Dream Warrior

Led by the ferociously fleet-fingered John Petrucci, Dream Theater launch the most massive undertaking of their impressive career – the sprawling 34-song epic The Astonishing

by Joe Bosso

John Petrucci lets out a warm, self-deprecating laugh when I remind him of his opening remark in his first Guitar World cover story in November 2013: “Complacency is the enemy.”

“Clearly, I live by those words,” he says. “This album is the realization of that quote. It’s like, ‘What could happen if you had this very big idea?’ And the funny thing is, having the big idea is the easy part; seeing it through is where the hard work comes in. Fortunately, everybody in Dream Theater kept their goals in mind and stayed focused, and we achieved what we wanted to do.” He pauses, then re-emphases, “It was a lot of work, though.”

The album that Petrucci refers to is The Astonishing, which even by Dream Theater standards is something of a megaton explosion in both size and scope. Over the course of their 30-year career, the five-piece progressive-rock titans (Petrucci, singer James LaBrie, bassist John Myung, keyboardist Jordan Rudess, along with still-relative new guy, drummer Mike Mangini) have always done things in a big way – “Illumination Theory,” from their 2012 self-titled album, clocked in at over 20 minutes, and the title track of their 2002 double album Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence came in at just over 42 minutes – but The Astonishing is something else altogether, a sprawling, 34-song concept album spread out over two hours and 10 minutes on two CDs, one that Petrucci, who also produced, envisioned as a standalone show to be performed live in its entirety.

“It’s a lot to take in,” Petrucci says with a chuckle. “You have to kind of sit down and clear your mind, like you’re going to watch Lord of the Rings. But you know, when I presented the idea to the guys, right from the get-go, they weren’t daunted. They were like, “Yeah, this is awesome. Go for it. Let’s do it.” Not one person said, “Eh, I don’t know about this...” That was very encouraging to me, because I knew I was going to be asking a lot from everybody. They saw me in the back of the bus, in hotel rooms and on planes, writing every second I could, working on the story. Their support was just incredible.”

Petrucci weaves a bold and elaborate fantasy-oriented plot throughout The Astonishing – the Cliffs Notes version is that it’s set in a retro-futuristic post-apocalyptic dystopia in which a group of oppressed rebels rises up to overthrow an evil empire. (And in true rock opera tradition – with even an unintentional nod to Footloose, too – music is banned in Petrucci’s grand narrative.) “It is a complicated story,” the guitarist admits. “Part of the big idea was that it always could be more than just an album or a Dream Theater show. It could be a novel. It could be a movie or even a stage musical. It could be all of these different things. That’s part of this creative vision that I had, to make something that was bigger than we’ve ever done before.”

One might approach any concept album, particularly something this enormous, dreading clunky set pieces and bloated, cheesy fillers that smack of the worst kind of musical theater. Astonishingly (just had to go there), the record is a brilliantly sustained and compelling experience, and for Dream Theater’s legion of loyal fans who cheer on every second of the band’s epic, fleet-fingered excursions, it’s a bona fide treasure trove of chops-o-rama riches. Bravura musical phrases volley from player to player with dizzying, almost unbelievable flair and precision as the band traverses a myriad of song styles and forms: There’s pulverizing instrumentals (“Dystopian Overture,” “2285 Entr’acte.”), spirited prog workouts (“A Life Left Behind,” “Life of Betrayal”), widescreen power ballads (“When Your Time Has Come,” “Chosen”), stately symphonic rockers (“Act of Faythe,” “Begin Again”), and more than a handful of cuts (“The Walking Shadow,” “A New Beginning” and “Lord Nefaryus,” among others) that combine elements of art rock, classical, jazz, fusion and heavy metal in ways that defy easy attempts at categorization.

The cinematic gestalt of the album is bolstered by lush orchestral and choir arrangements courtesy of David Campbell, a renowned composer and conductor whose extensive credits include films such as Foxcatcher and Brokeback Mountain and records by everyone from Pink to Rush. “Everything David delivered blew us away,” raves Petrucci. “Listening to what he did with our music was so gratifying and thrilling. It’s like, you have an idea of what it can be, and then there it is, fully realized in front of you and sounding just incredible.”

