At two hours and 34 tracks, prog metallic icons Dream Theater’s 2016 album The Astonishing was bold even by their requirements. Steel Hammer sat down with the band because the album was launched to speak ideas, sci-fi and going full nerd.
Preposterous. There is no such thing as a different phrase for it. Even inside heavy metallic, the place bombast, self-indulgence and voyages by way of the surreal and hyperreal are cherished tenets, the brand new Dream Theater album stands out like a kaleidoscopic monolith floating majestically in an ocean of gray slurry. Greater than two hours lengthy, and underpinned by an elaborate story set 300 years into some monstrous dystopian future, The Astonishing totally lives as much as its identify. In truth, Dream Theater might have misplaced their minds fully…
“Ha ha! Yeah, like, ‘What the hell is unsuitable with you guys?’” grins guitarist John Petrucci, mastermind of The Astonishing’s idea and narrative, as he reclines on a settee at their label’s London workplace, together with keyboard maestro Jordan Rudess and vocalist James LaBrie. “We frequently ask ourselves that query! So far as timing goes, it undoubtedly felt proper for all of us to do an idea album once more. The final one we did was [1999’s] Scenes From A Reminiscence. With a purpose to do it proper, we actually wished to do it to the fullest extent – have a full story, developed characters and never solely write an album, however write a present that we will current. And it didn’t begin small [and grow], it began off with the complete, grand concept! Ha ha ha! That’s simply the way in which we work. Nothing was haphazard in any respect. It was very thought-out and really detailed.”
“We’re nonetheless a rock band, although!” Jordan interjects with a wry smile. “It’s a bit unusual for each element to be thought out in a rock band, however nonetheless…”
“However we’re nerds at coronary heart, proper?” notes John, and all three explode into laughter.
Dream Theater, rounded out by bassist John Myung and drummer Mike Mangini, are totally conscious of how they’re perceived. All through the final 30 years, they’ve managed to turn out to be certainly one of metallic’s largest and most persistently profitable bands, regardless of being, by all mainstream requirements, desperately uncool.
This time spherical, nonetheless, the gloves are undoubtedly off. The Astonishing isn’t just an album: it’s a totally immersive story with its personal screenplay, art work and buying and selling playing cards. It seems custom-built for future film or stage present variations, to not point out the videogame market and, for optimum nerd factors, the fantasy RPG world. It’s as if John Petrucci and his comrades are saying, “So, you thought we had been large nerds? Properly test this shit out!”
“Ha ha ha! Yeah, that’s true, I suppose. In the event you thought we had been nerdy earlier than, this can blow your thoughts!” laughs John. “So far as the RPG stuff goes, that may be the least of the affect. It’s not one thing that I’m personally into, however I feel it crosses over within the sense that we’re all into sci-fi and fantasy; all of us love Star Wars, Sport Of Thrones, Lord Of The Rings, any futuristic tales in regards to the Apocalypse…”
“And even Harry Potter!” grins Jordan.
“Ha ha ha! Yeah, Harry Potter, too. We love all that. So if something, this grandiose manner of taking a look at issues comes extra from films. Whether or not it’s progressive music as a style, gaming, sci-fi as a style… it’s a really related headspace for all of these. It’s for those that love storytelling and diving into the element, the methodology of all of it.”
“The entire prog motion is about fairies and elves and we’re pleased with that!” Jordan cheerily proclaims, earlier than including, deadpan, “however there are no fairies and elves on this album.”
As an alternative, The Astonishing takes place in a world the place societies have collapsed and been changed by a feudal system: empires dominated by omnipotent leaders, with odd folks decreased to cowed employee bees, striving for survival. Like many a sci-fi state of affairs, the album transports us to a darkish and menacing time that’s simply believable sufficient to ring true on some deep stage. It definitely helps that a number of the story’s precept supporting details parallel what’s happening round us in 2016.
![Dream Theater - The Gift Of Music [OFFICIAL VIDEO] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/fae4FQ4McSY/maxresdefault.jpg)
“The world [of The Astonishing] has returned to feudalism, the way in which it was when the aristocracy had all the cash and the land and the facility and odd folks had been simply toiling,” John explains. “In order that’s a bit little bit of a touch upon what’s taking place immediately and the place issues might doubtlessly go. The opposite facet is that in quite a lot of industries, robots are taking on and changing people, and so what would occur if that occurred to the humanities? On this future, with all this know-how, in an effort to make excellent music, we make artificially clever machines – the NOMACs – that make music, and there’s no want for people to make music anymore. So it’s in regards to the juxtaposition of listening to these NOMACS making this actually crappy nonsense music, as a result of that’s what they suppose is nice, after which listening to Dream Theater taking part in, with actual strings, an actual guitars, an actual piano and an actual singer…”
One of many extra heartening phenomena of latest instances has been the quiet however regular backlash in opposition to the disposability of a lot fashionable music and leisure. A resurgence of curiosity in vinyl, field units and immersive TV collection which might be consumed in big, absorbing chunks, means that many individuals are rediscovering the enjoyment of participating with music and artwork, quite than merely utilizing it as bland wallpaper to accompany different actions.
