Dream Theater has existed for more than 30 years and remains one of the most significant groups playing in the genre of progressive metal. Over their career, the group has released 13 studio albums and has acquired a dedicated fan community around the world.
The emergence of the group
The Dream Theater group was founded in 1985. Its first lineup included bassist John Mayang, guitarist John Petrucci, drummer Mike Portnoy. Friends studied together at Berkeley, Boston's famous College of Music. Without them, it is impossible to imagine the musical universe, which is the work of the group "Dream Theater". The foundation of the team occurred at a time when America had a special demand for heavy metal. Friends, like many young musicians of that generation, began their career with amateur cover versions of Iron Maiden songs.
However, the founders of the Dream Theater also had other role models. First of all, they focused on progressive rock of the 70s and one of the groups of this echelon - Rush. Mike Portnoy was inspired by the song of this Bastille Day band and suggested using the word Majesty ("Greatness") as a sign for the new quintet. That is how he described the ending of his favorite song of the Canadian group.
In progressive rock, unlike metal, not only familiar guitars were used, but also keys. A friend of John Petrucci, Kevin Moore, was invited to play this instrument. Together they studied in elementary school and even then came together in musical tastes. But another place was vacant. The microphone at first was Chris Collins.
Style search
The Trinity, who studied at Berkeley, after founding the Dream Theater, decided to quit her education and moved to New York. The comrades focused on their own musical project. They devoted all their free time to rehearsals and composing new material. The result was not long in coming. In 1986, their first demo was released, which was published in a thousand copies.
Then the concerts in the clubs of his native city began. Soon the group left Chris Collins. He believed that the Dream Theater should take a different creative path (about it below). The remaining participants began to look for a replacement for the retiring colleague. The frontman was then suddenly taken by Charlie Dominici. He was noticeably older than his teammates (they were born in the mid-60s, and the new vocalist in the 51st year). Despite the difference in age, the second quintet ended up being more viable and productive than the first. The team began to give concerts not only in Boston, but also in New York, where the musical life was more stormy. Then, in the underground of the east coast, they started talking about a phenomenon called the Dream Theater. The group was popular, but in order to be heard by a large audience, she needed to record her own album.
Meanwhile, the comrades had to change the sign. The name Majesty was already taken by another team that threatened the Boston lawsuit. The musicians began to argue about a new name. They agreed on the option "Dream Theater" (the group received the name of the old and already closed California theater).
Debut album
The fame that Dream Theater has acquired has allowed the band to sign their first contract with the record label Mechanic Records. The debut album was released on March 6, 1989. It is called When Dream and Day Unite (a literary translation can be formulated as "When the dream comes true"). The name of the record was a reference to the name of the group. This is not surprising, because from the very beginning of their career the founders of the Dream Theater paid much attention to the conceptual nature of their works. They adopted this trait from their favorite progressive rock of the 70s. Musically, the debut record gravitated toward metal rather.
The new album "Dream Theater" fits into the framework of a new genre that appeared in the USA in the second half of the 80s. The combination of progressive rock and heavy metal was later baptized by critics as progressive metal. Dream Theater, over time, has become a key team in this area. In 1989, however, the prospects for the future career of the team were not so bright. The musicians had a conflict with the label. The company did not fulfill all its obligations and did almost nothing to promote the record in the industry. This led to a commercial failure. The debut debut tour was short and consisted of only five concerts.
In addition, vocalist Charlie Dominici left the band shortly after the release of the album. The problem was that, despite the fact that he was a talented performer, his style did not correspond to the genre of the collective. The remaining members of the Dream Theater wanted to move on, towards the development of the ideas of progressive metal, in which there would be long compositions, guitar solos, a pronounced rhythm section. Dominici was more suitable for songs in the genres of pop ballads or soft rock (the so-called soft rock). Much later, Mike Portnoy compared Charlie to Billy Joel.
Parish Labry
With the departure of Mancini, the band again had a dilemma associated with finding a permanent vocalist. In 1991, about 200 demo recordings were sent by enthusiasts from all over America. The brand "Dream Theater", the composition of which temporarily totaled four people, was already quite famous in the circles of metal fans and music lovers in general. Finally, Petrucci and the company were attracted by a record sent from Canada. She was sent by James Labry. The performer received an invitation to come to the USA and participate in jam. Rehearsals showed that the manner and condition of the ambitious guy are great for the team.
At this time, the rest of the team wrote material that formed the basis of the second album of the Dream Theater. "Pull Me Under" (Pull Me Under) - their most famous and popular song, which was composed precisely at the turn of 1991-1992. Labry became the new vocalist just before the final record. From then on, he remains the same frontman of the American Five. His voice became the hallmark of the team.
Breakthrough
In 1992, Dream Theater found a new label to replace Mechanic Records. They became Atco. The company provided the group with sufficient creative freedom. In the music business of that time, it was a bold move. Finally, on July 7, the second album was released - Images and Words ("Symbols and Words"). In sound, he was noticeably different from his debut album and was a logical continuation of honing the group's genre ideas.
The disc instantly became a bestseller. The opening song Pull Me Under (literally “Pull Me Down”) got into an abridged version of the radio rotation. This was due to the fact that the group decided not to skimp on their composer ideas. Almost all the songs on the album were long. For example, the first song lasted 8 minutes (the radio version was two times shorter). A clip was shot on Pull Me Under, which even got on MTV. Of the group’s musical experiments in 1992, it is worth noting the use of a saxophone, which was recorded thanks to the help of invited artists. The style set by the second album "Dream Theater", has been the leitmotif of the collective for many years.
