MIKE PORTNOY: "IT WAS LIKE SEEING YOUR WIFE WITH HER NEW HUSBAND."

The returning drumming legend with prog metal titans Dream Theater tells Rock Candy Magazine about his time away from the band and why it feels right to be back in the fold.

“It was a longing to come home, to be with family. The two Johns [Petrucci and Myung] and I started together when we were teenagers, and now here we are creeping up on 60. It goes way deeper than coming back to a band.”

The release of the band's sixteenth studio album, ‘Parasomnia’, finds the friends out on the road and taking their peerless brand of razor-sharp melodic metal to their expectant fans. The band had much success with previous drummer Mike Mangini behind the kit, but Mike Portnoy's reappearance has scratched an itch for many die-hard followers. Mike is very aware of the fans and feels the weight of trying to live up to expectations.

“We just have to write for ourselves and make ourselves happy. Dream Theater fans are so rabid, and so opinionated, and so passionate that there's no way we can please everybody... I really care about our fans. I've spent my whole career trying to model everything I do for them because I relate to them as much as anybody. The hardest thing for me is to keep an eye on that, but also look away from it and please ourselves first and foremost. There's a balance somewhere, though, and hopefully we're striking it.”

You can read our exclusive Mike Portnoy interview, as well as the interviews with all the members of Dream Theater in issue 48 of Rock Candy Magazine, together with in-depth stories and interviews with Ian Gillan, Steve Vai, Pantera and Anthrax's Charlie Benante, Teaze, TKO and more.

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