How did you discover Dream Theater?

[seltaire]

Sorry, I'm new, so I don't know if someone else posted this already. I checked a few pages in and didn't see anything similar, so here it goes!

I remember when I was a twelve years old, I was snooping in my older brother's external hard drive, and he had accidentally downloaded the track 'Fatal Tragedy' from Scenes from a Memory. I thought the title was interesting, so I gave it a listen and I was totally blown away. At this time, I was a anime otaku and I just listened to Japanese pop because that's all I really knew besides music from videogames. I was too poor to really buy music, and had no access to Western radio to know any better.

It was the first time I really found music that I liked and I went from an otaku to a metal head. So from an outcast to a bigger outcast. 

Fastfoward twelve years later, I still consider Dream Theater my top band and religiously listen to their music.

[Prog Snob]

So you're brother wasn't a fan?  You said he accidentally downloaded it so I'm assuming he didn't get into them at all.


Back in 1992, I was listening to a local college radio station which was the only station that played metal in the area basically. I forget what was on before it, but ironically it started for me with a simple open E note and the rest of Pull Me Under followed. It was like nothing I ever heard before. The vocals sounded so fresh and the music seemed perfectly arranged. I wasn't used to that. At the time, my favorite band was Overkill so I did have heavier tastes but Dream Theater seemed to satisfy my desire for heavy music and something new and innovative.

[seltaire]

Nope. He downloaded it completely accidentally. He was just collecting random stuff and I was lucky enough to stumble on it.

[Prog Snob]

Nope. He downloaded it completely accidentally. He was just collecting random stuff and I was lucky enough to stumble on it.

I read your intro and if I remember correctly you said I & W and Metropolis 2 are your two favorites?

[The Presence of Frenemies]

Overly long/dramatic story below, but hey...

Even from about the age of 11 or so, I'd always wanted to hear something akin to prog metal--I wanted to hear an eleven-minute song with a two-minute guitar solo, five verses, and four choruses. But I never knew any such music existed, or that there was a term for it, so for much of my teenage years, I languished around listening to a lot of rap metal, alt metal, punk pop, etc. appreciating the hooks and what not but always finding it sorely lacking in...well, progginess, I suppose. When I was 16 I finally discovered the first album that got anywhere near what I wanted--Avenged Sevenfold's City of Evil, still my favorite album to this day (for nostalgic purposes if nothing else). That album was so far beyond anything else I'd ever heard that I listened to nothing but it (and the clean-vocal songs from their previous one) for basically the entirety of the calendar year 2006. By the end of that year I was faced with a dilemma--I'd burned myself out on the same 15 songs, but no other music I'd heard compared to them, so I couldn't derive enjoyment from anything else either. Avenged Sevenfold also kind of defies characterization--back then they were often called a "metalcore" band with "emo" elements, but I knew of many other emo bands and many other metalcore bands, and none of them sounded anything like City of Evil, so it's not like I could just go find other bands in their genre and get what I wanted.

So in early 2007, I started just downloading a bunch of stuff on whims, trying to find something that clicked. Since, at the time, the biggest thing I wanted to hear was guitar solos, one of these whims was checking out the Guitar World Top 100 Guitar Solos list. So I get all this music on my iPod, and I took to listening to it on shuffle for awhile, hoping that something would come on and grab me. One morning at 6:30 or so, I'm having my normal half-asleep walk to the bus stop when a song pops up that I had never heard of, by a band I'd never heard of. It sounded interesting--very retro, but still clearly better-produced than classic rock stuff. I figured it was something from the Guitar World list--which it was, at #98--so I'm listening to this song, and it sounds interesting enough, clean vocals, some interesting rhythms and riffs, but I'm waiting for the solo, hoping it's something actually interesting and not like some of the other solos on that list, which are iconic but completely basic (Smells Like Teen Spirit, for example). The solo finally comes, and it's a minute-long facemelter. I thought "Okay, maybe this is what I've been looking for." The song was Under A Glass Moon.

So I spend the day listening to this song between my classes and such, waiting to go home and figure out who this Dream Theater band is, what this style is called, when the hell music like this was made. So I got home and looked them up on iTunes, and I'm like "Hmm...1992...but they're still around now...eight albums, very cool...progressive metal, eh? Alright...WAIT THEY HAVE A 24-MINUTE SONG. THIS IS IT."

