Dream Theater have been living on the road behind Parasomnia since the record landed in February 2025, and by Jordan Rudess’s count, the cycle has stretched into a full-on marathon. In a new chat with Costa Rica’s Backstage Magazine, the keyboardist framed the last stretch as the kind of run a band only gets a few times in a career — especially with a major lineup piece back in place.
Rudess put it plainly (transcribed by Blabbermouth): “Well, it’s been a very exciting year. We’ve been on tour for over a year now… We’ve been having a great year. It’s been wonderful to have Mike Portnoy back in the band after so many years. He kind of came back home, if you will, which has just felt so good. So, the whole last — whatever it’s been — 15 months of running around the world and playing shows and putting out our Parasomnia album has been pretty, pretty awesome.”
“It’s been a great time in a very long career. And I guess to kind of like top it off, ’cause when we see all of you [in Central and Latin America], it’ll be the last phase of the world tour, it’ll be a nice way to do it because we know the fans are really great and they’ll be excited. And I’m sure that’ll just be a great celebration for everybody,” he added.
For anyone who’s followed Dream Theater through the years, that “back home” line hits the core of what longtime fans wanted: chemistry that feels natural, and a band that sounds locked in while still taking the same risks. Rudess makes it clear that the touring grind has felt rewarding rather than routine, and the final leg in Central and Latin America is being treated like the send-off lap.
He also dug into what it’s like to stand in front of big crowds night after night playing music that leaves very little room to breathe. The band’s live headspace, as he describes it, is equal parts adrenaline and focus, and that balance is part of the job.
“What we do is pretty interesting because when you think about people like us, bands or any entertainer, artist being in front of large audiences and getting the kind of love and emotion and energy from the audience, plus the emotions that we feel just in our internal world, just the band by being together and making music for this many years and all that, you can really get hit with a big wave of kind of intensity, and it can be very joyful. It can be really amazing.”
That’s a solid way to describe the Dream Theater experience from both sides of the barricade: the room pushes, the band pushes back, and the songs demand full attention. Rudess took it further, talking about how that intensity becomes a life skill, especially for younger musicians learning how to perform under pressure without letting the moment take over.
“It’s always been an interesting thing for me and something that I’ve tried to even share a lot with younger people, younger musicians or anybody who has to get in a situation where they have to be in front of the public and have to deal with emotions that are more than just sitting in their own home and just hanging out or being with a friend, because we all get kind of pushed into these situations where life can get kind of challenging and challenging not always in a bad way, but even in a way, like, something’s happening, and it’s a big emotion and you have to know how to kind of deal with it and keep thinking clearly and keep kind of being aware and, in our case, being able to play intricate music while there’s a lot of stuff going on, whether it’s the audiences cheering or there’s noises or we’re playing a really hard section of the music.”
“So, for me, that kind of being able to focus and being able to absorb those emotions and still remain calm is probably one of the biggest life lessons. It’s allowed, I think, all of us in the band to kind of become the people who we are and to refine our craft in a way that we can get up there and we can play a complicated Dream Theater song. And I mean, we’re human beings — we make mistakes certainly — but just to be able to perform at a high level and to do it and to feel the joy and to put out the energy and to share that with everybody, it’s kind of a big deal,” he summed up.
Next up, Dream Theater are taking that mindset into a spring 2026 Latin America run, continuing the “An Evening With Dream Theater” format. The plan celebrates Parasomnia by playing the album in full, and it also brings back a major centerpiece: the entire seven-movement “A Change Of Seasons,” being performed for the first time since Mike Portnoy returned, alongside other staples and fan favorites pulled from across the catalog.
