Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed by three students at the Berklee College of Music in the mid 1980s. In the twenty years since their inception, they have become the most successful progressive band since the height of progressive rock in the mid-1970s, despite being relatively unknown in mainstream pop and rock circles. Their highest selling album, 1992's Images and Words, was awarded a gold record and is consistently named as a seminal progressive metal release, but only reached #61 on the Billboard 200 charts.

They are well known for the technical proficiency of each instrumentalist, winning many awards from music magazines, but for the same reason are often cited as a prototypical "pomp" rock group with a penchant for "wankery" and long, overblown musical passages with seemingly no point. In spite of this, they are highly respected by many of rock and metal's biggest names, leading to collaborations between Dream Theater members and many other well known musicians. In a famous example, guitarist John Petrucci was named as the third player on the "G3" tour with Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, following in the footsteps of Eric Johnson, Robert Fripp, Yngwie Malmsteen and other influencial guitarists.

Dream Theater are also noted for their musical versatility and the many different genres their own music incorporates, which has made it possible for them to perform with a very diverse range of acts. Some of their more notable touring partners include Elton John, Yes, Marillion, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Joe Satriani, Porcupine Tree, Pain of Salvation, Queensrÿche, Megadeth, Deep Purple and Iron Maiden.

Personnel

Current members

• James LaBrie - vocals and percussion
• John Petrucci - guitars and vocals
• Mike Portnoy - drums, percussion and vocals
• John Myung - bass guitar and Chapman Stick
• Jordan Rudess - keyboards

Former members

• Charlie Dominici - vocals
• Kevin Moore - keyboards
• Derek Sherinian - keyboards

Progressive metal pioneers

Dream Theater, along with counterparts Queensrÿche and Fates Warning, are credited with reviving progressive music into critical and commercial success in the late '80s and early 1990s after the genre had spent almost a decade in decline. Heavyweights of prog such as Yes and Genesis had moved toward a straightforward pop-rock sound in the early '80s, and neo-prog acts like Marillion and IQ were popular, but were seen to be less progressive than their '70s counterparts. It was not until Dream Theater and others climbed radio charts in the early '90s that truly progressive music was once again seen as a genuinely popular genre of music.

The progressive rock bands of the '70s and '80s had a profound influence on the compositional structure of Dream Theater's music, but modern acts like Metallica and Iron Maiden had a more pronounced sonic effect, lending Dream Theater their heaviness and wailing vocal style. The unique mix of '70s progressive rock and '80s heavy metal, previously unheard of prior to the formation of Queensrÿche and Fates Warning, was given the name progressive metal. Dream Theater are seen as a major pioneer of that genre despite forming slightly later than both Queensrÿche and Fates Warning, and they are responsible for triggering a sharp incline in the number of progressive metal bands being formed through the '90s and 2000s.

Today, they stand as the one of the most important and commercially successful progressive metal groups in the genre's existence. While Queensrÿche moved towards straightforward rock after the success of their album Empire (and its hit song "Silent Lucidity"), and Fates Warning struggled to forge a significant commercial following, Dream Theater influenced many modern progressive metal bands while at the same time consistently climbing the rock charts. Bands like Spock's Beard, Pain of Salvation and even Tool owe part of their success to the groundbreaking work of Dream Theater throughout the '80s and '90s.

History

1986 - 1990

Dream Theater was formed in 1986 by guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung and drummer Mike Portnoy while studying at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Kevin Moore, a high school band-mate of Petrucci's, was recruited to play keyboards and Chris Collins was enlisted as vocalist.

The quintet settled on the name Majesty for their newly-formed group, and the three Berklee attendees dropped out to concentrate on the band.

In November 1986, after a few months of writing and performing together, Chris Collins left the band because of creative differences with the other members. After a year of trying to find a replacement, Charlie Dominici, who was far older and more experienced than anyone else in the band, successfully auditioned for the group. With the stability that Dominici's appointment brought to Majesty, they began playing more shows in and around the New York City area, and gained a considerable amount of exposure for a band that had not yet released an album.

Their first major recording project was The Majesty Demos, a collection of ideas and demos that were released in 1987. The initial run of 1,000 sold out within six months, and dubbed copies of the cassette spread like wildfire through the progressive metal scene all over the world.

Shortly after the release of the demos, they were forced to change their name when another band named Majesty threatened legal action. Various names were trialled until Portnoy's father suggested the name Dream Theater, which was subsequently settled upon.

They signed their first record contract, with Mechanic (a division of MCA), in 1988 and set out to record their debut album.

When Dream and Day Unite was released in 1989 to far less fanfare than was anticipated. Mechanic ended up breaking the majority of the financial promises they had made to the band prior to signing their contract, so they were restricted to playing around NYC. The promotional tour for the album consisted of just five concerts, all of which were in New York or Rhode Island.

