Mike Portnoy Talks New Sons of Apollo Album, Juggling Projects

The drummer extraordinaire on self-indulgence in prog music and ‘MMXX,’ the new album from his supergroup with guitarist Bumblefoot, Derek Sherinian, Billy Sheehan and Jeff Scott Soto

- Anurag Tagat

It was sometime in November over the phone from Pennsylvania that Mike Portnoy asks us to do him a favor. “Don’t even ask me about Dream Theater, and let’s just play it safe all together,” the co-founder of the prog rock/ metal band says.

After all, it’s been nearly a decade since Portnoy left the band and he’s still being pulled up and had his words misinterpreted in interviews, like when he purportedly said something about Dream Theater’s “annoying vocals” in a November interview that was later found out to be lost in translation. He says, “You know, I’m a straight shooter. I like answering the question honestly if I get asked something. It’s almost to the point where no matter what I say, it’s going to somehow get twisted into some sort of headline.”

In the last decade, Portnoy has found a place behind the kit not just as a sessions player for artists like Neal Morse (with whom he visited India to headline I.I.T. Mood Indigo’s Livewire in 2013), Stone Sour and more, but also the six projects he’s currently part of. He reels them off– The Winery Dogs, Flying Colors, Metal Allegiance, Transatlantic, Neal Morse Band and Sons of Apollo. The most relevant one taking up most of his mind-space right now is Sons of Apollo, who have just released their second album MMXX, via Inside Out Music.

The supergroup comprises Portnoy and keyboardist Derek Sherinian (Planet X, Steve Vai and formerly of Dream Theater), guitar ace Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal (ex-Guns N’ Roses), bassist Billy Sheehan (The Winery Dogs, Mr. Big, David Lee Roth) and vocalist JeffScott Soto (ex-Journey, ex-Yngwie Malmsteen‘s Rising Force). While Sons of Apollo is the newest of Portnoy’s projects – started in 2017 – they released their debut album Psychotic Symphony the same year and wrapped up recording