Monday (Well, its Tuesday where I am) calls for music and not too long ago I was blessed with the opportunity to interview one of my favorite bands; The Dillinger Escape Plan. While it may not have much to do with gaming, I thought there may be a few fans on Destructoid that would like to have it shared with them.

For anybody not familiar with them, The Dillinger Escape Plan (sometimes abbreviated DEP or TDEP) is an American experimental mathcore band from Morris Plains, New Jersey. The band originated in 1997 after the disbanding of Arcane, a hardcore punk trio consisting of Ben Weinman, Dimitri Minakakis, and Chris Pennie. The band's current line-up consists of Ben Weinman (lead guitar, backing vocals), Liam Wilson (bass guitar), Greg Puciato (lead vocals), Jeff Tuttle (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), and Billy Rymer (drums, percussion). For those not familar with the band, this is one of their most recent singles: Milk Lizard


The Dillinger Escape Plan - Milk Lizard

The band is known for their wild and personal live shows which often showcase stage-diving into the audience, fire breathing, and many other special effects.

Over the 10+ years that DEP have been performing they have gone through several line up changes involving three different vocalist including Mike Patton (Faith No More, Tomahawk) as well as many different guitarists, bassists and drummers. The only person who has been there from the start is lead guitarist Ben Weinman, and this is the man I spoke to.


Ben Weinman is the gentleman second from the right

MOSES TIME: 11.30AM in Melbourne, Australia
BEN TIME: 7:30PM on Thanksgiving in New Jersey, USA

First of all thanks for letting me speak with you during Thanksgiving.
It's fine man, I just finished up dinner at my parents house so now we are all sitting around and chilling out.

Far out, sorry to bother you at your parents place
Don't worry about it *laughs*

Ok, well with that being said, I'll try not to take up too much of your time. You guys have had members come and go since the Arcane (Weinman’s first band which formed into Dillinger Escape Plan) days, including:

-Brantley, who disappeared without a word
-Fulton, whom was said to have creative differences
-The unfortunate incident with Doll
-Minakakis, crediting he couldn’t handle the touring
-Benoit, having suffered from nerve damage
-Chris Pennie, leaving to join another band just before the recording of Ire Works

How did you hold it all together and keep The Dillinger Escape Plan progressing in terms of musical achievement?
Hasn’t been easy but I think for one thing the pressure throughout the years has leaded us to create better music. Even before our first record (Calculating Infinity) we have always faced adversity; we were coming from a small place in New Jersey where there wasn’t much of a music scene. It was extremely hard to get accepted, even within the underground cultures in punk rock and hardcore it was a hard task. At the start our music was an expression of those things; small town, small scene.

Eventually a few people clicked with it and we started to make a name for ourselves in the small sub culture we were playing within. When it came time to record our first album, our Bass Player at the time (Doll]) was involved in an accident and became paralyzed from the waste down and went on to do other things. So I had a lot on my plate, first album to record and I had to pull double guitar and bass duty but the other guys still pulled their weight but we didn’t get much left from outside the band.

So long answer short; from day one I have always had to pull my weight to keep it together so I just continue to do that and I think that all the member changes has only helped me to be on my toes, keeping things different and making the tasks more exciting. I like where things are now because every member of the band now was once a fan of the band and they have high expectations of where this band should be and it keeps us all on our toes, for sure.


Meshuggah & Dillinger attract similar listeners with open minds...

How are things between you guys and Coheed and Cambria, did it upset you that they negotiated with your ex drummer Chris Pennie while you were away from the tour? How did you react when you found out all this had happened in the short time you were gone?
I don’t know exactly when it was they asked Chris to drum for them and that was part of the issue, there was a whole heap of stuff going on behind our backs that we didn’t know about. I did know he was talking to them, and we knew he was going to be helping them out to some degree but we didn’t know he was going to strait up leave the band in the middle of a tour just before recording our most recent album (Ire Works). I’ve never had a problem with the band Coheed and Cambria, I think they are good from what I have listened to and it was never really an issue with them, but we didn’t think that things were handled very professionally but at the end of the day, we are happier and he is happier I would suspect.

Suspect?
Yeah, I don’t really talk to him any more. He is the only member of the band who has left whom I don’t speak with. But I think we were coming from such a different place anyway so it would make sense for him to continue with that route and for me to continue with this one.


Mike Patton is the man to thank for Faith No More, Tomahawk, Mr. Bungle and many more projects

Can you tell us a bit about working with Mike Patton (Faith No More, Tomahawk, Mr. Bungle, Peeping Tom) on Irony is a Dead Scene?
Prior to working on that album with him if you were to ask me who I would want to work with out of anybody in the world I would have said Mike Patton, so it was an amazing experience to be able to do that. He was always such an influence on us and very early on in the bands career, just after we had finished recording the first record, he asked us if we wanted to tour with him and Mr. Bungle. So we got in a van and drove 2 days straight across country and spent 2 months touring with them and we learned a lot on that tour, but taking the next step and working with him creatively was just an amazing experience.

How was it that he got onto your music?
He had gotten a copy of our first EP (Under the Running Board) from his guitarist Tre when he attended one of our gigs at some festival. So the combination of the two led to us doing the tour with them and Patton was one of the first people to hear our first record because we gave him a mastered copy to listen to on the tour bus. So that was pretty cool to get his feed back on that too.

