James LaBrie has been Dream Theater's singer since 1991, and his story includes one of the most consequential episodes ever to befall a rock vocalist. Born in Penetanguishene, Canada, in 1963, he came from Winter Rose and joined in time to record Images and Words (1992), the album that broke the band worldwide. His voice on that record is a high tenor, clear and wide in range — it is what you hear on "Pull Me Under" and "Another Day". In 1994, however, food poisoning during a holiday in Cuba caused violent bouts of vomiting that damaged his vocal cords. LaBrie lost much of his range and spent years rebuilding his technique, singing with real limitations while he recovered. The timbre changed permanently, and the subject became one of the most debated among the band's audience. What survived the episode was the function. In a repertoire of long structures, irregular metres and ten-minute instrumental passages, it falls to the singer to give a human face to music that could easily become a technical exercise — it is the voice that turns "Scenes from a Memory" into narrative rather than demonstration. He has kept a solo career since Elements of Persuasion (2005), and remains in the band's current line-up, which recorded Parasomnia (2025).
Bands they were part of and guest appearances (feat.) on other bands.
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