As This Man Thinks

(Although it’s somewhat dated, and although we already featured a pretty thorough interview with James in our previous issue, we had the opportunity to share this interview with you and we decided it holds a lot of interesting and funny information still. Stuff that we simply couldn’t keep away from you and why should we? It’s a great conversation between James, Scott “Setlist Scotty” Hansen (who, as his nickname implies, maintains the Dream Theater tourography for Mike) and a friend of his, so get comfy and enjoy! – DTIFC, with a big thanks to Scott Hansen)

Having heard that Dream Theater would be doing special shows in each city where they did back-to-back shows, I was disappointed to find out that they wouldn’t be playing San Diego at all (where I live now) and that they would only be doing one show in Los Angeles. I very much wanted to go to one of the special shows!

I did notice that DT would be doing two shows in Chicago; since I hadn’t visited my home town of Milwaukee (which is only 90 miles away from Chicago) for close to 3 years, I decided it was time to make a visit, and catch 3 more DT shows in the process – the two Chicago shows as well as the Milwaukee show.

At the Chicago shows, I bumped into an old DT-friend of mine – Matt Mommaerts who has a radio show on a Madison, Wisconsin-area radio station once a week. While in Chicago, he arranged a brief interview with Jordan courtesy of the Magna Carta label. Then in Milwaukee, Magna Carta gave him the opportunity to do an interview with James! Not being all that prepared, he asked me if I wouldn’t mind sitting in on the interview – needless to say, I jumped at the chance! Being that Matt and I are both huge fans of Dream Theater, as well as Mullmuzzler, we didn’t have just the typical run-of-the-mill interview you would typically see – it was more of a conversation. So when DT’s road manager poked his head in the room after about 10 minutes, to hint that we should end our interview, James told him that everything was “OK” and we proceeded to talk for another 30-35 minutes!

Special thanks goes out to James for being so pleasant and easy-going for the extended interview, to Magna Carta (sorry Mike!) for arranging the interview, and of course to Matt for being kind enough to let me be a part of this interview, as well for allowing me to share it with the fan clubs. Also, thanks to Neil Elliott for double-checking the transcription for me.

Just to let you know, Matt didn’t get the tape recorder started right away, so a small amount of the beginning of the interview was missing. I don’t remember how we got on the topic, but somehow we got to talking about James’ taking care of himself while on the road, specifically how much he sleeps...

–tape begins–

James LaBrie: ...about the insomnia

Scott Hansen: But what about the 10 hours of sleep?

JL: Well, gotta be in bed for...well, last night was just a real bad case. Just tossed and turned all night, for no apparent reason. But usually for me to get 10 hours of sleep, I’m in bed for at least 12.

SH: Really? That much?

JL: And then last night, if I got 6 or 7 hours of sleep, I’d probably be happy with that. But I was in bed, fell asleep at 3, got up at 12:30...

SH: Sounds like Mike’s schedule.

JL: Yeah. [laughs] But who cares? Needless to say, I’m a little tired, but that’s all right. I’ll get myself all pumped up for the shooo [that’s how he said it, I think that’s Canadian for “show” ;-)]

Matt Mommaerts: What happened with the teleprompter last night [in Chicago, for the Master of Puppets set]?

JL: Basically, the teleprompt operator couldn’t hear me. So for the whole first song – instead of him trying to scroll a bit and see, he just left it right at the top three lines. And I knew there was something wrong as soon as I went up there, because Battery is a very quick song [snaps fingers quickly] – you’re singing [imitates James Hetfield] “Lashing out the action returning the reaction,” so you’re singing really quick, and I didn’t see the lines moving and I just went [shakes head in disbelief] and nothing went on. And I’m thinking to myself “what do you mean? Figure out the problem!” So I ran over to him and I go “What are you doing?” “I can’t hear you.” “Well, what’s going on – what kind of a mix you do you have?” “I can hear the band and everything, but I can’t hear ya.” So I look at my monitor engineer and said “Mark, take the band out – why does he have the band? Give him my vocals, and that’s it. Nothing else.” And as soon as he had just my vocals, he was fine. But to establish that, it took a song – it took a whole frickin’ song. So by the time we started into Master, everything was on. It was OK, but it kinda ruined it for me though, because it was hard for me to get out of that zone, and get back into the show. And I probably started getting back into it around Leper Messiah. [the sixth out of eight songs] [laughs]

