. : interviews
Dream Theater "Masters Of The Musical Beast" by Clay Marshall
From Metal Edge Magazine, April 2004 - posted upon Mike's recommendation
Even though 1992's "Images And Words" catapulted Dream Theater into the forefront of the modern progressive metal movement, one questioned at the time just how long they'd be able to stay there. After all, grunge was nearing its peak, and it soon became quite uncool to know how to play your instruments well - a notion that didn't bode well for graduates of Boston's prestigious Berklee School Of Music. But even though the journey wasn't always easy, guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, keyboardist Jordan Rudess, vocalist James LaBrie, and drummer Mike Portnoy have continued to exhibit phenomenal growth year after year, both on disc and on tour. The best part? They've only just begun. Over the last two years, the group have seen a decade of steady touring pay off in spades, as they've outgrown clubs and can now fill theaters and amphitheaters alike, as proven most recently this past summer during a co-headlining tour with Queensryche. As for their recorded output, new album "Train Of Thought" is the band's most exhilarating yet, a stunning tour de force of extreme virtuosity that leaves you gasping for breath, yet craving more. As Portnoy told Metal Edge backstage in London before a recent performance with former Spock's Beard frontman Neal Morse, the group brushed up on the classics before crafting one of their own...
........
Metal Edge: "Train Of Thought" is the most aggressive Dream Theater album to date, seven studio records into your career - so much for growing old gracefully!
Mike Portnoy: It's funny, while writing this totally angry music, we're looking at each other going, "Wait a second, we're forty-year-old men, and here we are, playing these aggressive riffs!" I guess you've got to grow old at some point, but it's important for us to never sound old.
ME: Because you have been touring so much over the last two years, it was somewhat surprising that this album came together so quickly.
MP: We started discussing the direction at the end of the 2002 tour, when we were doing a third and final leg in Europe. On that leg, we were covering the entire "Number Of The Beast" album by Iron Maiden, and earlier that year, we had done the entire "Master Of Puppets" album. We were looking at those two albums and saying, "We want to make an album like this, of our own. We want a classic metal album." We started looking at those albums and we looked at what made them classic, and every song was strong, and the album length was more concise. Every CD we've made - both studio and live since '94 - has been past seventy minutes, so we knew this time around we wanted to make it a little easier to digest. We wanted to have around seven or eight songs around seven or eight minutes. Once we started making the record, all that kind of expanded, but at least we had a destination we were shooting for. We also looked at all the tunes from our catalog that always go over great live, and it's always the real heavy, grooving songs - "Pull Me Under", "Home", "Glass Prison", "The Mirror" - that are the most exciting, so we said, "Let's just make an album where every song is like that." That was the blueprint we outlined. We took off for the holidays and the first few months of the year, then regrouped in March, wrote the album and went into the studio in April.
ME: You hadn't finished the album when you hit the road with Queensryche?
MP: While we were making this record, the suggestion of doing the Queensryche tour came up, and we figured we should jump on it because it's something the fans have wanted for a long, long time. The timing worked out, because we'd been in the studio April, May, and June, and had done all of the music. It actually worked out good that we took a six-week break to do that tour, because we needed that period to write the lyrics. Then, after the summer tour, we went back in, did the vocals and finished up the album. We wanted it out before the end of the year, because we already had the tour booked to begin in January. That was also conscious, because in 2002, the tour started in January and the album came out a week earlier, and it was too quick. This time around, we knew we wanted there to be a month or two for people to digest it before the tour began.
ME: "Train Of Thought" sounds massive without sounding overproduced. Was that a major concern going in?
MP: Sometimes, five instruments can be louder than twenty. When we made "Six Degrees", there were times when I was double-tracking the drums, and then there would be six to eight different keyboard sounds, three different vocal sounds and six different guitars. It was great for that album - we did a lot of experimenting in the studio - but that doesn't necessarily make for a "bigger" sound. In fact, sometimes it's real hard to get all those sounds squeezed into the mix. This time around, we didn't want to be speeding up the drums and running things backwards. Instead, we said, "Let's just make an album." If you listen to "Master Of Puppets" or "Number Of The Beast", it sounds like guitar, bass, drums and vocals. Basically, it sounds like a live band, and it sounds great. That was our focus - to capture a live sound and to make it sound as good as possible. Our last two albums were written in the studio through headphones, and we did a lot of composing on tape. We wrote this album in a rehearsal studio with the amps on eleven, and wrote them as a live band before translating them to tape. I think these songs are going to be amazing live.
