Dream Theater draws inspiration from world events for new album

Alan Sculley - Special to the Daily Herald

Sep 29, 2011

John Petrucci knows plenty of Dream Theater fans will view the title of the group’s new CD, “A Dramatic Turn of Events,” as relating directly to the major change in the band that preceded the new CD.

Last September saw the departure of drummer Mike Portnoy, a 25-year member of the band who, with Petrucci, had co-produced the group’s CDs and become essentially the spokesman for the group and a significant contributor to the group’s music.

It was a big enough change to make fans wonder if Dream Theater -- appearing Friday at Kingsbury Hall in Salt Lake City -- could ever be the same.

But that wasn’t the kind of big event that Petrucci, Dream Theater’s primary songwriter and guitarist, was driving at with the new songs.

“People look at the title and they say, ‘Oh, well, obviously it’s about Mike’s departure and the changes,’“ Petrucci said. “It’s really not. First of all we didn’t write any of the songs lyrically about our situation at all, and that was a conscious effort. It’s not the place to do that. We didn’t think that would be, we didn’t want to do that. We didn’t want to write about our own band woes or politics or whatever.

“There’s definitely this running theme of major changes taking place,” he said. “There’s this song ‘Outcry,’ it’s exactly about what’s happening now in Libya. There’s a tie-in with Egypt and with people uprising. There are songs about that spiritual sense where somebody is really trying to make some kind of change in their life. They seek out a shaman to try to do that in a more spiritual way. There are songs about people, situations in history, major historical events that happened that maybe we forgot about, but that really changed life for many, many people So we’re talking major events, major dramatic turns of events.”

The circumstances that resulted in Portnoy’s departure caught the rest of the band members off guard. The band had completed a tour with Iron Maiden when the drummer proposed that the group go on an extended hiatus -- perhaps lasting upward of five years.

At the time, Portnoy had already begun touring with Avenged Sevenfold, stepping into a slot left open after the 2009 death of drummer James “The Rev” Sullivan. While Portnoy is no longer drumming for that group, he seemed to enjoy the change.

The other members of Dream Theater -- Petrucci, singer James LaBrie, keyboardist Jordan Rudess and bassist John Myung -- weren’t feeling the same as their longtime bandmate.

“I think the bottom line is he needed a change, whether the change was playing with another band or taking some sort of break or whatever,” Petrucci said. “And the rest of us didn’t. We felt that this is what we do. This is our band. We’re at a great point in our career. We’re very passionate about what we do. We’re very energized. And we tried to convince him otherwise, but ultimately you can’t really force somebody to do something they don’t want to do. So it’s something that he had to do and we kind of recovered from that, embraced the change and moved on.”

So Dream Theater parted ways with Portnoy -- only to encounter one more twist in the saga. Last December, Portnoy had a change of heart and asked back into Dream Theater.

“It was very upsetting for us, especially after what we went through trying to convince him to stay, and him adamantly saying, ‘It’s not something I can do,’ to the point where he quit a band [after] 25 years,” Petrucci said. “It’s not like he was wishy washy about it. He was definite. He was concrete in his decision to leave the band.”

Having come to terms already with moving on without their former drummer, and having already settled on Mangini as Portnoy’s replacement, the group rejected Portnoy’s overture.

By that time, Petrucci had written the songs for “A Dramatic Turn of Events” and was ready to make the CD. Far from feeling pressure to prove that the group was as good as ever, Petrucci said the only pressure he felt in writing the new songs was plenty familiar.

“That pressure, it comes from within. It’s always there,” he said. “I feel that every time we go in to do a new album. It’s a brand-new opportunity. At whatever point it happens to be at, I love that whole process of starting out with nothing and having a goal, and coming up with something and building it from the ground up. I love that process every album we’ve done. So in some ways, this was no different.”

The band, in fact, feels “A Dramatic Turn of Events” ranks with the best of the group’s 11 CDs. And while plenty of trademarks of the group’s sound remain -- the elements of progressive rock and metal that make up the sound, the emphasis on melody and some impressive playing -- Petrucci feels the new CD has a bit different personality.

“There is a different mix, a little bit,” he said. “The band throughout the years tends to sway in a certain direction depending on sort of our mood or our influence or whatever. I think this album has more of a balance in our overall sound and impact. The core, there’s always a core element of our music, which is the songwriting. The composition, the melody, the structure of the chord progressions and everything, always has to be the focal point. And sometimes we stray from that and we do things that are more riff-based or more attitude-based or whatever.

“And this kind of has a little bit more in-depth spirit to it and a little bit more balance,” Petrucci said. “A lot of people are saying, and I tend to agree, that the context of the writing style is progressive music that we grew up on, like Yes and stuff. But the organization and the instrumentation is of a metal rock band. That’s kind of more of the balance that keeps us unique and defines our sound, I would say.”

Given the excitement the band feels about “A Dramatic Turn of Events,” it’s no surprise that on its world tour it plans to feature a good chunk of new material to go with selections from its extensive back catalog.

“I love playing new music,” Petrucci said. “It’s the latest thing that you did. You’re so psyched about it. Especially in this case, this is the music that Mike Mangini has recorded, so it’s great to play the music that we wrote and recorded with him.

“As far as the show, we do have some new things planned as far as our presentation,” he said. “It’s going to be the best show we’ve ever done as far as the video presentation and design, and the look of the stage and the look of the screens. We have something really unique that our talented video director and lighting director have designed. I can’t wait for people to see it.”