"Dream Theater": base and discography

Dream Theater has existed for more than 30 years and still remains one of the most significant bands playing in the genre of progressive metal. During his career the band released 13 studio albums and acquired a dedicated fan community around the world.

The emergence of a group

The "Dream Theater" group was founded in 1985. Her first line-up included bassist John Mayang, guitarist John Petrucci, drummer Mike Portnoy. Friends studied together in Berkeley - the famous Boston College of Music. Without them, it is impossible to imagine the musical universe, which is the creativity of the Dream Theater group. The foundation of the team occurred at a time when in America there was a special demand for heavy metal. Friends, like many young musicians of that generation, began their careers with amateur cover versions of Iron Maiden songs.

However, the founders of Dream Theater had other examples to follow. First of all, they were guided by the progressive rock of the 70s and one of the groups of this echelon - Rush. Mike Portnoy was inspired by the song of this band Bastille Day and suggested using the word Majesty ("Greatness") as a signboard of the new quintet. This is how he described the ending of his favorite song of the Canadian band.

In progressive rock, unlike metal, not only the usual guitars were used, but also the keys. To play the instrument, John Petrucci's friend Kevin Moore was invited. Together they studied in primary school and even then met in musical tastes. But there was another vacant place. The microphone was first received by Chris Collins.

Search for a style

The Trinity, who studied at Berkeley, after the founding of the Dream Theater decided to quit and moved to New York. The comrades concentrated on their own musical project. They devoted all their free time to rehearsals and writing new material. The result was not long in coming. In 1986 their first demo was released, which was published in a thousand copies.

At the same time, concerts began in the clubs of his native city. Soon the group left Chris Collins. He believed that the "Dream Theater" should go another creative way (about him below). The rest of the participants began to look for a replacement for their retired colleague. Place frontman then suddenly took Charlie Dominici. He was noticeably older than his teammates (they were born in the mid-60's, and a new vocalist in the 51st year). Despite the age difference, the second quintet's composition proved to be tenacious and more productive than the first. The band began to give concerts not only in Boston, but also in New York, where the musical life was more turbulent. Then, in the underground of the east coast, we started talking about a phenomenon called "Dream Theater". The band 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 occupied by another team, which threatened the Bostonians with a lawsuit. The musicians began to argue about the new name. We agreed on the variant "Dream Theater" (the group was called the old and already closed California theater).

The debut album

The fame that "Dream Theater" acquired allowed the band to sign their first contract with the record label, Mechanic Records. The debut album was released on March 6, 1989. It was called When Dream and Day Unite (literary translation can be formulated as "When the dream turns out to be a reality"). The name of the record became a reference to the name of the band. This is not surprising, because from the very beginning of his career the founders of Dream Theater paid much attention to the conceptuality of their works. This feature they adopted from their favorite progressive rock of the 70's. In musical terms, the debut record was more likely to gravitate towards metal.

The new album "Dream Theater" fit into the new genre that appeared in the US in the second half of the 80's. The combination of progressive rock and heavy metal was later christened by progressive metal critics. "Dream Theater" also eventually became a key team in this direction. In 1989, however, the prospects for the further career of the team were not so rosy. The musicians had a conflict with the label. The company has not fulfilled all its obligations and has done almost nothing to promote the record in the industry. This led to a commercial failure. The tour in support of the debut 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 match the genre of the collective. The rest of the Dream Theater members wanted to move further, towards the development of ideas of progressive metal, in which there would be long compositions, guitar solos, a brightly expressed rhythm section. Dominici is more suited for songs in the genres of pop ballads or soft rock (so-called soft rock). Much later, Mike Portnoy compared Charlie to Billy Joel.

Parish of Labri

With the departure of Mancini, the group again had a dilemma associated with the search for a permanent vocalist. In 1991, about 200 demo tapes were sent by enthusiasts from all corners of America. The brand "Dream Theater", which was temporarily composed of four people, was already well known in the circles of fans of metal and music lovers in general. Finally, Petrucci and the company attracted a record sent from Canada. It was sent by James Labry. The contractor received an invitation to come to the US and participate in the jam. Rehearsals showed that the manner and condition of an ambitious guy perfectly fit the team.

At this time, the rest of the team wrote material that formed the basis for the second album of the Dream Theater group. "Pull Me Under" (Pull Me Under) - the most famous and popular of their song, which was composed exactly at the turn of 1991-1992. Labry became the new vocalist just before the final recording of the record. From then on, he remains the unchanged frontman of the American five. His voice became the visiting card of the collective.

Breakthrough

In 1992, Dream Theater found a new label in exchange for 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, Images and Words, was released ("Symbols and Words"). By sound, he was noticeably different from the debut and was a logical continuation of the sharpening of the band's genre ideas.

