DREAM THEATER Singer: 'This Album Really Brought Us Closer Together'

Mike Sullivan of ExploreMusic conducted an interview with vocalist James LaBrie of progressive metal giants DREAM THEATER on October 6, 2011 at Massey Hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. You can now watch the chat below.

DREAM THEATER's new album, "A Dramatic Turn Of Events", sold 36,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to enter The Billboard 200 chart at position No. 8. The band's previous CD, 2009's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings", opened with 40,000 units to land at No. 6. This was roughly in line with the first-week tally registered by its predecessor, "Systematic Chaos", which shifted 36,000 copies in 2007 to enter the chart at No. 19. 2005's "Octavarium" premiered with 27,000 copies to debut at No. 36.

In a recent interview with The Aquarian Weekly, DREAM THEATER guitarist John Petrucci stated about the making of "A Dramatic Turn Of Events", "Going into it and writing it, we had made a conscious decision to really focus in again on the core compositional elements: What are the things that we really want to explore and focus on on this album? I knew that I wanted it to be a broad album, that we wanted to give everybody the band an opportunity to shine, whether that's in an arrangement way or an orchestration way. I knew and hoped that it would be mixed by Andy Wallace, which it was. I wanted the presentation sonically to be epic and grand and high-fi and all that stuff. Those were some of the goals. We really wanted to infuse the elements of progressive music that we grew up with and make sure that it was a melodic album and rich in the lyrical message. Those were all the things that were on our mind, that we talked about the whole time."

When asked why the band's new drummer, Mike Mangini, was not included in the writing of the new record, Petrucci said, "I decided to do it this way because I wanted to make sure that we were able to focus on DREAM THEATER's core compositional elements and sounds without a new person coming in. Whatever that Mike might have brought to the table, I thought it was too early to kind of bring in somebody that we didn't really know at all, as far as their compositional abilities. I've been writing this music forever and just felt comfortable in that kind of environment. When you can focus on just guitar, keyboards, bass and our singer is there, it's just a more intimate environment and you're not trying to integrate somebody else and feel them out. I just kind of wanted to eliminate that whole process. I mean, it could have been great, but I was more comfortable doing it this way for this album at least."