I didn't need to hear another note to know that Dream Theater was my favorite band. They have been ever since.

[bl5150]

Back in 1992, I was listening to a local college radio station which was the only station that played metal in the area basically. I forget what was on before it, but ironically it started for me with a simple open E note and the rest of Pull Me Under followed. It was like nothing I ever heard before.

Pretty much this...........except it wasn't a college station.  It was an obscure underground station with the only decent metal show at the time.   They played everything from Van Halen to Napalm Death.

[Setlist Scotty]

I know I've posted my story several times, and since he knows it well, I'll let JayOctavarium tell it this time!   

[Sycsa]

I was into classic prog when I was a teenager and my piano teacher gave me the Live at Budokan DVD along with Yes' Keys to Ascension. He advertised DT as some sort of modern version of Yes (which was a quote from JP, as I later found out), but I really didn't see that looking at the DVDs (in fact, I still don't see it). I instantly loved Yes, but the metal onslaught that kicked off LAB (As I Am and especially the tiresome This Dying Soul) was a major turnoff for my 15-year-old self. Even though I absolutely loved Instrumedley, it took me a whopping 6 more years to get into DT.

[Stadler]

I heard "Pull Me Under" on WPLR in New Haven, CT (then my favorite radio station), and was intrigued when the double-bass drum came in (I remember thinking, "that drummer is a rock star"; little did I know) and then being totally blown out of the water by the chorus.  The build-up, the release, the vocal...   I love everything about that song, and to this day, I love every single minute of that album and it is still my favorite DT record.

"Light to dark, dark to light, light to dark, dark to light..."

[Podaar]

Maybe one of the Mods should sticky this subject? It seems to come up every once in awhile and new members of DTF are understandably curious about it.

How did you get into DT?
How long have you been a fan?
how did you discover Dream Theater?
Discovering Dream Theater?

Those are the one's I could quickly find. I'm sure there are many more.

Anyway, here's what I said in one of those threads.

One late summer afternoon in 1992 I was watching a movie with my sons when the phone rang. My buddy was on the line urging me to quickly turn on the radio to the local college station. I paused the movie and flipped the receiver over to KRCL. What I heard at first was a little confusing...it was metal, it was melodious, it was intricate, it had KEYBOARDS, it was awesome, it was Pull Me Under. When the song finished, the DJ said the station would be featuring the entire album on 'Behind The Zion Curtain' program on Sunday night so everyone could stop calling and begging to hear more from Dream Theater. I made a point of listening to the program and by Tuesday I had purchased the cassette (I didn't actually own a CD player at that time) from Circuit City.

[Chino]

I was 14 and just transferred into the public school system for the first time. I was desperate for friends. In electronics class, these three guys were talking about playing music (I had recently started playing bass) and going to see some band called Dream Theater that night. I went home, downloaded Metropolis, and then shat my pants. I never really heard anything that wasn't on the radio, and something about that song switched a lightbulb on. I let my dad hear it. He recognized John Petrucci as he reads about him in guitar magazines all the time.

Having only heard Metropolis, we left to go to the concert. Been here ever since.

[Zydar]

I heard mp3s of 6:00 and Caught In A Web when I was taking my European Computer Driving License back in late 2000 - they were among the other mp3s in the shared folder on that student network. I liked what I heard and bought IaW and Awake. Listened a couple of times to both, I liked IaW a lot but never really got into Awake - more than the first songs. I put them back on the shelf for a few years. Fast forward to spring 2007 when I heard some songs from Octavarium, got really interested again, started to listen to IaW again - loved it! - and the rest is history.

[hefdaddy42]

I was 14 and just transferred into the public school system for the first time. I was desperate for friends. In electronics class, these three guys were talking about playing music (I had recently started playing bass) and going to see some band called Dream Theater that night. I went home, downloaded Metropolis, and then shat my pants. I never really heard anything that wasn't on the radio, and something about that song switched a lightbulb on. I let my dad hear it. He recognized John Petrucci as he reads about him in guitar magazines all the time.

Having only heard Metropolis, we left to go to the concert. Been here ever since.

[Anguyen92]

I don't remember if I posted in one of those threads, but anywho.

