Originally published in The Metal Command podcast · March 2019
James LaBrie interview (excerpt)
InterviewJames LaBrie12 min read
In a brand new interview with “The Metal Command” podcast, Dream Theater frontman James LaBrie was asked how he and his bandmates have managed to stay together for so long after spending so much time with each other on the road year after year.
“You have to remember that we’ve been together for 30 years and we’ve gone through our growing pains,” LaBrie responded (hear audio below). We’re very respectful and understanding of each person’s idiosyncrasies or OCD qualities.
“At the end of the day, as long as you can accept the fact that there’s five people in a band, or however many people are in a band, you’ve gotta be able to accept each other’s – for lack of a better term – uniqueness,” he continued. “And even though you might find, ‘Oh, that’s not something I would do,’ or, ‘That’s not the way that I process things,’ or, ‘That’s not the way that I like to go through a day,’ you have to respect the fact that that is how that person does it. And I think once that becomes an accepted reality, then you’re able to really accept and move forward in a very positive manner.
“When we’re on the road, we might be together every day, but we all do our own thing,” the singer added. “And that’s the thing – we all get into our own routines and our own things that bring us to the point where we walk onstage and we feel that we’re absolutely connected and we’re in the right zone. At the same time, though, we might be going down the road on a tour bus, but we kind of do our own thing. Yeah, we do sit around and talk and shoot shit and have good laughs and that, but at the same time, we all know how to give one another space and it’s just natural. It’s not like we feel we owe each other anything beyond what we wanna give. We all have our own hotel rooms and we all kind of do our things on our days off. If we wanna get together with one another, we text each other. ‘Hey, man, what are you doing? You wanna go for a coffee? You wanna go for a drink? Man, what are you doing for dinner tonight?’ Or it might be just as simple as, ‘Yeah, man, no problem. Let’s get together,’ or, ‘You know what? I’m just gonna chill.’ And I think that’s what maintains the healthiness. That’s why we’re still in a band together and we still love one another and we’re like brothers to one another – because of that respect and that absolute understanding of one another.
“That’s what makes it hard for most bands – because it isn’t easy to achieve that,” LaBrie concluded. “For me to say that, it sounds like, ‘Oh, yeah, so anybody should be able to do this.’ And it’s, like, no – no way, man. And like I prefaced this, we’ve already gone through our growing pains. We went through some bullshit times. We went through the times where it was, like, ‘Hang on a second. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around who and what you are.’ And the only way you can get past that is to be mature and to talk it out, so that there is that understanding. It doesn’t mean you have to agree on anything, but there is that understanding, for sure.”
During a conversation with Metal Command, Dream Theater singer James LaBrie talked about the band’s drummer Mike Mangini, how he adapted since joining the fold in 2010, and his performance on the band’s latest studio album “Distance Over Time.” The frontman explained (transcribed by UG):
It goes without saying, he’s a phenomenal player, technically a master at what he does, but I think with ‘Distance Over Time,’ this was really where Mike was able to be 100% fully engaged, he stepped up to the plate. He’s a big part of this from a writing standpoint, from day one to day done when we were done writing, he was fully 100% involved with the ideas, with the arrangements, so on and so forth. He’s played incredible and the chemistry was there as well since before Dream Theater because he played on a few [three] of my solo albums. The last one he did was [2005’s] ‘Elements of Persuasion’ which he played on, but he also played on my first two [1999’s ‘Keep It to Yourself’ and 2001’s ‘James LaBrie’s MullMuzzler 2’]. I knew when the auditions were coming up, I kept saying to the guys, ‘This is our guy, this is our guy, I’m telling ya.’
Focusing on another drummer he thought would be a great fit for Dream Theater, James said:
“The other guy who I really wanted in, before it was a no-brainer that Mike was our man, was Peter Wildoer. He played on my solo album. That was the other guy that I was also completely for.”
