John Petrucci – Going The Distance

It’s one thing when you’ve created what is arguably the greatest album in your genre. It’s another when you surpass that milestone. Dream Theater’s new Distance Over Time is that album, and co-producer/guitarist John Petrucci is all over it. Bombastic, engrossing, and breathtaking, Petrucci’s guitar blazes on every track. Petrucci sat with VG to discuss the new music, touring, and the band’s work ethic.

Oscar Jordan: Distance Over Time is such a technically challenging record. Couple that with your catalog, your shows have to be exhausting.

John Petrucci: It’s a three-hour show. We did a bunch of songs from the new album, which is really exciting – then we did some older stuff. We did Scenes From a Memory in its entirety as a second set. It’s just a lot of fun.

We start way in advance – not only preparing music, but production. It takes a lot of work and there’s a lot of pieces that have to be in place. We have a great team.

OJ: The band moved into a house together while creating Distance Over Time.

JP: We decided to do a guy’s retreat. [laughs] We found this place in the Catskills. It was really beautiful – there was a converted barn on the property, with a gorgeous studio. There was a farmhouse where we stayed and wrote for a month. We decided to record there because there was such a good vibe in that barn. It sounded so incredible. We wanted to make sure we captured the magic.

OJ: Despite the ambitious concepts, the album has a lot of humanity.

JP: One of the things we were trying to capture was an organic approach. We wanted the listener to feel like a fly on the wall, hearing what Dream Theater really sounds like when we play together. The record was produced so the sounds are reflective of the room. It was very natural and very pure. The arrangements and orchestrations are set up so there are no rhythm tracks playing during solos; rhythm guitar drops out and you hear the pure sound of the band.

In terms of the direction, we wanted to visit that primal, riff-based heavy sound – the very pure melodic aspects. Lyrically and subject-wise, it had to mesh. It wouldn’t make sense to talk about topics that didn’t agree with the musical direction. We talked about it, and all wrote lyrics about things that were a bit more real – things about the human experience and the human condition. We reflected on bigger philosophies and things like that.

OJ: Did you use any new gear for the record?

JP: I brought my live rig into the studio. I’ve been using my signature model Mesa-Boogie JP-2C since we introduced it. It was parked there, so I just miked it up. The guitar sound is completely that signature Boogie. It’s such an unbelievable amp. Does everything I want it to do.

The guitars are my Ernie Ball Music Man signature guitars. Mostly, it’s The Majesty on everything. On ‘Paralyzed’ and ‘Out Of Reach,’ I used my JP BFR baritone signature – that’s how I get that low B-flat tuning.

That gear was the staple, but I was also able to get one of the new Majesty Tiger Eye guitars, so I recorded ‘Barstool Warrior’ with that. My Dreamcatcher pickups are all over the album, as well.

My signal path is very simple. I might use a pedal in front, like my Dunlop JP95 signature wah, or the TC Electronic Dreamscape, which has flanger and chorus.

To me, the best guitar sound is having a great guitar and an amp, and plug right in.

OJ: How does it feel to be such a strong influence on the contemporary prog-metal genre?

JP: I think it’s pretty wild. Our first album came out in 1989. There wasn’t the kind of prog-metal scene there is now. We were just doing our own thing – listening to Rush, Iron Maiden, and Yes, and we decided to put it all together. Now, the genre is so great, and so big. There are a lot of different offshoots. Thirty years later, to have young musicians hear what we were doing and be influenced by that, it’s really flattering. The more the better for the genre. There’s so much great music out there.

—Oscar Jordan