Dream Theater did greater than any band to show prog metallic right into a viable industrial pressure. When Metallic Hammer met up with them in 2009 to speak about their new album, Black Clouds & Silver Linings, that they had stepped as much as arena-headlining stage and had been able to push issues even additional – even when that report can be the final one drummer Mike Portnoy recorded with the band for 16 years.
After a second’s bafflement, an amused smile sparkles onto Mike Portnoy’s lips. Dream Theater have featured in Metallic Hammer typically earlier than, principally in retrospective-themed articles, however the drummer has simply realized that this interview is the primary to advertise a model new album.
“It’s about fuckin’ time!” he roars into the recorder, playfully exclaiming: “What the fuck took you guys so lengthy?”
On condition that the album involved, Black Clouds & Silver Linings, is the tenth of a profession that subsequent 12 months reaches the quarter-century mark, he might need some extent. However in stark distinction to the remainder of the world, the UK as a complete has solely simply begun taking part in catch-up with Dream Theater.
From 1993 onwards, regardless of report firm apathy and the vagaries of our fickle musical local weather, Britain by some means managed to retain a spot in Dream Theater’s tour itineraries. Although weaned upon the then nonetheless deeply retro sounds of such Seventies prog rock acts as Sure, Genesis and King Crimson, the band additionally efficiently wooed the stay audiences of Iron Maiden and Megadeth. Nonetheless, Dream Theater’s complicated genetic breakdown solely ever actually muddied the waters of notion.
Lastly capable of headline for 2 nights at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, profile-wise the band – accomplished by vocalist James LaBrie, guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, keyboard wizard Jordan Rudess – continued to fly beneath the radar of mainstream acceptance.
It’s solely because the likes of Opeth, Coheed And Cambria and The Mars Volta smashed down the prog-rock limitations, and having rid itself of a serious label deal to signal with Roadrunner Data for 2007’s Systematic Chaos album, that Dream Theater may summon a discernable development spurt. A spot at Obtain in 2007 marked the group’s first time on a British competition stage earlier than, driving the crest of a wave, returning to headline the capital’s Wembley Area 4 months later.
“Issues have moved quick for us within the UK these final couple of years,” agrees Mike. “With the earliest gigs on the Marquee, then the Astoria and the Discussion board, it was a case of taking child steps. It took us longer right here than wherever else on the planet, but it surely’s been a satisfying experience and I’d fairly take a sluggish street and arrive finally than a quick one and be gone inside a 12 months.”
After spending so lengthy shackled to East West Data and varied spin-off imprints that considered them as some form of inexplicably worthwhile white elephant, the band was glad to go away when the contract expired.
“We had been counting down the times,” smiles Mike. “We made seven albums for East West in 15 years, and so they opened quite a lot of doorways for us firstly but it surely wore off actual fast.”
That the band was compelled into collaborating with Bon Jovi/Aerosmith hitmaker Desmond Little one on the 1997 album Falling Into Infinity says all the things of the degrees of confusion concerned.
“That entire debacle was the ultimate straw, it made us put our foot down and demand that issues modified,” Mike sighs wearily. “To them, though we generated some huge cash, we had been only a identify on a roster. No one gave a shit about us and so they definitely by no means understood us.”
Consequently, Dream Theater absolutely appreciates the worth of Roadrunner’s care and a spotlight.
“May this be occurring to us within the UK had been we signed to another label? That’s an attention-grabbing query,” muses Mike. “Creatively we do what we do with no outdoors interference, however Roadrunner’s promotion and advertising has helped us to succeed in some youthful youngsters. They’re hands-down the very best metallic label on the market.
“We’ve toured with Deep Purple and Sure, and the identical followers that adopted these bands of their heydays nonetheless see them now, so their audiences have reached 50 and 60 years previous,” he provides. “However right here we’re nearly 25 years into our personal profession and we now not completely play to the identical followers that got here to our reveals within the Nineteen Nineties. Our viewers ranges from 12-year-olds to grey-haired prog-heads.”
This has a lot to do with Dream Theater’s triumphant spot on the Dimebag Darrell stage at Obtain 2007.
“After 21 years of ready, to generate such a buzz within the UK was intense – no pun on the phrase ‘tent’ meant,” he grins, referring to the truth that their efficiency befell underneath canvas. “It was a little bit of a cock-tease to lastly play Obtain and never be on the principle stage. However the truth that folks would hand over their spot to see [the day’s headliners] Iron Maiden was treasured to us.”
The truth that Dream Theater may headline Wembley Area and promote it out represented closing irrefutable proof of the band’s arrival on these shores. “It felt like a second of feat,” volunteers Mike. “An actual ‘fuck you’ to all of the doubters that by no means bought what we had been about and stated that we might solely final for a few albums.”
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Among the many basic causes for Dream Theater’s longevity is the group’s longstanding obsession with overkill – their live shows final for 3 hours and have prolonged drum, guitar and keyboard solos, whereas their conceptual releases are dismissed as indulgent. Sarcastically, in fact, the band are sometimes mocked for the very same causes that their followers love them.