ME: This is the third consecutive album that you and John Petrucci have co-produced. Do you ever worry that you're too close to the music to make objective decisions?
MP: Our whole career up to "Scenes From A Memory", we always had an outside producer, but to be brutally honest, I don't think any of them added anything to our records that we couldn't do ourselves. If anything, I think in a lot of cases, they detracted from it. As much as I love Kevin Shirley as a person and as a mixer, when he produced "Falling Into Infinity", he was chopping our songs up all over the place. It was a frustrating experience for us. When I listen to that album now, and I listen to "Take Away My Pain" or "You Not Me", those songs are completely different from what we envisioned when we wrote them. I feel like we're at a stage in our career - we've been together eighteen years now - that we shouldn't have to be put into a position where we have to edit or compromise our vision anymore. We've established ourselves and have that leverage now.
MP: We're not Bon Jovi. Bands like that who are shooting to have hit singles on the radio can use that objective ear, that outside ear. But a band like Dream Theater - which is so unique and different from everything else out there, and that's what makes us stand out - I think we know best what's going to work. We're not shooting to make five-minute hit singles - obviously, if you look at the lengths of the songs. We don't need anybody to come in and direct us in that direction. We're not interested.
ME: You referenced "Master Of Puppets" and "Number Of The Beast", which you covered whenever you played two nights in the same city. Will you continue to do that on subsequent tours?
MP: Yeah, that'll be a tradition. To me, that's so much fun. I have the next three [albums to cover] picked out for this year - I have one for the U.S., one for Europe, and one for Japan, so if we have two-night stands in any of those markets, those albums are ready to go.
ME: You covered Ozzy Osbourne's "Diary Of A Madman" during the Queensryche tour.
MP: That's what it's all about, we try to make the shows unpredictable. The first time we did "Master Of Puppets" in Barcelona, nobody saw that coming. After that, suddenly the word got out that we were going to cover classic albums, but that night in Barcelona was so special because nobody saw that coming. It completely hit everyone by surprise. Doing a different set list every night - mixing it up, throwing in an occasional cover or b-side - that's the stuff that keeps it interesting.
ME: Even though you circled the world in support of "Six Degrees", it seemed to be a less extensive touring cycle than in years past, when you'd revisit cities and play multiple legs. Are you scaling down your tours?
MP: Yeah. We want to be able to play every place headlining at least once, and then if we get to go through a second time, it's a bonus. For us, the ideal year on the road would be headlining our own "Evening With" show, and then the other half of the time, either co-headlining or even a support slot. For us, we want to be able to do different things and mix it up. We're getting older - we all have families, we all have kids - so we can't be road dogs like we were ten years ago. We can't go out and do a four-month leg in Europe and then go back a month later and do it all over again. We need to be as productive as possible with the time we have to tour and try to pace ourselves. We'll do a three to four week leg, come home for a couple weeks, and then do another three to four week leg. On the "Scenes" tour, we came to Europe and did four legs in Europe, and it was starting to get to the point where it's like, "Why do that so much? Let's try to just knock 'em out and give 'em the most we can." Even if we're only going to a place once, we're going to give them a three or three-and-a-half hour show and make it worth everyone's time and the money they're spending on a ticket.
ME: You're co-headlined in America for the past two summers, first with Joe Satriani and then with Queensryche. Who else would you like to tour with?
MP: We'd love to support Rush, and we'd love to support Metallica. But for some reason, our whole career has been based off headlining. We've never gotten those support slots we've always wanted. No one wants to take us out! To us, we would rather be in that [support] position than the co-headlining thing. Co-headlining is fun, but if we're going to be playing to an audience that's predominantly our fans, we'd rather give them a three-hour show than a 75-minute show. That being said, I think the last two summer packages were great bills, because there were also great third acts [King's X and Fates Warning, respectively] on each of those bills. I think it was worth it for the fans. I think both those packages were offering a lot of great music, and a lot of diverse music.
ME: As you said earlier, the Queensryche tour was years in the making. Looking back now, was it as good as expected, better than expected, or anticlimactic?
