An Exclusive Look into The Band’s Search for a New Drummer

[IdoSC]

Derek Roddy is acting so stupidly, it's like the MP drama fest all over again. I'm really glad he was one of the worse fits as it seems like in the documentary.

[rumborak]

Can I just quickly point out that both Mike Mangini and Marco Minnemann have the same initials? Spelling it out in your posts might make it a bit easier to follow

EDIT: I think it would also be nice to not fall into the trap of tearing Derek to pieces here. There's a certain element of fanboism in that.

rumborak

[IdoSC]

Can I just quickly point out that both Mike Mangini and Marco Minnemann have the same initials? Spelling it out in your posts might make it a bit easier to follow

rumborak

That's what people refer to when they say "it looks like it's most likely MM so far", aka either Marco or Mike.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Actually, I think Roddy's posts are kinda out of place. I mean, the guy passed like a great person whose audition seemingly had technical difficulties. That's all. I'm really not a fan of his way of saying things.

[ReaPsTA]

Derek Roddy is acting so stupidly, it's like the MP drama fest all over again. I'm really glad he was one of the worse fits as it seems like in the documentary.

To be honest, I can understand where he's coming from.  When you're filmed for something that hurts your image, of course you want to defend it and try to be honest.  As much as the "I did it because I was asked" reasoning sounds a bit weird, he makes it sound like almost everyone else who auditioned felt the same way.  And what evidence do we have that he's wrong?  I'd also say that pretty much everything negative he's said is about the doc.  He's had nothing but good things to say about the band themselves, even in the context of when the auditions didn't work.  And the first thing he came to the internet to write was about how they specifically didn't say "sign over the rights to these recordings or you can't audition" out of no where in New York.  While his perspective is clearly biased, I don't think he's saying anything unfair.

[Super Dude]

Derek Roddy is acting so stupidly, it's like the MP drama fest all over again. I'm really glad he was one of the worse fits as it seems like in the documentary.

To be honest, I can understand where he's coming from.  When you're filmed for something that hurts your image, of course you want to defend it and try to be honest.  As much as the "I did it because I was asked" reasoning sounds a bit weird, he makes it sound like almost everyone else who auditioned felt the same way.  And what evidence do we have that he's wrong?  I'd also say that pretty much everything negative he's said is about the doc.  He's had nothing but good things to say about the band themselves, even in the context of when the auditions didn't work.  And the first thing he came to the internet to write was about how they specifically didn't say "sign over the rights to these recordings or you can't audition" out of no where in New York.  While his perspective is clearly biased, I don't think he's saying anything unfair.

I was actually just going to point this out: I don't think he's saying everyone is pissed at Dream Theater, they're pissed at the promotional people for painting all the people who weren't selected as the new drummer in a bad light.  I know I'd be pissed if the only thing people saw about my audition were the things that weren't working, while the guy who did make it is singled out as seemingly flawless.

[IdoSC]

Derek Roddy is acting so stupidly, it's like the MP drama fest all over again. I'm really glad he was one of the worse fits as it seems like in the documentary.

To be honest, I can understand where he's coming from.  When you're filmed for something that hurts your image, of course you want to defend it and try to be honest.  As much as the "I did it because I was asked" reasoning sounds a bit weird, he makes it sound like almost everyone else who auditioned felt the same way.  And what evidence do we have that he's wrong?  I'd also say that pretty much everything negative he's said is about the doc.  He's had nothing but good things to say about the band themselves, even in the context of when the auditions didn't work.  And the first thing he came to the internet to write was about how they specifically didn't say "sign over the rights to these recordings or you can't audition" out of no where in New York.  While his perspective is clearly biased, I don't think he's saying anything unfair.

It's just his comments sound out of place. Even the documentary didn't really say anything bad about him. It just said his style didn't fit DT as much as the other guys. I don't get why he's so angry over nothing, and saying he never even wanted to join the band doesn't make his image look any better.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

But I can't see how this documental can be a bad thing for these drummers. I mean, they're addressed all the time as "the world's greatest drummers", and DT had good things to say about every drummer involved. Sure, some auditions like Mangini and Minnemann's were edited to appear as perfect for some reason, but hey, DT wants to let us know how things went for 3 days in the span of 60 minutes. Mistakes have to be there, because I'd personally be bored with 60 minutes of "here comes another beast...oh! another beast...oh! another beast...". Sure, it's part of the drama, but drama isn't necessarily always a bad thing.


This documental is great promotion for every drummer involved because hey, not everyone gets to be considered to fill the drumming spot in Dream Theater. I don't think Derek Roddy is fully aware of that, or his snakes for that matter.