MM: Yeah I could tell you were a little upset–

JL: Yeah, it was really cause I was up there going “OK don’t be a f***-head and party pooper here – get back into it.” But as much as I tried, I just couldn’t believe that somebody wouldn’t say to themselves “OK I’m gonna say to that guy who’s feeding me the signal take out the band, gimme the vocals.” I mean, c’mon, you do it for a profession – you’re a teleprompt op? Come on!

SH: So it wasn’t just one of the road crew guys that was doing it or did you actually hire someone to do it?

JL: No, no, no, this guy was a professional.

SH: Specifically just for this Chicago show?

JL: Yeah.

SH: So I take it you guys just used somebody different?

JL: Yeah, we used somebody different.

MM: Probably just rent somebody in New York and hopefully you’ll get a metal-head to do it.

JL: Well, that was the other thing I said “do you know this album?” “Well...yeah” “OK, you don’t.” The funny thing is when we did it in Spain, we had a teleprompt op. And I had our merchandise guy, our English guy, watching this Spanish guy that was the teleprompt operator and he did a fantastic job. And he couldn’t speak English! [imitates with heavy Spanish accent] “Oooh I know Metallica.” “Well that’s great – so you’re gonna be able to follow these words?” “Oh f*** yeah.” And that’s all he could say to me. Everything else was in Spanish, through an interpreter. And he was great – it was just [makes scrolling noise and gestures lyrics scrolling down the screen] – all the way through, the whole show not a problem. And I was thinking there last night, here’s an English guy and he can’t do it. But obviously, if he couldn’t hear me, then he was at a loss, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

MM: As it is, it sounded better after one song anyway.

JL: Yeah, but you know it was just a calamity walking out there and “Lashing out the action, returning the reaction, weak are ripped and torn away” – why the f*** aren’t the words moving?!

MM: It sounded like the crowd sang along with pretty good too?

JL: Yeah and here I am “AAAAAHHH” because, here’s the other thing. I know most of the other words, but I was so freaked out by it, I thought that was my dilemma for the whole hour, or 54 minutes if ya wanna be exact. And I thought “that’s it!” because at that point I didn’t know if it was technical and his scroller didn’t work, or if it was just that he couldn’t wrap his head around it, so I was freakin’. But hey, it all came out great.

SH: I’m just glad I saw you smiling at the encore. I was just thinking to myself “James, OK, channel your anger into the music, because it’s the perfect album to channel it.”

JL: Oh no s***. I was letting a bit of aggression out at certain times!

SH: Just out of curiosity, not to keep hammering the Metallica thing, but what was your first reaction when, I would assume it was Mike, that decide to pick Master of Puppets to cover?

JL: My first reaction was “this is interesting.”

SH: Because I know you didn’t sing when they did Damage Inc. on the Awake tour. They did the instrumental edit [on select European dates] and then they had Barney [at the Uncovered gig] –

JL: Yeah, then they had Barney Greenway come in.

MM: ...and his death metal vocals.

JL: Oh geez that was wild. Barney’s a great guy though. But definitely I remember when that album [Master of Puppets] came out I mean I was so into it at the time, so when Mike was bring up this concept of doing a whole album, paying tribute to Metallica, I thought “this could be cool.” I’m sure we have a lot of metal-heads in our fans, and then obviously we have a lot of progressive heads. I’m sure a lot of them have never listened to Metallica, cause you have the extremes of both obviously you have the crossovers as well. But I thought it was cool – showing another side of us and showing the whole metal element that is part of Dream Theater. I mean we are a metal, progressive band – I always say (just to keep it simple) a hard rock band with metal and progressive elements.

SH: I wanna say that I was very pleasantly surprised when I first started hearing the MP3s [from the Barcelona gig] before last night’s show, because I was thinking to myself “James singing Metallica?” I mean it’s like when they started doing the instrumental edit of Damage Inc. I was thinking “OK, I can understand that,” but when I started to hear you sing the songs it was like “wow – it sounds pretty good.”

