When Mike Portnoy rejoined Dream Theater in October 2023 after 13 years away, many have been questioning how his return would form the band’s current dynamic. In a brand new interview with Japanese music critic and radio character Masa Ito on TVK’s Rock Metropolis, the legendary drummer mirrored on what he brings to the group and the way he is tailored to the modifications that occurred throughout his absence.
“It’s not actually for me to say. I can not sit right here and pat myself on the again and sort of inform all of the issues I convey to the band. I believe it is extra for the followers or the listener to sort of provide you with that opinion,” Portnoy stated (by way of Blabbermouth), when requested about what he thinks he has added to the band after his return. “I believe it is extra for the followers or the listener to sort of provide you with that opinion. However I believe it is fairly well-known what I convey to the band. It has been this fashion because the starting of the band 40 years in the past.”
As one among Dream Theater’s founding members, Portnoy was at all times deeply concerned in additional than simply drumming. “I used to be at all times contributing in each space — not simply the drums, however collaborating on the music and the lyrics and the melodies and the manufacturing and the merchandise and the fan membership and every little thing that goes into being in a band,” he defined. “I am a really hands-on sort of particular person, so for the primary 25 years of the band, I oversaw all of that stuff.”
His departure in 2010 pressured the remaining members to redistribute tasks. “After which after I left the band, the fellows needed to sort of work out how issues have been gonna get distributed amongst themselves. And nevertheless they determined that, that is the best way they continued with out me,” Portnoy stated. “And now coming again within the band, I’ve needed to be very, very respectful of what they have been doing all of the years with out me. It is a very totally different group than after I left in 2010.”
Adapting to the band’s new construction required a shift in his method. “Once I left in 2010, I used to be a management freak and overseeing every little thing and really protecting of every little thing,” he admitted. “However now coming again, I have to respect that they have been touring for all these years with out me and making information with out me, so that they have maybe other ways of doing issues. So, I needed to are available in very respectful and sort of tippy-toe my method round every space to see how a lot they wished from me.”
Whereas some facets of the band’s operations have been handed again to him, others stay unchanged. “There are some areas the place they put full management again into my lap. There are different areas that perhaps they wished to retain some management and perhaps ask me to take a step again. So, it has been a studying course of over the previous 12 months or so, how the brand new chemistry was going to operate.”
Regardless of these changes, Portnoy describes the reunion as clean. “And it has been very straightforward, I believe. We’re all older and wiser at this stage of our lives. Once I left the band in 2010, I used to be in my early 40s. Now I am in my late 50s. And I believe as you grow old and you’ve got extra life experiences, you be taught extra, you discover ways to behave in a extra mutually useful method and attempt to be respectful of different folks’s opinions and concepts.”
His years away from Dream Theater proved beneficial in shaping his method to collaboration. “And that is plenty of the stuff I discovered all of the years exterior of Dream Theater. I did so many different bands and initiatives and albums, every one among which had a really totally different chemistry that I must adapt to. So I believe adapting to all these totally different conditions all through the years actually helped me to be extra of a group participant than perhaps I used to be the primary time round.”
Enter your info beneath to get a every day replace with all of our headlines and obtain The Orchard Steel publication.