In many ways, the writing and recording of The Astonishing was phase one of the project; phase two is the world tour, which kicks off February 18 at the London Palladium. “A whole new adventure is about to begin,” Petrucci says thoughtfully. “We’re going to be playing multiple nights in a lot of cities, and we’ve booked some incredible theaters and symphony halls. We’re doing Radio City Music Hall, too, which will be pretty special. There’s a lot to work out before the first show, but we should have everything figured out by then.”

A few years ago, you said that you were working on a solo album. Did that fall by the wayside because of The Astonishing?

Totally. As soon as we were done with the previous world tour, Jordan and I started writing for this album. There was no hole in the schedule, so I couldn’t continue with the solo record. It wasn’t for lack of material or interest. Anything that’s recorded for the solo album is still in demo form. In fact, I played three of the songs on the last G3 tour I did in South America. Hopefully, one day I can get into the studio and get it done.

Even though you seem like a pretty driven guy, does something as big as The Astonishing take over your life? Did you drive your wife crazy when you were working on it?

[laughs] Well, I’m lucky because Rena, my wife, is extremely supportive and helpful to me. I mean, sure, this record was a big undertaking, and I...I wear it, you know? But Rena’s a musician too, and because we’ve known each other for so long, she’s very intuitive to what I’m thinking and feeling, and she helps out so much.

If I come home and I’m stuck on something and want to bounce it off of her, you know, she’s there. Even in the case of finding the artist who did the artwork for this album, she helped out there, too. For me to have that teamwork and support in my own home from Rena is really amazing. Like you said, it can take over and consume you. She gets that and understands it.

Pete Townshend wanted to follow Tommy with a rock opera called Lifehouse. He wound up scrapping it, and The Who recorded Who’s Next as a regular record. Did something like this ever occur to you?

It didn’t occur to me during this process, no. Once I dove in, there was no turning back. There were several moments when I thought, What? Are we out of our minds? I kept using the phrase, “It’s like climbing a mountain.” It’s like you’re at the bottom of Everest and you need to get to the top. It’s daunting. But no, there was never a thought of “Let’s turn back.” It was always forward thinking. That said, after this whole thing, when everything is said and done and this album is out and the world tour is over, yeah, we might do a regular album.

What do you do to blow off steam while recording? Do you ever say, “I’ve got to do something else. I have to get away from it all”?

I do, sure. One of the things I love to do is just play music. Music is such a great outlet for that type of thing, for expression. It’s totally therapeutic. And also, I got new some gear, like these new Boogie prototypes. I’d plug them in and just crank them in the studio, to the point where they were rattling the building. The guys in the band would walk in like, “Oh, my God!” [laughs] That would just be my way of just getting back to the core primal feeling of playing guitar loud through a Boogie, and that definitely helped me escape the bigger concept.

So no fishing trips or playing basketball or anything like that? Just music?

The way that we did this was, we would work five days a week and take off on weekends. The weekends always ended up being time to do more normal things. I like to use my smoker a lot – you know, for cooking. Sterling Ball turned me on to this a few years ago, and I got totally hooked on it. It’s become a cool hobby of mine. So yeah, I would do that on weekends, just normal family things to unwind and let go.

Rush’s Clockwork Angels had a dystopian sci-fi plot to it. What is it about that setting that captures musicians ‘ imaginations?

I think it’s the idea that dystopia is a product of something that went wrong now. The idea of the way we’re living now and taking some specific aspect of that and thinking, What would happen if this got out of control? Fast forward 100, 200, 300 years, and that’s where that dystopia comes from.

I think it’s a really interesting premise, and there’s so many movies that come into play. A Clockwork Orange, The Hunger Games, Mad Max, Escape from New York – there’s tons of them. In this case, this story is set about 300 years into the future, and there was a societal breakdown and things go back to the way they were back in feudal times. If you take just where we live in North America, instead of there being countries and states, now there’s empires and tyrants who rule over the land. Everybody else is a peasant, and they work for the emperor.

My dystopian premise was in the way that robotics are taking over a lot of human jobs – everything from just assembly-line stuff to even self-driving cars. I thought, What if that happened with music and art? It’s like, humans don’t make music anymore because it’s made by machines. That’s what’s on the cover, the ‘NOMACS,’ or noise machines, and that’s what led to the breakdowns. In the story, in a far-off area of this new empire, somebody is born who has the gift of music, and that’s the character Gabriel. He prompts a revolution, and that’s where the story begins.

