Progressive Power Plays – Dream Theater’s John Petrucci

“When you’re a young, long-haired guitarist, people don’t take you seriously,” says Dream Theater’s John Petrucci. “They put you down because you don’t have a real job. “ Petrucci knows the feeling firsthand. For eight years, he and his bandmates have bucked the odds to pursue the Holy Grail of progressive rock. While others were shredding or grunging, Petrucci and crew worked to hone fusion-inspired odd-meter riffs, polish lightning-quick doubled synth and guitar lines, and float epic melodies on a metallic undercurrent.

At times the sledding has been tough. The band faced resistance from trendy quarters and searched long and hard for the right singer. But Dream Theater’s persistence is paying off:

Steady audience growth and successful record sales (last year’s Images And Words has sold over 400,000 copies) provide welcome vindication. “When you get folks plopping money down to see your shows,” John declares, “you feel uplifted. You’re traveling in other countries, meeting people, and doing things that those who looked down on you will never do in a million years.

“I don’t mind the term progressive rock,” Petrucci continues. “To me, it exemplifies the bands who influenced us – Yes and the Dregs, for example. It stands for music that stretches boundaries with an emphasis on performance. Players with technical ability – Vai, Satriani, or Paul Gilbert – do it for me. Steve Morse is my absolute favorite.”

The core band formed in ‘85, while three members were studying at Berklee. Petrucci values his brief encounter with academia. “I learned harmony and theory from a jazz perspective – triads, intervals, and chords,” he explains. “I got a better concept of arranging – how other instruments work, their keys and ranges – and how to write out music for an ensemble. But I’m basically self-taught. Like any other kid, I just listened to records and learned Yngwie licks. You wonder how a band like Rush comes up with their stuff, so you learn their music to understand it. I developed technique by playing in a band.”

Dream Theater’s songs evolve from extended jams. “We’ll turn on the tape deck and improvise. Once we hear something that starts to make sense, we develop it. We’ll write the arrangements and some of the more intricate musical passages on a blackboard.”

Nailing demanding guitar parts live is another matter. “You really need stamina,” John acknowledges. “Sometimes you get onstage and a few songs into the set you run out of power; things become way harder to play.” Roadwork has opened Petrucci’s eyes to fascinating cultural phenomena too. “We did a lot of wild shows in Germany,” he recalls. “American audiences are crazy as well – that’s where you find mosh pits and people getting sick. But in Europe, everybody sings every single word. It’s so weird; it sounds like you have a choir accompanying you. And they all jump up and down in unison. In Japan, the audiences are more into observing. They respect the dynamics, the mellow parts. They go crazy, but they’re definitely not as rowdy. The Japanese are so devoted to music, it’s really inspiring.”

While touring, John has learned some real world arranging tricks. “If you’re playing a chord, say, the root, fifth, and ninth above it, and the bass and keyboards play the same thing, it’s way too much. But if you break up the chord into various intervals and each guy plays a different one, it adds dimension to the band. That’s become part of our sound.”

Petrucci endorses Ibanez guitars. “They’re built by the Ibanez custom shop in LA. The necks aren’t thin at all. I used to play a B.C. Rich, and I got used to that feel.” Each ax features a basswood body, a 24-fret rosewood fretboard with jumbo frets, a 3-way pickup selector, and an Edge low-profile locking trem. “The axis neck joint is cool,” notes John. “It’s rounded and tapered, so there’s no neck-block obstruction. The volume and tone controls are moved down, away from the bridge. I lock my pinky around the pickup, and a normal volume control would get in the way. On the Ibanez, my hands don’t feel inhibited. No excuses, right?” Petrucci favors DiMarzio pickups – a bridge Tone Zone and neck Humbucker From Hell. The latter, he says, “has almost a single-coil sound. I like to solo on that pickup. When you play fast, you hear the pick moving. It’s not totally overdriven; it still has natural inflection. I also have a push-pot tone control for coil-splitting.”

John uses Mesa Boogie gear in his amp rig. “I have a new TriAxis preamp, with rectifier circuitry and parameter changing. and a 290 power amp with three switchable modes. I favor the deep function; it fattens up the whole thing immediately.” John’s rig drives four 4x12 Mesa Rectifier cabinets loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s. Other toys include a dbx 166X stereo compressor – “I use one side to compress clean sounds and the other side as the noise gate” – a T.C. Electronic 2290, a Lexicon PCM 70, a Korg tuner, a Furman power strip, and a rack-mounted Boss NS2 noise suppression pedal.

Petrucci uses two foot pedals. One alters TriAxis and effects parameters in real time, the other offers VCA preamp- volume control. Changing parameters onstage is handy: “Say I’m using a real chunky rhythm sound with all the midrange pulled out,” he explains. “Instead of switching to a more midrangey, sustainy program to play a quick lead line, I just ease up the parameter pedal to bring in a little reverb, a little midrange, and a little more gain.”

Life on the road has its perils. Without ear protection, warns John, “your hearing will just fry. But you don’t want anything that looks like Frankenstein onstage. You know the squishy plugs that expand once you put them in? I cut them in half.”

A year’s worth of hard touring has not dampened Petrucci’s infectious enthusiasm for his music. “I’m so psyched to get better as a writer and player. If we have two or three weeks off and I don’t write something new, that time seems wasted. Whenever I see Morse live, he always tops himself. He never puts out an album where it’s, ‘Oh man, what happened to him?’ Players who keep growing are inspiring. They make me want to practice. I don’t ever want to lose that.”