The Dillinger Escape Plan – Ben Weinman

American deathcore giants The Dillinger Escape Plan have set their sights on Australia once again for the 2014 installment of Soundwave, Australia’s biggest heavy metal and hard rock touring festival. The band recently released their killer new album, ‘One of Us Is the Killer, receiving an overwhelming positive response worldwide.

Metal Obsession had the pleasure to speak with guitarist, Ben Weinman about the band’s upcoming appearance at Soundwave 2014, touring, plus future music collaboration plans and much more.

Metal Obsession: Hey Ben, hopefully it’s not too early for you like when you talked to Soundwave?

Ben Weinman: [laughs] It’s 8:44 at night right now, so it’s a pretty good time.

MO: Okay, that’s not too bad. Continuing on the Soundwave track, you’re on the massive lineup for 2014, are you excited to be back in the country after being here only two years ago?

BW: Yeah, we’d come to Australia a couple of times a year if they’d let us. It’s one of our favourite places to play in the world for sure. It’s an amazing place, it’s an interesting place. I’ve been doing a lot of interviews tonight, and I just keep bringing up how great it is to be somewhere so far away and so geographically different. But culturally, the people are so welcoming and comfortable, it feels like we’re at home.

MO: I’ve seen that you’ve done the Sydney Harbour Bridge, are there any touristy things you haven’t done yet?

BW: Touristy things I haven’t done… Well we’ve done the whole zoo thing, patted kangaroos and held koalas. We’ve snorkeled, I’ve done a lot of things down there. I’ve hung out with some Quokkas, which is really interesting. They came right up, jumped in my lap, and stole a piece of my sandwich right out of my hand. I don’t think many people in the world know what a quokka is, but one of them stole my sandwich. So that was pretty awesome. I don’t know, what do you recommend?

Soundwave Festival 2014

MO: Umm, well I’m not sure what you’ve already done, far out, you’ve gone to the Koalas in Queensland, I don’t actually know [laughs]

BW: I haven’t swum with Great White Sharks yet.

MO: Oh you definitely have to check that out.

BW: Yeah man.

MO: Alright, out of the three Soundwave lineups you’ve been on/will be on, which one do you think will be your favourite after playing next year?

BW: Oh man. Well the first one was really memorable, we shared the stage with Nine Inch Nails on a couple of the nights, that was awesome. But I don’t know, hopefully this year.

MO: Which band on the lineup are you most excited to see next year?

BW: There’s a lot of bands that we’re friends with, so I’m excited just to hang out with them. We’re friends with some of the guys in Alice in Chains who we met the first time playing Soundwave, so it’ll be great to hang out with them. We’ve become great friends with the Australians Thy Art is Murder, so we’re stoked to hang out with those guys around the shows.

MO: I just talked to CJ earlier this morning and he said you guys were good friends, do you guys keep in touch in your downtime or just hang out when you get the chance?

BW: Well they were just in the US, and I came out and hung out with them. I took them out to a good New Jersey diner, and I showed them what it’s like to have good 24 hour diner food. We now talk a lot.

MO: There’s no animals to steal the food out of your lap there right?

BW: Just you know, New Jersey people.

MO: I have to ask about your lives shows, they’ve become notorious over the years, do you plan out hat you’re going to do on stage when you’re waiting to go on? Or do you just go with the moment?

BW: The thing is, we’re so in tune when we perform and play, like you said, the switch just goes on when we play. When it’s time to go, it goes. The thing that changes the show the most is the environment, we have no idea what the crowd’s going to do, we have no idea what we’re going to do. We don’t know how the stage or club is going to affect what we’re going to do, there’s so many unpredictable things in general for the show, and for us, it’s way more unpredictable than most. We don’t go out and practise what we’re going to do or anything like that *laughs*. It’s kind of like a weird ballet up there, we have no idea what’s going to happen. We seem to have this weird kind of, in tune with each other, kind of thing. Occasionally, things happen, we run into each other, someone gets a chunk out of their head. That stuff’s inevitable when you play as many shows as we do, but I think we’re pretty much in sync from knowing each other so well, without having to plan anything you know? We just do our thing.

MO: I was going to ask, how much practice do you need to do to make sure the ‘organised chaos’ I suppose you call it, doesn’t fly off the handle in a live show?

BW: You know, it’s funny, people don’t typically believe us, it’s not something I’m proud of, but we don’t practise. Ever. We all live on different sides of the US, Greg lives in California, which is like a 6 hour plane ride away from me. Our drummer lives in Washington DC, I’m in New Jersey, our bass player’s in Philly and our other guitar player’s in Texas. Our first show is our first practice really [laughs].

MO: I think you guys do pretty well. You recently released ‘One of Us is the Killer’ and it’s getting insane reviews from all over the world. Were you stoked to hear your music was getting a wider reception?

BW: I mean, we don’t really know exactly how it’s going until we go and play shows. I recently heard how we’re doing Australia and it seems to be doing well, it’s actually one of those things where like, we hear things, and then we go there and nobody knows our record. It’s hard knowing what’s going on because we’re so far away, but it’s great to know that people are receiving your music so far away in the world. When we first started, we didn’t think that was possible to think about.

One of Us Is the Killer

MO: You mentioned kids having your newest album, just going back a bit, what are the chances of getting something off say ‘Calculating Infinity’ in the setlist at Soundwave?

BW: You know, typically we’ve gotta make our sets shorter when we play a festival like Soundwave. So it’s really difficult to choose which songs to play, but we always throw something in from pretty much every record if we can.

