How did the idea of Mike and John Petrucci singing backup come about?
MP: Way back around WDaDU, John and I would do some limited backup stuff and I didn’t really enjoy it at that time, because I had trouble managing the mic and playing at the same time, and John just didn’t really care. So we got away from that once James joined the band. But through the years, I always felt that we lacked the background vocals on albums and especially live as James was the only one that was singing, and all of my favorite bands – whether it be The Beatles, Jellyfish, Queen or Yes – all had multiple voices. Even Steve Howe doesn’t have a great voice, but it’s the quality of his voice that helps round out the sound of the band. John and I always sing when we write lyrics because we’ll write a lot of the melodies ourselves and sing them to James or even do demos ourselves. So when we were singing in rehearsals, harmonizing with James and showing him what to do, before the “Fix for 96” dates, we finally said let’s utilize this and develop it. We did a little singing in the
