James LaBrie interview (excerpts)

DAVE: You as singer James, let’s say 10 – 15 years ago, you used to get quite some flak from DT fans, comments like “the guy can sing live”, “he can’t hit the high notes”. You remember those days?

JAMES: Yeah, yeah, of course

DAVE: This doesn’t happen any more, you’ve really improved your vocal performances, not only on the record but most certainly live. How?

JAMES: Well 15 years ago I’ve suffered a hematoma. I basically ruptured my vocal chords and they bled, I bled onto my vocal chords, which in most cases is detrimental, if not irrevocable or rather irreparable I should say. I had to learn to deal with that, I had seriously damaged vocal chords. I had to get over it and get to the other side and it took me a long time, from 1995 until around 2003 when I felt my voice was really starting to come back online to where I wanted it. I started studying in 2003 with Victoria Thompson, a female vocal coach, and then in the last two years off and on I’ve been spending time with Jaime Vendera. Basically it was a matter of, well I was kind of held hostage to the fact that I had seriously damaged my vocal chords and there wasn’t much I could do about it. My voice was very much compromised in a live environment and I had to do the best I could and, well, fans were very upset because prior to the vocal accident I was able to go onstage and sing like crazy each and every night, and sing with ease. It was a lot for me to get over, it was very challenging and almost at times it seemed insurmountable, but I was able to transcend the situation and find my voice again, and continue to develop once again as a singer. I think my voice where it has been now and for the last seven or eight years has been in a great spot, it’s very strong, very powerful and it feels great.

DAVE: Seems to be improving with time I’s say, isn’t it the case that singers tend to get better as they age?

JAMES: Yeah, if they look after themselves. Granted you can definitely get better, I mean I jog five kilometers a day, I don’t drink very often – and not at all when I’m on the road, I don’t smoke at all, I get plenty of sleep, take plenty of vitamins, drink a lot of water, juice, eat a lot of very healthy foods. All these things lend themselves to keeping you in great shape and especially for a singer when you rely totally on an organic instrument. It all comes from what you feed the body and you have to really treat it like a temple.

DAVE: It must have been really hard when you were going through all this, especially with all the fans moaning about it and there was very little you could do about it at the time…

JAMES: Yeah, it was very disheartening, a very dark period and it was very hard to take, I’m a human being like anyone else at the of the day. But I had to grow some thick skin and say to myself that the only way I was going to get around it was to to everything in my power to find a way to get my voice back, nurture it back to full strength. One of the ways I did it after studying with this lady, Victoria Thompson, who has an absolutely phenomenal voice, she said, “You know your voice is buried and one of the biggest things for any singer, a lot of it is psychological. So you need to get past that insecurity and get your confidence back, realize who and what you are as a singer, and start bringing that voice out again, believing in yourself”. So that was one of the biggest hurdles first and foremost, I had lost a lot of confidence in myself. So once I had got over that hurdle then it was just a matter of her teaching me some techniques so I could go out there every night and sing like the guy I used to be.

DAVE: I saw you guys live for the first time on the first tour with Derek at The Forum in London, I guess that was 1995 and just after you had the injury

JAMES: Well it was December 30th. 1994, I was down in Cuba with my wife and I suffered food poisoning and was violently ill which is when I suffered the hematite. So when you saw me in ‘95 it was after the accident. What was more frustrating than anything was that sometimes my voice would feel great and I’d be able to sing great, but then other times, more often than not, it wouldn’t feel great at all – it was very much compromised and it was cracking here and there, I wasn’t able to sing in the range I was used to . It was all these things, so yeah, it was extremely challenging and dark period in my life, I wouldn’t want to do it again and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy because it was just absolutely a horrible experience.

DAVE: But hey, you persevered, you got through it and the band kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger

JAMES: Well I’m very fortunate to see myself true and get to the other side, so it’s all good and it deserves to stay in the past!

DAVE: Thank god they play such long instrumentals, eh?

JAMES: Absolutely, I’m all for it

DAVE: A friend of my, Fred Ravry, he’s a big DT fan and had a few question he wanted me to ask you, one of which is: when the guys start on their long-winded instrumental, you creep off-stage so as to not look look a spare part, what is it that you do during that time?

