In an age when music is often constructed with sequences, loops, and samples, Dream Theater stands apart. For more than a decade at the forefront of the progressive-metal scene, Dream Theater has pushed the limits and preserved the creative spirit of a genre built on intricate technical musicianship. Based in New York, the members of the quintet (guitarist John Petrucci, drummer Mike Portnoy, keyboardist Jordan Rudess, bassist John Myung, and singer James LaBrie) are like fine-tuned musical athletes, tackling complex material night after night and making no apology for their prodigious chops. Their music isn't all about technique, however; their strength lies in the way they use those chops to create lyrical and often sensitive music. Dream Theater has the willingness and good taste to forgo flash for substance. The manner in which they combine the aesthetic and the athletic makes them more than a prog-rock preservation society.
Their fall 2001 release, Live Scenes from New York (a live version of their 1999 concept album, Scenes from a Memory), highlights a band peaking at the end of a tour. According to Portnoy, it also documents the long musical journey taken to bring a highly orchestrated studio album to the stage. “What you hear in Live Scenes from New York is a whole year into the tour, so by the time we recorded it, we were very comfortable with it live,” Portnoy says. “But earlier in the tour, it was a bit of a challenge on two levels. One, because it was a concept album, and we wanted to use video and things like that to make sure we were telling the story properly, both musically and lyrically. Also, playing a 90-minute concept album every night was a challenge. By the end of the tour, I collapsed.”
Nevertheless, Dream Theater must enjoy a challenge, because they're set to do it again. The band's next project is another concept album, the double-CD Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (the title track alone clocks in at more than 40 minutes). The band plans another world tour to support it.
The members share a disciplined work ethic that makes it possible to tackle such a daunting task. “Everybody comes into rehearsal knowing all the parts and knowing all the music, so rehearsal is more of a run-through,” Rudess says. “We've done our record; everyone has a grasp of what it is we played. We know what's important to pull off live, and we've got one week to do that before we go out. [So] let's just come in prepared and make it happen.”
The members have their work cut out for them. “We're not the type of band that likes to rehearse any more than we have to. So before a tour, we have about a week to learn and rehearse the music, which means that we're pretty rusty the first couple of shows,” Portnoy admits. “But another aspect of it is the sound. It's very important that the front-of-house soundperson is in tune with the music and understands our different cues. Then there's the lighting director, and we also have video in our shows.”
When Onstage spoke with Portnoy, Petrucci, and Rudess, the band had just finished mixing Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence and were taking a break before tuning up to hit the stage.
Your records are often very complex and heavily orchestrated. How much consideration do you give to live performance as you're writing?
Mike Portnoy: The two albums that Jordan has done with us were written in the studio. Prior to that, we worked out the music ahead of time in a rehearsal studio, playing the songs down from start to finish. We had a very “live” arrangement. By the time we got into the studio, the stuff was well rehearsed and demoed and pretty much ready to go live, because we were practicing it live. Now we're writing as we're going, so in some cases, we're not even writing a song completely from start to finish before we roll tape. On the new album, we have this 42-minute track, and we wrote and recorded it in pieces. A lot of Scenes from a Memory was done that way, too.
Let's take that process in steps. How does the composition start to develop into an arrangement?
Jordan Rudess: The core of our music is always based on the instrumental ideas. We're all there, we're all making noise, and somebody will get the seed of an idea that he likes. If I write something, it's usually fuller sounding with bass and chords. John comes up with a riff or maybe a chord idea. Mike is like the concept master. He's assimilating all these riffs in his head and putting them together as we go and determining, “Oh, that riff should happen here, and why don't you go back to that one?” We give him, like, five notes, and he has an arrangement in his head. [Laughs.]
How concerned are you with sound and orchestration at this point?
Rudess: In the studio, I spend a lot of time searching for sounds and then custom-shaping them for particular parts. Fortunately, I have a large sound library. I mostly use Kurzweil equipment — a fully loaded K2600 and a few racks all loaded with 128 MB of RAM. If I can't find the sound that I need, I'll make one up from scratch.
Any specific techniques for making an otherwise typical synth sound more expressive live?
