Does Mike keep a notebook for his ideas or does he set aside time to write lyrics?
MP: I don’t, but I know musically Jordan does. He’s just a never ending source of ideas and he’s got a huge notebook full of ideas. Plus he sequences his ideas into his keyboard, so if any time you ask “you got a riff in Em?” he can hit a button and come up with twenty different ones! John Petrucci and John Myung will sometimes play ideas down on tape, but I don’t. I leave all my creating for when we’re collaborating, and that’s when I’m usually sparked with ideas and I usually play more the part of a director, in shaping the ideas once they’re on the table. As far as lyrics go, I don’t write lyrics until the song is in front of me, and then I have to.
