In the video below, DREAM THEATER guitarist John Petrucci talks about the recently released single “Night Terror”, which is taken from the band’s upcoming sixteenth studio album, “Parasomnia”, due on February 7, 2025 via InsideOut Music. The LP marks the band’s first release with drummer Mike Portnoy since 2009’s “Black Clouds & Silver Linings”. John said: “‘ Night Terror’ was actually the first song that we wrote when we got into the studio. So it’s really reflective of what we were feeling. I think for fans, they kind of could pick up on the excitement, the energy. I think it also set the tone for the type of record it was gonna be. I mean, it’s certainly heavy, has all the different elements of DREAM THEATER that we love to inject, the prog elements, riffy elements, things like that.”He continued: “It’s been a blast to play live on the 40th anniversary tour. When we kick into that, it feels like a song that’s been in our catalog forever. And it was also fun to write lyrics to that topic that really kind of expressed the really scary sensation that some people experience when they go through a night terror.”This past November, Petrucci told “Coffee With Ola” about “Night Terror”: “There was some back and forth as to what single we should lead with, and ‘Night Terror’ is the first song that we wrote together. When we got together, that’s what came out of us. And so, for us, yeah, maybe there are songs that are a little bit more immediate to the general fanbase, but for us, we felt it was important that the first thing that people heard is, ‘Listen, this is what DREAM THEATER is. This is the first thing we wrote. This identifies all the stuff that everybody loves about the band and showcases Mike.’ I always said that opening fill before the guitar riff that Mike does, that fill is like, ‘I’m back.’ [Laughs] ‘In case you missed me.’ And I think he did that in one take. It was, like, ‘Yeah, that’s it. That’s the signature.'”Regarding what it felt like to be writing and recording with DREAM THEATER again, Portnoy said: “To be back with these guys, it feels really special. It feels like family, really, honestly. John and me and DREAM THEATER bassist] John Myung have been playing together almost 40 years at this point. We formed the band when we were teenagers and met at college, the first month of college. So, for us, it’s deeper than just being in a band together. We’ve been through life together. We met our wives together, our wives played in a band together, we ad our families at the same time, we’ve been to the funerals of each other’s parents and siblings and things like that. So, we’ve been through all these life experiences together. It goes beyond just the music for us. All that being said, it also, at least to me, felt like no time had passed. It did not feel like 13 years. Once we started writing together, it felt so natural and so fresh. ‘Night Terror’ was the first thing we worked on, and it just came out so naturally. There wasn’t much thought needed to go into it. It was, like, ‘Okay, here we are where we just left off.'”John chimed in: “It’s tough to explain. For anybody out there who has been in bands with their friends, you almost have like an unspoken language, like somebody plays something, I know what he means when he plays it and I respond and vice versa. So it’s, like, immediately the songs just developed and grew in such a natural and organic way. It was so cool.”On the topic of “Parasomnia”, which DREAM THEATER previously said had a conceptual theme but not a concept album, John said: “Without giving too much of a way, because we always like to keep the mystery, but I think this has been said before, the album’s called ‘Parasomnia’, and for those people that don’t know what that is, it kind of encompasses a broad range of sleep disturbances, and that could range from snoring to some scarier things, like sleepwalking and night terrors, false awakenings and things like that that are actually really very frightening for the people that it happens to. So, much in the way that [2002’s] ‘Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence’ had a lyrical theme to it where there were different case studies having to do with challenges of mental illness and stuff like that, ‘Parasomnia’ is sort of the sleep disturbance version of that, but in an entire record, as opposed to just a song.”The progressive metal legends played their first concert with Portnoy in 14 years on October 20, 2024 at the O2 Arena in London, United Kingdom.The drummer co-founded DREAM THEATER in 1985 with Petrucci and bassist John Myung. Mike played on 10 DREAM THEATER albums over a 20-year period, from 1989’s “When Dream And Day Unite” through 2009’s “Black Clouds & Silver Linings”, before exiting the group in 2010. Portnoy returned to DREAM THEATER in October 2023 after being replaced by Mike Mangini, who played with DREAM THEATER across five studio albums and accompanying world tours.London marked the kick-off concert of DREAM THEATER’s 2024-2025 40th-anniversary tour. The European leg of the trek — presented as “An Evening With Dream Theater” — ran through November 24 in Amsterdam, hitting cities in numerous countries along the way.”Parasomnia” was produced by guitarist John Petrucci, engineered by James “Jimmy T” Meslin, and mixed by Andy Sneap. Hugh Syme returns once again to lend his creative vision to the cover art.[embedded content][embedded content][embedded content]