Rudess: I use a lot of controllers to spice up sounds. I might take a choir sample and use an algorithm that has distortion and a shaper [effect] and assign those elements to various controllers. Or I might assign the distortion to my slider and the shaper to my mod wheel. And as I'm playing, I can move those in real time to express the part. On “The Great Debate,” I used the mod wheel to grunge out a choir.
How close to the record does the live performance need to be?
Portnoy: Sonically, it's very important to reproduce it as closely as possible. However, compositionally, I prefer to stray as much as possible. One of the great things about a live performance is to see a band improvise — it's kind of pointless to hear a band play exactly what's on the record. I've always appreciated bands like Led Zeppelin or Phish that are spontaneous onstage, and I try to incorporate that into our setlist as much as possible. At the same time, our music is very orchestrated and deliberate, so it's hard to stray from that too much — we're not a jam band like Phish, and there are moments when we really have to follow a structure. But segues and medleys are good opportunities for as many changes as possible.
What's the biggest challenge in terms of getting the album down for performance?
Petrucci: To me, there are two difficult parts. One is physically being able to play the stuff — having the stamina, because sometimes we record things in pieces in the studio and overdub in sections, and you do things that are beyond your ability. But there comes a time when you're going to have to perform it as a single piece. So there's that physical conditioning and practicing the parts. Then there's the challenge of playing that part in a live environment, when you're changing patches as you're playing, you're communicating with the audience, and the lights are going off, and everything else.
Portnoy: I do a lot of drum overdubbing. It's a cool opportunity that a lot of drummers don't take advantage of in the studio. I sometimes have different drum parts going at the same time, sometimes even played on two different kits. That's something I started on Falling into Infinity in 1997. I set up two drum sets side by side — a big monster “Mike Portnoy” setup and a small Ringo or John Bonham — type kit. If it was an over-the-top progressive epic, I used my big kit; but if it was more simplistic or laid-back, I used the smaller kit. I sometimes experimented with having two different things going on at once or sometimes experimented with using the small kit for the verses and the big kit for the chorus. And I've carried that over to every album since. On a simpler song, I don't want to be taking a Neil Peart approach when the arrangement calls more for a Ringo or Nick Mason or John Bonham approach. I do percussion overdubs on every song on all of our albums — shaker and tambourine and stuff like that. Live, our singer does that stuff to compensate for it.
When a recording has so many layers, it must be tough to decide which ones to include in the live show.
Rudess: Part of what I do when its time to play live is listen to the CD and figure out which parts are actually being heard (in the final mix). I might have played French horns, three trombones, a clarinet, a string part, and a female vocalist singing “ahh,” but you don't hear all that, so that makes my decision very easy. Even though I know that all that stuff was there, the audience never knew; I can decide whether to use all those instruments and see if it comes across live as a cool thing or whether to just play the sound that they hear [on the CD]. I don't mind making the live thing different from the studio thing as long as it doesn't take away from anybody's very, very strong expectations.
Petrucci: If I did a lot of layering, I'll figure out some sort of conglomerate part to play that will cover both the parts, or I will see if there's some way to adapt the part so that it will sound like two parts. Sometimes I just have to see what's the most important line in what I played.
John, how do you combine two parts that rely on completely different tones?
Petrucci: First, I have to pick the part. Sometimes it's obvious — it's just a rhythm part, and that's what it is. Other times there might be two parts — maybe an acoustic and then something else — and I have to figure out which is the more important and which is the more supportive. And sometimes it's designing a sound that will simulate two parts or getting together with Jordan and seeing if he can cover one of my other parts, if he's not doing something that's too busy. And sometimes I use an effect, like a harmonizer to add harmonies, whereas on the album, I'd play each of the harmony parts separately. Here's an example. On “Blind Faith,” I recorded most of the song using a baritone guitar and some with a regular six-string. The baritone is pretty much the sound of that song, but I can't play the entire thing on that guitar. So I have a double neck in the works from Ernie Ball that's going to be a baritone and a six-string guitar.
Nightly changes in your monitoring environment must impact your perception of your tone.
Petrucci: Actually, in my case, it doesn't — my monitors are split from my main rig into a separate Mesa/Boogie setup, which never changes. And now, we've just moved up to the Ultimate Ears in-ear system, which I tried on the G3 tour and loved, so it's going to be even more consistent.
How do you begin preparing for the tour?
