THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN Guitarist On Illegal Music Downloading, TRENT REZNOR

Joshua Chaplinsky of ChuckPalahniuk.net recently conducted an interview with guitarist Ben Weinman of THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

Joshua Chaplinsky: Do you think the traditional label system is dead?

Ben Weinman: I think there's a place for it, but that's more of a music business thing, not an art thing. I think there's a difference between art and inspiration and pop culture, and sometimes they cross, but... I think there's always going to be the traditional ways of a major label. I think there'll always be a place for that when it comes to giant boy bands that need to be on posters and TV and stuff like that. But I think that deal, the old model, is obviously dead for artists

Joshua Chaplinsky: You basically act as the band's manager. Is that out of necessity?

Ben Weinman: It's an artistic decision and a business decision. I don't lie about the fact that even though we don't create music that's necessarily marketably viable, this is still a business. Artistically we obviously don't want some douchebag who doesn't know shit telling us how to do things, but on the business front it doesn't make sense unless that person is gonna at least double our income. Otherwise they're just taking our money. And at this point this band has kind of become it's own thing. We kind of exist outside of everything else that's going on. I know bands twice as big as us that don't make as much money. I don't understand where we fall because we do things completely different.

Joshua Chaplinsky: At this point in your career do you still have day jobs, or is the band your job?

Ben Weinman: This is what we do, every day, all day.

Joshua Chaplinsky: How do you feel about the illegal downloading? Has that hurt you or helped you?

Ben Weinman: It's probably done a little of both. I think people make the mistake of thinking we have a problem with the digital age because we talk about technology getting in the way. The truth is, in our opinion, the downloading thing helps bands like us a great deal. When we show up on a playlist, we work very hard for people, whether they like it or not, to be like, I know exactly who that is. That's that band. When they see us live, you know, from a mile away — DILLINGER's playing. I actually read some blog the other day about how a guy asked his nephew what bands he liked, and he said, I like DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, and I can't tell you who else I like because I just like songs. And I was so proud of that. Even though I know he probably downloaded every one of our records for free, the fact that he knew who we were, that we had an identity and everything else was just songs, that told me that we're doing something right.

Joshua Chaplinsky: So are you guys tight with Trent Reznor now? Can you pick up the phone and give him a call?

Ben Weinman: (Laughs) I've got him in my phone book, you know? It's kind of a crazy time in his life. He got married and took a break and finally said, I don't have to do NINE INCH NAILS if I don't want to. I control my own life and I am not defined by this band. And I can relate to that. Obviously DILLINGER isn't anywhere close to the size of a NINE INCH NAILS, but I have been in this band for thirteen years, and it is important for somebody to be able to just stop and take care of their own lives. I think that right now is a time when the people who really care about him are gonna leave him alone and let him do his thing. He knows where to find us when he needs us, and he's had no problem doing that. But I don't sit on the phone and talk to him every night about "Lost".

Joshua Chaplinsky: It seems to have been mostly Greg [Puciato, vocals], but for a while there you guys were getting into feuds with shitty bands like DISTURBED and PUDDLE OF MUDD. Is that a thing of the past? Have you guys matured?

Ben Weinman: Those feuds were never meant to be feuds. It wasn't like we were trying to, you know... We saw negative things from that, we saw positive things- like free publicity from bands that are much bigger than us. It's never been an issue of maturity, it's been an issue of, we didn't think bands like that would give a fuck. If somebody asks us a question and we answer honestly and these bands are gonna get upset, it's kinda hard to argue that. The truth is a lot of bands that we don't like (musically,) we end up being great friends with. The fact that we have similar lifestyles and passions. That we're doing the same thing and have the same kind of issues with our personal lives. We have more in common with bands we hate than with some accountant who likes exactly the same music as we do. But if someone like DISTURBED or AVENGED SEVENFOLD is gonna get all bent out of shape for somebody asking us in an interview what we think of them, there's nothing we can do about that.

Joshua Chaplinsky: A while back you put out an EP of covers ("Plagarism") and I wanted to know, how come you guys don't DILLINGER-up your covers any more? You seem to be doing more straight-forward renditions these days.

Ben Weinman: We did do it with the "Angel" cover, that was quite different. It wasn't Dillingerized necessarily, but it was definitely a different vibe. There was a BLACK SABBATH cover that was recently released. It was for some old comp that never came out. That was definitely pretty mashed up. It was like grindcore and swing. Somebody asks us to do a cover of a band and it's for a compilation? We're gonna change it up. The last thing somebody needs to hear is a whole record of BLACK SABBATH songs sounding exactly like BLACK SABBATH. There are enough bands that rip off BLACK SABBATH as it is. When we started doing those other songs, that was just for fun. We never intended to put that out. That was us playing some other kinds of music, Greg getting some opportunities to use his voice in a different way. And us exposing kids to music saying, look, you don't have to always listen to heavy music. We think this shit is good. This isn't a guilty pleasure. This is in our playlist.

Read the entire interview at ChuckPalahniuk.net.