Portnoy, Mike (Liquid Tension Experiment) (April 2001)

Liquid Tension Experiment, The Progmetal Trial

"I hate it to be here. They are all snobs," says Mike Portnoy. Mike is on tour with Dream Theater, his living. It rains constantly and Mike sits in his hotel room in Wolverhampton, England in order to convince the public of the outstanding quality of Dream Theater. Together with some friends, Mike released an album under the name of Liquid Tension Experiment. As the name suggests it's a real experiment in which Mike is assisted by guitarist John Petrucci, keyboard player Jordan Rudess and bass player Tony Levin. Some of us were afraid of a generation gap because Mike and John are in their thirties, Jordan in his forties and Tony in his fifties! "Only in the pub can you feel the generation gap," jokes Mike. "As long as we're doing music there's no sign of ageing problems!"

Accompanied by a Coke and a pizza, Portnoy gives us more details. "After having contributed to the Rush-tribute CD Working Man, suddenly 'out of the blue' Pete Morticelli and Mike Varney from Magna Carta called me to put a supergroup together. Around the same time they asked a similar thing of Terry Bozzio [one time drummer with Frank Zappa, UK and Missing Persons], so it came down to making a list with whom I would like to play. As you can read in the liner notes, I finally arrived at Tony, John and Jordan. However, I was afraid that it would be impossible to do a complete album in only a week. With Dream Theater we have to bear in mind the wishes of the record company because in the end they have to sell the record. With Magna Carta that pressure was nowhere to be found. Although at first I had the intention to go into the studio unprepared in order to record a huge jam in only one take, I got the idea to do at least four 'real' songs next to the 'planned' jam. To make sure we had a solution for the possible 'writer's block,' we learned two covers, but in the end we didn't need to record them because we managed to write enough material of our own. We nevertheless rehearsed 'Peaches En Regalia' from Zappa and 'Egyptian Fanza' by Al Di Meola."

How do you come up with a name for such a project? "Right from the very start the project was to be called The Millenium Project. After a while the name millenium was becoming a bore and the more we approach the magical year 2000 it will become even worse! [Oh how right he was! -ed] Believe me, you want to get rid of the name millenium as soon as possible! So we were trapped like four mice in a cage and because we were getting our song titles out of a book it was exactly the same where the name for the project was concerned. One thing was for sure, it was an 'experiment,' so that name had to be in there. In a certain textbook they suddenly talked about liquid tension and we all found that it sounded great. We finally had a name!"

Because half of the "experiment" is made up of members of Dream Theater [later two-thirds with Rudess replacing Sherinian on keys] you might think that some of the tracks are based on leftovers from the Dream Theater vaults. "That's not true," continues Mike with his mouth full of food. "Everything we have written for Liquid Tension Experiment was written out of the blue. Jordan brought an arsenal of riffs with him, whilst John has been emphasizing melody and his love for Steve Morse. With Dream Theater we have a singer so the melody should be his. With an instrumental outfit like LTE you can give the melody to an instrument which is why the leads in 'Kindred Spirits,' 'State Of Grace' and 'Freedom Of Speech' sound more accessible."

When Portnoy started the recording for this album, the other project based around Bozzio, Levin and Stevens was already done, so Mike could listen to Black Light Syndrome. "Their record sounds like one long jam session. We didn't like our first idea and have reserved the 'jam' for the last track on the album. For the rest of the album we wanted to have structured, well-balanced songs." I wonder how Portnoy feels about Bozzio? "Terry is a genius whilst I'm only a beginner," says Mike."I thought I had a big drum kit until I sat behind Terry's. It's like an amusement park! A while ago, during a festival, I was able to jam with the likes of Bozzio, Simon Philips and a bunch of others."

Whilst the project, the "experiment" got '"free play" from Magna Carta, was it possible that you would "experiment" with new instruments, new drum skins, new sticks? "Each time Tony would come in with something new. He brought his stick, various basses, an upright [bass], electric bass. During the sessions he would go from one instrument to another. I was limited in my abilities because the kit that I normally use with Dream Theater was still in Brazil after we had been there on tour with the band. So I had to play on a much smaller kit on which I only have around five toms. I did play with 'hotrods' [= soft sticks] though. I have really limited my playing because a lot of the percussion is not done by me but by Jordan on keyboards!"

