DREAM THEATER: an interview with Mike Portnoy - May 2009 (English Audio)

Here's the 15-minute audio-interview conducted with legendary drummer Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater. The interview was held in Milano, when he passed by earlier this week, to talk about DT's upcoming new album, Black Clouds & Silver Linings, due out on June 23rd. Many other subjects were touched anyway, including the reunion of Transatlantic!
Press the green PLAY button and enjoy the stream!

Some of the questions answered by Mike:

The first glimpse that the world got of your new album album, came after you played a one-minute teaser of it on the radio, and immediately after that some fan had put it on youtube, making everyone listen to the music while a pic of you on a  lawn mower was shown. How did you react to that silly pic???

The first thing that caught my eye was the title of the last song of the album, "The count of Tuscany" - what is it about actually? Listening to the lyrics, it seems to be about someone dying, or disappearing... what does it have to do with tuscany?

The other thing that immediately caught my eye, of course, was the cover, it seems rich of symbols to decipher. It reminds me of previous Dream Theater covers, with the door opening on another world like in Awake, the crows like in train of thought... Would you shed some light on some of them? Like, the elephant and the mouse, the all-seeing eye...

Going back to music, "The Shattered Fortress" is final song of you 12 Steps Saga. How does it feel to have reached the end of this saga?

Do you ever listen to the other parts of the saga, and how do you feel about them?

You produced the album once again - after so many years in Dream Theater and so many times producing the albums, do you know what you want to ear, by now?

The first single off the album will be "A Rite of Passage", and i read that you had to edit it to make a shorter videoclip. Was it painful to cut it down from almost nine minutes to five minutes, for the video?

Isn't this the essence of going commercial, though? Cutting down your music so it can fit into a music video?

The countdown to the album will be done with the release of cover songs too. The titles are still unknown, could you give us any hints on that?

Leaving DT behind for a second, I saw that Transatlantic are making a comeback too, how did it come through, and how is the album recording doing?

With your life always immersed in music, making yourself busy with Dream Theater, Transatlantic, Turtleheads, and any other collaboration of project you have... what is your relationship with silence?