How did you seek out David Campbell to conduct the orchestra and choir?

We knew that we wanted to have a real orchestra and choir. I didn’t want to use synth and sample libraries. I wanted this to have the organic impact from real instruments, not only the orchestra and choir, but Jordan would also be playing a real Steinway piano, B3 organ and so on.

We needed to get somebody who could handle a big project like this, not only from the standpoint of somebody who had the cinematic sensibility, but he also had to know how to work with rock bands. I didn’t know who that might be, but one day I was watching a making-of thing that came on a Muse album, and it showed the band in the studio working with this guy conducting strings and brass and working with scores. I was like, “This would be the ultimate guy.” As it turned out, [engineer and mixer] Rich Chycki had worked with David Campbell on a Rush song. We called him up, and he took the call and took the gig. He was really interested right from the get-go. It was pretty amazing.

What do you give David to work with? And what does he give you back? Can you explain the process a bit?

Yeah, sure. After I shared the whole concept with the band, Jordan and I started to collect ideas – we did that for months. Then we finally decided, “Okay, let’s officially sit down, flesh out the story, break it in to parts and organize everything.” So that’s when we started the demos. We did that partly at my house, partly at Jordan’s house, and then we eventually moved into Cove City and did it officially in February.

We were just going to lay down guitar and piano and send that to David. But we started putting down string parts, putting down brass, putting down choir. We’d have these pretty elaborate and complete demos. No vocals, no drums, but just guitar, piano and sample library orchestral and choir parts.

By the time we shared this with David, he had a really good idea of what we wanted, and he started to organize it and figure it all out. Sometimes we needed specialty things, a marching band or bagpipe or whatever, and David would say, “Oh, I know the perfect guy...” We spent hours with him on Skype working out all the details.

James went to Rich’s studio in Canada to record vocals. Simultaneously, the orchestra was being recorded in Prague in the Czech Republic, and choirs were done in L.A. There was a lot going on all at one time. We would listen in to David’s sessions via streams or Skype, and we’d make comments. We never actually got together in person. In the end, he sent a huge drive with all of his arrangements. The first time I actually heard it all together was during the mix process, and David is just hearing it all...now. [laughs] He hadn’t heard vocals or drums; he hadn’t heard any real guitars or solos or anything. He just had these demos. I haven’t spoken to him yet since I sent them. He and his team are in for a big listening surprise.

Let’s get into some of the songs. “The Gift of Music” features a very lively instrumental section, but the backbone of the song is the riff. Do you go through various iterations of a riff before you say, “that’s the one”?

A little bit. That riff is based off of what was happening in the story. I thought at that point, if you heard the overture, and you hear all of the different themes that are going to happen, this is the first vocal introduction from the narrator, Arhys. So I thought that the riff had to be energetic, lively and positive. I just picked up the guitar and played that riff. It took a little crafting to get it exactly the way I wanted it, but the crux of the riff came right as soon as I had the melody and the conceptual idea.

Actually, in a bigger sense, having the story to write music to was really liberating, because sometimes you might sit down to write a song and you have no idea what to do. There was never that case here – I knew exactly what to do.

I hear a certain Steve Howe influence in both the acoustic and electric playing in “A Life Left Behind.” do you get that, or is that just me?

Definitely. There’s something about the whole intro to that song. I’m not sure if I’ve ever done it before, but it’s all played on acoustic. Even though it’s progressive and there’s a lot of notes and it’s moving, I would normally tend to play that on electric.

I think that guitar sound definitely has a Yes/Steve Howe influence, for sure, especially how it’s coupled with the piano and the kind of vocal sounds coming from the synth. Even the single note arpeggios done in harmony with the piano, that’s a very Yes sound.

And there’s no guitar solo.

No guitar solo on that song. [laughs] There are 34 songs on the album, and not all of them have guitar solos. Of course, you’ve got to have guitar solos... because you just have to. It’s fun. It’s a big part of what I do as a guitar player. But in this case, there’s no solo. The beginning makes up for it because it’s all that acoustic playing, and that’s very challenging.

