Cris Cohen: There’s always that special connection between the drummer and the bass player. You’ve played with some amazing bass players. Billy Sheehan (who Mike plays with in The Winery Dogs) is certainly up at the top of that list. And I’m curious, how is Billy different in his greatness as far as your interaction?
Mike Portnoy: Billy and I have a tremendous connection as a rhythm section. And honestly, all those years in Dream Theater, I was more connected to the guitar. John Petrucci and myself were always a very strong guitar / drum team. Very similar to Eddie and Alex Van Halen, or Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield. That’s kind of the way I came up in my early years of writing and recording.
But Billy and I have a true drum / bass rhythm section connection. It’s probably the strongest rhythm section connection I have with a bass player than anything else I am a part of.
Billy and I are just very similar players in that sense. We like being in the moment. We like not overthinking things. Billy has an expression I heard him cite 20 years ago when we first started working together. He said, “If you’re thinking, you’re stinking.” <laugh> And I like that. You do want to put a lot of thought and care into what you do, but also, if you overthink things, you’re no longer feeling it. I would rather feel music than have to overthink it. If somebody suggests, “Hey, try a kick pattern that’s going boom, b-boom boom, b-boom boom.” Suddenly, if I’m thinking about my foot, I’m going to fuck up big time <laugh>. I never think about what my feet are doing. For instance, when I’m creating patterns and parts, I’m not overthinking what my foot is doing. And immediately, if I have to start thinking about it, it throws me off and it no longer feels like it is natural or has a groove.
And Billy is that type of player as well. So, Billy and I, especially live on stage, any fills going from verse to chorus or from chorus to bridge, those moments and those fills are 90% of the time completely spontaneous and unspoken. And a lot of times, Billy and I will just completely lock on a fill without even thinking about it or talking about it or looking at it. It just happens. So yeah, he and I have this really tremendous rhythm section connection. It reminds me a lot of the way Keith Moon and John Entwistle had that kind of synergy in those early live Who albums. Listen to The Who “Live At Leeds.” The way that Keith Moon and John Entwistle play, that’s definitely the blueprint for Billy and I.