Courtney Barnett hated the sound of picks on acoustic guitar, so she developed her own fingerpicking style. Barnett is shown here performing during the Pitchfork Showcase at Mohawk Outdoor during SXSW 2015 in Austin, Texas.
The rising Aussie guitarist with wonderfully weird tones and an oddball sense of humor.
Courtney Barnett seems to be everywhere. The Australian songwriter's latest release, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, entered Billboard's Independent Album list at No. 1 and Top 200 at No. 20. She is on list after list of must-hear new artists. She is the darling of mainstream and alternative critics. She is featured in a small army of publications online, in print, on the radio, and on TV. She is touring the world and is slated to play a host of important festivals this summer.
In a word, Courtney Barnett is suddenly ubiquitous.
The rock press is smitten with Barnett's quirky rambling lyrics, deadpan vocal delivery, and unorthodox songwriting, but her real charmāat least if you play guitarāis that those qualities sit upon a bed of dense feedback, oddball oscillations, and good-old-fashioned-fuzzed-out-hook-driven riffage. Need proof? Check out the relentless fuzzfest of her single āPedestrian at Best" or the righteous feedback assault amid the otherwise laid-back vibe of 2013's āAvant Gardener." Her guitar chops are formidable, if unusualāshe doesn't use a pick but also doesn't employ traditional fingerpickingāand her guitar-centric approach is fundamental to her sound. āI do my own thing," she says. āWhich is different but still cool."
Barnett usually tours as a trioāher band features Bones Sloane on bass and Dave Mudie on drumsābut in the studio she augments the lineup to include Australian ace Dan Luscombe. āHe is a pretty fucking incredible guitarist," Barnett said about Luscombe's abilities. Along with Barnett and engineer Burke Reid, Luscombe also coproduced the new album. āI wanted a bit of a different perspective because I spent so long inside my own head writing it all," she says.
On the road and bouncing from continent to continent, Barnett spoke to PG from a somewhat rural part of the U.K. to discuss her gear, unusual playing style, songwriting, the challenges of playing covers, and the role of humor in music.
Where did you find your Harmony guitar and what's so special about it?
I found it in this store just outside of MelbourneāI'm left-handed and it's hard to find guitars. It was the first nice guitar I bought myself. Before then I had an acoustic and a shitty old electric that I got when I was a kid. [The Harmony] was always pretty special, but then I took it on tour and it got a crack in the back. It's got one of those floating bridges and it just went out of tune halfway through every song. I started playing a bit harder and it just wasn't right. I keep it at home now and play it there.
Barnett rocks her lefty Telecaster live at The Mohawk during SXSW on March 18, 2015. Fun fact: This lefty can play a regular guitar upside down if she has to. Photo by Chris Kies.
You tour with the Tele now?
Yeah. The Tele was kind of the perfect fix for that. It keeps its tune so good and I just like the tone on it. It's all pretty simple. I just got a Jag as wellāa couple of months agoāand that's pretty fun to play. Dan plays a Jazzmaster on a lot of the new album and I needed that kind of gritty guitar and tremolo to recreate some of the album sounds.
Is it a stock Jag?
I think so. I got it from a friend. It's a lefty.
You've said before that you can play a right-handed guitar flipped upside down. Why don't you just do that?
Well, I can play a shitload better on a left-handed guitar. I play averagely upside down. I learned from so many years of picking up other people's guitars and messing around on them. I probably couldn't do a very good gig on an upside-down guitar. I could if I had to, but it would be a pretty bad gig [laughs].
Do you experiment with open tunings or do you do most everything in standard?
All of the album is in standard, but for years I've mucked around with other stuffāit just hasn't eventuated into songs yet, or not complete songs. I play second guitar with [Australian-based singer/songwriter] Jen Cloher and she uses really weird tunings. I don't even know what they are ... just strange tunings. I also used to play slide guitar in a band, so obviously I did then. I mostly played in open G.
And the songs with Jen use tunings she's invented?
She does weird stuff because she reckons she doesn't know any names of chords, she just does things by ear. Like those weird Joni Mitchell, strange Sonic Youth tuningsāevery song's something different. I never know what she's doing.When I play with her, I just play second guitar in normal tuning and play lead around her parts.
You have a unique playing style that uses your thumb and fingers. Do you ever use a pick?
No. When I started doing gigs I was doing acoustic songwriter shows. I hated the sound of picks on acoustic guitar, so I never used themāI just developed whatever I do now. I feel like it gives me more freedom to do stuff, though I can probably play a shitload better with a pick.