Petrucci: To start, I just work through the parts and try to memorize them and get the technique under my fingers, because a lot of times I'll record things that I can't really play — they're right up on the edge of my ability — so I'll have to work it up in order to perform it live. And then I'll take notes as to which sounds I'll need. I'll make a list of the songs on the computer and note which patches I'll need, like “dry rhythm,” “solo sound with delay,” “harmony up a fifth” — whatever I need. I'm picturing the sound and also remembering how I recorded it — like if I know I recorded the sound with a phaser and delay, I'll make a note.
How much of the preparation process involves re-creating the sounds you used on the CD?
Rudess: That's one of the bigger challenges: when we're in the studio, I'm just kind of getting ideas — I'll say, “Okay, this should be a cello part,” and then put an electronic texture on top and maybe a bit of a boy's choir sound, as well. And I'll play them all as separate passes. But I don't have that luxury when we play a live gig. And I've never been one to use a lot of sequencing onstage. I'm going to be spending the next couple of months in my studio going through all the orchestrations and looking at what I did — I recorded it all into [Mark of the Unicorn] Digital Performer so that I could review it — and I have to figure out how I'm going to make it work both technically and sonically. I have to get all these sounds that might have been loaded in at different times into one spot. Now I've got to think about my live rig, which last time consisted of one fully loaded K2600 keyboard and one K2600 rack. That was my whole system — it was sleek, small, and powerful, and it worked.
Petrucci: Sometime before rehearsal, I'll go in with my rig and program all the sounds myself. On the Scenes from a Memory tour, I had some patches programmed by one of the guys at Eventide that emulated what I did in the studio. Also, I'll talk with people from different companies and see what stuff they have coming out — amps from Mesa/Boogie or effects from different companies — and I'll tell them I have [a sound I want] and I don't know how I'm going to do it, and a lot of times we can come up with something. That's why my signature Ernie Ball guitar has the piezo system: I often layer acoustic and electric parts, and this lets me cover both with the piezo and magnetic pickups. I split the signal, and I can go back and forth very quickly, without having to go to an acoustic on a stand or whatever.
How do you keep your chops up for such a demanding repertoire?
Petrucci: When I'm touring, my practice routine consists primarily of the sections of our music that are challenging — solos, riffs, licks that are hard. I'll make practice sessions out of those pieces. I always use a drum machine or metronome, and I start really slow and try to get everything exact and gradually build it up to speed. I'll practice that way before a tour and then during a tour each night before each show — sometimes for an hour, sometimes less. I don't do much more than that because I don't want to get fatigued. One piece that comes to mind is the first song on the album, called “The Glass Prison.” It was written on a seven-string guitar, and it's something like 12 to 14 minutes long, and it's all riffing, nonstop — like a marathon of riffs. As I was recording each section my hands were getting tired, and I remember thinking, “How am I going to be able to play this live as an entire piece?” And that was just the rhythm part! So that's going to take a lot of conditioning so that my hands don't cramp up, especially because the seven-string neck is a little bit wider, and it's a little more demanding. I learned a long time ago to stretch my wrist and fingers. I do it when I'm at home not on tour.
Your set seems so physically demanding. How do you deal with that?
Petrucci: It is physically demanding. It's also one thing to be sitting down and practicing the parts at home but quite another to be playing them onstage, one song after the next, with the intensity and the adrenaline and the power. You play harder, and there's more exertion. So you have to work on control and pacing and stamina. It's like a sporting event. [Laughs.]
Portnoy: Maybe a half hour before I go on I'll warm up my hands and feet a bit and stretch as much as I can. Drumming is incredibly physical, and I've even had problems like throwing my back or my neck out and even dislocating my wrist at one show. It's important to be physically fit. Our singer takes complete care of himself — he goes to sleep early, he doesn't sound-check with us, he doesn't drink, and he doesn't smoke because his instrument is completely physical.
Do you have to guard against getting too pumped while you're playing?
Petrucci: You have to practice control, and there's also the mental game. There's a wonderful book called The Inner Game of Music by Barry Green that talks about the mental game while you're playing and performing and how to quiet the critical voices in your head — not that I hear voices in my head. [Laughs.] You want this relaxed concentration, not to be rushing or playing things sloppily.
How can a young player be sure to bring his or her “A” game onstage every night?
