CLASSIC CORNER: BACKTRACK
JOHN
PETRUCCI
ON
PURPLE
RAIN
by John Stix
T
he Guitar Battle recording was
dreamed up at the 1996 NAMM
(National Association of Music
Merchants) show in Anaheim. With the
sight of so many world class guitar
players, Nat Kusano from Shinko Music
Japan and I came up with the idea of
multiple guitarists performing on various
songs. Each guitarist would be given
the spotlight to play melodies, fills, and
solos alongside their fellow bandmates.
The players were Reb Beach, Brad Gillis,
Michael Lee Firkins, George Lynch,
Danny Miranda (bass), Steve Morse,
John O’ Reilly (drums), John Petrucci,
and Al Pitrelli.
great, the chances are vastly improved
that the speech will be eloquent. And
Prince was a great writer.
Dream Theater’s John Petrucci
cemented “Purple Rain” into the lineup
as it was one of his favorite songs he
used to jam to. The inclusion of “Purple
Rain” was an easy sell because I
remembered my own similarly endless
jams to Grand Funk’s version of The
Animals’ “Inside Looking Out.” When
Prince died I went back to this recording
only to discover that John Petrucci had
gone on to perform it again – most
impressively at the Musicians Institute.
It reminded me that when the writing is
“Purple Rain” has a special place in
your development as a player.
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DIGITAL EDITION
John Petrucci is currently on the road
with Dream Theater showcasing their
newest album, The Astonishing. When I
told him it reminded me of a Broadway
show, he lit up saying, “We wrote it as
a show. It’s our version of a Broadway
rock opera. It’s a live band scoring a
movie type of things. It’s all those things
in one so it’s creatively very satisfying
to say the least.” But for GTI he had
no problem looking back to one of his
earliest satisfying moments.
That was one of them. Going back to
Kevin Moore (John’s childhood buddy
and DT’s original keyboard player)
when we were growing up – one of
the things that we loved to do was
constantly jam. I believe that helped
me as a young player. It really helped
me with my improvisation – helped
me with my ear. We would have jam
sessions at our houses or we would go
JUNE/JULY