There was a change in the music DEP produced once Greg (Lead Vocalist) entered the band, some people criticized this, many others praised it. How did you come to working on more experimental sounds which resulted in albums Miss Machine and the latest Ire Works?
When we first started writing for Miss Machine, it was very aggressive and very similar to what we had been doing before that and then at one point I had been writing a whole other bunch of music and at first I thought I couldn’t do this music with Dillinger because we already had established a sound. Then I thought to myself that, that train of thought was really lame because the whole point of the band from the very start was to create a scenario where we would have no musical boundaries and we always said that we would never let anybody tell us how we should sound.

So I think in an attempt to bring us back to where we first started, in a situation where people didn’t have any expectation of what we were going to sound like, and we didn’t have any guidance or rule book on doing things. So in short, we just wanted to make music again without the knowledge of what people think we should sound like. And the only way to do that was to not listen to it and not care about what others thought about it.

Making music for yourself and staying true to what you want?
Yeah, I think so but part of it all was to create new challenges and the biggest challenge for us in more recent times has been to incorporate more of those melodic things into the craziness of Dillinger and it was extremely hard challenged to make that work and its extremely difficult to do well, especially some of the more basic structured songs because there’s no excuses with those like there can be when you are playing crazy, off-time, fast music. But when you can pull of the combination of the two like I think we pulled off on Ire Works, then the final result is something we as the band and they are the fans can be happy with.

I have heard covers of songs originally performed by Justin Timberlake, Black Flag, The Melvins, Soundgarden, Massive Attack and Aphex Twin...I love the fact you guys have such a broad musical taste, have always wanted to branch out a little more in terms of style and tastes or has it been just something you have wanted to do in recent years?
Well, having a diverse range in music taste has made us what we are from the start and I think it differentiates us from a lot of bands which have immerged in more recent times whom all play the same style of music. We have always been influenced by so many different things which have then come together to create the sound that is Dillinger, so it only makes sense for us to try and expose our fans to some of that music also.


Just another day at work for the boys on stage

Ok, lets talk about live shows. I have seen you guys on the stage and you blew my fucking head apart, I brought a female friend to the show who had never listened to you guys before, and she walked away with eyes wide, a huge smile and demanded we listen to your CD in the car on the way home. What do you guys do before you hit the stage? Because in my mind, I see you guys huddled up and saying 'Lets tear this fucken place apart'.
Thanks for getting your female friend into our music *laughs*. But in terms of stage shows, there is no set, planned of other way for us. Before we get on stage we are sitting around, very passive, talking to people back stage, speaking to our mom’s over the phone and relaxing and then as soon as you hit the stage…its go time. We have been doing it that way for so long, we don’t know any other way to do it.

When you played in Melbourne, I was standing a little back from the stage because I didn’t want to die…
*Ben cuts in with laughter*

…You threw your guitar into the crowd and told the audience to play something, then you asked for your guitar back. Are these things you do in the moment, or do you have it in your mind before you walk out onto the stage?
I think that’s what is special about our band, not only does the crowd not know what’s going to happen, we don’t even know what’s going to happen. Certainly after playing every night for months there are things that just feel right at that moment. By no means do we plan what we are going to do in our show on the exception of the set list and there is almost a few things that happen at every show that haven’t happened at other shows which keeps things flowing.

Has there ever been a time where the crowd doesn’t give the guitar back?
You gotta have balls of steal if you going to try and steal a guitar from a band that are playing for a sea of people who in turn love the band. You wouldn’t make it very far. But I can tell you a story about when somebody waited for us to leave the stage, then took the guitar home.


You don't want this pissed off man showing up at your doorstep

*Laughs* Please do…
Well, we really got an image of how loyal our real fans are when one of his friends got in contact with us and told us who stole the guitar and where he lived. So Greg showed up at the door, the guy’s dad answered, and Greg just walked up to the kids bedroom, grabbed the guitar and walked out again.

*Laughs* I can imagine how the kids father would be, Greg looking like a condom full of walnuts and built like a brick shit-house, the kids dad would have been shitting himself…
*Laughs* He was really confused from what Greg told me

At this point in time what is the objective and where do you guys plan to progress to?
I don’t know really, we try to not look that far ahead and not set any long term goals and its worked pretty well so far. Right now we are recording on a new record and a DVD which looks back over the years and the time when we first started to now and getting ready for Soundwave.

And what does Ben Weinman do in his spare time? Movies? Xbox? Anything like that?
Not really, the guys (The Band) love their Xbox 360 and gaming but I am pretty busy because I do a lot of the business for the band and that fills up a lot of my life. Paperwork, trying to get visa’s organized to get to Australia for Soundwave 09…all that fun stuff.

Well, I do tip my hat to you because without the effort and hard work you have put into this band we wouldn’t have the privilege of listening to it. You have done much and it doesn’t go unseen.
Thank you very much, I really appreciate hearing that.


Who needs a guitar when you are a guitarist?

So in closing, you have been through the hard yards to keep this band together, what helping words can you give to the people you inspire to make music?
Do it for yourself and don’t do it to be famous. Do it because you find it exciting and you want to create music. I feel its important that people create something that’s different and makes people think a little bit. There are enough bands out there that sound exactly the same so I hope there is some bands coming out that are looking to push in a new direction and keep things interesting.

Thank you for your time Ben, have a great night and Happy Thanksgiving.
Thank you very much, cheers

P.S - I did ask if he was into Xbox, so it's this is not totally void of gaming. *smiley face*