Talking Into Infinity - A Dream Theater Podcast

With the NFL draft having just taken place, we thought it would be a good idea to have another fantasy football-style song draft on the show – with a twist! This time, we're ONLY allowed to choose songs from the Mike Mangini era of the band! The only question is… will Breaking All Illusions be the unquestioned #1 draft pick, or is there a sleeper in the cards? We're on the clock and it's time to find out!

We're sitting down with our good friend and legendary guitarwriter Steve Rosen to discuss the third edition of his phenomenal Edward Van Halen book Tonechaser – Understanding Edward: My 26-Year Journey With Edward Van Halen and digging into how he made the recently-released audiobook versions come to life! We also touch on Steve's thoughts about the Rock n' Roll Hall Of Fame and Alex Van Halen's recent autobiography Brothers!

We are back from our adventures in New York City attendingthe final show of Dream Theater's 40th Anniversary Tour - and not only do we have some stories to tell, but we have some special guests along for the ride! John Raaness of DT Norway will be discussing what goes into setting up theirawesome pre-show fan hangouts, and our good friend Wayne Joyner will be giving us all of the behind-the-scenes details on how he created the stage show for this tour – specifically his incredible and emotional video for The Best OfTimes!

On this episode, we bring on legendary pyrotechnic technician John “Pyro” Watkins to talk about his life on the road with Van Halen, Kiss, Bon Jovi, Journey… just to name a few! We even delve into the Station Nightclub fire and what went so very wrong… John has some incredible stories!

The wait is finally over! Not only do we have a new Dream Theater record to sink our teeth into, but we have our first new music with Mike Portnoy behind the kit in almost fifteen years! On this huge day in DT history, we turn the show over to the fans to get THEIR immediate reactions to the new album Parasomnia!

It's the next entry in our series of “you can't have DT”, so… it's 2007 and you walk into the record store to buy Systematic Chaos… and the clerk tells you that you CAN'T buy it! You HAVE to choose something else… what records are you grabbing? We give OUR choices for what we'd buy when we can't have what we really want – the new Dream Theater record!

We're back for our first show of 2025, and we're bringing back our good friend Paul Logue of Eden's Curse and James LaBrie's solo band! After the success of our Empire deep dive, Paul asked if he could come back and talk some Van Halen – twist our arms! Paul chose 1991's banger For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge – this is one of Jon's favorite albums, so this promises to be a great discussion about a truly standout record from the VH catalog!

Gorilla Farts, DT talk, music talk, the fans/viewers/listeners guest-hosting the show… you know the drill! It's our favorite show of the year – at our favorite time of the year! We're giving the fans the mic and letting THEM host the show with us and ANY topic is on the table! We're celebrating the holidays as only TII can with our fourth annual Fan Hangout show! Strap in kids… this could be a long one!

We're nearing the end of what has probably been the busiest year in DT history – at the very least in terms of news and events for the fans! A new album announcement, two singles, a new live album being recorded – and of course the return of Iron Mike himself; Mike Portnoy! We give our thoughts on the year that was and where we think the future of DT is headed!

With fifteen studio albums under their belts, Dream Theater has a massive catalogue filled with hits, fan favorites… and underrated gems! On this episode, we dig deep into the DT archives to give our lists of the most underrated songs in Dream Theater's storied history!

It's spooky season, so we're each giving our lists of our ten favorite hard rock or heavy metal songs from Halloween movie soundtracks! However, there's also a lot of news in DT world right now, so we'll also be running down all of the current topics and giving our thoughts!

We FINALLY have our first taste of the new Dream Theater record, which we now know to be titled Parasomnia! This is a quick announcement to let everyone know to head over to our YouTube channel for a full episode react from our viewers/listeners with Jon and Brian as moderators!

It's our fifth installment of album song rankings and this time we're tackling Distance Over Time! Brian and Jon both agree that this is one of DT's strongest albums – but will they agree on where each song should be ranked from 1 through 10?

We're back with a special episode deep dive into Queensryche's multi-platinum classic Empire! To help us out, we are bringing on friend of show and James Labrie cowriter Paul Logue of Eden's Curse! Everyone is familiar with Jet City Woman and Silent Lucidity - are those tunes the BEST that this incredible record has to offer? Or are the deep cuts where this album makes its bones? We discuss!

