MIKE PORTNOY Gets 'Goosebumps' Thinking About His Upcoming First Concert With DREAM THEATER In 14 Years

Mike Portnoy says that he gets "goosebumps" thinking about his upcoming first concert with DREAM THEATER in 14 years.

The drummer co-founded DREAM THEATER in 1985 with guitarist John Petrucci and bassist John Myung. Mike played on 10 DREAM THEATER 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.

Regarding what it has been like rehearsing and recording with DREAM THEATER again, Mike told Spencer Kaufman of Consequence: "On a personal level, it's been incredible. I couldn't be happier to be back home with my family. We started this band as teenagers almost 40 years ago. And, really, everything about it feels right. It feels like this is where I should be and need to be and want to be."

He continued: "However, it is surreal that it's been almost a year now, and yet the public has yet to really see the five of us … I was on tour with THE WINERY DOGS, and we weren't even together when we decided to come together. And then when we finally did come together in February of this year to start the album, we've been in the studio all year. We've spent this entire year together, but the public still has yet to hear any music, see a show, really see any footage of us together. So it's been really hard to keep a lid on all that, to keep it all as top secret as we have."

The drummer added, "We have the tour coming up, which is incredibly exciting. And very soon we're going to start launching more information with the album … So, it's all starting to finally come together, but it's weird because we've been together for almost a year now, but finally the public unveiling is beginning."

Portnoy went on to say that he "can't wait" for his first show back with DREAM THEATER, which will take place on October 20 at the O2 in London, United Kingdom. "I get goosebumps even thinking about it," he said. "I think every night for the next year, every night that it's the first time in any place — whether it be Detroit or Paris or Tokyo, wherever it is, the first night in every one of these markets for the next year — is going to be incredibly electric and special for everybody in the audience. Whether they be fans who haven't seen this lineup now in almost 15 years or new people that never got to see this lineup before, it's going to be special each and every night. But that very first night at the O2 Arena in London, I can't even imagine what it's going to be like. I've dreamt about it 100 times, through the years, of what it would be like to be onstage with those guys again. And to feel the interaction and the love and the excitement in the audience, it's going to be so electric. I can't wait. I cannot wait. And we're now getting so close. It's going to be incredible."

DREAM THEATER's 2024-2025 40th-anniversary tour will kick off with a European leg this fall. The outing — presented as "An Evening With Dream Theater" — will launch on October 20 in London and run through November 24 in Amsterdam, hitting cities in numerous European countries along the way.

DREAM THEATER recently spent time in the studio recording the band's sixteenth album. The upcoming effort will mark the progressive metal legends' first LP since Portnoy's return to the group.

Mangini joined DREAM THEATER in late 2010 through a widely publicized audition following the departure of Portnoy. Mangini beat out six other of the world's top drummers — Marco Minnemann, Virgil Donati, Aquiles Priester, Thomas Lang, Peter Wildoer and Derek Roddy — for the gig, a three-day process that was filmed for a documentary-style reality show called "The Spirit Carries On".

In an interview with Chile's Sonar FM, Portnoy was asked if he missed playing with DREAM THEATER during his time away from the group. He responded: "Well, of course, I always missed DREAM THEATER and the music and the guys and the fans. Not all DREAM THEATER fans went on the ride with me with all of my other bands. So, every time I would tour with SONS OF APOLLO or WINERY DOGS or SHATTERED FORTRESS or NEAL MORSE BAND, I would see someDREAM THEATER fans, but there's a big portion of the fanbase that wasn't with me for all those years. So yeah, I missed them and I missed the guys and I missed the music. We were always a family first and foremost."

Regarding the fact that he is once again in charge of coming up with the setlists for DREAM THEATER's live shows, Mike said: "Yeah, it's an area that was always my department and my passion. I always wrote all the setlists for DREAM THEATER, as well as any of my bands or projects. That's an area that's very important to me. And yeah, when I came back to DREAM THEATER, a lot of the things we have to figure out who's gonna be in charge of what. There's a lot of areas that I used to be in charge of, which now John [Petrucci, DREAM THEATER guitarist] may do, or maybe the band makes band decisions. So I have to kind of find my place within the band's chemistry now. But yeah, one of the things that they did give back to me was the setlist and writing the setlist. So yeah, it was something that was a lot of fun and exciting — a great open palette to work with, really. 40 years of music, and I haven't played any of this music with the guys in almost 15 years. So it's all so fresh. Back in 2010, I might have been bored with it, but now in 2024, I'm just as excited to play those songs as any of 'em."

