Stay focused when you're playing alive, so you're not distracted by something going on.

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

Usually we're all comfortable playing the songs, but during the song there might be one part where you're like „oh, this part's coming up, I have to really focus", a lot of songs have those moments in them.

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.

Personality wise, we are all kindred spirits. I've said this before; if we [with Mike Mangini ] ever went to high school together we would have been friends. He is just one of us! We felt that immediate connect.

My main objective with a home studio - I could get into doing full band demos - but my first objective is to cut things like guitar tracks and solos at home.

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.