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 present dynamic. In a brand new interview with Japanese music critic and radio persona 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 adjustments 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 deliver to the band. I feel it is extra for the followers or the listener to sort of give you that opinion,” Portnoy stated (through Blabbermouth), when requested about what he thinks he has added to the band after his return. “I feel it is extra for the followers or the listener to sort of give you that opinion. However I feel it is fairly well-known what I deliver to the band. It has been this manner because the starting of the band 40 years in the past.”
As one among Dream Theater’s founding members, Portnoy was all the time deeply concerned in additional than simply drumming. “I used to be all the time 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 part 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 compelled the remaining members to redistribute obligations. “After which after I left the band, the blokes needed to sort of determine how issues have been gonna get distributed amongst themselves. And nonetheless 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 completely different group than after I left in 2010.”
Adapting to the band’s new construction required a shift in his strategy. “Once I left in 2010, I used to be a management freak and overseeing every part and really protecting of every part,” he admitted. “However now coming again, I have to 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 in very respectful and sort of tippy-toe my method round every space to see how a lot they needed from me.”
Whereas some features 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 easy. “And it has been very simple, I feel. 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 feel as you become old and you’ve got extra life experiences, you study extra, you learn to behave in a extra mutually helpful method and attempt to be respectful of different folks’s opinions and concepts.”
His years away from Dream Theater proved beneficial in shaping his strategy to collaboration. “And that is lots of the stuff I discovered all of the years outdoors of Dream Theater. I did so many different bands and initiatives and albums, every one among which had a really completely different chemistry that I must adapt to. So I feel adapting to all these completely different conditions all through the years actually helped me to be extra of a staff participant than possibly I used to be the primary time round.”
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