James LaBrie interview (excerpts)

Eddie Trunk: You’ve got a new record out now that we’re talking about here in 2022 called Beautiful Shade Of Gray. It sounds great. I heard material from it – some of the pre-release stuff – and I reached out to Roy who’s working it, and I said, “Tell James this is really good sounding stuff. If he wants to come on and talk about it, let’s do it.” At that time he said you were getting ready to head over to Europe and then we’d get you when you got back home, so what was going on in Europe? Did you do solo shows or were you with Dream Theater?

James LaBrie: Dream Theater – we just did six and a half weeks all throughout Europe, and it went great. There’s still the COVID hangover going on, so some of the shows were a little lighter than we had expected, but what was crazy is as the tour went on, the rooms were, “Hey guys, you sold out tonight.” “Hey guys, you know what? It’s gonna be packed tonight.” And that became more and more evident the longer the tour was in place. But when we first started out, it was half-filled rooms, three-quarter rooms, and the promoter was like, “Don’t worry about it, guys. This isn’t your fault. This is happening to every single artist out there.” We were like, “Wow! People are still very much affected by it over here.” But like I said, by the time we were maybe two, three weeks into it, everything looked like a normal Dream Theater tour, and it was amazing. It was excellent. We finished in Istanbul just last Wednesday, on June 1st, and that was amazing. We played this big outdoor venue and there was about ten thousand people. It was just frickin’ kickin’ butt big time. So it was a great tour.

ET: You could say the latest album, A View From the Top of the World is out there now, when you talk about playing in all these other countries and places, that’s been a signature for Dream Theater since really the early days of playing globally [to] the audience you have globally. I’m curious James, in all your years of doing that, is there one place in the world that really stands out where there was a gig that just really totally blew your mind or a setting or a country or a city where it was just surreal to be there and to be playing your music?

JL: Yeah. There was a show that we did over in Poland. I can’t remember the exact location and we played in front of – check this out – 750,000 people, and it was unbelievable! And the entry into the concert was that they do a... it’s a charitable concert, so you bring dry good foods and you get in. I’m not exaggerating, on the drive in, we had to go through five miles of tents to get to the stage! So you’re seeing tents five miles out from the venue. I mean thousands, tens of thousands of freaking tents! And we’re like, “What the hell is going on?” We had no idea. So just to give you some perspective, we played there that night and there were 750,000 people at this venue. The next night we played in Germany at a big festival and it was 75,000 people. We were like, “Guys, this is freaking 10% of what we played last night, and there’s still 75,000 people out front!” And it just blew our minds! It’s like, “Holy s***! Who thought playing in front of 75,000 people just came down that much?” And it was unbelievable. It was the first time that I saw a wheelchair surfing in the town when I was at this show – I kid you not! Because the stage was up, we were up a good 15, 20 feet, and it was unbelievable. It really was. That was the most surreal experience for each and every one of us. We were like, “Oh my God!” They had these great big audio setups and there was one that they said that was four football fields out to reach the people.

ET: Wow! For you James as the singer and the guy that’s got to sing to that many people, what’s your approach in that situation to a huge crowd like that? Do you just really focus on the few rows in front of you? I imagine that’s all you can really do right?

JL: Yeah, because it’s dark and you got the lights blinding you basically. But Eddie here’s a crazy thing: I find it easier to sing in front of thousands of people than if you said, “Hey James, can you come over to my house? I’m going to have like 20 people, and maybe you and somebody else could sing a couple songs.” I’d find that more [difficult to] do at your place than I would to go on stage and sing in front of 40,000 people. I kid you not, and I’ve talked to other people about that, and they said the same thing, because it’s so intimate, it’s so personal. Not that I wouldn’t do that for you Eddie, no problem, you invite me, I’ll come. [laughs]

ET: I appreciate that! [laughs]

JL: It’s so bizarre that that whole take is like, “Hey, put me in front of a thousand people, no problem. You want to put me in front of 20 people, see you later!”

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ET: As far Dream Theater is concerned, do you have some more stuff outside of the US this year? Is there anything in the US coming up?

JL: Well, no. I don’t think until probably ‘23 will we be back in the US. That was our first leg, so that’s where we started the A View From the Top of the World tour, in Phoenix way back in the beginning of February. So I don’t see us getting back here because we still have Asia, we still have all the south Pacific Rim. In September we’re going down to do the Rock In Rio, and then some more shows throughout Brazil and Buenos Aires and Chile. That’s in September and August we’re going over to Indonesia and headlining a festival, the Download festival in Tokyo, and then there’s talk in January to go back to Europe and hit all the other spots that we didn’t hit over there and so on and so forth. So I see being out for quite some time. I don’t see us really wrapping up anything that would have to do with A View From the Top of the World touring probably until fall ‘23. There’s so much being planned right now that I can’t even talk about, so let’s just wait and see. But it’s pretty exciting. Hey listen, we’re glad to be back out! We did keep ourselves busy and I’m thankful that I did write and record this solo album because it kept my sanity. I would have spun out of control I think like many other people.