So a few years ago, Semi-time WWE wrestler Chris Jericho had a radio show called "Rock of Jericho" and he would play things from today's rock/metal music and some stuff that probably radio-listeners didn't know, but Jericho loves, like Helloween, Saxon, Raven, etc.  So he was a fan of DT (he's great buddies with Mike Portnoy, so I don't know if he likes the post-MP albums or still likes the band) from time to time he plays some track (I don't remember what though) and I thought interesting sound, vocals, etc. 

So naturally, I look at Wikipedia just to try to understand the band's history as possible and found that they had a 40+ min. song called "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence."  I was like, "Whoa!  How can a song be structured for 40+ min. and still manage to keep the listeners' attention for that long?" because back then, the longest song I ever heard of was Fozzy's Wormwood which clocked at about 14 min (even I thought, at the time, that's insane for a band to make a song that long).  So I heard SDOIT and I 1st thought, "Good guitar work, vocals seems pretty strange, like he belongs into some sort of glammy-poppy or some sort of alternative rock band as oppose to a prog/metal band, but overall, it's good.  I don't know if I want to invest the time listening to this band's full catalog, since maybe I probably can't relate to the band or something like that"

Anywho, a few years later, I found out that my favorite band, Alter Bridge, while they were doing promotional interviews in Europe for their newest album, Fortress, ran into JP and JLB in the UK and Myles Kennedy and JLB had some discussions about vocal stuff (you can find it on Youtube), and, at the same time, Alter Bridge and DT were against each other in the Loudwire Cage match poll where two fanbases really wanted to win that one, but one can.  So I decided to make an account, here, at DTF, to see how the vibe is (I hoped I did not find a lot of irrational bashing like I found in the GNR forums where they really sometimes bash Myles, which is hard for me to take, since he's one of my favorite singers/few actual heroes in my life). 

Overall, I loved the vibe, here in the forums, even though I didn't know too much of DT's work and since this was a time where DT12 was about to be released, I figure, all right, let's see if that album can convince me to get into these guys.  DT12 did just that and I found myself relating to some of the lyrics of that album (especially The Bigger Picture) and that was it.  I've been here and been a fan since then.

[rumborak]

Having only heard Metropolis, we left to go to the concert. Been here ever since.

You're still at the venue?! 


My story is, saw the PMU video on TV and thought "oh cool, Genesis with a metal edge! Not sure about the singer..." but never followed up with it.
Years later, the guy who was hosting my EE learning group refused to play anything by DT at his place. Over time I grew to tolerate James.
Funny thing, a few years later the guy who introduced me to the band, made a 180 switch and from there on listened to Backstreet Boys. Not kidding, he claimed he listened to it for the production value.

[Evermind]

Having only heard Metropolis, we left to go to the concert. Been here ever since.

You're still at the venue?! 

  

[vtgrad]

So you're brother wasn't a fan?  You said he accidentally downloaded it so I'm assuming he didn't get into them at all.


Back in 1992, I was listening to a local college radio station which was the only station that played metal in the area basically. I forget what was on before it, but ironically it started for me with a simple open E note and the rest of Pull Me Under followed. It was like nothing I ever heard before. The vocals sounded so fresh and the music seemed perfectly arranged. I wasn't used to that.

Very close to my initial experience as well.  I was at home for a snow day watching MTV... PMU came on and I've been hooked ever since.  Still nothing like DT in my mind.  To this day, I still listen to I&W when I shovel snow.

[TheCountOfNYC]

I first heard Dream Theater in 2008 when I was playing Rock Band 2. I had decided to try some songs that I hadn't heard before and Panic Attack was one of them. I couldn't beat it at that point but unlike most of the hard songs this wasn't just a random flurry of notes thrown together (although I like most of those songs as well). Every note was placed where it was for a reason. This was a different kind of metal and I wanted to hear more. I picked up Octavarium from the local Best Buy and the rest is history.

[King Postwhore]

I was balling this chick in 1992 and PMU was on the radio and she complained if this song and I were going to finish sometime soon.









But really I heard PMU on the radio and ordered the CD from my local record shop right away.

[BlobVanDam]

I was balling this chick in 1992 and PMU was on the radio and she complained if this song and I were going to finish sometime soon.

Unfortunately both you and the song finished abruptly.

