Guitar Villains
Guitar Villains
John Petrucci on Crying at Concerts, Perfect Guitar Tone, and His Secret 8-String
Today’s guitar villain is John Petrucci. A legendary riff-writer, almighty shred-lord, dedicated gym-rat. purveyor of fine bourbon, and all-around nice guy, this bearded phenom who some believe to be a wizard or even God himself is here to spill his guitar secrets. John has recently dropped on us his second solo album entitled Terminal Velocity, which we’ll dive deep inside. I’ll also be challenging the prog prince in ways he’s never been challenged before, and I am honored to have him as the inaugural guest of the very first episode of Guitar Villains.
Intro and John Petrucci's supervillain alter-ego: 00:00
Burning Questions: 9:10
Name Those Notes: 18:20
John's new album, Terminal Velocity: 33:34
John's craziest G3 story and reuniting with Mike Portnoy: 47:25
The evolution of John's guitar tone and his secret 8-string signature guitar: 55:35
John's favorite airplane album: 1:03:10
John's dream band: 1:04:23
1:05:40: John's supervillain advice
Check out John's brand new solo album, Terminal Velocity, streaming everywhere now: http://bit.ly/JP_GuitarVillains
Sign up for Guitar Super System, the most popular independent guitar learning platform on the internet: http://bit.ly/GVJP001
hello and welcome to the very first episode of guitar villains why guitar villains you ask well because villains are cooler than heroes it's just a fact this is a podcast by guitar players for guitar players and over the course of this series we'll chat with some of the most innovative and creative minds in the guitar community find out what makes them tick and understand how we can become better guitar players ourselves thank you for watching the video podcast here on youtube and of course you can also listen to the podcast on spotify itunes or wherever else you get your podcasts today's guitar villain is john petrucci a legendary riff rider almighty shredlord dedicated gym rat purveyor of fine bourbon and all around nice guy this bearded phenom who some believe to be a wizard or even god himself is here to spill his guitar secrets john has recently dropped on us his second solo album entitled terminal velocity which we'll dive deep into i'll also be challenging the prague prince in ways he's never been challenged before so let's get right to it the very first episode of guitar villains
welcome to guitar villains the show where we deconstruct and decode the guitar and john i actually haven't told you this but you're actually the inaugural guest on the show oh wow that's right i'm honored you're batting lead off okay all right let's let's hope this is going to determine how yes this is forward from here yeah i don't want to make any promises or ruffle any feathers but i think i think that this is going to be the greatest podcast about guitar and guitar players in the entire world wow so i'm setting the bar there high expectations so yeah um i think i think we're gonna meet him but you you just released a new solo album and we're gonna dive into it soon but i have to ask when you release a new album or finish a huge project how do you celebrate how do i celebrate oh man uh probably with some bourbon it's probably the best way okay any bourbon of choice i have so many bourbons that i really really enjoy i love blanton's i love elijah craig there's just so many different ones out there that are that are incredible that i've been uh you know experimenting with and enjoying um i i think it's important to uh i always like to to sort of make a conscious note that something was accomplished you know whether it's like between my wife and i and say you know what you know i did this i feel really good about this i really you know let's let's have a drink or a toast or with you know my engineer jimmy t or uh andy snipe who makes the record you know to just say whether you take a second out you know on a call or in person or with a text like hey man you know i feel really great about this we accomplish it i think that's a good way to sort of celebrate and just you know don't let it just the moment just kind of like pass by and it is hard especially now where it's kind of fast pace in the in anything we do but speaking to music like it's so easy to just say on to the next one and forget what you just spent like your entire life it feels like doing right so right exactly yeah you want to sort of savor it yes just like just like a glass of bourbon i think my go-to is uh it's an accident that i discovered this but i was at a whiskey bar and i ordered this thing called yellow spot okay and i was like what's up what's a really nice whiskey and he's like we got green spot we got yellow spot and let's just say i'd already had a couple so yeah i was i was like all right i trust you and it turned out to be a hundred dollar pour oh no one of those but nice he told me about it halfway through so i managed to save her just like you mentioned that that second half and um yeah i don't know how i feel about that bartender anymore but right right you know you could he could have warned you before it is what it is i i fell into that trap uh so we'll do things a little bit differently on this show we're gonna play some games i'm going to try and get to the bottom of what makes you tick as a musician hopefully you'll have a great time and maybe next time you're in nashville where i live in the world is a little more stable we can do this again over a glass of bourbon that sounds like fun absolutely awesome so this show is called guitar villains because i think villains are cooler than heroes i'm always found the characters are a little more deeper and more memorable yeah so the first thing i want to ask you is out of all the movie or comic book villains out there who would you say you identify with the most and this could be something as simple as appearance or as nuanced as the character trait that you share oh my god and if you want if you want i can give you my answer for which villain i think you're most like and you can respond with a different choice or agree that i i'd i like to take your approach because you know you can go in all these different universes right you can go disney marvel at dc you can even go with you watch the boys yes you can go that's a great show i mean yeah so it depends yeah let me hear yours and let's see okay so i think there's the easy answer and then there's the correct answer i think the easy answer is thanos from the marvel universe yeah and i i guess you're you're familiar uh at his peak controlled the six infinity stones which are mind power reality soul space and time and to relate this to guitar you have all these things the mind which is like the knowledge of the fretboard the power which is blistering shred abilities uh reality which i think is like bringing the music in your head like from your head into existence soul which of course is like you know your vibrato in particular uh mind which allows you to come up with the music you write and finally time which i think goes without saying your your rhythm and wow you really give gave us a lot of i was you know thanos top popped into my mind as well but i i was just going to say just because he's a big burly guy well that was my final my final point he's kind of like a buff god like figure and you kind of fit that bill from aesthetics perspective but i like your analyzation that's awesome okay well good so i think that's the easy one the low-hanging fruit but yeah i think your actual super villain counterpart is arcade and he's also from the marvel universe do you know who arcade is i don't i don't yeah okay it's a little bit of a deep cut uh he he's from the x-men he's an x-man antagonist and uh he designed and built this place called murder world and it's like a subterranean evil lair uh disguised as an amusement park which can sometimes describe the music of dream theater and i mean that in the best way possible yeah um so arcade he lured his victims into this murder world and that sort of resembled a life-size pinball machine and i'm going somewhere with this okay i'm going to play you a little sound clip and i just want to get your reaction yeah you ready yeah okay
