A Look Into Inner Turbulence

For many years I have been a huge fan of Dream Theater, beginning with Images and Words. I believe that this band just gets better as they complete each record. Their current line-up is their most solid to date and their new record Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is no exception. When I found out that I got this interview with drummer Mike Portnoy I was very excited. I had so many questions for him, but I wanted to keep them all focused on the last record, Scenes From A Memory, and the writing process for Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence, and their upcoming world tour starting in March. I hope you all enjoy this interview as much as I did.  As soon as I got on the phone with Mike he tells me that he is in his car on the way to the airport for a drum clinic. This gives me little time to get in all the questions, but in the end I find a way to keep the interview going and get some great pieces of information out of him.

The tour for Scenes From A Memory was a monumental one for the band, with the whole record being played in its entirety. As you were in the process of writing the record did you already know that you were going to be playing the whole record live?

Oh absolutely, we knew that when we were making a concept record that the proper way to present it and perform it would be to play it from start to finish. All of the great concept records of the past from Tommy, Quadrophenia, and The Wall were all performed in their entirety, so that was part of the plan for sure.

Did you run into any problems or obstacles playing such a long set each night?

No problems because we are used to playing a long set every night. The only thing for me was that it started to get a little redundant playing the same set a hundred times in a row. We were locked into that 90-minute portion of the show that couldn’t really change and I am the type that likes to change the set as much as possible. So after a hundred times of playing the set straight through I was definitely ready to move on.

Towards the latter half of the tour you actually stopped playing the record in its entirety?

Yeah, the final performance was the night that we recorded the DVD in NYC and after that we still had a month or two of touring. At that point we began mixing Scenes…  material with other songs.

I saw that Scenes From New York was also released as a triple CD set. What caused you to release another live record so soon after Once In A Livetime?

Well, the initial idea was that I was pushing the record company to do a DVD and we felt that this was the perfect record for a DVD. So once they agreed to film the Roseland show, and once we had that in the can, they approached us about releasing it on CD. At first I was hesitant because we had just put out Once In A Livetime, but the more they presented the idea to me the more I liked it, especially since the CD contains the entire concert. The VHS version is 90 minutes, the DVD has about two and a half hours, and the CD contains the entire show, which is about three hours. So the fact that it was the complete show made lots of sense. Also, there are two big differences with the live records. One is that it is a different line-up with Jordan [Rudess – keyboards] in the band. Two there is very few song selections that crossover between those five CDs. You are getting very little repetition and it covers lots of ground.

I also saw that the CDs had to be recalled due to the initial artwork.

Well, the original cover had the Big Apple in flames and within the apple was the NYC skyline with the twin towers also in flames. The record came out on the morning of September 11th by sheer coincidence. Due to what happened we decided to pull the cover and change it. We did not want the live record to be something people remembered September 11th by. We wanted it to be something that people remembered August 30th 2000 by.

So the decision to change the cover art was made by the band and not the label?

Yeah, the label just wanted to put a sticker on the cover and we insisted on changing it.

So after writing Scenes From A Memory, which I think is your best work to date, how did you begin the writing process for a new record? Was there any pressure in thinking that you had to top that masterpiece?

There was a bit of that pressure. Everybody kept saying, “How are you going to top Scenes…?”,  “How are you going to do it” and “What can you do next?” I agree with you in a way because I think that Scenes… was a real pinnacle for us creatively. There was a little bit of that question mark of what do we do next. We knew that we did not want to do another concept record, so we knew we were going to be writing individual songs again. This is something we had not done since Jordan came into the band, so that was something that we were looking forward to. We just went into the studio and did what we do. We do the best we can and keep the music as diverse and interesting as possible, as well as experimental. Ultimately, I guess we took things to extreme places. The songs are very long, even by our standards. So I guess that is how you top Scenes… with a double CD with a 42 minute title track.

Did you have a good amount of material written before you went into the studio?

No, we never write anything beforehand. We go into the studio, just play, and that’s how it all starts.

Both John [Petrucci – guitar] and yourself decided to produce the record on your own.  How was it producing your own record? Is there more creative control?