On the topic of how different it is to play with DREAM THEATER in 2024 compared to how it was 14 years ago, Mike said: "There's two sides to that question. The first I'll say, personally, I think we're just all older and wiser, more mellow. I am not as much of a control freak as I used to be; I'm a lot more easygoing, a lot more mellow. So, yeah, there's the one side of the natural age of everybody just — we're now in our fifties and sixties, and I think we're just more mature and experienced. But the other side to that question is, like I just mentioned, finding my place within this new chemistry and overseeing every area. And then when I left the band, they needed to take some of these areas and divide them up amongst themselves and have different people overseeing different areas. And now that I'm coming back, I have to kind of see what's comfortable. I have to very much respect that they've had 13 years without me and they may do things a certain way differently now. So it's up to me to really be very respectful to that and not try to force myself in any of the areas. So anytime something comes up, whether we're talking about a setlist or the merchandise or how they wanna record in the studio, no matter what the subject is, it's always now, like, 'Okay, well, how do you guys do it now? How do you want me involved? Do you want me to oversee it? Do you want me to stay out of it? That's fine too.' And it's kind of like a learning process to find myself comfortable with the way that the band works now."

Portnoy also talked about DREAM THEATER's upcoming sixteenth album, which is tentatively due in early 2025. He said: "We started the new album in February of this year, and we figured that was about 15 years since we last made a record together with 'Black Clouds & Silver Linings' in 2009. So we got together — February 7th, 2024, I think is when we moved into the studio to begin — and it felt like it had only been one week since we finished 'The Count Of Tuscany' and wrapped the last album. It felt like it was only one week. It felt like only a week had passed. Like, okay, here we are 15 years later, but it felt like just yesterday. That's how familiar and comfortable the chemistry is with the five of us. We immediately felt comfortable, like not a day had passed, and immediately started writing ideas and bouncing ideas off of each other. And it just quickly snowballed and we were up and running and off and going."

Portnoy recently told the "So...You Want To Be A Musician?" podcast about his mindset when rejoining DREAM THEATER: "At our ages, we realized when we decided to reunite and get back together, I'd be lying if I didn't say we didn't start to look in the mirror and look at the clock and say, who knows how much time we have left? The clock is ticking, and we realize we're not gonna be here forever. And we wanna spend whatever time we have left together making music with the people that we grew up with and the people that we love. So, yeah, that's kind of where we're at at this stage."

Portnoy admitted to Mariskal Rock that he "needed to get used to was being the 'new guy'" after rejoining DREAM THEATER, "being the new guy in a band that I helped form when I was a teenager. So it's a bit of a transition for me to go from being a bit of the leader, as I was back when I left the band, now I have to kind of find my way back into the chemistry and I need to respect the fact that they've been doing this for 13 years without me and they have maybe new ways of doing things, new ways of making decisions," he explained. "So … I have had to be very respectful for my role as the new guy and finding my way back into the chemistry of the band."

This past June, Portnoy was asked by Brazil's Marcelo Vieira and Matheus Ribeiro if DREAM THEATER's upcoming sixteenth studio album picks up from where the last DT LP he played on, 2009's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings", left off or if it's a different thing entirely. He responded: "If I'm being honest, I think it picks up right where 'Black Clouds' left off, to be honest. There's a certain style that the five of us have when we write together. And if you listen to the album with this lineup from 1999, '[Metropolis Pt. 2:] Scenes From A Memory', through 2009's 'Black Clouds & Silver Linings', if you look at that string of five or six albums, that's the sound and style of these five people. So I think that's a good indication of what you can expect with the new DREAM THEATER album. It definitely sounds like classic DREAM THEATER."