was was that from uh the necronomicon yes yes it was i was like i know this sounds familiar it kind of sounds like me but i'm not sure oh that's awesome yeah it's from a sega saturn japanese only release uh pinball game from the 90s and uh i i can't believe you you found that how do you get the music to that it's just something like i i have my way out online i have my ways um yeah it's got to be the coolest pinball soundtrack of all time right yeah i was asked for that project to make like a you know these really short thing like an intro minute and a half thing and an outro thing and and that was the first time and the last time i ever did anything like that i i think you know doing more music for gaming would be awesome you know yeah yeah um i think you should you should dive down that rabbit hole next maybe i don't know yeah um yeah so anyway you're you're like arcade you're like the evil pinball wizard okay perfect that's that's where it came from that that's definitely deep i never would have thought of that but uh i'm going with it yeah i'm glad to bring up some old memories um so first things first i have a couple kind of softball lobs for you yeah and i call this segment burning questions okay
so these are rapid fire questions that if you were to conduct a live master class or a live stream where anybody could ask you any questions about anything they want regarding guitar music these are the questions they would ask okay instead of asking you about like guitar playing secrets or wisdom or anything else that could possibly help them become a better guitar player they would no doubt spam you with these questions gotcha which don't totally matter in my opinion but for some reason they must be answered okay you ready yeah okay what gauge pick do you use it's uh that's a good question because i have a few different uh signature versions i have a flow pick that's two millimeter um the the general size of a jazz three like my trinity is i don't know exactly it's probably like 1.3 in that zone so somewhere and then so one is too light okay one is two we can leave one it's too late for me uh what gauge strings do you use i use 10 through 46. ernie ball all right what's your number one guitar my number one guitar currently is my ernie ball music man majesty nebula the purple nebula one that's the one i've been playing the most delightful what's your favorite amp my favorite ad these are easy questions you're right softball it's my mesa boogie signature jp 2c it's like the best amplifier on the planet best one ever made finally what's your favorite guitar pedal um i really really love uh i it sound i'm always my my signature but i'm fortunate enough to be able to design these with these incredible companies manufacturers and and and families but uh i'd be remiss if i didn't say that dunlop jp 95 wah that's just an unbelievable wah crybaby you mean this one that one right there and it looks so badass in the uh it does the dark chrome and yeah i was gonna i was gonna save this but now that you brought it up i want to play you a little sound clip of something
nice is that is that you yeah yeah man this one this wah pedal uh it just makes me play differently yes and and i was gonna say it kind of makes me uh it channels like you ha you have a really big influence in in that sort of style when i play that kind of music i kind of have you and a couple other guitar players as my primary influences but i think in the best way because sometimes you sort of become a lesser version maybe of somebody you're trying to emulate but i think that's what i love about this guitar pedal is it sort of gives me that epic really deep sound that isn't really common in a lot of wah pedals um but allows me to still kind of play like myself if that makes sense it does make sense it's it enables you to express you know yourself to the truest and your playing sounds great i mean what i love about the sound of that pedal is that it's so it has so much attitude to it like you just recognize you know there's lots of different wah pedals out there and they kind of do they're all doing a similar type of thing but this this pedal uh just has tons of attitude and uh one of the things that we did with this as well which is practical i'm all about the practicality of gear yeah um and you know especially when it comes to performance and the fact that when you turn it on it glows blue around the front of your foot you know that it's on yeah is something that was really important to me because there's been so many times where i'm playing a lot i think i'm playing a wah and i think i'm hearing it but nothing's actually on or the worst is when it's accidentally on yeah and you leave it on like in the lowest and it's like why is my tone just like mud what's happening it's so dark yeah and you know i like the other thing i i should say too that i was so proud to develop my dreamscape pedal with tc electronic i mean that was you mean this one i mean that one look at you we didn't plan this i just had them on hand that's like a dream come true pedal not no uh pun intended yeah yeah um because i use forever and ever the tc scf pedal the original um stereochorus flanger black pedal with the um the cable that was connected to it and everything and and uh that was a big part of my sound um and this was the first signature pedal um that tc ever did oh is that right yeah and it i could be wrong we have to look at their site it might be the only one i'm not sure i know they've done like the tone print stuff but they've done prince this is like the only one with somebody's name on it that i know that might be true yeah that might be true so you know to be able to look at that original scf and say you know what would you want to change you know and and putting forth my again practical ideas you know well you know it's a little bit noisy it you know could be a little smaller i'd like more flexibility here i'd like it to be true bypass things like that and to you know basically that is that for that original scf pedal but a modernized version of it um so that was a true honor to get to do that with them yeah this is a killer pedal i love it for anything modulation or otherwise they have tons of tons of things on there so uh you just released a new album terminal velocity and i'm not going to ask why there's a 15-year gap between your two solo releases because i imagine there were countless obligations like tours dream theater tours um yeah liquid tension experiment there for a minute there was g3 developing your own signature gear and like oh by the way having some semblance of a regular life with your family and things like that i'm sure you couldn't have said it better that's yeah i would have said the same thing it's 100 accurate and uh yeah so i guess things didn't really sync up until this weird chunk of time and isolation we've all been force fed uh thanks to this damn coronavirus but um it seems like you've made the best of it i've heard you mention you recorded terminal velocity between march and may yeah and my question is it seems like