Liquid Tension Experiment is an American instrumental prog rock "supergroup." Founded in 1997 by drummer Mike Portnoy, then a member of Dream Theater, their sound offers complex compositions -- sometimes of protracted length -- wedding riff-laden hard rock and heavy metal to knotty jazz fusion, and meaty funk with constantly shifting dynamics, rhythms, time signatures, and textures. The lineup also includes King Crimson bassist/Chapman Stick master Tony Levin, and Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess and guitarist John Petrucci. The band's self-titled debut album was cut over five days and released by Magna Carta in 1998. They issued Liquid Tension Experiment 2 in 1999 to greater critical and commercial success. A compilation entitled Spontaneous Combustion by Liquid Trio Experiment was released in 2007, composed of improv tapes cut during the LTE2 sessions by Portnoy, Rudess, and Levin. During a 2008 concert, Rudess left the stage due to keyboard malfunctions, and his bandmates continued to play, improvising for the rest of the concert; he eventually returned to play guitar. The improvised concert was released in 2009 as When the Keyboard Breaks: Live in Chicago. After more than a decade apart, the band reunited in Dream Theater's studio during the late summer of 2020. They emerged with LTE3 in April 2021.

Though prog rock supergroups are so ubiquitous as to be nearly de rigueur in the 21st century, that wasn't always true. In late 1996, Magna Carta Records pitched Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy the idea of an all-star instrumental project that would kick off a series of Dream Theater side projects. Portnoy accepted the challenge and invited bassist Tony Levin and Dixie Dregs keyboardist Jordan Rudess -- who had declined a membership invitation from Dream Theater in 1994 -- to join him. Filling the guitar chair proved more difficult. None of Portnoy's initial preferences -- Pantera's Dimebag Darrell, Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs, Deep Purple), or Jim Matheos (Fates Warning) -- were available. Portnoy reluctantly approached Petrucci. He was hesitant simply because he was a member of Dream Theater and this was supposed to be a separate project. Petrucci accepted and the band entered the studio in 1997. Their desire was to compose, rehearse, and record a complete project in seven days. They finished in five.

Liquid Tension Experiment was issued by Magna Carta in March 1998, marketed as conceived, as a Dream Theater side project. The set consisted of 13 collectively written tracks ranging from two minutes to the five-part "Three Minute Warning" suite, lasting nearly half an hour. Critical reception on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean ranged from appreciative to glowing to confused -- prog fans, however, had no such misgivings and bought it in droves. Liquid Tension Experiment re-entered the studio in late 1998 hoping to accomplish the same thing. Due to circumstances beyond the group's control, this album took two months. While the sessions were moving at a clip, Petrucci received a phone call and learned his wife had gone into premature labor. With the studio already booked, the remaining bandmembers continued to improvise, recording the results. After Petrucci returned, they completed the album, but a few compositions emerged from those improvisations including "914," "Chewbacca," and "Liquid Dreams." Upon its release in the spring of 1999, the album was greeted with universally laudatory reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. The group supported the set by playing a few high-profile, select dates to maximum hype in the U.S. and in England. LTE2 marked the quartet's final studio offering for more than two decades, though they continued to play live for years afterward. 1999 also saw three of Liquid Tension Experiment's live gigs issued on CD and DVD. Furthermore, the LTE2 sessions provided the impetus for Portnoy and Petrucci to convince Rudess to at last join Dream Theater.

Though fans clamored for a third album, Portnoy maintained that it wouldn't happen, that occasional tours were all they would continue to do. However, in 2007 he published a blog post stating that if conditions were amenable, anything was possible. That year, an album called Spontaneous Combustion was released by the Liquid Trio Experiment. The recordings occurred during the 1998 trio improv sessions sans Petrucci and were sourced from Portnoy's DAT tapes. Critical and fan reception was decidedly mixed. During a 2008 Liquid Tension Experiment tour stop in Chicago, Rudess' keyboard began malfunctioning. He left the stage to deal with the issue. His bandmates continued to improvise on-stage. Rudess eventually returned sans keyboard, and picked up Petrucci's guitar. The guitarist, in turn, grabbed Levin's bass while the bassist employed his Chapman Stick. The entire concert was issued as Liquid Trio Experiment 2 - When the Keyboard Breaks: Live in Chicago.

