History of Hard Rock/Heavy Metal: Dream Theater

Prog metal has had two dominating bands reign over the genre. The first was Rush and following them was Dream Theater.

The technically proficient guitar playing of John Petrucci elevated Dream Theater to the upper echelons of contemporary heavy metal. While its lineup has continuously evolved, the Long Island-based quintet has consistently delivered sharp-edged music.

Originally named Majesty by Berklee College of Music students Petrucci, bassist John Myung, and drummer Mike Portnoy, the band soon expanded with the addition of keyboard player Kevin Moore and vocalist Chris Collins. Releasing an eight-tune demo, Majesty Demo, as Majesty, the group sold 1,000 copies within six months.

The departure of Collins in late 1986 left Majesty without a vocalist, and after a long period of auditioning possible replacements, the group settled on Charlie Dominici in November 1987. Changing its name, the group agreed on "Dream Theater," inspired by a now-demolished California movie theater.

Signing with Mechanic Records, the group began working on its first full-length album. Delays caused by label mismanagement limited the group to performing at small clubs and bars. Frustrated by its experiences with the label, Dream Theater finally severed its ties with Mechanic.

This was only one drastic change in the band's course of action. Firing Dominici, the group spent the next couple years searching for a vocalist. The search ended in late 1991 when a demo tape from Canadian vocalist James LaBrie, formerly of Winter Rose, arrived. After flying to New York to audition, LaBrie was invited to join the band.

Signing with Atco Atlantic (which came to be known as East West), Dream Theater released its second album, Images & Words, in 1992. One of three videos based on songs from the album, "Pull Me Under," became an MTV hit. Although Theater showed considerable growth with their third studio album, Awake, recorded between May and July 1994, the group continued to be hampered by personnel changes.

Before the album was mixed, keyboardist Moore left the group to focus on his solo career. Hired as a temporary replacement for the band's Waking Up the World tour, Derek Sherinian later became a permanent member. His first recording with Dream Theater was a 23-minute epic, "A Change of Seasons," written in 1989 and released in September 1995 on the album of the same name.

Dream Theater experienced yet another change when Jordan Rudess was tapped to replace Sherinian, who had been fired in 1999. The band released the progressive rock-heavy Scenes from a Memory that year, a conceptual piece that followed the story of a 1928 murder of a young woman and how a modern man is haunted by the crime.

The group continued in the progressive metal vein in 2002 with Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, followed by the leaner Train of Thought in 2003 and Octavarium in 2005. The live album Score: XOX was released in 2006 and featured the band backed by a 29-piece orchestra. It was followed a year later by the new studio album Systematic Chaos.