you crank this out like in an unbelievably short time but it sounds like something that somebody could have worked on for years so right john how much pent-up creativity have you been holding well i you know like you said without with that gap of time in between you know i i didn't have the type of time that i like to dedicate towards doing records i mean the last stream theater record distance over time that took five months you know the band went away to a remote location i produced it so i was there every day yeah i mean i i'll spend 10 hour days in the studio so with terminal velocity i planned on doing it starting in march um before the pandemic hit but then it hit and we were on lockdown so obviously i had more time than i thought but even with that um i was in the studio you know five days a week ten or more hours a day um and that's that's the way i like to work i like to just completely um immerse myself in the project in the headspace and work really hard um now five of the songs are brand new that i wrote you know in in march and that period uh three of the songs i had written already and had some demos two of them i played live on g3 and one was a really old song that i resurrected so um you know that i didn't have to write from scratch all of the material but more than half of it is brand new but i guess that's the the short answer is just working really intense long days for a you know consistent period of time not taking time off and just really getting into it great well we're going to talk more about terminal velocity in a bit but right now i want to play a little game i call name those notes oh my god so the concept is pretty simple i'll play a quick sequence of guitar notes from songs that you have recorded over the years oh boy and you have to tell me from which songs these notes come from you got to be kidding me i'm going to fail this miserably you know i've recorded a few podcasts like i said you're the inaugural guest your episode is coming out first every person i've told this segment to have set it up they've all said exactly what you said but you may surprise yourself okay let's see what happened so we're gonna see how well you know your catalog and how well you can recognize your guitar playing and it'll spur some conversation about the music too awesome so we're gonna start with something easy that i think you'll get right away and then things will get progressively harder okay okay so here is the first flurry of notes
that's from dance of eternity right no it's from uh it's from metropolis very good yeah dancer well dance of eternity to be fair has a similar i thought that you might pick that up though yeah dance of eternity and scenes from memory is based on metropolis so right right the instrumental dance of eternity has that same sequence of notes
yeah you're right twice almost uh so that song in particular it's one of my favorites uh that you guys do and i was wondering i don't know if you've heard this trope before i'm sure you have uh offhanded maybe not said to your face but what do you say to people who say that guitarists who play a lot of notes aren't as musical or don't have emotion in their guitar playing yeah i i never bought into that statement ever you know to me um as an instrumentalist you should this is my philosophy at least sure you should have the ability to produce anything that your mind sort of thinks of you know think think about classical composers writing symphonies for all these different instruments and stuff you know demanding that the violins do this crazy thing over here um and and then oh and this section of the music requires complete discipline and tone and beauty and you have to be able to do everything in between um you know it just because you develop that side that craft side of the instrument that you play doesn't mean that you don't have the ability to be expressive on the instrument you know so i i don't buy into that uh argument at all i think it's false and uh i agree and i often find and we're keeping this ambiguous but i often find those who may be saying things like that or have that notion can't necessarily execute on what it is they're criticizing if that makes sense i could it could be some of that for sure it's kind of a like a lazy statement you know because you're not really you know you're not really thinking about if you listen to guitar players who are known to be super expressive um you know whether you're thinking of stevie ray vaughan or whoever that that may be or neil shawn or i mean these guys like shred shred their heads off you know so and and some of the most shredding guys um are able to play melodies like no other and you know i mean i'm a huge huge fan of steve morris my favorite guitar player of all time and the guy could play anything and you know has these beautiful beyond beautiful melodies and compositions and sequences of chords and notes that are just incredible yeah somebody like tommy emmanuel i mean i saw him live in new york city and the guy has technique you know for days and days and days like a freaking freight train but meanwhile i'm watching him and i'm like crying literally because there's so much emotion exuding uh out of him so that argument is dead in the water as far as i'm concerned you know people's ability to command their instrument if anything gives them more uh not all the time but you know a lot of times gives them more of the uh connection to the emotional part you know we'll leave it at that uh just a sidebar tommy is going to be on the show next week i'm talking with him so can i let him know that he made you cry in a good way 100 say hello say hello to tommy film i love him and uh that was it that was like the first time i cried while watching a live performance i think i've welled up a little bit when i heard him do like classical gas or something like that yeah just like oh my that's a guitar that's one man yeah well it was funny because i was in the audience with my wife reyna and he he recognized me and it's like told me to come backstage in between and i was like what how do you i didn't even see the audi you know anyway it was it was a really great moment but he he's just such a monster musician and player yeah absolutely blown away by him so please say hello i hope he's doing well i will do all right let's move on to another song you ready yeah here we go
uh that's jaws of life from suspended animation right that's exactly what it is nice i'm so glad you got that one i don't know if i recognize myself or dave larue doing the old uh bass thumping there the the that moment is the best part of your entire first solo album in my opinion nice because of just what you mentioned the the groove that's happening between the rhythm section and in that melody which is actually the lick you know the lick the lick i don't know the licking yeah yeah okay let me play play this for you again
it's the progressive metal version of the lick ah and i don't think it's ever been pointed out but i had to show it that's awesome yeah i subconsciously uh you know channeled the lick it happens that's what happens that's why it's such a uh a stigma not even not even negatively it's just like this thing that's built into musicians and it transcends genre people think it's just a jazz thing but no absolutely not it goes everywhere so what i like about that section and um i did this on terminal velocity as well with playing with the trio is when recording in the studio it's very uh it's very easy to kind of get into the idea of during guitar solo sections there's going to be a rhythm guitar playing and for the most part on suspended animation and on terminal velocity there is but i purposely picked a few moments to just keep a trio like we're jamming live there's no rhythm guitars and you could really hear what the drums and bass are doing you know to support the soloists and in that case that's a great example of that um i think on on terminal it might be in the way things fall there might be a couple moments and in a couple of songs where i do the same right just lose the rhythm guitars and we're trio and just sounds like we're really jamming together which i love the sound of that let's move on to another sound shall we we're getting a little more challenging here okay oh boy
