Top 54 John Petrucci Quotes
#1. I didn't try out for bands when I was younger. I got into guitars intensely a couple of years into playing so much by the time I was graduating high school I was accepted into Berklee College of Music.
John Petrucci
#2. 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.
John Petrucci
#3. 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.
John Petrucci
#5. 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.
John Petrucci
#6. Many times we talk about the people that have come to enjoy the show. They went through a lot to get here, whatever they needed to work out in their lives; they got babysitters, they traveled, and purchased the tickets. So it's up to us to deliver the goods!
John Petrucci
#7. 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.
John Petrucci
#8. I really rely a lot more on memory. I'm definitely not as good of a sight reader.
John Petrucci
#9. Jordan [Ruddes], he learned that way, and that's what he knows how to do. That's how he kind of approaches all music, whether it's to learn a cover song that we're going to play, or to review Dream Theater music - he always uses charts. That's what he knows. I really rely a lot more on memory.
John Petrucci
#10. 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.
John Petrucci
#11. 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.
John Petrucci
#12. You try to play the song better than you had before.
John Petrucci
#13. We're not the kind of band who writes an order abundance of songs and picks from them, we usually write for the album.
John Petrucci
#14. When we make those guitars we make tons of prototypes, I have all those. And once a guitar has come out there's all different versions and colours and woods and I have all those. There's hundreds of them.
John Petrucci
#15. 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.
John Petrucci
#16. First and foremost, with everybody we wanted to see if they can pull off the songs, play them correctly, and that they it felt right musically. That's something Mike [Mangini] did, it felt like the band. He really gets the style and delivers in a powerful metal way.
John Petrucci
#17. 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.
John Petrucci
#18. 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.
John Petrucci
#19. I went straight out of high school, and when I was 17, all I wanted to do was play guitar.
John Petrucci
#20. There were some initial instruments I had when I was young and made some trade-offs. Maybe a guitar I bought in a flea market. They weren't the greatest guitar but they would be cool to still have them. Other than that, not as a professional.
John Petrucci
#21. Out of Berklee Dream Theater was born and we've been together ever since. I didn't have to taste that feeling of defeat.
John Petrucci
#22. 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.
John Petrucci
#23. 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.
John Petrucci
#24. If you bring somebody into the band you are going to be with them a lot whether it's in the studio, on the tour bus, or at dinner every night; you want somebody you enjoy being around. You don't want an annoying guy .
John Petrucci
#25. 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.
John Petrucci
#26. 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.
John Petrucci
#27. 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.
John Petrucci
#28. The C+ amps is vintage at this point, and it definitely has a certain sound to it. I wanted something that was going to keep Dream Theater in more of a current musical landscape, as far as being the producer and producing the type of album I wanted to hear.
John Petrucci
#29. 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.
John Petrucci
#30. 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.
John Petrucci
#31. I think I'm a father, but a father of three kids!
John Petrucci
#32. There's different levels of where we do well throughout Europe. Fortunately, for us, it's pretty great all throughout it.
John Petrucci
#33. 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.
John Petrucci
#34. 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?"
John Petrucci
#35. 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.
John Petrucci
#37. 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.
John Petrucci
#38. Even with Dream Theater, we track in a big studio and everything. But when it comes to doing leads, I don't really require a lot of studio to do that. I need a good sounding room and a Pro Tools rig, and some Neve mic-pres, and I'm good.
John Petrucci
#39. 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.
John Petrucci
#40. We're always in that head space about the audience and less about us at that moment.
John Petrucci
#41. When I first started, it was the real basic stuff that was being played on the radio, so I was into Zeppelin, and Sabbath, and AC/DC, and all stuff like that. I grew up in New York, on Long Island, so the local radio stations played all that kind of thing.
John Petrucci
#42. I often think about my Music Man guitars being 100 million percent tailored to my needs as a player and how lucky I am.
John Petrucci
#43. Stay focused when you're playing alive, so you're not distracted by something going on.
John Petrucci
#44. If you can't play as good or as fast as me, just give up, sell your guitar on eBay and kill yourself.
John Petrucci
#45. To be in Boston, which is a great city and which is full of many colleges and young kids, and to be around that many people that were at the same point in their lives, who played guitar or whatever instrument - it was just perfect. It was a great environment.
John Petrucci
#46. 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.
John Petrucci
#47. 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.
John Petrucci
#48. 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.
John Petrucci
#49. Obviously [Black] Sabbath is definitely a huge name and of course deserving with Ozzy coming back.
John Petrucci
#50. I've always said that there's a huge progressive rock, progressive metal audience out there, in the world.
John Petrucci
#51. 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.
John Petrucci
#52. We have a storage close by where I live, that's very organised. My guitar tech, Matty organised it all, labeled everything.
John Petrucci
#53. 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.
John Petrucci
#54. 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.
John Petrucci
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