Alan White interview (excerpt)

Don Cassidy: Are there any kind of drummers on the scene today that you might have known or seen or something that you're very impressed with?

Alan White: There's a few good guys out there. I only see local bands around this area in Seattle, but not really. Portnoy's a great guy. We just toured with Dream Theater and Portnoy's a great drummer – he's really good.

DC: How did you guys like playing with Dream Theater? It was quite an interesting show because they have similarities because they're very much influenced by you guys, too. However, they're obviously a little heavier. How did you like playing with Dream Theater?

AW: It was good. It was an interesting show. The fans were a little bit torn, I think, out there. They were a great band, I'll say – I really like them a lot. But I think some of the stalwart Yes fans couldn't really quite grasp it. A little bit of that kind of stuff going on.

DC: Right, they probably had their mouths open, right? It's funny, is that they did try to play the music – and I spoke to Mike about this a while back – that they thought the Yes fans would like a little bit more. I mean, they have even heavier stuff that they really didn't play a lot on the tour. So I think they played a little more of the progressive stuff.

AW: I suppose out of the whole band, I was closer to him than pretty much anybody else in the band, because I know Mike, and I used to talk to him every day. They're good guys. I like them.