How does Mike feel about his and Dream Theaters position in the music world right now?
MP: Well, I don’t take it for granted. It’s definitely a tough time for bands in general, but especially a band like our’s, who survived this long. Dream Theater’s been together for eighteen years now and for us to still be thriving, not even existing. I mean we’re still growing within this little world we’re in. Headlining places like Jones Beach and that was such a huge accomplishment for a band like ours to be doing that kind of stuff with no MTV play, no radio play, no mainstream press. It’s definitely an accomplishment that we won’t take for granted and that’s why we keep doing it. Man, we have the greatest fan base out of any band out there, it’s attributed to the fans not to us. We just do what we do and what happens from there is out of our hands and luckily we have this fan base that has continued to allow us to do what we do throughout all the climates and trends that seem to just come and go around us year after year.
