| Story: Ralph Greco, Jr.
Steve Dadaian says “I’ve been a fan of Dream Theater ever since I was a kid in junior high school when I first started playing. Seeing them at the PNC Bank Arts Center in New Jersey was one of my first concerts and all these years later, having the opportunity to work with Jordan Rudess on his solo album is an amazing, full circle moment. We first connected on social media several years ago and have been great friends ever since. Realizing we are local to each other, we have had the opportunity to jam, record and collaborate frequently. Towards the end of last year Jordan was showing me some songs he was working on. Hearing them for the first time in his studio was such a cool and unique experience, i.e. to hear them as he did when he wrote and recorded the songs. Even looking at the grid on the DAW was mind boggling to see all the intricate layers that were so perfectly woven together!
One song that stuck out to me was called “The Alchemist”. As I was recording rhythm guitars I noticed the intro had this wild arpeggio sequence. Upon hearing it I immediately thought it would be cool to double in unison so I arranged it for lead guitar. It’s a very complex line that required a lot of care to arrange it as comfortably as possible on guitar. We were both very proud of the end result and started this prog epic off on the right foot. I’m playing my 7 string because for this song and most on the album, the rhythm parts require the extended range the 7 string provides. I’m playing an ESP Custom 7 string. While I sometimes use different guitars for different reasons especially on an album, my goal here was to stay consistent so I used this for all electric guitar tracking. It is loaded with Seymour Duncan (Nazgul/Sentient) pickups and DR (Tite-Fit and lately Dragon Skin+) strings.
Guitar World writes “Dentist by day, guitarist by night, Dadaian is as adept with a pick as he is a dentist drill, and cemented his virtuosic six-string skills by winning competitions hosted by Slash and Guitar World. And he reckons the precision of his day job helped him hone his remarkable shredding skills.”
Watch Steve Dadaian’s Playthrough Video “The Alchemist” here:
https://www.guitarworld.com/features/shredding-dentist-steve-dadaian-jordan-rudess-collab
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