Reaching the Highest Level: John Petrucci on Dream Theater's Crowning Glory
Friday, 17 February 2023
Written by Simon Ramsay
Photo: Rayon Richards
It doesn’t matter what you’re striving to achieve in this life, or which particular brand of music floats your boat, everyone can learn something from Dream Theater’s remarkable story. Whether it’s matching undoubted talent with a phenomenal work ethic, fighting outside perceptions or navigating crushing setbacks, the prog-metal legends have embodied everything that’s required to triumph with integrity over seemingly unbeatable odds.
You could easily devote an entire Wikipedia page to all the barbed wire fences Dream Theater have had to vault since they formed at Berklee College of Music in 1985. As well as negotiating a litany of music industry landmines, their once unfashionable fusion of mind-bending virtuosity, crushing metal riffage and sublime melodies was derided for a long time before the tide slowly began to turn.
When guitarist and founding member John Petrucci stepped up to collect a Grammy for Best Metal Performance, after two previous nominations, for the song Alien in 2022 it represented a peak for a groundbreaking act who’ve always understood that technical ability will get you nowhere without grit and determination.
Prior to the band touring the UK in support of 2021s ‘A View From The Top Of The World’, we spoke to Petrucci about that award winning evening, while also getting key insights into how Dream Theater’s process has allowed them to survive and thrive for five decades on their own unstoppable terms.
Given that winning a Grammy must have made you feel like you were in that position, ‘A View From The Top Of The World’ seems like a very prophetic title. So belated congratulations for landing that award and somehow managing to look cool and composed on what appeared to be a rather long walk to the stage.
You know what, that’s a really good point. We willed it to happen. But thank you very much. It was even longer in the early part of the day because everybody gets there, piles in and by the time you do the red carpet thing and mosey up, you’re sort of in the back. But as people win then they leave and you move up. It was fun, though. What a moment. I’ll never forget that.
I’d imagine something like that causes you to take stock and look back on all the highs and lows of your journey, maybe even get a little nostalgic and emotional about the whole ride?
It absolutely does and the thing with this career, or any career in the arts, is that it’s so uncertain. Whether it’s acting, dance, art or music, there’s no guarantees. It definitely takes a lot of perseverance and, along the way, we were fortunate enough to build a career. There were lots of moments of recognition within our community that have been amazing. Things only people in our bubble realise. Maybe you won a certain accolade or were in a certain magazine and it’s incredible to you, but the general public, they’re not in that world.
When something like this happens it’s more of a universal accomplishment that anybody can relate to who’s not in the business, not in the circle or not in that bubble. Not that she wasn’t already, but it made my mom so proud. As well as every aunt, uncle, cousin, neighbour, pharmacist, the bakery shop owner. It means so much and definitely makes you reflect like, ‘Man, I remember just sitting there being a kid, wanting to do this, looking up to Iron Maiden and wanting to have a career.’ Throughout all we’ve been through, the idea of winning a Grammy just felt so out of reach, especially with the kind of music we play.
You’ve often spoken about how unfashionable Dream Theater were when you began. What was the biggest misconception about the band and the one you’ve been most happy to have proven wrong?
When you use the word prog to describe technical music you get pigeonholed into being perceived as something without an emotional element in the music. That was always a misconception because, although the style of what we do tends to be more technical or has its roots in prog, we’re so focused on song structure, song crafting, melody and all the basic elements of songwriting. It’s so important to us because music is an emotional way of communicating with people without actually speaking. It’s all about moving people in some way when they hear something or see you play. That element of what we do is really strong.
So those misconceptions of ‘it’s too technical, there’s no feel’ is not the case at all. Classical music can become very technical at points, and requires a lot of skill from the musicians to play that music, but you’re not going to tell me some of the best symphonies aren’t moving in an emotional way just because, at times, there’s a technical element. I’m not comparing ourselves to classical, but the two approaches aren’t mutually exclusive.
Have any of your albums taken off more than you thought they would and become firm fan favourites, whereas others didn’t do what you were expecting and left you disappointed by the reaction?
That’s an interesting question. With ‘Images and Words’ we had no idea it would launch our career or that we’d have a gold record, radio hit or anything like that. We were just doing what we did. There was a lot of uncertainty before that album came out, with trying to find a singer for years, eventually getting signed, the management issues and all these different things that were going against us. So none of us had any clue that that would have done so well.
I wouldn’t say any album we’ve done was a disappointment because we always leave the studio feeling like, ‘This is our best effort at this point in time.’ There’s some that, in a way, I expected to do well and they did. You get a feeling as to the music’s connection and what you’re doing stylistically. ‘Train Of Thought’ was one of those records.I knew that was gonna be strong.
And then there’s times where you take major chances and you’re like, ‘This is gonna challenge our fanbase big time.’ You go in, still having the confidence, but knowing it might hit fans differently and ‘The Astonishing’ fell into that category. But there’s nothing we’ve done where I look back like, ‘I wish we didn’t do that or we should have done this differently or I’m disappointed in that.’ It’s all art that we made. They’re all stamps of where we were creatively as a band at that period in time and they’re all special and mean a lot to us.
