Michael Stephen Portnoy, best known as Mike Portnoy, was born in 20th April, 1967 in Long Beach, New York. He is popular American dummer who is in the genre of progressive metal, progressive rock, heavy metal, hard rock and jazz-fusion. He has worked with many bands and gained experiences in the technical sectors of music as well. He is also known for the backing singer.
His father was DJ and he influenced him from his young age. His father helped him a lot to pursue his career in this sector. In his high school period, he took some music classes to improve his learning. At that same period of time, he started to play drum for the local band as well. He got scholarship in Berklee College of Music in Boston where he met John Myung and John Petrucci. Together, they formed a band called “Majesty” and later changed its name to “Dream Theatre” which became very popular among the listeners as well as viewers.
Though he joined many bands, he became more successful from “Dream Theatre” and “Avenged Sevenfold”. He left both the band in 2010 as he wants to be apart from the music for some time. Because of his skills, he has been awarded and has got much recognition as well. He has won Modern Drummer magazine Reader’s Poll Award for 28 times. These include Best Up & Coming Talent in 1994, Best Progressive Rock Drummer from 1995 to 2006 and Hall of Fame Inductee in 2004.
He has recorded more than 50 discographies till now. The first one came in the market in 1984 from the band “Rising Power”. In 1990s, he became busier in his own band “Dream Theatre” and gained the height of success as well from the band. After departure from his band, he joined other bands such as “The Winery Dogs”, “Transatlantic”, “Paul Gilbert”, “Flying Colors” and “The Neal Morse Band”. Lately, in 2015, his band came with the song “The Grand Experiment”. Because of his gay nature, he does not bother about the surrounding. You can find his pictures in different sites.
Mike has the great physique and is 5 feet 10 inch tall. He has just reached the age of 47. He got married to his girlfriend, Marlene, in 1990s. Marlene was a guitarist from the band “Meanstreak”. The couple has got 2 children and they are happily living in Upper Saucon Township in Pennsylvania. Both of the kids have already grown up and there is no chance of divorce between them as both husband and the wife know each other and have good faith. The unique fact is that the three members of “Dream Theatre” started dating with the three members of “Meanstreak” and later got married as well.
Mike is from Jewish ethnicity but does not follow it actively. He is popular in the social networking sites as well. He is the regular user of twitter as well as Instagram. If you are also his fan and want to know more about him, you can follow him in these sites. You can watch his songs as well as drum solo performances in YouTube as well. He has the net worth of $23 million. His son, Max John, has also followed the footsteps of his father. His full biography is available in Wikipedia.