MIKE PORTNOY

Systemized chaos

- In early 80s you’d been playing in bands supposedly performing not particularly superfine heavy metal. According to different sources the beginnings of DREAM THEATER date back to ’85-’86. Do you remember what was before?
My first group was RISING POWER. It was a trio in which we were trying to play heavy metal taking pattern from PRIEST or AC/DC. We even released the album “Power For The People” in ’84. It is said to reach extremely high prices on Internet auctions. However, I can’t hear it being sober. And as I don’t drink at all for some time now because of my problems, I’m rather not likely to ever play it (laugh). Besides, we were looking like three short-haired gay buffoons (laugh). Then I switched to a heavier, almost thrash band INNER SANCTUM. I learned there a lot. This band also left only one album “12 A.M.”. It came out 2 years after RISING POWER debut but I was already engaged in the first efforts of DREAM THEATER then. The exact dates have become blurred a bit for me but the chronology of events isn’t that important. It’s crucial what was happening next…

- DREAM THEATER is a band having very solid line-up. The base is always you, John Petrucci and John Myung. The only personal reshuffle was a quick change of vocalist Charles Dominici who sang on „When Dream and Day Unite” to James LaBrie who is with you to date and two changes on keyboards. Kevin Moore, Derek Sherinian and currently Jordan Rudess… Is this a result of an exceptional chemistry between you or just it’s damn hard to find musicians who can cope with technical challenges of your music?
I think both theses are true. We’re all friends in the band, it’s an absolute basis of perfect communication in music. I’ve been playing with both Johns for more than 20 years. I love to make music with them and I don’t see any chances in DREAM THEATER for changes on these positions. The same is with James who is beloved by his fans and he perfectly filled the missing element of the puzzle. But you aren’t right that he’s a second DREAM THEATER’s vocalist, as we had Chris Collins in the band before Dominici. He left us a year or so before recording „When Dream…”. He chose an offer of a band which was closer to signing a deal. They were called Oblivion Night or Night of Oblivion. Certainly they didn’t do any career (laugh). The post of keyboard player in DREAM THEATER is a “hot chair”, alike bass player’s one in METALLICA (laugh). But I hope Jordan would be a member of the band till the end. He’s been playing with us for 8 years now and for sure he’s the least egocentric keyboard player I’ve ever met (laugh). I’m joking, Kevin and Derek are great people but Jordan matches the band best. He just can put playing FOR the band first over playing WITH the band. It’s a great difference (laugh).

- Your music CV is astounding. Several materials recorded with your first band and apart from this also some releases with TRANSATLANTIC, O.S.I., LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT – it’s an impressive career. As if it were not enough, you also worked with John Petrucci, Neal Mors, you played as a guest in FATES WARNING and even in OVERKILL! There’s fucking loads of it but such activity demands exceptional organization and self-discipline. Can you reconcile this all with each other?
As you can see I am doing well. You’re right, first of all it’s a matter of adjusting the time limits and diligence. The older and more experienced you are, the less time you need to play on a certain level. I’m a professional musician and I separate DREAM THEATER as my top priority from other projects and side-undertakings.

- Is it still possible to hire you as a session musician?
It depends on who’s asking and how much he pays (laugh). To tell the truth I still help my friends or musicians who I find challenging or enjoyable to play with. Once I helped on FATES WARNING’s tour and I did it on the cheap, as they are my best friends in this business. We meet in different projects. In O.S.I. I play with Jim Matheos and Joey Vera. Once we also made a material as JOHN ARCH (“A Twist of Fate” – a mini album released in 2003 by Metal Blade – Ł.D.). I was also playing in John Petrucci’s line-up when he was asked to play on a prestige tour G3. It was an amazing experience and I didn’t hesitate even for a while.

- Which of your projects we can still regard as active?
Usually projects are in a kind of suspension. You activate them for the time of recording an album or a possible tour. I wish there came into being more O.S.I.’s albums than the previous two. Cooperation with Kevin (Moore) is still fascinating. However, we have so tight schedules that our meetings more often than every 3 years are practically ruled out. This year there is to come out an album „Spontaneous Combustion” under label LIQUID TRIO EXPERIMENT. It’s an old session which differs from LIQUID TENSION with John Petrucci not participating in it, as his wife was an expectant mother in that time. The material was recorded by me, Jordan and Tony Levin from KING CRIMSON.

- With annual regularity for a couple of years now there have appeared concert interpretations of the most famous albums in the history of rock and metal in your version. There have come out official bootlegs of „Master Of Puppets”, „Dark Side Of The Moon”, „The Number Of The Beast” and this year „Made in Japan” released by John Myung’s label. The idea is really exciting. What do you have next in plans? Don’t you think that live performing of the whole album of another artist is a more difficult task than coping with your own compositions?
Definitely yes! It’s a damn hard work demanding many rehearsals but when you see your spellbound fans after hearing such a thing you know that it was worth it. We, as musicians, also derive lots of satisfaction from it. We haven’t decided yet when we’d do something like this again. We also haven’t chosen a next album. It has to be a completely spontaneous idea. We were always remaking other artists’ works when we were playing in the same place for 2 or 3 days in a row. Like in New York or Tokyo. We wanted to thank our fans in this way for a great reception and the fact that, all in all, they’d bought several thousands of tickets for our show. That’s how we came up with the idea. It turned out that our fans loved it and now they demand the continuation of this tradition. We find it harder and harder to please them (laugh).

- What do they ask you for most frequently?
It’s very different, the range of titles is immense. Very often they ask for „In The Court Of The Crimson King”. But don’t write that we’ll do it soon. I repeat, no decisions have been made yet. Now we’re focused on promoting „Systematic Chaos”.

Unfortunately in this moment DREAM THEATER’s tour manager glanced at me in such way that the end of our interview became obviously obvious.

CV:
Real Name: Michael Stephen Portnoy
Born: April 20, 1967
Occupation: musician
Instruments: drummer
Associated: DREAM THEATER, TRANSATLANTIC, OVERKILL, JOHN PETRUCCI, INNER SANCTUM, O.S.I., JOHN ARCH, LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT, LIQUID TRIO EXPERIMENT, NEAL MORSE