Don’t expect A.I. to show up on a Dream Theater record anytime soon. Speaking to Thailand’s Overdrive Live, drummer Mike Portnoy was unequivocal when asked whether the band had used artificial intelligence during the writing of Parasomnia, their February 2025 release via InsideOut Music.
“Oh, no, no,” he said (transcribed by Blabbermouth). “It’s all completely organic, and that’s very important to us. Jordan Rudess is very into the technology and A.I. experimentation, but on a personal level, it hasn’t come into the band. I don’t think it will ever come into the band. I think we’re all so serious enough as it is about our own instruments and our own writing and composition that that’s something that’s sacred to just being us and has to be fully organic.”
The human element is something Portnoy feels strongly about across the board. Asked about getting lost mid-performance in Dream Theater‘s more technically demanding material, he turned the question into a defence of playing without a click track, something he made a condition of his return to the band.
“7/8’s easy,” he said. “19/16 and 21/16, that’s when it starts to get a little more complicated. But, yeah, sometimes we get lost. It happens. We’re human beings, and I like the fact that we’re human beings. I’m not afraid to make a mistake. I think it shows that it’s not on tracks or it’s not playing to a click.
“For me, it’s very important not to play to a click. That was something that I needed to establish when I came back to the band. The years that I was away, I know Dream Theater did. So one of the important things for me was to have the human element. I would rather make a mistake and be real than be perfect and boring and a machine.”
On how he corrals the band when things go sideways live, Portnoy explained the system he has in place. “I’m the conductor — the drummer’s the conductor in the band — and I’m the one that’s setting the tempos and hitting the cues and playing the retards at the end of the songs,” he said.
“Everybody’s following me and watching me, including our lightman and our laser person and our video people; they’re all tied in with what I’m doing. I have an electronic pad behind the kit that I cue everybody. Only we can hear it in our ears. And if ever anything falls off the track, as the drummer and the conductor, I have to get everybody’s attention with the cowbell and bring us back together. It doesn’t happen that often, but it’s a good little trick to have.”
Portnoy recently confirmed that Dream Theater‘s April 22 concert at Movistar Arena in Santiago, Chile, will be professionally recorded and filmed for an upcoming Blu-ray release.
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