[bosk1]

The problem is, he's assuming everyone else is pissed and we don't know that.  

The thing is, there's no reason for anyone to get defensive.  Nobody was really painted in a bad light in what has been shown so far.  One of the main purposes of the documentary is to justify the band's decision in the eyes of most fans.  Wheher we agree with the decision or not, I think DT wants us to say "at the end of the day, I see why they chose the person they did."  So of course they are going to show some flaws in the ones who weren't picked and not highlight the flaws of the person who was.  Some of the flaws are technical; some are just chemistry; some are personality.  Nothing wrong with any of that.  And none of the flaws are major.  With Roddy, he wasn't as enthusiastically into it as others, didn't want to give up the lifestyle he has, and doesn't really work well in the confines of a process where he is given a bunch of riffs in odd time signatures and has to jam them out before just being able to chew them over in his mind and digest them.  Nothing wrong with any of that.  And he was still portrayed as a world-class drummer and pretty cool guy.  So I don't see what the fuss is.

He's probably saying things from a biased perspective and sounds like he has the kind of personality where he assumes too much about other people (such as what the other drummers may have been told are may be thinking).  Okay.  He's not the first musician (or first person, for that matter) to have that personality.  And keep in mind that he is posting all this on the internet, where it is easy to misconstrue tone and blow things out of proportion.  I could be wrong, but honestly, I don't think he's all that upset and I don't really see a problem with anything that has been said or done by anybody.

[ReaPsTA]

In the doc though you get the definite impression that he didn't prepare nearly as hard as the other guys and seemed okay with that.  They also put a lot of emphasis on the fact that he flubbed the riff test.  While I don't quite see why he's so unhappy about how it turned out, the impulse to shine a little light on what happened and tell your side of the story makes sense.

But I can't see how this documental can be a bad thing for these drummers.

Because Lang, Donati, and Roddy frankly don't come off that well.  Part of it is the simple reality of what happened (Roddy clearly wasn't in the right mindset to make it work, Lang didn't fit in right, and Donati's 'jazzy' approach to the material just rubbed me the wrong way).  But Mangini and Minnemann's segments were edited to make them look perfect, and the other three's segments way emphasized their flaws while omitting the fact that more than anything they were auditioning for a gig rather than trying super hard to be in Dream Theater.

The problem is, he's assuming everyone else is pissed and we don't know that.

How do we know he hasn't kept in contact with this guys?

[TheOutlawXanadu]

Maybe it's because I feel bad for the guy, but I totally understand what Roddy is saying and I have no problem with it.

The editing of the documentary... I don't know. It doesn't make him come off as well as he could have or maybe even should have. People who actually think about what it means to audition for DT all know that it's a big deal, and it makes you respect each drummer tenfold, but people just casually watching these videos and not giving it a second thought see Roddy struggling with time signatures and probably think, "This dude sucks".

I don't know. Maybe it isn't DT or RR's responsibility to make every drummer look like a God, but they could have made Roddy look better.

[tedy]

I'm sure if D Roddy went into the audition and blew the band away he would be singing a far different tune today. 

This.

[RandalGraves]

Yeah, I'm not sure why I suddenly got so defensive but a lot of Roddy's comments on his forum just seem like examples of the mantra that some things are best left unsaid. Just seemed in poor taste.

I hear you.  It's like, if the only things you can think of to post just smack of bitterness about not getting a drum gig, or are just silly pics of Emperor Palpatine, why bother, right?

[volwrath]

Everyone keeps slamming Roddy, but I dont see what he said that was that bad.  For instance he said:

I would have loved to play with them....from a musical point of view......it could have been incredible.
But, the commitment to them, for that amount of time... was something that each drummer had to reason with.


plus DT couldnt pay him as much as his snakes  

[rumborak]

In the doc though you get the definite impression that he didn't prepare nearly as hard as the other guys and seemed okay with that.  They also put a lot of emphasis on the fact that he flubbed the riff test.  While I don't quite see why he's so unhappy about how it turned out, the impulse to shine a little light on what happened and tell your side of the story makes sense.

Yeah, this. Roddy hands-down came off the worst in that whole thing. They chose snippets from his videos that sounded like "yeah, I didn't really prepare...", and they emphasized a lot on his shortcomings during the audition. It doesn't matter whether or not this was a reflection of reality, bottom line is that this video hurt his image. I would be pretty disgruntled about this too.

rumborak

[Orion1967]

Derek Roddy:
"Another thing that needs to be considered in my case is.....
I auditioned for DT because I was asked.......not because I wanted to be the new DT drummer."


