During a conversation with Music Radar, Dream Theater axeman John Petrucci was asked if there’s a guitar player out there whose technique he’s jealous of.
Petrucci explained:
“I watch him every night and I’m constantly blown away by his creativity, his playfulness, his technique, his emotion that he puts into the guitar.
“There are so many guys that are just out of control – all those guys I mentioned at my camp [Al Di Meola, Guthrie Govan, Tosin Abasi, Jason Richardson, and more]. Every single one of them. I’m just blown away.
“But it’s inspiring; it only makes you just want to take the guitar further, practice more. You know, ‘jealous’ is a funny word – if anything, the part that I feel jealous of is the seeming ease that they do what they do.
“When you’re watching somebody like Al Di Meola or Guthrie, and you’re watching this ridiculous technique go by, it seems like, to them, it’s just second nature, like talking. To have control of that kind of vocabulary – to have it come out so easy – definitely inspires me.”