DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN

Colour wheels, morse code, salsa, and thrash vs terrorism - Welcome to the world of Liam Wilson...

Somehow it seems hard to believe that Dillinger Escape Plan released their groundbreaking mathcore album Calculating Infinity in 1999. Consistently taking the path of most resistance, New Jersey's most defiant sons established a reputation for kicking out some of the most unpredictable, unpalatable, seductively f**ked up metal and hardcore to have come out of the US underground... and then turning round two minutes later and throwing in Latin grooves or soulful pop, or maybe even a splash of electronica. Nocore indeed.

Finding like minds in Relapse Records, as latest full length Ire Works shows, DEP are still blowing minds and leaving trails of limbs (their own and the audiences) wherever they go. Yet despite releasing records most pluggers can barely stomach, somehow they've gathered so much of a cult following that now The Band Least Likely To Become Chart Darlings are now frontpage news. Not bad for a band whose luck with injuries leaves their lineup rotating more than the cast of Neighbours.

Sam Page caught up with bassist Liam Wilson at the LA2 for a quick chat that soon evolved into talk about the colours of notes, album flow, and why it's a good time to take out the Dillinger Insurance Plan. And it all began with a shirt...

"Hey, nice t-shirt."

Thanks! Talking of Coltrane, do you try to incorporate jazz or those sort of ideas into the music?

"[John Coltrane] drew all the notes, his modal stuff, drawing the notes, etc. I've done stuff like that with colour wheels: E is kinda a blue colour; C is kinda a yellow colour."

Do you ever use that to write music?

"There have been times when I've done stuff with drum sequencers. I'll take 'John Coltrane' and I'll translate his name into Morse code and then I'll say all the dots are snare hits and the dashes are kick drum hits. And then take A Love Supreme, translate that into Morse code and that'll become the high hat pattern. Or you could take a statement like 'waste not want not' and because 'waste' and 'want' are similar words letter wise, and their patterns are going to come out the same, and 'not' and 'not' are the same, you end up with these crazy patterns. Eventually it does start to sound like music because there is a repeating segment."

Does the music actually come from that? Does it eventually evolve into a song?

"Not always. I've used it to maybe weave something, a sliver, just a hint. Sometimes it's just a spring board. I'm not going to literally put 'John Coltrane' in as a beat, but something like H-N-C-O might have a cool syncopation to it that'll just become part of my vocabulary and just find its way in."

What started you doing that?

"I don't know. I was just bored one night. Weed? Acid? I don't know. Most of it's just trying to find a way to break out of the box. Just thinking about it, thinking about Morse code and seeing it, and thinking of doing two things simultaneously. I'm working on Reason [music making computer program] but at the same time, me and my friend had a conversation on Morse code. Something clicked."

How does the band write music?

"A lot of it's very dislocated. I'd go up to New Jersey, assuming Chris [Pennie, currently in Coheed and Cambria] was still in the band. Ben [Weinman] and Chris would started to work an idea and build the architecture. They'd build the frames and I would put up the dry wall and put up the walls, pick out the curtains. I'd bring a recorder or a digital camera and record the band practises, watch Ben's fingerings and go back and record Chris solo. Or I would just practise with Chris and we'd work on the arrangement: 'This is more or less the song. Or lets f**k with the turnarounds. Lets put something weird right there. It feels like we need something there.'

Then, I'll go home, sit in my room, or shed, working on ProTools and keep doing take after take after take after take. Do that for a couple of weeks, a couple of hours ago and you start to work out where everything's gonna go. I'd just rip the wave file, send it to them, and start to piece them together. Ben would mix it, Greg [Puciato – vocals] would throw some vocals on.

So when you go to record an album, it sounds like you have an idea of where you're going?

"We get a lot of pre-production done and when we get to record, especially when we met Gil [Sharone – new drummer]. Greg and I drove to California and then we sat there in a practise space and just started going through over the songs. A lot of the songs we thought were 90/95% done end up having an extra 20% added to them, just hearing how Gil plays them. Going into the studio, he'd do a couple of different takes. He wasn't locked in, he didn't have two years of working on it, whereas I'm rigid. I have my part, and I'd go 'No, don't change that 'cos that's gonna f**k up this.' But he was free to do a lot of stuff in a certain context. I recorded last, and after the drum tracks, guitars, vocals and electronics, I'm like 'I could follow anything. This is interesting'. I get to play it like Paul McCartney and glue it together: fill it with clever little nooks and crannies.

