Inside Dream Theater’s Wildly Ambitious New Concept LP

So, when you presented this to the band and to the label, did anyone look at you like you’d finally lost it?
[Laughs] Well, they might have thought that. But I have to say, as far as the band, you know, when I had this idea, I put it together in a very detailed proposal, because it really is asking a lot for everybody to come on board with. And the guys were just totally into it, right on board, thinking that the time was perfect for this. Everybody had the “go for it” mentality. And from the very first meeting that we had with Dave Rath at Roadrunner, when I presented this and even just said the title, he was 100 percent on board. The involvement of everybody at Roadrunner has been absolutely unbelievable, so supportive. It kind of ignited the secret nerd in all of us that loves this sort of stuff [laughs], because it’s fun, it’s different. Creatively, there’s so much that can be done. 

What was it like to construct something this elaborate — not just the music and playing, but the sound design, story, and presentation — in practical terms?
Because of the sheer volume of music — you’re talking, when all’s said and done, probably two hours, 10 minutes’ worth of music — every step of this has been a huge process. I don’t think I’ve had time to do anything else over the last year or so [laughs]! In order to do this right, I had to be really, really organized about it. Jordan and I wrote the music as really a prog-metal score to the story. We didn’t sit down and say, “Let’s write a song, here’s the first chorus, whatever.” We would go through the story and say, “What’s happening here, where is it taking place?” We had to make sure the mythology was right, the timeline was right. And that carried through on every level. When it came to presenting the orchestration to David Campbell and getting him involved; when it came to writing the lyrics, and then me having to go through it song by song, character by character; even things like the artwork, creating the map and all those different towns and cities and roads — every sort of level and layer took a lot of organization and focus. 

What was the collaborative process like?
When Jordan and I were writing the music, we would demo the songs in a very basic way — click track, piano, guitar and some orchestration that Jordan would do using his sample library and synths to put down string lines, choirs, things like that. By the time we were done with all the music, we had these fairly elaborate demos that had sound-library orchestrations and MIDI information that David could work on. It wasn’t the ideal situation, because there were no vocals, there were no drums, the lyrics weren’t written yet. He had the story, the demos, and the orchestration that we did. In some cases, he wrote out basically what we did and adjusted it according to what he thought would be right for orchestra, for choir. A lot of times he changed things. He used his expertise to really make the songs grow, and in a lot of occasions wrote his own orchestrations for songs where we maybe had a minimal part — “The Answer” is a good example of that. 

How much did you work with James on portraying a range of different characters? Did you essentially direct him?
I’ve honestly said this, and I’ll say it again: I don’t think there’s any other singer but James who could have really pulled this off the way that he did. He’s going to need some serious therapy — I think there’s only one character that doesn’t have a singing part, and he played all of them [laughs]. Basically, I had given him descriptions of the characters and the way that I felt he should approach them. I would say things like, “For Gabriel, I want you to sound like you’re 25-year-old James LaBrie.” Faythe is a female, so I wanted him to sound female. Arabelle is an older female, so: “I want you to sound wise. Nefaryas, give him some attitude and wrath, be a little snarky with him — he can have a little bit of an attitude.” But then he took that information and basically came up with that stuff on his own. In fact, the vocals were recorded up in Canada at Rich Chycki’s studio; it was just James and Rich. I had the ability to listen in to the sessions via stream, but James didn’t want that; he wanted the privacy to experiment and explore those characters. Every once in a while he’d be singing … maybe he sang something from Arhys, who’s a rebel commander, and I would say, “James, if that’s coming from him, I think you should sing it with a little bit more strength, because he’s supposed to be a commander.” He was just so open to doing all that, and I think the end result, not having any other guest vocalists, the way that he pulled that off on this album to me is just so impressive. I’m so thankful to him for believing in this, and for putting his best artistic foot forward.