“We do what we do!” says Mike throwing his arms within the air. “We persist with our weapons and demand that folks change for us, not the opposite manner round. And what? It’s beginning to occur. Not so way back the time period ‘progressive’ was a grimy phrase, now it’s cool. The brand new Mastodon album [Crack The Skye] is an ideal instance. Meshuggah, Software and The Mars Volta are all serving to the music scene in 2009 to evolve.”
In fact, this stuff all the time transfer in cycles and Mike owns as much as being perturbed by the considered the bubble bursting once more in 5 years, leaving us with extra long-faced bastards that can’t play their devices.
“It worries the hell out of me,” he frowns. “We’ve been outcasts for our entire profession. If what we do turns into some form of pattern, will we die with it? All I do know for positive is that prog hasn’t been this large because the Seventies, which may solely be a very good factor.”
As unapologetically epic and heroically overblown as something the band has tried previously, the brand new album, Black Clouds & Silver Linings, comprises simply six songs – 4 of that are greater than 12 minutes lengthy. There may be additionally a three-disc Collector’s Version Deluxe Boxed Set that unites six cowl songs (certainly one of which being a model of Iron Maiden’s To Tame A Land), one other disc of instrumental variations and a DVD of variable ‘stem mixes’ that may enable the followers to finetune and remix the best way the report sounds.
“We’re not mellowing with age, that’s for positive,” Mike smirks. “It’s an excessive album, by way of its metallic content material and total breakdown.”
The drummer is kind of proper. Within the rush to acclaim Dream Theater’s musicianship and sheer orgiastic love of going excessive, critics typically overlook their punishing ranges of depth.
“This can be a darkish, heavy and contemporary-sounding album,” nods Mike. “It will stand its floor alongside any trendy metallic launch – Slipknot, Trivium… whoever – however writing-wise the previous Dream Theater mentality nonetheless shines by means of.”
The earlier album’s introduction of growled vocals, courtesy of Mike himself, is one thing that has triggered heated debate.
“It did alienate a few of our extra conventional followers, but it surely’s just one facet of the puzzle,” he factors out. “James [LaBrie] is totally the correct singer for the band, however after we employed him [in 1991] the operatic model of a Geoff Tate [Queensrÿche] or Steve Perry [ex-Journey] was very a lot in demand. Within the right here and now, for us to be considered as a recent metallic band, the vocals must embrace that facet of the music.”
Any potted historical past of Dream Theater reminds us that James was given a ‘form up or ship out’ ultimatum earlier than 2002’s Six Levels Of Interior Turbulence album.
“James has improved his weaker factors, whether or not it’s the best way he sings or acts onstage,” insists Mike. “He’s extra involved about these issues than anybody else, however he has a fantastic vary and we definitely don’t wish to abandon the standard of his voice as a result of it’s change into a powerful trademark of ours.”
One other fascinating factor of the group’s previous few releases, from Six Levels Of Interior Turbulence onwards, is a group of soul-bearing songs composed by Mike about his former habit to alcohol that may sometime be carried out as a complete. Often known as the Twelve-Step Suite, it ends with the brand new report’s The Shattered Fortress.
“I don’t suppose anybody else has finished an idea piece that sprawls over 5 albums and 7 years, and I’m glad I did it,” enthuses Mike. “However I didn’t absolutely anticipate the quantity of labor it will entail. Submitting The Shattered Fortress to the band felt a bit like handing in a homework project to a trainer.”
There isn’t a hint of boastfulness when Mike casually states: “We’re the most important band of this entire [progressive-metal] style”. With minimal gross sales of half 1,000,000 copies for every of the group’s albums, it’s an inarguable truth. Inevitably, Dream Theater ended up overtaking sure bands that had predated and impressed them. Within the case of Queensrÿche, this didn’t go down too nicely. Again in 2006 when that band’s Geoff Tate voiced the opinion that, “We’re about writing songs and Dream Theater are about taking part in quite a lot of notes”, Mike uncharacteristically misplaced his rag, batting again with, “That’s as a result of they’ll’t play as many notes as us. And it’s ironic to listen to that from Geoff, who hasn’t written a very good tune in 10 years.”
Lastly, with Queensrÿche set to make an look of their house state of Washington in August as one-off particular visitors on the North American leg of Dream Theater’s Progressive Nation bundle tour (becoming a member of Zappa Performs Zappa, Ache Of Salvation and Beardfish), the feud appears set to finish.
“Geoff and I are very completely different personalities and we’ve seen one another a few occasions since our disagreement,” reveals Mike. “We’re not greatest buddies, however we’ve been cordial to one another.”
Right here in Europe, the Progressive Nation invoice is about to be accomplished by Opeth, Bigelf and Unexpect. Continental dates for September and October 2009 have already been introduced and Mike insists that the UK won’t be omitted.
The touring marriage of Dream Theater and Opeth solely picks on the scab of a long-threatened and distinctly mouth-watering collaboration between Mike, Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt and Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree. The drummer raises his eyes skywards when reminded of this truth.
“Stupidly, certainly one of us talked about it years in the past and it now crops up in each interview. Simply inform Mikael and Steven that I’m recreation,” he sums up. “If these guys can organise their schedules, I’m able to rock.”
Messrs Åkerfeldt and Wilson: the ball is now formally in your court docket.
Initially printed in Metallic Hammer challenge 193, June 2009