Mike Portnoy - Dream Theater

Tuesday February 20 2009 (Hôtel Crowne Plaza - Paris)

C'est sur fond de manifestation bruyante dénonçant le génocide des Tamouls place de la République à Paris, que je me rendais à l'Hôtel Crowne Plaza pour y rencontrer un musicien hors pair, probablement un des meilleurs batteurs de l'histoire si on en croit ses nombreuses récompenses, pour qu'il nous parle de l'attendu nouvel album de Dream Theater, tant le précédent " Systematic Chaos " nous avait laissé sur notre faim, tout en étant évidemment de bonne facture.

(avec les Christophe d'Arc-en-ciel & de Métal Chroniques)

Chris (MC): What can you tell us about the recording conditions of the new album?
Mike Portnoy: We recorded it at the Avatar Studios in New York City which is where we did the last record, with the same engineer Paul Northfield and the same, really the same chemistry of the last album, me & John (Petrucci) producing…And we spent another six months there, and this is what came out.

Chris (MC): So you were pretty satisfied with taking the same team, the same environment?
Mike Portnoy: Yeah, right after doing "Systematic Chaos", I think we knew that we would do it the same way again, because we were very satisfied the last time.

Fab: First, congratulations for the new album, good production as always, and I really love the songs.
Mike Portnoy: Thank You.

Fab: I have a special question about your voice, your singing. I found that your voice is matching the songs better than ever on this album…
Mike Portnoy: (cutting) Euh, Thank You.

Fab : I would like to know how you made the choice of the songs you wanted to sing on, because your voice is stronger.
Mike Portnoy: Well, I guess I've been singing a lot since "Scenes from a memory", (and) starting on that album I sing on almost every songs, if not a lead part, at least a background part. I don't claim to have the greatest voice, you know, but I think the key to a good band's vocal delivery is kind of, the different qualities. You know, I think if you listen to Pink Floyd, you know, Roger Waters didn't have a great voice, but it has a quality, an emotion, a character. And I think, you know, my character just brings something different to the vocal presentation of the band. I think also I balanced James (Labrie) on the heavier songs, like if you have a really, heavy Metallica, Megadeth chunky riff, James has a very clean operatic voice, and when he tries to get really heavy, I don't think it sounds convincing. Whereas me I have a very natural lower voice, you know, the whole metal aggressive thing is a little bit more naturally my style. So I think it balances out. For instance, there's a section in "A Nightmare To Remember" (first track of the new album), like 13 minutes in, where, we started with James' vocals in there, and I thought it just took away from the drive and the heaviness of what was there musically. And I pictured like a real "roar" (Mike then gives us a tremendous roar), you know, like in Opeth (general laughter). And I even done a version with my voice like that, and (but) that was too much for the other guys to handle, but we…so I kinda changed it and did more of a Machine Head approach instead and, you know, that's what we do in experimenting… a lot of people think it's me pushing myself onto James, but that's not the case.

There's a lot of times where James would say: "Mike, why wouldn't want you do this? It's not really good for my voice. I think your voice would be good there". So, maybe the fans don't realize it, but a lot of times James will encourage it. You know, and I think it's part of that blend that is important. The other side of the singing, here I mean I'm only talking about the aggressive side, but there's also the melodic side and the harmonic side. I think this album has a lot of three-part harmonies between me, John & James.

(On) "A Nightmare To Remember", and " The Count Of Tuscany" , "A Rite Of Passage" there's a bunch of three-part harmonies, which I think add a whole new level to the music. I mean, I've always loved Queen or Yes, and The Beatles, bands that have that kind of quality.

