Calculating The Past, Present & Future With BEN WEINMAN From THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN

Interview by Kris Peters
When The Dillinger Escape Plan bid their fans farewell at the end
of 2017 the resulting ripples in the live community could be felt
around the world. Despite leaving at the top of their game, DEP
still left more than a few fans with an overwhelming sense of loss,
especially those who had heard about the band's legendary,
aggressive and all encapsulating live performances, but never got
to witness it first hand.
Formed in 1997 by guitarist Ben Weinman and vocalist Dimitri
Minakakis, DEP soon forged a name for themselves on the back of
their high intensity, often violent live, reckless shows, the band
had an immediate impact with their 1999 debut full-length
Calculating Infinity. Among the first people to jump on board was
Mike Patton, who invited DEP out on the road for two months with
Mr. Bungle, further strengthening their claims as eclectic and
tumultuous trailblazers on the metal scene.
Minakakis left the group after that album, with Patton providing
vocals on an EP before Greg Puciato submitted a recording which led
to him being asked to audition, and the rest is metal
history.
After five more albums, DEP officially disbanded in 2017, with
Minakakis joining the line-up on stage over the last two
performances on December 27 and 28. It seemed a fitting finale for
the band who had turned heavy metal on its head over the course of
their career, and despite everyone's obvious disappointment, the
legacy of DEP would live on forever.
Now, following an 8-year hiatus, The Dillinger Escape Plan return
for a very limited number of live shows to commemorate their
groundbreaking album Calculating Infinity and so much more, hitting
Australia this August for a run of shows. HEAVY caught up with Ben
Weinman to find out more.
"We never, ever think about performance, or things like that," he
mentioned during the interview. "We always try and be completely
uninhibited expression, and that's very important to us. Sometimes
I don't even really wanna look out at the crowd, even at soundcheck
or anything. I don't wanna have any indication of what to expect,
and it's continued to be that way. Although, I think back in the
day when we were first writing these songs we had a lot more people
looking at us with disgust (laughs), than with enjoyment."
We ask if he has to put himself in a mindset before getting on
stage.
"For me, I can say one of the main aspects of turning on the
Dillinger performance is that I'm always nervous," he revealed.
"I'm never not nervous. I've never stepped on stage un-nervous. I
still feel to this day everyone out there's gonna hate us. We're
playing to a pack of wild wolves, and it's just stayed with us.
Maybe it's just trauma from when we were younger, but I feel like
we wrote music that wasn't supposed to be enjoyed (laughs). And we
really wrote an album that was just for us, and it ended up
working. I really feel that the fact that we're going out there
still not even knowing what the reception will be to some degree -
at least mentally - and the nerves is what turns it on. Because you
either get up on stage and unleash the beast or you turn around and
huddle into a ball and play facing the drums."
In the full interview, Ben talks more about what we can expect from
the run of shows, revisiting Calculating Infinity, what the album
means to him 25 years on, their live intensity and how they sustain
it, the early days of The Dillinger Escape Plan, having Mike Patton
contribute vocals for an EP after Minakakis left, getting Greg
Puciato in the band and what they expected from him, their final
1997 shows with both singers, how that planted the seeds for these
reunion shows, the possibility of making the comeback permanent and
more.


Become a supporter of this podcast:
https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.