JL: Well a lot of people probably think “he sings really clean and yeah, he can sing a bit raspy or raunchy, but how’s he gonna sing James Hetfield?” And it’s so funny, because before I was in Dream Theater (I was just in other bands here, there and everywhere), we’d do the odd Metallica song here and there, and I’d always sound exactly like him, if I wanted to. And I knew a lot of people were gonna go “I can’t see James singing that – it’s gonna be a real clean or something Hetfield” and I thought “nope.”

SH: You just did more of the Awake vocal style – am I correct or off?

JL: Yeah, it was a bit more of the raunchy, kind of raspy approach to Master – I mean that’s the way he sings.

MM: Is that easier or harder on your vocal chords to try to sing like that?

JL: You gotta watch it. I kind of lay back when I’m singing that. I still try to keep it as technical as I can, but then I add a little of the raunch behind it without actually ripping my throat, because there is quite a bit of a difference. So I do the “Ahhhhhhhh” [mimics mellow scream] – you know that’s not hurting me if I do that, whereas if I went “EEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH” [mimics a more forced scream], there’s a total difference. It’s just the whole approach, and it keeps it easy on me. But regardless, after you’ve been singing like that for an hour, and then you gotta start singing clean s*** again, then I really have to watch it. And by Take the Time, I was pretty tired. To end with a song with probably the highest singing, out of all the songs, it’s pretty bizarre. So I just brought her down, brought it back a notch and just coasted through it.

SH: And you had the audience sing along during the chorus.

JL: Oh I do that every night, regardless–

SH: Oh I know, but it just seemed that the crowd really was into it. In LA and I think you did it in Phoenix also (I caught those two shows) and the audience didn’t come off half as loud as it did in Chicago.

JL: Well, Chicago’s always been fantastic. And you know what? In Phoenix, we were having all those problems. We almost didn’t do the show – we were having tons of technical problems, and so I was surprised that they even reacted the way they did in Phoenix. It’s unfortunate that they were the guinea pigs of the sound system and everything like that – it’s too bad. But we’ll go back there and redeem ourselves.

MM: Was the Pull Me Under speeding up part kind of spontaneous Friday night [referring to the first night in Chicago]?

JL: Yeah – we’ve done that before. I mean that just pops out ever so often.

MM: And then you have to play catch up?

JL: Well, yeah – then I just party along with them – “well OK so you wanna do that, do ya? All right – here’s some rappin’!”

SH: That was the best version of Pull Me Under that I ever heard. I got such a kick out of that. Especially the way you sang double-speed like that.

JL: Well, think about it we’ve been doing that song for ten years now and it’s like “eeehhhh!”

MM: Probably a lot of people that have never seen it live and–

JL: And they’re probably wondering “what the hell?!”

MM: And then the fans that have seen it before get to hear it a little different, so it keeps everyone happy.

SH: I know Mike already said he’s got the next 5 albums picked already as to what the band will cover and I’m sure you know what they are. Just out of curiosity, if you were to pick any album that you could, and I’m not asking for an answer of any of those 5, but if you could pick any album for Dream Theater to cover, what would it be?

JL: Well, there’s several that I’d like to do, but in a reality sense, I don’t know...Zeppelin II, probably Escape by Journey I’d love to do. The other ones I’d like to do would be Fragile from Yes, 2112 from Rush, The Wall from Pink Floyd and believe it or not, if I really just wanted to go out there and have a good time and fun, I’d probably do Rocks from Aerosmith – that was always a great album. Even Get Your Wings was really cool. In a sense it had a lotta that raw street-rock kind of vibe to it and Steven Tyler’s a great rock vocalist. And then if I really wanted to get crazy, and do something completely unexpected, do AC/DC Highway to Hell with Bon Scott. But you could ask me that today and I’d give you those albums, then ask me tomorrow and depending on the mood I’m in, it could change.

MM: Maybe you could do a Napalm Death album!

JL: YEAH! No, I don’t think I would ever do anything that could really hurt me! That would hurt me. On that, I would say “screw it!” you’re gonna get the clean version.