Oh it’s total creative control. I always thought that we were the sort of band that never needed an outside producer, but there was always this pressure from the label to have one. There are already enough chefs in the kitchen with this band and the last thing we need is more opinions. It was very frustrating for me working with an outside producer because we would spend so much time and detail writing the music and then you have the producer coming in and “erasing this” or “changing that” and it would be very frustrating. So finally one of the conditions that we stood our ground on a couple of years ago, before Scenes…, was that we wanted to be able to produce our own records. John and I have always kind of steered the ship anyways, so even with an outside producer we always had a lot of vision and drive. Now there is basically no change in the formula expect we eliminated the outside guy altogether.

You also recorded this record at Bear Tracks Studios in New York?

Yeah, we basically shacked up there in March 2001. We wrote and recorded the whole album in the studio and delivered the record in October. We spent a good amount of the year there.

On to the songs off the new record, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, please give me a brief overview of some of the material. For instance, the record starts off with “The Glass Prison”, which you wrote the lyrics for and it seems as if it were written in three separate parts.

Yeah, it was definitely written that way. We wrote this song in three separate movements, which was something I suggested, and “Holy Wars…The Punishment Due” by Megadeth and also “Mouth For War” by Pantera inspired it.  I played both of them for the band as an example of how they were kind of written in three separate movements and I wanted to try something like that. I also wanted to keep it completely balls to the wall heavy from start to finish. We have always had very heavy sections in our music, but usually they go off on these tangents. This was the first time that we actually concentrated on heaviness from start to finish without really ever letting up.

How did you come up with the concept for this song?

Lyrically I wrote out of several experiences that I have gone through in the past couple of years. I don’t really like commenting on lyrics because I like the reader to use their imagination.

Two other songs I wanted to ask you about, though, are a couple written by John, which are “Misunderstood” and “The Great Debate”. It seems like “Misunderstood” is a very personal song where someone just feels left abandoned.

Yeah, it is a song about complete isolation and loneliness. It is something that you could look at from any different point of view.  I think it was probably , not speaking for John, but I get the impression that it was written from a musician’s point of view. You are onstage in the public eye and then at the end of the night you are sitting in your bunk on the bus or in your hotel room completely alone, which is the absolute opposite extreme. It is funny because someone else who has read those lyrics had thought it was about Jesus so I guess that different types of people can feel types of isolation in different walks of life.

I was wondering about “The Great Debate” which seems to focus on the issue of stem cell research.  Was this was an issue that the band felt so strongly about that you wanted to write a song about it?

This was before September 11th so throughout the summer this was the big American news story and I guess John found it interesting and wanted to write about it. The interesting thing in our lyrics is that it is completely two-sided and is never at any point taking the side of one or the other.

What was the premise behind the 42-minute title track?

We knew we wanted to write a big track, but we did not anticipate it being that big. As we do with all of our songs it just grows and grows and the next thing we know we are 40 minutes into the song, which was not our original intention. Before we knew it we had this giant piece of music, which I kind of view as a mini-concept record, a mini Scenes From A Memory. We knew once we had that we needed to come up with a concept that would tie it all together, so John and I came up with this idea of creating six different characters and each of us would write about three of them. So I wrote about three and John wrote about three. Basically, it’s almost like a tour through an insane asylum where people are dealing with mental anguish, manic depression, and issues like that. So we created six different characters and tried to look at their different stories and differences in their lives, but yet the common thread that binds them all together.

Another song that I really thought stood out among the rest was “War Inside My Head”, which is a very aggressive song.

That particular character is a Vietnam veteran and it’s an older male that is angry person. I usually end up writing those types of angry lyrics.

Are “About To Crash” and “About To Crash (Reprise)” basically about the same character?

Yeah, there are six characters in total, but there are actually eight sections. One of which is an overture and one is a reprise that is about a previously introduced character.

How is the set list looking for the upcoming tour? Is there going to be a focus on the newer material?

No, it will not focus on the new record any more than anything else. By the time we do the US tour in March it is going to be an evening with Dream Theater with no opening acts. We are going to be doing two sets with an intermission, so we will end up playing over three hours every night. Every single night we will be switching the set list completely so if you go to multiple nights you will see different shows. Within the three-hour show we will surely highlight several songs from the new record, but it will also cover a lot of ground throughout our entire career at each show.

Are there any songs off the new record that you know for sure that you are going to play each night?

We will do every one of them, but on different nights. There will never be a show where we will do all six tracks. Every show will contain three to four new songs and it will vary each night as to what songs they are.

Were there any extra tracks left over from the recording sessions?

