Systematic Chaos Theory

Dream Theater changes things up while staying true to its roots

By Alan Sculley

Dream Theater performs at 7:30 p.m. May 30 at Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater.

Change is a recurring theme for the progressive rock band Dream Theater.

It shows in the band’s live performances, for which drummer/songwriter Mike Portnoy prepares a different set list each show, giving the musicians and their audience variety every night.

It applies certainly to the band’s latest studio CD, Systematic Chaos. Instead of continuing the recent trend of theme albums such as Octavarium (2005), Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (2002) and Scenes From a Memory (1999), Dream Theater simply recorded a collection of songs on the current CD.

“I absolutely love working within the concept album format,” Portnoy said. “We did it with Scenes From a Memory and Octavarium, and Six Degrees had that as well for the second disc. I really love that. But that being said, it’s important to not keep doing the same (lyrical) formula, so it felt like it was just time to do a group of individual songs.”

But if there’s one thing Dream Theater won’t change, it’s the band’s basic musical identity.

“I’ve always said, of all our albums, and it’s true here [with Systematic Chaos] as well, we still want to maintain a sound and a style that is Dream Theater,” Portnoy said. “We never want to stray from that, and we never want to turn our backs on what has made this band stylistically.… Each and every time we make a record, we want to maintain that sound and style, but try new things and new directions and go different places within that sound.”

The stubborn adherence to the progressive rock form has helped Dream Theater stay relevant and continue to build its audience, despite working well outside of the hot trends — hair metal, grunge, rap-rock, teen pop, emo, to name a few — throughout a two-decade history.

That history is celebrated on a new best-of CD, the title of which, Greatest Hit (… and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs), makes a light-hearted reference to the band’s lack of commercial success.

The ironic thing is that Dream Theater’s ability to prosper while flying just outside of the mainstream rock radar has possibly kept the band, which was formed by Portnoy, guitarist John Petrucci and bassist John Myung in 1985, from being as popular as it could be.

Portnoy noted that for most of its career, Dream Theater (which also includes singer James LaBrie and keyboardist Jordan Rudess) was with record companies — Atlantic and Elektra — that never put much effort into promoting the band’s albums and tours, simply because Dream Theater essentially sold itself.

“Basically they just completely relied on our fan base to buy the records,” he said. “We would get on tour, and we would basically work the albums ourselves without any follow-up from the record company.

“They kept picking up the option of the contract just because they made X amount of money off of us because of our existing fan base,” Portnoy said. “But we knew there was so much more that they could be doing. It was just frustrating to not have it done.”

That situation has now changed. The band’s deal with Atlantic ended with Octavarium, and they signed with Roadrunner Records, a label Portony believes will aggressively market his band.

“Dream Theater is in a great position in that sense, where we have built this great kind of progressive empire over the past 22 years,” Portnoy said. “But at the same time, we’re still very underground. We’re still not a household name, and there’s still so much room to grow. I think Roadrunner really saw that potential and is just as excited to be with us as we are with them.”

The first attempt to expand Dream Theater’s audience, of course, is with the 2007 release Systematic Chaos.

Like the New York-based group’s other albums, Systematic Chaos stays true to Dream Theater’s hard-hitting progressive rock sound, while finding room for musical variations within that form.

“I guess if I had to generalize it, I think it’s a darker, more aggressive album,” Portnoy said. “It [Systematic Chaos] is heavier than our previous album, Ocatavarium, but at the same time it’s not a full-blown heavy, dark album, as [the 2003 CD] Train of Thought was. There is a lot of diversity and there are a lot of progressive, epic moments, and there are mellow moments. But all of those moments still somehow remain dark.”

The band will play songs from throughout its career on its current tour, Portnoy said.

Plus, after several “Evening with Dream Theater” tours, the band is now bringing along three opening acts — Opeth, Between Buried and Me, and 3 — and shortening its set.

“It’s going to be a nice change of pace for us,” Portnoy said. “Our fans have been spoiled by the three, three-and-a-half-hour marathons, but it was starting to take its toll on us, that kind of show every night. And I write a completely different set list for every show. It’s a lot of work so it was starting to take its toll and we figured we would change it up for this tour just to keep our senses and our bodies alive. But it’s still a good solid two-hour show.… It’s going to be a great evening for the fans.”

Dream Theater will perform at 7:30 p.m. May 30 at Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater, 1700 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. Tickets range from $36.50 to $66.50 and can be purchased from www.ticketmaster.com.