2013年3月23日，Mike Portnoy在其官方网站宣布，他与Billy Sheehan及Richie Kotzen的新旁支The Winery Dogs即将在2013年5月发行首张专辑。
Mike Portnoy与Billy Sheehan及Richie Kotzen在2012年创建了这个传统三大件的硬摇滚旁支，在2012年8月份三人进入录音棚，共写了15首歌，随后录制了他们的首张专辑，最后经过商量他们为这个乐队命名为The Winery Dogs。
Mike Portnoy说道：“上帝保佑我这些年已经成为了很多伟大乐队和旁支的一部分：Dream Theater、Liquid Tension Experiment、Transatlantic、Adrenaline Mob、Flying Colors、Avenged Sevenfold、OSI、Neal Morse个人专辑等等… 我必须要说，和Billy Sheehan及Richie Kotzen的这个新乐队绝对是我所做过的最酷的音乐之一！！这两个家伙绝对是一流的音乐家和合作伙伴，很荣幸能和他们在同一个乐队。”
很明显，乐队由Richie Kotzen担任主唱，但Mike Portnoy提及自己和比利都喜欢唱歌，不过你会发现我们的重点在于音乐技巧，我们还在当中比赛
这张专辑的发行细节将在近期公布
THE WINERY DOGS, the new project featuring Mike Portnoy (DREAM THEATER, AVENGED SEVENFOLD, ADRENALINE MOB), Billy Sheehan (MR. BIG) and Richie Kotzen (MR. BIG, POISON), will release its debut album in May in Japan via Victor Entertainment. Release dates for other territories have not yet been announced.
The first official THE WINERY DOGS photo, as well as the band’s logo, can be seen below.
THE WINERY DOGS‘ CD was mixed by Jay Ruston, who has previously worked with ANTHRAX, ADRENALINE MOB, STONE SOUR and STEEL PANTHER. Sheehan previously stated about the effort: “I’m really pleased with it. Richie sang his ass off and played amazingly unique stuff, and, of course Mike annihilated on drums. [It’s a] really cool, unique record.”
At the end of 2011, Portnoy and Sheehan tapped Kotzen to be the guitarist/vocalist of their new project following the departure of John Sykes (WHITESNAKE, BLUE MURDER, THIN LIZZY).
Although Portnoy and Sykes demoed a dozen or so songs at a Los Angeles studio in 2011, their vastly different work ethics and conflicting schedules were solely to blame for the dissolution of their collaboration.
During an interview that aired on the July 13, 2012 edition of Eddie Trunk‘s “Friday Night Rocks” radio show on New York’s Q104.3 FM, Portnoy said, “I love John personally, and we get along great — he’s a sweetheart of a guy — but I need to keep moving. I can’t sit still and kind of wait to make an album over the next three years, I need to put things on the calendar and move forward and get them done, and John‘s kind of just a ‘wait, wait, wait’ guy. Sadly, it kind of just stopped in its tracks, and Billy and I said, ‘Look, let’s do something.’ And you [Eddie] were the one, actually, that suggested Richie Kotzen and I thought it was a brilliant suggestion, because he’s an unbelievably underrated talent, not only [as] a guitar player but a phemonal singer, and just an amazing songwriter and artist. I think people just kind of lump him, or write him off as the guy that was with POISON and MR. BIG. I think they have no idea what he’s really capable of.”
When asked to describe the musical direction of the project, Portnoy said, “It’s a classic-rock kind of power-trio sound. If you picture the classic-rock bands of… the classic ones — [LED] ZEPPELIN, CREAM, [JIMI] HENDRIX, GRAND FUNK [RAILROAD] — if you take that classic-rock power-trio sound of the early ’70s, and then you sprinkle it on top with some of the modern kind of sounds of SOUNDGARDEN and ALICE IN CHAINS or BLACK CROWES or LENNY KRAVITZ… It’s in that vein; it’s kind of a [mixture] of all of those bands. But on top of it all you’ve got the phenomenal playing that Richie and Billy do, and I could play a couple of things on the drums as well [chuckles], so… And all three of us are singing — Richie is the lead vocalist, obviously, but me and Billy are also singing.”