[King Postwhore]

I was balling this chick in 1992 and PMU was on the radio and she complained if this song and I were going to finish sometime soon.

Unfortunately both you and the song finished abruptly.

And that's a problem?

[Metro]

First heard them in Guitar Hero: World Tour with Pull Me Under. I thought it was Ok, then I heard Panic Attack on Rock Band 2, and it blew my mind. I bought a copy of Octavarium and was absolutely amazed at the thought of a 24 minute song. I had been raised on top 40 radio and classic rock, so this concept was entirely new to me. After listening to the title track it changed the way I thought about music forever. After that I bought Systematic Chaos(The most recent album at the time.) and worked my way backward until I owned every studio album.

[Zydar]

I was balling this chick in 1992 and PMU was on the radio and she complained if this song and I were going to finish sometime soon.

Unfortunately both you and the song finished abruptly.

[Mebert78]

I bought Awake after hearing "Lie" on the radio in 1994.  I liked it, but for some reason i didn't become obsessed with it right away.  It wasn't until I went away to college in 1996 and heard another guy on my hall repeatedly blasting Images & Words and A Change of Seasons that it all clicked for me.  Then I went and bought everything DT had done and become obsessed.  The guy on my hall seemed to stop being a fan with Falling Into Infinity, but I stuck with them for the long haul.  They've far and away been my favorite band for almost 20 years now. 

[bosk1]

Like others, I heard Pull Me Under on the radio back in '92 and liked it enough to go out and buy the album (cassette).  Listened to it on and off for years and liked it, but never enough to buy anything that followed.  ...until I was looking around the "D" section at Tower Records in Woodland Hills and saw the newly released SFAM.  My first thought was:  "They did a Metropolis Pt. 2??  As an entire album??  I am SO getting this!"  I was hooked.  Went and picked up the back catalog, and since LSFNY, they bumped my then-favorite band, Queensryche, and have been my favorite ever since. 

[Shine]

I was into Metallica and Dragonforce at the time, I believe this was in between the release of Black Clouds and ADTOE, and was googling something like "best metal band" or "fastest metal band" or something like that and found a list that put Dream Theater at the top. Looked them up on Youtube and listened to everyones favorite, "The Dark Eternal Night" and was hooked.

Though my tastes have changed since, Systematic Chaos, Black Clouds and Silver Linings, and Octavarium are without a doubt the reason I became infatuated with Dream Theater. There was a point where I couldn't get enough of A Nightmare to Remember (even the Portnoy growl).

[Zook]

Symphony X's Through The Looking Glass is where my journey began back in early 2006. I read an Amazon review comparing the keyboard intros of TTLG and Surrounded. Had Surrounded on a Mix CD for a long time (still have it), bought Live at Budokan, didn't care for it, returned it, downloaded Images and Words, the torrent file said Pull Me Under was corrupt (referring to the abrupt ending, so I faded it out), got hooked, and downloaded EVEN MOAR. Calm down, I bought everything of theirs over the coarse of 2007. I became a member of DT.net in September '06, and the rest is history.

Surrounded is still my favorite song of theirs.

[Counselor of Prog]

I believe I was into Spock's Beard at the time, and one of those Amazon "If you like SB, you might also like DT" recommendations came up on the Amazon home page.  On a lark, I ordered IAW and loved what I heard.  The rest is history.

[Nearmyth]

All these stories, damn

I clicked on a Dream Theater song on YouTube recommended videos after hearing the name around, liked what I heard and became a fan within days. That was back in 2010, I think the first song I listened to was "A Nightmare To Remember"

[Skeever]

I started to listen to a lot of music after Tool's "Lateralus" came out. That album just opened up a world of prog music for me. Eventually, on another music board I posed the question, "Hey, I love Tool, what other bands are doing music like this?" Believe it or not, Dream Theater were a band people kept suggesting. Overwhelmingly, I was recommended to buy "Awake".

Eventually, I bought Awake, and I hated it. Specifically, I hated the vocals. "What is this?" I thought. The music was OK, a bit cheesy, but the vocalist was beyond bad, extremely cheesy and way too theatrical.

The album collected dust for a good long while. One day I had a long bus trip and I decided to try Awake again, and while I didn't really enjoy it, somethign about the Outro to Scarred really hooked me. Needless to say, I've been a fan ever since!