After the fourth of these gigs, Dominici was fired because of personal and creative differences between him and the rest of the band. Shortly after, however, Marillion asked Dream Theater to open for them at a gig at the Ritz in New York, so Dominici was given the opportunity to perform one last time. It would be a further two years before Dream Theater had another full-time singer.

1991 - 1994

Following Dominici's firing, Dream Theater fought successfully to be released from their contract with Mechanic, and set about auditioning singers and writing material for their next album. In the time until they had secured a replacement vocalist, they wrote the majority of the music for what would become their second album, Images and Words.

In their search for a new singer they auditioned over 200 people, among them former Fates Warning frontman John Arch, but all were all turned down for various reasons. In 1991 a tape arrived from Canadian singer James LaBrie, who was immediately flown to New York for a proper audition. After a short jam session he was hired as full-time singer.

For the next few months, the band resumed gigging, and worked on vocal parts for all the music that they had written to that point. ATCO Records (now EastWest) signed Dream Theater to a seven album contract on the strength of their reputation and a three song demo (later made available as "The ATCO Demos" through the Dream Theater fan club).

The first album to be released under their new record contract was Images and Words in 1992. The song "Pull Me Under" gained a lot of radio airplay, and as a result the label commissioned a video clip for its promotion, which had high MTV rotation.

The success of "Pull Me Under", combined with relentless touring throughout the U.S. and Japan, caused Images and Words to achieve gold record certification in the States and platinum in Japan. A tour of Europe followed in 1993, which included a show at London's famed Marquee jazz club. That show was recorded and released as Live at the Marquee, Dream Theater's first official live album. Additionally, a video compilation of their Japanese concerts (mixed in with some documentary-style footage of the off-stage portion of the tour) was released as Images and Words: Live in Tokyo.

Keen to work on fresh material, Dream Theater retreated to the studio in May 1994. The 1994 sessions were the first in which Dream Theater as a whole wrote music together that was specifically for an album.

Awake, Dream Theater's third studio album, was released in October 1994 in a hail of controversy among established fans. Shortly before the album was mixed, Moore announced to the rest of the band that he wished to concentrate on his own musical interests and would be quitting Dream Theater. This rocked a band that had enjoyed just two years of stability after a tumultuous first half-decade, but Moore was no longer interested in the life of a touring musician nor the brand of progressive metal Dream Theater performed, so the two parties went their separate ways.

As a result of that news, the band had to scramble to find a replacement keyboardist instead of jumping head-first into touring mode.

Jordan Rudess, an up-and-coming keyboardist who was relatively unknown to that point, was invited to play a trial performance with Dream Theater in the hopes that he would join the band. The gig went well, but Rudess decided to join The Dixie Dregs as a touring member instead of Dream Theater, and Derek Sherinian was hired in his stead. By the conclusion of the Awake promotional tour, Sherinian was Dream Theater's full-time keyboardist.

1995 - 1998

After a petition from fans to EastWest Records, the group recorded their previously unreleased song "A Change of Seasons" and distributed it as an EP with a collection of live cover tracks. After a short run of small "one-off" concerts to promote the EP, Dream Theater entered the studio once more to write their next album.

In all, almost two CDs worth of material was written including a 20 minute long follow-up to the Images and Words song "Metropolis Part 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper". The label, however, did not allow the release of a double album because they felt that a 140-minute record would not be digestable by the general public, so half the songs had to be cut.

In addition to, and as a function of, pressuring the band into adopting a more mainstream sound, EastWest recruited writer/producer Desmond Child to work with Petrucci on re-writing the lyrics to his demo "You Or Me". The whole band substantially reworked the music to that song, and it appeared on the album as "You Not Me" in a form that was barely reminiscent of the original.

The material that made it onto the album proper was released as Falling Into Infinity, which received a mixed reception from traditional Dream Theater fans. Despite the album containing some very progressive-sounding songs, tracks like "Hollow Years" and "You Not Me" prompted some to believe it was the dawn of a new, mainstream-sounding Dream Theater, just as the release of Empire had previously heralded the same shift for Queensryche. The album was both a critical and commercial disappointment.

In recent years, the album has been rehabilitated to an extent, and interest was rekindled when Portnoy indicated that the unused songs - including more traditionally progressive cuts such as "Raise the Knife" - would be released through Portnoy's YtseJam Records.

During the European leg of the Falling Into Infinity world tour, two shows were recorded for a live album entitled Once In A LIVEtime, in France and The Netherlands. The album was released at around the same time as the video 5 Years in a LIVEtime, which chronicled the time from when Kevin Moore left the band right up to the Falling Into Infinity promotional tour.

