MIKE PORTNOY: DREAM THEATER Will 'Start Thinking About A New Album' In Late 2026, After Completion Of 'Parasomnia' Tour Cycle

In a new interview with Troy Culpan of Australia's May The Rock Be With You, DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy spoke about what it has been like for him to be touring with the band once again after a 13-year absence. The progressive metal legends played their first concert with Portnoy in 14 years on October 20, 2024 at the O2 Arena in London, United Kingdom. The drummer, who co-founded DREAM THEATER, played on 10 of the band's albums over a 20-year period, from 1989's "When Dream And Day Unite" through 2009's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings", before exiting the group in 2010. Portnoy returned to DREAM THEATER in October 2023 after being replaced by Mike Mangini, who played with DREAM THEATER across five studio albums and accompanying world tours. Asked if his return to DREAM THEATER has been "seamless", Portnoy told May The Rock Be With You (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It was seamless. To me, this was not just rejoining an old band; this was kind of coming home to my family. After 40 years and forming this band when we were teenagers, it's more than just a band. We've lived life together. We've been to each other's weddings and seen our kids grow up together, and we've had all these life experiences together. So coming back home to it, it was pretty seamless. There was kind of baby steps that led here, which also made the transition that much more comfortable. I did [DREAM THEATER guitarist] John Petrucci's solo album and tour, and then we did a LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT album with me, John and Jordan [Rudess, DREAM THEATER keyboardist] and Tony Levin. So there were these kind of little steps that led to finally coming back to DREAM THEATER. So by the time I came back full-time to DREAM THEATER, it just felt like coming home to a family."

Asked how return to DREAM THEATER affected the creative process during the making of the band's latest album, 2025's "Parasomnia", Portnoy said: "Well, we were definitely inspired writing together. We hadn't written and recorded an album together since 'Black Clouds & Silver Linings', which came out in 2009, but we made it in 2008. So it had been 15 years since we had written and recorded an album together. So we were very inspired being together again and having that chemistry, that artistic and creative chemistry that we always had. And it was immediately there once we started working on the new album."

Pressed about whether he and his DREAM THEATER bandmates are already thinking about a follow-up to "Parasomnia" or if fans will "have to wait a little while" to hear new music from the group, Mike said: "Well, we have to wait, 'cause it's been a long tour. We've been out for a year now at this point. We started in October of 2024. And here we are, a year later now, and by the time we get down to Australia [in February 2026] and wrap up the tour cycle a few months after that, it'll have been a year and a half on the road. So, that's the focus right now. But once the tour cycle wraps and concludes by next spring or so, we'll probably take the summer off, 'cause it's been a long road, and then start thinking about a new album after that."

Portnoy also talked about DREAM THEATER's 40th-anniversary tour, which launched in late 2024. Asked if the milestone put more "pressure" on him and his bandmates or if they treated the tour as "more of a celebration", Mike said: "It's a celebration. There's no pressure. I mean, for me, it's surreal that it's been 40 years since we started this band. We were teenagers at college, Berklee College Of Music, back in 1985, and here we are 40 years later. We've been around the world dozens and dozens of times, and it's just been quite a journey and quite a trip. And if anything, it's just more surreal than anything. It's just hard to believe how quickly time has flown."

On the topic of the "discussions" which take place between him and his DREAM THEATER bandmates about putting together a setlist for the current tour, Mike said: "Well, there's not really any discussions. Those guys trust that in my lap. I've always been the guy that wrote the setlist in the band, at least in my time here, and for me, writing the setlist for this 40th-anniversary tour was actually easier than you would think. Coming back to the band after not having been in the band for over 15 years, whatever it's been, it was all a fresh, clean slate for me to work with. It wasn't like, 'Oh, I played this song a billion times over the last couple years.' I hadn't played any of these songs in so long. So for me, I was able to write with a clean slate.

"The setlist we're going to be doing when we come down [to Australia] is slightly different than the one we've been doing throughout the rest of the world, because when we started the 40th-anniversary tour, we spent the first six to eight months on tour just concentrating on that," Portnoy explained. "But since then, the last few months we've been playing the new album, 'Parasomnia', in its entirety. So when we come down to Australia, it's kind of gonna be a combination of the two. It'll be a heavy weight of the 40th anniversary and the full catalog stuff, but we also wanna play a bit more of the 'Parasomnia' album than we had, just because it's so fresh to us and it's the only opportunity that the Australian fans will have to hear those songs. So it'll be a kind of a combination of the two."

DREAM THEATER kicked off its summer/fall 2025 "An Evening With Dream Theater" tour on September 5 at Santander Performing Arts Center in Reading, Pennsylvania. The concert saw James LaBrie (vocals),John Petrucci (guitar),John Myung (bass),Jordan Rudess (keyboards) and Mike Portnoy (drums) perform their latest, 16th studio album, "Parasomnia", in its entirety, as well as the entire seven-movement masterpiece "A Change Of Seasons", for the first time since Portnoy's return to the band in October 2023, in addition to other classics and fan favorites from DREAM THEATER's catalog. The 30-city U.S. trek ran through October 25, when it wrapped in Long Island, New York.

DREAM THEATER kicked off the spring/summer 2025 leg of its "40th Anniversary European Tour" on June 3 at Logomo in Turku, Finland.

"Parasomnia" came out on February 7, 2025 via InsideOut Music. The LP was produced by Petrucci, engineered by James "Jimmy T" Meslin, and mixed by Andy Sneap. Hugh Syme returned once again to lend his creative vision to the cover art.

"Parasomnia" is an eight-song, 71-minute set which was recorded at DREAM THEATER's DTHQ studio on Long Island, New York. It is the follow-up to 2021's "A View From The Top Of The World", which debuted at in the top 10 of Billboard's Top Hard Rock Albums, Top Rock Albums and Independent Albums charts. Six songs on "Parasomnia" are over seven minutes and the closing epic "The Shadow Man Incident" clocks in at nearly 20 minutes.

The North American leg of DREAM THEATER's 40th-anniversary tour kicked off on February 7 at The Met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The trek was "An Evening With Dream Theater" and was the first tour of North America since Portnoy's return to the lineup,. The tour concluded on March 22 in New York City.

Portnoy, Petrucci and Myung started DREAM THEATER as MAJESTY in 1985, after meeting at the Berklee College Of Music in Boston. LaBrie came on board in 1991, while Rudess joined in 1999.

Prior to Portnoy's return to DREAM THEATER, the drummer and Petrucci worked together on the latter's 2020 solo album, "Terminal Velocity", and toured together. Portnoy and Petrucci also joined Rudess and bassist Tony Levin for a third studio album as LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT in 2021.