When metalheads think prog, they inevitably recite the following band names: Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Atheist, Cynic, and Opeth. (You could also throw in Chuck Schuldiner’s later work in Death.) Jeff Wagner, a former co-editor of Metal Maniacs and a newly minted author, argues that progressive music reaches much deeper into metal than the typical roll call. You don’t need to spin Cynic’s Focus to get your dose of prog; you can also find it in late ’70s Black Sabbath, Mercyful Fate, Celtic Frost, and even Mayhem. Wagner’s book Mean Deviation: Four Decades of Progressive Metal was released earlier this month by Bazillion Points. He spoke to us from his farm in southern Virginia, where he moved after quitting Metal Maniacs and the magazine business in 2001.
. . .
What was your gateway drug into progressive metal? Was it Voivod’s Angel Rat, which you mention early in Mean Deviation?
I wouldn’t say that was the gateway. That was more the album where a band that surprised you with every album surprised you in a way they never had before. That’s why Angel Rat is so significant to me. When I was a young kid just getting out of KISS, I found FM radio and Cheap Trick and Styx. Another band I found was Rush. I was heavily into Moving Pictures. If I had to name one of my favorite albums of all time, that’s it. But I dropped all rock once I discovered Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Metal just became huge to me. I got into underground metal in 1983, and in about 1985, bands like Queensrÿche and Fates Warning took me back to the Moving Pictures era, except they were metal. That was probably the genesis of my interest in adventurous metal.
What about Rush appealed to you as a young listener?
The same things that appeal to me now. They are such good players, but even when they write 20-minute songs, they play to the strength of the song. They’re all about writing, even when there was showing off. I know people would disagree, but I can name a bunch of other bands that are bigger showoffs than Rush. Plus, I was 11 when the album came out, and I had never heard lyrics like that. It seemed so intellectual at the time. I listened to songs like “Vital Signs” and tried to figure out what they were about. Rush had this allure that they were operating on a higher level than their peers.
Rush has always been a divisive band in the same way that progressive metal has been divisive.
A lot of people say, “I would love Rush except for the vocals”. But if you look at Rush and progressive metal in a general sense, you are probably right. It’s a real love-or-hate sort of thing. Who knows why? Some people don’t like having their metal messed with. They like it direct. They like the roots. There’s nothing wrong with that. I just find some of those bands mundane.
But when you say prog metal, I don’t think it’s easy to say what that really means. That’s why I wrote the book. Prog is more about a wide variety of approaches and applications to metal than a particular style. There are people who love Dream Theater or Fates Warning that would hate Voivod or hate Opeth. There are people who like heavier, weirder bands and don’t like traditional prog metal.
. . .
Mercyful Fate – “Satan’s Fall”
. . .
There were some albums and songs in the book that surprised me, although I agree they have progressive elements. One of them is “Satan’s Fall” by Mercyful Fate from Melissa. You also have Mayhem’s Grand Declaration of War. Are you trying to cultivate a broader understanding of progressive metal?
“Satan’s Fall” is in there because a lot of bands like Fates Warning and Opeth and Cynic looked up to Mercyful Fate as a game-changing band. They wrote odd riffs. They used odd timing. That song was radical for the time. I don’t know if I think of them as progressive like some other folks. But since so many musicians name-dropped them as a major influence, it made sense to put them in.
As for Grand Declaration, I hope I never called Mayhem a prog metal band, and if I did, I’ll change it for the second printing. (Ed. note: He doesn’t.) But there’s no question that the album was more progressive than anything Dream Theater has ever done. I’m not trying to bag on Dream Theater. But Grand Declaration was a huge leap and hugely experimental album that turned a corner for their career and reputation like Celtic Frost’s Into the Pandemonium. They are very similar albums. It’s a nuts album. They were coming back with their first proper album after Euronymous died, and there were all these devotees, and all these people thought the album was blasphemy.
You can see some of those progressive elements in Ordo Ad Chao.
I would agree even though they are very different. If Mayhem had never done Ordo, I might have been hesitant to focus on them in that chapter. But Ordo is completely bizarre. I’ve listened to it about 20 times and don’t even have my head around it yet.
When did you decide to write the book?
