The Dillinger Escape Plan
von kk anno 2010
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The Dillinger Escape Plan have revolutionized complex metal. When listening to their latest record "Option Paralysis" the first thing that meets the ear is brute force impregnated by other music styles and accompanied by a socio-critical view. We talked with Greg and Ben about the new album. And, among other things, DEP exposed an intelligent view about pop music and an allembracing theory about the relation of technology and mankind.
Have there been concerts in the past years when people just did not understand your music?
Greg (Singer): [laughs]
Ben (Guitar player): Absolutely, yeah, especially in the beginning. When the band first started nobody even knew our music and at the time there was not a lot of stuff that sounded like what we were doing. On top of that we also were undefinable as far as what genre we were in. We were signed to a metal label, but we didn't look like metal people. We didn't have long hair and stuff, so people were very confused, especially in Germany, because at that time, over ten years ago, everything was very stuck into genres. So for instance if it was metal, you should look metal, you should wear a metal tshirt, you should have long hair. If it was hardcore, it should sound exactly like every other hardcore band. There was no kind of cross-polinisation of the music styles at all at the time, especially in Europe. So people definitely looked at us weird. In summer we played a tour called Warp Tour in the States, which is much younger audiences usually like a lot newer bands that are more popular. So of course people looked on us weird on that as well. So we are constantly in situations where people not really understand what we are doing but we enjoy that every now and again.
I found two interpretations of your band name: one is to just shoot your way out of the door and the other one is like in the movie just pretend to be powerful having a wooden pistol and in fact having nothing. What would you say is more suitable for you?
Greg: I think the shooting your way out is probably pretty much the way we accomplished everything. Brute force.
Ben: [laughs]
A lot of your songs are related to anger. What would you say is the anger that is fueling you?
Ben: I don't know if it's anything anger anymore than any normal person. We just have the opportunity to have this outlet. Everybody has frustrations, whether it's just being stuck into society's norms of going to work everyday, being told what to do constantly, being stuck in some situation where before you know it you turn around and you're old and your whole life passed before your eyes. Relationship issues and any of those things. To us all this stuff is almost heightened to a higher degree than most people, because being in a band and touring so often makes things like relationships even more difficult, makes stability a thing that is not very easy to come by for us. Those kind of frustrations are most elevated. So in one way the band is almost the source of a lot of our issues and problems but it's also the solution. For us it's just really a way for that hour of the day to really vent and express ourselves. I don't think we are any different than anybody else. We just got this opportunity to use our shows and our music to express ourselves.
Greg: Right.
Talking about everyday problems. The name of the album "Option Paralysis" stands for the tendency when given unlimited choices to choose none. In former interviews you already tracked the reason of this problem to technology. If you could would you set technology some years back?
Greg: No, I actually think technology is amazing, we live in an amazing time. I don't think technology's the problem so much as people's inability to process what's happening around them quickly enough. Basically everything's reactionary, everything's like a jojo. Right now we're experiencing a situation: where in the past everything was private - there were tastemakers, you could only learn about things what people would tell you, you could only watch shows that were written, you could only learn about celebrities what they wanted you to know - now every single door is gone. You have facebook, you have twitter, you have the internet, you can learn anything you want. You can sit on the internet all day long and become a master of a million different little bullshit topics. And I think that because that is so new people are just fascinated and they are saturating themselves largely with meaningless information because they haven't become accustomed to siphon out what's meaningful and what's not. And I think in the process of doing that people are feeding their ADD tendencies, feeding the negative human inclination to "want to get everything right now". It's gonna take some time to learn restraint. If you go to a buffet the food is not the same quality as the food in a nice restaurant. You can eat more of it, you can get whatever you want, you can just walk around constantly for 15 bucks. Wherelse in a nice restaurant you might pay 30 bucks but the food is immensly better. This is right now a buffet situation.
What would you recommend to especially younger people to cope with this paralyis?
Greg: I think time heals everything. I don't think there's a crisis going on. Time will eventually will correct itself. It's like anything else. Everything's reactionary. If you had a ball on a string and you let it go here it has to swing all the way over here. And then eventually it will settle in the middle. Human nature will correct itself over time.
Ben: I think the major problem is just the inspiration. Like people interacting again, being human and seeing the world, going outside. I don't know if there's a point where maybe people get bored with all the fireworks that are going off constantly in front of their face, on their computer. Than that will be the key. Interaction is the main thing, I think. There's nothing wrong with these tools as long as it's used to help push a vision or something else that's important or some kind of contribution, instead of just sitting back and taking whatever crap is given to you. Using it as a tool so they can contribute something new is important. I think a handful of very special intelligent people, artists, people who have something of offer to this world will use that for great things and it's just a matter of not having everybody else not actually recognize it as important because of all the crap that is around it.
