Interview:

2013-10-25 The Dillinger Escape Plan

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Before THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN got unleashed to put on another one of their destructively, berserk live shows in Hamburg, guitarist and founding member Ben Weinman took some time to talk about getting back in action after a (quite short) time of recovery, how the view on music can change when getting older and the typical difficulties on how to keep „baby“ Dillinger aliveInterview

You had to cancel shows because of - yet another - injury which happens quite often
due to your excessive live shows. Still, I can imagine that it was in this case a somewhat
disappointing and distressing situation for you. How did you cope with that? What have
you been up to and how long did it take you to recover?



After I broke my wrist I really tried quickly to get back to a condition where I can play,
unfortunately I had surgery on my wrist and I got actual screws in there. The good thing was
that that enable me to heal much quicker because if I just have broken it and waited it would
take me so much longer, so I had surgery. I couldn't play for about two weeks. I just had a
rest and I guess enough time to relax and think, might get inspired by new things. Watch
some movie, you know. And then I got the stitches off and had another two weeks to get
back and play, get in shape before this tour, or actually the US tour we did. So that was hard,
cause I only really had two weeks to go back and learn how to play again. Because my right
hand was just complete-it just didn't work at all. I just did a lot of exercises, like rehab, just
played guitar for those two weeks straight.


After a ten year contract with Relapse you decided to sign in with Sumerian Records,
with your own label Party Smasher for the release of "One Of Us Is The Killer". Could
you briefly explain the significance of this decision?


After the Relapse contract we did a record on a French label called Season Of Mist/ Party
Smasher, it was the first thing we put the Party Smasher moniker on. That was just for that
one record and when we moved on we decided , and we just pretty much tried to learn from
every experience and learn new ways of doing things. So the last release in Europe and the
UK, we put it out on our own label Party Smasher basically on our own and then we had in
the North America the label Sumerian Records/ Party Smasher. They pretty much function
like a typical label and we just want to make sure to have this label name on all of our
releases, the title on it and that it still has our stamp on it. That the business is still running
on and the way we want it to be.


Last time I saw you guys was about two years ago: you were playing a free show also
here in Hamburg, in the city centre at the public town hall square. It was pretty
interesting to see the reaction of people who not just never heard of you before but also
have been in touch with this kind of music. I remember seeing an old couple, about, I
dunno, 60 or 70 years old who just came right at the piano intro of "The Widower" - the
look in their face was priceless when you went ahead and everyone was going buck
wild. They weren't the only one, though. Can you sometimes relate to people who
consider your music as way to chaotic and stressful, brutal even though yourself have
been doing this for the last 12 years?


Yeah, I remember seeing things specifically like that. Was pretty funny, actually. I also
remember an old lady with white, long hair just, rock out, you know. That was pretty
interesting. We knew when we were doing this band that we would be pretty opposed. Its
going to be a small, selective amount of people who would understand all the dynamics of
things we were trying to do. This band wasn't started with the intention of the approval of
the masses. And to be honest with you, we were really surprised we have come this far.


Yeah, I heard tonight's show is sold out.


Really? Oh, I didn't know that. But yeah, looks pretty busy outside. And I mean, we are
even growing still, which is crazy for us. Especially in Europe or Germany, honestly. When
we first started Germany was one of the slowest places to understand us. It seemed to us as
if the German audience was really kind of stuck in to genres and labels- a lot of the music
that influenced us was very big in Germany such as hardcore punk music and metal and
jazz, and stuff, but it really has to be divided, not as an unit. And when we came up, we just
put it all together into a completely new thing aside of genres a lot of the German audience
didn't understand us. And now is of our best places. And I cant really explain why, maybe
through how it spread over the internet. The German audiences are really great,is one of my
favourite places! So, it was really interesting to see how one of our most difficult places
became one of our greatest.


Something I often wonder about is if bands, such as you, which tour for such a long time,
well, do you actually have any time to listen to any new music or discover new bands?
Being all focused on your own stuff?


Well, the good and the bad thing about being in a band is that you hear so much music, it
sometimes can make you feel tired. So you're just like -you can feel whacked by being too
much surrounded by music, you want to turn it off.- until you have to listen to it. Cause every
night you are in a club, every night is so loud, you are either blasted with the opening bands or
yeah, background music.
Good thing is that you are around so many good musicians,
everyone has got great suggestions, and new music they are listening to or what they like, and
they can expose you to it. And everyone is just passing around their computers and are like
“check this or that out!”And that's really cool, being in that environment all the time. But as
far as new music goes – you know, I find myself going back and listening to older stuff. I
mean, when I was younger I found myself constantly looking for new music, getting into new
bands and genres, seeking out new things all the time. Now I feel like I just need the time to
recollect all the classics- maybe what parents grew up on, or what influenced in the past. And
now, as we in the band are in fact getting older, we are going back to do that. To get to know
everything of a specific classic artist. It's funny, I think the older you get, the older is the
music you are listening to.


is reflected not only in the stuff you release as DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN but also your collaboration with
other artists or the covers you have done before. If DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN was about to split up, could
you imagine doing something completely different in terms of music? Or would you let it
rest, get back to normal life because you're content and it can't get any better than this?


I think I will always be doing music and interested in creating new things. I don't think that I
will ever be in another band like DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, there is only one DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN and that's what the band
is made for. We really tried our best to do something new and refreshing when we started and
to satisfy a need- like, to fill in a hole with something that wasn't there. And I think there are
already a lot of interesting bands-heavy bands- doing interesting, artistic music now. But I do
think that we still feel a lot of passion for what we are doing, we are still feeling that we are
doing something relevant. That's why we are still here doing this but I don't think I will do this
same kind of music if it wasn't in DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN.


I 've read that the title of your newest release "One Of Us Is The Killer" is a reference to
describe the difficult relationship Greg and you had at a period of time.


I think there's always a lot of tension when you are in this kind of living scenario where you
constantly stuck together and dealing with creative things, and then being apart for such a long
time when you are not on tour, trying to maintain and build your personal lives. Everybody in
this band lives in different states, we have slightly different lifestyles, different interests.
Personal preferences. Different habits and hobbies, all kind of things. And of course, when
people from different places with different lives have one- baby or child- that they want to
raise and they are so passionate about, its very difficult. But there's also nobody else in this
world with whom I can share this stuff, who understands it like the guys in the band. So that's
very special, too. I think in general the tension between Greg and I specifically, when we are
making records ,it sometimes fuels a certain kind of energy in the studio, a certain feel or an
attitude that can come across in our music.


But if taken literally, whom of you guys would you consider to be most capable of
murder? Who's most bad ass?!


(laughs) I think Greg would do it if he didn't ever get caught. He would do it in a way you
would never know it was him. Me instead, I would just fucking snap and say “fuck you, you're
dead now! Put me in jail! Arrest me! I just killed someone, I give up!” So, not very planned
out., obviously!



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