Interview With John Petrucci

On October 15th 2000, John Petrucci gave a clinic in Rotterdam, Holland. Of course, I took the opportunity to talk to him about various things. We were under pretty much time pressure, as he had to catch a flight and the autograph session after the clinic had already consumed a lot of time. I was accompanied by my good friend Maarten Heeringa, who would ask John more about the guitar technical side of things. Well, upstairs to the kitchen, sit around the table, tape recorder rolling and off we went:

Roots Sardaro: Let me start by asking some things about Dream Theater. Obviously the Metropolis 2000 tour is almost over.

John Petrucci: Yeah, actually we have five more shows left and then we’re done.

RS: Ok. What’s the story then?

JP: Well, actually taking time off. We are busy with the DVD/Video, there’s some more editing to do with that, but we are not going to do any more shows between now and... I don’t know... we just want to take some time off.

RS: About the DVD. Is it going to be sort of a rockumentary or just one show?

JP: No, just a show. I haven’t... well, Mike has been editing it with an editor and what I’ve seen is just a show. I don’t think there is any...

RS: ...snippets from here and there?

JP: No, unless there will be something at the end, I don’t know, but so far it just starts with the show and continues. We’ll see.

RS: What about new material? Has something been written already or is something boiling at least?

JP: Well, there is always something boiling! In fact, in the dressing rooms before the shows I always have a little guitar set up, Jordan has a little keyboard set up and we are just constantly... well... he puts everything right into his computer and that’s really neat. So he has a file with Dream Theater ideas in his computer and we’ll break that out when the time is right, you know...

RS: No songs, no (working) titles or so?

JP: No. Well, we have kind of a scheme, but I don’t want to say it until we do it, because you’ll never know what will happen between now and then.

RS: OK. You are going to play guitar on Nick D’Virgilio’s solo album (drummer Spock’s Beard) aren’t you?

JP: Well, actually he asked me to do it. He showed me his CD and asked me if I wanted to play a solo on it and I said ‘yeah’, but I haven’t done it yet. I’m not sure when he plans to do it, maybe November or something. I’ll just wait for his call.

RS: Do you have any solo plans yourself?

JP: Well, the only thing that I really want to do as far as that’s concerned is an album with me and Steve Morse. We talked about it when the Dixie Dregs were on tour with us. We got together and wrote some stuff and now it’s a matter of us linking our schedules together, but he’s very busy with Deep Purple. Maybe in his time off we will make it happen.

RS: Ok. Let’s talk about the switch to Music Man. Maarten will punch in now.

Maarten: Yeah. I was wondering. When it comes to an endorsement like this, who approaches who? I mean, is it just the quality of the instrument that makes you go to them or is it more like a marketing sort of thing...

JP: Well, it’s all of those things put together actually. As far as approaching each other in this situation it was something that our manager actually brought up. I’ve been using the Ernie Ball strings and volume pedals and he said ‘you know, if you ever want to do something with them... they told me they would love to do something’, so you know... when my contract with Ibanez was coming to a close it was sort of going on in the back of my mind. At first I was like ‘there’s no way I’m going to change companies’ as I didn’t really want to, but when I started to find out a bit more about Music Man, the guitars they make, the people that are there, it became more and more interesting. And then when the business part of it sounded better to me, then that’s what really kind of made it click.

MH: I know Music Man guitars have a neck that is thicker than the usual Ibanez. Is it worth adjusting yourself to that?

JP: Well, in my case fortunately I can have any neck I want. You know, every single stack of the guitar, from the radius of the fret board to the shape of the neck is exactly what I want it to be, so that doesn’t matter to me, whether their style is a certain way, this guitar is going to be very much to my specifications, so it is probably going to be a lot different than the other Music Man guitars that are out there.

MH: There are no commitments whatsoever that they want you to do?

JP: Well, actually the only thing is that they want their head stock to be the same. Just the top part, that’s the only thing that stays and that all Music Man guitars have, well, actually Ibanez has all same ones too.

MH: The piezo thing. Ibanez these days also has guitars with a piezo in them, in their Prestige series. Did you ever try out one of those?

JP: No, I tried a proto type they had from a 7-string, but I never ended up trying it live or anything. I just think it’s a different company; it’s not Fishman.

MH: Ok. Eeehm... two outputs. I never see that when you play live, I mean, how do you arrange that? Isn’t it a nuisance having two outputs on one guitar?

