Nearly ten years after the disbandment of the Liquid Tension Experiment, in late 2007, a third studio album was released with new band material. Active between 1997-1999 - Regrouped in 2007 (as a trio) and again in 2008 (full band) The release entitled Liquid Trio Experiment had jam tracks from the band.
This time, just like with Liquid Tension's first album, it was released on the following year.
In late 1998 the band regrouped and in the span of two months wrote, rehearsed and recorded what would be their second album, entitled Liquid Tension Experiment 2. The members of the band and Magna Carta were so satisfied with the results of the first endeavor that they decided to record yet another album. The idea, or the concept, of that album was to fully write, rehearse and record the whole thing in a week, and so it was done: from September 20 to September 25 of 1997 the whole process was successfully done and the album was released in the next year, in March of 1998. Every guitarist that was originally invited to be part of the group refused the offer due to conflicting schedules.įinally, in the spring of 1997, Mike decided to invite John PETRUCCI, Dream Theater guitarist, to join Liquid Tension Experiment and, with his acceptance, the group was finally complete and ready to record their first album, the self titled Liquid Tension Experiment. Mike was able to recruit a bass player, who was Tony LEVIN, of King Crimson and Peter Gabriel's band fame, and a keyboard player, who was Jordan RUDESS, which was playing with the jazz fusion group Dixie Dregs at the time, but there was still a guitarist missing.
Many were the attempts to put the group together through most of 1997, but most of them failed due to one pivotal problem: they were lacking a member. In spite of declining the offer at first, he eventually agreed to assemble a super ensemble. Liquid Tension Experiment had its genesis still in the year of 1996, when Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy was contected by Peter Morticelli (head of the label Magna Carta) and Mike Varney (vice president of the label Magna Carta) and was asked to, according to Portnoy, try and "put together a couple of Super Groups (for the lack of a better term!)".