I’ve wanted to write a book since I left Metal Maniacs in 2001. There were some book ideas going around, and I looked at contracts, but they fizzled for one reason or another. I always had this book in me. Ian Christe and I have been friends since the late ’90s, and he always hinted that I should write a book. When he formed Bazillion Points, it was easy to sell him my idea. I sent him an email when he sent a release about the publishing company. I said, “Congratulations, I know a writer who wants to do his prog metal book”. He got back to me very quickly and said, “I have an ISBN number with your name on it”. Then it was just a matter of an outline and a formal proposal to make sure it was something he wanted to invest in.
How did you handle researching and organizing the project?
Researching wasn’t that difficult, even if there is a lot in there. A lot was in my head – particularly who I should spotlight. I’ve been living this stuff forever, and I’ve been around it since 1994. I’ve absorbed more than the average person, which means I’m an uber-nerd. But the organization was just daunting. There were times where I thought I couldn’t do it. I have to thank Ian for helping me see through the maze.
What was the biggest challenge? It seems like most participants were willing to talk.
It wasn’t getting people to talk. The biggest band I approached was Rush. I wasn’t successful, but I found quotes I needed elsewhere and credited them. Again, I think it was organization. It had to cover such a wide span. To organize that and make it readable and make sense was difficult.
. . .
. . .
I spoke to Steve Flynn of Atheist a while ago. They released a spectacular comeback album Jupiter and are receiving a huge push two decades after their heyday. He said the band’s early days were terrible. What’s changed?
Bands like Atheist and Cynic were ahead of their time. That’s a cliché, but it’s true. I saw Atheist and Cynic open for Cannibal Corpse, and they were heckled. I was disheartened. But they were doing things so radical most people couldn’t make sense of it. Those bands probably broke up because of how they were treated. 15 years later, people discovered or rediscovered those albums. Now it all makes sense to people, and they are getting their due. Time caught up with them.
If you watch the recent Cannibal Corpse documentary, it’s evident how important Cynic was to them.
I was hanging out with Paul [Masvidal, of Cynic] in Los Angeles, and he had nothing but great things to say about Cannibal and Alex Webster. It’s too bad that fans back then weren’t the same way. Some were respectful, but there was a lot of division in the Florida death metal scene about some of that stuff.
Cannibal took a different turn with their sound around Gallery of Suicide.
They got more interesting musically. I think their early music is pretty much crap. I thought they were one of the weaker bands. Fast forward 15 years later, and they are putting out albums like Kill and The Wretched Spawn. Musically they really grew, and maybe part of that was listening to bands like Cynic. There’s no way you can be Cannibal Corpse and keep doing that and not have some degree of change or musical discovery.
Did you ever think there would be a genre called progressive death metal? All you had was Focus and Pestilence’s Spheres and a few other albums which weren’t understood.
Well, Spheres was hated. That didn’t even get the posthumous acclaim of Focus or Atheist’s albums. I think progressive death metal was so unlikely, but now it’s almost a legit genre. It’s a style and a sound now. Look at all the bands you can name-drop – Obscura, Necrophagist.
Punk rock was a reaction against what many viewed as the arena excess of ’70s, particularly Rush and Queen. Why were metalheads captivated by this when the punks hated it?
Boy, that’s a good question. I think metal fans like some measure of skill. Punk bands were about the raw, the gut, and the vibe. There is more of an acceptance of virtuosity among metal listeners. I’m no expert on punk, even though I’ve watched it from afar. So I’ll just give you a half-assed answer. (Laughs)
What you would consider progressive metal is a lot broader than what most people would expect.
I agree. My definition has always been vast. It just depends on how you define progressive. That’s why I put the Frank Zappa quote in the beginning. It says it all. That’s the line in the sand: “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible”.
By that logic, could you argue that a band like Brutal Truth that went far-out experimental on Need to Control has progressive elements?
You can. That’s the beauty of the tag. With a tag like Florida death metal or Swedish death metal, you know what it’s going to sound like. That’s a form. That’s a style. Progressive metal by my definition allows for the argument that Brutal Truth is progressive. If someone wrote a second book on progressive metal and put Brutal Truth in there, I’m not sure I would 100 percent agree, but I would understand. Something like “Godplayer” did things a grind band had never done.
I don’t know if you remember Pyogenesis, but they shifted radically from album to album. I didn’t focus on them, but someone could have written pages on them. That’s a way of saying the term “progressive metal” is wide open for interpretation.
. . .
Brutal Truth – “Godplayer”
. . .
You put Celtic Frost squarely in the progressive metal category, at least for Into the Pandemonium. Why have people always used the term avant-garde metal to describe them?
