The Dillinger Escape Plan: Interview

In-person interview with Ben Weinman of The Dillinger Escape Plan

By Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal

August 11th 2010, Pomona Fairplex, Pomona CA

Andrew: I saw your show today. You guys ripped it up. It was pretty good!
Ben: Thank you. We had little problems. Didn't have the singer at first, then had some technical, weird things happening but we got through it (laughs).

Andrew: What happened with the singer? Was he just late?
Ben: Yeah he lives not too far form here. So, last night he went home. That's always a recipe for disaster. When you go home, you don't come back (laughs), so he was just late, stuck in traffic.

Andrew: It was pretty funny that you got a random guy up to fill in for him for the first song.
Ben: Yeah we figured why not. We've got to play regardless, so let's give this guy a chance to do his thing and play on Warped Tour (laughs)!

Andrew: How has this tour gone for you? It's coming to an end in a few days.
Ben: It's interesting. It's not exactly our crowd. A lot of fans probably wouldn't really want to come to Warped Tour because of the kind of bands that are on it and stuff like that, but for us it's been an amazing opportunity because it's not that often that we have the opportunity to play in front of new faces and new people. Dillinger has always been the kind of band that kind of does it's own thing and it's own tours. We don't really support other bands. There have been very few times in history that we've actually opened up for bigger bands and stuff like that. So every now and again, you've got to replenish your supply of new fans and expose your music to new people. It's cool to see young kids watch as like we're a brand new fresh band and still be blown away by what we're doing. So it reminds us that we're doing something right.

Andrew: You played half an hour. In what way did you make best use of it?
Ben: In the beginning of the tour we tried a few things out and saw what worked and what didn't. Initially our set was much more diverse. We played more melodic things and we even played some piano type songs. It didn't seem like it held the tension of these kids with so many bands playing and so much going on. So we just decided to do a power set and do some songs that we really enjoy, songs that are energetic.

Andrew: I would have liked to see that melodic stuff though.
Ben: Yeah, I mean, I love playing that stuff and it makes the set more interesting for me but with only 30-35 minutes, we just kind of put in the energetic ones that are at least hits to our fans (laughs).

Andrew: What do you think of the crowd reaction over the whole tour in general?
Ben: It's hard to tell because you can't tell what people think of you. One thing that I've noticed is a lot of bands are provoking crowd interaction. You see bands saying, 'I want to see a giant mosh pit right now', and 'Here's your chance to jump' and they're really trying to get the crowd to perform. We've never been that kind of band. We're doing our thing and if you want to watch it, do it and if not, I don't know what to say. However you want to enjoy it, it's up to you. We encourage people to enjoy it in whichever way they want to, watching it, moving around or whatever. So it's hard for us to judge by a crowd often. But luckily on this tour, we've been doing signings after our set when we meet kids. That's been really cool because we're starting to see that even though these people aren't moving around or reacting to our set in the same way as for the other bands, they're enjoying it. 75% of the people that come and see us at the signings have never seen us before. So that's really exciting for us.

Andrew: Your new album 'Option Paralysis' has been said as your most 'metal' record yet. Would you agree with that?
Ben: I think so, just because I know that when I was writing it, I was listening to a lot of old thrash metal. Although it may not sound like that, I knew that those kinds of things were inspiring me. The energy and some of the conceptual things in old metal records like Megadeth and Napalm Death were driving the inspiration behind writing some of that stuff. Some of the note choices are definitely more metal than our previous records. No Dillinger record is going to sound like a typical metal record. But I just know that it had more of a metal vibe to it.

Andrew: The artwork interested me a lot because I believe it has images by band members. Putting that together must have been fun.
Ben: Yeah the artwork is made up of mosaics and we really wanted to represent the idea that people are so over-stimulated and there's so much going on right now the way media and computer is, that people have so much sensory overload at all times. In many ways it negatively affects culture and art. Nobody really knows what's important anymore. Our goal has always been to be that band that turns people's heads and make them feel a little uncomfortable, makes them have to work a little harder. So that's what we've always represented. There's no better time in the history of music to really exist to be honest with you. There needs to be bands like us right now to kind of change things up and wake people up a little bit. That's really what the artwork represents.

Andrew: Exactly. Where does that album title come from?
Ben: Option Paralysis is a term that actually means having so many choices that you're paralysed. You don't pick anything. That's something that we find is happening. It's almost like when you go to a diner and there are a million things on the menu. You end up saying, 'I'll have a hamburger'. You pick the same thing over and over again, because there's just too much going on. Again, that kind of represents what's going on in society, specially from an artistic point of view. It's not just in music. I've ran into photographers who've really put their lives into learning the craft and the art. Now everybody with a digital camera or a camera phone thinks they're a photographer. The internet is flooded with pictures and flickrs, this and that. It's the same with musicians and same with producers. Everybody with a computer thinks they're a producer. The need to understand the art of production and sound design is much more than just having a tool that tells you how to do it. That's something that's bothered us for a while and the name really represents that. Number one, just because you have these options doesn't mean that you should use them. Number two, having all the sensory overload available is making people zombies and paralysed, not really be able to create and be inspired.

