Mike Portnoy: “The new album is classic Dream Theater”

Reunions, reunions... few things spark more passion among the faithful than the reunions of legendary bands. If there’s any legendary band in progressive metal, it’s Dream Theater. And they are in their own right, with their instrumental mastery and songs and albums that are part of history. Mike Portnoy, founding member, has returned after 14 years away from the band, and for now, they’re going to celebrate with a tour in the purest style of the band and their legendary An Evening With... shows. We didn’t think twice and contacted Portnoy himself.

Interview by Albert Perera

Albert Perera: Hi Mike, how are you?

Mike Portnoy: Fine, great.

AP: Well, it seems that your return to Dream Theater has generated quite a lot of buzz in the scene. It seems like the fans were waiting for it. Do you see it the same way?

MP: Yeah, I mean, the excitement is pretty, well, pretty exciting. It just seemed like when the reunion was announced last October, just watching it blow up was just surreal, just incredible just to see everybody’s excitement and joy. So yeah, it makes us feel very happy to be making so many people so happy. And we’re just as excited and happy as well, we’re really happy being back together again.

AP: And I guess that one of the things that the music fans, especially in metal, the veterans or the older people are very excited with these reunions, these kind of tours. When a reunion happens, I don’t know, Halloween or Dream Theater, everybody goes crazy, completely crazy.

MP: Yeah, I mean, me as a fan, I know what it’s like to witness things like that, when you see a member coming, when Bruce Dickinson came back to Iron Maiden, when Rob Halford came to Judas Priest, whatever, not that I’m comparing myself to them. But, when you see a member come back to a band that you love, it’s very, very exciting. And it’s also disappointing when you see bands don’t reunite, like for me as a Pink Floyd fan, the fact that they never reunited with Roger Waters or Genesis never reunited with Peter Gabriel is so disappointing when it doesn’t happen that I’m glad that that wasn’t the case with Dream Theater.

AP: I agree. It’s strange because if something happened today in the music industry or in the music world, it’s reunions.

MP: Yeah. Well, I’m glad it’s happening.

AP: To get to this point, did you have to do a lot of talking to heal wounds or something similar, any kind of therapy or just happened?

MP: Well, it didn’t just happen. It took 13 years of healing. You know, it was a very, very gradual process that didn’t happen overnight. You know, it was 13 years. And those first few years were very difficult. You know, those first few years, there was a lot of legalities and a lot of things that needed to get resolved and worked out. And those were difficult years. But I would say about seven or eight years ago, the healing process really started to come along and mainly starting with my relationship with John Petrucci before we were even making music together again, we really were healing on a personal level. And our families are friends and our daughters are friends and our wives are friends. So it was very important for us to be friends again. And that eventually led to playing on his solo album. And then it eventually led to us doing Liquid Tension 3. And all of these things kind of were part of the process that eventually led us here and finally led to this happening finally.

AP: Today, we’re attending some interviews in the Spanish media. And last year, you declared to a Spanish website. I probably dreamt about 100 times, but it would be like to be back in Dream Theater. The dream is coming true...

MP: It’s yeah, it’s true. I’ve had like hundreds of dreams through the years. But the dream, the dreams I’ve had are always on stage and what the first show is going to be like. And we haven’t had that yet. So still waiting for that dream to come true. I can’t even imagine what it’s going to feel like on October 20th.

AP: So.. you’re dreaming in London.

MP: Yeah, it’s going to be incredible. But you know what? The first show is going to be incredible. But honestly, each and every show is going to be great because each and every time we get to a new market, when we play Spain for the first time together, when we play France for the first time together, we play Germany for the first time together, each one of those stops are going to be so special and exciting for us, but to see the fans excitement is going to be great. You know, when John Petrucci and I did his solo tour in 2022, that was just for two of us together and we were watching grown men cry every night. So for now to have five of us together, it’s just I can’t even imagine how exciting it will be for the fans.

AP: Now that you mention London and France or Spain, I’m asking why it’s starting in Europe. I was expecting something like a tour in your country first or even a show in New York City

MP: Yeah, we put a lot of thought into where the first show was going to be. And our initial response was always, you know, we immediately thought of New York first and foremost, because that’s where the band is from. But in lots of discussions with our management and with our agent, it made sense to start in London and because we I guess we always knew we were going to start with a European leg first. And it would be really hard to just do a one off in New York and then pack everything up and then begin a whole leg in Europe. So it really had to make sense to start either in Europe or the UK. And it just turned out that London was the chosen city. I guess it needed to be a place that’s going to be very centrally located for fans to come from all over the world. So we knew it needed to be a centrally located major city.

