Opening Axe: John Petrucci Under The Influence

Fresh from a press junket in Japan, Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci is at Beartracks Recording Studio in Suffern, N.Y., where he is setting up for his first solo recording venture. “It’s all instrumental, with Dave LaRue on bass and Dave Descenzo on drums—no vocals or keyboards,” he says. This isn’t the first time Petrucci has recorded outside Dream Theater; his Liquid Tension Experiment project with fellow DT vets Mike Portnoy (drums) and Jordan Rudess (keyboards), along with bassist Tony Levin, thrilled fans of über musicianship. So, what fans want to know is, will this record be an extension of DT, LTE , both, or something altogether different?

“It’s expanded a bit from Dream Theater,” Petrucci says. “Some of the stuff is real heavy, but it’s all very melodic. Obviously, I play guitar in Dream Theater and write the music, so there will be elements that are in Dream Theater, but also some added things that Dream Theater doesn’t do.”

Speaking of Dream Theater, their latest release, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, is scheduled to hit shelves any day now. A two-disc set, the first disc features textbook Dream Theater: epic songs of imagery and words exploring universal issues, from the death of a loved one to faith to the morality of genetic science. But it’s the over-40-minute title track on the second disc that is sure to be a live concert favorite. “It’s not really a concept album,” explains Petrucci. “It’s different from Scenes From a Memory in that it doesn’t contain a single, continuous storyline. It’s about six different characters, each with some sort of mental illness.”

ARTIST: Steve Morse “As a guitarist, the most influential player to me has been Steve Morse. He’s somebody I’ve been into for a really long time, and I’ve been fortunate enough as my career developed to get to know him, become friends, and tour together. That’s taken our whole relationship to a level I couldn’t have dreamed of when I was younger and listening to the [Dixie] Dregs. I can remember the first time I heard them. I had been playing guitar for a bit, and I heard ‘The Bash,’ and I was so blown away. It opened my eyes and made me change my goals; it made me set goals that were more specific as to what I wanted to accomplish and how I wanted to get there.”

ALBUM: Yes Yessongs (Atlantic) “Yessongs was one of my first introductions to Yes. It’s a live, double album, so there’s a lot of stuff from different Yes albums. The whole way their band is laid out—guitars, drums, vocals, keyboards, bass—is the way Dream Theater is laid out. And the way they write longer songs, long instrumental sections, progressive music with time changes—everything they’re about—was a big influence. Because up to that point, I had been listening to more straight -ahead stuff, so that record definitely influenced me.”

SONG: “2112” from Rush’s 2112 (Mercury) “I think ‘2112’ by Rush influenced me early on and was a foreshadowing of what I would do with my own music. It’s an epic piece and a concept as well. I don’t know that there’s one section in particular; it’s just one long song, which parallels a lot of what we do in Dream Theater.”

—Michael Mueller