Portnoy left Dream Theater in 2010 to pursue his many other projects including Flying Colors, the Neal Morse Band, Transatlantic, Winery Dogs, and Sons of Apollo. Liquid Tension Experiment's members intermittently guested with one another in various live configurations over the next decade, but didn't record together. In mid-December of 2020, the bandmembers began releasing social media posts wearing surgical masks with LTE3 imprinted upon them. On December 17, the Inside Out label formally announced a third studio album. It had been secretly recorded in August at Dream Theater's studio. They cut four fully composed tracks, a pair of duets, an improvised group jam, and an unlikely, meticulously arranged cover of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" for the set. An advance video single for "Passage of Time" was released to YouTube and streaming services in January 2021, followed by another for "Beating the Odds" in February. LTE3 was issued in mid-April. ~ Thom Jurek

Famed for his work with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson, bass virtuoso Tony Levin was born in Boston on June 6, 1946. At age ten, he began studying upright bass, also playing tuba in his high-school marching band and even forming his own barbershop quartet; as a member of a local youth orchestra, Levin additionally performed at the White House for President John F. Kennedy. After attending the Eastman School of Music, he appeared with the Rochester Philharmonic, but over time turned away from classical music to play rock and jazz, relocating to New York City in 1970 to join Aha!, ex-Mothers of Invention keyboardist Don Preston's band.

A busy session career followed, with fluid, expressive work on classic LPs, including Lou Reed's Berlin, Kate & Anna McGarrigle's self-titled debut, and Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years. After collaborating with Peter Gabriel on his eponymous 1977 debut, Levin joined the ex-Genesis frontman's touring unit, during which time he honed his skills on the Chapman Stick, a unique 10-stringed instrument in which the strings are not plucked but tapped, a process allowing the individual to play notes with both hands and create complete multi-part arrangements.

In 1978, Levin settled in Woodstock, NY, serving in the short-lived L'Image; a year later, he played on Robert Fripp's solo effort Exposure, soon thereafter agreeing to join the guitarist in new a incarnation of his groundbreaking progressive unit King Crimson, and remaining a member of the group for over two decades. (His tour experiences subsequently yielded a 1984 book of photographs, Road Photos.) While working on Gabriel's 1986 smash So, Levin developed Funk Fingers, essentially chopped-off drumsticks designed to hammer on the bass strings; he later sold Funk Fingers through his own Papa Bear Records label as well. Sessions with everyone from Robbie Robertson (his 1987 self-titled solo debut) to Laurie Anderson (1989's Strange Angels) to Yes (1991's Union) followed, and in 1996, Levin finally made his solo debut with World Diary. From the Caves of the Iron Mountain, recorded with bamboo flute master Steve Gorn and drummer Jerry Marotta, appeared a year later and in 1998, he formed Bruford Levin Upper Extremities (B.L.U.E.) with longtime King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford, guitarist David Torn, and trumpeter Chris Botti.

Waters of Eden, Levin's Narada label debut, followed in the spring of 2000. Pieces of the Sun was released in 2001 (an expanded edition came out a year later on Pony Canyon), with many of the same tracks also included on his 2002 record, Double Espresso. Prime Cuts, a compilation of his work on sessions led by other artists on the Magna Carta label during the '90s, was issued in 2005. A bona fide new solo effort, Resonator, followed the next year, for the first time featuring Levin as a singer/songwriter as well as a bassist. ~ Jason Ankeny

A virtuosic American guitarist, composer, and producer, John Petrucci is a founding member of progressive metal icons Dream Theater and Liquid Tension Experiment, as well as an accomplished solo artist. One of the most revered and inventive heavy metal guitarists of his time, Petrucci is a fixture of Joe Satriani's G3 concerts, where he has performed alongside stalwart six-stringers like Steve Vai, Eric Johnson, Paul Gilbert, Steve Morse, and Steve Lukather. He issued his solo debut, Suspended Animation, in 2005, with Terminal Velocity arriving in 2020.

Born on July 12, 1967, and raised in Kings Park (a town located in the suburb of Long Island, New York), Petrucci got serious about guitar at the age of 12, and developed a liking for prog rock and heavy metal (Rush, Iron Maiden, Yes, and later, Metallica and Queensrÿche). But it was the technically demanding guitarists, like Yngwie Malmsteen, Allan Holdsworth, and especially, Steve Morse, who inspired Petrucci the most. Enrolling at Boston's Berklee College of Music, Petrucci befriended such fellow classmates as bassist John Myung and drummer Mike Portnoy, who would serve as the core for what would eventually be known as Dream Theater. Enlisting keyboardist Kevin Moore and singer Chris Collins, the quintet began playing and recording under the name of "Majesty" until they realized another group owned the rights to it. Hence, by the late '80s, "Majesty" had changed their name to Dream Theater, and Collins was replaced by Charlie Dominici. The Dominici-led version of the group lasted for a single album, 1989's When Dream and Day Unite, before his exit early in the new decade. Despite building a sizeable following in the New York area, Petrucci and his bandmates were little known elsewhere, but this all changed with the arrival of new singer James LaBrie and their sophomore effort, 1992's Images and Words. Despite rock music fans' pivot toward Seattle's grunge scene, the album proved to be a breakthrough commercial success (as the song "Pull Me Under" became a surprise hit on both MTV and rock radio). Arguably, nobody in Dream Theater benefited the most from the sudden wave of success than Petrucci, who was instantly recognized as one of the most technically accomplished guitarists in all of hard rock -- winning polls in guitar publications the world over, as well as being mentioned in the same breath as such six-string masters as Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. Like Vai and Satriani (who also hailed from Long Island, as well), Petrucci became affiliated with the Ibanez guitar company (even lending his name to his own signature series), before switching to the Ernie Ball company later on, and once more, launching his own signature series.

