I read the Portnoy interview on his site...
EEeeeeeeehhhhh uhhhhhhh wowwwwwww
There are so many bad things you can read into it. Dissecting it line by line is uninteresting, especially since other people will inevitably point out the various unfortunate things he said, so I'll just stick to two answers that separately are interesting and in tandem say a lot. First, the most unintentionally funny part of the interview:
I mean, we have one band member that would literally not even sit in the same room with the rest of us for years now and we'd only see him on stage or at meet and greets
Why pretend this is an even slightly ambiguous statement? It's so obviously John Myung!! It's so weird. What's the point of not calling him out by name? How does it soften the blow? It also makes no sense. If absolutely nothing else, Portnoy is honest. Why backpedal here?
Now, however burnt out on this whole mess you think you are, the whole interview is an interesting read. This is far more up front and personal than the Eddie Trunk appearance. But this part was the most interesting:
Honestly, it had nothing to do with the music itself or the musical chemistry within the band. I was always very inspired when writing and recording together and am as proud of our last few albums as anything else in the catalog...
I don't understand how the musical chemistry can be separate from the personal chemistry.
At this point, since anyone asked about this has confirmed it, I think we can all just assume JM's role in writing the music since Train of Thought/Octavarium has become nil. We can do that? Great.
Now, if JM has so little investment in the music, what's his motivation then to be invested in the band in any level? How different is he from a session musicians if he just lays down the bass lines and goes home? Am I the only one who listened to the bass stems on BCSL? There's no way JM would put out work that sloppy unless he really didn't care for some reason.
What's MP's plan then? DT returns from a year off, makes another album with everyone playing the same roles as before, and then they act differently than they did before? I mean, it's just baffling. JM's supposed to be invested in the band for no reason? How many different ways can I say this before I find one that makes my point? Actually, let's try it a different way:
Post SFAM: MP creates the 'form vocal melodies with lyrics' rule. This affects no one in the band by JM. Also, if you listen to ToT and FT, they're obviously MP's vocal melodies. No way there wasn't personal tension involved here.
WDADRU Commentary: Calling MP and JM's discussion about writing the music heated is an understatement. There were so many layers of personal disagreement at work here that both of them weren't expressing due to being on mic. The lack of band commentaries since this is also telling. They recorded almost five hours of commentary before this and obviously enjoyed it. Why stop unless this left a genuinely bad taste in their mouths?
2003 - 2005: JM noticeably detachines from DT's writing. This process completes itself on Systematic Chaos (when, to paraphrase Rudess, he, JP, and MP started writing essentially as a trio).
Now: This interview.
One of my biggest theories in life that holds up repeatedly is "If there's smoke, there's fire." When there's so much evidence of tension between MP and JM, how can you possibly conclude all the evidence is invalid in the absence of contradictory facts? You can't without making preposterous leaps of logic. Oh, also, didn't JLB say that JM has become far more outspoken in terms of suggesting ways to handle the situation? I mean, shouldn't you be connecting the dots yourselves now?
One more thing worth quoting:
I suppose it also kills me that in the past the guys NEVER would question or ever debate my direction within the band. They always let me call the shots and always trusted my vision and guidance. And NOW, with such a huge and personal conflict...they disagreed with me for the first time...on the biggest decision of them all.
If we assume all this is true (which I believe is reasonable), then really, the conclusion is obvious. MP has painted the situation in terms of him wanting to change up the band's dynamics with a break. I'm not saying this is a political move - it's what he genuinely believes. But really, it seems what he really wanted was to take a year off so the old way of doing things could continue with more interpersonal harmony and less friction.
The rest of the band were the ones who really decided something needed to change. They made a major decision as a group for the first time in probably a decade.
Topic: Upcoming Rich Wilson DT interview in Classic Rock magazine (Read 40078 times)
