American progressive metal band Dream Theater have endured the fickle nature of the music industry and their inner turmoil with personnel changes to remain as captivating as ever with last year’s reaffirming and highly praised self titled album. Their impeccable musicianship and focus on creating interesting music remains intact as witnessed on their most recent epic live recording release, Live at Luna Park, continuing to evolve, inspire and entertain both musicians and music fans alike. Returning to Australia’s east coast again very soon for two special three hour shows titled “An Evening with Dream Theater”, Australian Guitar (Paul Southwell) snaffled up a pre-tour chat with the guitar virtuoso, main songwriter and visionary producer of Dream Theater, John Petrucci.
ag Of your more recent signature guitars, the Music Man JP13 guitar has an active pre-amplifier. Do you find yourself tempted to use it all the time?
As far as saturation goes for using it all the time, as long as there is a battery working in there, it is going to be on. The feature [or the onboard pre-amp] that you can turn on and off is the boost feature which is on the volume control. If you tap that volume control, it boosts up the signal a few dB but as far as the pre-amp being on, it is always active so there is not really a way to bypass it.
ag How does it perform alongside your signature DiMarzio [Illuminator, Crunch Lab and LiquiFire] humbucker pickups, which are also a reasonably high output?
Yeah, it is really great because the pickups [Illuminators] are designed to do a certain thing with a certain sonic spectrum in mind. I think that having the pre-amp makes it do its job that much better. You’re really getting the true sound of those pickups in the way that they were designed and meant to sound. They are not being bogged down by any loads from a cable. It is just a pure output into the amplifier so it is really beneficial.
ag You’re using the Fractal Audio [Axe-Fx] gear. Do you think there will ever be a day when you take speaker cabinets and tube amplifier heads out of your live rig?
I love the Fractal stuff, it is an awesome piece of equipment and I am so happy to be working with them but I’ve always been a Mesa Boogie man. I’ve been playing Mesa Boogie amplifiers since the beginning. It is what I record and tour with so that’s the sound of my guitar. It is always going through an amplifier and through speakers. The Fractal gear is basically doing all of my effects in the rig. It is so powerful it is just able to do everything at the same time. So, I’m kind of old school in the sense that I’ll always have a guitar plugged into an amp and out through a speaker. But, the technology is certainly unbelievable and those guys have it really nailed. It is amazing.
ag Initially, was it guitar players such as Steve Lukather or certain bands back in the day that got you into the Mesa Boogie sound?
In the beginning it was due to a few different things. Metallica did their Master of Puppets album with Mesa Boogies. It was also word of mouth from people when going into stores and having people say to check out these amazing amps and of course trying them and just being blown away. It is something that I got turned onto really early and fell in love with it so it ended up being crucial to the development of my sound. I always give them a lot of credit for helping me to develop a sound as it was a big part of it.
ag How do you find the Mesa Boogie Mark V’s compare to the early models like the Mark II’s. What are the changes that you’ve noticed in those amplifiers?
Yeah, there is actually a brand new video that Mesa Boogie did [YouTube: JP Mk V vs. Mk IIC+] which are linked on Mesa Boogie’s site and on my own pages. I’m comparing the Mark V to the Mark IIC+, which is a classic amplifier that they made in the eighties. The Mark V has a C+ mode on it so you can hear the comparison right there and decide it for yourself. The V sounds amazing, it is an unbelievable amp and it does so much more than any of the older amps did because those amps were designed for a certain time whereas this is a way more modern amp. It has a lot more functions, versatility and it sounds just as good as any of those other ones.
ag Can you elaborate on your TC Electronics Dreamscape [Signature TonePrint] chorus pedal and how it fits into the live rig?
The Axe-FX is doing all the effects in my rig as far as anything that is coming into the pre-amp. So all of my delays and different things are all done by the Axe-FX but I do have some pedals that I put in the front because there are certain pedals that are meant to be in the front so that’s for an overdrive, compressor or phaser pedal and the Dreamscape is part of that. So the Dreamscape pedal in my current rig is being used in the front of my rig. In other words, it is before the pre-amp thus going into the pre-amp and that way, it has a very thick or organic sound that interacts with the distortion. You can also use it in the effects loop or after the pre-amp and that sounds really lush and beautiful as well. TC Electronics is another equipment company, like Mesa Boogie, that I got turned onto really early so having the opportunity to do a signature pedal with them, which is there first and only signature artist pedal, was a like a dream come true to have a chorus pedal made. So the Dreamscape has been unbelievable, I’m so proud of it.
ag Do you still find yourself using a Tube Screamer pedal for any distortion tones?
