“The first thing I said to Jordan Rudess was, ’You’ve got a pretty sick guitar player in your band. What are you asking me for?’” How Spiro Dussias became shred’s next great hope – and ended up giving Dream Theater guitar lessons

For a guitarist so prominent in 2024’s end-of-year lists, Spiro Dussias has a surprisingly small body of releases. Most of the attention so far has come from social media, where his innovative playing style – coated in a metallic darkness and illuminated with white-hot technique – has left many gobsmacked.

Once an Abasi Concepts artist, he was the star of Jackson’s promotional video for its American Soloist series in early 2024. Python, the song he wrote for the promo, is a snarling and angular showcase in which extreme metal aggression and electronic soundscapes duel at dawn.

Since then he’s written the brain-melting Negative for Neural DSP, and he’s joined ESP’s artist roster, having cut his teeth on his sparkling grey Original Series Horizon. Now he’s ready to take his wild economy picking to a whole new level.

Let’s start with your crazy economy picking technique; how are you doing it?

“The short answer is that it's muted sweep picking. It comes from experimenting with the mechanics of economy picking and what you can do with different angles and muting.

“There’s this notion that economy picking gives you a more fluid or bubbly sound than alternate picking – but I've been proving the opposite. You’ll see alternate pickers change their angle between downward and upward slants every few notes, which creates an opening and closing sort of envelope. I can maintain the same mute and envelope with every note.

“You have all these beautiful chord voicings that, if you're diligent about your technique and the tone you dial in, you can use to get a really wild mechanical, percussive sound. I’m actively seeing how far I can push it.”

Your fretting hand seems pretty static for it…

“If you look really carefully, I’ll very subtly lift my fingers off of the previous string, but they’ll still be making contact with the fretboard. It’s mostly in the right hand, and most people have an easier time descending. When ascending, people usually take their palm off the strings. I’ll actually tilt my thumb down so that I’m always muting the strings with it on the way up.

“The tone is a big factor too. Tosin Abasi popularized low-gain tones, but I've tried to find out how to get that same sound with a fair bit of gain.”

You get compared to Tosin a lot…

“It’s funny, because I don’t do too many of the same techniques. But the general aesthetic we go for is similar in that we want the guitar to sound unnaturally percussive, tight and metallic. It’s in line with the sound design that a lot of electronic artists are doing in relation to how you strike the guitar and how your technique impacts the sound.”

What makes ESPs right for you?

“I’m grateful to have owned and played some of the best guitars on Earth – but I built my technique on my Horizon. I compare all guitars to it. How is the break angle on the string? How immediately does that wave get from my picking hand to my fretting finger? I’m really sensitive to the relationship between the height of the nut, the bridge and the frets.”

So it’s physicality over specs for you?

“Yeah – and I’m really interested in scale lengths. As tunings have gotten lower and lower, there’s a belief that the only way to work with that is using longer scale lengths and heavy gauge strings.

“As you shrink the scale length, the distance between your frets comes down, and the more frets you have on a guitar, the tighter they’re spaced. I’d love a Horizon with a 24.75” scale and 24 frets, where I can actually maintain certain positions all over the neck without changing my technique.”

Spiro Dussias Playthrough of "Python" on the American Series Soloist SL2MG | Jackson Guitars - YouTube

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Would that guitar have any other key features?

“I like scalloped fingerboards; they give you better note separation and the vibrato is sick. I would love a guitar that has first five frets pretty shallow, so that when you’re digging in a little bit lower, it doesn’t go sharp. It would be medium scalloped frets five to 12, and then 12 to 24 would be pretty deep. As you get higher, you need notes to ring out a little longer.

Do you prefer tube amps or modelers?

“Man, I use everything. My favorite amp is the original Engl Invader 100, but I use all the Neural DSP plugins. Having tube amps is a luxury you don’t need in this era.

“As it stands, amp modeling has been about recreating analog circuitry and old technology in the digital realm.”

You gave guitar lessons to Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess – how was that?

“He’s really chill to hang with. The first thing I said to him was, 'You’ve got a pretty sick guitar player in your band. What are you asking me for?’ But he’s trying to explore every corner of the instrument, working with a ton of amazing guitarists to get every different perspective.

“He’s an example that at any age, if you don’t have bad habits, you just have to pick up the good ones. Now he’s playing in a more unbounded way each year. It’s crazy.”

2024 was a big year for you. What’s next?

“I want to be able to make as much of a mark I can as a player in the truest sense. I want to do a bunch of guest features and put more music of my own music out.

“I wrote, produced, mixed, and mastered Negative in a few weeks, and I’ve been writing stuff now that feels like some of the freshest shit I’ve ever made. My goal is just to keep the train on the tracks and keep the engine warm – I’m aiming for four to six new songs this year.

“If the demand is there and people want to come out and see it live, I have a group of people to do it with. I’m also doing a bunch of random session work and there have been rumblings about me playing with some other bands. So I’m keeping my door open.”