Portnoy, Macalpine, Sherinian, Sheehan Team Up

The new new group - made up of drummer Mike Portnoy, guitarist Tony Macalpine, keyboardist Derek Sherinian and bassist Billy Sheehan - have released a brand new DVD entitled 'instruMENTAL Inspirations'.

The film features the group performing material from their respective back catalogues and also talking about their own musical inspirations.

In a recent interview with Prog Sphere, Portnoy stated about the new band, "It's a blast. I love Derek; he's a fun guy. I still stand by the fact that I'm not sure if he was ever right for Dream Theater. But, that doesn't mean I don't love the guy as a player and person. I really do — I love being with him and I love playing with him and I'm glad to be able to work with him again. And, you know, it's a cool project because obviously it's very much... I think of everything I'm doing it's the most like Dream Theater or it's more even like Liquid Tension Experiment, probably. But you know, it's just me being able to play that kind of music with some amazing musicians. Not only Derek, but, obviously, Billy Sheehan's a dear friend and I've got two different things going with Billy at the moment, and I love working with him; he's one of my favorite bass players of all time. And Tony MacAlpine is an amazing guitar player, so I'm honored to be playing with him as well. It's a great, great lineup and we have a DVD that's gonna come out soon from when we played together back in January and then we have this run of shows coming up in the fall.

Asked if he is going to create some original music with that band, Portnoy replied, "There's no plans for it, but obviously, we are gonna spend months together playing every day, so I'm sure it will inevitably be discussed, and who knows?! I think it could be very, very cool. So, you know, we'll see. I'm sure we'll talk about it."

Here's a promo for the film: