When Mike Mangini parted ways with Dream Theater in October 2023, his reaction stood out for its grace. After thirteen years with the band, he stepped aside to make room for the return of original drummer Mike Portnoy. In a recent conversation with Ollie Winiberg of Drummer’s Review, Mangini explained his perspective on the situation.
Reflecting on how he processed the decision, Mangini said (via Blabbermouth): “Oh, I’m glad you said that. Yes, it was a pretty simple reaction by me. It’s just the way I’m brought up and stuff like that. And also, the interesting thing is being able to step outside of yourself. And when I say that, you gotta understand, when you study the brain, the emotional area of the brain surrounds the reasoning area, which surrounds the moral area. So when you study the brain, it’s called the moral center, then your reasoning ability, and then your emotions. So when you are tied up with emotion, you can’t be reasonable.”
“Just look at the world. And if you don’t have a good set of morals, you don’t know how to reason. So if people manage to get you in that emotional area and you haven’t really looked into the act of reasoning, critical thinking, and you haven’t looked into what’s really right and wrong here with a set of, maybe, philosophers behind you and belief systems and all of that stuff, if you haven’t even done that, you haven’t even asked the question — not who am I, but what am I — I don’t think you can wrap your head around this,” he added.
He also made it clear that he avoids turning private matters into public drama: “The other thing is if I’m looking at, let’s say, an old-school heavy metal magazine or something — with today, you go online — I just don’t buy into anybody in any band revealing things that are family. These things happen; it’s a closed-doors thing. You don’t reveal stuff about your coworkers. I just can’t wrap my head around that. So there’s that aspect of it, which really didn’t apply to me. But it could have. I could have spoken about. It was just, like, ‘Okay, next.'”
For Mangini, his time in each band has carried the same weight emotionally, whether with Extreme, Annihilator, or Dream Theater.
“So now I have past bands,” Mangini added. “It’s all the same. You could be talking to me about Extreme, and it wouldn’t be any different. You could be talking to me about spending some time in Annihilator. I emotionally feel the exact same way about all of them. It’s kind of, sort of a template for me. And I’m on text message threads with the people, and anybody can talk to me anytime they want. It’s stuff like that. So it’s all just whatever. Seriously.”
Back in April, Mangini shared similar thoughts with Dream Theater World, the band’s official fan club. Asked about how he processed his departure, he recalled: “Well, it’s like anything in my whole career in the past. ‘Okay, this is an event. Oh, that’s interesting.'”
He pointed out that the short statement he released at the time still summed everything up perfectly.
“Believe it or not, when I get asked about this, I’m, like, my statement [that I released at the time of my Dream Theater departure] actually says it all. And what surprised me about the statement itself is that I am typically long-winded. I typically go off on tangents. I have that speaking-with-the-hands thing that’s very Mediterranean, and I can’t believe it, just like in a couple of sentences or a sentence, whatever it was, it’s, like, it said it all. That was it. So, I immediately was, like, ‘Oh, okay. I get it.'”
For those still curious, he insisted there was nothing more to dig up: “No matter how many times I say it — a lot of times, people maybe in private ask me, ‘Oh, what else [happened]?'” he continued. “It’s, like, why would there be anything else? That’s it. That makes sense.”
His mindset, even in the immediate aftermath, was focused on moving forward with purpose.
“Where I was at the time — I have a corkboard and I have things in my life categorized, and all the education stuff, as far as my products and services, which is full of index cards and unfinished tasks. And I looked at that, and I was, like, ‘Well, I know what I’ve gotta do right now.’ And so the very next day, I was up nice and early, with a cup of coffee, a steaming cup of black coffee, and just looking at it, going, ‘Okay, how do I do this?’ And I just started going. I mean, that’s what you do. That’s it.”
