When Dream Theater signed to Atco Records in the dawn of the '90s, it was the era of seven- or eight-album deals. Had the band known the Internet was about to transform the world, we bet it would have played severe hardball during contract negotiations—or it would have said screw it and taken the indie route.
Despite making its splash with 1992's "Images And Words" and delivering solid followup "Awake" in 1994, label support for the band slipped. From 1997's "Falling Into Infinity" on, records were released with little promo muscle behind them. It didn't help that Dream Theater was shifted among four different labels under Warner Music Group as the industry kept consolidating. The group hoped it would be released from its contract, but Warner was apparently satisfied with the financial return it got from a band it didn't have to invest much money in.
Some might have bad-mouthed their label at every turn to get even. But Dream Theater's sound tells you this quintet isn't remotely like everyone else. Instead, these cats dug in and toured. And toured and toured and toured some more.
Between spending a year at a time on the road and harnessing the Internet's growing power to keep contact with fans, Dream Theater did not merely survive—it thrived, building its audience, promoting its albums and supporting itself with touring and merch sales. By certain standards it's an underground band, but anyone who sells product for $80 a pop (anybody want a Dream Theater blanket?) is doing something right. Roadrunner Records agreed, and signed the band in January.
When it was announced a week later that Warner was buying Roadrunner for about $75 million, Dream Theater might have felt like it was tied to a musical mob it couldn't escape. But drummer Mike Portnoy and guitarist John Petrucci are too excited about the fresh team supporting "Systematic Chaos" to choke on the irony. And vindication was theirs when it debuted at No. 19 on The Billboard 200, Dream Theater's best entrance to the chart in its whole career.
The album's June 5 arrival brought more journey songs for prog heads to slather over. Get ready for "In The Presence Of The Enemies" to take up half an hour of your life, and if you don't have that much time, "Ministry Of Lost Souls" is merely 15 minutes. In the first of this two-part series, Petrucci discusses the album's promotion and the prep involved in playing new material on tour. Paris Hilton couldn't remember that her license was suspended, but this guy never forgets the hundreds of notes he performs during set lists that Dream Theater never plays twice.
To read our interview with Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, click here.
Blistering: When Atlantic absorbed Elektra, you weren't able to leave at that point; Warners still held you to that contract.
John Petrucci: Yeah. There were several changes, actually. When we first got signed it was Atco Records and then eventually changed to EastWest and then Elektra, and all are different. So many different people came and went; we had so many different A&R people, presidents and this and that, but the deal stuck, yeah. They renewed every single option we had. It was an eight-album deal.
Blistering: It seemed like they put out your record, and that's it. There wasn't any promotion.
Petrucci: Yeah. That was a big thing . . . we sort of felt like that we were a little too self-sufficient, that obviously we were doin' our job makin' the best records we can and putting 'em out. But then at that point, when it was time for the label to take over and promote, do their job, it wasn't really there. Hopefully, and it seems like so far, it will be different this time.
Blistering: What kind of things does Roadrunner have set up to promote you guys that's different or that you haven't had done for you in a while?
Petrucci: At this point, it's all promotion . . . promo tour, doing basically more for us than [has been] done in a long time. And they're promising us a presence worldwide . . . we play all over the world, and we need support out there. We play concerts, and nobody's there from the label . . . it's disheartening, so [that's one thing I'm] looking forward to.
Blistering: When is the last time you'd say you did this much press for a Dream Theater album?
Petrucci: Ah . . . That's actually a good question, you know. When we put out "Images And Words" and it did really well for us, there was a large presence by the label, and then the setup for the followup was great, but not much since then, really . . . there's always been some press and some setup, but this really seems to be the most. The other big thing is that we haven't done a music video in ages. [The band shot one for first single "Constant Motion."] I think 10 years or something like that. That's one of the first things that they did with us.
Blistering: There's also the special edition of the CD. Have you guys done anything like that in a while?
Petrucci: No, not really. We really haven't. That's another thing. Kind of offering more. I think it's really important to sort of keep up with the demand . . . People can get things so easily now, you need to constantly be offering things, and the fact that what's being offered on the special edition is kind of a making-of the album, and it's really spectacular. So I think fans are, they're really gettin' their money's worth on that . . . [and] the 5.1 mix as well.
Blistering: When it comes to writing lyrics, for this album the press materials say they are more fiction-based. Are your lyrics usually more based in reality?
Petrucci: The last couple of albums have been more based on reality, they're based on family and sort of personal reflections, but I've done both. "Scenes From A Memory" was an entire concept album that was a fictional story, and I've certainly written like that before. But this record, I almost wrote from, you know, it's fantasy. It's almost like anime and, you know, stories like that. I'll tell you, it was a lot of fun writing from that perspective, it really was. It kind of gave me a ton of freedom I enjoyed.
Blistering: Was there anything you were watching or reading or heard about that made you go in that direction?
Petrucci: Not particularly. I just wanted to write something different. I felt that the music was very animated and very dramatic, and that it was really, one of the key elements is that you have to create characters and tell stories in a short song context, not a full concept album, so it was a challenge. But I thought the music really called for that, the drama of the music.
Blistering: Since your songs are so long, how do you know when a song has hit its end?
Petrucci: Haaaaa. That's a good question. I don't know. It's hard to say. It just kind of naturally happens as we're constructing the song. Speaking about the longer ones, there will be some point in the song where we start to develop a plan as to how we're gonna get back, how we're gonna end it. The time it takes to get to that point might be different, but, you know, some of those longer songs start as very stream of consciousness and very improvised. But they eventually, the structure starts to develop and it kind of dictates how long the song's gonna be and when it's gonna end.
We know. We'll realize at some point, "Oh, what we have to do is go here, there and there, and then that theme that we played in the beginning, we'll do it in the end. It will be grand." And everyone's like, "Yeah, yeah, that sounds great."
Dream Theater: John Petrucci Feature Interview page 1 << you are here
When Dream Theater signed to Atco Records in the dawn of the '90s, it was the era of seven- or eight-album deals. Had the band known the Internet was about to transform the world, we bet it would have played severe hardball during contract negotiations—or it would have said screw it and taken the indie route.
