THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN Guitarist Talks New Album, Music Industry, Illegal Music Downloading

LifeMusicMedia.com recently conducted an interview with guitarist Ben Weinman of THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN. The chat can be streamed using the audio player below. A couple of excerpts follow.

LifeMusicMedia.com: The situation with former drummer and fellow founding member Chris Pennie got pretty bad before his departure, with Greg (Puciato, DILLINGER's singer) calling it "a vicious tornado of animosity." Just how bad was it?

Ben Weinman: Well, I mean, it's difficult in general just to be in a band; especially when it starts to get serious like DILLINGER have. We never thought this was going to be our full-time career when we first started, and now it is. It's really hard, especially when we run things on our own and there's very few middle men to get involved. It gets quite stressful in the world of DILLINGER. Chris was really just somebody that loved playing drums and didn't really want to necessarily pay attention to a lot of the other details and it became a little bit of a problem between the band members. I think it was better off for everyone. I mean, sometimes things expire and he got everything he needed out of DILLINGER and moved on, and that's fine. And we're still happy to be doing what we're doing.

LifeMusicMedia.com: Is there a recurring theme that runs through your new album, "Option Paralysis"?

Ben Weinman: Yeah, the new record is basically based around the idea that we're kind of in a time where people are a little bit lost. There's just so much easy access to information and there's so many new technologies that people are a little bit lost and don't know what to do with it all. For the first time in history, I think that technology has advanced farther than we know what to do with it. That's a lot of what's been influencing this record and the stuff that we've been thinking about. Especially being in a band for as many years as we have and seeing the process of how bands conduct themselves and different genres come and go and things like that through the years we've been doing this… it's an interesting thing for us to see how culture has been affected by all these things. We're a band that benefits so much from technology, so a lot of things that this record touches on are just the fact that people are a little bit lost and they need to refocus on what's important.

LifeMusicMedia.com: How much does technology affect what DILLINGER does?

Ben Weinman: We've embraced technology a great deal and it's an extremely important part of our band, especially considering we're so into experimentation in the way that we make our music. But also because of the fact that we're not some giant band on a label with a lot of marketing a lot of people running things. I mean, we do everything on our own and technology and the internet has been a really important tool for us. However, the difference is that it IS a tool and you shouldn't use it as a means to an end. You should use technology as a source of inspiration. The fact is that everybody out there can find a blueprint on how to do things on the internet or on TV or anywhere else in about five seconds. We feel like that has definitely been a negative effect on cultures. We just try to continue to push people and push ourselves and try and create some level of unpredictability. We try not to use other bands as a guideline; we try to do things our own way and push ourselves. That's what we're really all about.

LifeMusicMedia.com: Speaking of experimentation, how do DILLINGER go about songwriting? What process do you use for coming up with such off-the-wall riffs?

Ben Weinman: Normally, being the main songwriter from day one it usually starts with me having some kind of either guitar ideas or drum ideas or rhythms — stuff that I've messed with often while on the back of a bus while on tour or something like that. Those are often the starting points for the songs that we then jam out and work on and flesh out. The next step is usually myself and our drummer just kinda working on the ideas and jamming them out and coming up with skeletons of songs and then the other guys can come in jam and eventually, we have a record.

LifeMusicMedia.com: You started your own label before "Option" came out. What are your thoughts on the state of the music industry at the moment?

Ben Weinman: I think it's kind of like the Wild Wild West right now; everyone is trying to figure it out. But we've been lucky enough to never really rely on the industry that much through the way that we do things, you know. We put out records so that we can tour and sell shirts and that's pretty much what we do.
We're just continuing to do that very same thing. A lot of people get caught up in numbers, like who sells more or who's got this bigger chart position or whatever and it just doesn't matter to me. We're on tour right now, playing our new record; kids are excited. Whether they got the record from a store or downloaded it or whatever, they're excited to see us and the shows are going great and the energy around the band has never been better. Regardless of the state of the industry, it doesn't really matter to me. As far as my overall idea about it, I guess there're just two different types of band: there are bands on one side who are still trying to worry about image major labels and the old way of doing things, following the herd. Then there's the other side which is bands like NINE INCH NAILS and RADIOHEAD and people like Mike Patton and hopefully bands like us as well who just kind of do things their own way and make it work for them.

LifeMusicMedia.com: You mentioned illegal downloading. Where do you stand on that topic?

Ben Weinman: It's hard because, you know, downloading doesn't affect some big country artist or some pop artist as it does a band like us because to be honest with you, our fans are pretty savvy as far as computers go and they know how to get a record without paying for it. The only thing that sucks is that when people download your record there becomes less resources for you to make the next record. SO we do need to sell a certain number of records just to maintain a certain level of function. But at the same time, like I said, if that person comes to a show and buys a shirt, I think that's an equal trade, man — that's fair enough. Our true fans seem to be pretty supportive. They want to buy the records, they want to have the packaging, they want to come to the shows and they want to buy a shirt. I just hope that if people do download our music that eventually if they really like it and become a fan, they do support us in some way.

Read the entire interview at LifeMusicMedia.com.

(Thanks: www.hoskingindustries.com.au)