SH: “Go get Barney!”

JL: Yeah! Barney and I are good friends so it’s kinda funny cos he’ll come up and see us and say [imitating Barney] “man I don’t know how you do that s***” and I go “likewise! [lots of laughs] Don’t worry about it Barney! I don’t know how the hell you do that!”

SH: I got such a kick out of the Damage Inc. track from the Uncovered show, because you hear him talk normal with the real heavy accent. And then he’s like [imitating Barney’s death metal growl] “Damage Incorporated!” with the whole growl – it’s like “where did that come from?” Cos he doesn’t look evil.

JL: No, he’s a pretty smart guy.

MM: Yeah a lot of those death metal singers are pretty normal guys. It’s funny to talk to them, because you know them by their music, but in person they’re normal!

JL: Yeah, he’s a very smart guy. He’s done write-ups for Kerrang! and I think he’s even done that Classic Rock magazine. So what you see on stage isn’t necessarily an indication of what the person is all about – their take on things. It’s just a gig.

MM: You’ve got Mullmuzzler 2 and all your side projects like Leonardo, the second Explorers Club–

JL: Well, I did one track on that.

SH: Well, you did the first one [Explorer’s Club] too.

JL: Didn’t I do one track on that?

SH: I think you did track 3 and the first part of track 5 and then Trent did the second half.

JL: What the f*** do I know? I just sang on it! [laughs] Fate Speaks and maybe I did a little snippet of No Returning. I remember doing that stuff – we were on tour and I did that on a day off. A bit of it I did in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The other bit I think I did up in Toronto somewhere, yeah at Towne Studios or something like that.

MM: Did they just call you up and say “we want you to lend us your vocals” like on the Leonardo or Explorer’s Club and then you kinda look over the project?

JL: What happened with Leonardo was Trent was writing this and the whole time that he was writing it, he had mentioned to Pete Morticelli that for the lead role, he kept having me in mind. And he said “do you think James would be interested?” and Pete said “there’s just one way to find out.” So Pete called me up one day and said “Look, Trent’s writing this rock opera based around Leonardo Da Vinci and he’s curious if you’d like to sing on it.” And I said “Gimme the music.” I mean, I’m interested in that approach, but I said (and I respect Trent wholeheartedly) “I wanna hear the stuff.” So he sent it to me, and I heard just the roughs at that point and I was already blown away by it. And then I called up Trent personally, and I said “This stuff sounds fantastic! I’d love to do it!” He was all excited about it, so as he was writing it, he would throw me the stuff and let me hear the ideas. So I would listen to it and get into that head – obviously each section of the album is a different emotion going on, as far as Leonardo and what he’s approaching, and what he’s dealing with or challenged with. I thought it was really cool, because it could really give me the opportunity to express myself vocally once again in a different light, so that’s why I wanted to do it.

MM: How did the second Mullmuzzler go compared to the first one?

JL: I think it went a lot better because I actually spent time with the people I was writing the songs with, in the same room.

MM: Instead of by FedEx?

JL: Yeah, I mean we did a bit of that at the very inception of it, but just to get a direction going. And then as we were developing those ideas, I’d actually fly down and get together with them. With Carl Cadden-James and Gary Wehrkamp in Bethlehem for a couple of days – we just got down to it. Analyze the songs, arrange them, wrote new parts here and there – we did it right in the studio. And then with Matt [Guillory], I got together with him in San Francisco. I probably wrote about 80 percent of the album with Matt because we just have a great chemistry as far as composing, putting songs together. And then from there, it was just a matter of me flying around to do the tracks, once we got all that together and once we had the lyrics and melodies for each song, then I’d start to fly to Boston to do the drum tracks with Mike Mangini. And I flew to LA and we did the guitar and bass. And then I flew to San Jose, because originally Matt flew up to Toronto, and then customs wouldn’t – I don’t know if you guys heard about that, but he got turned away at the border because of some prick bitch.

