DREAM THEATER’s JOHN MYUNG On Reunion With MIKE PORTNOY: ‘It Made Sense To Bring Him Back’

In a new interview with The Heavy Metal Journal, DREAM THEATER bassist John Myung discussed the band’s decision to reunite with Mike Portnoy in October 2023, 13 years after the drummer first left the progressive metal titans. Asked how the reunion with Mike came about, John said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I think he was ready to come back, and he had spoken to a few of the guys in the band, and then we had a meeting. And the gist of the meeting was, ‘We talked to Mike and he’s ready to come back home.’ And it just made a whole lot of sense, because Mike wants to come back into the band, and my history with Mike is… The band, I think, was doing really well, and musically I think we felt we were our strongest when we were with him, so, of course, it made sense to bring him back, being that he wanted to come back.”Myung also talked about DREAM THEATER’s just-released sixteenth studio album, “Parasomnia”, which marks the band’s first release with Portnoy since 2009’s “Black Clouds & Silver Linings”. Regarding how the songwriting and recording process went this time around, John said: “It went really well; it went really smooth. There wasn’t any problems. It’s kind of like the way I remembered it was when Mike was originally in the band. And it was really just a great feeling to kind of have him back and have the chemistry that we once had. And then when he left, a lot of the things that I took for granted, because it’s just all I ever knew. We got to audition different drummers and got to know their personalities, and just stepping back in with Mike coming back into the band was a real great thing for us. We’re in a really good place, and everything makes a little bit more sense to me. I get to look back and realize the things I took for granted. And so I kind of have a greater appreciation for the band and the chemistry we have now.”DREAM THEATER kicked off the North American leg of its 40th-anniversary tour last Friday night (February 7) at The Met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The trek is “An Evening With Dream Theater” and is the first tour of North America since Portnoy’s return to the lineup, joining vocalist James LaBrie, Myung, guitarist John Petrucci and keyboardist Jordan Rudess. The tour is scheduled for 29 more cities across the United States and Canada, concluding on March 22 in New York City.Prior to Portnoy’s return to DREAM THEATER, he and Petrucci worked together on the latter’s 2020 solo album, “Terminal Velocity”, and toured together. The two also joined Rudess and bassist Tony Levin for a third studio album as LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT in 2021.Titled after a specific category of sleep disorders, “Parasomnia” is an eight-track, 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 in the top 10 of Billboard’s Top Hard Rock Albums, Top Rock Albums and Independent Albums charts.”Parasomnia” was produced by Petrucci, engineered by James “Jimmy T” Meslin, and mixed by Andy Sneap. Hugh Syme returns once again to lend his creative vision to the cover art.Portnoy co-founded DREAM THEATER as MAJESTY in 1985 with Petrucci and 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. LaBrie came on board in 1991, while Rudess joined in 1999.Mike 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”.[embedded content]