Greg: It causes people not to go out and experience things. Because they feel like they can just see everything on the internet they may not have to go to a concert because they can watch the concert on youtube. They may not have go see some amazing monument because they can just look at pictures of it on someone else's photobucket. But you never learn from looking at something from some TV, Internet or a phone. You'll never learn what it feels like to actually go to a place to experience something with someone, to live through something. You can look at pictures of the Ghetto for example. You will never understand it after years studying it online the way you would if you would spend one night there.
Ben: The smell, the sight, the feel, the air. Those experiences is what's created the most important experiences in this world.
I think we undergo an analogue revival. That for example people start not to listen CDs but vinyl, going out to the nature again, etc.
Ben: Definitely. That's one of the ways it's starting to correct itself. People who really care seeking out things, making an extra effort, to get in touch with the real tangible stuff.
Let's talk about albums. Steve Evett was already producing the seventh record of yours. Five albums, two EPs. What was his role in producing? Some producers only sit in the corner in the room and nod or say nay.
Ben: I think he's more of a coach. Especially with our band: we come in with so much prepared and so many ideas already flushed up and pretty complex demos already ready to go. Then he comes in and says "Ok, now let's make it perfect because a band like yours doesn't have a whole lot of room full for air." Because there's so much going on and it's so dense. Taking the wrong path and being lazy in any situation along the way could make the whole thing fall apart. He's somebody really staying on top of us till we reach our final vision and not give up along the way which is usually a pretty high expectation we have on ourselves. He helps push us to get there.
Other bands are just jamming to make new songs but I can't imagine that works for you.
Ben: It's combination of things. We probably write in way it do a lot of bands. There's usually an idea started by a main songwriter in the band and then everyone comes in, starts working on things and vocals become part of it, it starts to turn into a main structure of a song and then it takes a whole another life from there. But we write in all different kind of ways. Like if been using different things during the past couple of years to start ideas. Whether it's a guitar, working on rhythms, whether it's a piano or some electronic nature or some kind of synthicist to inspire an idea. And usually it incorporates some kind of jamming to make sure that it works in a live context and that there's energy and emotion and that's not just some clipboard idea. That it actually will turn it into something that makes sense on an emotional energetic level.
Have you ever started a song with the lyrics?
Greg: No, never. I don't even bother to try lyrics until the song's finished because the phrasings change so drastically. I may have things prewritten to pick from, like ideas and concepts and freeform writing but we never fit a song to prewritten lyrics. That's not even possible with our music.
Is it like a group work, that sometimes Liam brings in a demo and then you?
Ben: No, I'm pretty much the main songwriter. I work very heavily with our drummers and we've had a couple in the last few yours. But this time on this last record our drummer Billy was actually living with me. It was really efficient. We would get together, I would bring the ideas down, and if I had some guitar ideas he'd show me something he was working on and he would flush it up. At the time when the other guys came in we already had pretty good ideas for where it was going.
That is rather uncommon. A lot of other bands do it like a group work.
Ben: Too many cooks spoil the broth. And as people become more comfortable with their position in the band they start to add new things and flavors. At the same time at least we know we do certain things the same way it will always maintain some level of consistency as well.
Does the band constellation at the moment feel final?
Greg: Yeah, it feels like it's final. [laughs]
Ben: Feels pretty stable. It's the first time we hadn't have a problem on the horizon or some type of end that we knew was coming. Like "We know this person is starting to rub or work himself out, it's only matter of time before we have to replace them." There's nothing like that going on. It took a long time to get here. I really feel like this is the line-up that will at least make it through. We never even recorded a consecutive album with the same line-up. Just recording two records in the same row with the same line-up will be monumental. That seems real probable at this point which is pretty cool.
I read some interviews of you when you said that pop music is rather a craft than art.
Ben: It is a skill to write music that is catchy and fits to a certain formula that common music listener can relate to automatically. There actually a programm that people are using now that you can run music through that will give you the likelihood of it being a success basing on attributes that usually make the hits that are high in the charts.
Greg: Key changes, tempos...
Do you think that the average pop music listener has a lower musical horizon than people that listening to music like yours?
Greg: Yeah, I do. But I think that's inevitable. There's always gonna be a greater populous. More people eat BigMacs than fine dining. There's a art to both. There's more people that drive Fords than Ferraris.
Ben: We're pretty much the Ferraris of music. That's what he's trying to say. [laughs]
Greg: But there is a difference and creating one is not more special than creating the other. Not everyone has the time to sit around, not everyone is musically or artisticlly inclined, not everyone gives a shit about art, not everyone is interested in thinking about music. And that's not a negative quality. Some people just really want to fucking party.
Ben: Obviously a complex indie film is much less likely to become a blockbuster hit movie that is really easy to take in and following a formula that people are used to. Because most people want entertainment to be an escape for them and a release and that usually means not having to think to hard. And I understand that and I appreciate that. Sometimes I go to the movies and I don't even care what it is. Because that's two hours I won't be on my phone and my computer and I just can be mindless. But I also enjoy going to a movie that makes me thinking. I think about when I go home, try to figure it out. It's two different things and one isn't better than the other. There's people that really want to work harder, decipher things, learn things, hear differences, everytime they listen to music hear something new and figure out what the intention was behind. And there's people who really just want to be able to predict everything that's going to happen, sing-a-long, release some kind of emotion and not really think twice about it. We're one, pop is another. That's how we look at it.
