Mike Portnoy Details His Reunion With Dream Theater

Michael Angulia | 12-29-2023

Legendary drummer Mike Portnoy has revealed how his reunion with Dream Theater came about in a new interview with Drumeo. The band announced Portnoy's long-awaited return to the group back in October.

He explained how it came about in the new video interview, "It's been 13 years, and I think time heals all wounds, as the expression goes. It's been many, many years now of kind of rekindling my relationships with the guys, starting with John Petrucci, maybe five, six, seven years ago or so, we just reconnected.

Our families, his wife and my wife were in a band together even before we knew our wives. Our kids have grown up together. My daughter and John Petrucci's daughter shared an apartment together in New York for the last five years. So the families were still close. So, John and I inevitably reconnected on a personal level.

"And I guess it really started to gain some traction during COVID lockdown because I couldn't tour and Dream Theater couldn't tour, so John decided he wanted to do a solo album and he asked me to play on it.

"So that was the first step, I guess, in this direction. So, I played on John's solo album. And then a few months later, we did an LTE album with, with John and Jordan.

"So that brought three of us back together. And then the following year I ended up doing John's solo tour, and our wives' band were opening for us. So, we had the wives out with us. So, it just seemed like it was all starting to come together on a personal level and then the musical level as well. And then I think the final piece was me reconnecting with James LaBrie because James and I hadn't spoken for over a decade."

He explained how he and LaBrie recoccneted, "I went to see Dream Theater play in New York, I guess around 2022, and that was my first time seeing James in over a decade. And literally, I'm not exaggerating, within five seconds of seeing each other, it was hugs, kisses and it was like any of the drama and bullsh*t that happened during all of those years of the split, it just melted away immediately.

"And with James and I buddying up again, it kind of just, it began to seem like an inevitability. It wasn't ever, I don't think, in either of our plans to eventually reunite. In fact, if you would have asked me this five years ago, I probably wouldn't have put money on it. But with the developments of everything I just laid out for you, then it started to really feel like, well, maybe this is inevitable.

"It just seems like we're in the right place and the right time at this stages of our lives."