John Petrucci interview (excerpt)

Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci was asked what keeps him motivated to write music and perform live after all these years. He responded:

JP: I think the thing that drives me the most is that I enjoy it so much. I think that I’ve always been a creative person. Even when I was younger and I didn’t play guitar, I was into drawing and painting. It’s just something that is part of what I am, what I do. I love playing guitar. The whole process of creating music on the instrument and then going into a place and building it into something, I always find it very inspiring and just a lot of fun and engaging. And then the performance side is a whole different thing. Some people really enjoy performing; some musicians don’t. It depends. I know people that don’t. But for me, I just love getting onstage and playing guitar – with my friends, with my bandmembers or with other guitar players, with G3. The whole thing about guitar specifically and all the gear that’s associated with that – getting into tones and sounds and effects, and developing things, like guitars and amplifiers, like I’ve done, it’s just really cool. I guess that’s what keeps me driven – is that I really enjoy doing it. I like the challenge of it. I like the creative and artistic satisfaction of it, and I like the joy of playing music. Music is such a big part of who I am.