Petrucci: It's absolutely just an experience thing. If you have a performance and you're young and something didn't go right, you need to analyze afterward what happened. Why was I stressed — did I not eat right? Why was I nervous — was I not confident in the parts? Did I not prepare them? What happened with my gear? Should I have taped something down? Whatever it may be that freaked you out, you need to reflect on it afterward. After doing that several times, you'll develop techniques on how to overcome those things. So it's not something you can go in first time and know; it's collective knowledge that you develop at a gig.
Some players let technical problems become excuses.
Petrucci: You can't do that. I was watching the World Series, and Emmylou Harris went to sing and the microphone wouldn't stay [in place], so she couldn't play her guitar. But she still sang, and it was beautiful, and that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to perform, and you can't let stuff hinder you — that's what that mental game is about.
Dream Gear
Dream Theater's material may be a challenge to play onstage, but getting the notes down is only half the battle. A creative approach toward gear is essential in bringing their orchestrated sound to an audience.
John Petrucci is known as one of the most demanding tone-meisters of the guitar. “I put a ton of work into tone,” he admits. “I try to shape the sound to enhance the songs I'm playing — lyrical, easy to play, with plenty of sustain.”
In addition to a new line of Ernie Ball/Music Man signature guitars, Petrucci relies on an arsenal of Mesa/Boogie amps (including the Mark IIC+, TriAxis preamp, 2:90 power amp, Mark IV, Formula, Dual Rectifier, Heartbreaker, and Nomad); Mesa/Boogie Rectifier Traditional 4×12 cabinets with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers, and Mesa/Boogie Custom 2×12 wedge monitors. His effects and switches are organized into a custom rack system designed by Mark Snyder and include a Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor, a Bradshaw Pedal Board, dbx compressor/gates, a Dunlop 535 Wah, a Dunlop Rack Mount Cry Baby Wah, Ernie Ball Volume Pedals, an Eventide GTR4000, a Korg Digital Delay, a Korg Toneworks tuner, a Lexicon MPX 1, a Lexicon MPX G2, a Lexicon PCM 70, a Lexicon PCM 80, a TC Electronic 2290, and Digital Music mixers and MIDI interfaces.
“My rig is an ever-evolving monster,” Petrucci says. “But the basic concept is a dry sound that's straight from an amplifier, and I also have wet cabinets in stereo that have effects, so I can control the blend. The slave out from the main amp feeds the different effects, and I set the blend with a foot controller. The mixer in the rack gives me a global wet mix that I can control.”
Controlling the rig takes plenty of planning. “I use the sound-check time to get everything down,” he says. “And also, after the gig, I'll take notes as to what I thought sounded funny or sounded better, and then the next day, at sound check, I'll fix that. I get pretty anal about it.” Technique plays an important role in controlling that sound. “Sometimes I play lower on the bridge or cup my pinky and strum. I also use the volume pedal and volume control on the guitar; otherwise, the rig is an untamed lion.”
Despite having a wide array of keyboard, sample, and synth textures to deliver, Jordan Rudess brings a relatively compact rig on the road: one fully loaded Kurzweil K2600X keyboard, two loaded K2600 racks, a Korg Triton rack, and a Korg Karma keyboard. “The Kurzweil has some amazing sound-design tools in it,” Rudess says. “I used to work for Kurzweil, so I'm deeply involved in it. The whole way that you can put sounds together using their architecture is amazing.” He runs the keys through a Mackie 1604-VLZ Pro mixer and Mackie SRM450 speakers.
In an effort to emulate the versatility of his studio drumming, Mike Portnoy has created two drum kits in one (see Fig. A). “On the left side is a double-bass monster kit, and on the right side is a more experimental setup with a 20" kick and octabans and toms running backward.” He uses Tama drums and Sabian cymbals as well as DW pedals, Pro-Mark drumsticks, and Remo heads. “Throughout the album, I would jump back and forth between the two kits and sometimes during overdubs. I'll be taking that ‘Siamese monster’ out with me.”
Bassist John Myung's rig continues to evolve but is based on a signature Yamaha RBX6JM six-string bass, a Chapman Stick, and a line of Mesa/Boogie amps and cabinets, including a TriAxis preamp, a 400+ Bass amp, Strategy 500 power amps, and Powerhouse 1000 8×10 cabinets.
