hennemusic

As we approach the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy (now with Adrenaline Mob) recounts his recollections of the day in an interview with Noisecreep.

"I remember waking up Tuesday, September 11, 2001 to my wife telling me to put on the TV because I wasn't going to be going into NYC as planned,” recalls Portnoy. "Dream Theater was working in New York City at the time mixing our album 'Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence' and I would've been driving in that afternoon for our session. But as the events of the morning unfolded, I found myself glued to the TV in disbelief as to what I was witnessing. It was all too surreal. I felt like I was watching a Will Smith Hollywood film. It couldn't possibly be really happening.”

"When I finally did return to work in New York City a few days later, it was just as surreal as there was a sadness and almost deafening silence still lingering throughout the streets of Manhattan.”

"On a personal side note, one of the strangest coincidences of my career was that Dream Theater's 'Live Scenes From New York' was released on Tuesday, September 11th 2001, the cover artwork of which illustrated a big apple (representing New York City) with the World Trade Center in flames!”

“It has to be one of the most unbelievable coincidences in the history of rock album covers!,” declared Portnoy. “Suffice to say, we pulled the CDs off the shelves immediately and changed the cover art."

Although not tied to an international event, Lynyrd Skynyrd experienced a thematically similar situation with 1977’s “Street Survivors.” The original cover for that album featured the band surrounded by flames; three days after its release, the group’s plane crashed en route to Baton Rouge, LA, killing the pilot, co-pilot, Skynyrd's assistant road manager and three band members, and severely injuring most who survived the crash. The album’s cover was pulled and re-issued without the flames out of respect to those who perished.

Original cover: