Well, DT soundchecks generally are quite boring. They're never full band, and its usually just one song they play through (the opener), and most of the time its not even the full song.
Yeah, I don't think most people realize that. That has been the case for the soundchecks I have seen anyway. Not sure if it was much different in earlier years.
And while the idea of Petrucci and the keyboard player being the main writers isn't wrong per se, I do feel it's kinda trying to remove MP from the equation.
I don't think that is what James was saying at all. That segment of the interview was pretty long and detailed, and I thought he did a really good job of explaining how the process works, and it was consistent with my understanding as well. What he said was that, in large part because the guitar and keyboard are compositional instruments, what USUALLY happens is that the guitar player and keyboard player are the PRIMARY (but not only) contributors in the writing process, but others will also frequently bring in riffs, melodies, or other ideas, or will suggest riffs, melodies, or other ideas when they are together writing, going through the ideas, and putting it all together. I don't think he minimized Mike's or anyone else's contributions at all when you listen to his full explanation. He mentioned several times in that discussion that others usually bring in a lot of ideas as well.
The only difference, which he didn't bring up here because it wasn't asked about, was that with The Astonishing, ALL the ideas came from John and Jordan because John wanted to do it differently with that album.
Does anyone think that it was weird they used a Neal Morse song (with MP on it) as opening for a DT centered interview?
At first I did. Then I realized that it likely didn't have to do with THIS particular interview, but was their intro music that they use for all their interview pieces for whatever band.