John Petrucci Says Between the Buried and Me, Periphery and Animals as Leaders “Influenced and Shaped” the New Dream Theater Album

You’d be surprised how many professional metal musicians seemingly stopped listening to metal circa the time their own band got signed. They’re totally stoked on the new Maiden album, but they’ve never even heard of Gojira; they never watch or devote even a fraction of their attention to younger bands that they’re on tour with. It’s kind of amazing.

But not John Petrucci! Not only did he do a guest solo on Periphery II, and not only did Dream Theater invite members of Between the Buried and Me up on stage to jam every night they were on tour together — but now he’s giving younger prog metal bands props in the media, too. When Loudwire recently asked him if he was influenced by any younger bands (since he, clearly, has been an influence to so many of those bands), he had this to say:

“…I think that without naming a specific band, there is a whole wave of younger bands that are in the prog vein. There is Periphery, Between the Buried and Me, Animals As Leaders — bands like that are doing stuff where you hear it and you are like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing! That was intense!’ You can’t help but have that seep into your subconscious, you know? In that sense, anything you hear that you like the sound of becomes an influence and shapes who you are as a musician writing music.”

Metal Injection points out that, given this quote, it’s actually easy to hear the way some of this stuff has crept into Petrucci’s songwriting on DT’s new single, “The Enemy Inside.” Pretty cool.

In related news, Misha Mansoor, Tosin Abasi, and Paul Waggoner have all been spotted walking around with ear-to-ear smiles today.