You're about to walk on stage and play together for the next few hours so you want to feel connected and make sure that everyone is in the same head space; a good head space.

With the Road King amp, you're able to switch power tubes and speakers and do all these different things. And I didn't want to have five different heads in my rack. And there's something about, when you do the type of setup that I have, unless you have a dedicated amp to a dedicated speaker and you're actually switching, you have to use the same power section of the main head that you're using.

I know we play a part in the story of progressive music, but for us those influences are the real fathers, the ones that we were interested in.

The good thing about playing this style that we play, you know, the progressive element of it, is that we can add in different elements of different styles. And that creates a more interesting overall sound.

Out of Berklee Dream Theater was born and we've been together ever since. I didn't have to taste that feeling of defeat.

Since I'm in a band, and I'm not usually in situations where I need to read, it doesn't come up as often, and I don't rely on it as much.

The only thing I had in my mind [when I was 17 ] was that I was going to be a professional musician. So it was just the right environment.