Dream Theater’s John Petrucci: Revenge of the Player’s Player

Bet you were expecting some mangy Seattle grungemuffin to lock up this past year’s “Breakthrough Guitarist” award. Nope. While the alternative sound is still ultra-hip, the readers of this magazine voted in droves for someone who is the polar opposite of a “modern rock” player, one who possesses monster chops, taste, melody, and all the other things that make grungers sick even to think about. Who is it? The man of the hour and GFTPM’s newest six-string champion is Dream Theater’s John Petrucci, a tasteful speedster and devout disciple of Steve Morse, Al Di Meola, and – gulp! – even Yngwie Malmsteen. So if you’re a closet-shredder who’s been in hiding for the last two years, it’s time for a victory lap. Then again. does this really signify the return of the virtuoso rock player? Stay tuned.

GFTPM caught up with Petrucci in Paris, on the last leg of Dream Theater’s Images and Words tour which has been going for over a year now. Aside from being baffled by the mechanics of Parisian showers (“They have a nozzle, but nothing to hold it up; you’d think the French might have figured this one out by now”), the stun-guitarist was in deep awe of the honor bestowed upon him by you, the readers of GFTPM: “I’m totally blown away by this award – it’s amazing! As for what this says, I think it means that creative musicianship won’t ever be dead. Grunge isn’t dead either, and that’s fine. I don’t know whether the grunge guitarists can play or not, but their songs have musicality to them, with melody, rhythm, and attitude, so I think there is room for both styles.”

In case you haven’t joined the throng yet, Dream Theater’s music picks up the progressive / metal thread started by Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin, and then handed down through the likes of Rush, Kansas, Marillion, Saga, King’s X, and, most recently, Queensryche. In fact, you may hear some musical similarities between Dream Theater and the ‘Ryche, but that likeness fades during the instrumental passages, when the virtuosic musicianship of Petrucci and his bandmates kicks into gear; not surprisingly, the guitarist and the entire rhythm section spent some time sheddin’ up at Berklee. With that in mind, we asked Petrucci to track the influences that made him our “Breakthrough” player.

“If I had to name one guitar player that changed my life, it would be Steve Morse,” says the axeman, proudly. “I was listening to typical metal stuff when I was younger, like Sabbath, Priest, and Maiden, and then someone played me ‘The Bash’ by the Dregs and I had never heard anything like that before. So I got heavily into them and started going to see Morse give clinics and in concert all the time. I also liked his whole attitude on practicing and discipline-that was a big influence on me. Plus he plays with such technical prowess but at the same time is still very musical, having great melodies, composition, and feel. So it’s the way he meshes these things together that really affected the way I play now. Actually, since I went to so many clinics, I think he started to recognize me. And you know, my manager just told me that he got a message from Steve yesterday saying that he’d heard something nice I said about him and wanted to meet me sometime. That would be amazing, and as for jamming with him – well, I don’t know about that. That would probably be too much.

“Back in my high school days, I guess I was kind of a guitar nerd, though hopefully I bypassed the nerd aspect somewhat. But the strange thing was that in my school everyone in the graduating class played guitar. There were four or five different groups and we all played at ‘Battle of the Bands’ shows, which was cool because it promoted a kind of good competition. Also around that time I got turned on to Yngwie and Di Meola, so I had chops, but I lacked direction and identity. When you’re around 17, you’re really just mimicking other players. Then I went to Berklee and learned more about the theory end of things. And I think I’m still searching for an identity, but as I get older and get more experience from life, my own style is starting to come through. Berklee was great, though. I had taken some music theory classes in high school, where we analyzed classical stuff like Bach chorales, but I really learned how to read at Berklee because that’s more of a jazz place and there’s more application of reading skills. I only stayed a year, and when I left I wasn’t a fully proficient reader but I had learned how to learn, so I just kept up with it. Right now I’m transcribing our whole last record for a book.

“John Myung, our bassist, also went to Berklee; in fact, I grew up with John and Kevin [Moore, Dream Theater’s keyboardist]. Then me and John met our drummer, Mike Portnoy, at Berklee and that became the nucleus of the band. We were all into Rush and Yes, but also into metal bands like Maiden and Metallica, so that’s the origin of our sound. But for some reason, people love to categorize music, so when we got together, we got lumped into the art-rock thing and began hearing about hundreds of bands just like us, most of whom you’ve never heard of. Frankly, I don’t want to be a part of a progressive rock scene – I want to be part of a Dream Theater scene. I know it’s impossible to be completely original, but it’s just our attitude to be as original as possible. Even Rush started out as a Zeppelin-ish band and they grew into their own unique sound. I’d like us to do that, too.”

Next to his influences, players especially want to know how Petrucci developed his crisp, controlled alternate-picking style. What’s his secret? The time-honored metronome. “I’ll never forget the day I discovered a metronome,” says the guitarist, as if reliving the moment all over again. “I had an old turntable that went down to 16 r.p.m. where I would learn all these licks by Yngwie, Morse, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Di Meola, but for some reason I could never get them up to speed cleanly. Fortunately, I had this music teacher who showed me how to use a metronome, and that turned out to be my saving grace. He told me about a violinist he once heard practicing this one lick to a metronome really slowly; then he came back a half-hour later and the guy was sawing away at 100 miles per hour! That blew me away. Today the idea has gone high-tech with drum machines and sequencers, but it’s still the same concept: Practicing to a pulse. And it’s still the best way to become a fast picker.

