Mike Portnoy and Dream Theater are together again, and Drumeo is celebrating with a deep dive into the band's (arguably only) major hit "Pull Me Under" from the 1992 album Images & Words. Which isn't a shot at the band – they're clearly in on the joke given their greatest hits record is called Greatest Hit (…And 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs).
"'Pull Me Under' was the song that put Dream Theater on the map," said Portnoy. "I think it's pretty safe to say if we didn't write that song, I wouldn't be sitting here today. It's weird, it wasn't even supposed to have been on the album and at the last minute our A&R guy at the time Derek Oliver asked us to write one more song; maybe something a little more concise. Although at eight and a half minutes long, I don't know if we nailed the concise part.
"I think we definitely nailed something that was easily digestible. I mean, it's not a terribly difficult song. I think for me, for the drum parts, it was more about just being as creative as possible, but at the same time it's all pretty much 4/4 and nothing that's really terribly difficult to play."
On playing "Pull Me Under" for the first time since rejoining Dream Theater: "It was only announced that I'm rejoining Dream Theater only a few weeks ago at the the point of filming this, so for me to play this now is… it's kind of just like riding a bicycle. The muscle memory is just there for life, you know? It'll be there forever."
Mike Portnoy recently rejoined Dream Theater and is working with the band throughout 2024 on a new record. When asked during a recent Q&A if there's any chance Dream Theater would do a sequel to their 1999 progressive metal masterpiece Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory, Portnoy said the band doesn't have any specific plans for new material at the moment.
"We haven't talked about it yet, but that would be the obvious thing. But maybe because it's the obvious thing, we wouldn't do it. But you never know… It definitely would be fun to do, but I think, uh… I don't know. We're gonna start from scratch and reconnect and just go into the studio and live together. We're in a different phase of our lives. When I left the band 13 years ago, we were all in our 40s; now we're all in our 50s and 60s. It's gonna be interesting to see how we kind of exist now in this new world. So, yeah, I'm just looking forward to being with the guys and making music together again."
