A Dramatic Turn Of Events was written without Mike Mangini. The band made demos for all the songs with drums already programmed, then sent the demos to MM, who learned the parts and then added his own material to the mix.

Mike Mangini, Derek Roddy, Thomas Lang, Virgil Donati, Marco Minnemann, Aquiles Priester, and Peter Wildoer all auditioned at SIR in NYC, in 2010, to take over the drum throne after Mike Portnoy’s departure. The amazingly strong auditions were memorialized in a three-part documentary, called The Spirit Carries On.

Systematic Chaos was the first Dream Theater album to chart in the United Kingdom and Australia.

The working title for ‘The Ministry Of Lost Souls’ from Systematic Chaos was ‘Schindler’s Lisp’.

The working title for ‘Prophets of War’ from Systematic Chaos was ‘Carpet Babies’.

The working title for ‘Repentance’ from Systematic Chaos was ‘Fisheye’.

The working title for ‘The Dark Eternal Night’ from Systematic Chaos was ’N.A.D.S.’ (an acronym for North American Dream Squad).

In the October 2010 issue of Total Guitar Magazine, its readers voted the main riff of ‘The Dark Eternal Night’ as the fourth greatest riff of the decade.

The working title for ‘Constant Motion’ from Systematic Chaos was ‘Korma Chameleon’.

The video for ‘Constant Motion’ received considerable airplay, and was voted the second best music video of 2007 by MTV2’s Headbangers Ball.