1 [INTERVIEW] SRG Interview with The Dillinger Escape Plan

Interview and Words by Matt Abramson

The Dillinger Escape Plan does not need an introduction, nor am I that confident in my ability to produce one that does them justice, but I’m going to try anyhow. Dillinger is a band that defies genre and pushes music into unexplored regions while maintaining an uncompromising adherence to old-school DIY ethics and musicianship. With three classic albums to their credit and the blessing of legends like Mike Patton and Trent Reznor, DEP had to come out swinging on their most recent release or risk stalling the momentum they have spent years building. Fortunately, Option Paralysis is one hell of an ass kicking album (see my review for more details).

On a recent tour stop here in Seattle, guitarist Ben Weinman and vocalist Greg Puciato were nice enough to sit down and talk with me for a while before completely blowing the roof off of El Corazon. Here’s our talk:

Matt: Awesome to have you guys back in Seattle.

Greg: We're psyched. It seems like we were just here which I guess is really not the case.

Ben: It's been a while. It's been too long.

Matt: So, the new album - let's jump right in with that. The question I would have is it seems that starting with Miss Machine there was more of a focus on tunefulness, in particular because Greg is such a great singer, and then Ire Works stepped back a little from that but now it seems like this is - I don't know how to say it without sounding backhanded so don't take it as such, but this is how Miss Machine wanted to come out.

Ben: Yeah, I would probably say the same thing. Just coming from a songwriter, some of my favorite songs ever are on Miss Machine but it's definitely the record that I feel we didn't quite get it exactly where we wanted it, where as with Ire Works we were closer and with this one we're pretty much there.

Greg: We knew back when Miss Machine came out that we wanted to do these other things, we just weren't as good at them. That was like six years ago, and now we're way better at incorporating melody and we're better songwriters. We're more confident in our ability to be able to sing or have melody or take songs in different directions besides crazy and frantic all the time.

Matt: You've held your core production team the same since the beginning right? Are you using the same studio or bouncing around some?

Ben: Initially when we first started recording with Steve Evetts he was NJ based, as was the band. He was the guy doing killer records, he wasn't like a producer, there was a studio he worked at and done some records we really dug and kind of put our money together and made what ended up being our first EP and we've stuck with him ever since. He's grown and done a lot of things and left that studio and is an independent producer now. He has a project studio in California now, and so we did the last two records there. Miss Machine we actually did in our practice space, and Calcuating Infinity was in NJ. We've bounced around a bit but we've maintained Stevee Evetts as our producer.

Matt: You can always tell by the sound that it's Dillinger, aside from the fact that it's whacked-out and nobody is doing that and nobody can touch it.

Ben: There's definitely some things, nothing we do is that original as much as I think the combination of things give it our sound and whether that's from a songwriting standpoint or just from the sound itself. It's a combination of the production, the kind of chords we use, the fact we don't tune down and that all adds up to something that gives us an identity.

Matt: The one influence I really notice and since Calculating - which was the record that changed everything and blew me away - the jazz influence on that was insane. It was like, in high school you hated all the jazz musicians, they were just a bunch of blowhards who think they can play, and so you're like "Fuck you! Master of Puppets!" - but then you listen to something like Calculating and it's like "Whoa!" Were you formally trained for that?

Ben: "Were we nerds?" Is what you're saying.

Matt: Well, no... (laughs)

Ben: It was kind of the type of thing where we were coming from the scene and I felt the same way. I wasn't in band at school, I actually got kicked out of music class in high school. They said it wasn't for me, like "You should not be doing this, it's not your thing" because I couldn't sit there and look at charts and this and that. For some reason, I didn't take his advice and I stuck with it and the truth was that we love the underground. We love the vibe and the energy and the DIY ethic and the fact that you could play shows regardless of whether some jerk off in a club let you or not. You just did it, wherever - in a basement, in a VFW hall.

