John Petrucci

John Peter Petrucci (born July 12, 1967) is an American guitarist and songwriter best known as a founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. Along with his bandmate Mike Portnoy, he has produced all Dream Theater albums since their 1999 release, Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory. Petrucci was named as the third player on the G3 tour six times, more than any other invited guitarist. GuitarOne ranked him as the 9th Greatest Shredder of All Time. In 2009 he appeared in the No. 2 position (behind Dave Mustaine) in Joel McIver's book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists.

Petrucci first played guitar at the age of eight years old when he noticed his sister, who was taking Organ lessons at the time was allowed to stay up past her bed time to practice. He soon dropped it when his plan failed. At age 12, he began playing again when he was invited into the band of his friend Kevin Moore, who would later become the first keyboardist of Dream Theater. Petrucci began to practice in earnest. He was a largely self-taught guitarist who developed his skills through attempts to match the skill of his idols, who included Steve Morse, Steve Howe, Steve Vai, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Al Di Meola, Alex Lifeson and Allan Holdsworth.

Petrucci 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 another childhood friend of Petrucci and Myung, Kevin Moore (Keyboards), formed the band Majesty, which would later become Dream Theater.

While Dream Theater is what Petrucci is most commonly associated with, he is also a part of the project band Liquid Tension Experiment and has appeared as a guest on several 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, bearing that same title.

In 2001 he was invited by Joe Satriani and Steve Vai to tour with them on the popular G3 guitar tour, which exposed him to a massive number of new fans and inspired him to record a solo album. Suspended Animation was released on March 1, 2005, and made available for order from his web site. He also appeared on the 2005, 2006 and 2007 G3 tours.

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 they are simply titled "Prologue" and "Epilogue". In 2007, John Petrucci went on G3 tour again, this time with Joe Satriani and Paul Gilbert.

Dream Theater bandmate Jordan Rudess revealed in an interview that Petrucci is a practicing Catholic.Petrucci is married to Rena Sands, a guitarist in the all-female heavy metal band Meanstreak, and they have 3 children, Samantha and Reny (who are twins), and Kiara. 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.

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 hands." John is notable for frequent use of the seven-string electric guitar, which he states is used as a "writing tool", taking advantage of the extended range both for heavier riffing (The Mirror) and to play extended range runs as part of a solo (This Dying Soul). On one of his guitar lesson videos he states that James Hetfield of Metallica had a great influence on him.He has also cited Steve Morse as a major influence. In addition to this, he is greatly influenced by the emotion-driven guitar playing of David Gilmour. Perhaps the best examples of this are his guitar solo in 'Lines in the Sand' off Dream Theater's 1997 album 'Falling into Infinity', the extended solo section of 'A Change of Seasons', and the mellow, spacy segment near the end of 'The Count of Tuscany' from their latest release 'Black Clouds & Silver Linings'. Petrucci has also been known to directly incorporate riffs and solos from other bands into live Dream Theater performances. For example, Pink Floyd's 'Have a Cigar' and Metallica's 'Enter Sandman' are referenced during the performance of 'Peruvian Skies' from the 'Once in a Livetime' live album. Another example occurs in Dream Theater's live DVD 'Chaos in Motion', during the extended version of 'Surrounded'. Here, Petrucci incorporates the guitar solo from 'Mother' by Pink Floyd. The varied examples of this further demonstrate Petrucci's wide range of influences.