![]() But, you know, everyone’s perspective is different. “There was a whole ton of frustration – for all of us, though I wouldn’t say that Dream Theater came close to breaking up at that point. He did say it was a momentary aberration… “It wasn’t like the time he did quit maybe this was something in Mike’s mind but he never made it official.” “That whole thing is a bit of a grey area – Mike was frustrated by a lot of things going on, but he never sat down and told the band that he was leaving,” the guitarist claims. ![]() More than two decades later and via a separate conversation to Portnoy, John Petrucci remembers the course of events a little differently. In the end, a farcical inebriated bust-up with the band’s tour manager over a post-show visit to McDonalds resulted in Portnoy demanding a flight home the following day, before agreeing to honour the rest of the European tour. This ramped up the resentment felt by Portnoy over Petrucci’s own willingness to accept “compromises” being forced upon the group. After Portnoy took it upon himself to fire Petrucci’s guitar tech following an incident onstage, keyboard player Derek Sherinian later claimed that the two stopped speaking for almost a month. Out on the road, Mike’s drinking spiralled out of all control. However, the label was by no means alone. Elektra completely controlled the band at that time – they almost destroyed it.” When Prog suggests to Portnoy that Elektra had ‘meddled’ with Dream Theater’s creativity on Falling Into Infinity the drummer cracks up sarcastically: “Oh, I would go much, much stronger then ‘meddling’. As a self-confessed control freak, Portnoy bridled at the label’s insistence that Kevin Shirley of Aerosmith/The Black Crowes fame should man the desk for Falling Into Infinity, also that they should take a stab at collaborating with Bon Jovi /Kiss hitmaker Desmond Child, resulting on a single co-write on the song You Not Me. Along with bassist John Myung, Portnoy and Petrucci had formed the group as students at the Berklee College Of Music in Boston. ![]() And the band had appeared to run out of steam when, after bowing to the demands of their paymasters, Falling Into Infinity stalled at Number 52 in the Billboard Hot 100.īehind the scenes the pressure began to build, leading to tension between the two leading creative elements of the band. The media didn’t understand them (“We get slagged by all the magazines, so why do we bother?” wailed drummer Mike Portnoy to a newly launched magazine called Classic Rock). ![]() The respect they command today had yet to be earned. It’s easy to forget that more than two decades ago Dream Theater’s future looked far from assured. ![]()
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