The Arizona Republic correspondent Michael Senft recently caught up with DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy to discuss the band's new album, Systematic Chaos. The following is a brief excerpt from the interview:

Q: The past few times you've visited the Valley you haven't had an opening act. This time you are bringing REDEMPTION and INTO ETERNITY along.

Portnoy: There were two factors in my deciding that. First, we've done the 'Evening With' format for three world tours in a row, so I thought we should change things up to make it more interesting for us. The second factor is fatigue. It's just exhausting to do that and it was burning us out. We were playing three to three and one-half hour shows and doing completely different sets every night so there was a lot of rehearsing at sound checks. We would end up playing for five hours by the time we got to the bus, and we would crash out of exhaustion. We needed to give our minds and bodies a break.

Q: You also just moved to Roadrunner Records from Atlantic.

A: "We were with Atlantic/Elektra for 15 years, a seven-album deal we signed in 1991. They kept picking up options for every record. To be honest, we've been ready to get the (expletive) 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. They've got acts ranging from OPETH to NICKELBACK and everyone in between, like STONE SOUR and MEGADETH. We fit in and they obviously care about their bands and they give all their bands attention. And frankly they've given us the attention we've earned after 22 years in the business."

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