At a certain point in “A New Beginning,” you do a series of pick scrapes, which gives way to a dramatic section of sustained notes. It’s not overly technical; rather, it feels like you’re playing with pure sound there.

Yeah, yeah. Totally. The demos we were doing were very stripped down. I said, “All right, I want to have this extended out where I just play over a vamp.” So we put down this little drum machine, and I laid down an impromptu guitar solo, and started doing this pick scrape and the noises. I ended up redoing the whole thing, diving deeper over the changes, but one of the things that I wanted to make sure I kept was the improvised pick scrapey thing, so I did another version. That’s what you hear in the song. When it was being mixed, Rich actually took that off, but I said, “Aw, man, you’ve got to put that back. “

There’s a spot in “Moment of Betrayal” where you and Jordan link up in a crazy-ass unison passage in the solo. Who leads when you’re doing this? Are there any points where one of you guys go, “you lost me”?

First of all, when we’re writing, that could come from either of us. It might be something that I write that Jordan harmonizes, or sometimes he comes up with it and I have to harmonize or play in unison. I learned my lesson a long time ago that this can be tricky; there are things that are easy to play on the keyboard that aren’t so easy to play on the guitar. You want it to be challenging, but it has to sit in a friendly way on the guitar. That kind of challenge is what pushes me.

“The Path That Divides” – are you the first guy to play guitar during a sword fight?

[laughs] Yeah, right? It’s very possible. Again, every song correlates to a part of the story. There are several areas on the album where we put sound effects into try to illustrate what’s going on in the story. This is a big moment where Arhys is killed. We spent a lot of time working on all of those sword hits. We were like a little movie-producing sound effects studio for a couple of days. We put time aside to find the right grunts and swishes. You can hear the sword going into flesh, coming back out and somebody falling on the floor.

“Our New World” is centered around a big, beautiful Queen-like chordal riff.

That riff is actually based off of the guitar motif theme in another one of the new songs, “A Savior in the Square,” but played in a heavy way. I did a dropped D tuning, and I had the chorus set a certain way – very Van Halen. I wanted it to be a positive, majestic and uplifting rock riff.

Speaking of “majestic,” did your new Music Man signature guitar the Majesty play a big part in the record?

Absolutely – a huge part. In fact, the Majesty is basically on the entire record. Except for “The Path That Divides,” on which I used a JP15, the Majesty is the only guitar – the six- and seven-string models. Aside from that one track, this album is all about that one guitar.

So at no point do you say, “let me pick up an ES-335” or something?

No, not at all. I can get everything I need not only from my Music Man guitars, but specifically the Majesty. The Majesty is like this album: It took a couple of years in the planning and making, and we took chances in the design and direction. I’m really proud of it. The relationship I have with Sterling, Brian and Scotty [Ball] at Music Man, and Drew [Montell] is very special. Everybody is so dedicated. Oh and I am debuting a new Music Man JP16 at NAMM, which is going to be really cool. We brought back the forearm scoop, the contour, and it’s my first guitar to have a Floyd Rose.

What acoustics did you use?

I’ve been playing Taylors for years, and for this album I got a brand-new 916. It’s got this really warm, deep, full sound. Check it out on “A Life Left Behind,” how in the opening it has more of a lead role. I also used a Taylor 12-string-you can hear that on the beginning to “Heaven’s Cove.” That guitar sounds gorgeous.

Effects-wise, I assume you used your signature TC Electronic Dreamscape Tone Print pedal?

That’s the pedal I went to for flange or chorus. Any time the effect goes through the front of the amp, that’s that pedal. I also used the TC Helix phaser – I don’t know if it was a prototype, but it was one of the first ones. I also used my Dunlop wah pedal. Any solo that you hear the wah on is my signature Wah pedal, which is coming soon. It’s really exciting because I’ve been using Dunlop wahs forever. Doing a signature wasn’t really something that came up until now, and the one I used, a prototype, was fantastic.

You’re going to play 34 new songs on tour. Isn’t that a lot to remember?

[laughs] It’s going to be absolutely insane. It’s over two hours and 10 minutes of new music. Visuals will be a big part of the show. There will be animation playing during this whole thing to illustrate what’s going on in the story. It all needs to be synched up, and part of that video will be playing back the orchestra and choir that David recorded. As a band, we have to be right on the money with everything or else it could be a total nightmare. It’s what I talked about – climbing up a mountain. Right now we’re staring up at it, but we’ll get there.