I didn’t have some nice words for her that day – boy I’ll tell ya! But anyway, she just kinda looked at him, basically called me at my home and said “Do you have a friend coming in?” I says “Yeah.” “What’s his name?” “Matthew Guillory.” “Why did you pay for his ticket?” I said “Cause I can! I can afford to.” “Well, why would you do that?” “Cos he’s a friend!. What’s the problem here?” “Well, are you sure he’s not coming in here to work?” “Why do you assume he’s coming here to work? Do people not come up to visit friends? People have friends in other countries – they come over to visit each other.” “Well, you better be telling me the truth.” And I said “I don’t like your accusations.” So I guess she was a little taken off that I was confronting her. She thought she would control the game. So I was really pissed off. And I said “listen, you know it’s as simple as this: he’s coming up to visit, we’re gonna hang out for a while and that’s it, he’s gonna come up and hang out at my place.” “Oh, well where is your place?” And I responded that it was wherever. And she said “OK, I hope that his story coincides.” And I said “there is no story – it’s the truth.” She hung up and six hours later, I got a call from Matt, and he was down in Texas. He had been turned away. They escorted him right back on the f***in’ plane the bitch! And I said to Matt “did you get her badge number?” cause I was gonna get my lawyer and fry her ass. Anyway, because of that, I had to fly down to San Jose [California] and record the keyboards and piano down there. And then from there I went back, and I did additional guitar tracks up in Canada as I was doing my vocals.

MM: It’s just amazing with all the flying around and the recording that it comes together–

JL: Yeah, but I make it really really clear to everyone where I want them to go how I want them to approach it, the sounds that I’m looking for and just the whole vibe. It’s got a groove – it’s not just a matter of being mechanical, playing the parts. I really wanted a sense of personality behind it, because that’s really what makes the music come alive and sets it aside from a lot of other stuff.

MM: It’s got your name on it.

JL: Right. Exactly. I said “You guys can go on and do something else, but if people look at this as being weak, they look at me.” It’s my name that comes up – not anybody else. Anyway, it worked out great and I was exceptionally happy with the way this turned out. Because I thought there was a lot more cohesion as far as the songs coming together. I think they were much more mature, there’s a lot more groove and vibe and there’s a lot of great playing by everyone on this. I think the songs on this are very dynamic as well. It just had a sense of adventure, which I really liked. So I plan on doing another one and then I wanna bring it out and then I wanna tour behind it.

SH: You mean a Mullmuzzler 3?

JL: Yeah, well I don’t know if I’d call it “3.”

SH: Well yeah, but I mean a third Mullmuzzler.

JL: Yeah definitely. I’m thinking of that. At this point, it would make sense for me to stick with the name, keeping it Mullmuzzler. Because there’s a part of me that’s been thinking “LaBrie and Guillory,” but maybe that’s for some other time and that would be a totally different kind of approach to it musically. So I definitely want to do another one, and then bring it out and do some select dates. Maybe in the States Europe Japan. I would try and get the major cities. So that’s the plan at this point. And just to bring a bit more awareness to it. Obviously, the first album was very educational because it just said “Mullmuzzler” and people were like “Who the hell’s that?” and “WHAT the hell is that?” So for this one, that’s why we went and put my name on there to kind of make it a little bit more obvious where it might be coming from stylistically.

SH: Did you originally want to call it “James LaBrie” or did you want to go with “Mullmuzzler” right away?

JL: At first, no. I mean, when I was first approached about it, I thought it was going to simply say “James LaBrie Project” or whatever keep it real simple. But at the time, Elektra wasn’t too keen on me going away and using my name with another label. So at that point, they said “no, we want to keep your name for when you do something with us.” And I said “oh, OK.” When it came time for this packaging being put together, I approached Elektra again and said “I’m going to retain the marquee name ‘Mullmuzzler’ but I think it would also help the situation if I could put my name on front.” And they were cool.

MM: It seems that the record label been cooler to you guys within the last few years.