Chris (AEC) : It is the fifth album you've produced yourselves. In the future, will you work with a producer, like Kevin Shirley for example?
Mike Portnoy: I hope not! (laughter). I mean, I know, I also see a lot of fans saying "oh, they could use an outside producer". I mean, (seems exasperated) I'm not blind, I read the message boards, I know, people say we could probably benefit (…from an outside producer)… As far as I am concerned, every time we worked with an outside producer, it's almost broken up the band. It's been a completely miserable experience having somebody come in, and tear apart your music and tell you what to do. We're just not that type of band. If we were Bon Jovi, and we needed somebody to shape our songs, to sound like a certain thing, then great! But, who's gonna tell us how to write a fifteen minutes song? We know what we wanna do, and every time we worked with an outside producer in the past, it's almost broken the band up. So, why on earth would we possibly want to do that again?

That being said, I never say never, maybe it's possible in the future, but right now, we have no interest in it. And that also being said, I think we do utilize outside ears with different engineers and mixers. Me & John aren't engineering and mixing the record. We still work with somebody like Paul Northfield, or Doug Oberkircher to engineer, or Paul Northfield or Mickael Brauer or Kevin Shirley to mix. So I think we still are getting that outside ear and expertise, but at the end of the day, we're still calling the shots and having control of our music.

Christophe MC: On the album you have some negative or pessimistic songs. I think in an interview Jordan (Rudess) mentioned the word "Gothic"…
Mike Portnoy: (cutting) Argh! This has been haunting me all week! He said that word once somewhere, and I haven't heard the end of it!! (general laughter).

Christophe MC : So, what's your opinion about that? And as an artist, do you find more creativity in these difficult themes as pain, death, negative feelings opposed to positive feelings?
Mike Portnoy: Well I've always written lyrics about tough subjects, things that make me angry, you know it's almost like therapy to write about these things. Maybe that's just because I'm more of an emotional lyric kind of guy, I mean there's always lyricists like Roger Waters, or Fish from Marillion…(it's) been that kind of lyrics that I relate to. So that's always been the way I write.

Christophe MC: Are you not pessimistic yourself?
Mike Portnoy: I don't know. A little bit of both. Some of my lyrics can be very jaded, and angry, you know. Other times I could be optimistic and happy. I mean, it's hard to believe that I am the same person that wrote "Honor Thy Father" (ndlr: from the album "Train Of Thoughts") and also wrote "The best of times" (from the upcoming album), you know?

One relationship with one father (Mike's birth father), and one relationship with the other father (Mike's step-father). So I'm capable of both sides, but I think I usually vent better when it's something that upsets me. But I think something like "The best of times" or even like "Goodnight Kiss" (from "Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence") from many years ago, is a soft sentimental side as well. But as far as optimism, I mean, that's what the album title is, you know, "Black Clouds and Silver Linings"? That means a negative situation, but you can get something positive out of it, you know, you could look at the glasses half-empty or half-full.

Fab: Congratulations for the nice cover artwork. There's, as always, a lot of symbols, innuendos on the Dream Theater covers, which are often related to the lyrics. So it is again true? And how do you work with the person who's in charge of the cover art? It is yourself who said "I want this" or…?
Mike Portnoy: Yeah. It's me and Hugh Syme spending a lot of time together. He and I have developed a great working relationship together, he has an awesome imagination. And he's been doing this for a long time so essentially, what happens is that I give him the album title, the song titles and the lyrics, and let his imagination come up with some different ideas. And then he and I would start talking about it and discussing it and shaping it. For instance, this album cover started as something completely different: Originally, the really first thing he gave me was just a simple black in the center, and then silver all the way around it. Like a piece of art. He said he wanted to try something simplistic, more minimalistic, he's done that sort of things with Rush a few times like maybe "Hold Your Fire", whatever. And, as much as I thought it was a cool idea, I thought it just didn't capture the epic nature of the songs on this album. So, he was fine with that, and we went back to the drawing board and we started, we went through at least, 8 or 9 different drafts and, cover ideas before we started developing this one. And this one I think is great, because it feels a bit like the old covers of "Images & Words", "Awake" and "A Change Of Seasons" where you have different elements in the cover (directly related to the lyrics). But that wasn't by design, because I bet that Hugh Syme probably never even saw those covers, I bet. I think this was probably just from discussions of, you know, we were doing different illustrations to go with the lyrics in the booklet which you'll see (ndlr: release date June 22nd). And then, all of these elements are in the booklet, and the idea came to just like, bring them all together onto the cover.