I don't mean to sound flippant because I think they're great, but it sounds a lot easier to write stuff like Between The Buried And Me than to write your chaotic stuff.

"It's hard to do what they're doing too, but to your ear it's slightly more predictable or aesthetically pleasing: you know where it's going. It's mind boggling but it's got such a flow. As a listener, I like having that flow, but as a player/performer I don't like it. I need angular, somewhere I have to think 'what the f**k am I going to play over that?'"

The Dillinger Escape Plan - 'Milk Lizard'

'Milk Lizard' (single taken from Ire Works) is a more or less straightforward song, especially for you guys. How did that come about?

"As song writers, we never want to paint ourselves into a corner. With Slayer or Converge they can't do anything else. It's awesome what they're doing. But I don't want to ever feel like I need a side project, I don't have time, and I've got players that want to do everything. So we do something like a 'Milk Lizard'. But I was saying to Ben (guitars) last night that that song, for me, is the hardest song in the set because it's all down picking and it's relentless. Even if my left hand's not that busy, Gil's throwing in fills and I'm trying to lock in with that. Maybe with recording it sounds like and it is straightforward but it hones a different part of your craft. It doesn't hurt to have fun every once and a while or sense of humour or even a breather in the set. If you have everything at the same level it gets stale."

With Calculating Infinity the whole record was chaotic, but Miss Machine and Ire Works have evolved from that. Is where the albums go a conscious decision?

"Yes and no. It's not totally unconscious, I'd be lying if I'd say I just wrote it, but when you listen to our Under The Running Board EP, it's got those little splices with a fusion-y flavour. And with Calculating..., you now got those in the songs and you get interludes and other sections of the records and spaces where it comes out more. And then with the Irony Is A Dead Scene EP, with 'Good Dogs', the whole song has everything. And then Miss Machine came about, and we thought: how do we make a whole album that has a trajectory that 'God Dogs' has. You still have 'We Are The Storm' - that's frantic, breaks and then it's frantic again. But how do we couple that with a 'Setting Fire To Sleeping Giants' or an 'Unretrofied'? We need the album to breathe, otherwise it'll just be a cluster f**k. The only goal, the only intent on Ire Works was: how do we keep that going? How do make perhaps, not too dynamic like Mr Bungle. It's great, but it's not for us. We don't want to switch genres just for the sake of it.

Are you ever tempted to put any reggae in there?

[laughing] "Gil and I always joke about with Ire Works" [said in a Jamaican accent] "and it'll probably appear the more I work with Gil. On '82588' we have a rhythm that's almost like a Salsa pattern, but when you speed it up so much it becomes jagged and stabbing, it's not really that any more. The influence is there but it's taken out of context, so I'm hoping if have a reggae feel, it'll still have a jagged edge.

"We have that 'Mouth of Ghosts' song that has a Latin feel to it. You can't take the reggae out of it. It's just a matter of how much we can develop our vocabulary with it without sounding un-authentic."

Is there a pressure to write the frantic songs?

"Yeah. There's a responsibility. Everyone in the band, except for Ben, has seen the band. I was a fan before I joined, Greg was a fan before he joined. I met Gil as a Dillinger show five years ago. It's funny the way things happen, but I realise there's a responsibility to the fan boy in me that it's gotta be some of this. But now I'm on the inside, I want to explore, I want to play everything, to find where we're really going.

"One day we won't have an album that seems sporadic where this song and this song stick out. I think that's the goal, to finally write something where nothing sticks out. We look at bands like The Melvins who aren't writing exactly what they were 10 years ago and they kept at it, and they have other ways of playing with it. So I look at the respectability that they have and it's built in. They know when they play, they'll never be huge but they'll never fall of the planet either. That's part of the goal, I don't want to get stuck, I want to be other things.

"I'd love to find a way for 'Black Bubblegum' and 'Sugar Coated Sour' to be one song, or write another 'Milk Lizard' song without people being 'it's like watered down this'. If that's what you think that's cool, but this is where we're going. Miss Machine was a stepping stone for Ire Works.

"This is our last record on Relapse Records. We're free now, maybe we'll release something Radiohead-style. Maybe it'll sound like Radiohead? Who knows? We have no idea. We don't want to get struck into everything."

What happened with Relapse? Was there a fight?!