Then mr. Roddy, you shouldn´t audition.
Drummer that wanted badly to be in the band is now with them  

Yeah, I tend to agree.  In his defense, he also pointed out that when you are a professional musician, you don't want to get a reputation for turning down auditions because there comes a point where you won't be asked anymore.  I get that, and I completely understand where he is coming from on that.  But by the same token, I would think that if you truly aren't interested, you do more harm to your reputation by showing up for something on someone else's dime and not being committed enough to really want it.  But I could be wrong.

Very well said Bosk, I too agree that regardless of the "professional obligation" he claimed to be the reason for going, if his heart was not in being a part of DT, then he shouldn't have accepted the audition.  I think the same goes of any of the poeple that auditioned.  I don't believe the documentary is reflecting him as a bad drummer at all.  As was stated elsewhere in this forum, it was simply pointing out what DT didn't like (if that is the right way to say it) about him being a part of DT.  Nothing at all reflective on his abilities as a drummer.  If the documentarry simply said "Drummer # 1 = Fantastic, Drummer #2 = fantastic, Drummer #3 = fantastic... " and so on, then when the final moment arrives and the drummer  is revealed we, as fans are all kinda like WTF? why did Drummer #1 get it over Drummer #2.  As the documentary title suggests it is a glimpse into the search for a drummer.  That means (in my mind anyway) they are going to show the how, why, when, what, and where of the process lifecycle.  End result being "this is the guy we chose and this is why we chose him and not the others.

[Metabog]

I wonder if the other drummers feel so badly about this like Roddy.

[antigoon]

I didn't think Roddy came off poorly in the video. He's clearly super talented, just wasn't the best for the job.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

I didn't think Roddy came off poorly in the video. He's clearly super talented, just wasn't the best for the job.

Amen.

Also, let's not forget DT fans have this tendency to over-analyze everything they're given, so that could also have something to do with this.

[LTE3]

Yeah, I don't understand this either. How can anybody say it's a 40% chance Peter Wildoer gets the spot, even before you've seen him perform with DT?
[/quote]

I think James loves Peter, or at least I sense that from the editing. I hope it is not him as I don't want them to even be temped to do more screeming vocals.

[rumborak]

I didn't think Roddy came off poorly in the video. He's clearly super talented, just wasn't the best for the job.

Well, to each their own. I definitely came away from the video thinking "holy shit, Derek totally bungled that audition", and I assume I am not the only one who had that impression. And that alone should give Roddy cause for concern.

rumborak

[IdoSC]

Yeah, I don't understand this either. How can anybody say it's a 40% chance Peter Wildoer gets the spot, even before you've seen him perform with DT?

I think James loves Peter, or at least I sense that from the editing. I hope it is not him as I don't want them to even be temped to do more screeming vocals.
[/quote]
James is just 1/5th of the band. Plus, he won't be in favor of Wildoer more than he's in favor of Mangini/Minnemann, Mangini was his drummer in 3 albums and his reaction about Minnemann looked better than his reaction about Mangini.

[Orion1967]

Maybe it's because I feel bad for the guy, but I totally understand what Roddy is saying and I have no problem with it.

The editing of the documentary... I don't know. It doesn't make him come off as well as he could have or maybe even should have. People who actually think about what it means to audition for DT all know that it's a big deal, and it makes you respect each drummer tenfold, but people just casually watching these videos and not giving it a second thought see Roddy struggling with time signatures and probably think, "This dude sucks".

I don't know. Maybe it isn't DT or RR's responsibility to make every drummer look like a God, but they could have made Roddy look better.

Well or the reality could be that these were the best parts of his audition?  I mean really, if a band gives you a camera and asks you to record your thoughts a few days up to the audition and you actually think that your indication that you really "hadn't practiced, but you listened to the songs a lot" is a good way to come off, then man, imho you kind of deserve what you get.  We are all assuming that he nailed everything else in the audition and they only showed the bad parts, well what if, those bad parts were the best parts of the audition?  I mean none of us were there and we are assuming that those are the worst things that happened.  Consider that no matter how great of a drummer he is (and I DO consider him to be a phenominal drummer), the showing of the other parts of his audition would have portrayed him in even WORSE of a light.  What would we expect DT to do? say "here's the vids of all the guys, except one that really sucked badly"?  I am exaggerating of course but doing so to stress a point.

[bosk1]

I didn't think Roddy came off poorly in the video. He's clearly super talented, just wasn't the best for the job.

Amen.

