Mike Portnoy, Bumblefoot, Billy Sheehan Discuss Sons of Apollo in Exclusive Interview

A couple weeks ago, Sons of Apollo—a new supergroup featuring former Dream Theater members Mike Portnoy and Derek Sherinian, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, Billy Sheehan and Jeff Scott Soto—unveiled their first single, "Signs of the Time." Now, GuitarWorld.com presents an exclusive interview with all five members, in which they discuss how the all-star project came together.

"I think the only thing we tried to achieve is just to be true to what our influences were and played what we were really feeling musically at the time," Sherinian says of the project. "We didn't try to go in any specific direction, we just wrote what we felt, and we just got in the room and put together all the riffs and it just organically really came together in a great way."

Considering how intertwined the members are—connections they discuss and reminisce about frequently in the video—it's remarkable that Sons of Apollo didn't come together sooner.

You can explore the band's history and watch the band in the studio in the video below.

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Jackson Maxwell

Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.