JP: Well, I don’t even know it’s there. They are kind of right on the side...

MH: Wireless?

JP: Yeah, wireless and I use right angle jacks, so they are very flat to the guitar.

MH: Are there two transmitters?

JP: Yeah.

MH: And how many Music Man guitars do you have right now?

JP: I think there must be seven guitars or so. All prototypes though, none of them are ready. I’ve been having some difficulty getting the neck to be exactly where I want it, because... to be honest I am not really sure what it is that makes it feel comfortable or not. Every time we try something we change the neck and well... it’s been a process, so what I’m going to do is I am gonna go out to the factory when I get home, stay there for a few days and we’ll goal things and change them in the factory right on the spot until it’s right. But up to this point, I kind of tell them the change I want and then they build the guitar and then they send it to me and a lot of the time I’m on the road so the whole process kind of takes a little while. So, with me being at the factory it should make it real quick.

MH: I noticed a different inlay on the first fret.

JP: Yeah, it says JP. It’s a logo that I have been using and we are going to use it as my design. We are probably going to put it somewhere on the head stock also. And maybe we’re going to make it a little bit more pronounced on the neck so you can tell what it is.

MH: Are you allowed to play Dream Theater stuff at clinics as you seemed to avoid it.

JP: Of course, hey, it’s my music!

MH: Yeah, of course, but somehow it looked today as if you tried to avoid it. You know, the Under A Glass Moon thing?

JP: I really forgot it! I really didn’t know it!

MH: Oh come on! Somehow that really doesn’t fit! Oh well.

RS: Ok, that wraps up the technical part. Let’s switch to the personal stuff now. Obviously you are going to take some time off. What do you do when you’re at home?

JP: Well, I work on my house. I’m trying to make some improvements that have been bugging me, whether it’s around the property or... you know... my wife and I have those renovation things we want to do so we spend time doing that, whether that’s painting or ripping up carpets and stuff, you know, just total domestic house things.

RS: Any hobbies outside music?

JP: I go to the gym on a more regular basis when I’m at home.

RS: (to Denis) See, he DOES work out. We were wondering. (laughs)

JP: Yeah, it’s harder to do on the road, though. I still do it, but it’s more like once or twice a week as it’s sometimes hard to find a gym. But at home I do it more regularly. And then of course as my kids grow older I’m getting more involved into things that they are into. My son is playing soccer now, so I get into that with him. My daughter is singing so I’m helping her out with that. We try to spend a lot of time together.

RS: Well it must be hard sometimes to watch them grow up every now and then so to speak.

JP: Yeah, it was my daughter’s birthday yesterday and I wasn’t there, so...

RS: Congratulations! Well, I guess we have to sing for her in a while.

JP: Yeah. (laughs)

RS: Do you still practice at home and if so how long?

JP: Not that much actually. My whole practicing style is a lot different when I’m at home. On the road it’s very intense in that I’m always thinking about the show that I have to play. So I always practice things that I have to play that night. Also because of the length of the show we’re playing and the amount of notes we play, well, I usually practice like an hour or so. On the road. When we’re in the studio I play all day long, trying to write and come up with new stuff. At home it’s definitely not as intense like that much playing. It’s more writing, jamming, researching new ideas and things like that. It’s less of the technical maintenance type of stuff.

RS: What’s the last thing that you technically practiced? I mean, sometimes I go like ‘what does this guy still have to learn?’, although you’ll probably say that you still/earn every day.

JP: Oh yeah. Well, actually there are a couple of things. Through playing with Jordan and warming up with him backstage there are a lot of cool things that he does that I like and that we talk about. When I try to play it on the guitar it’s very strange and difficult. Sometimes he plays a melody, but underneath that melody there are these chords that are kind of “bubbling”. I was trying to do that on the guitar, so that’s one thing that I was tackling. Also when he plays some sort of runs or arpeggios they sound like they jump very quickly so I found out (on the guitar) he was skipping a lot of octaves, so that’s very hard to play on the guitar so I was trying that.

RS: Interesting.

JP: Yeah it is interesting and the same thing has happened back then with Kevin. Whenever I was trying to learn some of the things he was doing and I tried it on the guitar it was either really hard to play, impossible or it will make you learn a new technique. So that sort of skipping octaves and playing arpeggios and things beneath melodies is something that I’m trying to develop.

