John Petrucci Quotes

Dark master of sin, now my soul is yours.

I'm a hopeless tone chaser!I love it and get into the whole thing.

With all tools at my disposal, I'm 100% into chasing tone and checking out new equipment and "geeking" out during sound check by taking too much time.

You might pick up some influences from another type of music that you wouldn't normally think of, but, you know, maybe as a guitar player, it will come out in your improvisational style, maybe as a song writer it might come out in your note choices, or in your melodic choices, and it just helps to making your music that much more original and unique.

I've always said that there's a huge progressive rock, progressive metal audience out there, in the world.

We've seen progressive rock all over the world, in South America, Europe, Asia, across the US and North America and Australia. There's huge audiences for this stuff. For me it's always been there and it's just a matter of time before the people have more of the means to spread the word.

I would say the more the better when it is comes to development and marketing. It's actually fun. For some it can be a frustrating thing.

I've been fortunate to work with companies that I endorse because I love their gear. Whether Music Man, Dunlop, or DiMarizo to me these companies have supported me in such a way that's invaluable.

Obviously [Black] Sabbath is definitely a huge name and of course deserving with Ozzy coming back.

I'm realizing this more and more that it's one thing to get involved with your own political beliefs and stand behind you believe in personally.

Obviously the best way to retain the most profit is to not give any of it away. That's something that you certainly learn through the years.

I often think about my Music Man guitars being 100 million percent tailored to my needs as a player and how lucky I am.

Since I'm in a band, and I'm not usually in situations where I need to read, it doesn't come up as often, and I don't rely on it as much.

You're about to walk on stage and play together for the next few hours so you want to feel connected and make sure that everyone is in the same head space; a good head space.

We auditioned a lot of great drummers; every one of them was world class. We had a lot of fun playing with each of them and had some great jams. With Mike [Mangini] it was just something really special about what was going on.

Personality wise, we are all kindred spirits. I've said this before; if we [with Mike Mangini ] ever went to high school together we would have been friends. He is just one of us! We felt that immediate connect.

If someone is feeling out of sorts or detached it's a great time to bring them in and restate why we are here and what we are trying to do.

I have to say that our fans have been absolutely wonderful all across the world.

I almost rely on other people to say, "Hey, you ever hear of this band?" And I'll say, "Oh, I've never heard of that!" And I listened to them and thought, "What the hell?"

I don't have very eclectic tastes in music.

I started playing guitar when I was 12, and I started getting into more metal, like Maiden and Metallica... Of course, as I kind of got better and better in the guitar, I was listening to more guitar players, so then I got into, I guess, more of the prog side.

Real thick strings - your hands start to get fatigued. As much as you practice, and as much experience as you have, and as long as you've been playing, there is a fatigue point during the show, as with anything that's physical. So I wanted to basically pace myself better.

A lot of people around the world were, like, very frustrated, you know "Why don't you just release the name? Why is it taking so long?" But the cool thing is that it brought people together, like you said, it brought our fans into the experience, it sort of exposed us, exposed the process, and I think it welcomed Mike Magini, because people saw what happened to get to that point.

We're not the kind of band who writes an order abundance of songs and picks from them, we usually write for the album.

I somehow always found the right people on my own to jam with as well as playing with all my buddies. I didn't get to a point where I was auditioning for any bands.

My main objective with a home studio - I could get into doing full band demos - but my first objective is to cut things like guitar tracks and solos at home.

Now that we're established and we have a history we know that we can expect people to show up and to have a good time.

I really rely a lot more on memory. I'm definitely not as good of a sight reader.

You might be able to get a certain sound, and in the studio you certainly look at things under a microscope a lot more. You might hear more warmth out of a thicker string gauge. But in the practical world, like with us, we're playing An Evening With... so it's three hours of music, and our music is pretty challenging as far as the technical aspect. And I found after awhile that I was killing myself.

I remember feeling for the first time going somewhere where I was part of a community where I didn't feel like an outcast. I felt like I belonged. Everyone had a guitar strapped to their back.

As far as bands doing that in a way where they think they're going to fight the government, the only people they're really hurting is the fans.

When we came out, the kind of music that was popular was Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains, all that stuff. That was when we released our second album, 'Images And Words', and it was something people werent used to hearing maybe, and it sort of rose above all that somehow, being progressive, or whatever.

Usually we're all comfortable playing the songs, but during the song there might be one part where you're like „oh, this part's coming up, I have to really focus", a lot of songs have those moments in them.

Instead of buying a guitar for $2,000 or $2,500 - I'm not sure how much these are going for - but it's maybe $300 or something like that. It's more for beginners and stuff like that. Obviously it's not hitting the pros. And you can't get the Piezo pickup and the color-changing paint and the inlays and all the fancy things that my signature guitars offer, but you can get the general feel of the guitar - and the body style. It's cool.

Songs come alive every night and can be a new experience for someone. You might have someone in the audience who has never seen us before and hearing it for the first time. We are aware of that.

Many kids and parents ask me, 'What kind of guitar can I buy?' It's a great opportunity for those people to be able to buy a quality guitar that's not necessarily a little Fender or whatever. Ernie Ball signature model guitar is something that's more signature.