Author Topic: "We wouldn't have been nominated for a Grammy if DT hadn't changed the drummer"  (Read 6905 times)

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Offline Zook

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Has Blabbermouth picked up on this yet? Portnoy is gonna be pissed.

Offline vtgrad

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That certainly doesn't sound like the MM I've met; not much in the way of humility in that translation of the interview.  Maybe humility doesn't translate properly into Spanish... or maybe MM was speaking in one of the other 14 living indigenous languages in Argentina.  He is a rocket scientist. :biggrin:

I would hope that MP would visit the salt shaker (or grinder; this is a big rock) when reading this particular interview.

I'd be likely to call SHENANIGANS as well.
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Now with Twitler taking a high end steak of this caliber and insulting the cow that died for it by having it well done just shows zero respect for the product, which falls right in line with the amount of respect he shows for pretty much everything else.- Lonestar

Offline bosk1

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Edit: I exchanged some tweets with the guy and he says there was no editing and no omissions on that interview. He says he does have an audio of the interview but I didn't go as far as asking to have it.

Bit I'm not sure "editing" or "omissions" are the issue.  Reading through that, NOTHING that he said strikes me as inaccurate factually.  It's just that it comes across as blunt and lacking tact in the way it is worded, which is uncharacteristic of how Mike has responded in the past.  As others have pointed out, I think it is just more an issue of translating his responses into Spanish and then back to English again.  A lot of the subtle, but important nuances of what he is saying can easily be lost in that process.  I am purely speculating, of course, since I obviously have no idea what was originally said.  But I can picture him saying something close to what was said in each of those answers and I would not have a problem with any of it, so I am betting it is simply that a lot of nuance and context was lost in translation--not that things were necessarily changed or edited out. 

Some examples:

Where he talks about the mix:  I do not doubt that the isolated drum track sounded a lot bigger.  Mixing drums is HARD, and I cannot count the number of times a monster drummer doesn't sound all that great simply because he was not recorded properly or because the drums just get lost in the final mix.  I would say it happens more often than not.  Mike Portnoy had become VERY good at recording his drum parts and making sure the drums sound very huge and punchy in the overall mix.  With him missing, the drum mix did sound off on ADTOE.  It just did.  If anyone who picks up the album can tell, Mike obviously would be able to.  I have no problem with him saying so.  And again, I am betting it came across as a lot more tactful if we could hear the original audio rather than just reading the printed word having been translated twice.

Regarding the grammy nomination, I do not have a problem with that either.  I think what he is trying to say is that Portnoy leaving was in the headlines and brought an unprecedented amount of exposure that got DT noticed and in the news.  Since the grammies are, in essence, a popularity contest at their very core, no matter how good a band is, they are not going to get nominated unless they are noticed and have a degree of exposure.  In the grand scheme of the music industry, DT is an obscure band.  So of course the exposure from the Portnoy departure helped.  I don't have much of an issue with that statement.
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Offline rumborak

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I was thinking the same thing, that all those things could have been said, but without the laughs and the winks and the emphasis on words, sentences can sound *very* different on paper. I have certain coworkers that I learned to not take as the pissed off vibe that they sound like.
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Offline Sad Wings

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Has Blabbermouth picked up on this yet? Portnoy is gonna be pissed.

I wish I'd gotten an ADTOE shirt just for mr. I have no regrets about leaving Dream Theater on the Progressive Nation cruise.


Offline nikatapi

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Bit I'm not sure "editing" or "omissions" are the issue.  Reading through that, NOTHING that he said strikes me as inaccurate factually.  It's just that it comes across as blunt and lacking tact in the way it is worded, which is uncharacteristic of how Mike has responded in the past.  As others have pointed out, I think it is just more an issue of translating his responses into Spanish and then back to English again.  A lot of the subtle, but important nuances of what he is saying can easily be lost in that process.  I am purely speculating, of course, since I obviously have no idea what was originally said.  But I can picture him saying something close to what was said in each of those answers and I would not have a problem with any of it, so I am betting it is simply that a lot of nuance and context was lost in translation--not that things were necessarily changed or edited out. 


Well any media that takes itself seriously would never do that. Always do the English text with minor editing, then translate from that.

Offline bosk1

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Except that that is exactly what happened here.
"The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie."

