Loudwire recently caught up with John Petrucci of Dream Theater. An excerpt from their exclusive interview:

In your opinion, not just of the Grammys, but of other award shows, do you think they really matter?

There’s successes you have in your career. For me, for example, as a guitar player, as somebody in a band putting out albums, the success that we have in our field and how we’re viewed by our fans; that type of success means more than anything to us. The Grammy recognition is cool, as well, because that’s something different. Now, here is a situation where your song or album is being considered and voted on by members of the Recording Academy. It’s all professional; a wide range of professionals in the music industry. So, it could be different engineers, producers, musicians and songwriters in that pool of people who are doing the same thing that you are doing and think enough of your music that among hundreds and hundreds of submissions to pick, they say, “Hey, that song is deserving.” That has a really special meaning as well. It’s very cool, you feel a sense of honor and you’re humbled by that, from people making that kind of choice.

When you look at your history, Dream Theater are one of those bands that’s always been very critically acclaimed. For you, the Grammys is a new type of critical acclaim. Do you ever get used to the amount and of praise that Dream Theater receives?

It’s always surprising. In fact, we talk about this a lot. For example, me and John Myung, we met when we were in middle school / junior high. We were teenagers, we’ve been playing together for so long. We have so much history and the band has been through so many different things together professionally and personally. We’ve seen our families grow up together. It’s a very private thing when you have these strong relationships with these guys, you’re writing music with these guys behind closed doors.

It’s a really personal and private career that all of a sudden gets exposed in a very public way as soon as you put music out, play live and everything else. The innocence of it never goes away. We still feel like we’re the same kids writing music in a basement. [Laughs] Next thing you know, there are people out there that appreciate it and want to see it and want to get it, and in the case of the Grammys, want to recognize it. It’s all very surreal, it’s a strange feeling. You never get used to that kind of praise. It keeps us pushing to do better. You want to do better, to keep upping our game. That’s what great about choosing music as a career, you can do that.