Dream Theater Happy To Finally Bolt From Atlantic

Michael Senft of The Arizona Republic caught up with Dream Theater drummer and bandleader Mike Portnoy for a Q&A, asking about the band’s move from Atlantic to Roadrunner. “We were with Atlantic/Elektra for 15 years, a seven-album deal we signed in 1991,” Senft explained. “They kept picking up options for every record. To be honest, we’ve been ready to get the fu** out of there for years, the whole corporate, major label thing was… we were starting to get really frustrated with it. The kind of band we are, we aren’t a flavor of the month, we aren’t MTV, we aren’t corporate-minded Rolling Stone- type music. And it was easy for us to get lost in the shuffle. Our previous label was just relying on our existing fans to buy our albums and make them their money. They would then leave us alone to work the album ourselves, no promotion, no tour support. We were excited at our possibilities when the contract ended – Roadrunner was a no-brainer. They’ve got the power and marketing muscle of any major label, but they don’t have the corporate mentality, they are more independent minded. And they’ve grown so much in recent years; they aren’t strictly a hardcore metal label anymore.”