Dream Theater: The Problem of Pain: Part 3

Torman Maxt and Dream Theater to collaborate on brand new album, The Problem of Pain: Part 3: Such a Poor Job

"It was a painful experience, but we needed the Job" (James LaBrie).

Dream Theater has decided to collaborate with the legendary group Torman Maxt. Torman Maxt achieved instant notoriety after being featured as the Prog Archives artist of the month, having missed out by billions and billions of light years, according to the famed ex-Cosmos presenter Carl Sagan's cousin's niece, on being the universal stars of the year.

Torman Maxt's The Problem of Pain parts one and two are based on the Biblical story of Job, in which God makes a wager with Satan that the very pious Job will not curse God now how many ills fall upon him and his family. Despite all of the suffering, Job never curses God..

"It was a painful experience, but we needed the Job" (James LaBrie).

I interviewed "the big cheese" himself, James LaBrie, about this surprising revelation.

Interviewer: So just why did you decide to team up with Torman Maxt on this?

James LaBrie: We were planning to do the sequel to Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory, but then my hairstylist pointed out that we hadn't done a Metropolis Pt. 1 yet.   This led to some conversation between the boys that went a little like:
"Hmm, that might be a problem", I said.
"Yeah, what a pain," said Jordan.
"But we need a job! This hairspray don't buy itself," said John.
"I'm remembering this album that got talked about a lot of years ago at that Prog forum," said the other John that people often don't notice.
"Did someone say something?" said Jordan.
"I say that I am reminded of an album that was discussed considerable years ago at that Prog forum that perchance we could do something with. It made quite the splash as I recall,"said John with raised voice,
"You mean Progressive Ears?" inquired Jordan.
"Or The Ultimate Dream Theater Prog Rockin' Metal Bangin' Experience forum?" said Mangini.   
"Does that even exist?" said I.
"No, it's the one with our good friend Micky: Prog Anchovies!", said John Myung.
"Oh, that one!" all others shouted in unison, well I sung it full-opera style.
"It's called Problem with Pain? Bloating? Constipation. Let our Suppositories Do the Job or something like that" continued John Myung.
This sounded like an ad, but we called Jordan's ex girlfriend's second cousin's half-sister, who is our de-facto manager, to find out about this mysterious album and after many months of research and drinking was able to help John to recall the right album and band. After that we were put in touch with the band. I had a bad feeling about it, I mean really bad, but after so many hours spent on trying to figure out how this band was we thought we might as well give it a go. We got together and recorded the album over one long jam session It was not the worst thing I've jammed, but it was a painful experience. That said, we needed the Job you might say.

Interviewer: Did you realise that Torman Maxt is infamous at that forum before recording this?

James Labrie: Eventually we found out, but like in the Bible, despite everything God threw at Job, Job gave God chance after chance, and if Job can endure that, surely can we endure this. So we thought Torman Maxt should be given another chance too. Boy, were we wrong...

Interviewer: I'm sorry to hear that.

James Labrie: Just kidding, Torman Maxt rocks, almost as much as Dream Theater! Best album ever!

I neither dislike (nor like really) Dream Theater nor Torman Maxt. It's based on me thinking about album titles that relate to the Problem of Pain Part Two. Metropolis Pt. II quickly sprung to mind, and I went with it. And I do think there are similarities between the bands music so that the collaboration could maybe work.

I thought about doing this based on Torman Maxt as I was thinking about notable things that happened during my early years here to reference for this special day, and remembered first the very funny William Hung prank, maybe that also made me think bit about John Myung. Now that was the best April Fool's one done by far during my time here as lots of us got on for the ride. I wrote a review called Hung Like a Horse in response with a photoshop of Hung's head on the body of a stallion.

I'm sure my dialogue does not capture the way the DT members speak, so some lack of familiarity there as I have not heard many relevant interviews.

Edited by Logan - April 01 2022 at 08:26