Peter was one of the musicians who auditioned for the position of DT drummer back in October 2010. He previously said about his approach to the audition:
“My approach was very much to keep it true to what Mike [Portnoy] did, because no matter what I would do, I knew that my personality and my style would probably shine through even though [I was] trying to do what Mike did originally. So my approach was very much to keep it to what it is and keep it like the fans know the songs and how they wanna hear them.”
I would say that this album [‘Distance Over Time’] is a little more straightforward than your typical Dream Theater album. Was this something that was planned or did you just simply say, ‘Hey, whatever comes out, comes out.’?
Primarily, [John] Petrucci and myself, we sat down and we wrote the melodies for these songs. Jordan [Rudess] was involved as well. I think the melodies where they are is what I felt at the end of the day best suited these songs. I mean, if that’s the way it hits you, I’m not gonna change your opinion on it, but to me, they speak volumes of expression and I can see how you might interpret it as being straightforward, but just due to the nature of the album being more heavier, more aggressive, I thought that that’s where the melodies should also be pretty much hand-in-hand, or stride-in-stride. They don’t necessarily have to be fancy, they have to be very strong and very rigid, so to speak, in order to really support the direction of the music and the pieces and the arrangements. I’m absolutely thrilled with these melodies and in many pieces it still allowed me to be very expressive.
Your last solo album – it’s one of my favorite albums. I know that DT is a full-time thing going on, but do you think when you guys have some time off that you’ll get in a studio and record another one of these solo albums?
You know what? Matt [Guillory] and I and the rest of the guys in the band, we’re so thrilled with the way that came out – and I thank you for everything you just said, it means a world to me, it means a world to every one of us. I think as far as wanting to do another one, absolutely, Matt and I, we touch base every once in a while. His life is very busy now and he knows that what I got going on in the Dream Theater world, so we realize that the window of opportunity isn’t necessarily where we want it to be. But I know that we both have admitted that inevitably it has to happen again, and I know that Peter and Marco [Sfogli] and Ray [Riendeau], those guys are onboard. I think we ended on such a high note, but I think there’s so much more that we can achieve. Even Matt and I, when we were talking last, we already have a lot of ideas. It’s just a matter of when can we actually peel ourselves away from all the other obligations and commitments, but it will definitely happen again.
Let’s talk about ‘The Astonishing’ for a minute. I am a fan of concept records – they resonate with some people, some people don’t, and there were obviously very mixed reviews of that album. Personally, I liked it. Once I ended up getting the story and getting into it, concept albums are something that you really have to be into. This album, to me, is one of those records that people eventually are going to like down the road a little bit more than when it initially came out. I think it was an underrated album, but looking back at it now, how do you think that ‘The Astonishing’ was received? Will you do another concept album?
I think there’s always a possibility that we’ll do another concept album because that just seems to be a natural vehicle for us as the kind of a band that we are. If we were, I don’t know – for a lack of better term, a band like Skid Row – but anyways, the thing is, is that with us and looking back on ‘The Astonishing,’ I remember before it came out – obviously, everybody in the band, we reached what we were going after and we felt absolutely great with the way that album turned out. But at the same time, I remember some of the conversations, like, ‘You know what? I could totally see our fans, this is going to polarize our fans, there’s gonna be people that are enamored with it, and there’s gonna be people that are just not gonna wrap their heads around it.’ That’s putting it nicely. So, I mean, when you do something that daring and when you do something that bold and experimental, it’s bound to bring along some criticism with it. Personally, when I look back at that, I’m absolutely thrilled with the way it turned out. I absolutely loved singing on that album because it allowed me to be everything as far as the vocalist, you know. It allowed me to use every facet of my voice, so to me, it was absolutely gratifying and fulfilling. For the most part, the other guys felt really, really connected to it. It was a rock-opera opus. Any album like that, any artist that would want to release an album that is two-hours-plus, you got to have a lot of balls to think that people today that we’re living in a reality of sound bites, and then you release something like that? It didn’t surprise me when I started seeing some of the reactions and some of the reviews, I mean I was, like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I get it, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
You said being in the sound-bite age. I agree with that, people don’t have the attention span they used to because everything wants everything so fast. For Dream Theater, which is a band with so many elements to it, you guys write long songs, do you find it difficult to find new fans, maybe talk about if that’s even affected you at all?
