HARD NOISE: DREAM THEATER // Arriving at Metropolis

Progressive metal fans can’t imagine a world without Dream Theater. It’s like fish imagining a world without water. It won’t—and never will—compute.

Canadian tenor James LaBrie is blessed with a throat that is as dramatic as it is sublime. His soaring, silken, sometimes savage vocals are often imitated but never matched. His technical skill equals that Dream Theater’s elite musicians, regarded as the best in the world. Now with the band since before the release of 1992’s seminal Images and Words, it’s time to celebrate 25 years of that album’s creation and re-creation on stage as the band returns to Australia this October. We spoke to James, as he says, “by the pool at home…it’s a very rockstar image, isn’t it?”

Hysteria: Tell us a little bit about the show. Is it going to be sort of like the Evening With Dream Theater type shows that you’ve done before?

James: Yeah, absolutely. The show is an Evening With, for sure, and it’s about two and a half hours plus. How we’re going about it is the first set … We did two sets with a 20-minute intermission, and the first set is songs from various albums, and then we take off for a little bit of a break, and then we come back, and it’s all Images and Words from beginning to end. Then, we finish with an encore, which is A Change of Seasons. The lighting show is amazing. Once again, we have our lighting director that’s been with us since 1995, Steve Baird, and he’s phenomenal. He’s just such an incredibly talented individual. Actually, our whole crew is. Everybody that’s involved is … They’re just as involved and indebted to the show as we are.

I just think it’s an extremely exciting evening, and I feel, because we are doing this 25th anniversary, that it seems a little more intimate. It just seems a little more engaging from both ends, from the band and from the fans, just because I think everyone is excited that we’re doing that album again from beginning to end. It was iconic for this band, that album, and I think because of that, it lends a bit more electricity to the air, to the evening. We’re having quite a great time with this tour. It’s going by very quickly. I think that’s why, is because we’re really enjoying ourselves.

When I speak to other people around the industry, they always say Images and Words was like a tour de force in the sense of progressive metal. It really opened the doors to a whole new direction for many bands, for many musicians. Because of its success, it allowed many bands and musicians to be a lot more uninhibited and more liberal and creatively free.
[JAMES]

Images and Words was your first album with the band. What do you think still captures the imagination for yourself when you perform Images and Words, and why do you think it still has that resonance in other people when they listen to it?

Well, I think it’s the music, really. I think the music … it really spoke for itself. I think that’s why it’s been an album that has been referred to for quite some time. When I speak to other people around the industry, they always say Images and Words was like a tour de force in the sense of progressive metal. It really opened the doors to a whole new direction for many bands, for many musicians. Because of its success, it allowed many bands and musicians to be a lot more uninhibited and more liberal and creatively free.

When we have spoken to many people, many of our fans, over the years, they said they didn’t know what to expect, because they bought it on the merits of, a lot of them, on Pull Me Under. Then, they got into the album, and it’s like, “Oh, my God. Shit, an. I was just expecting more of what Pull Me Under was.” It’s like I always say to anyone that’s coming onboard for the first time. “Hey, so what album do you think best describes what you guys do?” I said, “I can’t do that,” because each album … I can’t even say, “You listen to one song from Octavarium, then you pretty much know what the whole album is going to be.” No, you don’t. I think that stands true for each album.

I think with Images and Words, it’s an album that resonates extremely, or profoundly, with a lot of our fans around the world, and they get to relive it again, and so do we when we walk onstage. We haven’t been playing this album from beginning to end every single night since the Images and Words tour. We busted it out here and there to play it maybe one night, but that’s happened, what, twice since. This, playing it every night, is a bit of a nostalgic kind of run for us. It brings up memories. They resurface, of what we were doing at the time, how we were, how exciting things were, and how everything was just really starting to take off with something we had all been earnestly aspiring to for so long. Finally, it was a reality.

It’s interesting that you say it’s a nostalgia thing, obviously for you guys being at ground zero. There’s also a parallel audience where someone like myself, who has only heard Images and Words on CD or, god forbid, MP3 will be seeing it live for the first time as a, quote unquote, “new” fan. For some it’s going to be a nostalgia trip. But it’s also going to be a new experience for a lot of people.

Absolutely, we are. You know what? That’s quite evident to us when we look out and we see the demographics of our audience. We see 10-year-olds to 60-year-olds. It’s kind of like, “Okay, so these are our fans, anywhere from 10 to 25 years old.” We’re knowing that they’ve never, more than likely, heard these songs. If they have, maybe they heard one or two, and they’ve never seen it from beginning to end. There are a lot of fans that we’re seeing out there, and you can pick them out here and there, or even read about it online, or somebody will send something to my Facebook, or whatever, and just say, “Phenomenal show last night. Unbelievable. It was my first time. Can’t believe that I finally saw it. It was amazing, and a great show.” You know, just going out and knowing that it’s all of a sudden hitting a whole new generation is pretty crazy.

I remember when the album came out, and I remember sitting there with my father. He goes, “You watch. Do you think you’re going to be in a situation where you’re going to be able to do a 25th anniversary tour?” I remember back then, when he asked me that, I was like, “Dad, what are you asking me something like that for? Holy shit, man. That’s so far away.” I had no idea, really. The music industry, if you have a career that’s five years, some people can say that’s a success story. I said, “Whether I’m around in 25 years, I have no idea.” Especially being the kind of album that it was, I even had a little bit more trepidation as far as, “Will this grab? Will this take? Will this be a successful album?” We weren’t doing anything that most other bands were releasing at that point in time. We sounded nothing like them. It was anyone’s guess. Fortunately for us, it did hit, and it did become a big success for us, which enabled us to have such longevity as musicians and as a band.

I like to call Images and Words “Patient Zero” for the prog metal sound that we’re sort of used to today. Obviously, Dream Theater didn’t sit down and say, “We’re going to invent this new sort of prog metal style.” Even so, was there sort of a specialness to it? What was the feeling, if you can take yourself back there?

[When first album] When Dream and Day Unite came out, they did a few shows. Then, at that point, they realised that, Charlie Dominici being the singer on the first album, that they wanted to get another singer in the band. It was two years before I came into the picture. In that two years, that provided them a platform for them to just focus on writing, and writing, and writing, and writing these songs, and writing these songs, and perfecting them, and bringing them to the point where when I came into the band, basically, I’d say 98% of that album was written. It was maybe some tweaking here and there, but for the most part, they’d had two, two and half years, to just concentrate on writing these songs and making it so that these songs were undeniable as far as presenting that kind of style.

I think that that was a bonus in itself, is that maybe things do happen for a reason. It provided them that luxury to be able to just kick back and take the time. They were all extremely young, too. You’re talking about guys that were 21 years old after When Dream and Day Unite was out. Then, by the time we went in with Images, I don’t know. I think they were 23, 24, years old. I think it happened, and I’m glad it did happen the way it did. It also provided me with that connection with them, and then making something happen from it. I think that all these things … That’s why those songs came out like they are, and that’s why those songs are what they are.