Andrew: The name of the band is obviously based on John Dillinger. There was a movie about him last year, Public Enemies. What did you think of that movie?
Ben: It was a good movie. We never really had any infatuation with John Dillinger. It was kind of one of those things when we first started and needed a name. We were watching a documentary on TV on John Dillinger and just came up with the name. We thought it sounded cool. I thought Public Enemies was pretty cool. Johnny Depp is a great actor. It gave us a little bit more attention. We got more hits on the web in the couple of months when the movie was out (laughs).

Andrew: Yeah that's what I thought when that movie came out. I was like, 'That band with the name Dillinger in it must be getting a lot of press these days'.
Ben: Yeah everyone was like, 'Are you on the sound track?' I don't think our music would necessarily fit with the theme of movie (laughs).

Andrew: Coming back to the music, one thing that you said about this new album was, it was not available at Walmart and Target because that's where you buy toilet paper!
Ben: Yeah, it seems like with the music business today, ironically, places that sell toilet paper, like Walmart and Target and even Starbucks who sell coffee, seem to have a huge impact on record sales because there's nowhere to buy records anymore. Music stores don't exist. Best Buy is really the only place to buy records and they've cut their music section to two isles and the rest is ipod accessories. Walmarts and Targets are places to buy records now and we don't really care about that whole game. We're not going to not put a swear word in our record so we could get into Walmart. We know that we'll never compete with bands out there with major marketing and major money behind them, who are writing songs for the purpose of selling records. So, why even try? If somebody wants our music, they'll go find it, you know.

Andrew: The band's genre is said to be 'mathcore'. What is the need for that term? I mean, why couldn't it be simpler?
Ben: It was kind of invented when we started. I know the stuff that influenced us was definitely much more intricate. There was a lot of music that was clever, things like King Crimson, 70s prog stuff that was a little more clever than a typical radio band, but we come from punk, metal and thrash. We just want to keep ourselves stimulated, push ourselves to try new things. It was what it was, and came out the way it was. I guess people can label it whatever they want to.

Andrew: This year you won the best underground band at the Epiphone Revolver Golden Gods. What did you feel about getting that award?
Ben: It's funny because I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult. Best band that nobody knows about (laughs). But we've won similar award like Independent Artist Awards and stuff like that. I'm really proud of that because the truth is, we've done this on our own and that's what makes us underground and I welcome that. We're obviously still relevant to some degree. We're playing Warped Tour and we've been around for 13 years, longer than some of the people that are out at this place have been alive. We still have just as much fire as ever. We play our headline shows they are bigger and better. More people are excited than ever. That's really hard. Most of the bands that are out here, if they are here in five years I'd be really surprised. The ones that still are, that's great and I really respect bands that can last the test of time. I'm really proud that that's something we've been able to do. Bands have different styles. The most important thing is it's real, true and honest and we'll see in a couple of years which ones out of these are that (laughs).

Andrew: As you just said, you stood the test of time. What was the single biggest moment in that period, something that stands out in memory?
Ben: Honestly, it's never been overnight success for us. It's always been, doing our thing, turning back and saying wow so many years have gone by. There's never been one moment, tour, record or one thing that's ever propelled us into some kind of success or anything. Literally, we're playing in basements and going slowly. In 13 years it's been a really gradual climb for us. I can honestly say that things like these underground awards, playing on Conan O'Brien being the kind of band that we are, performing with Trent Raznor, doing records with Mike Patton, all of it is just the reason why we continue to do it, because we feel like there's obviously a place for us in this music scene. People who are into music continuously say, 'We dig what you do'. That means a lot to us, and the fact that we've been able to do it as long as we have and still maintain relevance, that's really just the highlight.

Andrew: How has it been travelling through this Warped Tour? Have you had any crazy experiences, drunken fights or shit like that?
Ben: Not really, but the other day I almost got shot (laughs).

Andrew: What??
Ben: Yeah that was on our day off in Las Vegas. It was myself, one of the guys in Alkaline Trio and a friend of his. I don't know who the hell he was, just some guy. We were outside of a bar and somebody walked up to us and said he'd just gotten out of jail and he needed money to get across town. The guy [friend I didn't know was like, 'No sympathy man, no sympathy for you!', just drunk, stupid and not very street smart. That guy was definitely in jail. He was covered with jail tattoos and looked crazy as hell. He was like, 'You've got no sympathy for my baby girl?' and started beating the shit out of this guy and asked, 'Who else?' I was wearing flip flops and wasn't about to get into a fight with anybody. He had a gun. That was pretty interesting and probably one of the weirdest, craziest things that happened on this tour. The coolest thing about Warped Tour is there are so many different bands that we don't necessarily have to like all of them. We're all in the same boat, out here and trying to do our best to survive doing what you love. There are a couple of assholes out here for sure, a couple of dipshits. But other than that, people have been cool and nice, and it's definitely been a cool experience.

Andrew: What do you have coming up after this tour?
Ben: In October, we'll be doing a full European headliner. We'll be playing some places we've never played before. It's exciting. We'll be doing Israel and Greece, and Russia where we've played before but not that often. In the beginning of the new year we'll be doing a US headliner, all over, as many places as we can hit and any dump that we can find. That's pretty much the plan for now.

Andrew: I'll be looking forward to that headline tour. It was a very entertaining show by you today and thanks a lot for doing the interview.
Ben: Thank you! Nice to meet you and thank you for your interest.

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