Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci has never shied away from how much he has learned after discovering Hurry and counterpart Alex Lifeson at exactly the right time in his life. In 2019, he told Program how deep Lifeson’s influence had gone.
“Alex Lifeson has been such a huge influence on me in so many ways. You know how it is when you discover a band as a teenager – you’re just so excited about it.
For the first couple of Rush albums, I learned literally every song, and my friends and I, including (Dream Theater bassist) John Myung, would jam to all that stuff. I think learning all those songs just ingrained itself in my style.
I remember the section YYZ and learning the guitar solo and all these different techniques of hammer-ons and pull-offs, even the scales that Alex used. I use that stuff all the time in Dream Theater.
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Rush introduced me to progressive rock and metal and showed me that song structures don’t always have to be three minutes long. This style of music was the perfect backdrop for stories and conceptual lyrics – things like 2112. All of this had a huge impact on me and opened my mind to exploring a more unique way of writing in a progressive style.
His guitar sound changed the way I create my effects
The odd time signatures and songs that consisted of several parts – something like The Strangiato Villawhere it’s broken up into sections, just like Genesis would do – was a big influence. His guitar sound changed the way I create the effects that I use. Some of his approaches to chord playing and making a band sound really big with just one guitar were a big influence on me.
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With Rush, since there were only three of them, the guitar really had to take up a lot of space. Alex’s very elaborate guitar playing, use of open strings, organ tones, richer chords and choral singing on the guitar really filled that space.
I do a bit of solo work, I tour with G3, and that’s just a trio – so it ties into that influence when I try to fill a lot of space with the guitar when there are no keyboards and no second guitarist, especially during the instrumental parts when there are no vocals.
Alex has a wonderful way with the guitar. He put the guitar at the forefront and made it occupy this beautiful space in such a great way.”