When the album came out in 1987, the term “prog” wasn’t widely used. Voivod was also described as avant-garde thrash. Martin Ain is quoted in the book as saying he thought Voivod was avant-garde thrash. The only reason Celtic Frost is in the book is because of Into the Pandemonium. I don’t see them as a radically progressive band. If you look at how many musicians were influenced by that album, then they deserve to be in there. So I don’t think they were avoiding the tag. I just don’t think it was used.
You also defend Cold Lake, basically saying it allowed Tom Warrior to stay sane after the perplexed reactions to Into the Pandemonium and the business pressure.
I will defend him as an artist and a human being. People need to understand that Cold Lake was probably something he needed to do, something that was therapeutic for him. As far as moods go, you couldn’t have two more different albums than Pandemonium and Cold Lake. Cold Lake is this rocking, party album with song titles like “Dance Sleazy” and “Seduce Me Tonight”. I’m no big lover of that album. But I’ve always said [Tom G. Warrior] is a human being, and if he had major disappointments and major personal upheavals due to Into the Pandemonium, that is why Cold Lake happened.
I’ve often thought when people criticize Tom for Cold Lake that they don’t consider life’s challenges and disappointments. Everyone has something like a Cold Lake in their life. We just aren’t living in public.
That’s an awesome observation – hats off. When I think about Cold Lake, I think about Load. People need to consider the crazy changes and things that happen to people in the music business. Of course things change. I’m not defending Load as a piece of art. But I think a sellout for Metallica would have been to just say we’re going to go back to Kill ‘Em All. Cold Lake wasn’t a great album, but it was a necessary step. So be it.
A single bad book usually isn’t used to impugn a great writer’s entire canon.
I’m a huge Margaret Atwood fan. I read Cat’s Eye pretty recently, and it did nothing for me. I thought it was dull. Does it change how I feel about The Handmaid’s Tale? Hell no. Too many people want to do that to Tom Warrior for Cold Lake or to Lars and James for Load.
Do video games like Rock Star and Guitar Hero make progressive technical playing more accepted in metal?
I’ve only played Guitar Hero once, but I was terrible at it. You’re actually at an advantage if you’ve never played an instrument before. I’m not sure if it’s drawing people to progressive music. Is Dream Theater or anything available on that?
I’m not sure. I haven’t played the games.
I hope that kids out there into these video games do end up picking up an instrument. I remember the time I did play Guitar Hero. My friend’s son asked if I played an instrument. I said [that] I played bass and I was pretty good. And he said the game was harder than an actual instrument. Some kids have that mentality that this skill eclipses even playing an instrument.
. . .
Wagner on the influence of virtuosity on prog metallers
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
. . .
You called out Sabbath Bloody Sabbath as possibly the first progressive metal album. Was that in part because of [Yes member] Rick Wakeman’s keyboard playing? What other elements make it progressive?
You said “possible”, and that’s right. I wanted to throw it out there like a devil’s advocate. When it came out, progressive rock couldn’t have been bigger. Taking a long time to record a studio album was in vogue. Rick Wakeman’s part is small, and they used him for the wrong song. If you are going to use him, use him more prominently. Let him go crazy. There’s more progressive elements than the Rick Wakeman part. The arrangement of “National Acrobat” is progressive in that it doesn’t follow a verse-chorus-bridge-fade formula.
It’s definitely a huge change from the first album, which was a blues record.
They weren’t trying to be progressive, but I think they radically changed from album one to album eight. There were some radical steps. They couldn’t help but soak in some of the prog rock aesthetic of the time. It was the same era when prog was bigger than god. It reflected on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage.
Reading the book, I got the sense that you think musicians will stagnate unless they push into new and unexpected places. What do you think about the movement to restore old school death metal or people who just do the same thing? Is that the metal version of a John Grisham novel?
A John Grisham novel or AC/DC. But I’m not trying to ever come across as pejorative. There is a time and place for everything. I have a friend who thinks the last Bolt Thrower album is their greatest. I thought it refined everything they have done for the last four or five albums. I just find it kind of dull, as good as it might be compositionally. There is a lot of worth to a less-is-more approach. At the same time, less-is-more can be dull. It depends.
You were the co-editor of Metal Maniacs until right around the turn of the century. Were you surprised when the print edition closed in 2009?
