DT15: A View From The Top Of The World (Timeline for DT15)

[Setlist Scotty]

OK - I think I missed the boat. Are DT in the studio writing??? 

The boat already set sail! 

[Max Kuehnau]

John just mentioned on the live Q&A that there's a cameraman there with them at the studio filming the writing process. Hope this means we get a documentary.

He did say they hope to have that included, so we can see how psychotic they are with writing. That was a great story about how many interpretations they all play with for 4 notes, and then come to an agreement and say, that's the one. 

It was also confirmed that we are getting this album earlier than expected, due to the pandemic pushing their schedule up.

Also, That was a great cameo there by Mangini...He just wants to play "DHARTS" (accent).

yes, I laughed about it too. I'll include it in the timeline, hold on. Done.

[Max Kuehnau]

OK - I think I missed the boat. Are DT in the studio writing??? 

The boat already set sail! 

great quip Scotty. Lovely lovely. Couldn't have done it better myself (seeing as I'm bad at being funny. Comes with being born in Germany.)

[hunnus2000]

OK - I think I missed the boat. Are DT in the studio writing??? 

The boat already set sail! 

great quip Scotty. Lovely lovely. Couldn't have done it better myself (seeing as I'm bad at being funny. Comes with being born in Germany.)

Well scheisse! I knew they were planning on heading into the studio but didn't know they were actually there.

I guess Hunnus was too focused on his SHITTY Dallas Cowboys FOOTBALL TEAM!!!! 

[Max Kuehnau]

OK - I think I missed the boat. Are DT in the studio writing??? 

The boat already set sail! 

great quip Scotty. Lovely lovely. Couldn't have done it better myself (seeing as I'm bad at being funny. Comes with being born in Germany.)

Well scheisse! I knew they were planning on heading into the studio but didn't know they were actually there.

I guess Hunnus was too focused on his SHITTY Dallas Cowboys FOOTBALL TEAM!!!! 

hence why I changed the thread title to process initiated.

[Ben_Jamin]

You know what I just thought of, and made me more excited. Is the fact we are gonna get more newer songs available for the upcoming tour setlist. Hopefully that'll be soon.

[Setlist Scotty]

You know what I just thought of, and made me more excited. Is the fact we are gonna get more newer songs available for the upcoming tour setlist. Hopefully that'll be soon.

Rather it means a whole new tour and setlist - no more SFaM in full! Yay! I love the album, but tire of full album performances that take up half the show, especially when performed almost exactly like what's already on the album.

[Max Kuehnau]

You know what I just thought of, and made me more excited. Is the fact we are gonna get more newer songs available for the upcoming tour setlist. Hopefully that'll be soon.

Rather it means a whole new tour and setlist - no more SFaM in full! Yay! I love the album, but tire of full album performances that take up half the show, especially when performed almost exactly like what's already on the album.

weeell, once it's safe enough to tour again that is. But yes, I'm somewhat excited for DT15 (and an album-free second set as well)

[fadetoblackdude7]

You know what I just thought of, and made me more excited. Is the fact we are gonna get more newer songs available for the upcoming tour setlist. Hopefully that'll be soon.

Rather it means a whole new tour and setlist - no more SFaM in full! Yay! I love the album, but tire of full album performances that take up half the show, especially when performed almost exactly like what's already on the album.

weeell, once it's safe enough to tour again that is. But yes, I'm somewhat excited for DT15 (and an album-free second set as well)

That is if they continue the 'evening with' format. They might start bringing opening bands out again. I hope not but you never know.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

You know what I just thought of, and made me more excited. Is the fact we are gonna get more newer songs available for the upcoming tour setlist. Hopefully that'll be soon.

Rather it means a whole new tour and setlist - no more SFaM in full! Yay! I love the album, but tire of full album performances that take up half the show, especially when performed almost exactly like what's already on the album.

I'm so looking forward to a non-anniversary-full-album-performance show! It's pretty crazy to think that the last "normal setlist" DT show was back on 2014 (from which Awake and SFAM took a big chunk of, so that was not entirely a varied show lol). I remember being so excited when the Luna Park setlist was announced because it was so much music from so many albums and I hope for something similar to that in the upcoming future.