Offline nikatapi

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Except that that is exactly what happened here.

So did they say they translated to Spanish and then back to English? Is it confirmed?

Offline Mladen

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I'm just saying, it seems like a reputable page, and it's also not inconceivable that MM is slowly changing the toooone now that he got 2 albums under the belt with the band.
This seems possible to me. If this is the new MM, that's fine, he still rocks those drums.  :metal

Offline bosk1

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Except that that is exactly what happened here.

So did they say they translated to Spanish and then back to English? Is it confirmed?

I am not sure what "they" you are referring to, but it says right in the original post that the interview is posted in Spanish (meaning it had to have been translated into Spanish), and that the OP was translating parts of the Spanish post back into English.  I'm not sure what is confusing about that.
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Offline nikatapi

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Except that that is exactly what happened here.

So did they say they translated to Spanish and then back to English? Is it confirmed?

I am not sure what "they" you are referring to, but it says right in the original post that the interview is posted in Spanish (meaning it had to have been translated into Spanish), and that the OP was translating parts of the Spanish post back into English.  I'm not sure what is confusing about that.

Yeah sorry, my bad, i thought that the Argentinian site did the translation.
I guess i had a rough day :lol

Offline Nekov

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I'm just saying, it seems like a reputable page, and it's also not inconceivable that MM is slowly changing the toooone now that he got 2 albums under the belt with the band.
This seems possible to me. If this is the new MM, that's fine, he still rocks those drums.  :metal

I had a long exchange on twitter with the interviewer. He mentioned he was surprised at how direct MM had been with his answers. At one point during the interview he asked MM if initially he thought he would be chosen after the audition and MM said "Yes", that he was very confident because he felt he clicked with the band and hadn't committed any mistake.

So yeah, maybe MM's loosen up a bit and is being a bit bolder with his answers.
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Offline Bertielee

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I'm just saying, it seems like a reputable page, and it's also not inconceivable that MM is slowly changing the toooone now that he got 2 albums under the belt with the band.
This seems possible to me. If this is the new MM, that's fine, he still rocks those drums.  :metal

I had a long exchange on twitter with the interviewer. He mentioned he was surprised at how direct MM had been with his answers. At one point during the interview he asked MM if initially he thought he would be chosen after the audition and MM said "Yes", that he was very confident because he felt he clicked with the band and hadn't committed any mistake.

So yeah, maybe MM's loosen up a bit and is being a bit bolder with his answers.

Sorry, mates, but that would have meant changing a lot. Even in his pre-DT interviews, he never sounded  anything like that. Still waiting for the original audio (call me Saint Thomas if you like... ;D). But hey, what do I know?

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Offline SystematicThought

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It would be nice to get an audio portion of the interview because the toooooone of the this interview is weird. It just doesn't sound like him. But then again--he's got two albums, two tours, two Grammy nominations under his belt--maybe he's just really confident now.
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Offline ariich

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Sorry, mates, but that would have meant changing a lot. Even in his pre-DT interviews, he never sounded  anything like that.
Agreed. I am incredibly sceptical about MM being a humble and respectful person for his entire career, before and during DT, and then suddenly in ONE interview with an Argentinan website he turns into a bit of a jerk. I'm not buying it.

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Offline SuperTaco

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Looks like most of us are waiting on the audio clip now :P Nekov, could you please do us a big favor and ask the interviewer for the source audio? I don't use twitter xD
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Offline bosk1

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Uh...what makes you think we're ever going to get the original audio?
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Offline Nekov

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Looks like most of us are waiting on the audio clip now :P Nekov, could you please do us a big favor and ask the interviewer for the source audio? I don't use twitter xD

The guy really took time to explain a lot of what he talked with MM during that interview and after all that I fell it would be disrespectful to ask for the audio.
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Offline Daso

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Read the whole thing in Spanish, it's my first language, and it honestly makes no sense for MM to have said such things the way he did, knowing how his personality really is. I'm sure it has a lot to do with interpretation projected onto translation.