No. They never had a publisher behind it to make it the magazine it could have been. We never got to apply a great layout like Decibel. It was always a pretty crappy-looking magazine. I can say that because I was there, and I banged my head against the wall so much trying to get it to look good. I thought the writing was good, and that everyone was contributing stuff we could be proud of. But print was already dying. Brave Words is gone, too.
Is the Internet the future for metal journalism and music writing, or does print have a future?
If I look at it realistically, I would say the Internet is the future. I hope enough people stick around that demand some physical products, whether it’s a magazine or a book or vinyl. But it seems that everything is going to the screen.
How did you go from editing a magazine to living on a farm in southern Virginia?
I had to leave Maniacs. I was frustrated. I loved the magazine gig. It was probably the best job I’ll ever have. But I had issues with the publishing company that grew so strong that I just felt I had to leave. I was tired of fighting for a better layout, for better distribution. I wanted to move somewhere and have a bigger house with more land. We couldn’t afford it in the New York/New Jersey area, so we looked south and found this great place. I just decided to make the leap. I thought I would find something, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
. . .
. . .
MEAN DEVIATION GIVEAWAY
aka Defend the Indefensible: Dream Theater
“What bothers me most about Dream Theater are the horrible lyrics, the vocals, and how most of their songs are less songs and more technical douchebaggery.” — A user on the IGN boards
We are giving away a signed copy of Mean Deviation to a brave soul who is willing to defend Dream Theater.
Such defenses can take any form – logic, passion, diagrams, musical examples. For a chance to win this book, defend Dream Theater in the comments box below. The best defense will win the book. International entrants are welcome. All defenses are due by midnight PST a week from today, Wednesday, January 5.
. . .
BUY MEAN DEVIATION
assuming that you don’t want to defend Dream Theater
Bazillion Points [free downloadable chapter available]
. . .
I already purchased the book from Planet Metal a few months ago. I only have one question: Why so little attention to King’s X? They are at least as “metal” and at least as “progressive” as the majority of the bands featured in the book? That was the only serious omission I found. I’ve not finished it yet but it is sure is a fun read thusfar.
Great interview for a great book! Thanks so much for this.
Great interview. I’m not into prog metal (though that depends on how widely you want to define “progressive”) but it looks like this book is still going to be worth reading because Wagner is intelligent and interesting and brings that to the subject. Awesome.
I’d rather buy the book than defend Dream Theater for it though.
Alright, I’ll take up the challenge
Dream Theater often fall under harsh criticism, not because they aren’t incredibly talented, but because they have done what no true metal band should ever do and become ‘popular’. Honestly, why should we like bands that other people like? What’s the point in enjoying the music of a group of people if we can’t look down on our friends because they’ve never heard of them? That will never happen with Dream Theater – there’s a good chance that even those mindless drones who only buy music in the charts have heard of Dream Theater. They are therefore not only not worth our attention, but beneath contempt for daring to consider making something of themselves. Clearly, if they were really metal musicians, they would be languishing in basements trying to figure out how to get the worst production possible, so their music will be completely inaccessible to anyone other than those who are really ‘trve’.
The criticism of Dream Theater’s lyrics is the hardest to defend against, not because it is right in relative terms, but because it is right in absolute terms. To argue against it effectively, I’m going to have to take the long way around, so bear with me, as I will appear to go off-topic for a couple of paragraphs.
The general standard of metal lyrics is not high, it must be said. Indeed, the literary value of lyrics in any genre doesn’t begin to compare to the literary value of poetry, and understandably so. We cannot expect the people who are musical genii to have the same level of literary brilliance, and indeed, the musicians who are celebrated for their lyrics (for example, Bob Dylan) tend not to be celebrated for their instrumental skill or compositional ability.
The problem is that when it comes to metal lyrics, people tend to confuse the subject matter with the lyrics, and I think that is what our IGN-based Dream Theater critic may have done. Many metal bands make a point of picking the most obscure and pretentious subject matter they can think of, even if they don’t really understand it, and writing mediocre lyrics about it. As a result, fans can boast that the bands they listen to have deep philosophical views on the nature of evil in mankind, even if they are just the rather poorly developed opinions of someone who thought that Satanism seemed pretty cool. Watain did not use the phrase “metamorphosphordus malformation” because they thought it was a valid poetic device that would help them convey the religious point they were making in Malfeitor, they did it because they thought long words sounded clever. Daniel Gildenlӧw, it’s great that The Perfect Element, Part I covers child abuse, sexuality, tragedy, drug abuse, love, pain, anger, loss (of life and innocence), shame, regret, despair and inner struggles [1] (why, some of the best books have been content to cover only one or two of these difficult subjects), but I can’t forgive you for:
“All my life I’ve looked up to you,
A humble old man who always knew,
No one can ever be closer to God than you,
So who could fill the void?”