When you're playing single-note lines, it looks like you hold your index finger as if it were a pick.
Yeah, that's right.
What do you use for pedals? I think I saw a Fulltone OCD. What else do you have down there?
I really like the OCD. For ages I've had this cheap delay pedalāI don't know what the brand isābut it's cool for creating sounds. Before I started this tour I got some new pedals and I've been mucking around with a couple of them to recreate some of the many different sounds and levels from the album. I got a chorus pedal, which is really fun, and a kind of Muff pedal. I had a tremolo pedal but I just didn't like it. It's hard to switch because I'm doing rhythm and lead together and it's about keeping that rhythm and consistency going and still being able to do some crazy shit on top of it. Sometimes it's hard to find the right balance.
Barnett recently acquired a lefty Jaguar because she needed a āgritty guitar and tremolo" to recreate some of the sounds from her new album. Barnett is shown here performing during the Pitchfork Showcase at Mohawk Outdoor
during SXSW 2015 in Austin, Texas. Photo by Chris Kies.
Do you bring your own amps on the road?
Not yet. I pretty much just use a Fenderāa Deluxe or Twin or DeVille. That's what I've got at home. It's a pretty standard amp and it's not hard to get.
I saw a concert on YouTube of you covering an entire INXS album. Is that some type of Australian right of passage?
No. [Laughs.] I can't believe that's on YouTube. A record store was doing a summer of gigs and asked musicians to pick an album they love and play it in full. I picked that one [INXS's Kick]. It's so '80sāso much productionāI thought it would be funny to try and play it solo. I played it with a couple of loop pedals. It was pretty unrehearsed, which is why I'm a bit surprised it's up on YouTube and everyone seems to have seen it. But whatever [laughs] ... it was fun and a good challenge.
You won't be doing a concert of AC/DC or Midnight Oil or something like that?
No. I mean, I love those bands and every now and then we do covers of random songs. But playing an album in full is actually quite a challenge. I didn't realize until a couple of days before when I was learning the songs and I thought, āOh no, this is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be."
Who were some of your influences growing up?
I listened to Nirvana and Jeff Buckley and PJ Harvey when I was young. And then I discovered Television and Sonic Youth and Talking Heads and stuff like that.
Is that what got you interested in the guitar as well? Or was it more for songwriting?
A bit of both, I think. My influences are from all different places. Television and Sonic Youth guitar-wise, but you know, everyone has their different good parts about them. You pick up different things from different bands.
Courtney Barnett's Gear
Guitars
Fender Telecaster
Fender Jaguar
Harmony hollowbody electric
Amps
Fender Hot Rod DeVille
Fender Deluxe
Effects
Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner
Boss BD-2 Blues Driver
Fulltone OCD
Electro-Harmonix Little Big Muff Pi
Delay box, brand unknown
Boss CH-1 Super Chorus
Behringer Ultra Tremolo UT100
Broadcast Hard On AB switcher
Strings and Picks
Ernie Ball Power Slinky (.011ā.048)
Frank Zappa famously asked, āDoes humor belong in music?" Some of your songs are really funny. What are your thoughts about humor and music? Do you think they go together?
It's totally got a place. I don't overtly try to be funny. I'm not a very funny person, so when people talk about my funny lyrics I find that kind of funny. But I think it's good to be lighthearted. A lot of it is probably sarcastic and taking the piss out of serious situations or using humor or irony to deflect other emotions. It probably borders on subconscious a lot of the time. But yeah, I think there is room for it in music, of course.
It's easy with lyrics to point that way, but do you do quirky things guitar-wise as well?
I do a lot and I think I do it without it becoming trivial or slapstick. Humor in guitar playing is awesome, I reckon. It's up to everyone's own interpretationāit might not even be on purpose. A lot of your own character can come out in how you play guitar. I did a solo on one of Jen's new songsā āNeedle in the Hay"āthat seems to speak of me a lot in the way I play it.
Did you rewrite and reshape some of the songs in the studio or was a lot of what you brought in recorded as is?
It was basically as we took it in. There were a couple of things we pulled apart a little bit and put back together. We tried a couple of different drumbeatsājust as experiments to see how wildly they could change songs. I showed the guys the songs two weeks beforehand. We hired out a rehearsal room, learned them all, arranged them, and when we went in the studio we tracked mostly live. We did a couple of vocal and guitar overdubs and that was it.
And you recorded as a quartet with Dan Luscombe as well?
Yeah.