Offline hefdaddy42

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Looks like most of us are waiting on the audio clip now :P Nekov, could you please do us a big favor and ask the interviewer for the source audio? I don't use twitter xD

The guy really took time to explain a lot of what he talked with MM during that interview and after all that I fell it would be disrespectful to ask for the audio.
Go ahead and disrespect him and ask for the audio.
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Offline Sycsa

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I guess I wouldn't be as surprised as many of you if the interview turned out to be accurate. MM has said plenty of things in the past that made me raise an eyebrow and then some, most notably when he said how much he prayed to land a gig and be able to move on his with life, but for that to happen, a famous drummer would have probably had to die, or when he was asked by a fan if it's difficult to play 3 hours of DT to a click every night and he rebutted with a frustrated "how do you think it is?"


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Offline GasparXR

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I guess I wouldn't be as surprised as many of you if the interview turned out to be accurate. MM has said plenty of things in the past that made me raise an eyebrow and then some, most notably when he said how much he prayed to land a gig and be able to move on his with life, but for that to happen, a famous drummer would have probably had to die, or when he was asked by a fan if it's difficult to play 3 hours of DT to a click every night and he rebutted with a frustrated "how do you think it is?"

I think most of us know he's a very honest person, and he probably did say everything in the interview, but it has a much jerkier tone then what would naturally come him. I'm in the boat that it was a translation issue.

Offline Mladen

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The more I read it, the less I see the issue.

He said that the band probably wouldn't get a Grammy nod had it not been for the switch in the line up, which is a fair guess, being that there was a lot of attention being drawn to the band during the split. He's not making himself look great with this statement in any way. He didn't say ''if DT hadn't hired me'', he said ''if DT hadn't changed the drummer''. Not really arrogant. And again, the key word is ''probably'', which isn't ''certainly''.

My issue with that answer is actually the question - maybe MM felt the need to defend the current line up, what kind of an interviewer asks what he thinks of the fans that didn't like the album and stresses that there's MANY of them?

And the fact that he isn't satisfied with his drum mix on ADTOE isn't odd, a lot of the fans aren't satisfied either, although it never bothered me personally.

Offline Sycsa

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And the fact that he isn't satisfied with his drum mix on ADTOE isn't odd, a lot of the fans aren't satisfied either, although it never bothered me personally.
I was OK with it too, until I heard the isolated drum stems, then it became blatantly apparent how much the drums are drowned in the mix. Before the piano solo on OTBOA, he does a really cool and complex drum fill, but it's almost entirely lost in the mix. There are lots of spots on the album when you can hardly hear the snare hits. The snare is the most prominent and the loudest component of the drum kit, when you can't even hear that, there are major problems.


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Offline TheAtliator

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Who's the guy? I'm on Twitter, I'll ask for the audio  :lol

Offline BlobVanDam

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Who's the guy? I'm on Twitter, I'll ask for the audio  :lol

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Offline Nekov

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Who's the guy? I'm on Twitter, I'll ask for the audio  :lol

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Offline Tis BOOLsheet

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He definitely did not mean it in a bad way (i.e., if they didn't get rid of MP and hire me...). It's obvious he is the last person in the world to say something like that. We're just missing context in this. That is all.

Offline SuperTaco

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Uh...what makes you think we're ever going to get the original audio?

A few people already mentioned the desire to hear it and clarify the tone of the interview, as well as some of the things said. Is it so outlandish to want to hear the interview in its original form? What is there to hide?
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Offline bosk1

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Uh...what makes you think we're ever going to get the original audio?

A few people already mentioned the desire to hear it and clarify the tone of the interview, as well as some of the things said. Is it so outlandish to want to hear the interview in its original form? What is there to hide?

Wanting to hear it is not the same thing as being likely to hear it.
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Offline SuperTaco

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Uh...what makes you think we're ever going to get the original audio?

A few people already mentioned the desire to hear it and clarify the tone of the interview, as well as some of the things said. Is it so outlandish to want to hear the interview in its original form? What is there to hide?

Wanting to hear it is not the same thing as being likely to hear it.

Alright. I guess I just don't understand why we're not likely to hear it. I'm stuck with this unclear image regarding the context of the things MM said. Looks like we're just going to move on..
So fking tired of being an oversensitive naive moronic fkin bitch. I CANT STOP IT. I CANT CHANGE. IM STUCK. This world eats me alive. My purpose is simply to be what others shouldn't be. A shriveled fking beacon of sad energy. I have lost. I am lost.