Dream Theater

Thirty years have passed since Dream Theater first formed and during that time we’ve been privileged with a plethora of incredible music. They attract all kinds of fans, from the hipster jazz enthusiast, to the nerdy gamer, to the beer swilling metal head. There’s a little bit of something for everyone.

We spoke to Jordan Rudess about the new thirty-four track epic opus that is The Astonishing. “It’s going well, it’s a very busy time. We’re all busy musically, learning our parts and getting the new show together and all the various elements that are involved, which there are many. There’s a lot going on in general.”

Dream Theater fans will already know that their albums usually clock in at an hour or more, with anywhere from five to ten tracks of pure heaven. But on this album, Dream Theater have given us thirty-four tracks and one hundred and twenty-nine minutes of new material.

“We just couldn’t stop writing music. We wanted to create a new concept album, we wanted it to be large to scale and we wanted something where we could go out and have an entire show around. So we knew it had to be longer than our usual one CD album, we decided earlier on that it would be larger in scope and now this is what it has become.”

Writing a new Dream Theater record sounds like a long and complicated process, but after hearing the detail and in depth story telling that is The Astonishing, one can’t help but grow even more respect for these men. It’s more than just music, as Jordan tells us.

“Well John Petrucci began to write the story about two and a half years ago, but then to the end of our last world tour he got to a point where we wanted to share what he was doing. He gave us a run down of the story and then we seriously began to get into it and create the music behind what he had written.

“We did this one in a different way than how we normally approach an album. We decided early on that the best way would be for myself and John to be in a quiet space composing the music, so instead of having everyone in the band sitting around hashing it out. We sat in a room with just our keyboards and our guitars and our computers and we wrote all the music. This album was more, in many ways, more like composing a film score or a musical or something like that and I say that in the sense that we were really very conscious of the story all along.”

With being in a band for thirty years comes change, and that’s something Dream Theater have seen not only with their music but their line up as well. Most notably their founding member and drummer of twenty-five years Mike Portnoy leaving, which was a big deal but it also led to them attaining the magnificent Mike Mangini, who is also one of the finest percussionists in the world. Jordan tells of how change within the band has affected them on a more positive note.

“I think it’s great that we got to this point and I would say that that’s probably the best thing in that way, that we have that kind of support, from our record company, our management, where we can have an idea like this. To have an outside the box – very outside the box, and more demanding on every level and get the kind of support to even do it. So, you know, through the years, working and touring and being productive and able to be responsible and to pull through. I think the people around us trust us and know what we can do and that we’re going to deliver. So, kind of the march of time has led us to this point which is really rewarding and now we’re at the very beginning of the touring season and we’re going to go out there and play and that should be really cool and fun as well.”

The Astonishing is something Australian fans want to see to believe, we can only hope that they bring this big production Down Under, so we can be blown away by the visual and auditory experience that is Dream Theater.

“We’re making no secret of the fact that we’re going out there and we’re playing this album from beginning to end. That’s what this is going to be all about. We’re working with a company out of Montreal that is kind of in charge of creating all of these visuals for this tour and that’s their specialty. We’ve never done anything like this before. Usually we use various independent artists, but for this we thought it had to be something that was really cohesive so we hired this company to do it and they’re, you know, they specialise in working with projections and animations and 3D stuff so it should be a real treat. Anyway, if you’ve seen Dream Theater, you’ve never seen us like this before. And there are you know, people who haven’t seen us, and it’s going to be really unique and special.”

On an Australian tour; “I would hope so. I don’t know any particular plan at this very moment, but I’m not the agent. I really hope so but I can’t say for sure when, though it’s very likely because we love coming there.”

“Well, as you said, it’s an epic album with a lot of music. It’s probably Dream Theater’s most dynamic album. People who like our metal style, there’s elements of metal. There’s prog[ressive] in it, there’s very gentle things, there’s symphonic things in it. It’s just a really exciting album to put out there and took a lot of care and passion to put this all together and we’re looking forward to both putting it out there and hitting the road and playing it all around the world.”