that's not that's not me
what is that would you like to hear it again i don't even know what that's all right are you tricking is that my playing you already i'll give it i'll give you the point it is not you okay but it is i'm not i don't know for sure but i'm 99.9 sure you're aware of this person and know where this comes from huh okay you may have already mentioned this person on the podcast really you may be your favorite person is that a steve morris thing it is do you know what it could possibly be from here let me play it again
it almost sounds like um based on the record it almost like sounds like a uh is that from like a guitar clinic or a master class or something it's from power lines oh vhs yeah yeah i don't i don't know if it's that one there's a steve morris um instructional um i think i had the cassette for it and i don't know if he did like a couple of different ones okay but this this one particular one that i had had all of these exercises like one note per string two note three four that i still practice the ascending like three note per string stuff yeah it was like he he broke it down and i love this method that he did and i use it and i teach it myself where he he you know basically taught like a one note per string thing that you would play chromatically up the neck and then a two note per string thing yeah i was trying to figure out which one of the exercises to choose that i thought you would recognize immediately but i figured cause that one actually sounded a little like i could kind of hear some of you in that sure sound if it makes sense and it does make sense i i don't for some reason i'm not you know specifically remembering that one but uh yeah yeah i mean steve you know when i when i started playing guitar i was 12 years old um i grew up on long island in new york there's a lot of rock music playing on the radio that was probably my first influence was just learning acd and zeppelin ac dc and zeppelin and stuff like that and you know ozzy came out with blizzard and learning all that but as i started to get better um i had like uh my friend's older brother or like friend of their older brother you know who were just old enough to like go to the bars and see the shows and they'd see the dregs play in new york and they'd see al demiola play and those guys you know would turn me on this one guy in particular turned me on to steve morris and when i heard him play i it just changed you know my whole perspective on guitar playing like i knew that i wanted to be able to play like that and have this powerful right hand technique and it changed everything changed my whole course and i tried to learn all that music and stuff so steve was a huge huge influence on me musically that's great i'm sure you've been that for for guitar players as well john let's uh let's finish up here last sound ready yeah well that's temple of circadia only took three notes technically two notes i i i did the game you're doing at my last guitar universe camp oh really yeah and and i this isn't a completely original idea then well no it's a great idea i love it but i i did it you know playing in real time in front of the the audience you know and i would do it by a note or two notes or whatever and people would guess but uh i did one song um without with no notes and people had yes yeah they had to guess what i was getting ready to play can you reveal is there a way to do that without having a guitar in your hands probably not okay we'll just leave that up to maybe go to the camp next year when it comes back it had more to do with my stance and all right okay what you know i said to the everybody this one's gonna be really difficult you have to name this song in no notes i don't remember if anybody got it but it was pretty fun that's awesome well let's segue to talk about terminal velocity since you just got that one right that was the first couple of notes um of now pronounce that one again for me temple of circadia so okay you know you know uh the phrase that your circadian rhythm yep um your sleep cycle and all that i just love the nate that circadian you know when i think about it just sounds like a um a land in game of thrones or something circadian you know yeah so i wasn't even sure if it was a word i'm not sure it is a word well that's the beauty of like instrumental music you can kind of there's no holds barred for naming these these songs it's kind of whatever you want exactly and the cool thing if you know the tie-in you know if it does if it is a word and has anything to do with your circadian rhythm having to do with your sleep cycle and stuff that obviously ties into dreams and dream theater and surreal world so that that was my thinking with that one today's episode of guitar villains is brought to you by guitar super system are you tired of youtube ads telling you that youtube guitar lessons suck me too i don't know about you but somebody setting an acoustic guitar on fire or teaching crappy cover songs in front of a musty black curtain feels a little disingenuous to me i'll get straight to the point join tens of thousands of other guitar players and visit guitarsupersystem.com to join the most popular independent guitar learning platform on the internet if you're a beginner there's an entire curriculum called a beginner's corner just for you if you're an expert the music theory and technique curriculums reach the highest levels of mastery and are based on industry standard learning methods i've used since graduating 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yeah so terminal velocity i've listened to it a couple of times it's kind of an upbeat like uplifting album overall which i i have to say it was a welcome sound in my house oh that's great after all this crazy you know [ __ ] we've been dealing with in the past year it was unexpectedly awesome and a good feeling and i mean there's even a song called happy song and that's right i want to ask you it's so difficult to write memorable melodies and i think as guitar players especially we often struggle with like motifs and especially in the instrumental space specifically but you manage to do the opposite with this song which is to take a lot of notes but still kind of make it memorable like a memorable phrase that you come back to and this is uh you know this happens a lot glasgow kiss comes to mind a little bit sure the main theme that kicks off happy song is a perfect example so do you outline like four notes first that you really like and then fill in the gaps or is it a lick that you come up with all at once what's your strategy for writing a fast hook right i you know sometimes it starts with with a technique that i'm working on and that in the case of happy song it was a technique it was a legato technique that i was just fooling around with um and i don't remember how i was originally doing it you know maybe in a scale or something and then i just started like skipping a string and then wait what if i made that major and then it just