JOHN PETRUCCI

John Peter Petrucci (born July 12, 1967) is an American guitarist and songwriter. He is best known as a founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. With his former bandmate Mike Portnoy, he has produced all Dream Theater albums since their 1999 release, Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory until their 2009 release, Black Clouds & Silver Linings, and also produced alone their 2011 release A Dramatic Turn of Events and 2013's Dream Theater. He also sings backing vocals for Dream Theater. Petrucci was named as the third player on the G3 tour six times, more than any other invited guitarists. In 2009 he was named the No. 2 Best metal guitarist by Joel McIver in his book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists. He was also named as one of the "Top 10 Greatest Guitar Shredders of All Time" by GuitarOne magazine. In 2012, Petrucci was ranked the 17th greatest guitarist of all time by a Guitar World magazine readers poll.

Biography

John Petrucci was born on July 12, 1967 in Kings Park, New York to an Italian American family. He picked up the guitar at the age of eight because his older sister was allowed to go to bed later in order to practice the piano. However, he decided to quit the guitar when his attempts to stay up late were unsuccessful. He picked up the guitar again at the age of 12. Petrucci has said he committed to practicing guitar 6 hours a day when he discovered it was his passion. Eventually, his childhood friend and future Dream Theater keyboardist Kevin Moore invited John to join his cover band.

John attended Berklee College of Music in Boston with childhood friend John Myung (bass), where they met future bandmate Mike Portnoy (drums). These three, in addition to Kevin Moore, formed the band Majesty. Because there was already another band with the same name, the group later became Dream Theater.

While Petrucci is most commonly associated with Dream Theater, he is also in the project band Liquid Tension Experiment, and has appeared as a guest on records by other artists, such as the Age of Impact album by the Explorer's Club.

Petrucci has released a guitar instructional video, Rock Discipline, which covers warm-up exercises, exercises to avoid injury while playing, alternate picking, sweep picking, chords and other techniques for developing one's guitar playing. Petrucci also has a book named "Guitar World presents John Petrucci's Wild Stringdom", which was compiled from columns he wrote for Guitar World magazine under that title.

In 2001, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai invited Petrucci to tour with them on the popular G3 guitar tour, which exposed him to a massive number of new fans and inspired a solo album. The album, Suspended Animation, was released on March 1, 2005, and was available for order from his web site. Petrucci also appeared on the 2005 and 2006 G3 tours, and in 2007, went on G3 tour again, this time with Paul Gilbert and Joe Satriani. In a recent video with Larry DiMarzio, Petrucci announced that he is working on a follow up to his 2004 album, Suspended Animation and a new Dream Theater album.

Petrucci also wrote and recorded two instrumental soundtrack songs for a Sega Saturn game titled Digital Pinball: Necronomicon. Each track is roughly two minutes long, and are named simply Prologue and Epilogue. In a spoof rock band, Nightmare Cinema (which was the Dream Theater members changing instruments for a gig), he used the "alternate stage name" Johnny James.

In 2012, Petrucci was invited once again to join Joe Satriani in his G3 tour with Steve Morse. His Dream Theater drummer Mike Mangini, and his former G3 bass player Dave LaRue accompanied him on the tour.

Dream Theater bandmate Jordan Rudess revealed in an interview that Petrucci is a practicing Catholic. He currently lives in St. James, New York with his wife Rena Sands, a guitarist in the all-female heavy metal band Meanstreak, and they have three children—twins Samantha and Renato, and Kiarra. He is the uncle of Jake Bowen, a guitarist in the progressive metal band Periphery. He is also an avid fan of bodybuilding and dedicates much of his off time to weight training. He is a voting member of NARAS.

Musical style

Guitar technique

Petrucci is respected for his variety of guitar styles and skills. One of the most notable of these is his high speed alternate picking which, as he himself claims, requires a "strong sense of synchronization between the two [playing] hands." John is notable for frequent use of the seven-string electric guitar, which he says he uses as a writing tool, taking advantage of the extended range for heavier riffing and to play extended range runs as part of a solo. Moreover, Petrucci often combines his metal shredding technique with a slower, emotive soloing style. He has cited David Gilmour as an important influence.

Petrucci is the only band member in Dream Theater to have contributed lyrics to every album. He has written lyrics for at least three songs for every single album. These include, among others, Metropolis, Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper, The Spirit Carries On, The Great Debate, In the Presence of Enemies, and Through Her Eyes. Petrucci uses real-life experiences for lyrical inspiration, as can be heard in the songs The Count of Tuscany, A Nightmare to Remember, Wither, and Endless Sacrifice.

Singing

Petrucci has acted as a backing vocalist live since the Awake Tour. He is a baritone, producing a sound darker than that of James Labrie's tenor voice. He also has a role in writing the vocal melodies for Dream Theater, as shown on demo versions of Wither and Spirit Carries On, on which he performs the vocals.

In live performances before Mike Portnoy departed, he only sang small sections of backing vocals or harmonies, with Mike performing the majority of the backing vocals. After Mike Portnoy's departure, Petrucci has taken on some his singing duties in songs such as The Dark Eternal Night and War Inside My Head, with other backing vocals being on a backing track.

source: wikipedia.org