It's the next entry in our series of “you can't have DT”, so… it's 2005 and you walk into the record store to buy Octavarium… and the clerk tells you that you CAN'T buy it! You HAVE to choose something else… what records are you grabbing? We give OUR choices for what we'd buy when we can't have what we really want – the new Dream Theater record!

Jon recently discovered a list of the top 25 metal albums of all time – and Dream Theater made the cut! It got us thinking… what other albums made the top 25, and are they good choices? We break the list down and give our thoughts on each selection – along with the most metal guest host we could find – the mighty Chris Akin from Chris Akin Presents and The Classic Metal Show!

With Jon having recently attended Sammy Hagar's Best Of All Worlds tour, it got us thinking… what would WE list as our top ten favorite Van Hagar tracks? We each provide our list – and we're bringing on Steve Wright, host of the Podder Than Hell podcast to provide us with HIS favorites!

Brian is off tonight, so Jon is rolling solo – with a little help from the viewers/listeners! Brian isn't as well versed on the live stuff as Jon is, so… tonight we're digging into the ten live DT releases to see which one comes out on top! Everyone knows that Jon has a soft spot for Score, but… could there be a dark horse candidate waiting in the wings to take the top spot?

It's the next entry in our series of “you can't have DT”, so… it's 2003 and you walk into the record store to buy Train of Thought… and the clerk tells you that you CAN'T buy it! You HAVE to choose something else… what records are you grabbing? We give OUR choices for what we'd buy when wevcan't have what we really want – the new Dream Theater record!

We're getting back into the cage for this special non-DT episode of TII! This time, we're pitting two of the greatest metal albums ever recorded head to head – a pair of Metallica classics! It's 1986's Master of Puppets against 1988's …And Justice For All! Yes, it's sad but true… we have to pick a winner… (see what we did there?)

We're back with Part 2 of our Dream Theater album rankings – this time we're hitting the top halves of our lists as we rank albums 7 through 1! The bottom halves of our lists had some controversial selections – will the top halves be more of the same? It's time to find out!

Well, we've put it off long enough… it's time to strap our helmets on and go to work. We're ranking the 15 Dream Theater studio albums in our own personal worst-to-first lists! This is a labor of love and it'll hurt placing some albums where they'll eventually be ranked, but it's gotta be done and let's face it – DT is like pizza. Even when it isn't our favorite, it's still excellent! On this episode we're ranking numbers 15 through 8!

Loudwire recently released a top albums list that only contains records by the Big Four of prog metal… Queensryche, Opeth, Between the Buried and Me and of course – Dream Theater! We're going through the list and giving our thoughts on all of their choices… the good, the bad, and the ugly!

DT has finally announced the first leg of their long-awaited reunion tour with Mike Portnoy, beginning with dates over in Europe! We have some thoughts on choosing Europe as the first destination, but we got to thinking… can we guess what their setlist might look like? We take OUR stab at seeing if we can read the band's minds and play a little game of Guess The Setlist!

It's our fourth installment of ranking the songs on a Dream Theater record, and this time – as always, at random – we've been tasked with Systematic Chaos! It's one of the most eclectic records in the band's catalog and Brian and Jon can't agree on whether or not In The Presence of Enemies needs to be considered as separate tracks – but how do these songs rate when pitted against each other?

Brian recently returned from the Monsters of Rock cruise and had a thought... if we could each book our own "dream cruise" with Dream Theater headlining, what bands would we choose to open for the mighty DT? Also, Brian tells us all about his experience on the MOR cruise - and Jon details more TouchTunes DT-related shenanigans!

Brian is on the Monsters of Rock Cruise, so Jon brings on personal friend – and friend of show – Joseph Wren (discussmetaljoe in the chat!) to, well… just bullshit about Dream Theater for an hour-plus! From The Astonishing to the Portnoy/Mangini debate to fans being jerks to each other for no reason… this episode is basically a bunch of DT fans hanging out and shooting the shit together – driven by a LOT of incredible points brought up by our listeners/viewers!