turned into like this cool motif and i i've said this many times i've been doing a lot of press in support of this record so you might have heard me say this over and over but whenever that happens and i'm in that moment and my brain goes hey that's kind of cool sounding i record it immediately yeah you know just so i have it i have some kind of reference and i don't forget it and so in it like i said in the case of that it stemmed from a technique i was practicing that i morphed into something that i that you know signaled to myself like hey this is cool sounding i should do something with this so that's how that particular one happened so it didn't happen from it didn't come from a melodic space it didn't come from uh sometimes ideas come from i want to use this tonality uh you know like terminal velocity is very uh melodic uh major the title yeah yeah yeah yeah that's the title track so it's like i wanted to use that tonality that modality but this one came from like a technique that morphed into a lick that i thought was cool terminal velocity almost has like it sort of brought me back i i went to high school in the early thousands and it sort of brought me back to kind of like a pop punk almost uh it's a sound i haven't necessarily heard from you before right right where did that actual song because you know like the the happiness is obviously there but it's like got this kind of more straight ahead feel free for some of the songs yeah i mean that that song you know again um when when i collect ideas um i i they're just they only exist as sort of these seeds you know it could it could only last for 10 seconds 15 seconds whatever it is when i sat down in march to write the album terminal velocity i had a i had done some some work on the computer ahead of time sort of organizing all those ideas you know making note of which ones i thought were the best ones maybe which ones sort of like went together in key or tonality and might make a song somehow um but when i sat down in march the first thing i wrote was the song terminal velocity and all that i had was that little opening motif and so i literally started with that um recorded that uh programmed some drums played bass and i had the first little chunk and then just started writing the music and it developed organically into the song so i can't really i don't really know where the other parts of the mood of that song came from inspirationally but it started just from that little first seed and the interesting thing about writing a record this way by myself the only other person in the room is my engineer jimmy t there's no other band members or musicians i'm bouncing ideas off of oh where you know what do you have where should this go it's just sort of my own creative brain saying all right it might be interesting to go here and let's see what happens so it's like you're building a house from the ground up but you don't really have a blueprint for the house all you have is the foundation so it's an interesting way yeah yeah and uh it could be like maybe mildly refreshing too because you have like bands and you work in that environment so when you do especially something that's a little bit more personal like a solo album it could be cool to have that bit of isolation exactly exactly and and you kind of let your it's it's almost like more of a stream of consciousness type of writing where you're letting the next part develop from where the last part left off and uh it's fun it's a fun way of writing it's a little less structured and i think the songs kind of come out interesting and they reflect a deeper part of your imagination because you're just doing it on the spot and you're not really sure where you're going so it's fun well another song that was a pretty new sound uh from you at least to me it was out of the blue which is this lovely blues ballad and that must have been as a guitar player it must have been pretty satisfying to record that one i don't know it sounded like you really channeled your any inner like gary moore almost absolutely yeah i love playing that style i mean i again with these different uh seeds of ideas that i had that was one of them that opening melody and chord progression it just stood out to me as you know what i really want to do something with this i'm not sure what i'm going to do with it but i want to do something with it and it it you know because the basic structure is a blues with just you know some substituted chords in there on the turnarounds um it turned into a blues song um it turned into that sort of shuffle that you feel um on the drums and and you know that super bluesy expressive gary moore kind of way of playing or carlos santana whatever i love that i love doing that it just like i don't know you like you nailed it it's really satisfying and a lot of the soloing and melodic playing on that is is improvised is it's from when i was laying out you know initially okay here's the chord progression let me quickly do a melody over the top let me quickly just improvise a solo a lot of that we kept so i think for a blues type of thing that it's sort of important to to you know the spirit of to to maintain the spirit of improvisation on a song like that i think is important yeah that totally makes sense for that that genre if you will yeah exactly so what was the highlight if you had to if one pops to your to your head what's the highlight on the album for you the highlight on the album oh man or it could be like a memory centered around it if you can't pick just one thing well i'll tell you what was sort of fun for me that i never did before even though i'm a huge fan um you know i talked about when i was younger getting turned on to steve morris and al demiola the the record the live record friday night in san francisco with al demiola paco de lucia and john mclaughlin was a huge huge influence on me again for that right hand playing just beyond being able to have a command of the instrument technically and of course that's all on acoustic yep um you know getting into we talked about tommy um getting into gypsy jazz jazz getting turned on to joshua stefan the german gypsy jazz guitar player uh who's also doing my camp next year um and and playing that kind of style a lot like at home or whatever but never putting it on an album yeah um the moment in gemini comes to mind where i do a solo in that style in the middle of that song kind of goes to a latin feel and all of a sudden there's a acoustic sort of you know al demiola-ish gypsy jazz style played on it just like i was in like uh like van helsing like some medieval caravan flying through the desert running from vampires or something that's it just transported you right then and there yeah so yeah so that was a cool moment it's funny you brought up that that al dimiola that live cut i was also heavily influenced before i even played guitar i heard mediterranean sundance oh nice i was just like whoa what is that yeah every time i hear that style and you flawlessly uh executed on that which is you know testament to your musicianship it's that's hard you can't fake that so you clearly spent a lot of time doing you know you can't just sit down be like all right so i'm gonna do this little flamenco thing or whatever right right there's definitely especially on acoustic guitar there's definitely an element of technique you have to develop but you know it's a side and that guitar that i played it on is it uh it's a selma mechaferry uh d-hull gypsy style guitar which is you know they use a different kind of string on it the scale is a bit different it's a it's meant to be sort of a loud guitar um and it it takes some