Brazilian podcast Wikimetal's latest episode features DREAM THEATER guitarist John Petrucci. Topics of discussion include the process the band went through to choose the new drummer Mike Mangini, his recollections of Brazilian drummer Aquiles Priester that also tried the audition, Dream Theater's process of composing songs, the creation of A Dramatic Turn Of Events and much more:

Dream Theater recently performed two very special shows in Luna Park in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The set lists—which changed from night to night—included four songs ('The Silent Man', 'Beneath The Surface', 'Wait For Sleep' and 'Far From Heaven') performed with a string quartet. Guitarist John Petrucci and keyboardist Jordan Rudess spoke to Roadrunner Records about these shows in a new interview. An excerpt is available below:

Q: Other than the new album (which was played almost in its entirety each night), the albums you played the most material from were Images and Words, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence and Awake—why those albums, from your perspective?

John Petrucci: "We try to create a show that has a certain curve to it. The way that it begins, unfolds and concludes are all carefully thought about. We have so much material at this point that it's difficult to fit in songs from each album. Based on what we played on past tours as well as the flow and arc of the show, we thought theses were the strongest choices."

Jordan Rudess: "There are so many factors that are in play to create a setlist. Generally we all felt that we offered a night of music that was a well balanced, mixture of our material that not only spanned a lot of our albums but also flowed really well for the course of the evening."

Q: On the second night, you guys played 'Pull Me Under' as the encore, which you’ve been playing a lot more on tour this year than in the past few years…but only outside the US. Is that a song foreign audiences want to hear more than fans at home?

John Petrucci: "'Pull Me Under' always goes over, no matter what country we are in. It just has that kind of power and familiarity, I guess. We really thought that it sounded great with Mike Mangini playing it and wanted to share that with our listeners."

Jordan Rudess: "I don't know—but I will tell you that they literally were trying to rush the stage in Buenos Aires when we played it. It was nuts!"

Go to this location for the complete interview