Because really, you can’t rhyme ‘you’ with ‘you’. You just can’t. God knows, rhyming ‘you’ with ‘knew’ is bad enough. (And it doesn’t really need mentioning that the stanza barely makes any sense at all, even if you aren’t looking at it with the eye of a literary critic.)
And while I’ve come at this the long way around, my point is that the subject matter of an album’s lyrics has absolutely no bearing on their value as lyrics, and this is something that metal fans often get confused by. Sure, Forsaken isn’t about metamorphosphordus malformation, it’s about a vampire. ‘Panic Attack’? Go figure, it’s about someone experiencing a panic attack. It’s right there in the title, and it’s expressed very directly in the lyrics:
“Helpless hysteria,
A false sense of urgency,
Trapped in my phobia,
Possessed by anxiety.”
Dream Theater certainly do go for simpler and more understandable subject matter than that of most metal bands, and it’s easy to be cynical about this. We’re metal fans, damn it, why should we listen to anything genuine?
Dream Theater’s subject matter is straightforward enough that it’s a lot harder to fall back on the old, “well, you just don’t understand the lyrics,” when we are attacked by fans of those rare bands (whether metal or not) who really do come up with lyrics that have significant literary value. The fact is, however, that if you put Dream Theater’s lyrics next to those of any other metal band that appears to cover deeper and more complex subject matter, you would find that they are almost always more competent in poetic terms. As I say, ‘better than most metal bands’ isn’t a terribly high bar to pass. The point is that the set of metal bands that are less competent lyricists than Dream Theater includes a great many that IGN-user and his fellow Dream Theater critics wouldn’t think of mounting an attack against because they hide their poor lyrics behind layers of artificially complex subject-matter.
The vocals are the easy bit, because most people who criticise Dream Theater’s vocals do so in ignorance of the food poisoning that happened shortly after the recording of Awake. When James LaBrie was on vacation in Cuba in 1994, he got food poisoning from shellfish, resulting in such violent vomiting that his vocal chords were ruptured. With touring commitments, he was unable to take the recommended break, and his vocal performances on tour damaged his vocal chords further. It took him about 10 years to recover properly, and he has quite possibly never regained the operatic range he had when he recorded Images and Words and Awake.
It is therefore very easy to dig up a recording from their Scenes from a Memory or Train of Thought tours, point at James LaBrie attempting to sing a high F# with ruptured vocal chords on Learning to Live, and call him a terrible vocalist. It is much harder to make that same accusation of the James LaBrie of ’92, before his problems with food poisoning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTzlEadGeTo&feature=related
A demonstration from 1992 satisfies the fact that he has only recorded vocals in the studio which he was capable of performing live at the time. I’ll justify my claim of his recovery with the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkcAqknKBO4
Note that there was no distinct bias in my pick – I simply went for the first video turned up on a YouTube search for “Dream Theater live” (that wasn’t an instrumental, which is the first result). Listen for the contrast between the soft, clean opening and the growl introduced behind his more powerful vocals as the track builds momentum. How the darker atmosphere is banished as the track transitions into the chorus and he moves back to a cleaner but just as powerful sound. And that’s just the first two minutes.
So as far as his expression of the lyrics goes, it is also difficult to fault him. From the soft, desperate expression in Space Dye Vest to the famous screamed cries, “trapped inside this Octavarium!” there are few significant inadequacies. Vocalists are always a difficult issue, and there is an awful lot of personal preference involved – much more so than with instrumentalists. I dislike Timo Koltipeto’s vocals intensely, but don’t consider him an inadequate vocalist for Stratovarius – he’s expressive and has range and power. It’s important to be careful of confusing personal preference with fact, as it’s a problem that has plagued music fans for decades.
