Rock Discipline

Rock Discipline is John’s two-hour instructional video. It is a detailed and in-depth insight into the ‘art of modern rock guitar’. In it, he details the many various aspects of his playing: from warming up, exercises, left and right hand techniques, scale fragments, chordal techniques, arpeggios and more. Even if you’re not a guitarist yourself, it makes fascinating and worthwhile viewing. Interspersed throughout the video, sitting nicely alongside the lessons, you are treated to some interview material with John; some of which I have reproduced here, that you may find of (historical) interest.

On Practicing

I basically have a technique that is broken down into four categories: 1) is scale or linear examples, 2) is arpeggiated examples, 3) is left-hand or legato playing, and 4) is sweep picking. And what I do is I have files in a cabinet, and I collect information from books, videos, lessons and whatever, and I file them according to topic. If it’s an arpeggio thing from a magazine, I rip it out and I stick it into the arpeggio section. And then when it comes times to practice, instead of saying “there are millions of things, how am I gonna practice all this stuff?” Basically I make a master list of what’s in all those files, and that list changes from day to day. You sit down and basically customize a practice session. So say you have about two hours to practice, I personally have four categories, so I pick one item from each one of those categories, and practice that item for a half hour, move onto the next, practice that for a half hour, and by the time I’m done after two hours, I’ve covered the entire topic of technique.

First Band

My first band experience technically was actually the first time I even picked up a guitar. These friends of mine – actually our ex-keyboard player – everyone would gather at his house because he had a piano, and they were playing some Neil Young, playing “Hey Hey My My’ – and they assigned me a part. I guess that was kind of a band experience…

About Influences

When I first started playing, I probably had some of the same typical influences that kids my age had: Black Sabbath, Zeppelin, The Who, Iron Maiden. Then I started to get more drawn towards the guitar players. As I played more, I was drawn to players that really had unique style; I was really into Rush and Alex Lifeson, Steve Howe with Yes, Randy Rhoads. Then I finally discovered Steve Morse, and my life changed. I heard ‘The Bash’ for the first time, and I was like “this is unreal.” Got every Dregs album, and started getting into them, Al DiMeola and Alan Holdsworth. I had a similar experience hearing Stevie Ray Vaughan for the first time. I was just blown away.

Lessons And Berklee

I first picked up a guitar when I was 12, and I didn’t take any formal lessons. I took music theory my last two years in high school, so I had two years of that, and went to Berklee right out of high school. A couple of times, I had a few scattered lessons before Berklee, to try to prepare myself, and going to group classes with a friend, but I never took any formal continuous lessons. By the time I went to Berklee, I had been working on technique and chops, I had a couple of years of classical music theory. So, when I came into Berklee, things like arranging, harmony and a jazz perspective, I had no clue. So I remember taking a placement and getting in at level one with everything, and starting from scratch. I think the most I learnt there was in harmony, and chord structure and progressions, and also how to continue to learn.

About The Band

When we first started the band, we were all 17, 18 years old, so the last album we just put out – it’s like almost ten years later. I think we’ve all matured as songwriters and we listen to the old demos, and there’s bootlegs of those demos and it’s like “Oh my god – what were we thinking?” The music and writing has definitely evolved.

Writing With The Band

The majority of our writing process is together as a band. Somebody usually has a progression or groove, or idea, and they bring that in, and basically we jam on it. We set the tape recorder and go for it. And out of those jams, some solid ideas start to happen. We start working on arrangements, and before you know it, we have a song.

Lyrics – I’m really interest in lyric and melody and how that contributes to the song, the real importance of the lyrics and melody, and the vocalist. All of us were basically influenced by the same bands, and a lot of them happen to be progressive like: Rush, Yes, The Dregs, Genesis, and even Zappa’s music. So when we all got together at Berklee, it just naturally came out, this type of music, and odd times and even using the harmony that was a little bit more experimental or creative. It was just a kind of natural direction for us all.