Are you playing your Harmony guitar on āBoxing Day Blues?"
No, I'm playing a friend's acoustic. I'm playing a right-handed guitar upside down. I thought the acoustic guitar sounded way nicer. I played the rhythm line and Dan did the swirly sounds in the background on the Jazzmaster or something. But the main guitar is the acoustic.
YouTube It
Courtney Barnett and her band perform at NPR's SXSW 2015 showcase at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas. Watch a close-up of Barnett's unique playing technique (no pick!) around 2:15 and 5:00.
So āBoxing Day Blues" is actually harder to play with the guitar strung lefty?
Nahāit's probably easier [laughs]. But the acoustic sounded better, so I went for that. When I play it live, I play it on the electric with a whole shitload of delay. It's a pretty swirly kind of song.
Do you write the lyrics firstātrying to craft a song toward the wordsāor is it more that you have a catalog of riffs, chord progressions, and things you're working with that you try to fuse together?
It's both of those things. I don't have a solid formula. I play guitar all the time and mentally store ideas or record them or whatever. I write all the time. When I sit down I try to piece them all together and see what goes where. Sometimes I just play guitar and start singing over the top of it straight away. I haven't found that one way works better than the other or anything. On āAvant Gardener" and āPedestrian at Best"āwhich have been the two singles so farāI wrote the music for both of them first. We recorded them and then I wrote the lyrics and melody over the top of the tracks.
Making It Weird Enough
Australian guitarist Dan Luscombe (the Drones, Paul Kelly) started working with Courtney Barnett about three years ago. He played on her second EP, How to Carve a Carrot into a Rose, which was combined with her first EP to create A Sea of Split Peas. He's all over her new release, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, playing guitar and also as coproducer. āWhen she was making her second EP she was looking for people to help her record and she was on a budget," Luscombe says. āI had all this recording gear at my place and offered. I just loved her songs and thought she was doing some really good stuff."
Luscombe is responsible for the feedback madness on Barnett's unlikely hit, āAvant Gardener." āThat was one of those cigarette packet [micro] amplifiers," he said. āI held it right up to the pickups and recorded that sound with a Shure SM57. It's this tiny mosquitoāthis thing in the mix that you just want to swatāthat feels like it's in front of your face."
A big sound on the new album is an old Boss Vibrato VB-2 that Luscombe found on eBay. āI bought that pedal about a year-and-a-half ago," he says. āI found it on eBay for about $650 USD. It has an amazingly natural vibrato. It arrived from Japan and it was still in the box in the plastic. I took it on the road with me and now it just looks like a piece of shit."
happy accident, really."
He also created the otherworldly backwards sounds on āDead Fox." āOriginally I played this kind of Keith Richards melodic line," he says. ā[Engineer] Burke Reid and I were listening to it in the mix and it just wasn't weird enough. We literally flipped itāwe reversed the partāand when it was reversed it started playing this new melody. For the most part the melody was there, but I had to manipulate it a fair bit to get it to play an actual pleasing melodic line, but backwards. It was a kind of happy accident, really."
Luscombe also notes that Barnett has a strong affinity for a no-name delay pedal she uses. āIt's just this brown box that says āDelay" on the front. She often has that set at a pretty tight slapback. She likes to leave that on. Burke and I were trying to get her away from that a few times, but that's a sound she really loves."
There's a lot of musical gold inside the scales.
Intermediate
Intermediate
ā¢ Develop a deeper improvisational vocabulary.
ā¢ Combine pentatonic scales to create new colors.
ā¢ Understand the beauty of diatonic harmony.Improvising over one chord for long stretches of time can be a musician's best friend or worst nightmare. With no harmonic variation, we are left to generate interest through our lines, phrasing, and creativity. When I started learning to improvise, a minor 7 chord and a Dorian mode were the only sounds that I wanted to hear at the time. I found it tremendously helpful to have the harmony stay in one spot while I mined for new ideas to play. Playing over a static chord was crucial in developing my sense of time and phrasing.
The following is the first improvisational device I ever came across. I want to say I got it from a Frank Gambale book. The idea is that there are three minor pentatonic scales "hiding" in any given major scale. If we're in the key of C (CāDāEāFāGāAāB) we can pluck out the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. If we frame them over a Dm7 chord, they give us different five-note combinations of the D Dorian mode. In short, we are building minor pentatonic scales off the 2, 3, and 6 of the C major scale.