AP: And with a big venue...

MP: Yeah, I mean, the O2 is massive. I mean, that’s where Led Zeppelin played their reunion show. It’s friggin’ massive. So, yeah, we have no time to warm up. We need to hit the ground running and be rocking from the very downbeat.

AP: Another possibility is the festivals. They are global and exist in almost every country, a possible decision could have been a tour in festivals. I have the theory that big summer festivals are killing the venues and touring circuit, at least in Spain. Promoters pay more to the bands for exclusive dates. And with one appearance in a festival, bands maybe could have more money than three or four different dates in different cities. What do you think?

MP: Well, I love playing festivals personally, and I think it’s always a great opportunity to get all these fans together and play these massive shows. But for us coming out of 13 years having not played together, we knew we wanted to come out of the gates with this reunion, doing our own shows and an evening with Dream Theater, because we have a big catalog at this point and very long songs. It’s not we’re not the type of band that could really do that at a festival. You know, Pantera, when Pantera reunited or whatever you want to call it, when they put this new version together, it made sense for them to start with festivals because they have a lot of hits and they they’re a very crossover kind of band that could play these metal festivals. But Dream Theater is not really that type of band. We have a very select, a very specific kind of fan base that want to hear the long songs. They want to have a three hour long show. But that being said, we love doing festivals as well. And I’m pretty certain the summer of 2025, we’ll be doing the festival circuit once we get a leg done of our own shows first.

AP: Take my attention that you have five shows in Germany and just one in the rest of the countries. German fans are demanding shows heavily, I guess, or booking agent things...

MP: It’s always been like that. Even from day one with Dream Theater, if you look at our very first tour of Europe in 1993, Germany always had five, six, seven shows per leg. It’s always been that way. I guess it’s up to the promoters and the booking agents, but that’s kind of the way the country’s always been.

AP: I think Germany, and a lot of bands that explain about it, have this circuit of venues and places to play very close. You don’t have to be in a car driving for five hours to the next city. It’s just one hour or less to play in the next city. And it’s easier for bands.

MP: Yeah, I mean, that’s the way it is in America, too. And you’re usually touring, playing in New York or New Jersey or Pennsylvania. Those states are only a few hours at the most from each other. So it’s a similar kind of mentality, I think.

AP: That’s something that I miss in Spain, because usually bands are doing Madrid, Barcelona and only one more city.

MP: It’s always been that way for any of my bands, Dream Theater, but also the Winery Dogs, Sons Of Apollo or Neal Morse Band. It’s always when we come to Spain, it’s usually just Madrid and Barcelona, maybe one more city. It’s always been that way. But different countries have different ways of doing their shows.

AP: I think you are again in charge of the set-lists for the tour. I guess it’s a tough decision, even if you think about your time in the band only, because I guess you will play only songs of your era...

MP: No, we’re going to try to cover a little bit of everything if we can. Yeah, we’re doing an evening with tour. So it’s a three hour show, two sets with an intermission. So there’s a lot of ground we can cover. We won’t be able to get all 40 years in there. We can’t get all 16 albums covered, especially with the long songs we have. But it will be a good, well-rounded show that covers a little bit of each era.

AP: That’s an obvious question to ask...

MP: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, it would be very selfish of me to just assume the band is going to sweep away five albums of their career. You know, 13 years, I can’t expect them to just ignore that. So obviously, those years and those albums still need to be represented as part of the Dream Theater history.

AP: There’s good songs from that era. Music and the music business today is to talk about live performances, as we were talking, and Dream Theater has always been an excellent live band, releasing a lot of live material. Is it planned to follow this line recording shows in audio and video for future releases?

MP: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s always been so important for me personally. In all of the bands, I’m a part of, having live releases for each tour and each souvenir for each tour is very important. And Dream Theater has always been very good with that. So, yeah, that won’t change. That will absolutely continue.

AP: I agree, usually the live version of a song it’s different from the studio. And about the souvenir for example there’s some famous cases like Maiden that don’t have an official release of Somewhere in Time era and fans would love it.