JL: I think it’s in their best interests really. I mean they make a lot of money from us and why rock the boat? We’re easy to get along with and it’s a good relationship at this point, so I can’t see them trying to ignite a situation that might bring on a little animosity. And they’ve been great – I’ve given them credit many times in the last little while, because since Scenes From a Memory, they’ve done a complete 180 as far as trying – key word – “trying” to understand the band and what we’re all about, the music itself. And then getting behind it, showing some support and realizing it’s more a developmental band, which you don’t have any more. You have bands that come out – they have their thing. If they have some hits, “great let’s given them another album” – if there’s no hits on that, “see ya.” And that’s the way it is – that’s the musical environment of today. That’s why there’s bands coming and going and you can’t keep up with them. Not to mention all the bands out there that don’t even have a deal, but they’re able to press their own music and put it out get it in stores. I mean I find it very difficult to go into record stores nowadays. I find it absolutely overwhelming. You go in there and there’s literally thousands of titles that you’re supposed to figure out and go through. And I don’t know eighty percent of them. I mean “who the hell is this?” and “who the hell is that?” And you open any given magazine and you see all these bands. “Who are these people?” “Oh you don’t know them? Well they’re platinum or double platinum there.” “What?!”

SH: The only stuff you ever hear about is the stuff that’s on the radio.

JL: [said sarcastically] Yeah, and that’s a true representation of what music is today, right? Regurgitated corporate crap.

MM: Well, you do have some little radio shows like mine that still play other things.

JL: Then you have satellite radio that I really think is gonna change the course of the future.

MM: Yeah they play a lot of Dream Theater on XM.

SH: Clear Channel is nothing but a monopoly. How did you feel about Entertainment Weekly with their review of Six Degrees?

JL: That was great. Just the fact that we got that kind of a notice.

SH: With that picture of you on the page!

JL: Yeah that was a great caricature goin’ on there, eh? I was just really thrilled that, because it’s about time that a band gets noticed that’s all about the music, and who cares if people wanna think that they’re real pompous and pretentious, and all this technical, self-indulgent, which I totally think is not us. But that’s the way the general public might look at us or for that matter, most musical critics. So it was kind of bringing it out and letting whoever did have that magazine at the time realize that there’s something else going on out there musically. And its great – we just need a little bit more of that going on so that it could bring us up to the next level. That’s what we’re working on right now, we’re always working on trying to keep building things. And we’re noticing it – throughout the world, we’re selling more albums – throughout the world we’re playing in front of more and more people every time we come through. And even in the States, it’s building up, believe it or not.

SH: Such as playing at the Wiltern

JL: Yeah, well we haven’t done that since ‘95 or ‘97...

SH: You mean you guys have played the Wiltern in LA before?

JL: Oh no, no, no. Not the Wiltern – I thought you had said the Warfield [in San Francisco]. That was the first time there and that was a great room. I love that room – the stage was amazing – the crowd was amazing

MM: And NBC is using your music for the Olympics, too.

JL: What were they doing with that? I had heard about it but I–

MM: They were using A Change of Seasons while Bob Costas was explaining how the downhill skiing went. It was about 3 or 4 minutes long.

JL: Is that right?

MM: It was right on prime time – it was on the first Sunday at around 8pm.

JL: Wow – so we would have been in Europe during that.

SH: And it was all the crazy instrumental stuff – not just the real mellow parts.

JL: That’s cool. You know damn well that the only way that was played was because somebody at NBC was a big fan. I mean do you think that someone went out and said “I’m looking for a particular...” Ya know gimme a break! You know damn well that’s how these things happen – it’s fans that are the influential voice and they come around and they do things. And that’s what I think is definitely gonna happen with a band like Dream Theater – we have our demographics that come from teenagers to sixty-year-olds. I’ve said to the guys “What’s gonna happen when one of these young dudes or dudesses are gonna grow up to be a CEO in a very big company, that’s gonna say ‘Hey, why don’t we get Dream Theater to do this for us?’ Or they’re a Hollywood producer and says ‘Why don’t we get Dream Theater to write this movie score for us?’” That’s how things happen. If you look at some bands that have done it in the past, and they’ve had the opportunity to do this, it’s because somebody was a big fan of them and brought them into another field of the industry. So we’ll see it might just be me, but I don’t think so.

SH: Since you spoke about a third Mullmuzzler disc, what kind of direction would you like to take with that one, that you didn’t with the other two albums?

