John Petrucci discussed in a video message why naming their new album ‘Parasomnia’ is the perfect choice for Dream Theater.
“It’s been so cool having Mike Portnoy rejoin the band,” the guitarist shared about Mike Portnoy. “I mean, obviously, we started the band together. We met when we were 18 years old, so when I look back and I see him playing drums, it’s just like having my old buddy back in. And so there’s a great feeling on stage.”
Then, he talked about the new record’s title,”‘Parasomnia’ is the perfect title for a band called Dream Theater because parasomnia is a general term for sleep disorders. And it could mean night terrors, sleepwalking, sleep paralysis, all these kind of weird things that happen. So the album has everything to do with that, and it comes out on February 7th. We’re really excited about it.”
“I’m here to tell you that I’m actually officially done recording all of the guitars for what we will for now call DT16, the latest Dream Theater album. I’m so happy with how the guitars came out,” Petrucci also said of the album in May on Instagram.
The musician continued, “Our extraordinary, talented engineer Jimmy T [James Meslin] and I, we set out to create and capture what we call the Mount Rushmore of guitar tones. I think we did it. It’s up to you guys to decide. But anyway, we had so much fun recording the guitar.”
“I wanna nerd out for a second. So, in striving to get there, and with Mike Portnoy rejoining the band, we decided we’d kind of look back a little bit. So we contacted our longtime friend and engineer Doug Oberkircher, who recorded Dream Theater classic albums such as ‘Images And Words,’ ‘Scenes From A Memory,’ ‘Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence,’ ‘Train Of Thought,'” John further explained.
He added, “And it turns out that Doug still had the original Neve preamps that he used to record the guitars on those records. And so we contacted Doug and we acquired the preamps, and, man, we got all the gank, all the aggression, but it still sounds really warm, smooth top end, expressive, layered. It’s like a T-Rex made out of chocolate cake lit on fire [Laughs]. Anyway, it came out great. So I can’t wait for all of you to hear that.”
Dream Theater’s 16th studio album will come out on February 7, 2025. It will be their first album in over 15 years with original drummer Mike Portnoy since ‘Black Clouds & Silver Linings.’