[Ben_Jamin]

You know what I just thought of, and made me more excited. Is the fact we are gonna get more newer songs available for the upcoming tour setlist. Hopefully that'll be soon.

Rather it means a whole new tour and setlist - no more SFaM in full! Yay! I love the album, but tire of full album performances that take up half the show, especially when performed almost exactly like what's already on the album.

I'm so looking forward to a non-anniversary-full-album-performance show! It's pretty crazy to think that the last "normal setlist" DT show was back on 2014 (from which Awake and SFAM took a big chunk of, so that was not entirely a varied show lol). I remember being so excited when the Luna Park setlist was announced because it was so much music from so many albums and I hope for something similar to that in the upcoming future.

It's something I hope they do, and I feel they need to do, to keep that fanbase momentum going. We've gotten 4 tours with the 2nd set going to an album or album, SFAM in Along For The Ride Tour was in the Encore.

[Max Kuehnau]

Updated to include most recent information.
(DT15 will not be a concept album, but according to an interview with Jordan, they do follow an interesting basic idea, as he mentioned. (and that he did not reveal as of yet)

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

I do hope for another conceptually tied album like Octavarium, that does not really lyrically tell a story but rather has an underlying theme and ties the whole thing together. I love it when DT does that, and it's been years since they last put out an album with that in mind.

[Revenge319]

I do hope for another conceptually tied album like Octavarium, that does not really lyrically tell a story but rather has an underlying theme and ties the whole thing together. I love it when DT does that, and it's been years since they last put out an album with that in mind.

Yeah, that'd be cool. Coincidentally or not, my Top 3 Dream Theater albums are all like that to some extent (Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, Black Clouds & Silver Linings, and Octavarium).

[RaiseTheKnife]

You know what I just thought of, and made me more excited. Is the fact we are gonna get more newer songs available for the upcoming tour setlist. Hopefully that'll be soon.

Rather it means a whole new tour and setlist - no more SFaM in full! Yay! I love the album, but tire of full album performances that take up half the show, especially when performed almost exactly like what's already on the album.

True.  I've seen SFAM maybe 7 times in its entirety.  Happy to see other deserving songs get a spotlight.

[Ben_Jamin]

I do hope for another conceptually tied album like Octavarium, that does not really lyrically tell a story but rather has an underlying theme and ties the whole thing together. I love it when DT does that, and it's been years since they last put out an album with that in mind.

They better make a song entitled, The Ultimate Nugget: A 3-Part Song, placed as track number 5. And it's theme links the song to it being their 15th album, because 3x5=15, and links to 8vm with the 3 and 5 references.... I am sure Mangini could come up with something way cooler, being the math nerd he is.

It'll give them the excuse to play 8vm live again. 

[nikatapi]

I'm really hoping this time around they'll write at least one really long song (like ~15 minutes). I appreciate the more concise songs they've been doing, but i kind of miss this. Illumination Theory was an "epic" but felt a bit disconnected with the orchestral part in between.

[gzarruk]

I'm really hoping this time around they'll write at least one really long song (like ~15 minutes). I appreciate the more concise songs they've been doing, but i kind of miss this.

This. I really want them to write longer songs again.

[Ben_Jamin]

Honestly, I am not expecting a damn thing. Expectations lead to disappointment. So, If I don't want to be disappointed, I am not expecting anything of the new album. That way I can even be surprised, at what they decided to do this album.

I can tell you what I would like for them to do. But I do not expect them to do those things at all.

[Revenge319]

I guess I'm anticipating getting more info about the next album more than I realize, because I had this bizarre dream last night where Dream Theater, among other things, announced the track listing for their next album and the last two tracks were about 59 minutes and 20+ minutes respectively.

Dreams are weird.

[Kotowboy]

59 minutes and 20 minutes would fill up a CD on their own.


Also I hope DT never do the "80 minute single track" thing. *UNLESS* It's one continuous piece of music with selectable mini-sections a la Six Degrees.