‘Technical douchebaggery’ strikes me as rather a desperate criticism. It’s a last-resort thing that you can throw at any band that’s reasonably technically proficient and hope to score a glancing blow. If there’s no real way you can criticise the skills of band members at their individual instruments or how coherently they play live, but you still want to find something to say, call them technical douchebags and be done with it. And indeed, as far as instrumental skill alone is concerned, you would struggle to criticise Jordan Rudess
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgZhiYff7nM
John Petrucci
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVmq2C5kLoM
John Myung
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yqOA0BMXS0&feature=related
or Mike Portnoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd9p69_ah4s&feature=fvst
Still, as vague and desperate as this last criticism is, I am obliged to defend against it. As the IGN user has failed to clarify his terms, I’ll take the phrase ‘technical douchebaggery’ to mean music played with a high level of technical skill but without any real meaning, direction or emotion, and an inability to determine where long instrumental sections are appropriate and where they aren’t. This, I think, is not an unreasonable interpretation, and a criticism that I have heard more coherently levelled at Dream Theater in the past. Saying that bands capable of performing complex instrumental sections should never exercise that ability is nonsensical to the point of ridiculousness, so I’ll do Mr. IGN user the credit of assuming he didn’t mean that.
Fortunately, it’s not remotely valid. Scenes from a Memory is the easiest method for defence, as it is a concept album with a plot, and makes it very clear that the instrumental sections perfectly mirror the mood of the album. Of course there are extended furious solo sections in Beyond this Life – it’s about the murder of a young woman. On the other hand, there’s no sign of any of that in Through her Eyes – Nicholas is visiting Victoria’s grave, it’s emotional and moving, a guitar solo would be completely inappropriate. Similarly, The Dance of Eternity is as mind-blowing as it is partly to represent the twisted love of Edward for Victoria and partly to form a contrast with the beautiful One Last Time, but again, it’s appropriate.
A band that exercised ‘technical douchebaggery’ would have put a guitar solo in Space Dye Vest, or complex drum patterns over Wait for Sleep. A band that was less technically proficient wouldn’t have been able to lay down the high-speed runs that are completely appropriate to the driven, angry tracks that make up Train of Thought. Dream Theater, fortunately, fall in that happy middle ground where they are capable of both executing complex instrumental work and mature enough to know where it is most appropriate.
In conclusion, the criticisms levelled at Dream Theater are largely invalid, and influenced by a desperate desire not to be seen as ‘part of the mainstream’. Whilst lyrical criticisms of Dream Theater are somewhat valid (as indeed they are of 99% of metal bands, indeed, bands of any genre), those of James LaBrie and of their inability to differentiate appropriate and inability to place and compose fast and complex instrumental sections appropriately are completely unjustified. Indeed, however Dream Theater is criticised, it is very difficult to deny that they have had a huge positive influence on the newest generation of progressive metal bands, and I for one will continue to enjoy listening to them for a very long time.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perfect_Element,_Part_I
Jesus H. Christ, I was going to defend Dream Theater, but this guy above me already won the contest, didn’t he?
Great interview, in any case. I’m definitely going to be buying this book.
Damn, reading James’s defense is about as excruciating as listening to a Dream Theater song. He must really want that book! I say give it to him and I think every dude who works at Guitar Center would agree.
Oh yeah and Jeff Wagner used to work at Relapse back in the early 90’s, he has been a trooper for a long time!
Aesop Dekker quote from facebook: ” The new Agalloch “leak” is either a Dream Theater album or Spyware, I don’t know what’s worse” . Thats my defense for Dream Theater.
Well, I’m not going to defend Dream Theater from a musical standpoint, but I will at least give them points for telling Mike Portnoy to run along after he came back to them with his tail between his legs.
Read this thing cover-to-cover the ensuing 24 hours after I got it in the mail in late November..the power had gone out and would stay that way for almost three days. So glad to finally read a definitive history of Watchtower, see a book with my favorite metal band Coroner spotlighted, and have something prompt me to scope out bands like Anacrusis, who I’ve fallen completely in love with. Well-done, Jeff, and great interview as always, Cosmo.
Fuck yeah! Brutal Truth rules!
Asa – I take no responsibility for the interview (see top graphic! see interview credit!), but I do take responsibility for the silly contest afterwards.
Dream Theater definitely have put out some material worth defending. Images and Words, Awake, and Scenes From a Memory all have some great songwriting. That solo on Scarred still gives me the goosebumps it did when I was 16. It’s too bad that since then they have come what they have become, but such are the careers of all but the most legendary bands. Maybe now that Portnoy is gone, his “DT as metal” nonsense will leave with him. But I suspect that ship sailed long ago.
Fuck, my bad.
Justin, both this here intie and the one with Steve Flynn are great.
