Interview with John Petrucci on “Terminal Velocity”

Toni Marchante / David Aresté

John Petrucci is one of the best guitarists of this generation, with a very personal and peculiar style, where he mainly combines technique, speed, passion and great melodies; forming part of the cast of greats of the electric guitar of this time. John Petrucci, guitarist for the band Dream Theater , presents his second solo album, after fifteen years of waiting. The work with his band, the tours and the participation in other projects (tours with G3, clinics and others) have been lengthening in time the moment to crystallize what in the end has been “Terminal Velocity”; an album that, while being instrumental, presents innovations with respect to his first “Suspended Animation”. We contacted him by phone days before the digital TV release to tell us about the current situation, that new album, his reunion with Mike Portnoy after so many years without working together, as well as telling us things about his band Dream Theater and their next releases.

MS: Hi John, how are you? It is a pleasure to talk to you... We hope you are well and safe...

JP: Yes, thank you, We are safe and ok. We’re locked here in New York. It has not been easy, but thankfully everybody is safe and healthy. I hope you are ok and safe as well.

MS: Yes, thank you... We could start talking about this lockdown, maybe it was a time for reflection and think that you have more than 30 years of musical career as composer and producer. Looking back, how do you assess your career to date?

JP: Well, I’m very thankfully for the experience... the kind of music that Dream Theater plays which is not mainstream music, you know, it’s progressive metal music and we’ve been able to have an incredible career internationally and the so many amazing audiences around the world. So, you know, when I look back I’m just very grateful very thankful for being able to have this gift and to be able to do this.

As a living, I think it’s really special and it’s something that I don’t take for granted for sure.

MS: Tell us about your guitars, you begun with your Ibanez Picasso JPM100 P1, and nowadays you have your own Music Man “Signature”, 6 and 7 strings but, which model do you feel most comfortable with? Do you think that you have your best guitar? 

JP: I definitely think I have my best guitar. I’ve been with her anymore Music Man for 20 years now. It’s been an amazing relationship and we have developed. Some of the I think some of the world’s really most beautiful and best guitars on the planet, the latest one the Majesty guitar has been just so incredible and so many people are enjoying it and to me it’s just the greatest guitar in the world. For years I have taken people to work on them, it has been very easy.

MS: How many guitars do you have?

JP: Approximately, I probably have around 300 or more guitars, 

MS: It is available your second solo album “Terminal Velocity” in digital format. Cd format and vinyl comes out in October, why so long release dates between two formats?

JP: The process of testing and pressing the vinyl takes a long time in addition to the distribution throughout the world, so by now releasing the digital version you can listen to it wherever you want, and if you want to have the cd or the vinyl you can buy them by preorder.

MS: What can you tell us about this album? Does it reflects your actual style playing the guitar?

JP: Definitely, it does... There is a lot of music on this record is brand new... reflects my current style and technique, that compiles all of I do. Some of the music is a little older, you know, some of the songs I wrote several years ago the song Gemini the one song I wrote a long time ago. That’s from the early 90s and it’s something that I never recorded and always hope to record so it’s kind of a little bit of everything. You know, it it’s definitely some new music but it also it also includes music that I wrote some time ago as well.

MS: Do you think this album is for all kind of audience or only for guitarist? 

JP: Well, you know, I mean it’s guitar instrumental music. So I think that it will mostly appeal to guitar players, but I hope not only guitar players because you know instrument. Music could be enjoyed by anybody and you know for me I try to write music that’s interesting that people can look forward to listening to, if they go on a drive and they want to listen to music or go for a jog or run or go to the gym or whatever. I think it’s great music that could be very inspiring and very positive. So hopefully it’s not only for guitar players, but I think that obviously there’s going to be a lot of musicians.

MS: We can saw “Happy Song” and “Glassy Eyed Zombies” in your last G3, but it took 15 years to release this album, when did you composed the other songs?

JP: You’re right “Glassy Eyed Zombies” and “Happy song” I played on G3 So I wrote those several years ago. I also wrote “The Way Things fall” in that same time period and “Gemini” as I mentioned, I wrote that song a long time ago the early 90s, but all the rest of the songs all of the other five songs. I wrote in March ... between March and May, so that “Snake in my boot”, “Temple of Circadia”, “Terminal Velocity”, “The Oddfather” and “Out of the blue”. Those are all brand new songs, it took me 15 years, but I finally got to record it. So excited that it will be coming out really soon. Only a few days from now.

MS: For this album you have worked with Dave LaRue on  bass, someone in you trust since your first album and G3, how do you value his contribution to the album?