Also, let's not forget DT fans have this tendency to over-analyze everything they're given, so that could also have something to do with this.

Exactly.  Most of the comments here about how the drummers supposedly feel make me shake my head in disbelief far more than anything any of the drummers themselves have said.  Interestingly, neither of the drummers who have posted here seem to have any problems with anything about the process.

[ricky]

I didn't think Roddy came off poorly in the video. He's clearly super talented, just wasn't the best for the job.

+1

very talented guy, i just don't think it was a right fit. nothing more, or less.

[emtee]

Indeed. Roddy was portrayed as taking the audition lightly, not being as preparred as the others, and shown sections
where he appeared to have screwed up.

[Metabog]

I didn't think Roddy came off poorly in the video. He's clearly super talented, just wasn't the best for the job.

Well, to each their own. I definitely came away from the video thinking "holy shit, Derek totally bungled that audition", and I assume I am not the only one who had that impression. And that alone should give Roddy cause for concern.

rumborak

Same, if I didn't know Roddy (and I don't really, I've only heard him mentioned by people around this forum) I'd say he did quite badly in the audition. I'd kind of say the same about Donati tbh, it looked a little awkward when he seemed to have forgotten that bit in TDOE. It kind of ruins the "gods of drumming" image a bit that everyone has built up around them. When you see them play with Vai or something they rarely mess up, and they sound absolutely perfect, but here you get to see how they'd do in Dream Theater.

I think it's funny cause reading the post from Roddy on his forum it looked like a lot of people were of the opinion "D-rod is ages ahead of DT". Apparently not? Can't really tell.

[bosk1]

We are all assuming that he nailed everything else in the audition and they only showed the bad parts, well what if, those bad parts were the best parts of the audition?  

I'm not really disagreeing with you, BUT there really weren't any "bad" parts about his audition.  He nailed the songs, and despite the poor sound quality, which was just an unfortunate technical issue that nobody can really be blamed for, there were plenty of jaw-dropping moments.  The only part of the actual playing that didn't come across well was the riff test.  And, again, he said he really just doen's work that way where he can be given a bunch of stuff with different time signatures and told to just play without taking awhile to digest the material first.  That's just his style.  But otherwise, I thought he did very well.

[Stoneyman]

I am not getting the sour grapes vibe from Derek as many of you are.

These drummer will all get one heck of a publicity push for this.  Each guy gets fully introduced to DT's fanbase.  I have been a long time DT fan and some of those guys I never knew of before.  I have watched their videos and listened to their stuff through all of this.
Plus, they get introduced to the other drummers fanbase's too.  That has WIN written all over it IMO.

Maybe Derek should stop posting about it.  It is gonna get overanalyzed and overscrutinized, and mostly the wrong way.  What is it with drummers not being able to just shut up and take the high road  

I hope that DT releases the entire performances for each drummer as a bonus or something.

Editing or not, Mangini and Minneman smoked that audition!!  I was floored.

[Super Dude]

In the doc though you get the definite impression that he didn't prepare nearly as hard as the other guys and seemed okay with that.  They also put a lot of emphasis on the fact that he flubbed the riff test.  While I don't quite see why he's so unhappy about how it turned out, the impulse to shine a little light on what happened and tell your side of the story makes sense.

Yeah, this. Roddy hands-down came off the worst in that whole thing. They chose snippets from his videos that sounded like "yeah, I didn't really prepare...", and they emphasized a lot on his shortcomings during the audition. It doesn't matter whether or not this was a reflection of reality, bottom line is that this video hurt his image. I would be pretty disgruntled about this too.

rumborak

Agreed.  I just feel like he should take that up with whoever edited the video, not DT themselves.

[rumborak]

You can't fault him for that really. This video is under DT's creative control, and as such it's definitely fair of him to criticize DT.

rumborak

[Orion1967]

Do we know when the Final Chapter is going to be released?

[Nick]

Friday, 11am.

[Demolition]

I think the video showed that his style of how he comes up with drumming ideas and how DT come up with music don't mesh.  Otherwise, I thought he came off well.  It was also his bad luck that his audio tracks got lost and they had to use the camera audio.  When I read his comments on his forum I think some of the problem is that the other posters seem to imply how he got screwed and it was rigged against him and that as these comments keep being made, his tone seems to get more defensive and I believe his attitude and comments may be being unfluenced by the other forum comments.

By the way, how much money can you make raising snakes?

[tedy]

I hope that DT releases the entire performances for each drummer as a bonus or something.

That would be veeeeeeeeeeeery nice!!!!
And Metropolis pt. 1 at the end with the new drummer