It's the next entry in our series of “you can't have DT”, so… it's 2002 and you walk into the record store to buy Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence… and the clerk tells you that you CAN'T buy it! You HAVE to choose something else… what records are you grabbing? We give OUR choices for what we'd buy when we can't have what we really want – the new Dream Theater record! – along with special guest cohost Chris Akin from The Classic Metal Show!

Jon here. Full disclosure - this is NOT a normal episode. My dad passed suddenly and we went online to announce that there wouldn't be a show tonight - but instead ended up talking about my memories of my dad for over an hour. From music to golf to humor, this is the most raw episode of TII we've ever done. To any of you who listen to the whole thing - thanks SO much for doing so.

It's a new year, and it's DEFINITELY going to be a wild one for DT and their fans! To ring in 2024, we give our thoughts on the possibilities of what might be in store for the next 12 months!

It's back for the third time and it's better than ever – the annual Fan Hangout show! Gorilla Farts will be flowing, Brian will be swigging off of some unholy swill he's created, but… best of all – we get the FANS on to host the show and we spend a few hours talking about Dream Theater and anything else that comes to mind! It's our chance to say “thank you!!” to everyone who TRULY makes the show happen, so grab yourself a festive beverage, warm up those chat fingers – and get ready for the most spirited episode of the year on Talking Into Infinity!

It's our third installment of ranking the songs on a Dream Theater record, and this time – as always, at random – we've been tasked with Octavarium! It's the backbone of the band's infamous 20th anniversary tour, it contains one of their most celebrated epics – but how do these songs stack up when ranked one through eight?

It's our 6th Album Cage Match, and this time Brian – since it's his birthday - has picked the opponents and a special guest cohost! We're stepping outside the realm of Dream Theater with our good friend Chris Akin and pitting two classic Iron Maiden albums against each other as Powerslave takes on Seventh Son of a Seventh Son! It's Two Minutes to Midnight as these two Duellists go head to head. Are you Clairvoyant enough to see what our picks will be? (OK, enough puns for one show description…)

It's a very special episode on TII as we bring on legendary guitar writer Steven Rosen to discuss the second edition of his FANTASTIC new Eddie Van Halen book Tonechaser – Understanding Edward: My 26-Year Journey With Edward Van Halen! It's 500+ pages detailing EVH as no other author has, and Steve is here to give us all of the incredible details about this unique, riveting and extremely personal work! It's DEFINITELY a must-have for any diehard Edward Van Halen fans!

Well, it's official… Dream Theater co-founder Mike Portnoy is returning to the fold and will be back behind the kit!! What does this mean for the immediate future of the band? We give our instant reaction to this monumental announcement - with some help from our good friend and Dream Theater biographer Rich Wilson!

It's a very special episode of Talking Into Infinity as we chat with the alien himself – Mr. Mike Mangini! He's got a solo record coming out later this year titled Invisible Signs and recently dropped the killer first single Freak of Nature – he's here to tell us all about his newest musical adventure! After that it's fan vs. fan on TII as a grudge match that has been boiling for months on the show finally explodes! Longtime listeners and sometime cohosts Sean Faust, Chastadi Crawley and Cael McLeish jump into the Octagon to settle it once and for all – is the title track to 2005's Octavarium an absolute masterpiece – or an overblown, bloated mess? Jon moderates this once-in-a-lifetime battle of DT superfan heavyweights!

After having ranked the songs on DT's debut record, we're back with another song ranking – pulled at random – and this episode we fall on 1999's masterpiece Metropolis Pt.2: Scenes from a Memory! How do you rank the songs on a concept album? We're about to find out!

It's been 35 years since the release of Metallica's masterpiece …And Justice For All, so we decided to deep dive the album and give our thoughts on this absolutely classic slab of metal! This is one of the two most influential records in Jon's life, and fans worldwide have continually ranked this album either #1 or #2 in the band's entire discography! We give our thoughts on this landmark album!

It's the next entry in our series of “you can't have DT”, so… it's 1999 and you walk into the record store to buy Scenes From A Memory… and the clerk tells you that you CAN'T buy it! You HAVE to choose something else… what records are you grabbing? We give OUR choices for what we'd buy when we can't have what we really want – the new Dream Theater record!