RS: What are [your] favourite CDs that you listen to at the moment and/or favourite guitar players?

JP: Well, about guitar players. They haven’t really changed that much since when I was younger. I still like Steve Morse, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Alan Holdsworth and AI DiMeola. I don’t really listen to a lot of their music as much as I did when I was younger. When I was learning how to play, those CDs or records were constantly being played. Learning Randy Rhoads and all those guys. But I don’t listen to music like that on a regular basis as far as my favourite players go anymore. It’s more casual.

RS: And what CDs do you listen to nowadays?

JP: I don’t know. I don’t really go out and go CD shopping. I have a very big selection of Jazz and Classical music that my father-in-law passed on to us when he passed away. It’s a really big collection with Oscar Peterson and Keith Jarrett to name but a few, so I try to kind of dive into that and listen to it, but as far as new stuff goes I just turn on the radio. Every so often I might hear that something new is out that I like, like I hear U2 has a new album out or Radiohead, you know. Then I’ll make it a point to go out and get that. But as far as going out discovering new bands and things, no I’m not really doing that.

RS: You must really come across things.

JP: Yeah, I’m more casual about that.

RS: OK, let’s talk about your wife Rena. She’s sort of your manager or at least has much to do with the business aspects. How did things develop from meeting her when she was playing in a band called Meanstreak until this point?

JP: Well, when we met it was 1989 and we fell in love with each other right from the beginning. We totally knew that we were meant for each other. It’s pretty wild the kind of progression from just dating and then having kids, having twins and then having a third child, you know, buying a house and developing our whole life. It’s been amazing when we look back. As far as right now, we decided well... she’s always been involved in one way or another.

RS: Does she still play?

JP: No, not that much anymore. She was playing classical when I met her and it’s something that she said she wants to kind of get back into, but she’s really into karate right now! (laughter) But we decided to start a company where we were going to try to take a little bit more control of some of the things that I release, because I’m always getting approached to do different projects and instructional things and whatever and I think sort of seeing the way it’s done we got more into the business and production angles. Like you guys doing the magazines and stuff... you know how it’s done and you go like ‘I can do this just as good as... well... some guy that owns a company or whatever’. We figured why don’t we take it all a bit more in our own hands and probably get to keep more of the money that we make, instead of having to give a lot of it away to third parties. Which is a problem, you know, when you think about the amount of money that people are making FROM you, it shouldn’t be that way. So we decided to form this company and we call it SoundMind Music and initially the thing that we really want to do is the instructional video, but we started selling T-shirts and... my wife is great, she knows computers but she didn’t know anything about running a business as far as the net is concerned, accepting payment through credit cards over the net, you know... she set it all up, she designed the website and everything and she never did it before; she’s real smart to do that type of thing. So we do the video and we have this thing with me and Jordan which is going to be our first release.

RS: So it’s a record label as well?

JP: Yeah, I guess so. We’re definitely going to release this CD, so sure it’s a record label. It’s a music company. And right now it’s just for my things, but it could grow into something bigger, but we do one thing at the time.

RS: And what about the tab book of “Scenes From A Memory”, is that out yet?

JP: I actually sent an e-mail to Warner Brothers because a lot of people were asking me and he said it’s been out for like a month or so, together with Wild Stringdom.

RS: Ok, let’s move to a more serious matter... reincarnation. The topic of course of “Scenes From A Memory”. In the Images And Words days you always had this shirt with the ankh symbol all over it and you had the sign around your neck as well. The sign has some links with reincarnation as well. Is it a strong belief of yours? What’s your belief anyway?

JP: Ok, well I give you like the total scoop. As far as the symbol and everything back then... it was really a style thing. It was like... well...

RS: It looked cool!

JP: Yeah, it looked cool! In that period like the late eighties, when you went into LA you saw all those kind of shirts and ankhs and stuff so to me it was just a style thing. I was raised Roman Catholic, I’m Catholic. I’m not a Buddhist or anything like that, but the topic of reincarnation to me is incredibly interesting and I think that’s what sparked this whole topic for this record as far as coming up with some sort of story that would be interesting enough. Reincarnation, whenever you talk to anybody about it you can easily get into a conversation about it. I got some books and tapes on it and got into it and a couple of the other guys were getting into it, and when you’re reading about it you go like ‘wow, did you know that...’ and so on and it gave us a lot to talk about.