MO: That’ll be pretty exciting for those diehard fans who’ve been with you for about fourteen years or so.

BW: Well I don’t really want to be playing a song I wrote about twenty years ago. What about me?! What about what I want to play?! [laughs]

*Dogs suddenly run into the interview barking*

MO: [laughs] Obviously you’re at home then?

BW: Yeah!

MO: Are you all good?

BW: It’s only an arm, they don’t need it.

MO: Well at least I’ll have the most unique interview of the day I’d say.

BW: Ladies and Gentleman: my dogs. [laughs]

MO: Alright, just to get back to the band, does Greg write the lyrics before you create the guitar parts? Or do you create your own chaotic melodies and he interprets lyrics from them?

BW: It’s interesting because the demos I make are very detailed, when Greg hears them, they’ll be like they would be on the record. The thing’s that most interesting about that is he doesn’t have much influence on it, he just hears it. He doesn’t know what my mind was like, what I put into the song, what my thoughts were, he just hears the song and it hits him and it inspires him. As if he were a fan hearing it for the first time, in turn, I get to hear it back with some of his ideas with all this kind of stuff added, and I’m a fan myself, so I get kind of excited in that respect.

MO: You said you don’t really practise that much, does that mean you guys don’t go on Skype or anything like that for a jam session? You just turn up at the first show or meet them at the airport and then get into it?

BW: This was the first time we ever did this, but it was great. On our last European tour, in France, there was this club that let us come in a day early because they didn’t have a show going on, and we set up early and we got to actually practise a little bit. That was nice, we went through the set and finetuned the show, but even then we played it like two times and just went “Eh, we’re done, if we can’t play these songs now, then we never will” [laughs].

MO: [laughs]After five albums that are so frenetic and fast paced, do you want to settle down for the next album at all, and experiment with a slow pace? Something along the lines of the beginning of ‘Nothing’s Funny’, or you’re just going to keep going like a runaway train?

BW: I don’t know, I love groovy stuff man. I think we all love just grooves and we’re all people who love rhythmic music and I think we’ll always have that element of chaotic intensity, that’s basically the Dillinger sound. I think that’ll always be a part of Dillinger, no matter what. But we haven’t really thought of what direction the next record will go in, we usually don’t think at all, we just start making music. Like, I think the first idea for the last record began when I was just tapping something, or playing something on guitar unplugged, and Billy recorded it without me knowing with his phone with me just jamming on it. Next thing we know, we were starting a record, and we were just like “whoa!”. We don’t really plan it, or think about it, but it’s interesting when you listen to the record many months later, when you hear what was going on in my life when I was writing it and what I was doing. I can hear it in the music.

MO: Well it’s worked for you for over a decade, so there’s probably no point in changing it now right?

BW: [laughs] Yeah.

MO: I was going to say, a lot of the time your band is mentioned in the same breath as Converge, in relation to your music style and crazy live shows, will we ever see a Converge and Dillinger tour in Australia?

BW: I don’t know, we did actually tour with Converge early on, back in the day. They were actually one of the first bands we ever toured with. I think the thing I like the most about that band is that they’re one of those bands like us that, exists and is relevant, but comes before a time of social networks and all that stuff, before YouTube and everything. There was no guidelines or a blueprint of how to do it back then, you were just a part of a scene where you got together, you and your friends made nothing, then you went to play a show for anyone who would listen. You know? You wouldn’t spend your time marketing yourself, or trying to get friends, or figuring out what your T-shirts should look like. You were just kind of influenced by your geographic location, and the sound of the music you liked, and the people around you, and the bands that were in your area. So I think that’s basically what we can identify most with Converge. I mean, I don’t know, we’ll get in touch with those guys, I’m sure it’ll happen one day.

MO: A lot of the time bands do a ten year tour, but considering you guys are over that stage, we might have to wait for your twentieth.

BW: Well they’ve been around longer than twenty years. Maybe we should do a reunion tour? The first tour we ever did was with a band called Cave In, so them and Dillinger together again would be pretty cool.

MO: Alright, well hopefully we see that tour come over to our side of the world.

BW: That’d be great, let’s do it.

MO: Unfortunately, we’re running out of time, so I ‘ve only got one more question I can ask, do you have any specific bands you want to do collaborations with this year?

BW: Umm, I mean I’m dealing with so much side stuff now, that I’m excited about, so it’s hard to even think about more right now. I’m working with Jon Theodore of Queens of the Stone Age, Brent Hinds from Mastodon on a project. Billy, the drummer, and myself are working on some really heavy stuff with our old singer Dimitri. Ahh, there’s so much stuff that’s going on, like my solo stuff, which is a bit more melodic and electronic. I mean, I have so much stuff going on, it’s hard for me to even possibly think of more.

MO: Alright, well thanks so much for talking to Metal Obsession today.

BW: No problem, thank you.

MO: I’ll see you at Soundwave next year, hopefully you put on an amazing performance as you always do.

BW: I’m looking forward to it.

Soundwave Festival 2014

Saturday, 22nd February 2014
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Tix: Via Soundwave Festival

Sunday, 23rd February 2014
Olympic Park, Sydney
Tix: Via Soundwave Festival

Friday, 28th February 2014
Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
Tix: Via Soundwave Festival

Saturday, 1st March 2014
Bonython Park, Adelaide
Tix: Via Soundwave Festival

Monday, 3rd March 2014
Claremont Showgrounds, Perth
Tix: Via Soundwave Festival

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