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It's no secret that before DREAM THEATER there was MAJESTY. But before MAJESTY, drummer Mike Portnoy (mis)spent some time of his youth recording with S.A. ADAMS. The then-18-year-old Portnoy did quite a few day and evening sessions with ADAMS working on what became the foundation of Adams' body of work. "I never hid the fact that we had worked together, and I was content to re-examine, re-arrange and re-record some of the tracks throughout my six-album catalog," stated Adams in a press release. "But ever since I mentioned that 'Two Steps' off my 2001 'Stovepipe' CD was originally done with Mike back in '86, more people than usual said they were interested in hearing the original Portnoy version. And when I did the guitar giveaway at the 2005 Bang Your Head Festival (wherein to enter the contest, one had to have knowledge of the Adams/Portnoy connection), more people wanted to know if these tracks would ever get released. Well, after a bit of back and forth e-mailing with Mike, it's time to dust off some musical history."
Recorded between December 28, 1985 and January 11, 1986 at Mike's Long Beach apartment, S.A. ADAMS' "Unearthed: The Mike Portnoy Sessions, Volume 2" will be a big surprise for DREAM THEATER/Mike Portnoy fans and a feast for those starved for pure metal mayhem. "The material is definitely NOT progressive rock/prog-metal — it's serious sledgehammer-in-the-balls metal," stated Adams. "Fans of MOTÖRHEAD, EXCITER, RAVEN, early MEGADETH, VENOM and TANK will definitely find a home with this disc. It still amazes me to this day is Mike was able to do Dan Beehler/Charlie Benante-style drumming before he could legally touch a bottle of beer! If anyone has any doubts of Mike's talent, just listen to what he was doing at 18 years old. It might be a surprise to some people that Mike got inducted into Modern Drummer magazine's Hall of Fame, but definitely not a surprise to me."
But didn't the nucleus of DREAM THEATER already form when Portnoy met "The Johns" at Berklee in September of 1985? "Mike and I recorded during MAJESTY's off time," explained Adams. "We had already burned tape over the summer of '85, and these sessions were to supplement the June/July recording we did. We were offered a contact with Combat Records and wanting to make sure we could fulfill a contractual obligation, the idea was to stockpile as much music as possible. However, once I saw the enslavement papers, I mean, contract, this 'project' got temporarily shelved." A few weeks later, Mike informed S.A. that he'd be putting all his energy to MAJESTY, leaving Adams to dabble with these multi-track masters throughout the late '80s and begin the solo career he still enjoys today.