RS: But do you firmly believe in it as stated in the lyrics from The Spirit Carries On for example?

JP: I believe in it in the sense that in all religions there is some sort of theme that involves the spirit carrying on or the existing before. Even in Catholicism it’s with the afterlife and heaven and that’s how I believe in it. As far as the whole Buddhist belief, I’m not a Buddhist and don’t know that much about it as far as being one soul transcending and so on is concerned. I just kind of use artistic license to incorporate that element of it, but it’s not necessarily my personal belief.

RS: About your world view. What scares you at the moment and on the other hand what enlightens you or gives you spirit? Or brings hope to you?

JP: I think that as far as bringing hope to me in what I do as a musician and as a parent I kind of see things completely different. Being a parent, it may sound corny, but everybody says that children are the future, but it’s totally true and you can see it. You can see your own kids growing up, absorbing everything. I feel more like a need to be a teacher, to give knowledge. I see more young people at art shows, like more than ever which I think is great. And there is like tons of kids that are 12 or 13 and just starting to play drums or guitar or whatever. It comes to show more than ever, so I think that’s really encouraging. I think it’s also encouraging the way the world is kind of getting smaller in a communication sense.

RS: You mean through the Internet?

JP: Yeah. It’s amazing! It’s funny that you could like have these conversations with people or see information that you would never have been able to do. And also being able to play and go to these different countries you can see how the fall of Communism is really making a change in a lot of these countries. I know it’s hard for them, because going into a more capitalistic style when you’re poor... it’s difficult but somehow you can see the positive part of it. On the other hand it scares me too, because there is a lot of nutty people out there with too much information and as far as the communication goes that’s scary too sometimes because people tend to know a little bit too much and they can get into a little bit too much. As far as music is concerned the pirating issue really bothers me. That scares me. The way it’s so easy now to trade music without any licensing, that’s kind of scary.

RS: Well, let’s go back to Metropolis 2000. Has it been a successful tour? And in what way?

JP: Absolutely! In what way? Well, first of all the fact that we pulled it off makes us proud of ourselves. I mean, we wrote a concept album and wanted to play it live, with a new keyboard player, a new member. That was a lot to confront all at once. It was bringing a new member in, doing a record without a producer, writing without any demos and recording right on the spot. So we’re proud that we kind of made it through and we look back thinking ‘wow, we did it!’ Even writing lyrics together and having more than one writer was something that we felt was going to be really difficult and then of course trying to pull it off live and play it and getting some sort of a production element into the show. We did and as far as the show attendances, they’ve been great. The cool thing for us is that it sort of proves that we can do something the way we want it to be in every sense of the word and people will still come out and want to see it and the commercial aspect isn’t really an issue. So yeah, it’s been successful!

A couple of months later, at the end of February, John was kind enough to ring me up so we could talk some more about the past, present and future. Here we go:

RS: Hi John, how are you? Enjoying your time off?

JP: I’m doing good, it’s not exactly ‘off’. I’ve been real busy.

RS: Steve Morse-kind of busy? I know you are really anxious to work with him.

JP: I am! I’ve talked to our manager, you know we have the same manager, and Steve is once again busy the same time I am and he says he might have an opening around when we are done recording the Dream Theater album somewhere in the summer, so it’s still the forever project that doesn’t seem to jump. Obviously we are both very busy with our bands, but I would say if everybody’s patient... we WILL do it!

RS: Well, fingers crossed for the summer time then! Meanwhile, when are you going to record the next Dream Theater album?

JP: We’ll enter the studio March 12th.

RS: Ah, well... last time we spoke (October 2000) I asked you if something was boiling already and you said ‘there’s always something boiling!’ Has the boiling turned into something more concrete now or is it too early yet?

JP: Well, let me start by saying that everybody is probably thinking about music and writing all the time. Most musicians do. So, I’m sure that if you would talk to any guy in the band, they’d tell you they have some ideas swimming in their heads, they have stuff written down and the same goes for me. I walk around singing things and put things on tape, demos and stuff. Not a ton of stuff and not a ton of concrete ideas, but some sketches, you know, just so that when we go in, there is some basis to start from. Really the way that we write is very spontaneous, so there isn’t a lot of pre-writing involved. Some songs were written and some we’re brought in ideas, but for the most part we tend to do a lot of improvising and jamming. That’s the whole kind of magic about playing together with these guys, the type of chemistry that we can do that. So to say that we have a lot boiling and tons of ideas, I’d be lying, but... that isn’t unusual.