[gzarruk]

An album with two 20+ minute epics + 3 or 4 shorter tracks in between would be really cool and something they haven't really done before.

[Architeuthis]

I know there has been talk about using a eight string guitar,  so maybe we will get a song or two that is ultra dark and heavy. 

[Revenge319]

59 minutes and 20 minutes would fill up a CD on their own.


Also I hope DT never do the "80 minute single track" thing. *UNLESS* It's one continuous piece of music with selectable mini-sections a la Six Degrees.

Yeah, if they did something like The Whirlwind (in terms of structure, not necessarily genre/style), that could be pretty cool.

An album with two 20+ minute epics + 3 or 4 shorter tracks in between would be really cool and something they haven't really done before.

That could be interesting... Comparing this to Transatlantic, since 2 or 3 of their albums follow this format, I'd also be rather skeptical. It worked really well in Bridge Across Forever, but Kaleidoscope was... not as exciting. Now, I've only listened to Kaleidoscope once, so I will have to listen to it more to form a more solid opinion, but at the same time there wasn't really anything that made me want to return to the album.

Then again, this is Dream Theater we're talking about, they'd make an album like that some level of amazing just like they've done for basically every album they've ever made.

[Max Kuehnau]

Updated to include most recent information (https://www.instagram.com/p/CH8dS-0Bwna/) Drum parts completed

[Setlist Scotty]

Drum parts completed

Where did he say that? Didn't notice it in the video you linked.

[evilasiojr]

Updated to include most recent information (https://www.instagram.com/p/CH8dS-0Bwna/) Drum parts completed

I'm curious if only the writing sessions are done, or if he has already recorded his drums parts as well.

[fadetoblackdude7]

Man that is insanely quick. Feels like they just started writing!

[Max Kuehnau]

Man that is insanely quick. Feels like they just started writing!

It is. And yes, they started last month. (as Mike mentioned)

[gzarruk]

I'd say it's most likely that they just finished writing and Mike's going to track drums at his home studio, but there's also a big chance that they recorded him at DTHQ while they were writing. He did say "I have things to say and things to do about that", though, which implies he isn't quite finished with his DT15 work yet, he may be writing more lyrics this time too

Anyway, I'm really excited about this and hope we get more updates soon!

[IDontNotDoThings]

I'm really hoping this time around they'll write at least one really long song (like ~15 minutes). I appreciate the more concise songs they've been doing, but i kind of miss this.

This. I really want them to write longer songs again.

I disagree. D/T was perfect for me in terms of song lengths. The longer MM-era songs tend to be very hit-or-miss structurally, so I'd be a little worried if there were any 15+ minute songs on the album or multiple 10+ minute songs. If the next album is longer, I think I'd rather have it be made up of more songs rather than longer songs, but of course that depends on the quality of said songs, which we obviously don't know until we hear them.

[erwinrafael]

In today's music biz where streaming is king, long songs won't make commercial sense. With touring revenues going down because of the pandemic, I would really be ok with the band maximizing their revenues per hour with shorter tracks. I hope they won't write an epic then cut it up artificially in short tracks that really do not make sense (hello, Haken).

[MirrorMask]

While I'm not on principle demanding a 20 minutes song from DT with each and every release, I'm not sure I want to live in a world where bands think "eh, why bother with writing a long song, on Spotify we get paid the same for shorter songs".

[IgnotusPerIgnotium]

Honestly, I am not expecting a damn thing. Expectations lead to disappointment.

Yeah me too, going in to DoT I had high hopes about the return to form they claimed and was kinda of hoping to bring the old long song format with the cool instrumental sections..So nothing to expect just waiting what their next direction will be as far as song writing and presentation..but I'll say it again, I'm not expecting something radical different from their last album..at least sound wise.

[erwinrafael]

While I'm not on principle demanding a 20 minutes song from DT with each and every release, I'm not sure I want to live in a world where bands think "eh, why bother with writing a long song, on Spotify we get paid the same for shorter songs".

Well, that is a world you have to live in if there really is a drastic cut in revenues on gigs because of a pandemic. These guys need to make a living.