In a new interview with Sakis Fragos of Rock Hard Greece, DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy was asked why he wasn’t involved with the production of the band’s latest album, “Parasomnia”, after being credited as co-producer for the six prior DREAM THEATER LPs he appeared on, starting with 1999’s “Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory”. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Well, to be honest, it was one of the very first things that [DREAM THEATER guitarist] John Petrucci brought up to me when the two of us began discussing the possibility of me coming back [to DREAM THEATER in 2023]. There were a lot of things that happened while I was away that they wanted to remain intact, and that was one of the things that was very important to John, was to maintain the sole producer credit. And what can I say to that? Would I have liked to have reunited the production team the way it always was? Yeah, I would have. But the reality is when he brought that up to me, I needed to respect that.”
Portnoy continued: “When I left the band [in 2010], [John and I] were producing the albums together, and after that he began producing on his own. So, obviously, over the last five albums, that was the way that the band functioned. If that’s very important to him, then I need to respect that. I can’t just come back into the band and demand things to be the way they used to be. It’s impossible. We’re not the same people and things have transpired over a decade and a half at this point. So I needed to be respectful of his request for that. And that’s pretty much it in a nutshell.
“But to be honest, it didn’t dilute any of my ideas,” Portnoy explained. “All of my ideas were always welcome. And some of the things that I did suggest, like the conceptual, thematic stuff, a lot of that stuff falls under the category of producer, but if John wants the sole credit, that’s totally fine. All that meant for me is that I don’t have to be in the studio 24-7 babysitting the keyboard tracks or the bass tracks, and that’s fine with me. I live three hours away. So, I was more than happy to delegate that all to John and be able to get home and spend a little time with my family here and there.”
DREAM THEATER kicked off the North American leg of its 40th-anniversary tour on February 7 at The Met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The trek is “An Evening With Dream Theater” and is the first tour of North America since Portnoy‘s return to the lineup, joining Petrucci, singer James LaBrie, bassist John Myung and keyboardist Jordan Rudess. The tour will conclude on March 22 in New York City.
DREAM THEATER‘s sixteenth studio album, “Parasomnia”, came out on February 7, 2025 via InsideOut Music. The LP marks DREAM THEATER‘s first release with Portnoy since 2009’s “Black Clouds & Silver Linings”.
“Parasomnia” was produced by Petrucci, engineered by James “Jimmy T” Meslin, and mixed by Andy Sneap. Hugh Syme returns once again to lend his creative vision to the cover art.
Portnoy co-founded DREAM THEATER in 1985 with Petrucci and Myung. Mike played on 10 DREAM THEATER albums over a 20-year period, from 1989’s “When Dream And Day Unite” through 2009’s “Black Clouds & Silver Linings”, before exiting the group in 2010.
Mike Mangini joined DREAM THEATER in late 2010 through a widely publicized audition following the departure of Portnoy. Mangini beat out six other of the world’s top drummers — Marco Minnemann, Virgil Donati, Aquiles Priester, Thomas Lang, Peter Wildoer and Derek Roddy — for the gig, a three-day process that was filmed for a documentary-style reality show called “The Spirit Carries On”.
Source: blabbermouth.net