Possibly one of the most telling statements in this interview is the part about Rush which Wagner states “they play to the strength of the song.” Sure it is enjoyable to hear dazzling pyrotechnics (especially for musicians) but the song should be a great song instead of some vehicle for said pyrotechnics. You take out odd timings and pyrotechnics in *insert prog metal band*, and are you left with a great song?
That being said I do have some Dream Theater on the iPod, but I certainly do not load up entire CDs from them. An excellent prog metal band makes you want to load up the entire CD and play it from start to finish without interruption.
Great interview. The two Bazillion Points books I own, _Swedish Death
Metal_ and _Hellbent for Cooking_, are both dogeared from frequent
re-reading (and, in the case of the latter, food-spattered). It’s
good to know that they’ve kept up the quality with this latest title. Plus, the unexpectedly badass Fates Warning track from Aesop Dekker’s Stranded at C:60 has me wanting to know more about progressive metal, so I’ll have to pick this up first chance I get.
As for defending Dream Theater, I must admit that I cringed when I saw
they were on tour with Maiden this past summer. And while their set
didn’t convert me into a fan, I will happily concede that Maiden’s own post-reunion prog-metal opuses (opi?) are way better than _No Prayer for the Dying_, their failed attempt to recapture their roots. Where everything about the latter, from its riffs to its lyrics (especially on the singles “Holy Smoke” and “Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter”) is embarassingly tired, prog-Maiden sounds revitalized and relevant. Thus, I imagine Dream Theater deserves some credit for keeping prog metal alive during the early 90s, and perhaps even for influencing Maiden to revisit and expand on the proggy elements of _Powerslave_ and _Seventh Son_.
So yeah, that’s my (admittedly) weak defense of Dream Theater. The guy above clearly already won, but I thought it would be fun to try to defend Dream Theater w/o actually defending their music.
pseudonymous – “Helping make Maiden proggier” might be another strike against, not a defense of Dream Theater!
The Spiderman font is quite proggy!
For what it’s worth, I really like Dream Theater. Some Dream Theater, anyway. When you listen to them, you know what you’re getting. I don’t want all of my metal to be extreme, and melodic prog metal (I also especially like Symphony X, so sue me) is a nice way to still have some of the challenging nature of extreme metal without the, er, extremeness. I think everyone here to some degree likes death and black metal because of its degree of difficulty for casual listeners; Dream Theater’s technical prowess would be just as daunting to an acolyte as, say, Nocturno Culto’s vocals.
Oops, I think I used the word “acolyte” completely wrong. “Newbie,” if it goes down better.
I should add that, in high school in 1984, “Satan’s Fall” was actually the “prog metal” standard by which all other progressive metal was judged by me. I did, indeed, fantasize about a metal band that would exist with a sound somewhere between late ’70s Rush and Iron Maiden, and although Queensryche did flirt with becoming this very thing, Mercyful Fate actually were the ultimate embodiment of this idea, musically, for me.
I would love to go on a tirade defending Dream Theater, but I never understood what anyone has against them. They have a unique, instantly recognizable (and undeniably metal) sound, they write catchy songs, and they can play their instruments like few others. What’s the problem?
@Invisible Oranges: Hey, I tried.
More importantly, I’ve been listening to _Sabbath Bloddy Sabbath_ a lot lately, and I love all of the strings, keyboards, and adventurous arrangements. Even “Sabbra Cadabra,” which starts off like a fairly straight-up blues rock song a la “Black Dog,” takes a couple of unexpected twists and turns. “Who Are You?” is plodding and dull, but the rest is excellent. Cool to think that it might be the first album to combine heavy metal and progressive rock.
I also love the idea of _Need to Control_ as prog. I imagine it would make Peter Gabriel shit his pants.
well that was a pretty intense defense by james. in response i have to point out that nobody i know who dislikes dream theater criticize them for being “too popular”; everyone does so for being over-the-top cheesy. to each his own, i suppose.
@Asa–Thanks! Glad you enjoyed. Happy New Year.
in defense of dream theater.
Back in 1994, someone whose opinion I no longer trust swore that Dream Theater were the greatest band on earth. My 14-year-old self believed him, and with BMG membership in hand, a copy of “Awake” hurtled through the postal system to my eager little mitts. I still remember that first shock of hearing this record. Such lame fucking music, coupled with the worst vocals imaginable.
