Thanks for all the positive feedback, guys. I won't go into all the details behind what went into this, but I will say that I worked hard to set this up because I thought it would be a real treat for all of you guys, as well as being some really good fan-relations and promotion for the band. And while I don't want to get into all of the behind-the-scenes stuff, I will say this: When I first mentioned the idea to John Petrucci, he was very enthusiastic about it right from the getgo and very eager to connect with the fans on this level. He and the rest of the guys are looking forward to this.
Here are a couple of questions I have:
(1) There has been a VERY wide range of speculation about Mike Mangini's involvement in writing his drum parts on A Dramatic Turn Of Events, and a lot of taking short quotes out of context to try to construct arguments about just how much involvement Mike had. Opinions range the entire spectrum between (1) "John Petrucci programmed complete drum parts hit-for-hit, and Mike just played them as written" on one hand, to (2) "John programmed a very basic click and Mike then basically wrote everything from scratch to fit the time signatures." Can you guys put this to bed and explain how that played out?
(2) For John Myung: Is there any one member of the band that you find to be a particularly inspiring "writing partner" that really brings out your creativity? Does that change from album to album?