JL: Right now, I’m already working on 4 songs and they’re very moody. They’re almost trippy at times...ummm...techno.

SH: A little more atmospheric?

JL: Yeah, absolutely. I’m going with that. But like I said, I’m only 4 songs into it, and whether these 4 songs end up being on the album, I don’t know. Because where I go from here could completely change the direction and in what I might feel 6 months down the road – it might not be where I am right now. But I’m pretty happy where Matt and I have gone with these 4 songs and it’s interesting. That’s all I can say. I think it’s where I’d like to go directionally from where I’ve been already – it makes sense. I don’t ever want to repeat myself or sound like it’s regurgitated or anything like that.

With the second Mullmuzzler, I was trying to be more experimental as far as not necessarily on the surface, because you’ve got your Zeppelin-esque approach to it, and you’ve got your progressive. But I wanted it to be a little bit experimental as to how I arrange them. So again, with this one, I just want to feel it out and take my time as to how they develop – as to how all the music develops. That was one of the keys with Mullmuzzler 2 is that I was able to spend a little bit more time, to let the songs sit with me. And that really did say something, because I remember being in the studio when I was doing additional guitars and taking sections from songs like Stranger, Confronting the Devil, Listening and I remember just going in there and saying “ya know what? I don’t even want to listen to what we just put down, – I wanna try this” and I’d have all these different riffs in my head that I’d wanna try around it, and subtle approaches – like with guitar textural things and it was really cool because the guys were like “are you sure?” “Yeah, I’m positive this is what I’ve been hearing lately.” And I think that’s what really makes it exciting because all of the sudden they were there saying “oh s*** this is great! Yeah, let’s keep going with this!” That’s the exciting part of writing and getting into the studio and that’s what I think makes it a really unique experience.

MM: It was missing from the first one.

JL: With the first one, it was the whole FedEx back and forth. And I’d go “oh no, I wanna change this section and this is what I’m hearing.” Throw that on tape and then throw it back out to them. And then they’d try to piece it together and then they’d throw it back to me and I hear it and say “OK, we’re almost there.” HA! Ehhhhhh! [sound of exhaustion and disgust] But I remember saying when I first started with that one “I’m gonna give myself 3 songs.” And if in those 3 songs, I don’t hear it, I’ll know. Then I’ll just say “no – can’t do it this way. Gotta get together, but we gotta wait until my schedule permits.” And I knew after 3 songs (from the first one) that yeah we’re gonna do it. We did Shores of Avalon, we had...I can’t think of the other ones!

SH: Was it one that you wrote with the Shadow Gallery guys?

JL: No, no, no. Well, Shores of Avalon I wrote with the Shadow Gallery guys.

SH: Right...Statued maybe?

JL: Statued! That’s right! Yeah so as soon as we were done with that, I just went “OK – all right – I think we’ve got something here. Let’s keep going and see where we can go with it.” And I had these ideas that I threw at Matt. Matt took them and went crazy like he always does. Then he came back to me and started throwing ideas at me and it all just really started to come together. Then Trent and I got together for Beelzebubba and...what’s the other one?

SH: As a Man Thinks.

JL: Ya see? [laughs] Now you know how tired I am. But anyways, so I knew after doing that and the whole experience with it, even though I was happy with the way it did come out, I knew that I definitely didn’t want to approach it that same way [for the second Mullmuzzler]. Because you can only go so far that way. I truly believe you gotta be in the same room with somebody and that’s where you really cut a vibe from each other – you really get the chemistry going on. Whereas it’s virtually impossible to do it long distance, talking over the phone, e-mailing and FedExing – you can only get so far. So it was fine for the first one. I think it really just showed that there was potential there – a lot of potential. Then the second one just reinforced that “see how much better it gets if you actually do take the time to get together?” And then the third one can even embellish upon that whole concept.

MM: You’ll have plenty of material to play live.

JL: Exactly. That’ll be the benefit of doing that doing another one and getting out there.

MM: So what did you think of the whole Live Scenes artwork thing that happened?

JL: I think it was just an absurd coincidence.

MM: Did you even think of it when it happened?