Box

Dream Come True

John Petrucci is beaming over his new JP2C amp, the first signature model offered by his longtime pals at Mesa/Boogie.

John Petrucci’s relationship with Mesa/Boogie goes back 30 years. In fact, Doug West, Director Of Marketing and R&D, remembers receiving a call from the guitarist, then a student at the Berklee College of Music in the mid Eighties, when he was looking to order a Studio preamp. “We started talking, and I just immediately liked him,” West recalls. “John told me he and bassist John Myung were starting a band and that he had just found this drummer who turned out to be Mike Portnoy. The whole thing was just beginning.”

Petrucci got his preamp, and he later ordered a Quad preamp, and after that, West says, he and the guitarist kept in regular touch. “John was always looking to try our newest amps, and he often got first run stuff, just as it was coming out,” West says. “He was always a great customer, and then he became a great friend to everybody here. His feedback over the years has been very helpful.”

Out of the many Mesa/Boogie amps he’s played, Petrucci’s favorite remains the Mark IIC+, introduced in 1983. “There’s something about that amp that’s so special and musical,” says Petrucci. “It’s been on many Dream Theater albums over the years.” And so it came as no surprise that when Petrucci approached the folks at Mesa/Boogie to produce a signature amp – a company first, save for a limited-edition run of Carlos Santana King Snake tribute models – his goal was to create a splashy, high-performance update of the Mark IIC+. Even the name would have a bit more kick: the JP2C.

The guitarist loaned West and Mesa founder, designer and president Randall Smith his favorite Mark IIC+ for reference. “Over the years, I’ve learned a few more tricks about identifying individual sources of magic in different amps from different eras,” says Smith, “and more importantly, how to take those elements and reproduce them repeatedly. Part of that involves locating and identifying the result of ‘happy randomness’ that occurs in part values and wiring and making sure it can be duplicated accurately in every amp we make.”

“I wanted the same circuit and transformer as the C+,” says Petrucci, “but at the same time I wanted to take it into the future based on some performance requirements that I had. One of the limitations of the original amp is that it’s basically two channels that share the same EQ and input gain, so right away we changed that.”

The guitarist’s request for three channels – one for clean tones and two dedicated to lead sounds – with two graphic EQs, effects loop and reverb controls proved at first to be quite a challenge. “Especially in a smaller 17-inch chassis to make rack mounting. possible,” says Smith. “John threw down the gauntlet.”

According to West, the JP2C’s clean channel has more headroom than the IIC+ did. “It also has a bunch of tricks from the Mark V and even Carlos Santana’s King Snake.” Breaking down the lead modes, he says, “They’re identical in a way – the first is set for crunch rhythm, but the other is a hair hotter, so it feels creamier and more fluid. We put pull-pots on the Gain and Presence controls in the two Lead Channels as well, so you can even bump them up the equivalent of one number on the Gain and re-voice the Presence.”

The JP2C features MIDI Channel and Feature select capabilities as well as Mesa/Boogie’s CabClone speaker cabinet simulator, and for good measure it packs on an additional new twist called “Shred,” which can also be triggered via MIDI. “This allows you to shift the upper harmonics and mids,” Petrucci explains. “If you’re playing a seven-string or a low-tuned guitar and you’re doing some low riffs, when you kick on ‘Shred’ it adds more clarity and shine, so you can really hear the notes. It’s pretty cool.”

Production models of the JP2C roll out in February, but Petrucci offers listeners an early preview of the amp on Dream Theater’s The Astonishing. “I use protos of the amp on the new record,” he says. “I’m really so happy with how it turned out. Boogie’s never done a signature amp, and this one was designed by Randy himself, so it’s pretty exciting. I couldn’t be more proud.”

That goes double for Smith, who says, “From the very first notes out of the very first prototype, the JP2C had the same urgent, fiery attack, the voice-like envelope and liquid sustain, the same layered harmonics and all of the other sought-after characteristics of the greatest IICs we ever made, and then some. The JP2C is the IIC+ aficionado’s wildest fantasy fulfilled.”