JAMES: I do a lot of stretching exercise and drink water, I hum and that’s about it, water, stretching, humming until it’s time for me to go back on again. I like to keep myself loose, otherwise I would get too comfortable and then it would be to much of a shock to the system before I get back into it…

DAVE: I was going to suggest that you need a pee too with all the water you’re drinking, but I guess you sweat so much during a gig that you don’t need to?

JAMES: Well sometimes

DAVE: Another crazy question – gear. Guitarists, bassist, keyboard players, drummers, they’re always talking about their equipment, guitars, amps etc. Do you ever talk to other singers about “man this is a great microphone”?

JAMES: Yeah, for the most part I’ve used the Sennheiser and Shure brands. One of the most reliable microphones on stage is the Shure SM58. It’s still one of the most incredible, reliable, true resonating microphones. It really does let the voice shine-through for what it is organically, it doesn’t alter its tonality or add its own EQ so for me, for the most part it has been that microphone. When I’m in the studio, for the last 8 years I’ve used the Blueberry made by the microphone company called Blue, and it’s and incr-e-d-i-ble microphone, phenomenal. They have other models as well, but if you were to punch in “blue microphones” in Google and see all their brands, it’s a phenomenal microphone and really well priced. It’s amazing just how advanced they are and how reasonable they are for price, they get the sound and everything. So every DT album that you’ve heard from Train of Thought I’ve always used my Blueberry and on Elements of Persuasion and Static Impulse too.

DAVE: Interesting to know. OK, can we talk about Mike?

JAMES: Yeah, that’s no problem

DAVE: Well it was quite a shock for us out here on the planet and things seem to be getting a bit acrimonious now, a bit of a war of words? What’s going on?

JAMES: Well to be honest with you, I’ve always said and the the rest of us in the band have said that we want to take the high road in all of this. We don’t want this to turn into a sling-fest where we start calling out each other and saying this-and-that about each other. I just don’t want it to go that way, I’m not into the negativity, I’m not into facilitating and perpetuating those kinds of situations. It’s not good for anyone, it’s shallow and I just don’t want to go there. I think that obviously there’s going to be room in any situation like this for mis-interpretation, for misunderstandings and I think it’s really unfortunate, I think it’s unfortunate where it leads to and what it lends itself to. To me, I’d rather just say that I put out a message on my board and the DT board had to answer to some of Mike’s queries and I wanted to kind of set the record straight. But I also made it known at the end of my statement – you can go on there and read it – I’m not giving any further weight to these kinds of discussions as I just want to keep everything cool. I want to keep the higher road, I think we all do.

It comes down to the music, I mean it’s great, it’s drama, it intensifies the situation and it makes for great press, but to me the bottom line is that the relationship began because of the music and that’s where I think the focal-point should be

DAVE: Yes, of course, but it is a fact that many people, true or not, saw Mike as the defacto leader of the band., he was always the spokesperson on stage for instance. So you guy will now takes steps to close this void?

JAMES: Yeah, we are going to start auditions in a couple of weeks and we have seven drummers lined-up to come into the studio with us and jam through some songs, and music, and everything. We’re going to be looking for somebody that really stands for and embellishes everything that DT has stood for and will stand for. So he has to have the right chemistry, the right vibes, the personality, he has to be somebody we feel completely connected to and comfortable with. Once we feel that that person is sitting in from of us then it will be announced to the world. Then we’ll do the obvious and move forward into the next chapter of Dream Theater.

DAVE: Yeah I agree, it’s a shock and a shame, but I’m really interested to see what new stuff you guys are going to come up with. Maybe we can see John Myung writing some lyrics again?

JAMES: I think John, with this recent turn of events, he’ll be heard more and with the writing and all that you can’t help but change. I think it’s all going to be an extremely interesting situation. We want to keep the XXX?

DAVE: Sure, but it must be hard with all this shit flying in forums and living your life a bit in the media, that’s not funny?

JAMES: Exactly, it’s easy to get drawn into it, but I’m not going to, I can’t allow myself to entertain it, or give it any sense of validity.

DAVE: Well let’s hope everyone calms down a bit and keeps following the band

JAMES: For the most part I’ve seen everything being very positive, you get the odd comment that’s a little negative, but overall I think everyone’s extremely positive.