Fab: Ok, but he doesn't listen to your music first.
Mike Portnoy: Not usually. In the case of this record, we were still making it when he and I were working on the cover. So actually the cover was done, we were still recording vocals, and we had the cover sitting in the, you know, control room. As long as he has the lyrics, he mainly works off the lyrics, not the music.

Chris (AEC) : In concert, you cover a complete album: Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Iron Maiden. Who's next?
Mike Portnoy: Hum, who's next? Here you go! (showing Christophe MC as we had a running order for the questions) (laughter). Good idea. I have a few bands and albums that would be perfect when the opportunity arises, but right now, there's no opportunities: We have to do two nights in the same city, in order to justify…

Fab: (whispering) Paris! Paris!
(general laughter)
Mike Portnoy: …as of now, we're just doing the zenith (ndlr: le 4 octobre) one night, and that's it, but hopefully someday soon, I hope, because I do have some fun ideas.

Christophe MC : Over the years, you've developed a great experience of direct sell via your website " Ytsejam ". Other bands are following that direction, like Marillion for instance, who gave their new album only 6 months after its release. Do you think going into that direction? Do you really still need a record label? Do you think it's the future of the music business?
Mike Portnoy: I think it might been the future of the music business because major labels are all holding, thank god! (laughter) it's about time! Well, I wouldn't wish that upon Roadrunner because (record) labels like Roadrunner or Inside Out really do genuinely care about the artists and the music, I do believe that. And before, you know, when our contract with Warner finally was over, we talked about it: should we do this ourselves? or do we wanna sign with another record company? We considered it (doing it themselves) and in the end, I think Dream Theater still needs a bigger force to be able to get the records out, the cd's out, and put them into stores, and promote it, doing marketing, I mean, you know. It's one thing for us to have Ytsejam Records where it's just basically mail order, but I think the promotion of a record needs much more. It's why I'm sitting here with you guys. If we were to record it ourselves, releasing it ourselves, I wouldn't be here doing a press tour and that's why you need a label for certain elements of marketing and promotion.
That being said, I think the industry is changing and it's going to require new ways of thinking and I desperately try to talk Roadrunner into releasing this immediately via download. I actually had a meeting with everybody from Roadrunner all the way from the president, the vice-president, all the head-executives.

My idea was to, kind of what Radiohead did. But the record company can still…you know, people (could) still buy it through Itunes rather than finishing the record and waiting 3 months before it's available. Making it available immediately so you can beat the leak, and you don't have to worry about it leaking. And if it was up to me, right now, the record would be available from download, right now. But the physical release will still be in stores in June, and we still could do these interviews and the promotion to sell up the physical release which will still have special editions to make people want to buy it in the stores. But, offer the album itself available immediately to beat the leaks, and give the fans what they want. And not that that was my intention, but also the reality is the fans would probably buy it twice: they would buy it now, and they'd buy it again to have the special edition. Not that that was my intention, but when I pitch the record company, I tried to convince them of this, and they loved the idea and think that it will eventually come to that, but I think they were scared to take the risk and burn the bridges of retailers by putting it out now. So, I tried, and I think it's only a matter of time until it gets to that point anyway.

Fab: It's your tenth album and it's always a benchmark in a rock band career. How do you analyze this? Is it a pride you wanna share?
Mike Portnoy: You know, we haven't really thought about it. The whole time we were making the record, I don't think anybody even said "Hey! This is our tenth album!", I don't think it ever came up. It's just the next album for us, but it's kind of interesting if you're looking Yes and Rush and Pink Floyd and The Beatles, …no, they probably never have ten albums. But it's interesting to look at where they were in these bands tenth album, I'll be curious to look at that myself. It kind of gauge where we're at, in terms of our growth. But it's no more of a milestone than the ninth album, or the fourth album or the thirteenth album. This is where we are today.

