MIKE MANGINI: Why I Cried When I Was Named New Drummer Of DREAM THEATER

In a brand new interview with the IHeartGuitarBlog.com, Mike Mangini was asked what the last four years have been like as the drummer of DREAM THEATER, one of the most commercially successful progressive metal bands in the world.

"It's been a major point in my life with the fulfilment of what I want to be and who I want to be," Mike said.

"My path up until that point was that I had been in bands or working as a drummer and I got to the point where I really didn't want to work for someone else and be at someone else's whim, because you're not paid retainer sometimes, you're hired when you're hired, and you've gotta look for jobs in between.

"I took a job at Berklee College and I started to really bloom over there in terms of learning way more things than I thought. There was so much to make me think, because I was being asked so many different things by students. I dug in and I did well there, but the thing is I was taken away from what I loved the most, which was playing. And once you start to teach at a college, they say, 'This is your main gig,' and I understand what they mean; it's my main income. That's what it is. But the main gig is in my heart, y'know? That's playing, and you teach based on playing. Eventually I had to play more. I didn't find a way to let both worlds exist — well, I did, but then there were some changes happening there and then the opportunity for me to take advantage of gigs and things got squashed so I didn't wanna live with that. I became open to getting into a band and lo and behold, the opportunity hit me. I had to be prepared for it, though, and I really wasn't physically prepared for it, although I was emotionally prepared for it. I don't know how but I somehow… no, you know what it is? I do know how: my pattern recognition is really high and I also work with very, very large, multi-simultaneous time signatures. I don't do the typical five and seven at the same time — which is really difficult, y'know? But I'm doing stuff that is rare. I don't know who else is doing the 19 and 18 at the same time, 17 and 21 at the same time. Usually it's very small numbers at the same time. So when DREAM THEATER tested me, I got everything the first time because it was only one thing, it wasn't even two things at the same time, and it was bars of seven and six and eight and four. That's really far below what my pattern recognition is capable of, so I was able to be a musician. In other words, it wasn't technical to me; it was easy. No matter how that sounds, it was, and I was able to do everything the first time they asked me and make music with it. I'm still doing that to this day with them. It was a liberation of the spirit."

He continued: "Y'know, today the word ‘liberal' has been completely perverted. A lot of words are perverted. 'Choice' doesn't mean 'choice,' it means someone else is making a choice who doesn't get a choice. People don't look up what words mean, and the word 'liberal' used to mean liberation of the spirit, not liberation of the human, like human nature: 'Don't tell me what to do, don't tell me who to sleep with.' The original word is very religious in nature and it has to do with spiritual liberation. Get away from human nature and move toward who you should be as a person fulfilling all these gifts you've been given. And for me it was a true liberation.

"I know that's a lengthy explanation and you'll have to squelch my words down into one sentence instead of five sentences, but I want you to know what I mean.

"So for me, getting that phone call, getting that opportunity, it was liberating for my spirit, because I had set up a drum set but had nobody that let me play my drums. Really, really let me go, y'know?

"It was great with [Steve] Vai. I was able to be a bit more myself but I was also working for Steve. And what made me really happy working for Steve was that his ideas were things that turned me on. For example, Vai was one of the few people that would tell me every note to play sometimes, but I liked that, and that's why we got along. We got along because I liked what he told me, because he told me unorthodox stuff. And we laughed! We had a lot of humor. We came up with drum parts that were just funny. I don't mean that it's funny to hit the seventh note of an 11-note run, but he and I would laugh about it, that I could do it, or that he heard it in his mind. We were a team, we were like soulmates with that stuff. And now with DREAM THEATER, it's a sense of fulfilment that I'm in a band where there are five of us all moving in the same direction. And that's why I cried [upon being named new DREAM THEATER drummer]; because I wanted liberation of the spirit. It's part of the gifts I've been given. It was really emotional for me."

Mike Mangini's predecessor, Mike Portnoy, who co-founded DREAM THEATER more than 27 years ago, abruptly quit the band in September 2010 while on tour with AVENGED SEVENFOLD.

Portnoy tried to rejoin DREAM THEATER months after he quit, and was rebuffed.