MP: I think we were all completely satisfied with the outcome in terms of what it gave the fans. I think we delivered to the fans what I think they had wanted to see all these years. Not only did they get to see all three bands, but us and Queensryche actually playing together at the finale of each show was something that was a lot of fun. But I don't feel like it really broke any new ground for us in terms of our career - we were actually taking a step backwards in terms of what we're used to with our own headlining show. That being said, we love touring America in the summer. It's the best place and the best time to tour.
ME: It's almost as if you've made the transition to "classic rock", where you can be a summer tour perennial without necessarily having a new album to support.
MP: It was great to be able to tour not off of a new record, and not have to stick to that material. The set lists were basically based on our career, and not necessarily off the newest record. It was also great for us to get a break from the studio. We probably wouldn't have breathed any fresh air throughout the summer of 2003 if it weren't for that tour.
ME: The summer tours have also allowed you to play bigger venues with larger crowds.
MP: I think that's been one of the biggest things for us with the last couple of tours, being able to prove ourselves to the promoters. So many promoters base their bookings on what's popular and what's on the radio, and we've really proven to the industry that we could play in these amphitheaters or headline on our own without anything on the radio or MTV or mainstream press. Whether or not we're a household name, we have the drawing power. I'm not crediting us for that, I'm crediting our fans. Our fans have made that possible for us. Our entire career is attributed to them, it's not attributed to the radio, MTV, or record companies. We have the greatest fan base in the world, and they make it possible for us to continue to grow like that.
ME: Speaking of MTV - which helped to make "Pull Me Under" a hit more than a decade ago - do you anticipate making videos again now that "Headbanger's Ball" is back and on the air?
MP: If it seems like there's a reason to do it and that we will get the play, we'll do it. We didn't do the "Pull Me Under" video until months after the release of the album. It wasn't until it was happening at radio that it dictated doing a video. It'll be the same here, because otherwise, it's a big waste of money and time for a band like ours. I would rather take that kind of budget and put it into a home DVD. I think that's a much better medium for a band like ours - something where the fans can actually have something in their hands to show for it, rather than something that's going to be shown on MTV once every week. If it warrants doing it, we're open to it. The last few years, we've kind of closed the door on that, but now that some of these programs are coming back, maybe the time would be right to consider doing one again.
ME: "Train Of Thought" features several thrilling guitar/keyboard duels. It's almost as if John and Jordan have been playing together their whole lives.
MP: They're sweating right now. Every time we make a new record - but especially this one - those guys are like, "Why the fuck are we doing this to ourselves?" It's one thing to play it once in the studio, but it's another thing to have to play it 150 times on tour.
ME: That leads to a bigger question - how do you guys come up with this stuff? Do you simply know your instruments that well, or do you spend hours crafting the most intricate parts possible?
MP: I think it's more of the first. We don't spend as much time as you may think we do composing the stuff. It comes to us pretty naturally. And those guys, when it comes to the guitar/keyboard interplay, they just play off each other completely fluidly.
ME: What's the significance of the album's title?
MP: It just seemed totally fitting, given the power and aggression of the music. It felt like a steamroller - like a train just running you over - and that is what Dream Theater has always been about. Our whole career has been based upon that. Most people get it, and those are the people that stay with us. But it's tough for us, because if you flip through the pages of "Metal Edge", we stick out like a sore thumb.
ME: But that's what makes Dream Theater special.
MP: Exactly. That's why our fans have stuck by us - because we're doing something that's different. We always want to be completely musically uncompromising, and to do things on our own terms, whether it be a twelve-minute song, or the way that we tour or present ourselves live. We want to be unique and different. As far as the sound goes, we always want to be heavy and progressive - the word progressive meaning trying lots of different things, experimental. I think we have a sound and a style that we've never abandoned. If you look at our entire catalog, we've always been progressive and heavy, and within that style, we can go a million different places. There's a lot of other bands that we grew up loving that have dramatically changed their sound and style, and we don't ever want to do that to the point where it's going to alienate the fans. We know what the fans expect and want from us, because I know what I always expected and wanted from the bands I love. I always hated when I would go see Rush and you knew they were always going to play "The Spirit Of Radio" and "Tom Sawyer" and "YYZ" at the end of the set. I don't ever want this band to be that predictable.
........