What bands do you momentarily listen to? Is there any band that still influences you?
Ben: I've been listening to a lot of Mahavishnu Orchestra again. I used to listen to it when the band first started. Pretty big name in the Jazz and the Fusion world. Very eclectic, it had a lot of eastern influences, a lot of guitar but also mixed-in orchestration and had amazing instrumentation going on. Some of that stuff was what influenced me to want to do more complex arrangements. Even though I'm still pretty much mainly influenced by metal and heavy stuff. I've been listening to that again lately.
Greg: I don't listen to as much music when I'm on tour as when I'm home because it's so fucking loud everywhere, because we play. Your ears take abuse when your on stage, so I don't really listen to that much music. I've been listening to that Florence + The Machine record. There's a band called M83 that I've been listening to quite a bit lately.
Ben: Just like heard yesterday the new Prodigy record.
Greg: Yeah, I heard the Prodigy record today from last year that I thought was really cool that I never heard. I'm all over the place with it. Or the new Usher record, I actually pretty like it.
Greg, you already spoke of your ears taking abuse, let's talk about the screaming. I once talked to George Pettit from Alexisonfire who told me he was drinking, smoking, just screaming "as loud as he fucking could" and had no idea how it worked. What about you?
Greg: [laughs] I don't approach it the same way like you would approach practicing an instrument. I don't think screaming is something that you really can start practicing. It's preposterous. I don't walk around at home screaming. I like to sing, but screaming is something that is an emotion-based thing. If you're trying to practise screaming you gonna lose the point of it. So many metal bands sound really safe when they scream. It's almost like a technic. Wherelse I would rather hear someone sound like a maniac and possibly lose their voice during it. Because it's naturally to be punk rock or hardcore. It's supposed to be an emotionally outburst and not just a stylistic device. Wherelse for singing I'm much more aware for things like technic, but screaming - you just should fucking mean what you say. If you mean what you say it'll sound alright.
So it's the songs that bring you're emotional outburst?
Greg: Of course. I wouldn't scream if it didn't feel appropriate. I don't think of it like a note on a keyboard.
I asked people what they would like to know from you and the majority was interested if you were working out.
Greg: Oh yeah? [lauhgs] We worked out earlier today. Our shows are very physical. Liam does a lot of yoga. Me and Ben and Liam were doing some pushups earlier. I actually work out way less than people probably think. Unfortunately.
Is there any room for women in your life?
Greg: There's room for a lot of women in our life. Many women. As many as you can... no, I'm just joking. Different people in the band have girlfriends, some of them come, some of them go.
Ben: Jeff is married.
Greg: Which is really cool. Relationships are extremely difficult to maintain. A lot of girls are very intrigued by people that have our lifestyle. But then when they get into it they realize it's a real pain in the ass. It's always a competition. We're already married to one another, we're married to the band. 90 percent of our time goes into this. We're always on tour, if we're not on tour, we're probably writing, we're probably recording. Ben still does management stuff. We try to make it work with varied success rates. [laughs]
You have Party Smashers Inc. as a label for everything you're doing. Are you free of obligations towards Season of Mist?
Ben: Yeah, it's basically a way to put our stamp on everything we do from here or now. What it does give us is a consistency regardless of what we do do. In this climate obviously people are doing all kinds of different things. The traditional label structure is gone. People who have the ability to do so are really trying new things as they come. We talked about technology being a hindrance but being a great tool if you use it properly. With technology constantly growing so quickly right now there's all kinds of ways to release your music and get your stuff out to people. We don't how it's going to go for us. But what we do know is that if we create that stamp that we can make sure that we make it clear that this is something that is our thing, approved by us. It's something we're doing and trying. If it fails it's our fault. It's just putting everything under that umbrella. Regardless of what it is.
Do you have to do an amount of records in the upcoming years?
Ben: Nono. We don't have to do anything. We're completely free to do whatever we want.
Perfect.
Greg: Exactly, perfect. It's very ideal. Especially after being a band as long as we have it didn't make sense to sign a traditional record contract. Freedom is very important. The record industry is in a state of chaos. Having the possibility of being flexible is your greatest asset.
Ben: The problem with the record labels is that their success is based on sales of records. When for us sales of records really don't correlate with success as far as the way we look at things. We've never been a band that sells trillions of records. But we've always been a band that can pack a club for over 13 years. Regardless of what style is popular, regardless of what is going on, regardless of any other factor, regardless of the economy, regardless of the state of the music industry. For us those measures of success don't apply. To tie ourselves to a record label who's going to measure our success based on things that've never really applied to us doesn't make sense. That's why we started the Party Smasher thing. We're not sure what we're going to do next. It could be anything. Maybe we'll fucking drop our music down from the sky in little icecubes or in a microchip. I don't fucking know. It doesn't matter. It does represent our independence.
Thank you.
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