What are the reasons you think other bands struggle to go the distance?

For us, it’s been a great journey. I mean I don’t think I could have written a better script, and we’re still growing and developing. There’s so many bands that when they get to the twenty-year mark they kinda have peaked and are on the downside. But for us we’re feeling incredibly vital creatively. We are still going to new places and making new fans and playing bigger places. So it’s still an uphill journey for us. I mean on one hand we’ve achieved so much within our little progressive metal bubble, but in the big picture of the big world, we’re still almost a cult band. So there’s so much more room to grow. It’s kinda the best of both worlds.

What influence do you think your type of music has had on the length of your career?

I think the key to our longevity is that we’ve never been in fashion. We’ve never been a popular sound and style, and we’re not everybody’s cup of tea. And we know that and we’ve always known that. We just do what we do and I think that’s been a big part of the appeal of Dream Theater to the existing fans. But I think it’s also been the key to our longevity, because any band that immediately tries to do a certain sound that’s in style and popular may have a quick rise but they may have a quick fall once that trend comes and goes. We’ve never been part of a trend or style, although progressive music right now in 2009 is probably bigger than it’s ever been since the 70’s. So hopefully we’re not going to die when this dies. Hopefully, we’ll still be standing.

Your music seems to attract younger music fans when a lot of ‘progressive rock’ bands mainly appeal to older audiences. What’s the appeal?

I think the biggest difference between us and the progressive rock bands of the 70’s, like Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd, King Crimson - back then they really only had a certain sound or style. But progressive music in 2009 has so many different elements you know. You can have metal bands like Mastodon and Opeth, or you can have more alternative bands like Radiohead, and Dream Theater really embraces all of it - like any good progressive
band will. And that’s the thing, our audience is still growing. We toured with Yes and toured with Deep Purple, and when we did those tours you could see their audiences were still people from the 70’s. It was our audience at those shows that were always the young people, whereas you come to Dream Theater I think you see a range from kids who are metal-heads and young musicians, ranging all the way to people in the fiftees and sixtees
who grew up in the heyday of progressive rock in the 60’s and 70’s. I think we’re just one of those bands who incorporates many different styles, and as a result will attract many different people.

Who else do you listen to?

More so than the other guys in Dream Theater, I am always going to be a huge, huge music fan, I’m always going to be the same twelve-year-old kid that was sitting in my room listening to Kiss records and Ramones records. That’s still me, I just happen to be forty-two and I just happen to be on the other side of the stage. But I’m always going to be a fan of music and today I listen just as much to Lamb Of God just as much as I listen to Genesis.

You played Download this year. How was it?

My memory of playing Download in 2007 is that it was intense - get it? ‘Cos we played in a tent… So it was nice to play outdoors on the main stage. But playing Download the first time was awesome. It was a great career achievement, we always wanted to play there, and it was nice to be invited and it was great to be invited back to the main stage. Hopefully, we breathed some progressive fresh metal life into Sunday’s lineup.

What’s left to achieve?

I can’t say there’s any specific goals or dreams at this point. We really have, and it may sound like a cliche, but all our dreams have come true. I mean, we’ve done some amazing shows, some great albums that we feel artistically satisfied by. We’ve toured with almost everyone of our heroes, and favourite bands. We’ve played almost all of the venues we’ve dreamed of playing - there might be a few left. We never played the Royal Albert
Hall, I’ve always wanted to play there. So maybe that’s something that can still happen for us in the future, here in London.