When Mike Portnoy rejoined Dream Theater in October 2023 after 13 years away, many had 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 am unable to sit right here and pat myself on the again and type of inform all of the issues I deliver to the band. I believe it is extra for the followers or the listener to type of give you that opinion,” Portnoy mentioned (through 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 type of give you that opinion. However I believe it is fairly well-known what I deliver to the band. It has been this fashion because the starting of the band 40 years in the past.”
As considered one of 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 thing that goes into being in a band,” he defined. “I am a really hands-on kind of individual, 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 blokes needed to type of determine how issues had been gonna get distributed amongst themselves. And nonetheless they determined that, that is the way in which they continued with out me,” Portnoy mentioned. “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 completely 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 thing and really protecting of every thing,” he admitted. “However now coming again, I must respect that they have been touring for all these years with out me and making data with out me, so that they have maybe other ways of doing issues. So, I needed to are available very respectful and type of tippy-toe my method round every space to see how a lot they needed from me.”
Whereas some points 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 possibly they needed to retain some management and possibly ask me to take a step again. So, it has been a studying course of over the previous yr 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 simple, 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 study extra, you learn 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 invaluable in shaping his method to collaboration. “And that is plenty of the stuff I realized all of the years exterior of Dream Theater. I did so many different bands and initiatives and albums, every considered one of which had a really completely different chemistry that I must adapt to. So I believe adapting to all these completely different conditions all through the years actually helped me to be extra of a crew participant than possibly I used to be the primary time round.”
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