Viewing this through the lens of D minor (a sibling of C major and the tonal center for this lesson), D minor pentatonic gives us the 1āb3ā4ā5āb7, E minor pentatonic gives us 2ā4ā5ā6ā1, and A minor pentatonic gives us 5āb7ā1ā2ā4. This means you can use your favorite pentatonic licks in three different locations and there are three different sounds we can tap into from the same structure.
If you smashed all of them together, you would get the D Dorian scale (DāEĀĀāFāGāAāBāC) with notes in common between the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. Ex. 1 uses all three scales, so you can hear the different colors each one creates over the chord.
Ex. 1
Ex. 2 is how I improvise with them, usually weaving in and out using different positional shapes.
Ex. 2
The next idea is one I stole from a guitarist who often came into a music store I worked at. On the surface, it's very easy: Just take two triads (in our example it will be Dm and C) and ping-pong between them. The D minor triad (DāFāA) gives us 1āb3ā5, which is very much rooted in the chord, and the C major triad (CāEāG) gives us the b7ā9ā4, which is much floatier. Also, if you smash these two triads together, you get 1ā2āb3ā4ā5āb7, which is a minor pentatonic scale with an added 2 (or 9). Eric Johnson uses this sound all the time. Ex. 3 is the lick I stole years ago.
Ex. 3
Ex. 4 is how I would improvise with this concept. Many different fingerings work with these, so experiment until you find a layout that's comfortable for your own playing.
Ex. 4
If two triads work, why not seven? This next approach will take all the triads in the key of C (CāDmāEmāFāGāAmāBdim) and use them over a Dm7 chord (Ex. 5). Each triad highlights different three-note combinations from the Dorian scale, and all of them sound different. Triads are clear structures that sound strong to our ears, and they can generate nice linear interest when played over one chord. Once again, all of this is 100% inside the scale. Ex. 5 is how each triad sounds over the track, and Ex. 6 is my attempt to improvise with them.
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
If we could find all these possibilities with triads, it's logical to make the structure a little bigger and take a similar approach with 7 chords, or in this case, arpeggios. Naturally, all the diatonic chords will work, but I'll limit this next idea to just Dm7, Fmaj7, Am7, and Cmaj7. I love this approach because as you move further away from the Dm7 shape, each new structure takes out a chord tone and replaces it with an extension. I notice that I usually come up with different lines when I'm thinking about different chord shapes, and this approach is a decent way to facilitate that. Ex. 7 is a good way to get these under your fingers. Just ascend one shape, shift into the next shape on the highest string, then descend and shift to the next on the lowest string.
Ex. 7
Ex. 8 is my improvisation using all four shapes and sounds, but I lean pretty heavily on the Am7.
Ex. 8
This last concept has kept me busy on the fretboard for the last five years or so. Check it out: You can take any idea that works over Dm7 and move the other diatonic chords. The result is six variations of your original lick. In Ex. 9 I play a line that is 4ā1āb3Āā5 over Dm7 and then walk it through the other chords in the key. These notes are still in the key of C, but it sounds drastically different from playing a scale.
Ex. 9
In Ex. 10, I try to think about the shapes from the previous example, but I break up the note order in a random but fun way. The ending line is random but felt good, so I left it in.
Ex. 10
While all these concepts have been presented over a minor chord, you can just as easily apply them to any chord quality, and they work just as well in harmonic or melodic minor. Rewarding sounds are available right inside the harmony, and I am still discovering new ideas through these concepts after many years.
Though the above ideas won't necessarily be appropriate for every style or situation, they will work in quite a few. Developing any approach to the point that it becomes a natural extension of your playing takes considerable work and patience, so just enjoy the process, experiment, and let your ear guide you to the sounds you like. Even over just one chord, there is always something new to find.
The high priest of prog-metal guitar, John Petrucci, is still finding new territory on his instrument.
The legendary progressive-metal guitarist details the darknessāand the renewed camaraderieāthat led to his band Dream Theaterās 16th full-length record, Parasomnia.
Some very important events happened in John Petrucciās life in 2024. He celebrated an enormous milestone with his bandmates in prog-metal behemoth Dream Theater: Theyāve been a band for 40 years. Many bands arenāt destined to last a single decade, let alone four. Itās a titanic personal and artistic achievement. And yet, that anniversary paled in significance next to another major development: The band wrote and created a new full-length record with founding drummer Mike Portnoy, who had been absent from Dream Theater since 2010.
