Drum legend Mike Portnoy (The Winery Dogs, Flying Colors, Dream Theater) is featured in a new interview with BraveWords scribe Carl Begai discussing Progressive Nation At Sea 2014, The Winery Dogs, his ongoing sobriety, producing his son's band Next To None's new album, and the pitfalls of speaking his mind on social media. An excerpt from the story is available below:

Interacting with his fans has always been Portnoy’s thing, long before the Zuckerberg Empire made social media a form of digital heroin. He’s a constant online presence and makes a point of sharing news and updates with his fanbase, but Portnoy has been called out regularly by some of those same fans for supposedly speaking out of turn. The day before this interview took place he posted his opinion of the David Gilmour-proposed Pink Floyd album without Roger Waters, calling the idea “disrespectful,” and was subsequently reamed for it.

“It’s frustrating, it’s maddening,” Portnoy admits. “Sometimes I just want to have an opinion and talk about music like all the fans do. For instance, that Pink Floyd comment, I put that out there to discuss it as a fan, just as anyone else is allowed to state their opinion online. It was never meant to be a ‘press release’ or ‘news’, but all these websites take it upon themselves to take anything to stir shit up and make a headline out of it. It’s sad, really. I’d love to be able to talk openly and I try to always be very honest and open with my fanbase. I’m grateful for that relationship with my fans and I like that I have a forum where I can be open with them. There are a lot of musicians that are incredibly closed and introverted people, and you never hear anything bad about them. They’re not sharing their lives with anybody. I like being able to have that open relationship, but unfortunately that sometimes bites me in the ass.”
“It’s funny because I’ll have an opinion about an album and some people will say ‘Shut the fuck up!’ and ‘Who cares?’ and ‘Who the hell are you to give such an opinion?’, and these are the same people that are saying the same shit about me (laughs). It’s like ‘Wait a second! You’re condemning me for exactly what you’re doing to me!’ (laughs). I can’t win and a lot of times I have to bite my tongue, and sometimes that’s really hard. At the end of the day I’m just a fan. These are not malicious posts I’m making; I’m a music lover.”

Go to this location for the complete interview. Check out BraveWords' interview with Portnoy about The Winery Dogs here.