DREAM THEATER keyboardist Jordan Rudess is featured in a new interview with Classic Rock Revisited. An excerpt is available below:

Q: Let’s start by talking about how the new Dream Theater album came together.

Jordan: "Well, the way Dream Theater usually handles the whole process is, we start by sitting down and discussing where we’re all at and where we want to go musically – what we want to create. We do sort of a check in on where we are personally and musically and decide what we want to create. We’ve always been very conceptual about things before we start the process of writing. It’s been that way ever since I’ve been in the group and I’d imagine even before that, there was a lot of intricate planning that goes into a Dream Theater album."

Q: Its got to be an amazing experience to sit in a room with so many great songwriters and see everything come together.

Jordan: "It’s super exciting. On this particular album we had the addition of our fairly new drummer, Mike Mangini. It was really cool to have him involved in the writing sessions for the first time. It’s a very intense energy-driven experience that moves from going very fast when we’re composing together – sometimes we’re blown away at how fast the ideas are coming out, to the slower more analytical parts of the process where we comb over details. The slower parts of making records are usually when I might go write some music down with a pen and paper very slowly and the other guys will go into their own world and take a break or something."

Q: I suppose I should ask how the two Mike’s measure up to each other.

Jordan: "Well the two Mikes, the new Mike (Mangini) and the old Mike (Portnoy) are both very different people and they’re both very different players. Both of them are great drummers but a lot did change both personally and musically for use. Musically, the new Mike has certain skills that the other one does not. For example, he’s incredible with mathematics, especially related to music. He was able to bring us some architectural structure that we’ve never had to this extent before as far as meters and how different instruments will interact – that was a totally new element that we got to work with. Also, Mangini has a technique on drums unlike any other human on the planet, so that brings an element of change. He also is really fun in the studio has tons of energy which we feed off of. I’m not saying that in any way to put down our last drummer Mike Portnoy who is an exceptional talent and a world class drummer but I’m saying that some new things were offered to the group."

Click here for the complete interview.

Dream Theater's new self-titled album was recorded at Cove City Studio in Glen Cove, Long Island, with guitarist John Petrucci producing and Richard Chycki (RUSH) engineering and mixing. It’s the band’s second album with drummer Mike Mangini, and the first on which he was a part of the writing process from day one.

Dream Theater tracklisting:

'False Awakening Suite'

i. Sleep Paralysis

ii. Night Terrors

iii. Lucid Dream

'The Enemy Inside'

'The Looking Glass'

'Enigma Machine'

'The Bigger Picture'

'Behind The Veil'

'Surrender To Reason'

'Along For The Ride'

'Illumination Theory'

i. Paradoxe de la Lumière Noire

ii. Live, Die, Kill

iii. The Embracing Circle

iv. The Pursuit of Truth

v. Surrender, Trust & Passion

Check out the official first video for the song 'The Enemy Inside' streaming below.

Dream Theater follows the band’s 2011 acclaimed release A Dramatic Turn Of Events which garnered the band their first Grammy Award nomination (in the Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance category) – proved one of Dream Theater’s most successful, making top 10 chart debuts in 14 countries, including our own Billboard 200. With total sales exceeding 10 million albums and DVDs worldwide, Dream Theater have long stood among the upper echelon of hard rock giants. The band will tour the globe extensively throughout 2013-2014 with European dates for January – February 2013 already announced.