The news of Portnoyās reunion with Dream Theater rocked the metal world. Over the years, whiffs of acrimony and hurt feelings suggested Portnoyās return to the band might be a pipe dream. But in October 2023, the band revealed that they had all independently reconciled with Portnoy, a process that culminated backstage at New Yorkās Beacon Theater in 2022. Portnoy attended Dream Theaterās show at the venue and met up with the band afterward. It was the first time heād seen vocalist James Labrie in 10 years. Within seconds, 13 years melted away in the warmth of camaraderie.
āThe gear was all set up and we sat there and started playing. It was magic. It was like we never missed a beat.ā
A few months after the announcement of Portnoyās return, he and bandmates Labrie, Petrucci, bassist John Myung, and keyboardist Jordan Rudess convened at the recently renovated Dream Theater HQ, their longtime creative hideout and recording studio in Long Island, to begin to create new music. Petrucci, speaking over the phone from Brazil during Dream Theaterās December 2024 tour, remembers that period fondly. āFrom the moment that we all stepped in the studio in February, the gear was all set up and we sat there and started playing,ā he says. āIt was magic. It was like we never missed a beat.ā
After shaking off the cobwebs, the first song they wrote together was āNight Terrorāāāif that gives you any indication of the energy and vibe and mood that we were in,ā quips Petrucci. Itās heavy, riffy, aggressive, and progressive, a capsule of 13 years in just shy of 10 minutes. āWe let that all out in the first couple of weeks of just being together,ā Petrucci continues. āIt was wonderful and the creative juices just flowed the way they always did. There was great brotherly chemistry between all of us.ā
Last year, Dream Theater celebrated their ruby anniversary as a band. Four decades on, theyāre still exploring the dark corners of what happens when we sleep.
The band continued to create together as theyād always done. They had some concrete ideas: They wanted to make a concept album, and it had to be heavy and riff-centric. Petrucci, who produced the record, was intrigued by parasomnia, a medical concept which refers broadly to any unusual sleep pattern, like sleepwalking, nightmares, insomnia, sleep paralysis, and more. He hadnāt experienced those nocturnal issues (the worst he deals with is snoring), but he began deep research into them. A path had opened up. āThat creative part of me just wakes up, and then that turns into it also being musically creative, lyrically creative, visually creative,ā says Petrucci.
This is how Parasomnia, Dream Theaterās 16th studio record, came to exist. Engineered and mixed by Andy Sneap, the concept album comprises a collection of suites and vignettes that center on various sleep disturbances, opening with āIn the Arms of Morpheus,ā a slowly building soundscape that sets the scene for all that follows. It soundtracks someone getting ready for bed and falling asleep, and just as theyāre drifting into a dreamstate, a musical theme starts to creep in. It heightens and gets weird before exploding into the full chaos that gives way to āNight Terror,ā the nine-minute-plus epic. Petrucciās playing on this song alone is staggering: Thereās the classic, open-string beginner riff, then vintage, hyper, ā80s-metal single-note melody work, then a truly brain-melting, lightning-fast solo that leaves your jaw open.
True to Dream Theater lineage, there are pieces of the record that feel ready to soundtrack alien drag races on Mars next to swanky sections of jazzy, hard-rocking funk-blues, like on āA Broken Man.ā Petrucci slips in and out of modes and scales like a chameleon changing its colors, each sounding as lived-in and natural as the last. His fingers just seem to know where to go. His only reprieve is the funereal interlude āAre We Dreaming?ā which prepares us for the power ballad āBend the Clockā and the devastating, scorched earth closer: āThe Shadow Man Incident.ā
Parasomnia is Dream Theaterās 16th studio record, and their first since reuniting with founding drummer Mike Portnoy.
āItās wacky,ā says Petrucci about the phenomena behind that songās title. If youāre not familiar, āthe shadow manā is a colloquial name given to a figure that appears during some episodes of sleep paralysis. People around the world have reported a similar apparition visiting them while theyāre experiencing sleep paralysisābut thereās no scientific consensus for what causes the similar visions.