MP: Right. Well, me, I’m a fan. I’m a collector. I collect bootlegs, whether it be Metallica or Iron Maiden or Judas Priest, Black Sabbath. I’m still a fan that collects bootlegs. And so I know what it’s like to want to feed the fan base. And I’ve always done that for Dream Theater with the fans in mind, creating official bootlegs and fan club CDs and stuff like that has always been so important for me personally as a fan that I always make sure it’s very important for Dream Theater fans, too.

AP: And an obvious question, can we expect big surprises with this new music?

MP: Well, I don’t want to say surprises, but it sounds like classic Dream Theater. I’ve said this before, but it’s the truth. If you look at the six albums that this lineup made – Scenes From Memory, Six Degrees, Train Of Thought, Octavarium, Systematic Chaos, Black Clouds – I mean, that’s this lineup. And even though it’s 15 years later, we’re still the same musicians and the same people and the same songwriters. So this is that style. You know what? The new album just feels like classic Dream Theater. It really does. Are there any surprises? Yeah, I mean, we’ve packed the album with so much stuff that we think are going to blow people away. But we could not be more excited about it. But there’s only so much we can reveal at this early stage still.

AP: You have played with so many musicians, bands and styles during this time that maybe that influence shows in the compositions..

MP: My experiences of the last 15 years, playing in like a dozen different bands, all different styles, everything from Twisted Sister to Avenged Sevenfold to thrash metal with Metal Allegiance or classic rock style with Winery Dogs or more prog stuff with like Neal Morse Band. I mean, every one of those things gave me a lot of different experiences and musical situations and chemistry and stuff that I could take all of those experiences and come back to Dream Theater with them. But on the other hand, also, I think it was important for me to get all of that stuff out of my system because Dream Theater is a very specific style and sound and market. All the things I did with all of these other bands were kind of scratching different musical itches for me and giving me the opportunity to do different things. So now with that all out of my system, I could come back to Dream Theater fresh, inspired, rejuvenated and excited to do what Dream Theater does best.

AP: You mentioned that albums with Dream Theater. In your opinion, which is the album that deserves more recognition?

MP: Well, I mean, the big ones that always get talked about are Images And Words and Scenes From A Memory. I think those were two very important albums and they have plenty of recognition. So they don’t need me to be talking about them. I would say Train Of Thought is a favorite of mine that maybe gets overlooked sometimes. I love the heavy side, and Train Of Thought was definitely the heaviest album we’ve ever made. So maybe it is one.

AP: What about this? [I show him Falling Into Infinity]

MP: Well, Falling Into Infinity is harder for me to look at objectively because it was such a difficult period for the band. Making that record was very difficult, very frustrating because the label wouldn’t let us do what we wanted to do. They made us rewrite songs with Desmond Child and Kevin Shirley. So that was a big period of compromise for us. And for me personally, that doesn’t bring back the best of memories, to be honest. I think it’s a great album, though, but I think it’s the most streamlined and polished album. And something like ‘You Not Me’ being written rewritten by Desmond Child. I think that was a pointless exercise that personally I would have never have chosen to go down the road of. But yeah, look, they each are part of the process. And we probably wouldn’t have been here without having gone through that. So it’s all part of the history.

AP: After a successful album like Images and Words labels usually want to influence the bands to have another big hit and make more money.

MP: Well, then the 90s were a completely different time as well. So, first of all, back in the 90s, we were completely at the mercy of the record company. So we couldn’t make an album without their green light. So we had to play that game and do that. And we were also very young still. We were in our 20s. We didn’t have the leverage and the longevity that we have now. So, yeah, those were very, very different times in the 90s. And we’re luckily in a very, very different place now in our lives and our careers.

AP: A couple of months ago, I had the chance to talk with Richie Kotzen and he said to me that definitely at some point in the future, there will be more music with you, with Mike Portnoy. Anything to say?

MP: I hope so. I love the Winery Dogs. I love Richie. Richie is so, so amazing and such a star. So, yeah, I hope there’s more Winery Dogs stuff down the road. But right now my focus is on Dream Theater. We have a very big tour coming up this year and next year. We’ll be on the road all throughout next year as well. So it’s going to be very busy times for me in Dream Theater. And that’s my focus and that’s my priority. And that’s my home. However, that being said, a few years down the road when we have some available time off, everybody’s always free to do what they want during Dream Theater’s time off. So we’ll see. We’ll see which one of these bands and side projects kind of stand the test of time. I guess time will tell. We’ll see.

AP: Ok, Mike. I know you have more interviews. Thanks for your time

MP: Thank you, man. Thank you. Bye. See you soon. Adios. All the best.