Drummer MIKE PORTNOY (THE WINERY DOGS, ex-DREAM THEATER) is featured in a new interview with Radioactive Decay. An excerpt is available below:

On The Winery Dogs: "It’s been amazing, I’ve never seen such a great response for something so brand new. Anytime I've done something brand new, it's taken a lot longer to catch on, including Dream Theater. But this one has been really immediate. Everywhere we go the shows are packed, most of them are all sold out, the reviews have been great, so it's really very exciting to see such a great start to something that the three of us view as a real band. This isn't just a one-time project. All three of us plan on building this many, many years into the future, as our new home."

On starting over after leaving Dream Theater: "I spent 25 years getting Dream Theater into the arenas and when I left that I knew I was going to be starting over and going back to the clubs, no matter what band I'm going to play with. When you start from scratch, you have to build it from scratch and I'm fine with that, it's actually been a lot of fun. I like shows that are very intimate."

On playing a "club-sized" drum kit: "I'm coming back to my roots stylistically. I've always been a fan of this kind of music, I never left, this is where I started out when I was a kid, even before progressive rock existed and even before heavy metal existed, I was listening to this kind of music. So this to me is a very natural evolution to come full circle. And as far as the small kit, for me that's part of my quest right now which is to try new things. I played the big giant kit for 25 years, right now I'm all about doing different things that are gonna challenge me and make me try and do things differently. So, playing in a small kit has been a lot of fun because it gives me a completely new and fresh approach which is what I'm all about right now."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Portnoy recently checked in with the following:

"Check out the stems of all my vocals from the QUEEN covers on the Black Clouds & Silver Linings bonus disc here .

One of the coolest things ever was Brian May telling me how great all my backing vocals were on that track!"

The special three-disc deluxe edition of Dream Theater's Black Clouds & Silver Linings features the full album, a CD of instrumental mixes of the album and another CD of six cover songs, including a startling eight-minute track bringing together three Queen songs from the legendary band’s classic 1974 album Sheer Heart Attack ('Tenement Funster', 'Flick OF The Wrist', 'Lily Of The Valley').

In fact, Queen guitarist Brian May became a huge admirer of Dream Theater after seeing them perform this past June at the Download Festival in the UK. He said: “The whole band are virtuosos... I'm kind of ashamed I never discovered them before. Their set was completely without any hint of 'playing to the gallery'. They took their time mapping out their songs, which I can only say succulently drip with the best kind of complexity. Wonderful playing. I will be back for more.”