The scene itself was creating everything, whether it was putting out the records, writing the reviews in zines, putting on the shows. It was a great place for us, but at the same time it was the early to mid-90's when we were first getting started in that scene and the truth was that there was very little priority and emphasis put on the actual music, it was a lot more towards causes and being outspoken and things like that. There was a resurgence of religious bands, straightedge, veganism - a lot of that stuff, records sounding good and people knowing how to play their instrument, it really wasn't that important. So for us it was kind of hard, because we were into the scene and into the ethics around it and we were into what initially started it - bands like Bad Brains, Minor Threat and Fugazi - but it seemed like a lot of the musicianship and the eclectic nature of things was going away. We definitely made a conscious effort to try to embrace the good things out of that scene and then try something new, try to push the music as well and not just the actual message.

Matt: Going back, Calculating Infinity is pretty much a ubiquitous record now. Anybody that says "technical" next to anything is going to put an asterisk and go there, and the stuff that's followed it has been the same kind of deal. You guys have also had the opportunity to go and play shows with Nine Inch Nails and a lot of the old guard. So it's weird because you're kind of in a transitional period between the bands that were super multi-platinum like Metallica and the newer bands that are completely DIY again. When you've met the guys who are the legends, how are they responding to the new scene?

Ben: I think the people who have taken notice of us and taken us under their wing a little bit, people like Mike Patton and Trent Reznor, I think those people just recognize that we're doing things our own way and we're not necessarily relying on the animal that was the negative side of their career. The things that these guys in these bands who have managed to maintain some level of success and have gone on to be in their forties making important music that's still pushing boundaries and has integrity, I think they appreciate the fact that we're doing that in our own world even if it's not as big or we don't sell as many records. They see a fire in us that's inspiring to them, and the fact is that we really wouldn't be here if it wasn't for some of those people so it comes full circle when they can recognize what we're doing and appreciate it.

Matt: You guys do a lot to reach out to your fan base with online stuff and things like making a different shirt for every song on Ire Works, which I'm sure is met with 95% percent enthusiasm and coolness. But what about the fuckers who hear the new record and hear a song like "Widower" and go "There's a piano..." or "Sellouts!" or whatever.

Greg: You know what? Those people can listen to other songs, they can listen to other bands, they can listen to Calculating Infinity over and over if they want to... This band is for us, it's not for them or anybody else, and we have to continue to establish that over and over again. It's cool for someone else to be into us, whether they're into it for a year or one record or every record or one song, it's still really valuable, it's what you're getting out of it. But we're doing it for us, so if we play a show probably 80% of the crowd likes everything, 10% of the crowd only likes the crazy stuff and one or two chicks only like "Black Bubblebum".

Ben: People have to realize that if we wanted to, it would be impossible for us to predict what they wanted to hear when we're writing a record. People that try to do that are out of their mind, where it's the same song over and over...

Greg: It's a very selfish mindset. We're the ones that have to play these songs every night, we're the ones that have been in the band for twelve years. Nothing sounds more miserable to me than writing music that you think everyone else will like that isn't intrisically stimulating to you and then you have to go on tour and play those songs over and over knowing that you wish you would have fucking written "Widower" and "Sunshine the Werewolf" but you didn't because you second guessed yourself and only wrote "Sugar Coated Sour" ripoffs over and over again and then you're miserable because you're thirty, you're trying to make yourself feel like you're twenty but you're not and you're a caricature of yourself. You will lose faster doing that then doing your own thing because you become a parody of yourself.

Ben: There's two things when people talk about this. We talked about Calculating Infinity, and I'm extremely proud of that record, a lot of crazy shit went down during that time and I can't even believe it was made. But Calulating Infinity was probably our worst reviewed record, ever. When that came out, people were like "This is noise. This makes no sense." Seriously, it took a very long time for someone to actually appreciate that record. We've toured for five years on that record before making another full length, just because people didn't get it. And the people that really liked that record when they first heard it are also the people that like our new record when they first hear it because they're like "This is different! This is crazy!"