RS: So, is it going to be much like with “Scenes From A Memory”, where you had several ideas floating, but the actual writing process took place in the studio?

JP: Yeah exactly. In the past every Dream Theater album has been demoed. We took sometimes a year to spend time in rehearsal studios for four days a week. We wrote and made demos and once we had the material we went into the studio. But with SFAM we didn’t do that. The only things we had, since it was based on Metropolis, were some old Metropolis type of riffs that we had written a few years ago, but other than that... Well, I had some things, some themes floating, but other than those little things we wrote it and recorded it in the studio, which is how we did the Liquid Tension projects and we are going to continue with that same spirit. We’re going to the same studio, in BearTracks, same engineer and I’m sure it’s going to go very similar.

RS: No working title? Exact direction? Song titles maybe?

JP: No, no working titles or song titles yet. I mean, that all comes once the music is written. We write the lyrics after the music, so most times the song titles are based around the lyrics and a lot of times the album titles are based around the songs, so we don’t have any of that written yet. Cool thing that we have been doing, which has been a bit interesting, we got together with a few different people and we’re going to continue in the studio with different World musicians.

RS: Wow, guest musicians?

JP: No, not necessarily guys that will play on it, but... we have taken Master classes where we got together with people that are experts in South-Indian music, African music and Brazilian music, you know... different types of music from around the world. An effort to kind of grow as far as our vocabulary of music is concerned.

RS: Cool! The whole band took Master classes?

JP: Yeah, we did it together and it’s been going cool. We’re going to do a couple of more in the studio and... the point isn’t to write songs that have a World music sound, I’m sure that’s not going to happen, but...

RS: ...well, some influences would be cool...

JP: Yeah, the point is to get some authentic influences. You get influences from listening to music, which is great, but it’s kind of cool to get a perspective from actually watching people who play the instrument.

RS: And what instruments would that be? Didgeridoo and stuff?

JP: Well, it’s been mostly percussion type of instruments and vocal stuff. And there was one guy who had, well not exactly an instrument, but a thing that kind of makes a drone. It’s called a Tambora.

RS: Wow, this is something like George Harrison going to Ravi Shankar to get inspired!

JP: Yeah right! Not as exotic though. And you know.... I do like to prepare certain things before I go in. And this time I decided to do something a little bit different. I have a pretty extensive collection of harmony books for guitar-like chord harmony that’s pretty serious. There’s a guy named Ted Green who is the master of the chords and the extension of chords and everything. I have used his stuff in the past, but I have re-gathered this information.

RS: And you work a little bit around that?

JP: Yeah, it’s actually real inspiring, because you start to do things with your hands on the guitar that you’re not used to doing. Things like that. I also learn songs as well before I go in. Just to get a round of influences. Sometimes some pop music and this time I’m on a Beatles kick and I’m learning the Beatles. But once again, all this stuff doesn’t mean that it’s going to sound like the Beatles or World music or jazz or anything. It’s just a normal progress in growing as a musician.

RS: Speaking of which... I got your CD that you did with Jordan, let’s talk a bit about that. First of all, it’s a real family project isn’t it? How did Danielle Rudess get involved?

JP: Well, the theatre where we performed is the place where she works. She produces events there and she had a benefit and asked us to do it and that’s how we came to doing the actual show. So, once we committed to doing the show, Jordan and I had to figure out what we were going to play. We were thinking of maybe doing some acoustic versions of Dream Theater songs, but we decided it would be better to do more of a jazz thing, where there’s a lot of improvising going on. So we wrote some music around which we could improvise. We did it on the road in Japan and Taiwan, mostly in hotel rooms. We got together once at my place and the day of the show we were going over the stuff, but we never performed it. That day was the first time we played it and... it’s largely improvised. And it’s released on Sound Mind Music, which is the record label here that my wife and I own, which is based off of my website and that whole thing. She had an idea of ‘why don’t you record it and it could be your first release?’ So we did. We got Doug Oberkircher to tape it and it actually ended up sounding pretty good, so... it’s totally independent. Thanks a lot to my wife. She not only designed the cover, but... she pretty much did the whole thing.