JL: Oh of course. I mean I was a little bit more concerned with what was going on with the world and I thought that our album was something that was completely insignificant at that point. But obviously, we knew that we’d have to approach that and deal with that bizarre coincidence and that’s what we did. We discussed it immediately, got in contact with our management and our label and said “it’s gotta get pulled. We gotta show some sense of respect for what went down. We can’t put something like that out – it’s too close to home.” No pun intended. And I was in New York at the time that all that went down, so I was pretty freaked out. Trying to get through to my family – through to my wife and everyone else. And it took like 2 hours, because every time I picked up the phone, the circuits at this point are all busy.

SH: Were you actually in Manhattan or were you elsewhere?

JL: Right in Manhattan 3 miles from the site. I was at Paramount Hotel. People ask me “did the ground shake where you were?” because you’re talking about 2 towers, 110 stories high – and I didn’t. I didn’t feel it at all. But the scariest thing was seeing that on TV in my hotel room, watching it and knowing it was just a little ways away. And then walking out of the hotel, walking on to the street and seeing these BIG plumes of smoke going on.

SH: So they were coming at you when you went outside, huh?

JL: Well, no, not to that extent. They were still in the distance – the plumes of smoke, but you could see them. It was just like a huge mushroom. You guys knew it was like 2500 degrees Fahrenheit right at the center, right? 2500 degrees!

MM: And that’s why the steel melted–

JL: Oh yeah! That was really upsetting, because I was down there to finish the vocals for Six Degrees – the title track. I had flown down September 10th – September 11th is when it happened. We didn’t get back together in the studio until the 14th. I sat around for 3 or 4 days. The great thing was that our old tour manager Bill Barclay happened to be in town. He had just flown in the night before. He had just finished with Meat Loaf and he was at the same hotel. We bumped into each other in the lobby and it was like “the hell you doing here?” So we kinda hung out, and it was cool because I had a friend there to hang out with and go through that whole thing. We actually walked down to the site – we got within probably like a quarter down to Canal Street. I dunno if you know Manhattan very well, but Canal Street is real close. Maybe not even half a mile. And it was wild just being there. You could see all this debris flying around – papers and dust. It was really disturbing. We were there – we were both tearing up. I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but the whole time what’s running through your head is “is this the beginning of the end and life as we know it?” And it definitely did change life as we know it. Absolutely, the world has been changed.

SH: Do you think it will have any impact on the lyrics for the next Mullmuzzler?

JL: It might. I’ve got a quite a few ideas that I’m working on. I dunno – that could pop up.

MM: Well, I suppose we could stop taking your time and let you go. What do you think of the gold medal hockey team? Were you home for that?

JL: Oh yeah – I watched that when I was home. I had gotten home maybe 2 days before that.

MM: I’m a big hockey fan. And I think Canada deserves to have it because they’ll appreciate it way more than anybody.

JL: Yeah, but you now what? The United States has become a huge hockey land. It’s great to see. I thought that the States played an incredible game. I think what happened is that they lost their legs because of the Russia game. Russia – I mean that game took it all out of them. That was an incredible game. And then they had to come and face Canada and you could see it by the third period, they were just like “holy s***!”

MM: Canada’s momentum just got better every game they played.

JL: After that Swedish game, they went “what happened?”

MM: And Wayne [Gretzsky] put the smack down on them.

JL: Well, Wayne’s a little f***in’ baby.

–the tape stops–

James goes on about his disapproval of Wayne Gretsky. We also briefly talked about Rush’s new album Vapor Trails as the track listing had just been made public within the last couple of days, which James was unaware of.

The we patiently waited for the doors to open, and for the show to start. Without going into detail, the band put on a great show. Among the songs played that night were Under a Glass Moon and Lifting Shadows Off a Dream – two songs that had not been played at either of the Chicago shows. We even got the “Ass and Balls” version of Fatal Tragedy. It was a great way for me to wrap up the series of Dream Theater shows I got to see in March – especially since I was in my home town to see them and got to take a few friends of mine who were seeing DT for the first time.

As always, thanks to the band for putting on all those great shows – I’ll be looking forward to see you guys in August!