Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy revealed during an appearance on October 6 on the "Friday Night Rocks" radio show on New York's Q104.3 FM that the band has ended its longtime collaboration with Atco/EastWest Records/The Atlantic Group and is currently in talks with several labels about a possible new record deal.

In addition, the group has entered a New York City studio with engineer Paul Northfield (Rush, Queensryche, Suicidal Tendencies, Marilyn Manson) to begin recording its follow-up to 2005's "Octavarium", tentatively due next April/May. A few excerpts from Portnoy's "Friday Night Rocks" interview follow:

On current label negotiations and new album recordings:

"We didn't wanna sit around waiting to close up the deal and deal with all the legal paperwork and all that, and have to wait until all that was done to start the record, so we booked the studio time ? we wanted to start the record ? so we started a month ago. But we've been meeting with lots of labels since we are here in New York [City recording], and I think we're probably days to weeks away from making a decision and making an announcement."

"We've done all of this pretty much on our own at this point. The labels thus far have? With the exception of our heyday 15 years ago, with 'Images and Words' and everything ? other than that, we've pretty much just built this thing on our own, so it'll be amazing to see what we can do with a little bit of support."

The whole interview can be found here.

Source:	ultimate-guitar.com
Band profile:	Dream Theater