I think if you’re a fan, it’s already a given, that’s to be expected. If you’re a fan, I think you’re in it with us for life. I would hope that’s the reality, that’s the way I’m gonna paint it. But beyond that, I think if someone is told, ‘Hey man, have you heard about this band Dream Theater? Here’s some stuff, check ‘em out,’ I think at first it might be, ‘What the hell is this? What are these guys doing?’, but I think that it’s gonna be within a very short period of time their cup of tea or not. You have to be somewhat of a musicalist that is already into bands like us, you know, I think that you’ll gravitate toward bands that seem a little bit more musically driven. I think people that will fall in to become a Dream Theater fan are people that are musically inclined to want to have something that sates a bit more than normal.
It’s interesting that with ‘The Astonishing,’ you guys went in, you consciously did this huge opus, this huge rock opera with all these different interludes; you guys went in and spent a ton of time writing that story and writing songs to fit that story. A concept album is really not something that is easy to do, and it’s also not something that is per se a very quick process either. This record [‘Distance Over Time’] just seems like a bunch of guys got into a room, jammed out some tunes and that was it. It’s great it’s almost as you didn’t overthink anything.
You’re right, you’re absolutely right. And when you think about it, the true essence of rock ‘n’ roll is that immediate gratification – that immediate reflection of something and not trying to be scientific about it. I’m not saying, I’m not insinuating that’s who we are and that’s who we’ve been... I think this was more like, ‘Hey, we’re still gonna be Dream Theater, we’re still going to have that technical prowess, but at the same time, let’s do something...’ We knew we wanted a heavy album, we knew we wanted it to be a more aggressive approach sonically and musically, so that really availed itself right then and there. ‘We can still be progressive, but let’s also be heavy, let’s really maintain that balance between those two predominant elements and then we can still attain our goal.’ I think that’s definitely what we’ve achieved. ‘The Astonishing’ was the exception to the rule because that was three years in the making. This was fun, this was allowing us to be together and it just was a very prolific experience.
When guys are in a band, they go on tour, they’re around each other constantly. The fact that you guys don’t get sick of each other not only tells me that you guys have a chemistry personally together, but the fact that you can just get together, sit in a room, write this record – which I think is absolutely amazing – write this album... that really tells me you’ve got chemistry not only on a personal level but obviously on a musical level as well.
You’re right. The way I like to look at it is – you have to remember that we’ve been together for 30 years and we’ve gone through our growing phase. We’ve gone through that, we’re very respectful and understanding of each person’s OCDs and qualities. At the end of the day, as long as you can accept the fact that there’s five people in the band that you got to be able to accept each other’s – for a lack of a better term, uniqueness. Even though you might find, ‘Oh, that’s not something I would do,’ you have to respect the fact that that’s how that person does it. I think once that becomes an accepted reality, then you’re able to really accept and move forward in a very positive manner. When we’re on the road, we might be together every day, but we all do our own thing, and that’s the thing. We all get into our own routines, our things that bring us to the part that we walk on stage and we feel that we’re absolutely connected. At the same time, we might be going on the road on a tour bus, but we’re kind of doing our own thing. We do sit around and talk and have good laughs, but at the same time we all know how to give one another space, it’s natural. It’s not like we feel like we owe each other anything beyond what we want to give.
Any last words to say to the fans?
Take ‘Distance Over Time,’ put it in your vehicle, hook up your phone/Bluetooth, and drive down the road and crank this thing because, to me, that’s my favorite experience to listening to a new album. I love to just get in my car, drive down the road and crank it, and nothing else and no one else around me. I feel that that is the most intimate experience with any given music, so do that and I think you’ll thank me and you’ll have a great ride. Just make sure the tank’s full.