No, the Mesa Boogies has tonnes of gain. Now that my latest guitars of both the JP13 and now the Majesty have a pre-amp with a boost, I really don’t need anything else to hit the front. However, for the fun of it, I like what overdrive pedals do when they go into the front of an amp that is already distorted. So, I’m always swapping things out. I have a bunch of Robert Keeley overdrives and his latest one [Red Dirt] is really cool as are some modified tube screamers that he did. Analog Man makes some great clean boosts and overdrives with their King of Tone pedal being a great one. It is fun to experiment and to see what they even though all of the distortion comes from the Boogie but if you just slam it a little bit with a front end pedal, it’s cool. Boogie just released some pedals with their own clean boosts and overdrives and they interact beautifully with the amp as well.
ag Production wise, given you’ve produced the last two albums and co-produced earlier ones, has that task impacted on your songwriting at all?
Not really. Producing is something that I discovered that I like to do several years ago. It first started on the Metropolis Pt.2: Scenes from a Memory album in 1999 and even before that, I kind of had the headspace for it. So, I’m able to wear several hats in the studio be it a producer, a band mate, a lyricist and just a guitar player. It is kind of fun switching gears but the thing that I love about being a producer is that you get to oversee and look at the whole project as it develops, unfolds and eventually completes. That is a satisfying role for me and I really love it. I listen a lot and want the music to be moving and to have an emotional impact, be interesting and creative. I’m able to do that as a songwriter and as a producer. After I record something I’m able to step back and take it into different environments, analyse it and make sure it is hitting the mark.
ag Did you pick up methods from producers such as Kevin Shirley and others?
Yeah, you cannot help it any time you’re around somebody that is really talented like Kevin or the other producers that we have worked with in the past. You use all of those experiences as knowledge. Kevin mixed a lot of our live material, my solo album [Suspended Animation] and [side project] Liquid Tension Experiment but for the album that he came in as a producer, Falling Into Infinity, he listened to the written songs beforehand and added ideas on arrangements. As an engineer he was creative with different guitars, amplifiers and drum miking techniques on individual songs, giving each song a different character.
ag In that light, looking at instrumental tracks, which have come back into the albums, does the production role also act as an editing entity?
It can be but we start to self edit as a band when we write. By the time the song is finished, we have edited it to the point where we are all happy. If there is some sort of decision that needs to be made or some sort of overriding larger edit, then I’ll make that call. But the writing process happens in such a way that everything is complete to where all of the guys are on the same page and we’re all happy. My role is then more trying to make sure that I get the best performances out of everybody, see the project through and overlook the different aspects involved in making the album. Songwriting is something I am used to doing in many environments, either on my own or collaboratively. Writing with just keyboards and bass allows focusing in on composition, detail, programming and drums. Otherwise we get together as a band so that ideas are borne out of those jams.
ag As the tour to Australia is coming up and a huge set list to create, what can the audiences expect that is different from previous tours?
It is sort of ‘An Evening With’ show so it is only Dream Theater and it is three hours with no opening band. We play two acts and an encore so there really is a lot of music. We play a couple of songs that we have never played live before and we do a tribute to the Awake album that came out twenty years ago and also Metropolis Pt.2: Scenes from a Memory that came out fifteen years ago. It is a really cool visual experience as well and we’ve worked really hard on the presentation of both the music and the visuals. It is a complete audio visual experience that is really fan-centric and it is a lot of fun.
ag For your guitar solos, do you utilise memory techniques or is it done with learning segments of repeating melodic patterns?
Yeah, some of them come back to me when I am preparing for the tour and I have to go back for instance and remember solos I played years ago. Sometimes it is really tough and hard to remember. If I was prepared at the time of doing the solos and used due diligence, then I’ll have the solos isolated so that I am able to listen to them. Sometimes they just come right back to me and other times I will sit there scratching my head saying, ‘what the hell did I do?’ and then you find yourself having to relearn it but eventually it does all come back. But it would be nice if all of that was just always at the fingertips, that’d be great.
ag What would you say has been the most beneficial change in recording techniques over the years?
The biggest change which has been with us for several years now is the fact that everything has moved from tape and it is all now digital. The greatest thing about that are the editing capabilities when you think about what you are able to do now as far as recording, archiving, editing and moving things around. The possibilities are endless and it is so easy to do whereas in the past that was really labour intensive, limited, using razor blades and tape which was ridiculous. Now, we have great technology to share music.
ag Is there anything brand new guitar equipment wise that is on the horizon which you’d like guitarists to know about?
We were talking about gear and I said it briefly but my latest Music Man guitar known as the Majesty is what I’ll be using on this coming tour. You’ll see me play it when we come to Australia and it is an absolutely beautiful, amazing sounding, incredible guitar and another in the series of signature instruments that have going on with Music Man after fifteen years now. It is called the Majesty in reference to Dream Theater’s original name. I hope that if anybody gets a chance to try it there, they’ll agree that it is awesome.