James LaBrie Canadian Singer From Penetanguishene

Early life

Kevin James LaBrie was born on 5 May 1963 in Penetanguishene, Ontario, the youngest of four children. He began both singing and playing drums at the age of five, and a music teacher in elementary school encouraged him and entered him in singing contests. He also grew up as a keen hockey fan, playing whenever he could and watching Hockey Night in Canada with his family on Saturdays.

By his mid-teens he was fronting several bands that tried singing, drumming or both. He gave up the drums at seventeen, feeling that too many drummers were better than he was, and chose to concentrate on singing. In 1981 he moved to Toronto.

Career

LaBrie joined the band Coney Hatch in 1986 during an attempt to rebuild its line-up, but the label Anthem did not approve of the new arrangement and he was replaced by Phil Naro. He then became the vocalist of the glam metal band Winter Rose, with Richard Chycki on guitar and bass and Randy Cooke on drums. The group recorded demos through 1988 and 1989, and its self-titled album was released only in 1997 by Inside Out Music, years after the band had split.

In 1990 he learned that the American progressive metal band Dream Theater was looking for a singer. He sent a tape with a Winter Rose live recording and was flown to Long Island, New York, for an audition. He was chosen over about 200 other candidates, on the condition that he could keep living in Canada. He dropped his first name on joining, to avoid confusion with the keyboardist Kevin Moore. LaBrie has fronted Dream Theater since 1991. He has written or co-written lyrics on at least one song on eleven of the sixteen albums the band released with him by 2025, and he received music credits on three songs of A Dramatic Turn of Events in 2011. When the drummer Mike Portnoy rejoined the band in 2023, it followed a backstage reunion between the two in New York in March 2022.

Alongside the band he has recorded solo work, often with the keyboardist Matt Guillory, under the names MullMuzzler, James LaBrie's MullMuzzler and James LaBrie. The albums include Keep It to Yourself (1999) and MullMuzzler 2 (2001), then Elements of Persuasion (2005), on which the guitarist Marco Sfogli played. Static Impulse was released through Inside Out Music on 27 September 2010 and was followed by Impermanent Resonance in July 2013. His album Beautiful Shade of Grey came out on 20 May 2022. It is driven by acoustic instruments, with Paul Logue of Eden's Curse as the main collaborator and LaBrie's son on drums, and he recorded it in a home studio that he and his son built in April 2020. The first single, "Devil in Drag", was released in March 2022.

He has also lent his voice to many other projects. In 1991 he sang backing vocals on the Fates Warning song "Life in Still Water", before appearing on any Dream Theater recording. He sang the lead for the main character on Ayreon's rock opera The Human Equation and returned to the role for the live version, The Theater Equation, in 2015. He also appeared as The Historian on Ayreon's The Source, took a role on Henning Pauly's Babysteps project in 2006, and has worked with the True Symphonic Rockestra since 2004. He sang on the song "No Holy Man" for the Eden's Curse album Trinity in 2011, and in 2021 he sang on a cover of "Kickstart My Heart" with the band Falset, which includes his son. On 18 October 2003 he sang the national anthem before a minor-league hockey game in Southaven, Mississippi.

Recognition

In 2010, fans voted him to number 16 on MusicRadar's list of the greatest vocalists of all time.

Personal life

LaBrie has said he met his wife, Karen, in high school, and the couple have two children. He remains a long-time hockey fan, and he has named the NHL players Dave Keon, Ken Dryden, Börje Salming and Darryl Sittler as favourites from his childhood.