Dream Theater Is An American

Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the
name Majesty by John Petrucci, John Myung and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College
of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. They subsequently dropped out of their studies to concentrate
further on the band that would ultimately become Dream Theater. Though a number of lineup
changes followed, the three original members remained together until September 8, 2010, when
Portnoy left the band. Mike Mangini was announced as the new permanent drummer on April 29,
2011.
To date, Dream Theater has released fourteen studio albums. The band's highest-selling release is
their second album Images and Words (1992), which reached No. 61 on
the Billboard 200 chart.[1] Both the albums Awake (1994) and Six Degrees of Inner
Turbulence (2002) also entered the charts at No. 32 and No. 46, respectively, and received mostly
positive reviews. Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory was ranked number 95 on the October
2006 issue of Guitar World magazine's list of The greatest 100 guitar albums of all time.[2] It is ranked
as the 15th Greatest Concept Album as of March 2003 by Classic Rock Magazine.[3]
As of 2018, Dream Theater has sold over 12 million records worldwide[4][5] and has received
two Grammy Award nominations.[6][7]
Following Dominici's departure, Dream Theater fought successfully to be released from their contract
with Mechanic, and set about auditioning singers and writing material for their next album. In their
search for a new singer, they auditioned over 200 people, among them former Fates Warning front
man John Arch. John ultimately decided that his personal commitments were more important and he
opted not to join the band.[16] On June 9, 1990, at a gig at Sundance in Bay Shore, New York, Dream
Theater introduced Steve Stone as their new singer. Stone had successfully recorded demos with
Dream Theater, but he was fired following a single, ill-fated live performance. According to Mike
Portnoy, Stone moved around the stage in a rather odd manner, seemingly doing a bad impression
of Bruce Dickinson. Additionally, he shouted "Scream for me Long Beach!" several times throughout
the show (Dickinson can be heard saying this on Iron Maiden's live album Live After Death),
although they were actually performing in Bay Shore.[17] It was five months before Dream Theater
played another show, this time all-instrumental (under the name YtseJam). Until 1991, the band
remained focused in an attempt to hire another singer and writing additional music.[15] It was during
this period that they wrote the majority of what would become Images and Words (1992).
In January 1991, the band received a demo tape from Kevin James LaBrie, of glam
metal band Winter Rose.[18] The band had received the tape just before they were about to commit to
another singer. The band was so impressed by his demo that he was flown from Canada to New
York for an audition. LaBrie jammed on three songs with the band, and was immediately hired to fill
the vocalist position. Once recruited, LaBrie decided to drop his first name to avoid confusion with
the other Kevin in the band. For the next few months, the band returned to playing live shows (still
mostly around NYC), while working on vocal parts for the music written before acquiring
LaBrie. Derek Shulman and Atco Records (now East West), a division of Elektra Records, signed
Dream Theater to a seven-album contract based on a three-song demo (later made available as
"The Atco Demos" through the Dream Theater fan club).
The first album to be recorded under their new record contract was Images and Words (1992). For
promotion, the label released a CD Single and video clip for the song "Another Day", but neither
made significant commercial impact. The song "Pull Me Under", however, managed to garner a high
level of radio airplay without any organized promotion from the band or their label. In response,
ATCO produced a video clip for "Pull Me Under", which saw heavy rotation on MTV. A third video
clip was produced for "Take the Time", but it was not nearly as successful as "Pull Me Under".
The success of "Pull Me Under", combined with relentless touring throughout the U.S. and Japan,
caused Images and Words to achieve gold record certification in the States and platinum status in
Japan. A tour of Europe followed in 1993, which included a show at London's famed Marquee Club.
The show was recorded and released as Live at the Marquee, Dream Theater's first official live
album. Additionally, a video compilation of their Japanese concerts (mixed in with documentary-style
footage of the off-stage portion of the tour) was released as Images and Words: Live in Tokyo.

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Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the

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