MIKE PORTNOY TALKS UPCOMING SHATTERED FORTRESS SHOWS - "JUST TRYING TO FINISH SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS, NOT ONLY FOR THE FANS BUT FOR MYSELF AS WELL"
"...Drum legend Mike Portnoy is featured in a new in-depth interview discussing his work with The Neal Morse Band, his feelings on leaving Dream Theater six years ago, and his upcoming Shattered Fortress shows. Following is an excerpt from the discussion.
Q: In all these years that have gone by, only in a few special occasions you’ve revisited some of Dream Theater stuff, but now you announced the Shattered Fortress, a project meant to play the whole 12-step Suite. Is this a temporary project or do you plan to keep it on a steady basis and play songs from Dream Theater?
Portnoy: "Oh no! I have no interest in doing this on a long term level. This is absolutely just a temporary one-off event that will happen in select festivals and shows next year. Like you said, I’ve rarely revisited the Dream Theater material since I left the band and honestly I have no interest in it. If I wanted to be playing Dream Theater material I would have just stayed in Dream Theater. That’s obviously not my intention.
Doing that with The Shattered Fortress is mainly kind of just trying to finish some unfinished business, not only for the fans but for myself as well. Honestly, I had no intention of even doing this, until the idea of the 50th birthday concert came up on Cruise to the Edge, so that’s where this kind of stemmed from. Once I had the idea of doing a retrospect concert for my 50th birthday I knew that was the right time to finally do the 12-step suite once and for all. And then once word got out about that, suddenly I started getting these offers from these different prog festivals, so I thought now it’s the time, let’s just do it once and for all and get it out of my system and give it to the fans finally. It’s really just a one-off thing that will happen in 2017 and after that I have really no interest in going back there again."
Go to
this location for the complete interview...."
