Drummer Mike Portnoy Goes in Detail About Reuniting With DREAM THEATER & Talks New Album

The Metal Voice

6 minutes ago

Canada's The Metal Voice recently spoke to Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy about reuniting with band and the bands new album Parasomnia, which was released on Century media Feb 7, 2025

Watch Full Interview here

When asked about singer James Labrie's health (as the had to cancel a show)

"He's okay, we're in Biloxi (Mississippi) today and it looks like the show will go on. So he is doing much better. He really was in bad shape yesterday and couldn't even speak so unfortunately we had a situation where we had to pull the plug on the show which you know I don't know if that's ever even happened with us. Sometimes these things happen. You know a singer's instrument is their voice and sometimes if you're really sick, I mean he literally couldn't even speak, so it was it was rough but the show will go on today in Biloxi."

When asked now that he is back in Dream Theater does he have less responsibilities, overall

"Well things are delegated a lot more now than they were in my first round. Back before 2010 I was pretty much overseeing like everything and after a while it started to become a little overwhelming. Once I left obviously the bands divided up the responsibilities and delegated things. And now coming back it just took a little time to figure out who was going to do what. I think we got a real good system (now) and everybody's a lot more involved than when I used to be back in my first time around. So it's definitely more of a you know a band dynamic in that sense."

When asked what was the specific moment where he knew he wanted to be back in Dream Theater

"There wasn't a specific moment, it was a culmination of a lot of smaller moments. I had reconnected with all the guys on a personal level so we were all in very good places personally. Then I had been connecting on a musical level with John Petrucci for his solo album and tour and then along with John (Petrucci) and Jordan (Rudess) together to do a third Liquid Tension Experiment album. So all these little kinds of baby steps kind of led the way and uh ultimately um here we are."

When asked if their absence as the classic line-up made the heart grow fonder

"Absence does make the heart grow fonder there's no question about it. I think the time away we really learned to appreciate how special this chemistry of this lineup is. We now feel it now making the new album and now being on tour celebrating the band's 40th anniversary. So this lineup is really like the classic lineup. We made so many memories through the years together with this lineup and so much music but yeah we all are so happy to be back together again."

When asked how he feels about performing live the songs he was not on, like Barstool Warrior (Mangini era)

"It was important to me, believe it or not. I'm the one that writes the set list and these guys gave me full on freedom when it came to the Mangini era material. I knew it had to be represented, you can't just brush away five albums from these guys career because I'm back. It would have been pretty selfish and disrespectful. It wasn't even considered to not be playing that material. Like I said they gave me the freedom to pick and choose songs that I could relate to and be comfortable with. When you come see the live show it sits right in the middle of the set very comfortably with everything else that is part of my catalog. "

When asked about a slight nod to Rush on the new album Parasomnia

"There's always Rush in every song Dream Theater has ever written throughout our entire career dating Back 40 years ago to the very first Majesty demos. Rush has always been our biggest collective influence. so yeah there's no question that that stuff comes through. I mean there's some riffs in The Shadow Man Incident that sound like it could have been off a Hemisphere or Permanent Waves and Night Terror has got a whole big kind of 7/8 section which is very Natural Science, so yeah I mean that stuff inevitably comes through no matter what."