RS: You just went in and played.

JP: Yeah. She produced the whole thing. Got it together, the artwork, the package and now distribute it out there.

RS: Yeah, I was wondering. How are you going to distribute it in Europe for example?

JP: Well, this right now is only available through my website. If it turns out that it’s something that we want to distribute internationally or whatever then we can think about the tons of offers that we have but which we turned down. For Japan and for Europe, there are stores that bought a lot of CDs to sell overseas, but... the whole nature of my label and website is independence. That’s the theme.

RS: So you don’t want to get linked up with some distribution channel that might arouse problems again and keep everything under control?

JP: Yeah, you know, put it this way... I’m obviously professionally involved with Elektra and all these other companies and the whole theme of that is you sign contracts and give away partly what is yours. The theme of our label is to keep everything that’s ours and any time you involve other people obviously you have to pay them. It’s not something that we rule out, we might do that in the future, but as for now it’s a small enough project and we can handle it ourselves.

RS: Ok. I really didn’t know what to expect, certainly not progressive rock, but after listening to it a couple of times, I’m still not sure what to think of it. It has some touches of jazz, some classical... How would you label it?

JP: To me the main spirit is jazz and that it’s really improvised. When people ask me what it’s like I’d say... it’s instrumental...

RS: ...I hear a lot of Latin influences as well...

JP: Yeah, there’s definitely some Latin kind of stuff as well, but like I said, the main thing for me is that it’s improvised. And it reminds me a lot of the old Al DiMeola/John McLaughlin/Paco de Lucia trio that I used to be really into. There’s a live album they did which is called “Friday Night” and that was like one of my favourite albums. The vibe of it reminds me of that. A lot of high energy, high speed type of playing, but at the same time it’s really acoustic.

RS: Right. I’d like to talk a bit about the various tracks now. There are some strange names there. Like the opening track, Furia Taurina? Please shed a light.

JP: Well, that song is one that has that Latin or Spanish type of feel to it. So we thought of a Spanish name for it. Because of the intensity of the song we came up with this name. It means angry bull. You know, it rolls you over like a bull and it’s angry in an energetic sense.

RS: Who thought of that?

JP: Actually, there is a children’s book called ‘Ferdinand’ or ‘The Adventures Of Ferdinand’ or something. It’s about a bull and I thought I could maybe find a title from that book. It’s one of my favourite childhood books. My kids have it and I thought maybe I could find some terms having to do with bull fights. Because the whole thing sounds like a bull fight to us. So, after we got the bull theme and the angry and the fight thing Jordan asked some people who speak Spanish to translate it and come up with some phrases and that was one of them.

RS: Ok. The second song, Truth.

JP: Truth is a song that we felt was kind of sincere and we were talking at the time we were writing it about people appearing to be what they are not and how we admire people that are kind of honest with their personality. We had that kind of conversation that day so we called it Truth.

RS: Kind of like the Animals theme from Pink Floyd? Mainly people in the industry or in general?

JP: Definitely people in the industry. You know, we had just gotten back from Taiwan doing interviews and photo shoots, record people. We had just been in that kind of scene.

RS: Fife And Drum?

JP: Yeah, a fife is an old revolutionary war type of flute. Like the old American thing, you know, when Johnny comes marching home and stuff. With the snare drum and a high pitch flute. I believe the sound that Jordan was using on his keyboard when we were working on it was called Fife And Drum. (laughs) And it has sort of an Irish type of sound too.

RS: What about Hang 11?

JP: Yeah, that song is in 11/4, that’s the time signature and Hang 10 is a surfing term, so there you go.

RS: Ok. (laughs) Funny how those names are born. How about From Within?

JP: That’s an improvised piece that Jordan did on the spot during the show, so he just came up with that name.

RS: Because he was open and let it all flow?

JP: Yeah.

RS: Does the same apply to In The Moment?

JP: Exactly. Once again, it wasn’t planned at all. Right before we went on stage I said I wanted to do an improvised solo and I just said ‘do it around E’ and he said OK. So it was very much... in the moment.

RS: The last song. Black Ice?