āThereās something in the human brain that is unaccounted for or whatever that must be producing that, that repeated experience,ā continues Petrucci. āYou start doing all this research and going down rabbit holes online. Youāre like, āWow, for centuries, in every culture and civilization, the same thing has been happening. What is this?ā It definitely explores the depths of the human mind, but it reminds me of any sort of topic that holds your interest in a weird way, like UFOs. A song like āThe Shadow Man Incidentā is a long, epic piece of music that gives you the backdrop and license to go into storytelling more.ā
The goal was to take that storytelling beyond the normal confines of an LPāor, at least, what we think of as an LP in the streaming age. āWhat we decided to do was to make the album kind of like a Dark Side of the Moon listening experience,ā explains Petrucci. āOur hope is that people will get this record, turn down the lights, get together with some friends for a drink or whatever you do, and just listen to the whole thing like youāre watching a movie. Itās supposed to be an experience.āPetrucci even studied the music of composers like John Williams to get a bead on how to create epic, cinematic feelings in music. He displayed his research to his bandmates in the form of creative direction for certain songs, likening the process to scoring a film. āThe album or song topic presents certain imagery, and you want the music to match that imagery, so you have those tools in your toolbox, like, āOkay, I know what kind of chord movement or chordal sounds or modal things I can do that are going to make that,ā and itās going to create that flavor as opposed to just going in and writing in the typical way that you would if you didnāt have that knowledge ahead of time.ā
āWith Mike rejoining the band, I wanted to lean into the nostalgic aspect in some of the recording process.ā
A part of that soundscaping is what Petrucci describes as āear candyā: spoken-word passages, or sound effects like clocks ticking and alarms ringing. These elements help build a more profound, immersive listen, but they only work if the songs are good, says Petrucci. āYou can have all these sound connections and overdubs and voices, but if the songs suck, itās not going to mean anything. No oneās going to want to listen to it.ā
Knowing that the record would deal with all things eerie and creepy, Petrucci wanted to explore what types of tonalities could unsettle the listening experience. āFor āNight Terror,ā I use the super Phrygian mode, which is like a mode of the Hungarian minor which has a very unresolved sound that creates a lot of tension,ā he says. He also experimented with constructs like the Prometheus and Tristan chords. āThat gives you that dreamy weird thing you hear in āIn the Arms of Morpheus.ā That first 8-string chord is this crazy chord of all tritones that just makes it sound like youāre in a nightmare right away.ā
Petrucci, pictured here shredding in November 1994, broke out plenty of classic gear for the recording of Parasomnia to mark the reunion with Portnoy.
Photo by Frank White
Petrucci called on a range of tools old and new to bring Parasomnia to life. āWith Mike rejoining the band, I wanted to lean into the nostalgic aspect in some of the recording process,ā he explains. He used his 6-, 7-, and 8-string Ernie Ball Music Man Majesty guitars, in a spread of different tunings. He used his Mesa/Boogie JP-2C on everything except the recordās solos. For those, he busted out his old Mesasāa Mark III, IV, and IIC+ among themāfor a shootout and wound up choosing the IIC+ that he used on old Dream Theater records (plus his own solo release, Suspended Animation). A Roland Jazz Chorus even clocked in for some cleansāa page Petrucci took from James Hetfieldās book.
The nostalgia didnāt end there. The band reached out to recording engineer Doug Oberkircher, who engineered all of the bandās records from 1992ās Images and Words through 2003ās Train of Thought, to purchase the Neve preamp used on those albums. All the guitars on Parasomnia were recorded through that preamp.
In many ways, a production this grand and intricate is familiar territory for the band. Petrucci and Dream Theater obviously have a penchant for art that is narrative, theatrical, and grand. But Parasomnia is specially weighted with circumstance and time.John Petrucci's Gear
Petrucci and Dream Theater have managed an incredible feat: Theyāre just as excited about their music now as they were when they were teenagers.
Photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva
Guitars
- Various Ernie Ball Music Man The Majesty 6-, 7-, and 8-string guitars with DiMarzio Dreamcatcher and Rainmaker pickups
Amps
- Mesa/Boogie JP-2C (rhythm parts)
- Vintage Mesa/Boogie Mark II C+ Simul-Class (lead parts)
- Roland JC-120 (clean parts)
- Mesa/Boogie 4x12 Rectifier Traditional Straight cabinet
Effects
- MXR Bass Compressor
- Boss CE-2W
- Boss DC-2W
- TC Electronic Dreamscape
- TC Electronic TC 2290
- TC Electronic Corona Chorus+
- MXR Stereo Chorus
- Keeley Blues Disorder
- Dunlop JP95 John Petrucci Signature Cry Baby Wah
- MXR Custom Audio Electronics MC403 Power System
Recording
- Neve 1093 Pre/EQ
- API 3124MV
- Solid State Logic PURE DRIVE OCTO
- sE Electronics VR2 + Mojave Audio MA-D (rhythm parts)
- sE Electronics SE4400a + Royer Labs R-121 (lead parts)
- Royer Labs R-121 in stereo (clean parts)
- sE Electronics RNR1 (mid room)
- sE Electronics RNT in OMNI (far room)
- Waves H-Delay Analog Delay Plugin
- Soundtoys EchoBoy
- Soundtoys MicroShift
- Soundtoys Crystallizer
- D16 Group Audio Software Repeater
- Valhalla DSP VintageVerb Plugin
- Valhalla DSP ValhallaRoom Reverb Plugin
- Radial ProRMP
- Radial J48
- EBow
Strings & Picks
- John Petrucci signature Dunlops
- Ernie Ball .10 gauge electric sets
āJohn Myung and I met when we were in middle school, so we were like 12, and I remember everything about us playing together, going over to each otherās houses after school and playing every Iron Maiden song there ever was, going to Berklee and meeting Mike when we were 18, forming the band,ā says Petrucci. āHere we are, itās 40 years later. How the hell does that happen? But the great thing is to still be playing with my brothers and my buddies, and still making music together that weāre just as excited about as we were when we were 18. Itās all we ever wanted to do.ā
All of this history isnāt just window dressing. It comes out in Petrucciās playing, too: Itās all one, long story. āBy the time I was 16 or 17, I had a handle on the kind of style of player I wanted to be, and those original elements are still there and will always be there,ā says Petrucci. āBut now, 40 years later, thereās still new things coming in. Even on the new album, thereās things I never did before. Weāre playing these shows and Iām trying to master this stuff live in front of an audience and see if I can pull it off under pressure. The challenge of it is just as much as it was when I was a teenager. I love it.
āItās a continuing experiment,ā Petrucci continues. āAs you develop new techniques and go down new roads of playing, all of a sudden you realize you abandoned some older techniques, then you go back and rediscover those things, and through the process of rediscovering the old things you used to do, all of a sudden you could do some stuff that you never were able to do before. Itās like something thatās living. Itās a living experiment of guitar playing. Itās just forever inspiring.ā
YouTube It
Last year marked Dream Theaterās 40th anniversary as a band, and the official Dream Theater fan club caught up with the group before their gig in Oslo to see how they brought the milestone tour to life.
Fifteen watts that sits in a unique tone space and offers modern signal routing options.
A distinct alternative to the most popular 1x10 combos. Muscular and thick for a 1x10 at many settings. Pairs easily with single-coils and humbuckers. Cool looks.
Tone stack could be more rangeful.
$999
Supro Montauk
supro.com
When you imagine an ideal creative space, what do you see? A loft? A barn? A cabin far from distraction? Reveling in such visions is inspiration and a beautiful escape. Reality for most of us, though, is different. Weāre lucky to have a corner in the kitchen or a converted closet to make music in. Still, thereās a romance and sense of possibility in these modest spaces, and the 15-watt, 1x10, all-tubeSupro Montauk is an amplifier well suited to this kind of place. It enlivens cramped corners with its classy, colorful appearance. Itās compact. Itās also potent enough to sound and respond like a bigger amp in a small room.
The Montauk works in tight quarters for reasons other than size, thoughāwith three pre-power-section outputs that can route dry signal, all-wet signal from the ampās spring reverb, or a mixture of both to a DAW or power amplifier.
Different Stripes and Spacious Places
Vintage Supro amps are modestly lovely things. The China-made Montauk doesnāt adhere toold Supro style motifs in the strictest sense. Its white skunk stripe is more commonly seen on black Supro combos from the late 1950s, while the blue ārhino hideā vinyl evokes Supros from the following decade. But the Montaukās handsome looks make a cramped corner look a lot less dour. It looks pretty cool on a stage, too, but the Montauk attribute most likely to please performing guitarists is the small size (17.75" x 16.5" x 7.5") and light weight (29 pounds), which, if you tote your guitar in a gig bag and keep your other stuff to a minimum, facilitates magical one-trip load ins.
Keen-eyed Supro-spotters noting the Montaukās weight and dimensions might spy the similarities to another 1x10 Supro combo,the Amulet. A casual comparison of the two amps might suggest that the Montauk is, more-or-less, an Amulet without tremolo and power scaling. They share the same tube complement, including a relatively uncommon 1x6L6 power section. But while the Montauk lacks the Amuletās tremolo, the Montaukās spring reverb features level and dwell controls rather than the Amuletās single reverb-level knob.