Dream Theater continued to issue albums on a regular basis throughout the '90s and into the early 21st century. 2000 saw the release of a collaboration between Petrucci and Rudess, An Evening with John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess, while Petrucci joined forces with Vai and Satriani on tour as part of their annual G3 tour during the summer of 2001. In 2005, Petrucci released his first solo effort, the all-instrumental Suspended Animation, via his own Sound Mind Music imprint. In addition to his Dream Theater duties, Petrucci has played with a variety of other projects (all in the prog metal mold), including Explorer's Club, Liquid Tension Experiment (which also included Portnoy, bass master Tony Levin, and eventual Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess), as well as supplying music to the Sega Saturn video game called Necronomicon. 2020 saw Petrucci release his sophomore solo outing, Terminal Velocity. ~ Greg Prato & James Christopher Monger

A rhythmic linchpin of the modern progressive metal and hard rock scenes, Mike Portnoy is best known as the drummer and co-founder of Dream Theater, with whom he spent a quarter-century. A dynamic and versatile musician, Portnoy has remained remarkably prolific over the decades. He is the drummer for Sons of Apollo, the Winery Dogs, Transatlantic, Flying Colors, the Neal Morse Band, Metal Allegiance, and Liquid Tension Experiment, and has recorded and toured with the likes of Avenged Sevenfold, Twisted Sister, Adrenaline Mob, PSMS, Bigelf, Stone Sour, Fates Warning, Overkill, G3, and his four tribute bands with Paul Gilbert: Yellow Matter Custard, Hammer of the Gods, Amazing Journey, and Cygnus & The Sea Monsters.

Born in 1967, the Long Island native started playing drums in his teens and cites Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, and John Bonham as early influences. As his skill set expanded, he looked to more adventurous artists like Frank Zappa and Neil Peart for inspiration. He co-founded Majesty in 1985 alongside fellow Berklee Music College students John Petrucci and John Myung. After releasing a demo collection, the group adopted the Dream Theater moniker and released their debut album, When Dream and Day Unite, in 1989. Combining elements of hook-based hard rock, riff-fueled metal, syncopated prog, and refined lyrics, the Grammy-nominated band spent the next two decades at the fore of the American progressive metal movement, cultivating a devoted fan base and issuing influential and critically acclaimed albums like Images and Words (1992), Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (2002), and Black Clouds and Silver Linings (2009). During this time, Portnoy took on a slew of side projects, including the all-instrumental/Dream Theater-adjacent Liquid Tension Experiment and the prog rock supergroup Transatlantic, and recording/touring stints with Neil Morse, Stone Sour, Fates Warning, Overkill, and G3.

Portnoy left Dream Theater in 2010 and joined Avenged Sevenfold on their fifth album, Nightmare. He co-founded the melodic metal supergroup Adrenaline Mob the following year alongside guitarists Mike Orlando (Sonic Stomp) and Rich Ward (Stuck Mojo), vocalist Russell Allen (Symphony X), and bassist Paul Di Leo, and released Omertà. Two more studio efforts, Men of Honor and We the People, followed in 2014 and 2017, respectively.

In addition to Adrenaline Mob, Portnoy is a founding member of prog rockers Flying Colors (comprising Dave LaRue, Casey McPherson, Neal Morse, and Steve Morse), who issued their third LP, Third Degree, in 2019, and power trio the Winery Dogs (with Billy Sheehan and Richie Kotzen), who released the Dog Years EP in 2017. He also drums for prog-metal enthusiasts Sons of Apollo (with Billy Sheehan, Derek Sherinian, Jeff Scott Soto, and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal), who unleashed their sophomore effort, MMXX, in 2020, and thrashers Metal Allegiance (with Mark Menghi, David Ellefson, and Alex Skolnick), whose third long-player, Volume II: Power Drunk Majesty, arrived in 2018. In 2021 Liquid Tension Experiment released their third full-length effort, the aptly named 3, and Transatlantic unveiled their ambitious fifth album, The Absolute Universe. ~ James Christopher Monger

Jordan Rudess has the distinction of taking classical piano training at the Juilliard School of Music at nine years old. Rudess has played with Steve Morse, both in his solo career and in Dixie Dregs. He has also recorded with David Bowie, Annie Haslam, and Vinnie Moore. He and fellow Dregs man Rod Morgenstein have a side project called the Rudess Morgensein Project. He is a member of the progressive rock supergroup Liquid Tension Experiment and also the third keyboardist for Dream Theater. ~ Gary Hill