it requires like some comfort plying on that kind of guitar but uh if you if you listen to that django style man it's pretty it's just wild because it's basically shred acoustic through jazz changes it's like pretty it took me a long time to like get turned on to i don't know why but uh it's intimidating almost yeah it's it's crazy but it's like right up my alley i mean i saw a show at carnegie hall with al demiola doing this django fest and he's got every last person can just shred acoustic you know so like where have i been like how did i miss this so uh it was fun to put something like that on the record are you a gemini i am not a gemini i'm a cancer where did gemini come from so gemini was so again that song is the oldest song on the album i wrote it way back in early mid 90s i used to do a lot of guitar clinics um you know the namm show and things like that and i had a bunch of songs that i programmed on this little sequencer that i would play as like demo songs at the clinics that was one of them um and my father-in-law at the at the time uh he was alive he's no longer alive but my wife's father um i played it for him in our apartment we were living at the time and he was like that should be called gemini it just like came to his head wow and i was like all right i'll call it gemini great and so so he named it so that's a great tribute to him and uh you know the version on the record where it does go from acoustic to electric solo i guess sort of illustrates that gemini you know the two sides of that yeah the twins i i'm a gemini so i i was curious but yeah that's you're uh you're that's a very beautiful little little tribute there yes it is and we named our son after him and his name is renato we call them reni r-e-n-y and that's my son's name as well so it's great yeah great that he named that song i actually had trouble um trying to reproduce that song for terminal velocity because i had no version of it to reference and so it kind of just like was re-imagined almost well yeah i mean all that i had i had to go on youtube and search out steal from yourself yeah i had to find you know we we looked for the best like youtube bootleg version of somebody at a guitar clinic filming me play that and that's the audio that i went by and kind of extrapolated what i meant to play and built the song off of that so that that was a challenge but we we got it done that sounds fun yeah that sounds like a i've i think a mission yeah yeah like you have old recordings like i found an old hard drive recently from stuff that i recorded in college and i'm like oh my and it's like your fingers go back to the place that they haven't been in 10 years or something it's like oh yeah i loved this thing that you'd figure out all about the other interesting thing about that we talked about happy song um there were two songs that i played live on g3 a few times and at my guitar universe camps um happy song and glassy-eyed zombies but there was also a third song that i wrote in that same period um that i meant to play on g3 it was called the way things fall it actually wasn't that wasn't the title but i demoed it fully wrote it demoed it and totally forgot about it i never played it on g3 it just sat on my hard drive and when i was doing the research to start terminal velocity collects song ideas and everything i found that i'm like what is this and and there was a full song i'm like oh i've totally forgot about this this song is cool and um you're thinking you're thanking yourself from the past like that's right and and decided to uh to record a real version of it so that was a nice surprise the first time you bring up g3 the first time i saw you live uh was a i believe in 2005 in boston at g3 and it was you paul gilbert and joe satriani and you've been part of other lineups too with guys like steve bai and eric johnson ulie john roth do you have uh a funny g3 story like something backstage or on stage oh man i have a great g3 there's so many funny ones and we're playing in philadelphia and uh you know in g3 um there's three different guitar players and at the end we all jam so joe was doing his set and i was waiting backstage with my wife rayna you know kind of hear him sort of know what time i had to be on stage and we're just chilling out joe's on stage i know i'm going to play in about a half hour whatever it is and uh all of a sudden we hear like a sound in the room and it sounded like you know there was like an animal on the wall or something like what the hell is that you know and then we're in the room and it had a drop ceiling and then right above us all of a sudden like we see a foot come through the ceiling and then like a hand and then a whole person was like yeah it was like hatched from the ceiling and like fell on us like all like the you know my guitars were there rayna and i were there it's like the the ceiling stuff cut my arm and everything oh wow and i i you know i was like totally surprised but also really pissed and took the guy i was like what the hell is that you know walked him down it was an old theater so flights and flights of steps yeah and got you know i don't know got security so it wasn't like a maintenance guy doing work it was just an intruder it was an inebriated uh patron who somehow found his way through a door through the rafters in the ceiling oh it was totally lost and he stepped through the drywall ceiling yeah and then i got on stage and i had like bandages on my arms and everything for the jam and i guess word got around the stage and everything and joe we're jamming and he's like goes up to me what happened you know and uh it's like yeah i heard you brought down the house yeah literally you had to throw a man out maybe people heard that before but that that's a pretty epic uh g3 funny story maybe you were like a bouncer in an alternate universe possible you like i i have i have done security at my uh my daughter's um dance recital so i don't know okay i do i do have a security shirt with my name on it so great don't put it past me yeah i wouldn't mess with you um so that concert i mentioned uh where i saw you was at berkeley college of music and it was where i went to school and it's where you went to school and uh you're back playing music with your with your long time pal mike portnoy um who you met in berkeley right or was it yeah before that yeah we met there no we met there you met at berkeley and um so it isn't it's interesting to you know like when you have someone who went to regular high school your regular high school friends or your regular college friends for some people um it's different when you go to a music college and you meet people who really speak your language that you didn't even know that you spoke necessarily right so that must have been hugely satisfying to to reunite and kind of get back on it's like you pick up where you left off almost musically yeah absolutely i mean john my young and i we grew up together we and we went to berkeley together we we're roommates and we met mike there i mean we were all 18 years old but um it it turned out that mike was actually you know obviously berkeley's in boston but mike was from long island as well right uh so it wasn't like you know too far of a stretch he lived in a town about an hour away from us and um we just liked all the same music and bands and just growing up on long island at the same kind of you know upbringing i guess so that was the immediate connection you know because berkeley is very international school even more so now than it was then but you know people come from all over the world and all over the country so we could have met anybody they could