Your entire career has been built on a combination of endeavour and musical expertise, something that’s reflected by your commitment to keep improving as a guitarist. Being a perfectionist has its good and bad points, so what are the pros and cons of having that type of personality in the industry you’re in?
The good part is when you have that mindset you’re focusing on the craft and trying to reach the highest level you can in what you’re doing. In my case it’s guitar, which is such a challenging instrument in so many ways. There are so many incredible players of all ages out there, and it’s just getting crazier and crazier. So, that perfectionist attitude drives you to want to practise and constantly work on your ability and technique, to make it so there’s nothing you can dream up in your head that you’re not able to play. That’s the goal. You might have some crazy sound in your head and want to be able to execute that on the instrument.
The negative side, and I think I’ve become good at harnessing this, but I’ve seen where it becomes debilitating for people, which causes an inability to let go. There has to be a point where the stuff is set free. You take chances and risks and there’s an element of uneasiness in the music and performance that’s kind of on edge. That sort of imperfection, it’s very much an element of rock ‘n’ roll and metal, it has to be there. If you watch Dream Theater and listen to what we’re doing, nothing’s perfect. I mean, everybody has an edge on us. Things could be on the verge of falling apart at any moment. It’s like you’re driving a really fast car, you gotta be careful and any slight move could end up in a crash.
So you’ve gotta let go and not get too caught up in the ego part of it. And nine times out of 10 it’s only you that hears these things. Nobody even notices. The amount of times I’ve walked off stage like, ‘Oh man, that was the worst show and blah blah blah’ and you see somebody and they’re like, ‘That was the best show. Oh my god. How do you play like that?’ It’s all in your head so you can’t let that perfectionism stop you from moving forward.
With regards conjuring what you hear in your head, on ‘A View From The Top Of The World’ you used an eight string guitar for the first time. How does that instrument allow you to further embellish your music and are there any parts on the record that are a good example of it in action?
The best way to look at it is the range of the instrument. Traditionally guitars have six strings and from high to low they cover a certain range. So if you picture a full scale piano, it goes a lot lower and a lot higher than a guitar. So what a seven or eight string guitar does, by adding more strings, you’re adding more range. If you’re sitting at a piano the eight string will allow you to go further to the left with your left hand. On ‘A View From The Top Of The World’ one song I wrote and recorded with the eight string was Awaken The Master. People can hear that’s my Ernie Ball Music Man Majesty eight string. It has such a rich, deep, incredible sound and opens up that range where you can do things, whether it’s with the bass, keyboards or things that are able to go lower, on the guitar that makes it sound so cool.
You made an announcement a month ago about the current European tour, where you promised there’d be some significant changes and additions to the set. Now it’s underway and the cat’s out of the bag, can you elaborate on what they are and why you implemented them?
We did a couple of things. We’re on tour in support of ‘A View From The Top Of The World’ and there’s a whole bunch of music from that record we’re so excited to play live. So we changed out a couple of the new songs for a couple of new new songs to play more material from that record. And we’re bringing back more ‘Awake’ songs too. It’s always fun when we’re over here to bust out a song like Caught In A Web and see the reaction. It means a lot to people. That came out in ‘94, so it’s another one of our early albums that our fans, especially in Europe, really appreciate.
And the other thing, Mike Mangini has been our drummer for 12 years now and there’s a lot of Dream Theater’s catalogue he hasn’t played live yet. So part of the thinking is, ‘What can we play with Mike that’s fresh?’ Without doing the full ‘Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence’ piece – which is really long – we took the last three movements from that record and it’s the first time Mike’s played that live with us.
It’s cool to bring that back and, in the midst of a lot of the technical stuff, a nice change. When we’re doing Solitary Shell you feel a noticeable shift because of the style of that record. And that’s another album that, you asked me earlier about taking chances on records, and that was another one where I remember having that feeling like, ‘Yes, I’m totally into this. I love it. I back it a million percent but I’m not sure how everyone is going to receive this.’ We had orchestral moments and lighter Dream Theater moments. But that turned out to be a fan favourite so it’s great revisiting it.
One of your toughest times came when Mike Portnoy left the band in 2010. How did you navigate such a testing period because, although a body blow, the way you bounced back and went on to hit new heights epitomises everything about Dream Theater’s near 40 year journey.
It was challenging on a number of levels. One was because somebody you’d known since you were both 18 years old, and played in a band together for 25 years and did all this stuff with, was all of a sudden not in your life any more on that level. That’s a big personal change, also a big professional change.
But it was also that kind of crossroads moment of believing in what you do, rolling up your sleeves and saying, ‘Alright, this is a challenge that’s being faced right now, it’s not gonna be easy, but I know we can do this. I know I can do this.’ That was my attitude, to get to work. And fortunately everything worked out for the best and we were able to continue on and achieve many great milestones since then. So you never know what life’s going to throw at you. These things happen and it’s the way you handle it. The way you face it. Do you fold or do you roll up your sleeves?
Dream Theater Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Fri February 17 2023 - MANCHESTER O2 Apollo
Sat February 18 2023 - BIRMINGHAM Symphony Hall
Sun February 19 2023 - GLASGOW SEC Armadillo
Tue February 21 2023 - LONDON Eventim Apollo
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