John Petrucci interview (excerpt)

Is it hard for you, being thought of as a guitar icon, having so many fans that hold you so high up there, do you feel pressured to play the next craziest thing, to play something faster? How do you block all that influence out?

Well, first of all, I’m humbled by that. I’ve said this a lot: I love playing guitar. I consider myself a student of guitar, and there are so many incredible players out there. And they’re getting younger and younger, so the world of the electric guitar has just exploded – what people are doing is like insane, so if anything, that becomes inspiring. It’s not like a competitive thing but it’s an inspirational thing, and if there’s any pressure put on me... maybe this sounds cliché, but I think I put it on myself. And the reason is – because I’m always trying to go somewhere where I haven’t before with either the music or the sound or the production or the songwriting or the licks and everything. I want to keep myself interested; I don’t want to get lazy and just play the same lick and solo I did before. I put that pressure on myself because it makes the process more interesting; it makes guitar playing more fun, to constantly have challenges. And I put that pressure on myself. Having said that, certainly watching all these players out there doing amazing stuff, it definitely keeps you on your toes. I mean, the last thing I want to do is release a record and be like, ‘Uh, he got lazy.’ I’m always gonna try 120%.

Who are some of the up-and-comers, the next generation guys that you follow?

Well, all you have to do is look at the lineup of my Guitar Universe camp – some of the guys are established for sure but, I mean, look at the collection of talent on there and you’ll see the names. Doing an event like that, even the ones I’ve done in the past with those players, it’s amazing. It’s like the level of talent is just off the hook. It’s so cool jamming together, watching guys play and perform, asking questions, trading stories, seeing them teach – it’s amazing.

When you were starting out playing, I guess it was, ‘I got an amp, I got a guitar. That’s it, I’m a guitar player.’ At what point do you become professional and that stuff becomes important?

When you’re first starting out, there is a lot of experimentation with different gear and different ways of doing things. You learn by experience and you make mistakes, you figure out what you like and what you don’t like, and what you shouldn’t do. You tape your cables down when you’re on stage because you can easily step on them, and for me, you know, I was always into the gear side. Like how your physicality is influenced by what you like as far as an instrument and how guitar players are so sensitive to that, about how a guitar feels and the action, the neck size, what the body is made of, how heavy the instrument is... Also that turns into a tone thing. My whole thing is about having a tone mission, and about your journey that you go on. That’s more like a sound thing, so what kind of amplifier you enjoy playing through, what kind of plug-ins or modeling, whatever it is. I’ve always been super into that, so that’s another side of my career that I developed, working with the companies that make this incredible gear and I’ve used it forever and have been around it forever, whether that be Dunlop, DiMarzio or Ernie Ball and Boogie, TC Electronic... And getting to work with them, and work with the brilliant engineers and their teams and their innovators, to figure out whatever I’m hearing in my head or whatever I want to feel, turn that into a piece of musical gear that not only helps me achieve my tone mission, but that can help other people out there as well... And to kind of answer your question, as a roundabout way, it’s like something that happens over time. It’s something I was always into, but I don’t know where it crossed to part of my professional career. In the beginning, it’s just things you’re trying and you latch onto something. It could be a guitar pick, but it crosses into, ‘OK, I get to work with the company that makes that guitar pick to just make it a little bit different for my needs.’ It happened over time, it happened as a result of, thankfully, success and experience, but yeah, it definitely was a gradual thing.

John also said when asked about the guitar solo he’s most proud of:

We put out a lot of music; there’s a lot of solos, and I’m proud of many of them. I enjoy playing them live, and the ones that I might mention might be kind of typical, but they sort of stand out to me. One of them is ‘Under a Glass Moon.’ There’s something about that solo, and some of my soloing approaches are more improvised, and that was a very – a constructive type of solo. I don’t know, it came out really interesting. At the time, I was just going to all these different places in that one solo, and sometimes, that happens and you turn around and listen to it and you’re like, ‘That’s not good.’ I don’t know, I just put all these things together and when I listened back, I was like, ‘That’s kind of cool.’ It just was this interesting thing for me, and it turned out to be fun to play live and everything else. Another one, let’s see, there’s a solo in ‘The Best of Times’ that just – it’s a song that Mike Portnoy had written the lyrics for, about his father passing away – that’s the story behind that. It was all fresh and new, so it was a very emotional time, and I don’t know, when I listen back to those solos, there’s something about it that’s special, so that’s a favorite. It’s not a song that we played live, but it’s a moment that I’m proud of for sure.

I guess Dream Theater will be heading into the studio soon to work on a new record?

We will. That wasn’t the plan initially, but like most bands, everybody’s trying to figure out how to adapt and pivot to what’s going on. The future of touring is definitely uncertain as to when that will pick up and resemble what we’re all used to. It could be a year from now; it could be longer, it could be shorter... Certain countries are starting to do things, social-distance concerts, and drive-in concerts, but with all of that in mind, we decided the best thing for us to do is not sit around and wait but to make music. So we’re gonna make new music, we’re going to go in the fall and start working on a new record. I’m sure it will not be out until considerably into 2021, but we’ll start work on it in the fall.