It’s halfway through our interview when James LaBrie inadvertently nails the problem with Dream Theater. “The worst thing anybody has said about this band?” The singer’s voice rises above ‘polite’ for the first time in our 40-minute conversation. “That we have no soul.
” It was a reasonable enough question, and an unexpectedly forceful answer. The New York band split the vote like few others. To some they’re the greatest musical technicians, a collection of academy-trained virtuosos who prove intelligence and success aren’t mutually exclusive in the 21st century.
To others they’re anally-clenched muso spods so far from rock’n’roll’s elemental foundations that they may as well be from Saturn. The three members of the band on press duties today are never anything less than friendly. Guitarist laughingly describes himself as a “music nerd” never more than one room away from an instrument (he even confesses he’s doing today’s interview standing on a carpet emblazoned with guitars).
Paintbrush-bearded keyboard player – a child prodigy who trained at Juilliard from the age of nine – is equally engaging, and no less aware of his band’s place in the scheme of things. And then there’s LaBrie. A transplanted Canadian, he may describe himself as having “a short fuse”, but he’s the most mild-mannered, pleasant rock star imaginable.
He doesn’t even go in for profanity, substituting ‘fricking’ for ‘fucking’, which makes him sound a.