive bands”.

Having said that, your drumming technique doesn’t sound anything like you would hear from those bands. Who is your biggest mentor as far as drumming goes?

“Erm, well, there’s several stages. The first initial thing for me, as with a lot of musicians, was The Beatles, and to this day the Beatles are still my number one, all time favourite band. I literally grew up with them from day one. Y’know, there’s a picture in the new Dream Theater tour book of me when I was a year old with a bowl of cereal and my record player, with these little black records with apples on ‘em. So Ringo was my first idol, and then once I really started to understand the role of drummers and I could see the different personalities, the two big ones for me, one more as a personality was Keith Moon, and the other more as a player, was John Bonham. And as I got older I went through a phase of more progressive drummers, and Neal Peart (Rush), was the big, big one for me throughout junior highschool and highschool. I also started listening to Simon Phillips, Billy Cobham and Stuart Copeland, and then people like Phil Collins, Bill Bruford, Terry Bozzio and Vinnie Carlotta. So there’s a lot! And then the biggest part of my contribution to the sound of Dream Theater and the drum world is probably the real heavy side because I grew up listening to a lot of heavy stuff starting with Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, and then evolving in the mid-eighties to a lot of thrash stuff like Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, King Diamond and all that stuff. And that’s the real energy and heavy edge to the sound that I bring to the band”.

So, with everything that’s happening at the moment, do you feel that everything has gone to plan?

“Yeah, it really has actually. The whole Dream Theater tour was our best ever, we played so many different places and the shows were always sold out, and the fans have been so enthusiastic. Creatively we were able to bring it to life as I had hoped, and the fact that the DVD is coming out the way it is, is incredibly satisfying to me. So really it has all gone as planned. The Transatlantic thing as well, we made a great record together and it was well received and the demand to continue is there, so I really couldn’t have asked for a better scenario”.

So if you could go back and do it again, is there anything anywhere you would change?

“There’s a hell of a lot of things I would change in terms of Dream Theater’s career, but in terms of this record and the tour that followed, we really got a lot of creative control back into our corner. Towards the end of the Falling Into Infinity album, it almost broke the band up. I told the guys that I was gonna leave and we should just break the band up because it was incredibly frustrating. But they talked me into sticking it out until the end of the tour, and re-evaluating everything. And that’s when we made the change of keyboard player and went to our managers and told them, ‘Listen, you have to go to the label and tell them we want to make the record our way or we’re not gonna make it at all’. So we had to force their hands this time, and I think ultimately it worked out”.