However. After rougly 68 minutes of awkward aural torture, the intro to the final song “Space-Dye Vest” tinkled through my speakers. And.. it wasn’t completely fucking horrid. In fact, I’m pretty sure they let the keyboard player sing this one, sparing us the merciless assault of mediocrity that is James Labrie’s trademark. It was as if the goons in Dream Theater recognized how awful it must have been to listen to an hour of their music, and they offered up some paltry reward to the diehard faithful with ears of steel. Wikipedia tells me this song was the brainchild of keyboardist Kevin Moore, who (wisely) left the band shortly thereafter.
So. In defense of Dream Theater (truly defending the indefensible!), I offer up the one song of theirs I can still get through, even if it sounds nothing like the rest of their catalog, and, ultimately, is still pretty shitty. But no Labrie vox!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O4_C68PmFI
I like Bazillion Points a lot and this does look like an interesting read, but Dream Theater are awful. They sound like drawn-out-disguised-as-complex bland pop music with a surface level metal approach. This metal candy coating does not make them metal, much like the lame ass indie “metal” you guys love to slobber over.
Rarf, you will most assuredly find this post irritating. I apologize in advance for my, er, wordy nature.
My general thoughts here should be taken as a companion piece to James’ earlier and excellent defense of Dream Theater. Whereas James stated his main thesis in the introduction (popularity as reason for downfall), my thoughts follow a more circuitous approach.[1] Look, a lot of people dislike Dream Theater. Even more people vociferously hate Dream Theater. I’ve never really understood why. I figured this was a good opportunity to explore my own thoughts on the band.
I figured that breaking DT into slightly more objective/quantifiable (read: non-subjective) components might be a good place to start. Let’s start out with the music itself. DT plays a style most closely aligned with progressive metal. Their songs are often lengthy and contain healthy amounts of double-bass, meter changes, and instrumental virtuosity. Now, plenty of bands use these elements without drawing spite from message boards and blogs.
Could it be the vocals? Lots of people love to hate on Labrie’s pipes. They’re definitely high pitched, melodramatic, and operatic (I’ll keep the cheese out of this. For now, at least). This isn’t new. From the 1970s to Terrorizer’s recent Fear Candy CDs, the past few decades of heavy metal have witnessed plenty of bands featuring upper-register singers. They’re not everybody’s thing, but I would expect equal admonition for power metal singers, etc.
Much has been made about DT’s technicality. Their virtuosic skill (the aforementioned technical douchebaggery), is a frequent point of contention. Of all the reasons to hate DT, I must admit this one confuses me the most. Heavy metal music has a rich history with instrumental prowess. Take the shredding of the eighties. Or the crazy explosion of technical metal since 2000. Lots of bands push the limits of their instruments (and their listeners patience) with over the top technicality. I think you can see where I’m going here.
My point here is that hating DT for any of the above musical elements seems kind of odd. Although they have their own sound, they certainly don’t seem to be doing anything drastically unique or unheard of.
Ok. So if it’s not the music, what else could it be? Perhaps their image? Certainly nothing extraordinary (or even thought out) on that front. A simple Google image search of the band showcases the requisite band shirts, leather, denim, and long hair. It’s neither good nor terrible.
They don’t appear to have offensive lyrics or a questionable philosophy. Even if they did, this is heavy metal we’re talking about, so who cares. [2]
I’m not going to discuss popularity because James already did an excellent job.
After typing this through, I am still confused as to why this band needs defending.[3] While you certainly don’t need to love them (or even like them), I don’t understand the point of spending energy on hating a band. Music is awesome! Don’t like DT? That’s ok! I’m reminded of one of Cosmo’s comments a long time ago questioning why someone would make a list of the bands they hate. This kinda seems like that.
[1] More specifically, an extremely loose variation of the Bangu, or 8-legged essay. This essentially means that I will arrive at my “point” at the end of the essay after some exposition, instead of James’ tried-and-true thesis-example-example-conclusion method.
[2] You know what I mean.
[3] Or any band, really.
@Wash Jones
That’s James LaBrie, all right. The song was written by Moore, but it’s definitely LaBrie singing on it. Sorry for ruining it for you.
On Dream Theater… I find it most interesting that I used to defend the band from detractors who hated their technical wankery and jarring lead singer in James LaBrie.
These days I’m attacking Dream Theater because they’ve sold the fuck out, having abandoned their progressive roots to chase the dollars through generic flavour-of-the-day riffs. Heck, they even forced LaBrie to grow a beard.