JP: That’s a phrase I came up with on a plane or tour bus or something, I don’t remember, but it seemed appropriate because it’s a little bit more hard of a sound. That song by the way, the way it came out on there almost sounds like a demo idea for a possible Dream Theater song. It’s probably one of the ones that’s least appropriate for our acoustic setting, you know, because I use mostly electric on that one. But it’s still cool. And that night we did some other tunes as well. We did some Liquid Tension things. We did the two real slow things. State Of Grace and Hourglass. And we just did a couple of other things that could have made it onto it, but didn’t sound appropriate.

RS: Ok. Back to Music Man. Has the guitar officially been released, because last time you were still playing prototypes?

JP: Absolutely! It was released at the NAMM show, which was actually a really cool event. We released the guitar and they had a big All Star jam where I played with Steve Morse and Steve Lukather, Albert Lee and Vinnie Moore. It was really cool. If you go into my site and certainly if you go into the Ernie Ball site you can find information, but on johnpetrucci.com there is a lot of information about the guitar, the specs, the colours available, the prices. And there are a lot of pictures of the guitar and it’s just amazing. It came out so cool! One of the things that Sterling Ball told me when I was hooking up with him was ‘they won’t stop until it’s right’. And he is really into getting his artists the tools that they need.

RS: Which, I guess, was a major reason for you to switch to them?

JP: Yeah absolutely! I can’t tell you the type of relationship we have, the way it’s working with those guys. Every person that is involved makes you feel so welcome and they get out of their way to get things right. They’re really supportive, they are highly into sort of cutting edge business. The way they stay in the public eye and advertise and everything is really cool. They’re from California, very family orientated. It’s great.

RS: Cool. Last October you told me you would go down to the factory and stay a couple of days?

JP: Exactly. I did that. There are actually some pictures on their site and mine where you can see me checking and stuff... you know... working on the guitar. It was a great experience and we got all the real details. The thing about this guitar besides the sound and the electronics and the various pieces and types of materials, to me I wanted it to be really easy to play. So we spent a lot of time focusing on the contours of the body, the contour of the neck, so that it kind of fits in like a glove. And it came out amazing, really beautiful. And we did a 7-string model as well.

RS: So you are 100% happy?

JP: 100% happy! And it has a piezo pick up system in the bridge too, which... well... you can hear it on “An Evening With John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess”. That’s a piezo system on one of the prototypes, so it’s not an acoustic guitar, but actually electric. I can switch back and forth between those two sounds.

RS: Ok. I switch to something completely different now, too. Iris and Erik had an e-mail interview with Rena recently and one interesting thing came up. I think she might be the voice of a lot, if not all Dream Theater fans out there when she mentioned that she was hoping that one day you guys will either re-mix, or even rerecord with James, the “When Dream And Day Unite” album...

JP: Aaaah. Oh my God...

RS: Yeah, so... the word is out, how about it? Has there been talk or is it a definite no-go?

JP: Well, this is how I feel about it: can the stuff be re-mixed? Yeah, I mean to me it kind of sounds like shit. Oh well, it’s our first thing.

RS: Yeah, but it’s such a shame, because there is such great stuff on there.

JP: Well, you know, try to understand that when we did that, when we wrote that music and recorded it... I mean, I guess every band has its experience, but it was our first experience in the studio, we were really young. I look back and listen to those songs and to me it sounds real immature and I really have a desire to re-visit that stuff. It’s not a horrible idea to re-mix it. That could be a cool idea. Take those tapes and have someone like Kevin Shirley put his touches on it and re-mix it. As far as re-recording it, well, I’m never going to say never, who knows what will happen, but in order for us to take time and energy to do something like that, which nobody’s really interested in...

RS: Apart from not being content with the album sound wise, do you feel that it’s too long ago maybe and you’re not 100% behind the actual material.

JP: Yeah exactly. I kind of cringe when I hear some of the things, you know. I mean, it’s a part of our history and I’m proud of it to some extent, but anybody that progresses in their job... when you look at the early things that you did you go like ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I did that’.

RS: Ok, well that will surely have its effect on not having a desire to re-work the thing anyway.

JP: Yeah, like I said, we have to really be motivated, to collectively as a group want to spend some time and money to go in and re-record stuff. I suppose it wouldn’t be too hard to have the stuff re-mixed, though. Like I said, I’ll never say never... we keep our options open.

RS: We’ll see. In the meantime the DVD has been postponed again until the end of April due to technical problems. Can you be more specific?