"There's no bad blood. But we feel like we've become the biggest fish in that pond and, no disrespect to Relapse, but we're growing at the same rate as they do. Everything we do helps them and everything they do helps us. There's a part of me that doesn't want to sell up to a major label. I've sold out already, I've signed my contract eight years ago. But there's a part of me that wants to see my band get as perversely big as it can. But I don't care about driving a Bentley, I just want to be able to put more money into the band. I want to be able to put more money into better videos, more production."

The Dillinger Escape Plan - 'Panasonic Youth'

Even at this level, do you get to choose who tours with you?

"Kind of, but there's always politics involved. When it comes to touring overseas, you have to consider if you want to take a band like Hella who are interesting but are they going to go over well? Are they gonna draw kids? They're great friends and I really like them, but are they the most practical thing to take to Europe when we have to buy plane tickets, rent all our gear, etc.

"So do you want to take a band who are respectable enough and are willing to put money into the tour or a band you can't stand and can't stand them as people but they draw 500 kids a night? Sometimes you've got to take one for the team. Tonight, we've got Stolen Babies playing. Are they the best band to tour with Dillinger? I don't know, but does it make sense? Yeah, from my point of view, as a favour to a friend, it does."

Is Gil a permanent member of the band, then?

"As permanent as any member is in this band!"

Considering the accident rate with DEP [Ben Weinman suffered several injuries, the most recent in October last year when he broke his foot during a video shoot, while Brian Benoit has suffered nerve damage to his left hand - Ed.], are you a bit scared that every time you tour or record, someone's going to get seriously hurt?

"There's a curse, sure. It's hard to say. You look at a band like Death who change members every record, but every record was still pretty good. I'm hoping people stick around. I know Gil wants to record another record, I know he's at least invested in that much. Greg got whacked in the mouth last night [In Bristol]. Everybody takes something. It's the Dillinger Insurance Plan."

You did a few covers between the albums, was that for a reason?

"It started with Kerrang! asking us to do a 90's one and we did it at home. That came out and we decided we should just record some of the other stuff we have done live, even if we did it just once. When the Melvins came up, I was like ''Honey Bucket'! We gotta do that!' I don't want to call them half-assed afterthoughts, but they're a little undercooked otherwise we would work it out forever. There was no real other reason besides that we had just covered them. 'Honey Bucket', we've never done live, or the Black Flag song. Just because it was a one-off studio project. It's something for Melvins fans. We played a Van Halen cover the other night, and people went 'What is this?' and we couldn't believe it, how do they not know this? They're waiting for a Sepultura cover, but nah, that's too obvious."

Are you ever tempted to cover Frank Zappa?

"Ahh... nah. I wouldn't say he's a major influence, but he's certainly paved the way. It'd be like preaching to the converted. The same with King Crimson - what's the point? They already did it. I'd rather waste my time with new material."

What about the stuff with Mike Patton [A long time fan, he provided vocals for the Irony Is A Dead Scene EP - Ed.]?

"That's a card left on the table. We've all said we'd like to do it again, and he's said time and place, lets do for it again. I like people leaving more."

Considering the two new members of the band, how do you select your set?

"It's the songs that we can play the best, that Gil and Jeff know the best and those that seem to flow. I might know 35 Dillinger songs, Gil might know 15. I might have to sit there and work out some of them, too. I've been playing it for eight years but Gil and Jeff [Tuttle – guitars] have been playing it for under a year. Gil's a predominantly an Ire Works drummer because that's the stuff he knows. We teach him the hits and some other stuff, but I think we're going to worry about learning the Ire Works stuff before we go backwards."

Do you have to be precise when you're playing or is there room to improvise?

"There's room to improvise within certain boundaries. I want Gil to explore a bit. I want things to evolve and have more personality, to have Gil playing not Chris, so that this is who we are today and so some songs are going to sound different, sure."

Do you feel an affiliation to any scene? DEP coming from a hardcore basis...

"I don't think it's a scene so much as a network of people. I don't think we have a core. We have fusion people, we have jazz people, metal people. There's people who just want crazy stuff. We take a bit from everything, instead of just Job For Cowboy metal or goth kids. We'll never have those kids!"

One of the things that's attractive about DEP is that you don't play safe. The easiest thing to do would be to write another Calculating Infinity.

"It's possible to write more 'Fix Your Face'/'Lurch'-type things. But where's the challenge? They'll come, for sure but they might not come all on one record. We talk about doing acoustic stuff."

Is there anything you'd like to add?

"Thrash harder or the terrorists win."

by Sam Page

Further links

Dillinger Escape Plan on Myspace

Listen to the often brain-scrambling ferocity of New Jersey's Dillinger Escape Plan