“In terms of applying that technique to solos, I love to improvise and we have some of that in the live set – you can hear it on the concert EP [Live at the Marquee; recorded in London, released in Europe and Japan only] and in the new video [Images and Words, Live in Tokyo]. But when we’re recording I like to work out the more complicated solos because otherwise I make a fool out of myself soloing over odd times and modes. I have to admit it’s harder to think during these parts. But if it’s a loose, freer vamp or a really easy diatonic progression, then it’s fun to improvise, because you never know what’s going to happen. As for soloing over changes versus using one scale for the whole solo, it totally depends whether the passage is completely diatonic. If you tried to use a different mode over each chord in that situation, it would probably sound stupid. There are certain modes that I tend to gravitate towards. Dorian sounds cool for minor, while in major I like Lydian and Mixolydian. There are also some neat scales off of the melodic minor – it’s kind of weird when you use them in your writing because they sound so bizarre, but they end up sounding cool.

“If I had to point out some of my better solos to someone unfamiliar with my playing, I’d go with ‘Under A Glass Moon’ from Images And Words for the flashier stuff. People always come up to me and say they like that one best, but mostly it’s just a bag of tricks. That one is also an example of what I was saying before about a rhythm progression that was so syncopated that I needed to work out the lead. But I like to be melodic, too, as in ‘Another Day.’ I like it both ways.”

For such a technically-advanced player, the Dream Theater guitarist is quite forthright on what he considers his weaknesses as well as the areas that he wants to improve on in the future. Though we might quibble with his overly humble self-analysis, he does present many pearls of wisdom, especially when it comes to the concept of fine players who want to improve even more. “If there is any area that I totally lack in, it’s acoustic playing,” admits Petrucci. “It’s something I’ve always been interested in, but I didn’t even own an acoustic for a long time. On my own I know the concept behind the technique, some of which I picked up from an old student of mine who was good at that stuff. My wife plays classical, too, so I learn a little here and there. Bluegrass, folk, and alternate tunings are also things that I definitely want to get into but I’m still a novice in those areas. I do use classical and steel-string on the Dream Theater records, but as far as pursuing a traditional style, I definitely have a way to go.

“I want to keep improving my lead technique, too, though I want to retain a sense of melody as well. A guy like Neal Schon always comes up with great melodies that just get to you. Still, I think there is much further to go in the technical area. There is a certain amount of technique that I’ve developed already, but I think I can go a lot further with it. Two-handed tapping is one of those zones, and every once in a while I’ll slip into that mode, but I guess because of my roots and training I always go back to that Di Meola/Morse approach where you pick every note. Even the crazy sweeping thing – I love that sound and some guys can whip it out at the drop of a hat, but again, I go in and out of that mode and then come back to alternate-picking.”

In the gear arena, Mr. Petrucci is a confirmed Ibanez user, playing a modified USA Custom with rosewood fretboard, low-profile whammy and DiMarzio pickups. For amps, he’s just as dedicated a Mesa/Boogie man, using a pair of TriAxis preamps to control his rig effects via MIDI, two 2:Ninety tube power amps, and four 4x12 cabs. Add to that a Lexicon PCM-70 digital multi-effects unit, a Yamaha SPX-90, a t.c. electronics delay, and Samson wireless system and you’ll get a good idea of where Petrucci’s taste in gear lies. Along those lines, how much do you think a high-tech guitarist like John Petrucci appeals to a member of the ‘90s grunge culture? According to one alternative player, very little. In a recent “Listening Room” [GFTPM, Jan ‘94], Blind Melon guitarist Christopher Thorn reacted to the Dream Theater single ‘Pull Me Under’ and its musicianship with pure vitriol, starting a tirade that culminated in the blanket statement, “That sort of guitar playing is just stupid!” Considering the bluntness of his statements, we thought we’d relate the incident to Petrucci and ask for any response he might care to give to his six-string colleague’s comments. Here goes:

“I find it really weird that somebody would say that about me or Dream Theater because a couple of guys in the band are into Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and the like. It’s just the same crap I heard at Berklee, where you had the jazzers versus the rockers, who always argued and fought with each other. Without sounding too idealistic, it’s all music and hopefully there is a quality in all styles that can reach you. Condemning another genre is something that I would never do. And for the record, the members of Dream Theater are definitely not stuffy prog-rockers who condemn songs if they’re not in 9/8 time. That’s ridiculous! We’re into all different styles. I listen to a lot of different things myself: classical music from Beethoven, Bartok, and Ravel, jazz from cats like pianist Billy Taylor and non-traditional jazz from John Scofield and Mike Stern, who’s a monster. And then I dig metal, too – Rage Against The Machine, Metallica, Alice In Chains, and so on. Of course, I’m not going to say that I listen to everything; I don’t particularly care for rap or country-pop. Then again, I really try to have a diverse listening palette. It helps me keep an open mind to music.”