The record instantly became a hit of sales. The opening song Pull Me Under (literally "Pull Me Down") was in the abridged version for radio-rotation. This was due to the fact that the group decided not to stint in their compositional designs. Almost all the album's songs were very long. For example, the first track lasted 8 minutes (the radio version was twice shorter). At Pull Me Under, a clip was filmed, which even hit MTV. From the musical experiments of the band in 1992 it is worth noting the use of saxophone, which was recorded thanks to the help of invited performers. The style given by the second album "Dream of the Theater" was the leitmotif of the collective's creative work for many years.

Awake

After the release of Images and Words, the whole world learned about the young guys performing under the name "Dream Theater". Photo musicians began to appear in the most replicated magazines. The band first performed in Europe. The beginning of the 90's was just the last era when there was an old music industry before the advent of the Internet and the dissemination of digital content.

In 1994 the third album of Americans was released. It was called Awake ("Wake Up"). Musically, there was some weighting of the sound. The album was the last for keyboard player Kevin Moore. After recording the record, the musician informed his friends that he wanted to pursue a solo career. The group, which had performances on the nose all over the world, had to look for an urgent replacement. The place of Kevin was taken by the native of California Derek Sherinian. Despite his youth, he was already very famous on the rock scene. Sherinyan managed to work with Alice Cooper and Kiss.

Pen break for the new composition of the band was the mini-album A Change of Seasons ("Change of Seasons"). It was released in 1995. The musicians again went to experiments and recorded a huge 23-minute eponymous song. It was a real apogee 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. In the studio, the dialogue was based on popular films of that era (for example, from the "Society of the Dead Poets" with Robin Williams in the lead role). Similar information was used before - on the song that completes the album Awake.

Falling Into Infinity

With the expansion of the repertoire, the musicians were able to afford to experiment on live performances. Each concert "Dream Theater" was different from the previous one on the set list. Such long songs, like A Change of Seasons, were divided into parts that were performed separately. And in 1993, during the tour in support of Images and Words, the debut live album Live at the Marquee was on sale.

After another series of successful performances around the world, the band members reflected on the new creative turn to which the Dream Theater should go. 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 because of the reluctance of the label to produce a very long and expensive record. The record was the last for keyboardist Derek Sherinian. He (as before Kevin Moore) decided to do his own projects. In his place, selected multi-instrumentalist and improviser Jordan Rudess, who remains in the group to this day.

Conceptual metal opera

Still in the album Images and Words was the song Metropolis. In 1999, the band released their new concept album, which became a storyline sequel to this composition. The plate 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, who lives in 1928, and tries to figure out what brought him there. The group conducted a world tour, the set list in which consisted entirely of staging their own play. Rudess fit perfectly into the team. New songs received his numerous, very interesting key improvisations, inspired, among other things, by academic music.

Zero

In the new millennium, the band released five albums. The team did not stop its activities and after each world tour again went to the studio, which explains its remarkable productivity. In addition, the musicians took the habit of releasing tributes to the predecessor groups that most influenced their work. So the albums Iron Maiden, Rush and Metallica were performed and recorded live.

In 2002, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence ("Six Stages of Internal Turbulence") was released. This album was the first and only double album in the entire discography of the band. At the same time he had only 6 songs. This record became one of the most monolithic in the career of the collective.

In the following 2003, the next album, Train of Thought, was released. It occupies a special place in the discography of the group. Most critics and ordinary listeners consider him to be the darkest album of the quintet. Indeed, both the arrangements and the cover of the record stand out against the background of other releases. During the tour in support of Train of Thought, one of the most grandiose concerts in the history of Dream Theater was recorded. It was held in the famous Tokyo Budokan - the arena, where the legendary bands in the history of rock music performed. Since then, a few more concert DVDs have appeared in the discography of the quintet.

Further albums - Octavarium, Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds & Silver Linings - continued the trend towards "modernizing" the band's sound. For all this, each composer of the collective did not forget about the fundamental influence of the progressive rock of the 70s. In the zero years "Dream Theater" became one of the most recognizable and popular metal bands in the whole world. The album Systematic Chaos recorded the party of numerous invited eminent colleagues in the shop. Cory Taylor, Steven Wilson, Mikael Okerfeldt, etc., played or sang with the theater-goers.

2010 years

September 8, 2010, one of the founders of the group - Mike Portnoy - on his social networks informed the fan that he was leaving the "Dream Theater". Albums and world tours with this drummer covered the period of 25 years of the collective's existence. There is still no clear explanation of the reasons for the departure of the musician. In general, the group members described them as a "divergence of creative views." Since then, Portnoy has played in numerous side-projects along with other eminent representatives of the rock and metal scene. But the drummer never created his own long-lived band. After the rotation of the composition, 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 career under the same signboard.

With Magini there are already three albums: in 2011 - A Dramatic Turn of Events, in 2013 - the same name Dream Theater, and more recently, in early 2016 - The Astonishing. This record has become a unique experiment. Like Metropolis, the album is a long conceptual story. John Petrucci (the author of the texts) created a whole fictional universe. In The Astonishing several characters, 2 acts and 34 songs.