have been from australia or anywhere but we happened to meet another long islander who we you know who we related to yeah and informed this bad so yeah fast forward in a band 25 years together mike leaves and now 10 years since he left um i asked him to do this record and i'm so happy that uh i did and that he said yes and that he did it because you know like you said this record has a very uplifting vibe i think the the um the story of mike sort of reuniting with me musically on this helped contribute to that because just that in itself is very positive especially during this crazy pandemic and yeah everything that's going on and his playing you know i wrote the record recorded the guitars and he played recorded the drums to those guitars um in my studio but just his approach and his sort of lively off the cuff you know playing style helps to make those songs like happy song terminal yeah you know temple like have all this energy and spirit so it was it was a very just overall real positive vibe i love the way the fans responded to that um you know no drama and bs just like happy to see us together and and uh great positive response to the record so that was really encouraging as well yeah it it really shone through yeah and uh so when you were in boston do you have any memories from being 18 in boston because boston's like my favorite city in the world just you know is awesome it's a it's a perfect campus and absolutely one of my favorite memories is there's this place called crazy does which was right across the street from the 150 mass ave building yeah and we had our uh the band that i would played in college had a practice space underneath crazy does oh that's funny and uh you know walking through the city carrying a pedalboard a guitar backpack in the streets of boston that was like 140 pounds and uh just like that was my experience and i just like recall go the smell of pizza and shred and being tired all the time is there any nostalgic uh feeling that you get from boston oh definitely i mean my son went uh graduated berkeley as well and he oh i didn't know that that's cool yeah he actually was he was the first resident in the 160 building the new building oh yeah there used to be a mcdonald's there yeah right exactly they tore down my beloved mcdonald's yeah so boston's changed a lot berkeley when i went they had the two buildings they had 150 mass avenue and boylston yep that's all they had so obviously they expanded a lot i loved being there on berkeley beach you know and seeing all the kids you know just like me with gig bags over there like i felt like i really really belonged and uh what the place for us that you're talking about um was uh supreme pizza supremes was there one supremes i uh i had some late nights at supremes lots of late nights they you know the there was no like wendy's or starbucks or any of that or jp licks and all those places yeah but but there was supreme so we all we always ordered supremes we get like cheese steaks and things like that um but we are we rehearsed almost every day um and we were always in this one specific rehearsal room that was e19 um and that's where we we practiced so yeah lots of great memories from that even though it was only two semesters it was only one year that we went there oh right on yeah uh so you obviously in that short time in that you know your guitar tone has kind of evolved over the years but i would say since you like i would say maybe around your solo your first solo album it really started to ground into this i don't know how you would describe i mean it's like the thanos of guitar tone it's like this it's like this milky curtain of sound uh i know you know i reference you know like the lead sound i guess is what i associate most this like blooming um beautiful overtone kind of ridden sound and i was wondering if you want to like just brag about that for a second because it seems like it's something that you you know people ask what kind of gear do you play blah blah blah but it seems like you've really fine-tuned your guitar tone over the years and really been meticulously changing intricate parts of it can you like give us the the dumbed-down version of of what yeah under the hood you've been you've been working on well you know the biggest thing is a long time ago i i got turned into turned on to mesa boogie amps and you know you don't know why you identify with a certain type of tone or sound or amplifier but you just do you connect you plug in you're like man this thing sounds awesome like i feel like i can do anything and so in those early days you know i was playing boogies and that was like the part of helping me develop the sound that i heard in my head um i got turned on to the the mark 2c plus which is like one of their you know iconic holy grail amps of all time it's master puppet samp and everything else and that really like i really identified with the sound of that amp like when i plugged in my guitar i felt like that thing could do anything that kind of milky lead thing you're talking about but also super heavy crunch and stuff like that um you know i played boogies for years and years and years and years and years fast forward i was able to develop the first signature mesa boogie amp based on that iconic c plus um so that's part of it so part of you know getting this tone that i heard in my head was the initial connection with boogie but also working with boogie those same people randall smith the same guy who designed the first mark one that carlos santana played to design the jp2c and really really get it dialed to where it's the ultimate amp that does everything my uh you know my imagination imagination is cooking up the other part of that is uh obviously the guitar and the pickups now dimarzio i've been with for ever you know from the beginning and had such a great relationship with with larry dimarzio and steve blucher who designs the pickups and over the course of these years we've honed in on what i'm looking for you know having you know maybe this has too much high end maybe it needs to be rounder maybe the low end needs to be a little less clogged so these notes could sing more so the development of the pickups and having signature pickups through the years has helped too and then finally in the big biggest piece of the guitars now with ernie ball music man uh i first met sterling ball 20 years ago and we're celebrating 20 years of developing these incredible signature instruments and again that journey of developing or what what sound am i hearing you know what does mahogany sound like what does maple and all alder and basswood sound like um what about the electronics the layout etc etc so you take those pieces of the puzzle over the course of many many years you know since suspended 15 years and here i am with what are the ultimate pieces of the puzzle that perfectly do what i've been thinking of this whole time um i call that process i named my business as the tone mission it's like people's tone mission it's how the the the uh path that you take the journey that you take to get the sound that's in your head finally realized and i've been fortunate enough to do that working with these incredible you know companies to develop the signature gear but um that's it in a nutshell i don't know if that's a dumbed-down version but no that's the perfect perfect amount yeah the best way for me to describe it and and so now i don't think you breathe during that entire description it seems like you're pretty passionate about that i'm totally passionate about it and the fun thing is i i just get to reap the benefits because you know recording terminal it's just