The Dillinger Escape Plan

Machine Heads



A couple of years on the contemporary music clock generally means a few major paradigm shifts. It can be the entire lifetime of a band. Not many return from a lengthy absence and plug back into the audience that once worshipped them.

New Jersey’s The Dillinger Escape Plan circumvented this music industry law by creating an album that was so earth shatteringly new it kept launching insurgent attacks on unwary synapses for five years. 1999's Calculating Infinity veered sharply away from existing metal idioms to spawn a new category, dubbed math-metal for its unbelievable intricacy. Spanning ridiculous extremes of syncopation, tempo, and texture, it blew the then stagnant metal scene wide open, birthing a thousand inferior imitators in the process.

The intervening years have seen original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis depart, an interim EP Irony Is A Dead Scene with Faith No More/Fantomas vocalist Mike Patton standing in, and finally a new album, Miss Machine. Retaining the intensity and technicality of Calculating Infinity, it fractures in multiple directions, taking in melody, and the broader talents of new vocalist Greg Puciato.

Puciato made an immediate impact upon joining Dillinger, announcing his arrival at an early gig, the massive Reading Festival in England. Disgusted with the rock star behaviour he witnessed backstage, Puciato defecated on stage. "This is an example of shit onstage," he told the shocked crowd. "Which is all you're going to see today."

This act speaks volumes about the Dillinger Escape Plan, their motives for playing, and their place in the pantheon of modern music. While they like touring widely, and earning a bit of cash from music, they'd still be doing it even if they hadn't achieved what they have to date.

“We like to think we're progressing and new people are hearing our band,” explains guitarist Ben Weinberg. “But it doesn't really affect how we perform.”

This attitude is clearly expressed on Miss Machine, as the band set out to challenge themselves as much as their audience. Weinberg says that his band have always been capable of playing technically, so they had to create new challenges to keep it interesting.

“I look at it as development, and as freedom. We pushed the boundaries so far in every single way on Calculating Infinity that we became desensitised to a lot of what we were doing. There were new challenges. They were finding ways to incorporate our sound into new things, being melodic, using more typical song structures.”

Since 1999 the musical landscape has changed immensely. On one hand this gave Dillinger reason to be nervous, but on the other they knew things were better. Because of acts including themselves, Mastodon, Converge, and Meshuggah, heavier music has begun to raise its be-horned head to a wider following. This, after the substance less nu metal phenomenon, is gratifying for Weinberg.

“It seems to be the only music that's rising in popularity. I don't think there's a lot going on that is exciting or new, but the fact that heavy music is popular again is exciting.”

Not that metal rules the Dillinger universe -this is a band with eclectic tastes. The central tenet of their music and listening is pushing the envelope. No wonder they covered Aphex Twin’s ‘Come to Daddy’ on Irony Is A Dead Scene.

“Those are the type of people we see as peers,” says Weinberg of Aphex Twin’s Richard James. “Those are the people we respect. That's a type of music we relate to more than typical heavy music because it's not really concerned with the rules and the way things are supposed to be. That's how we've approached our music.”

It was this quality that attracted them to Puciato, following Minakakis’ amicable departure. The hulking, intimidating Puciato displayed a breadth of ability that opened up possibilities for the band. He immediately proved himself in the live domain, but also made a major contribution to the writing of Miss Machine. His lyrics have added a new dimension, such as on the superb ‘Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants’, a song about taking the powers that be by surprise. Most of Miss Machine follows a similar bent, being broadly about control and breaking out of confining situations. In this way Dillinger preach what they practice.

“A lot of the record is about being stuck in paradigms that can't be broken out of,” reflects Weinberg. “The norms of society, the typical idea of what life should be - going to school, getting a job, get married, have a kid. It's a self-destructive situation. There are a lot of norms that need to be broken in order for things to improve.”

Dillinger are committed to playing their small part in this process. Apart from that they’re touring constantly, and looking to release two DVD’s, covering the periods of the band to date. And maybe some of the footage Weinberg talks about when asked what the most extreme reaction to his band’s music has been will be included.

“I know someone who works with the mentally retarded, and he plays our CD for one of his patients. He loves hearing it, it's good therapy for him. He sent me a video, and he's like a 300 pound 18 year old guy that just freaks out to the music - it's amazing. He runs around and destroys everything and then he's completely passive the rest of the time.”



Gavin Bertram.