It's not like people who jump on the bandwagon. The people who only like Calculating are mostly people who are pretty young who really have to quickly erase the fact that they were wearing an Offspring shirt a year ago, so they have to be extra cool now to try and get themselves into this new world. So it's like "You were fourteen when that came out. There's no way you only like Calculating, you didn't even know what Calculating was! You listened to the frickin' Spice Girls!" And that's the reality, so it just makes me laugh when I hear that kind of stuff.

Matt: It's like you take a mindset that is more music fan oriented, because Option Paralysis is the record I wanted to hear, it's among the ones that I count the days down waiting for. I think of the people that legitimately listen to and appreciate the music, you've tuned right into that as well. So what bands are out there that you're really digging right now?

Ben: Animal as Leaders, who has been opening up this tour for us, is really exciting. I don't like a lot of techy, metal stuff because it doesn't have a lot of soul to it. There's not any punk in it, it doesn't have the motion and energy in it. A lot of tech stuff is just riff after riff and it doesn't have any soul to it, it's very clinical. But Animals as Leaders, besides their guitar player being one of the most virtuostic players I've ever heard but I think they're doing something special and cool.

Matt: Let's see... Third drummer in three albums?

(Laughs)

Greg: That's funny, we just realized recently that we started 2007, 2008 and 2009 with a different drummer. We had Chris Pennie when we started 2007, we had Gil (Sharone) in 2008 and Billy (Rymer) in 2009. We have never had the same lineup twice on a consecutive release.

Ben: Well, two of my favorite bands are The Mars Volta and Spinal Tap, so we try to emulate their method of drummers.

Greg: We've lucked out, like on this tour the people who have seen us play and Darkest Hour, who we toured with like eight years ago, they've seen us with different drummers and they were like "I'm not just saying this to you - Billy is the guy that is the best in the band." Chris is amazing, obviously Billy wouldn't even be playing the kind of drums he plays if it wasn't for Chris because he defined it for that style and started it off. Gil was cool because he was a guy who has a more groovy, laid back kind of R&B style so it was kind of neat to see him play these songs and add a twist to them. But Billy is like if you took Chris, and Chris was a wind up toy and you wound him an extra quarter turn. Anything we would throw at him he would want to make it faster, crazier. And for some twenty-five year-old kid to come into our world where we thought we were going to fucking overwhelm him - for him to come in and be like "I think we should play that faster!" is absurd. It's neat to have him come in and not be afraid of us and push us back. He really wants to make his mark as a drummer. He's very aware of the shoes that he came in after, and he wants to shit on them and kick them out the door.

Matt: The electronics are really peeled back on this album. Was that intentional or is there more that I'm not hearing?

Ben: There's actually a pretty decent amount on there. Like the layering on "Parasitic Twins", I seriously spent months making clusters of strings and harmonies. It's definitely not peeled back, with the sound design and stuff, but the songwriting was based more on a traditional way of getting together and doing it. During Ire Works, there was a lot of problems - our drummer left, I had injuries and couldn't play guitar for a certain amount of months because I had surgery on my shoulder. So we were doing things a little differently and I think that actually led to opening some doors on Option Paralysis. There was songs that I was writing, doing electronics with one hand while my other one was up in some machine getting rehab and that inspired all the playing.

Matt: Who would win in a fight: Henry Rollins circa 1984 or Greg circa 2004?

Ben: Circa 2004? I would win. Definitely. No disrespect, Henry! I'd like to have him in a tag team against others, like if we were the Double Dragon twins walking through the city.

(Laughs)

Matt: As far as doing the electronics live, are you doing a click with a DAT?

Ben: Some of it, yeah. The piano stuff I'm just playing.

Greg: Jeff beatboxes a lot of it.

Jeff Tuttle (aside): I'm like that dude from Police Academy. Any noise you want, I can make it.

Ben: We do some samples and we're incorporating some piano, just make it happen. Some of the stuff we're doing with pedals now, Jeff has a monster mothership of a pedalboard.

Matt: Awesome, well thanks again for taking the time to sit down and chat.

Greg: Thank you.

Ben: Cool man, thanks.