[TheDisposableHero]

I discovered them when I was in my big Metallica phase three to four years ago. I was looking for bands that covered Metallica songs and if the cover was any good, I'd check the band out. So I listened to Dream Theater cover all of Master of Puppets and I loved it. Then I listened to The Glass Prison and the rest of Six Degrees, and I was sold.

[fischermasamune]

I first heard of Dream Theater in 2009, when a friend showed me Metropolis Pt. II: Scenes From a Memory (yes, I like to write it all!). He used to listen to that album every day before sleeping, and he convinced me to give it a try. I remember I liked only the first half in the beginning, and even when I would listen to it entirely I would skip some songs (won't tell which to not spoil anything).

The whole energy of that album has impressed me. I haven't had a lot of contact with good music (mainly because I was a "Brazilian hillbilly" and my friends were into some crappy music). So when I listened to SFAM, it stroke me as something wonderful, from another world. Those drums! Those solos! Those riffs! Man, that was unique, mindblowing!

After some time, the inevitable happened: I became as addicted as my friend. I began experimenting other albums (Black Clouds & Silver Linings and Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence were the next ones, if I'm not mistaken) and I liked the band even more. I'm not sure of the dates, but I believe Dream Theater became my favorite band in 2010 (even though I was still unveiling some of their albums), with SFAM my favorite album. Both still hold their titles.

[billybobjoe1881]

I first heard Panic Attack in Rock Band 2, and ended up buying Octavarium.  Never really got into it, then a friend from the IGN Rock Band Board mentioned A Change Of Seasons. I checked it out, and liked the music but never really got into it.  I then acquired A Dramatic Turn Of Events thanks to Liquid Metal playing a few new songs.  It was a good album, but I never looked any deeper into the band.  Then last February a co-worked asked if I knew who Dream Theater was and said they had tickets to see them in Vancouver.  I said I would of liked to see them, so they sold me an extra ticket they had.  I went out and bought every Album as well as Live In Budokan on Blu-Ray.  I watched Live In Budokan and was immediately hooked.

[Rodni Demental]

2001 - I had exposure to parts of SFAM from The History of Trunks Dragon Ball Z movie. Thought the music was pretty sweet as, had no idea who it was but didn't really look into it further.
2004 - A drummer friend of mine showed me Honor Thy Father and the drumming and general scope of the song impressed me a lot at the time. I even had this song on a mix playlist but didn't really look into the band.
2005-07 - Dream Theater starts showing up on Guitar Hero and Rock Band games (Pull Me Under, Constant Motion, Panic Attack), always thought they were some of the best songs in those games, and certainly among the most fun to play. I even hear the entire Systematic Chaos album on a car trip around this time (this has created a strange perception of these songs for me, they have a certain familiarity that's associated with memories from that trip, strange how music can vividly remind you of the first place you remember hearing something, but I digress); not really listening to it properly in fairness but I remember thinking there was some good stuff on there although there was no way for me to distinguish between the songs or appreciate the details. But for some reason was STILL too lazy to look into this band but I was definitely becoming more aware of them.
2009 - A Rite of Passage plays as a little advertising sample on my media player (I normally hate it when it does this but thankfully it caught my attention enough to bother listening to this recommendation of 'music I might like'. It was right. ) So I finally take the hint and get BC&SL+SC+TOT. A month or so later I'm ready for more and get 8VM+SDOIT+SFAM. By the end of the year I'll have backtracked through their entire catalogue and they even visit my country for the first time.
2010 - By this point I'm getting into all the live albums, bootlegs, pretty much all the past and present member's side projects with huge anticipation for a new album.  Definitely would never have expected what would unfold. Followed the band quite intently through that whole phase and pretty much was hoping it would be a win/win for everyone, more music all around which is more or less the case now. Have not been disappointed with any of the recent albums (if anything I'm still impressed by them) although didn't have many expectations for what way they would go. I guess I'd like to see them mix things up a bit but I try not to get too attached in this way. 

So yeah, took almost a decade of slightly being aware of them, very slack of me although being kinda aware of them is probably what made me click on that preview song. Now I have been a very dedicated fan for the last 5 or 6 years.

[kiwiclapton]

Passed a cd, and told to check it out . That was in 2008. The cd was a ripped collection .

The music fucked my mind .