New DREAM THEATER Drummer On Joining Band: I Go To Bed Every Night And Say 'Thank You'

John Dunphy of the Morristown Patch recently conducted an interview with new DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Mangini. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On dedicating himself fully to one thing the band after marrying in 2005 and spending several years as associate professor of percussion at the Berklee College of Music:

"I wanted to make a family. I wasn't able to for one reason or another get that done. Once I moved back home I could be in the area for a long time, I could network. Meet, get married, have children."

On joining DREAM THEATER in the fall of 2010:

"I was looking to get in a band. I had to wait for the right time and opportunity, and it just matched."

On the songwriting process for DREAM THEATER's new album, "A Dramatic Turn Of Events":

"This is important: they composed this with no drummer. This is [guitarist and founder] John Petrucci that always came up with the riffs. He's still here. This is back to John showing up with bags of riffs, as he always did. Except this time, no drummer to steer it in different directions. It was what the writing has been now with no drummer."

"When I write on a keyboard, bass or guitar which I don't play well but can write on when I compose, it's good to have only chordal structure and a sense of feel without drums. It changes things. Those guys composed with no drummer. And all the ideas flowed with such ease. I couldn't believe it."

On how he gets along with the other members of DREAM THEATER:

"We're very much the same. We talk music, the show, practice, we share things with a common ground. That's special. I feel like I'm with people I've known for a long time. I don't have to try hard to be someone else.

"I go to bed every night and say 'thank you.' I'm really grateful for this opportunity with all the things that make it so."

Read the entire interview from Morristown Patch.