Mike Portnoy Reveals A Dream Theater Song He Could Play While Eating Tuna Sandwich

In a new interview with Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante‘s Modern Drummer IG Live, former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy revealed the song he could play while eating a tuna fish sandwich and made fans laugh.

As you know, Mike Portnoy is the founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater at the same time. In 2010, he announced his departure after his 25-year tenure with them and continued his career with a variety of new bands and projects.

However, during their chat, Benante asked Portnoy that is there was any song that he has been challenging to play in the set. Portnoy revealed the song he could play while eating a sandwich and said he never found anything difficult.

“That takes a lot out of me, yeah, maybe more so than difficult because I never found anything difficult,” Mike said. “Once you spend so much time writing it, composing it, recording it, practicing it as a band, by the time you get to play it live, for me, it’s always like second nature.

“So even our most challenging songs like ‘The Dance of Eternity,’ by the time we got on stage, I could play it while eating a tuna fish sandwich with the other hand, I don’t have to think about it. So I would say if anything, it’s more of a stamina thing like you said.

“For instance, ‘The Glass Prison,’ and ‘This Dying Soul’ – those two songs, even though they were on different albums, they were written to be eventually connected. I wrote this thing – five songs that were supposed to be interconnected over the course of five albums.

Portnoy Reveals The Heaviest Songs He Had Written Recently

Mike Portnoy later disclosed the heaviest songs they had written recently and said they’re relentless.

“But once, for instance, when I did the Shattered Fortress tour a few years ago with the guys from Haken, and we did all of these Dream Theater tunes that I hadn’t played together yet – ‘The Glass Prison,’ and ‘This Dying Soul,’ one is 12 minutes, one is 13 minutes, so you put them together and it’s a 25-minute onslaught with no break,” Portnoy said.

“It’s relentless, that were the heaviest songs we had written.

“So if anything, it wasn’t challenging in terms of technical playing, it was just challenging because of stamina. And I look at what you do Charlie, it blows my mind.

“I watched your live stream the other day and I’m watching you play Skeletons in the closet, I’m like, ‘How the hell is he doing that? I would never be able to.’ And same with Max, some of the stuff Max plays with his band, I can’t do that.”

Mike Mentions His Drummer Son

Elsewhere in the interview, Benante asked Portnoy a question about his drummer son. Asking if Max have any chance of not being a drummer, Portnoy said it was his call.

“If he wanted to be a plumber or an electrician, I would have been supportive of that as well,” he added. “But I don’t think he’s wanted to do anything else.

“He literally grew up sitting behind a drum set, the drum tech used to keep a bowl of candy behind the drum kit for when Max would sit behind me, so he would just sit there and eat candy and watch the show, and tap along while I was playing.

“So yeah, he probably didn’t stand the chance, but I gave him every opportunity to do something else if he wanted to, but I think this was just fun.”