DREAM THEATER Guitarist Is 'Really Happy' With Band's New Album

June 10, 2011

Ultimate Classic Rock recently conducted an interview with guitarist John Petrucci of progressive metal giants DREAM THEATER. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Ultimate Classic Rock: How is the new album ["A Dramatic Turn Of Events"] coming?

Petrucci: We're just wrapping it up here in the studio got a couple of solos, a couple of little vocal things we're finishing. I'm really excited. We started in January, it's been a lot of work, and I'm really happy with the way it came out. It's very intense and really cool. I think we made a lot of great music. I can't wait for it to be done and mixed and then get it out there to the world.

Ultimate Classic Rock: How did the recent lineup change affect the songwriting responsibilities?

Petrucci: We didn't write the music with [new drummer] Mike Mangini. We decided to go in and just write it amongst ourselves without a drummer [to] get more in touch with the intimates of the compositional process that every guitarist, keyboard player and bassist does when they're sitting around in a bedroom or hotel room or studio. Just writing and pulling out the best music that you can, exploring different areas. We decided to do it that way, which was great a really great environment for being creative.

Ultimate Classic Rock: So, did you end up writing things that were really hard for him to play?

Petrucci: It's funny that you say that, because I programmed all the drums with a program, which was a lot of fun. I came up with some wicked stuff. When we finished, I sent it, asking, "Is this something that you can actually play? I don't know, I'm not a drummer, is this a physically possible thing?" But then he came in a couple of months later, and here he was, a human being doing this stuff. I was blown away. It's fun doing that kind of thing because you can just come up with stuff that's beyond your wildest imagination, drum-wise, and then make it happen in real life.

Read the entire interview from Ultimate Classic Rock.

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