JP: Dave is wonderful. I mean he is one of the best musicians that I know and he’s an amazing bass player and like you said, I’ve been playing with him for a long time. He played with me on the first g3 tour back in 2001. He recorded on my first solo “Suspended animation” and I am toward so much with him on so many G3 tours and also he’s done my guitar Universe camps as well. So I have a lot of musical experience with Dave and I have so much respect for him as musician and I think he did a phenomenal job on this album as always and I can’t wait for people to hear what he did. He’s just unbelievable.

MS: Obviously, the most media news is that you are working with Mike Portnoy again. Did you missed working together?

JP: It’s been obviously over 10 years and so it’s really nice to work with Mike again of a very very happy that he agreed to do this record. I had wrote all the music first and I recorded all the guitars first so we didn’t really get to play together, but he did come up to my studio and record the drums in my studio, which was great. We had a great time like was you know, he was really easy going. He did a great job on the out by thinking drumming sounds phenomenal on this and I’m so happy we were able to do something musically again after so long. It’s really means a lot to me.

MS: Now that the second album is out, is there any possibility to release “Suspended Animation” in cd or vinyl format for people who do not know it?

JP: Well, I think for the first time, you know, I made “Suspended Animation” available digitally and streaming for the first time ever a few weeks ago. So people can hear it that way, you know, when I first release that album, I did it on my own record label “Sound My Music” Just the Way terminal velocity is also on some of my music but I mean CDs and my wife and I we sold the CDs out of our house.

Yeah, that was the only way that people can get them. So, you know once those sold out they weren’t available anymore. So I just 15 years later made it available digitally and streaming if there’s a demand for final for suspended animation or more CD’s than yeah, I’d be happy to do that. It’s not really part of the plan right now though it is available for the first time now, get it on Apple music or Spotify or you could you know download it on iTunes or Amazon music. So it’s out there for people to enjoy them.

MS: Let’s talk about Dream Theater, the global pandemic has interrupted your “Distant Over Time” tour and 20th Anniversary of “Scenes From A Memory”. Maybe this lockdown has left you time to advance in new compositions, right? 

JP: Well, we were able to do a lot of touring thankfully but you said for “Distance Over Time” and “Scenes from a Memory”. We play through Europe twice through North America twice. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to play in Asia and Australia we were supposed to do that in the spring but because of the pandemic we weren’t able to.

We’re not sure when touring is going to start again, it may be a year from now maybe longer it might be sooner. If there’s a vaccine, you know, we don’t know, you know, that’s a very uncertain time. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to go back into the studio instead of waiting. We’ll go back in in about a month or so and we’ll start working on a new album and that album will come out sometime next year probably later in the year, but It makes more sense for us to do something like that instead of just you know, kind of doing nothing and waiting because the pandemic has impacted all of the bands in the world all the musicians all the live performers who have been able to work. So it’s important that we stay active that we say creative and that you know, we do with it we do it where we’re able to do.

MS: We were lucky and we could see you in Spain this year in January. What conclusions do you have from the tour? 

JP: Man, We had so much fun on the tour, you know, first of all, the reaction that the band got to “Distance Over Time” was just really awesome. I mean people in Spain really gave us a great response to the record. It did really well for us and made us very happy to see so many people enjoying it but also in addition to that as you mentioned we were celebrating that the 20th anniversary of the release of “Scenes from a Memory”. And so those concerts were really special not only for us but for people at the shows, we had a great time and like I said, you know fortunately we were able to come at the time through Europe and play in Spain and other countries and in North America and so glad we got the opportunity to do that. The Spanish audiences were great as always. For a fantastic and we had fun.

MS: Which is the most difficult song to play about Scenes...?

JP: Probably Beyond this life. That’s a very best song as a lot of difficult moments that it yeah, that would say.

MS: Let’s talk about new releases. A new live album is coming soon, could you tell us about the release date and formats?

JP: I don’t have a release date yet, but it will be this year. It’ll be you know before Christmas like before the end of the year and it’s going to be on Blu-ray, DVD 5.1, It’ll be on CD, Vinyl they’ll be a special limited edition like box set version of it. And that actually we filmed it two nights in London in February and it was really film beautifully, you know, it’s just like you said, it’s from this tour that we did the “Distance Over Time” tour and it features the entire “Scenes from a Memory” set. So it’s really cool. It’s very special show. So looking forward to people watching that and listening to that.

MS: We have reached the end of the interview, if you want to say something this is the time, thanks for everything and we look forward to your next news. 

JP: Thank you so much. I really appreciate the time and everybody, hang in there and I look forward to getting to The point where all of this is behind us, and we can get back to live music and travelling and doing all the things we love to do and hopefully visiting Spain again because it’s always wonderful to play there. 

MS: Thank you so much John. 

JP: Thank you, God bless you I appreciate it. Thank you.