āHigh reverb levels and low dwell settings evoke a small, reflective room with metallic overtones from the spring sprinkled on topāleaving ghostly ambience in the wake of strong, defined transient tones.ā
If you use reverb a lot and in varying levels of intensity, youāll appreciate the extra flexibility. High reverb levels and low dwell settings evoke a small, reflective room with metallic overtones from the spring sprinkled on topāleaving ghostly ambience in the wake of strong, defined transient tones. There are many shades of this subtle texture to explore, and itās a great sound and solution for those who find the spring reverbs in Fender amps (which feature no dwell control) an all-or-nothing proposition. For those who like to get deep in the pipeline, though, the dwell offers room to roam. Mixing high level and dwell settings blunts the ampās touch sensitivity a bit, and at 15 watts you trade headroom for natural compression, compounding the fogginess of these aggressive settings. A Twin Reverb it aināt. But there is texture aplenty to play with.
A Long, Wide Strand
Admirably, the Montauk speaks in many voices when paired with a guitar alone. The EQ sits most naturally and alive with treble and bass in the noon-to-2-oāclock region, and a slight midrange lean adds welcome punch. Even the ampās trebliest realms afford you a lot of expressive headroom if you have enough range and sensitivity in your guitar volume and tone pots. Interactions between the gain and master output controls yield scads of different tone color, too. Generally, I preferred high gain settings, which add a firecracker edge to maximum guitar volume settings and preserve touch and pick response at attenuated guitar volume and tone levels.
If working with the Montauk in this fashion feels natural, youāll need very few pedals. But itās a good fit for many effects. A Fuzz Face sounded nasty without collapsing into spitty junk, and the Klon-ish Electro-Harmonix Soul Food added muscle and character in its clean-boost guise and at grittier gain levels. Thereās plenty of headroom for exploring nuance and complexity in delays and modulations. It also pairs happily with a wide range of guitars and pickups: Every time I thought a Telecaster was a perfect fit, Iād plug in an SG with PAFs and drift away in Mick Taylor/Stones bliss.
The Verdict
Because the gain, master, tone, and reverb controls are fairly interactive, it took me a minute to suss out the Montaukās best and sweetest tones. But by the time I was through with this review, I found many sweet spots that fill the spaces between Vox and Fender templates. Thereās also raunch in abundance when you turn it up. Itās tempting to view the Montauk as a competitor to the Fender Princeton and Vox AC15. At a thousand bucks, itās $400 dollars less than the Mexico-made Princeton ā68 Custom and $170 more than the AC15, also made in China. In purely tone terms, though, it represents a real alternative to those stalwarts. Iād be more than happy to see one in a backline, provided I wasnāt trying to rise above a Geezer Butler/Bill Ward rhythm section. And with its capacity for routing to other amps and recording consoles in many intriguing configurations, it succeeds in being a genuinely interesting combination of vintage style and sound and home-studio utilityāall without adding a single digital or solid-state component to the mix.
Watch the official video documenting the sold-out event at House of Blues in Anaheim. Join Paul Reed Smith and special guests as they toast to quality and excellence in guitar craftsmanship.
PRS Guitars today released the official video documenting the full night of performances at their 40th Anniversary celebration, held January 24th in conjunction with the 2025 NAMM (The National Association of Music Merchants) Show. The sold-out, private event took place at House of Blues in Anaheim, California and featured performances by PRS artists Randy Bowland, Curt Chambers, David Grissom, Jon Jourdan, Howard Leese, Mark Lettieri Group, Herman Li, John Mayer, Orianthi, Tim Pierce, Noah Robertson, Shantaia, Philip Sayce, and Dany Villarreal, along with Paul Reed Smith and his Eightlock band.
āWhat a night! Big thanks to everyone who came out to support us: retailers, distributors, vendors, content creators, industry friends, and especially the artists. I loved every second. We are so pleased to share the whole night now on this video,ā said Paul Reed Smith, Founder & Managing General Partner of PRS Guitars. āI couldnāt be more proud to still be here 40 years later.ā
With nearly 1,400 of the whoās who in the musical instrument industry in attendance, the night ended with a thoughtful toast from PRS Signature Artist John Mayer, who reflected on 40 years of PRS Guitars and the quality that sets the brand apart. āThe guitars are great. You canāt last 40 years if the guitars arenāt great,ā said Mayer. āMany of you started hearing about PRS the same way I did, which is you would talk about PRS and someone would say āTheyāre too nice.ā Whatās too nice for a guitar? What, you want that special vibe that only tuning every song can give you on stage? You want that grit just like your heroes ā¦ bad intonation? The product is incredible.ā