Liquid Tension Experiment

SILENCING YEARS' WORTH OF REQUESTS, JOHN PETRUCCI & CO. UNLEASH THE FIRST LTE ALBUM IN MORE THAN TWO DECADES

- Amit Sharma

IF THERE WERE an award for the most active guitar player over the past year or so, it might just belong to Dream Theater virtuoso John Petrucci. His second solo album (Terminal Velocity) arrived in 2020, some 15 years after his debut, and now he’s ready to unveil the third Liquid Tension Experiment album (Liquid Tension Experiment 3), which arrives 22 years after its predecessor and features Tony Levin, Mike Portnoy, Jordan Rudess and, of course, Petrucci. Clearly, good things come to those who wait.

You’ve definitely been keeping busy during the lockdown.

Getting my solo album and the new LTE done silences 10 years’ worth of requests asking me to do them. I finally did those two things! [Laughs] But one aspect that hasn’t changed is the gear. I’m working on the new Dream Theater album right now, and it’s the exact same setup. It’s my Purple Nebula Majesty by Music Man, plus my Majesty seven-string, through my JP-2C Boogie. I plug in and it just sounds the way I want it to sound. There’s no searching, it’s right there. All of us guitar players are looking to find that feel and that sound, from every tiny little detail like the fret height on your guitar to the gain setting on your amp. It all means something. So when you are fortunate to have developed gear through Ernie Ball Music Man, Mesa, Dunlop and DiMarzio, why would you use anything else?

“Key to the Imagination” has some really interesting combinations of Phrygian dominant and diminished runs.