“It takes a sure mentality to hear to music,” Jordan states. “You’ve bought to have persistence or perhaps simply meditate. All people is increasingly more distracted, everybody’s multitasking… should you’re not taking a look at a display, you’re being pulled away from it. It’s tougher and tougher to focus.”
“Music has undoubtedly turn out to be a background for lots of people,” nods James. “It’s not essentially one thing individuals are listening to, and it might simply be a NOMAC within the background simply making sounds whereas they’re texting their mates. Everyone seems to be so inundated with a lot media nowadays. There are too many distractions, whereas once we had been all rising up, it was one thing to sit up for – you’d go and get that album and also you’d sit with it the entire weekend and also you’d hold spinning it, since you didn’t have all these distractions. This album could be very related to that and what we’re seeing taking place proper now. It might simply go that manner, proper?”
“One of many issues that we discover increasingly more is that sure, there’s a popular culture and sure, there may be pop music, however there’s a big neighborhood of likeminded individuals who like to dive into issues and need extra substance,” provides John. “The individuals who love Star Wars and the mythology, that’s an enormous neighborhood. It’s a matter of tapping into that and making an attempt to do one thing that brings all these parts collectively. Ourselves as music followers, we’re like that. Dream Theater followers on the whole are like that. However to mix it, most musicians I discuss to, you point out Sport Of Thrones and so they’re like, ‘Oh my god!’ but it surely’s the identical headspace, you understand? And so we’re making an attempt to convey all of it collectively.”
The nice irony of Dream Theater’s strategy to creating music has by no means been extra apparent. As The Astonishing combines parts that Sport Of Thrones, Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings and even World Of Warcraft folks will recognise, it ought to exert an attract past something the band have achieved. However prog metallic of this specific hue is routinely sneered at by some music followers, as if one type of flat-out nerdiness is suitable, however one other is past the pale. Fortunately, Dream Theater don’t significantly care and, extra importantly, they’re on this for the lengthy haul.
The discharge of The Astonishing is only the start: as folks begin to discover the band’s newly minted future world and dive into the vivid intricacies of music and narrative, the primary of a collection of intimate reside reveals, the place the album shall be carried out in its mind-bending entirety, shall be happening in London on February 18. Will probably be augmented with a full film presentation; a grand, additional layer of experiential substance.
![Dream Theater – Our New World [OFFICIAL VIDEO] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/JnLdx2FyNqg/maxresdefault.jpg)
“We’ve quite a lot of particular issues deliberate, if all of them occur!” John beams. “Apart from our lighting engineer and set designer, now we have one other group of individuals in Montreal who specialize in this sort of immersive stage expertise, a transformative expertise utilizing video, so it’ll be a mix of a bodily set and video panels. It can virtually be like a full film that we’ll play together with. So that you get your popcorn and you discover your seat, and then you definitely’re listening to us play and watching this visible expertise on the identical time. It needs to be enjoyable! We’ve excessive expectations, so I hope we pull it off, ha ha ha!”
“Folks have turn out to be disconnected,” notes James. “I suppose we have to assist to re-educate folks – that it’s OK to sit down down with one factor and immerse your self in it. It’s one of many nice joys in life.”
Impressed by an trustworthy love for the creation of extraordinary music and the telling of extraordinary tales, The Astonishing might not convert many nonbelievers, however Dream Theater can hardly be accused of not placing the trouble in. Sure, The Astonishing is preposterous. However should you’re prepared to present it a attempt, it would simply blow your thoughts.
“You realize what? We all know we’re asking rather a lot!” John laughs. “We actually are. It’s one factor to say, ‘Take a look at this 20-minute music!’ as a result of luckily now we have lots of people who like that type of factor. However, ‘Put apart a few hours to take heed to this album’? Ha ha! We romanticise the concept that folks will sit down like they’re watching a film and luxuriate in the entire thing from starting to finish, however we hold laughing about it, too, like, ‘Hey dude, have you ever heard the brand new Dream Theater album?’ ‘No, dude, however I’ve set Saturday apart…’ Ha ha ha!”
Initially printed in Steel Hammer situation 280, January 2016
