John Petrucci Quotes

Music is a communication. It's a two-way street. You need people to play to in order to make that connection complete. That's the way we look at it.

Dark master of sin, now my soul is yours.

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 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.

You try to play the song better than you had before.

Stay focused when you're playing alive, so you're not distracted by something going on.

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.

We're always in that head space about the audience and less about us at that moment.

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

I don't have very eclectic tastes in music.

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

I have a lot of guitars. Yeah, I'm not like a guitar collector, I don't have all vintage instruments. I don't even own a Strat or Les Paul. I don't have one.

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

I experimented a bunch with Ernie Ball in getting the strings to not flop around too much, but at the same time not to be too thick to where you're playing telephone cables.

It's a balance between getting the right string gauge that's thick enough where it sound good, and not rubber bands - but not too thick where your hands start to get real tired.

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?"

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.

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

Guitar players get inward and analytical about their playing but when you start to get positive feedback from other players it makes you think that it is coming together.

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.

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.

I wanna go in the studio and just go back to the same amps and stuff I'm so comfortable with the sound of. Which I think is important to stay original.

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.

I think I'm a father, but a father of three kids! :)

When we first started and started hitting new places for the first time, you kinda didn't know, because we were new. Sometimes we played tiny little clubs and sometimes we'd play a larger place.

Out of Berklee Dream Theater was born and we've been together ever since. I didn't have to taste that feeling of defeat.

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.

Songs like "Spirit Carries On" really gets the audience moved and on the same page. It's challenging and all so much fun to play.

It's hard to answer that from my own perspective because when I'm playing I know where it is coming from and the sources.

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.

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.

Jordan Ruddes does [have a home studio], but it's all self-contained. I'll be the only guy with a fully built recording studio. So they'll have to come to me.

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

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.

The style of music that we're playing, this progressive metal style, has always been an upstream battle for us. We don't usually get a lot of commercial exposure.

Almost 15 with music, we have so many guitars that we developed over the years. The latest one is 'The Majesty' guitar, which I'm really proud of.

We have a storage close by where I live, that's very organised. My guitar tech, Matty organised it all, labeled everything.

I know we play a part in the story of progressive music, but for us those influences are the real fathers, the ones that we were interested in.

There's different levels of where we do well throughout Europe. Fortunately, for us, it's pretty great all throughout it.

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.

In Japan they're definitely more over the top. They had four Boogie stacks and 20 guitars. But otherwise it's pretty much the same thing, except there's a translator. It's really nice.

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.

Going to the Grammys, being nominated for a Grammy, that was a really big deal for me, for us as a band.

I went straight out of high school, and when I was 17, all I wanted to do was play guitar.

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

The only thing I had in my mind [when I was 17 ] was that I was going to be a professional musician. So it was just the right environment.