Guitar Theatrics

Dream Theater is art rock survivor

By John Evosevic

Art rock. Heavy metal. Two styles of music that, if not quite dead in the water, are at least listing heavily to one side.

Both styles are also the carefully measured amalgam that is Dream Theater, which plays tomorrow night at Metropol in support of its new release, Awake.

From the pummeling rhythms and tempo changes a la Megadeth to the virtuosic flights of fancy that characterized vintage Yes, Dream Theater is banking that when pop music comes full circle, their ship will come in.

While they had a hit with the 1992 release, Images And Words, they’ve also taken a big hit recently. Founding member and keyboardist Kevin Moore departed near the completion of Awake and has been replaced by former Kiss and Alice Cooper sideman Derek Sherinian.

“It was really upsetting.” Says guitarist John Petrucci. “When we grew up, we were totally on the same page, but over the past couple of years. he just branched off into all this alternative and industrial stuff.

“There seems to be a stress on music where the musicianship isn’t necessarily the most important thing,” says Petrucci, who recently won a readers’ new talent poll in the magazine Guitar For The Practicing Musician. “It’s more the attitude, the song, the feel. It doesn’t matter if the guitars are out of tune a bit. It kind of adds to the effect. That part of it, I think is actually really cool.”

Still, he says. “I’m not going to pinpoint one band, but there are too many jumping on the bandwagon. And I don’t sense conviction. But I do think Soundgarden has total substance, originality, conviction and great songs.”

Petrucci met bassist John Myung and drummer Mike Portnoy while attending the Berklee School of Music in Boston in 1985-86. Vocalist James LaBrie came to the band from Toronto’s Coney Hatch. Petrucci indicated that Dream Theater made no effort to recreate the success of Images And Words with the new single ‘Pull Me Under’.

“I think the only thing that was conscious was not doing the same thing twice. Whenever we write music, it is indirectly influenced by what’s new out there. You can hear what bands we were into from album to album. It’s definitely heavier.

“We try to stay vital – whether it’s the technology or musical influences. Then there’s a lot of independence from what’s out there and that comes out in the arrangements, orchestration and lyrical matter. It’s always going to be somewhat different although some of the formulas will still be there.”

Even though Petrucci had a new talent win snatched away on a suspicious technicality in Guitar Player, he remains magnanimous.

“I don’t feel like I deserve anything, so if people are going to give me recognition in whatever form, I’m not going to criticize it. I never did expect covers of magazines and winning polls. I try to take it gracefully.”