JP: Well, most of the technical problems have to do with the sync of the audio to the video. That’s been a problem. The cool thing, I mean he is probably pulling his hair out... well I know he is... but Mike has directed and edited the whole thing. He has put a ton of work and time in it and to have it delayed as long, well he’s really upset about that, but I know he spent a lot of close attention to detail. Making sure that all the edits and technical stuff and effects were all correct. And one of the important things obviously is to make sure the music is sync’d up with the video. Apparently there is some sort of code malfunction. Fortunately Mike is on top of it, because what they do is... he makes corrections and sends them in and they send it back ‘Ok, it’s ready’, you know, ‘It’s ready to print’, but because of the type of person that he is he’ll watch the whole thing again and make sure... and make sure enough every time until nothing’s wrong. So, unfortunately it’s taking some time because of the technical problems, but fortunately Mike is on top of it.

RS: So the result will be worthwhile waiting for? Are you happy with it?

JP: Yeah totally! It’s so funny, because every time we go in to record a live thing we always say to ourselves ‘you know, we really should go and record a few nights and pick the best stuff’ but we never do that of course! We always end up recording the one night and fortunately we always pulled through... under pressure.

RS: Like “Live At The Marquee”.

JP: Yeah, and this time we played a really long show and everyone played really well, there was a lot of energy and the crowd was amazing. The fans were great and the atmosphere was great. Kevin recorded and produced it and it sounds incredible. It sounds really powerful and great, just as good as the album, sometimes even better! I’m really happy with it. And as far as the way it’s produced, like I said, Mike paid a lot of attention. He is really into film making and directing and DVD, so... he’s always busy with those scene options and things that you can do when you have a DVD player. Really cool editing and effects, kind of tying the filmed story in with the music. He did a really good job.

RS: So it’s not just the live show, but he put in all kinds of special features?

JP: Yeah, it’s packed. We played for 3½ hours or so and somehow, in some form or another, all of the music that we played is on that DVD. So it’s pretty intense.

RS: Wow! Definitely something to look forward to.

JP: Yeah, I really think it’s a good addition for people who are into the band. I’m psyched about it.

RS: Can’t wait! By the way, do you know if Mike has any touring plans with Transatlantic? They just finished recording the second album.

JP: We were talking about that the other day actually. About the different side projects that the guys are involved in and how it’s sort of time where we need to focus on what we’re doing as a group. Being that we’re going to go into the studio, I can’t imagine he has any touring plans at this point.

RS: Is this going to be another Dream Theater year – you know – record, release, promote and tour?

JP: Well, we’re probably not going to release it until the beginning of next year. It might be done by June or July, but you know... sometimes we’ll rush and release it before the fall and start touring immediately. We did so much touring. It’s kind of like we didn’t want to overstay our welcome in a lot of places. We might just wait until the beginning of the year and start fresh. This way it will have given us enough time away from a lot of the places and it will be exciting again. Because for example, we went back to Europe like four times.

RS: Yeah, we’ve been very lucky here, that’s true. Well, that’s everything for now. Do you have a special message for the Dream Theater fans out there?

JP: A special message?

RS: Yeah, a special message from John Petrucci to all fans, since this is sort of ‘the Petrucci edition’!

JP: Well, I’m personally really psyched about going into the studio again. One of my favourite parts of being able to do this professionally is the creative part. Writing and recording and making something come alive and watching it develop.

RS: The creation.

JP: Yeah, the actual creation I love. That’s my thing, I’m really into that. Besides that, you guys have been amazing. I mean, I’m not trying to butter you up, but...

RS: Oh, well thanks very much!

JP: Yeah – I mean, the whole job that you do with the fanzine and the communication that you keep and the closeness and tightness of all the fans... that’s definitely a situation that’s envied by a lot of bands, when a band can have that type of community. And I see it too, because one of the cool things about the internet obviously is the close connection, the one-on-one that you get from people and just going into my forum and answering people and listening to the feedback. There is definitely like a very cool tie with everybody. Everybody’s so devoted and I think that makes it so that we can keep doing it. We play progressive rock music you know, it’s not popular, but we’re able to do it and keep doing it and we’re able to play in more and more places around the world and for us... I mean... from the beginning we have been popular in places like Holland, Italy, Germany and France and I sometimes wonder why that is. I’m not sure why, but I’m grateful.

RS: Well, again thanks very much for your time.

JP: You’re welcome and thanks for putting this together.

Roots