Awake
After the release of Images and Words, the whole world learned about young children performing under the guise of "Dream Theater". Photos of musicians began to appear in the most circulated magazines. The band first performed in Europe. The beginning of the 90s was just the last era when the old music industry existed before the advent of the Internet and the distribution of digital content.
In 1994, the third album of Americans was released. It is called Awake ("Wake up"). Musically, there was some weighting. The album was the last for keyboardist Kevin Moore. After recording the record, the musician told his friends that he wanted to pursue a solo career. The group, which had performances all over the world, had to seek an urgent replacement. Kevin's place was taken by a native of California Derek Sherinyan. Despite his youth, he was already very famous on the rock scene. Sherinyan managed to work with Alice Cooper and Kiss.
A breakdown of the pen for the new team was the mini-album A Change of Seasons ("Change of the seasons"). He came out in 1995. The musicians again went to the experiments and recorded a huge 23-minute song of the same name. This was the real climax of their creative search in the progressive genre. The plot of the song narrated about a man whose life course in the text was compared with the natural annual cycle. Dialogues from popular films of that era (for example, from the Society of Dead Poets with Robin Williams in the title role) were superimposed on a musical basis in the studio. A similar trick has been used before - on the song ending the Awake album.
Falling Into Infinity
With the expansion of the repertoire, musicians were able to afford to experiment on live performances. Each concert of the Dream Theater was different from the previous one on the set list. Long songs such as A Change of Seasons were divided into parts that were performed separately. And in 1993, during a tour in support of Images and Words, the debut live album Live at the Marquee went on sale.
After another series of successful performances around the world, the members of the group thought about a new creative turn, which the Dream Theater should take. The discography of the band did not yet have a full concept album. However, in 1997 this idea had to be postponed. The fourth album, Falling Into Infinity ("Falling into Infinity") had to be significantly edited due to the reluctance of the label to release too long and costly records. The record was the last for keyboard player Derek Sherinyan. He (as before Kevin Moore) decided to take up his own projects. In his place, a multi-instrumentalist and improviser Jordan Rudess was chosen, who remains in the group to this day.
Conceptual Metal Opera
Also in the Images and Words album was the song Metropolis. In 1999, the group released its new concept album, which became the storyline continuation of this composition. The record was called Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory (Metropolis 2: Scenes from Memories). It was a real piece of music, consisting of two parts.
According to the plot, the main character is in a hypnotic dream. He travels around the world, living in 1928, and tries to find out what led him there. The group held a world tour, the set list of which consisted entirely of staging their own play. Rudess fit perfectly into the team. New songs received his numerous, very interesting keyboard improvisations, including inspired by academic music.
Zero
In the new millennium, the group released five albums. The team did not stop its activity and after each world tour it was again sent to the studio, which explains its noticeable productivity. In addition, the musicians made it a habit to release tributes to the predecessor groups that had the most influence on their work. So live albums Iron Maiden, Rush and Metallica were performed and recorded.
In 2002, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence was released. This album was the first and only double album in the entire discography of the group. At the same time, there were only 6 songs in it. This disc has become one of the most monolithic in the career of the team.
Already in the following 2003, the next album Train of Thought ("Train of Thought") was released. He occupies a special place in the discography of the group. Most critics and ordinary listeners consider it the darkest quintet album. Indeed, both the arrangements and the album cover stand out from the rest of the releases. During the tour in support of Train of Thought, one of the most grandiose concerts in the history of the Dream Theater was recorded. It took place in the famous Tokyo Budokan - an arena where legendary bands in the history of rock music performed. Since then, a few concert DVDs have appeared in the discography of the quintet.
Further albums - Octavarium, Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds & Silver Linings - continued the tendency to “modernize” the sound of the group. With all this, each composer of the collective did not forget about the fundamental influence of progressive rock of the 70s. In the zero years, Dream Theater became one of the most recognizable and popular metal bands in the world. The Systematic Chaos album contains parts of numerous invited eminent colleagues. Cory Taylor, Stephen Wilson, Mikael Okerfeldt, etc., played or sang with the theater-goers.
2010 years
On September 8, 2010, one of the founders of the group - Mike Portnoy - on his social networks announced to his fan that he was leaving the Dream Theater. Albums and world tours with this drummer covered the period of 25 years of the existence of the band. There is still no clear explanation of the reasons for the departure of the musician. In general, members of the group described them as "a divergence of creative views." Since then, Portnoy has been playing in numerous side projects along with other eminent representatives of the rock and metal scenes. But the drummer never created his own long-lived band. After the rotation of the squad, Mike Magini took a place behind barrels and plates in the Dream Theater group. The last album with Portnoy remained an original chapter in its history, but the participants, despite the severity of the split, continued their careers under the same guise.
Three albums have already been released with Magini: in 2011 - A Dramatic Turn of Events, in 2013 - the Dream Theater of the same name, and most recently, at the beginning of 2016 - The Astonishing. This record has become a unique experiment. Like Metropolis, the album is a long conceptual story. John Petrucci (author of the texts) created an entire fictional universe. The Astonishing has several characters, 2 acts and 34 songs.