a joy i mean i plug in the majesty into the head dial it the way i'm used to dialing it and it just sounds awesome okay record that like there's no you're not sitting there trying to get a tone for hours and frustrated and trying different amps and oh i don't know about this guitar and what about this there's none of that it's like gone it's just like this guitar plug it into that head and mic it go you know tone mission accomplished tone mission accomplished absolutely i have um i have a lot of your gear in case you haven't noticed this is uh i see that jp 15. that's beautiful yeah it looks awesome really nice you call it paizo or piezo well i've been saying piezo i i you know people say both ways um you know that that all the ernie ball music man guitars i mean not just my models but all the ones they make are just works of art they're just they really are they they are the real deal they are passionate about what they do they're artists um and their guitar players are innovators and they just make the best guitars on the planet they're everyone i'm just looking that even on the video i'm like that's beautiful instrument it is delightful um i got a couple more things for you and then i'll let you get on with your day but uh this is actually recent news and we can cut this part out if you're not supposed to talk about it but i heard rumblings of an eight-string guitar yeah is that real or is that just like a a fantasy in the twitter verse no they're rumblings they're real rumblings we we have been talking about this for a while um you know developing an eight-string version of the majesty uh we did a whole bunch of research went through some drawings and stuff and so now it's a reality that we're talking about uh building and i'm hoping to get a prototype real soon what i would really love to do um it didn't work out on the last stream theater record scheduling-wise but hopefully with the next one which we're going to start working on really soon is to have one in time for that that so that i can experiment with it and write with it but yeah those rumblings are true i have nothing to show you yet uh but uh in due time that will be a reality so i'm excited about that and i have no experience playing an eight-string so i'm just approaching this from total it'll be like the gypsy jazz experiment exactly just go into your hole and uh come out on the other side right i i related to i've said this before as well i related to back when we wrote awake and i got my first seven string sent to the studio i picked this up it was a steve version green pickup same one that's in the live video and uh she started writing i never played a seven string before and we wrote the mirror and all that i was like this is awesome nice uh a couple more questions for you john uh what is your favorite airplane album
to listen to on an airplane yeah um i don't know if i i wouldn't say i have a favorite but what i do i i find that time uh a really good time to like listen to what i happen to be working on because i don't do that too often like especially i don't know when when producing a record and like getting to the point where you're listening to mixes and mastering it gets very technical and you're listening for things you're listening for level and eq and i i don't really get a chance to like just listen to it as an objective listener it's like what we talked about at the very beginning like kind of stepping back and yeah enjoying what you're creating and making sure you're in the right direction too right so on the plane i like to just you know put in the headphones and like put on the record like actually listen to it yeah i've done that a bunch of times and and just take it in as an objective listener so that's a good something i enjoy doing because it's just like on it uninterrupted time where you have nothing else going on no distractions okay build a band yeah what four others in a band living or dead would you want to play with so it's a five person band you're on guitar who are the other four members oh my god um well i'd have to have getty lee on base that would be okay um i always thought it would be cool let me see it has how many members are we talking here four four other than you so five total it'd be great playing with dennis chambers i've always been a fan of his his drumming some monster drummer um he's an unbelievable drummer yeah um peter gabriel would have to like be the vocalist he's like my favorite i like this band so far you're pretty good right one more i don't know one more um now what instrument does that could be anything it could be a keyboard it could be a heart player could be a flautist oh man or another guitar player whoever you want who could it be uh it'd be uh we'll have andre segovia on on classical guitar and see what happens that's an amazing band wow that's a band that's insane that's great all right finally to to loop in your guitar super villain alter ego i have one final question for you yeah what do you believe about guitar that most guitar players would think is crazy this could be a hard truth for guitar players that they need to hear or something you know that others don't or a misconception about the instrument or whatever you want what what do you believe about the guitar or guitar playing that others might not believe well i i think that my strongest belief and i i think a lot of players would actually relate to this that's the only problem with my answer but my strongest belief and i'm very biased is i think that is electric guitar specifically is the most expressive musical instrument other than a voice that's my true feeling i really think that it just the something about electric guitar being amplified through something with distortion being able to manipulate the strings and everything that we do with pedals and and whatnot that it's just i don't know the most moving and expressive instrument uh more than anything else but again i'm biased um people probably argue at that point that play other instruments and rightly so i have respect for all that uh and the other thing i would say as well and this kind of um this comes down to something that people have talked about before is that we talked about tone and development of gear and stuff and you might have heard players say this too but tone really comes from individual players hands and their approach to the instrument and this could be proven by you and somebody else playing through the exact same rig and sounding completely different even if you're playing the same thing so that's something that people you know as much as we focus on tone and gear development and stuff which is important it's also important to note that who you are actually physically biologically has a lot to do with how you sound on guitar and that circles back to why it's such an expressive instrument because you're you're just completely physically connected to it directly and it comes out um so it's pretty crazy i agree i agree all right so john as we as we wind down here i'd like to thank you for uh being the inaugural guest on our villains i couldn't have picked a better person to do that so i i really do appreciate it um it's been an honor to chat with you and we'll look forward to seeing and hearing what treacherous plots you devise next in your musical endeavors perfect well me too congratulations on your new program thanks for having me be your inaugural guest i wish you the best of luck with it i love all your sound effects and your format i think it's going to do really great so thank you best of luck with it awesome thanks for having me
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