John Petrucci: dream theater the life story...

News:
12-04-2009:

“Being a Dream Theater fan is a commitment, but I think that you get out of it what you put into it,” adds Portnoy, who oversees the archival official-bootleg and fan-club releases that the band regularly makes available to fans through the band’s YtseJam label. “Not everybody is willing to take the journey, but I think that if you’re willing to invest the time, it’s gonna be that much more fulfilling. And the reward for us is having these fans that have really stuck by us and helped to sustain us.”



Dream Theater’s restless creativity extends to their high-energy live shows, which have become more ambitious and diverse, as the band’s career has progressed. One distinctive aspect of Dream Theater’s concerts is their ever-changing set list, which Portnoy oversees to ensure that no two shows are alike.

The band’s fans have also enthusiastically supported a variety of adventurous side projects featuring Dream Theater members, including Liquid Tension Experiment, Explorers Club, MullMuzzler, OSI, Platypus, The Jelly Jam, Transatlantic and True Symphonic Rockestra. But it's Dream Theater that commands the lion’s share of the five musicians’ attentions, and their longstanding creative rapport has never been more riveting than on Black Clouds & Silver Linings.

“This album was made similarly to the way that our last five or six records were made,” says Portnoy, “which is that we move into a recording studio empty-handed, without writing anything individually or in advance. We write all the music in the studio and we record each song when it's completed. We’ve always made records by banging it out together in the same room, bouncing ideas off of each other. Not many bands work that way anymore, but we feel it’s very important to work together as a band, because you can’t replace that chemistry. You can’t make a Dream Theater record through the mail.”

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