We've done a deep dive into DT's debut record – but we haven't discussed how we would rank the songs in order from worst to first. Let's face it, Dream Theater is like pizza – even when it isn't great, it's incredibly good – so how can we possibly pit great songs against great songs? It's time to find out, and we're starting where it all began – 1989's When Dream and Day Unite!

We are back from the Mammoth WVH/Sevendust/Alter Bridge show in Cleveland and we have plenty to talk about! Tonight we are winging it and discussing anything musical that comes to mind!

Jon is headed to Burgettstown, PA to catch Pantera on their current tour, so what better time to dig into what almost every Pantera fan considers their greatest record – the absolute CLASSIC Vulgar Display Of Power! We don't have many superlatives to present here that haven't already been used, so… grab a Black Tooth Grin, getcha pull, and let's do it Lone Star State style once again with Wayne Joyner – as well as the mighty Chris Akin!

Jon is back from Newport, Kentucky where he caught the Dreamsonic tour and he has some stories to tell! Since we're on the topic of DT live, we attempt to write a setlist using only ONE song per album – and we CAN'T use songs we have gushed over a LOT on the show previously!

Brian is back and we are FINALLY talking some Sons Of Apollo on TII! We've dug into some seriously kickass records on the show and it's about time that we talk about Psychotic Symphony, the amazing debut from SOA! Sheehan, Soto, Bumblefoot and, of course  - Sherinian and Portnoy – what's not to like? We go track by track and give our thoughts on one of the most criminally underrated prog records (and bands) you're likely to find!

Brian had a last-minute commitment come up – so we're switching gears on this week's show! One of Jon's good musician buddies – a self-professed huge Van Halen fan – is just NOW discovering the David Lee Roth era of the band! What are his impressions of the seven DLR records? How do they stack up against the Sammy albums? And, most importantly – how can this happen?? Grab your brown M&M's and get ready to dance the night away as we dig into some untouchable rock classics! Booz-de-booz-de-bop!

It's the next entry in our series of “you can't have DT”, so… it's 1997 and you walk into the record store to buy Falling Into Infinity… and the clerk tells you that you CAN'T buy it! Jon, of course, stages a boycott and refuses to purchase anything until he's allowed to snatch up FII, but… YOU have to choose something else… what records are you grabbing? We give OUR choices for what we'd buy when we can't have what we really want – the new Dream Theater record!

We're digging into one of the final DT albums we haven't touched on yet - 2013's self-titled record! The band were trying to incorporate all of their huge prog ideas into a much more concise, to-the-point song format for this release - did they nail it or did they miss the mark? We discuss!

It's a big double episode on TII! We welcome bassist Conner Green of prog technicians Haken onto the show to discuss their upcoming tour in support of their new record Fauna! After that we bring on the mighty Chris Akin for a spirited discussion about Metallica's brand new album 72 Seasons!

We are back from our trip to the suburbs of Pittsburgh to catch Queensryche and Marty Friedman! The show was killer… and we're going to tell you all about it! (There WILL be setlist spoilers, so if you're like Jon and want to avoid those – fast forward.) After that, we dig into Queensryche's latest record Digital Noise Alliance… is this another solid step for the La Torre lineup or have QR lost a step? We give you our thoughts!

Brian is off, but we have a very good friend of the show filling in – creator of the stage production and music videos for the last two Dream Theater albums/tours… Wayne Joyner! Wayne has been gracious enough to come on a few times in the past and now that he's filling in for Brian, we decided to let him pick the topic and he decided to deep dive one of his desert island records – Pantera's killer major label debut Cowboys From Hell! Grab a few Black Tooth Grins and getcha pull, because we're about to do it Lone Star State style on TII!

Portnoy vs. Mangini, Mangini vs. Portnoy – it doesn't matter. Both drummers are INCREDIBLE and have given us several records of kickass prog rock – highlighted by some AMAZING drumming, no matter who is behind the kit. On this episode, we give our picks for our favorite drumming moments throughout the Dream Theater catalog!