Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci recently sat down with Killer Guitar Rigs to discuss his newly launched company, Tonemission. He discusses his plans to use the company to create a platform to share tone amongst guitarists, how he sees it moving into physical products and more later on. Petrucci also talks about the "BS" battle between shredding and 'feel', how Dream Theater felt about Nirvana in the early days, new Dream Theater music, and more.
Following is an excerpt from the interview.
Q: Before the album (A View From The Top Of The World) came out, there was a lot of talk how there’s been an 8-string on there. And knowing how a lot of modern progressive metal musicians are using 8-string guitars, extended-range guitars — did you feel any pressure to start using this? Or was it just the thing where it was something that you liked and you wanted to try it?
Petrucci: "I didn’t feel any pressure, I was interested in what it would be like, in the same way that I was interested at the time and playing a 7-string. It sounds really cool when you extend the range of a guitar, or even if you tune your guitar differently. I played baritone guitars in the past where the low note is an A or B-flat. There’s something that’s cool about that sound.
But if you noticed, even in the times I’ve used 7-string, baritone, drop C… All these different things… And even with the 8-string — I don’t really change my style to go with what you would expect out of that guitar. In other words, I didn’t get an 8-string and be like, ‘Okay, now all of a sudden, I have to write music that sounds like all of this other music.’ I just got an 8-string and I wanted to write the way I write. So that was what I did.”
I didn’t get one to chase a style or want to be part of a scene or anything. Because that’s not authentic. That’s not the way I am. It’s not the way I work. I think of it this way — if you look at a piano, there’s so many lower notes you can go to.
So it’s kind of fun to be able to have that range on a guitar, like, why not? But not to chase anything or try to mimic anything or imitate anything that I wasn’t feeling was going to come out of me genuinely. Because you’d see right through that if, all of a sudden, I started writing 8-string stuff that sounded like all these different bands. It’d be like, ‘Okay, this doesn’t sound like Dream Theater, this doesn’t sound like John.'"
Grammy-winning, millions-selling progressive music titans, Dream Theater, wrapped up the first edition of Dreamsonic,, celebrating the summer’s ultimate progressive metal lineup on July 26th in Phoenix, AZ at the Arizona Financial Theater.
They have shared the video below, featuring highlights from the tour. Says the band: "t's all come down to this... tonight we play our final show of Dreamsonic 2023 in Phoenix at the Arizona Financial Theatre!"
