John Petrucci, James LaBrie interview

Carolyn Fox: Thanks for playing tonight! You guys were great!

James LaBrie: Well thank you very much!

CF: You know when music is done acoustically, either you’re really good or you really blow! [laughs]

JL: Well the studio helps you out!

John Petrucci: Weren’t we just talking about that?

JL: It’s true – on the way here, we were talking about that – how naked you are when you play in a situation like this.

CF: How do you feel about that?

JL: It’s different, especially when you have only five people. Like I was saying to John, it’s easier to play in front of a few thousand people instead of playing in front of five people.

CF: Why?

JL: Because they’re sitting right there and they’re looking at you and you’re looking at them, and there’s nowhere else to look.

CF: So you feel like you’re wearing no clothes.

JL: Yeah.

CF: I’ll make a deal with you – I don’t want the experience to go without – you can take your clothes off right now!

JL: OK, hang on... [pretends to start undressing]

CF: [laughs] Oh this is my favorite part of the show and James’s jeans will be going for a mere fifty five dollars – no! [this was an appearance for an auction/charity]

JL: No – I paid more than that for these!

CF: So you guys played the Palladium here so you have this Providence connection as it were or the Rhode Island connection. We had the first concert broadcast on 94HJY’s history and you guys helped us out.

JP: We were there for you.

CF: Were there tons of people there?

JL: It was a great night. That was the kickoff to our summer leg of the tour and that was the first night. Speaking of which, I did wipe out that night on stage – I did. I tripped over... John has guitar monitors just right near the front of the stage, and I wasn’t thinking where I was at the time, and I walked backwards, but I fell right over them. So yeah, it was a little bit of a Spinal Tap move, but it looked all right.

CF: It looked rock ‘n’ roll. So how’s it going for you guys now? Do you guys have a new album out, touring or...?

JP: Well we just finished touring. We started 14 months ago or so, and we just stopped about two weeks ago.

CF: How does it feel have to stopped and then started for tonight?

JP: Yeah really! [laughs] Well, the flight over was like one of those little tiny planes with like five people.

CF: No – was it really? [James laughingly makes hand gestures of a plane flying up and down] No no no!

JL: Seriously!

CF: I’m sorry. [embarrassingly laughs]

JL: I’m thinking ‘I’m not gonna be able to make it tonight!’

CF: No, they always appear more harrowing than they are.

JP: But we made it. We’re gonna start writing the new album in the beginning of January.

CF: Okay. I think you guys debuted a song here tonight.

JP: Yes.

JL: Yeah it’s a song John just finished writing.

JP: Actually I wrote it during that 14 month tour. We did have a point every once in a while where there was a break for two weeks or so. So I just wrote that song one day.

CF: One day!

JP: That was a one day song.

JL: No, but when did you write it though?

JP: When did I write it?

JL: Didn’t you write that on the way back from Hawaii?

JP: No that was Barfbag! [laughs]

CF: Barfbag! Gee, I’d love to hear that song!

JL: It’s an instrumental.

CF: So how do critics describe what you do and the type of music that you could play? I’ve heard progressive metal being thrown around.

JL: Yeah, a lot of people like to just put that title to us – progressive or prog – but I think that they have to realize there’s a lot more styles and influences than just the progressive.

CF: What does progressive mean, anyway?

JL: It’s the referring to bands like Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, stuff like that. But this band especially was very influenced by Rush. But we have other influences like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, U2, Journey, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Metallica and Queensrÿche. So it wasn’t all just like one type of band. I mean we all have and we still listen to a wide range of musical styles.

CF: So when you all got together, you said ‘I like this band, I like this kind of music, blah blah blah. Let’s do this sort of thing.’

JL: I think if you listened to Images and Words, you’ll hear classical, jazz, progressive and heavy metal. It’s all in there.