Fab: But you don't feel especially proud of this accomplishment?
Mike Portnoy: Oh, I absolutely feel pride, I feel pride with everything we do. You know, I felt that when we did the twentieth anniversary tour a few years ago. There was a certain feeling of like, accomplishment and history. We still feel that, and with each album, it grows more and more and more, you know?

Christophe AEC: Actually, do you have new side-projects with other musicians?
Mike Portnoy: Nothing new. But, I mean, Liquid Tension Experiment reunited last year to do some live shows, and there's a live set coming out from that. And we've reunited with Transatlantic earlier this month, and that was a great, great experience. So that'll be coming soon, but there's nothing, no new collaborations.

Christophe MC: After 25 years of career, do you experience nowadays the kind of life you may have dreamed about when you were in '95 at Berkeley?
Mike Portnoy: Oh yeah. '85 at Berkeley. Absolutely, we're living the lives and the careers that we've always dreamed of. I mean, you know, if you ever told me, back in 1985 that we'll be touring with Yes and Megadeth and Queensrÿche, and Iron Maiden, you know, and that I would be making album with Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan, it's all been an amazing dream to win the awards that I won (ndlr: au moins 23 récompenses individuelles majeures, plus le fait d'être rentré au fameux Hall Of Fame en 2004, le plus jeune de l'histoire…), the accomplishment in the drum community, it's really, I don't think I could written a better storyline, you know? It's really everything I could have possibly wanted, it's been a "dream" career, no pun intended (laughter).

Fab: Concerning the upcoming tour, will you have a special new drumkit in mind? The Siamese monster, etc… A new punching ball maybe?(laughter)
Mike Portnoy: (laughter). Yeah. I think when we'll come through on the festival run, I'll still have my other set-up. Maybe with some new drums, but my other set-up. But then once we come through as our own (tour) with Progressive Nation by then, I have a new set-up planned. So, it's still in development.

Christophe AEC: What new bands are you listening to?
Mike Portnoy: There's so many… I've always loved new bands. My favourite new band at the moment is one of the bands I'm taking on tour with us, Bigelf. My favourite album of the year, I love this band. They're everything, all my favourite bands wrapped in one. And as soon as I heard their last album, I was just blown away and had to take them on tour, to share them with our fans.

Christophe MC: Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think that "Images & Words" is still your best selling record in the U.S., is that not a frustration for you? You evolve, you released new great albums, but there's no progression on the selling boards.
Mike Portnoy: It doesn't pressurize me. To be honest with you, I really don't care about the numbers. It's not about the numbers, it's about the quality of the music. And, we've grown in every respect since then: musically, personally, you know, the concert sales, the ticket sales, just the amount of respect we've got from other bands, and people in the industry. It's not about numbers, and the numbers are going down regardless, you know, album sales, so, it may freak the companies out or even freak our manager out, I don't know, but I don't really give a shit. Like I said before, I couldn't be happier.

Fab: I can't wait to receive the Liquid Tension Experiment Box Set (mentioned earlier) from your website. I guess it'd be released in June.
Mike Portnoy: Euh, Yeah! (seems surprised)..

- Malheureusement, on nous fait savoir que le moment est déjà venu pour la dernière question…-

Fab: What was your feeling compiling all this good stuff?
Mike Portnoy: Those shows we did were really special, it was great to play that music again. I think I've already wrote this online but, I mean, originally I was gonna just put different songs from different shows together for one release. But the tapes were so special, and I think the shows were so special that I decided to just, let's put out two complete shows on cd and dvd. I think it's a great souvenir for the people, especially here in Europe, that couldn't come to those shows. So, it was a lot of fun and I hope we could do it again someday.