ET: Yeah, I know a lot of people were able to create during the lockdown, and that gave them the opportunity to at least do something. And now we’re seeing a lot of those records coming out that were made during that time. James, the final thing here, when you look at the recent touring that Dream Theater did for View the Top of the World, how was the new music received, and were there any highlights for you as far as the touring you’ve done so far for this record?

JL: As you know, we start the night with ‘The Alien’ because that’s the big Grammy win for us now, and people are into it. They’re singing along, they’re shouting, they’re loving it. You’re asking was there any pinnacle moment – I just think the fact that we could be out there again, doing this, and seeing all those lovely faces up front and saying, “We still got it going on, we’re still loving this, and we’re still having a great time and our fans are still incredible and supportive.” I mean, that’s what it comes down to for us. We’re so blessed and we’re so fortunate, and we don’t take any of this for granted whatsoever.

ET: Of course when you played in New York City this made a lot of news, because one of the faces in the crowd – for the first time ever – turned out to be your former drummer and my friend Mike Portnoy. Mike was on with me talking about that experience recently from the progressive rock Cruise to the Edge. He talked about how great it was for him to have done that, and to have had that experience, and to reconnect with everybody. But specifically you because there had been some tensions, and to reconnect and reconcile – if there had to be one or whatever – with you specifically was important to him, and he felt really good about. From your perspective, what was it like when you learned that he was coming to the show and reconnecting with him?

JL: It was thrown at me about two hours before the show, and you know what it’s like – all the artists want to get in the zone, you want to get into the show and stuff like that. And I was like, “Oh hang on a second! How can I wrap my head around this?” And to be quite honest with you, John Petrucci said, “Hey listen, I know how this is. This is a very sensitive topic and it always has been.” And I called my wife up, and she said, “You need to move on. You need to make amends. You and Mike were best friends at one point, and enough is enough. There’s been enough f***in’ dirty water under the bridge.” And I said, “You’re right. Yeah, I want to see him after.” And I’m sure Mike told you within minutes we had said what obviously needed to be said, and we got up, hugged one another. “Hey, love you.” “Love you too, man. Sorry about all this s***.” “Yeah, yeah. For sure, man. Whatever. It’s part of life. It’s part of the learning experience.” And it’s great. We’ve been in touch, we’re texting and we’re “Hey, what’s up man?” He’s sending me pictures from him on the road. It’s just a good place to be finally. It’s like I said, I said, “We created some incredible albums together Mike, and what we’ve done is going to remain in history. It’s something that’s left its indelible mark.” And he said, “I couldn’t agree more.” And it’s just great, Eddie. So it’s finally where it should be. It’s unfortunate that we had so many years of turmoil, but hey, we’re not the first ones to do it in the music industry, are we? And that’s just the way it is.

ET: Yep. And for all of us every day, life is getting a little shorter – not to be morbid – so the fact that you can put that kind of stuff behind you and have a good positive outlook and everything is fantastic. I was so happy to see it for everybody. I know he played on John’s solo record recently, but just to see all of that happening, and with you specifically, I thought that was a really wonderful thing.

One other thing: talking about the records you’ve made in your career with whatever lineup of the band, my favorite or one of them, is Train of Thought, which blew my mind to find out next year is 20 years since that record came out, which I can’t believe! So maybe – and I’ll get in JP’s ear about this – maybe next year some sort of Train of Thought celebration? I don’t know, I’m just thinking out loud.

JL: I agree with you, it would be great. I think everything’s open to discussion at this point in our career. And more and more of that is happening. Like Octavarium and then you’ve got Systematic Chaos. Like they’re all having these anniversaries, and it’s just like holy s**** we have been around for a long time! [laughs]

ET: It’s a good it’s a good problem to have when you’ve got that many records that people like and that much of a catalog. So that’s a good problem. You take it year to year, that’s all you can really do.

JL: Absolutely, and like I said, anything’s possible. Yeah, that was a killer album and we had a great time touring that. My God man. That was in your face. it was like, “Here we go. We are the progressive metal band, and we’re gonna give it to you right between the eyes!”