In 1997, Magna Carta Records' Mike Varney invited Portnoy to assemble a progressive 'supergroup' to work on an album, which would become the first in a long string of side-projects for the members of Dream Theater. The lineup that was eventually settled on consisted of Portnoy on drums, Petrucci on guitar, Tony Levin on bass, and Jordan Rudess, who had finished with the Dixie Dregs by that time, on keyboards. The band assumed the name Liquid Tension Experiment, and would act as a medium through which Portnoy and Petrucci could once again court Rudess to join them in Dream Theater. They extended an invitation for him to join them in 1999, and he accepted the offer to become the third full-time Dream Theater keyboardist. Unfortunately for Sherinian, this meant that he was out of a job.

1999 onward

The cover of Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory

Armed with yet another new member, Dream Theater entered BearTracks Studio once again to write and record their next album. Perhaps as a response to the backlash over Falling Into Infinity, this time their record label gave the band complete freedom with their music. The follow-up to "Metropolis Part 1" off Images and Words, which was written during the Falling Into Infinity sessions (but not used on that album), was taken off the shelf as the first composition for them to work on.

They decided to expand the 20-minute song into a complete concept album, with the story revolving around themes such as reincarnation, murder and betrayal. To avoid stirring up the fan base, a tight veil of secrecy enveloped the writing and recording process. The only things fans knew prior to its release were a tracklist that had been leaked against the band's wishes, and a release date. They knew nothing of the title, the music, or even the fact that it would be a concept album.

In 1999, Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory was released to high critical acclaim. It was hailed as Dream Theater's masterpiece by many fans and critics alike, despite only reaching #73 on the charts^{Source: search for "Dream Theater".}

Keyboard Magazine

Jordan Rudess has been awarded the following Keyboard Magazine Reader's Poll awards:

1994:

• Best New Talent

Modern Drummer

Mike Portnoy has won the following Modern Drummer magazine Reader's Poll awards:

1994:

• Best Up & Coming Talent

1995:

• Best Progressive Rock Drummer
• Best Recorded Performance (Awake)

1996:

• Best Progressive Rock Drummer
• Best Recorded Performance (A Change of Seasons)

1997:

• Best Progressive Rock Drummer

1998:

• Best Progressive Rock Drummer
• Best Recorded Performance (Falling Into Infinity)

1999:

• Best Progressive Rock Drummer

2000:

• Best Progressive Rock Drummer
• Best Recorded Performance (Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory)
• Best Clinician
• Best Educational Video/DVD

2001:

• Best Progressive Rock Drummer

2002:

• Best Progressive Rock Drummer
• Best Recorded Performance (Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence)
• Best Clinician
• Best Educational Video/DVD

2003:

• Best Progressive Rock Drummer

2004:

• Best Progressive Rock Drummer
• Hall of Fame Inductee

2005:

• Best Progressive Rock Drummer

Notes

1. See the MikePortnoy.com tourography for details on these concerts.
2. ^  Details on the chart performance of Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory can be seen at DreamTheater.net.
3. ^  More information on the chart performance of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence can be found at Billboard.com and DreamTheater.net.
4. ^  DreamTheater.net reported that Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence had reached #1 on the Billboard Internet Charts.
5. ^  The announcement about the release date for Octavarium was made on Dream Theater.net.
6. ^  See the Earplugs Required interview with Mike Portnoy for an explanation of the setlist system (approximately half-way down the page).
7. ^  This situation is explained in the commentary track on the Metropolis 2000: Scenes From New York DVD.
8. ^  The mark used by Mary Queen of Scots can be seen through Dream Theater.net.
9. ^  Dominici was responsible for editing the Majesty Symbol in its current form. See DTFAQ.com.
10. ^  In his FAQ list, Mike Portnoy mentions that he has five albums picked out for Dream Theater to cover. Two of those, Master of Puppets and The Number of the Beast, have already been played.

References

• Bredius, Mark. Dream Theater - The Official Site. (Retrieved February-April, 2005.)
• Dixon, Brad et al. DTFAQ.com - Dream Theater FAQ. (Retrieved February-April, 2005.)
• Hansen, Scott & Portnoy, Mike. Dream Theater Tourography. (Retrieved February-April, 2005.)
• King, Brian. (2003). "JaM Progductions! Interview with John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy". Theater of Dreams 29, 14-20.
• Hansen, Scott. (2003). "James LaBrie: As this man thinks". Theater of Dreams 27/28, 26-30.

External links

• Official Dream Theater website
• Official Dream Theater FAQ
• Mike Portnoy website
• John Petrucci website
• Jordan Rudess website
• John Myung website
• James Labrie website
• YtseJam Records
• Dream Theater "Unofficial" Song Book