A drummer and a bass player. At times you can see the two as Siamese twins because in a band they have to be very close indeed. But how important is a bass player for a drummer and how important is someone like Tony Levin? "The part of the bass player here was very important! Tony has a real powerful 'groove' whilst he keeps everything under control. Initially I wanted to ask Billy Sheehan but he wasn't available at the time of the recording. In the end I'm glad we had to use Tony because Billy is too impulsive. If he had been there then we would have had real chaos! A song like 'Chris And Kevin's Excellent Adventure' is only possible with someone like Tony, even if we did around twenty takes of that one. For the finale we were looking for something special. First we thought of putting down various bass lines on top of each other just like Chris Squire did with 'The Fish' but Tony didn't think it was weird enough. In the end he came down with the idea to include the whistle which is what we used. You know that the most difficult part for me was to find the ideal guitarist. Allan Holdsworth is a very talented guitarist, but keyboard player Jens Johansson told me Allan would not co-operate in writing the songs and no way would he play rhythm guitar! Another option was Trevor Rabin but he's so involved in film music nowadays that I finally arrived at John Petrucci. Another reason why things work out so well between us is the fact that we have been making music together for over thirteen years. During rehearsals I sometimes grab a guitar whilst John takes place behind my drum kit."

The line-up of Portnoy, Petrucci, Levin, Rudess could well have been Portnoy, Steve Morse, Jens Johansson, Billy Sheehan. If money would be no problem, would Portnoy ask the same people? "If money would be no problem and if everyone would simply say yes, then I would take Paul McCartney on bass, David Gilmour on guitar and Rick Wakeman on keyboards. Do you know Rick's son Adam came to see us when we did the 'uncovered' gig at Ronnie Scott's?"

Lovers of the real complex compositions obviously love the almost half an hour of weirdness on "Three Minute Warning." Strange title and why is the song divided into five parts so it stops after each segment? "Damned, you still have a copy of the very first pressing," yells Mike. "I have been on the phone for days in order to inform people about this and still they have managed to get things wrong! The very first pressing of the European version with catalogue number MAX9023-2 has some problems. Some of the songs stop very abruptly and 'Three Minute Warning' is indeed cut up into five parts with a couple of seconds between each segment. It is so stupid to have a song which lasts for half an hour and to cut it up into parts as if it were edited versions! You should inform people that they should change their copies of the MAX9023-2 edition for the new MAXX9023-2 edition. They have added an extra X. Only the later copies will give the listener the true sound that we had in our minds. However I guess this problem only occurred in Europe, so people in America should have the correct pressing from the first batch onwards. But to go back to your initial question of why thirty minutes of music gets 'Three Minute Warning' as a title. You should know that Tony Levin is only interested as long as he can play. Whenever you should compose or write scores then Tony is nowhere to be seen. At the end of the second day we were writing a certain arrangement whilst he was twiddling his thumbs. Suddenly he got out of his chair and said, 'listen if we don't play in 3 minutes I'm out of here!' That's when we played the complete session which is now to be found at the end of the CD. We thought it was a very appropriate title."

Liquid Tension Experiment isn't really the kind of music you would expect to be done live but a second album is in the making [released in 1999 as 2]. "If we could all fit LTE in our agenda then a small tour with the band might be fun to do. It is a dream to work with these guys. So far the project has been evaluated very positively, but again I have to say that the enthusiasm in Europe is much bigger than in the States. Nevertheless, bit by bit we get the proof - progressive rock has finally reached the long overdue revival, so prog' on!"

Portnoy is also part of another, and quite different supergroup, that being Transatlantic, the quartet featuring Portnoy along with Neal Morse (Spock's Beard), Roine Stolt (Flower Kings) and Pete Trewavas (Marillion). Their first album was released in 2000. {And, of course, over the 10 years after this interview, Portnoy formed Yellow Matter Custard, a Beatles tribut group; regrouped with Transatlantic in 2009 (who went on hiatus in 2002); left Dream Theater in 2010; spent a short stint in Avenged Sevenfold that same year; and now in 2011 is joining with Symphony X's Russell Allen to form Adrenaline Mob... and I'm sure I missed out something 'tween 2001 and 2009... -ed}

Discography:
Liquid Tension Experiment (1998)
Liquid Tension Experiment 2 (1999)
Liquid Trio Experiment - Spontaneous Combustion (2007)