John Petrucci

John Petrucci is the guitar player for Dream Theater and has been at the forefront of progressive rock guitar since the early 90s. He also recently recorded a solo album named Suspended Animation, available from Amazon.com or his Web site. I found out that he also recorded several albums with the prog-rock supergroup Liquid Tension Experiment.

I only recently became a fan of John Petrucci. For years, I’d heard about him and read about him in guitar magazines, but I always dismissed him because I wasn’t really a fan of Dream Theater. I knew he was a great guitarist, but I didn’t know how good until I recently picked up the new G3 Live In Tokyo DVD. I was blown away at not only how great a guitar player he is, but how much I liked his songs and his playing. I immediately picked up a copy of his solo album and am glad that I did. Several people have commented how some of his solo music sounds a lot of Joe Satriani, and I agree. Then, I started listening to the two Liquid Tension Experiment albums and those are fantastic as well. Further searching turned up several guitar tutorials, a book and a DVD, that have been very popular with rock guitarists. I don’t know how I missed all of this before because he is a great guitarist, and he really stole the show on the G3 DVD. Additionally, Petrucci recorded a live album with Dream Theater keyboardist Jorden Rudess.

If, like me, for some reason you’ve dismissed Petrucci’s playing in the past or have only recently started playing progressive rock guitar, then I’d highly suggest you pick up the G3 album, Suspended Animation or one of the Liquid Tension Experiment albums.