No, if there were any tracks left we could have fit them on because there was still room left over. Basically what you are hearing is what you get and we did not even mean for this record to be a double CD. All along it was supposed to be a single CD and then when we got to write the title track it ended up being so long that we had no choice but to make it a double CD.

How did the record company feel about it being a two CD set and the songs being so long?

They really do not care about the length of the songs. They have given us enough freedom by now that we do whatever the hell we want and they are happy with the end results in terms of sales. The sales keep them happy and the creative freedom that they give us keeps us happy. It is a nice working situation now, finally.

Do you think that there will be any radio edits to try and get some commercial airplay?

Yeah, I actually did four radio edits on a sampler CD that the label is going to send out to radio and we sent it to all of our fan club members as a sneak preview before the record comes out.  Basically even though the songs on the record are very long a track like “Misunderstood” in the edited version, is only about five minutes or “Solitary Shell”, which is a section of the title track, both have radio potential. We are not making music revolving around radio play because in 2002 Dream Theater is not exactly what is being played on the radio. If it happens then great, but it’s not like we are writing for it.

You guys have not done a video clip in a long time. Are there any plans for this possibly in the future?

No, I would rather take the $100,000 that it would cost to make a video and put that money into a DVD. I think that is a much more productive outlet for a band like ours. To spend that kind of money for a couple of plays on MTV in Europe, and not even get played in America, is just a waste of money and time.

You directed the whole Dream Theater DVD. How long did that take and was it a difficult process?

Yeah, it was difficult and very time-consuming, but at the same time it was thoroughly very enjoyable. I am a huge film fanatic, which is my biggest love, so for me it was a nice a rewarding experience.

This time around will there be any stage show, such as the videos on the Scenes… tour to go along with the set?

I think this time we are not going to be using any video and we are just going to concentrate on a killer light show, as well as an amazing amount of variety in music each night.

In the future are there any bands that you would personally like to take on the road with you?

Well, for this first European tour we will have an opening act, which is a band called Pain Of Salvation who are a great progressive metal band from Sweden. Any of the bands that I have admired that I would want to give the exposure to we have already taken out with us, such as Spock’s Beard, Fates Warning, I Mother Earth and Galactic Cowboys. These are all bands that I think are really good, but this time around I think that we are at a point in our career where we have been around a long time and we have a huge amount of material to choose from. In order to fully satisfy the fans you kind of need a three-hour show, so this time around we wanted to keep the show to ourselves.

Have you thought of doing another Liquid Tension record down the line?

We constantly get asked for that, but for me there is no artistic satisfaction in doing something like that. When I put that project together it was for me to have an outside environment from Dream Theater and now with John, Jordan, and I all being members of Dream Theater it would not really serve that artistic purpose. So for me it is not high on my priority list right now. The three of us are already making music together, so I would rather take our chemistry and utilize it towards Dream Theater.

What about Transatlantic?

Well, that is a project I have been working with whenever I have time. We just released a second studio record [Bridge Across Forever] and we did a European tour, which was very successful. We also filmed one of those shows for an upcoming DVD. So that is a fun part-time project, but for now it is time to focus my time and energy towards Dream Theater.

Do you still plan on doing many drum clinics this year?

Well, I am hoping not that many because that would mean I am utilizing my time more productively with Dream Theater. I only do clinics when I have free time and I do not anticipate having too much free time this year. I do lots of clinics and I did an Asian and European clinic tour in the past few months. It all depends on my availability from Dream Theater.

How was it putting together your own instructional video? Did you find it hard to do or did it come natural to you?

Well, it’s pretty natural because I do so many clinics. I have done hundreds of them now so an instructional video is just capturing those concepts and those performances on video. As I said before my love for film and video is a big part of my creativity so when I get that chance to do an instructional video I am applying the two worlds that I love most - the music and video. My latest instructional video Liquid Drum Theater just came out on DVD and I really enjoyed that because I was able to put lots of bonus footage on there, as well as an audio commentary and multi camera angles. I love DVD and working in that format is very exciting.

Do you have a home studio set up in your house?

I have a studio with three or four drum sets that are set up, which I never play. I have some recording gear, but have not developed it into a full-on studio. It’s basically just a place for me to keep my drums.

Will you have a new drumset on this tour?

Yeah, I built this ridiculously immense monster drum set, which is basically two drum sets combined into one. It is called the Siamese Monster because it is like a two-headed beast so that will be a premiering on the upcoming tour so be sure and get prepared for a great show.