Ben Weinman of The Dillinger Escape Plan

The Dillinger Escape Plan are one of the most notorious, influential and destructive bands in modern heavy music. For years, they have been redefining what it means to be technically proficient, and have a number of releases which are already considered modern classics.

On November 17th, shortly before taking stage at the Loveland in Portland, OR, guitarist Ben Weinman sits with KPSU's Dan Parscale and Lizzy Sonenfeld to answer a few questions about the band and it's future, as well as some revealing information about his personal life in the band.

KPSU: I've seen you guys here a couple of times, and you've been across the world doing lots of gigs. By now, what do you get out of each tour, having seen so many anonymous, faceless crowds, playing the same things?

Ben: Not much different. It's almost like, we've always treated every situation exactly the same. I think it's what got us to the point where we're at. When we were playing in front of 10 people, we played exactly the same, with the same effort, the same enthusiasm as when we're playing in front of a thousand people. We try to go up there with the attitude that if only 10 people really care and tell their friends how awesome it was, then that's even more important than like 1000 people standing around. So we don't really think about it that way.

Every tour, to us at this point, since we've been doing it so long, we almost take it day-by-day, tour-by-tour; it's almost like another mark on our calendar. It's like, "Wow, we're still doing this, and a lot of our peers aren't." So it's cool.

We definitely feel like we learn something each tour. Especially when we're playing with other bands who are really good at what they do. Unfortunately, these days, it's not that easy to find that. But we try to always improve on our art, what we're doing, and like I said, we're just trying to keep going. A lot of our peers, who we started playing music with, haven't been able to make it this far, because they had to get real jobs, and be real people, and we've just ignored that whole theory of life.

KPSU: Each show then; are you ever surprised by anything? What do you end up thinking about after a show, before you go to bed?

Ben: Sometimes, unfortunately, you don't get as jazzed by the same things as when you started, like an article in some magazine. And those things are really cool when you first start, because you see so many escalations and so many things so quickly. And when you've been doing it long enough, it kinda plateaus, and achievements aren't as great, or as large in comparison to when you first started.

But there's little things along the way that just make it great; like last night, a couple of guys from Soundgarden came to our show, and were like, "We love your band." And that's ridiculous! Trent Reznor came to another show and… it's like, in a week, all these people who are such a huge influence on our band came to see our band and said that they liked our music. And stuff like that makes it… These guys who did for music what we hope we can do for some people, a couple people out there, maybe on a smaller scale, are saying that they're into our bands, and so that's a huge compliment.

When I think about smaller bands out there that I come across, it would really have to be something super impressive for me to be like, "You really blew me away," because we do this so much, and we hear so many bands, that for people like that to say that to us, I know that- hopefully- we're doing something well.

KPSU: Let's talk about the music you make. Dillinger Escape Plan has become kind of an archetype, especially in hardcore, metal, and technical music. With Miss Machine having a couple of songs that broke away from what you've done before- in particular "Unretrofied" and "Phone Home"- is that a way of breaking away from that, or do you ever feel you're constrained by something that you are the definition of at this time?

Ben: We were in a really weird position when we started the second record, the kind of position that not a lot of people are in. We only had one record out, and people had already made expectations of what we were supposed to be. Most people, after three records, [think that] "this is what this band is like." Probably, after 3 Slayer records, probably people expected the next record to sound like Slayer. It was like, we only did one record, we hadn't really matured that much, we just toured a whole lot on that record, and people had made their assumptions. And we were like, "Well, this is our first record, we still haven't even come close to exploring the types of things we want to explore."

I know particularly when I hear the things I hear, like "The Marker for Other Bands" I don't really get that. I mean, I understand why, and like I said before, maybe it's just because we've lasted so long. The scene changes so quickly, and kids changes so quickly, and people who were going to shows a year ago aren't, they're working, or married, and new kids are in. So part of it, those type of labels, to me, are just testament to the fact that we've lasted so long. We've waited out the storm, so people use us as a marker of a band.

I definitely know that sometimes we don't wear our influences so well; sometimes we do. But we definitely have a lot of influences. Hopefully the combination is a little bit special, and a little bit different, and I think that every band should have that. So we don't really pay attention to those kinds of labels. With Miss Machine, the different songs that we did, we knew that on our second record, we had to do what we did on our first record, which was not necessarily write the same record, but write without the expectations of people. When we wrote our first record, nobody knew who the fuck we were anyway, so we just wrote music we liked.

So we knew that if we were going to write something real, something that the true fans were going to like, we had to put ourselves in the mind frame we were in for our first record, without thinking about what we were supposed to write. Which is really hard to do, because you can't help but hear what people say, "They've gotta do this, or else they're gonna be wussies now!" or this or that. And there were songs on that record that were probably meant to be side projects, or just for fun, but then we said to ourselves, "If we don't put these songs on this record, then we're creating badges for ourselves; we're doing the thing that we don't want people to do to us." We're saying, "Dillinger can't do a song like this." How are we going to expect our fans and people out there to have open minds and be cool with us trying new things and having musical freedom if we are restraining ourselves from doing certain things? Like, I wrote "Unretrofied" and I wrote "43% Burnt", so why shouldn't I put "Unretrofied" on the record? That would be kind of like selling out if we didn't, you know what I mean? It would be like, "Yo, we're not supposed to use this, we can't do this!" And that would be exactly what we don't want people to do to us. We knew for our for our second record, if we wanted to create a career of being able to do whatever we wanted, the second album is crucial; you have to go out there, so that people give up, they say, "I have no idea what to expect from this band."

KPSU: I've heard that you guys are already working on a third record, and some DVDs as well, is that right?

Ben: Yea, we have ideas in the works for a DVD that has more current stuff, and something that has old footage of when we first started with our old members, our old singer.

KPSU: Do you feel that you've already paved the way for the material for the third disc, and that it will be better accepted, or will you try new stuff and try the same process?

Ben: Like I said, I think that people expect the unexpected now, which is cool; we've kind of weeded out the people who aren't into the diversity of what this band is. So I think that we're in a great place right now, to just create music.

KPSU: Do you think your commitments to a label will keep you in any sort of condition?

Ben: No, I mean, we only have one more album contractually with the label that we are on. But that doesn't mean we won't continue with them later on. We've always been like, whatever circumstances are best for us. It doesn't matter, I don't care if another band is right on this label, or another band's not right on this label, or this label is supposed to be this kind of music- it means nothing. A label puts a CD in the store. It's probably going to be the same price. Sometimes with a bigger label, it may be cheaper. Sometimes, whatever. To me, I've never understood why kids cared, as long as they felt that the music wasn't compromised. Whatever, I mean, their job is to put a CD in a store. That's it! It's all about what circumstances allow us to do what we want to do. At this point, we're pretty happy where we're at.

KPSU: So even though you've gotten attention from big name labels, do you think this will affect the direction of the band musically, or business-wise?

Ben: No, no, in our opinion- and these are some of the things we've heard from people who have given us props, some people that were idols of ours. Some of those people have given us really good advice along the way. They've made some mistakes, they've done it all, they've been on big labels, they've been on smaller labels… People like Mike Patton, whom we've worked with. Some of the best advice we've learned is, look, major labels are usually good for one thing: getting you a ton of money. If they don't give you a ton of money, there's no reason to be on it.

In this day and age, there isn't a whole lot of money going around in this business. It's not like that anymore. 5 years ago, a band that sold as many records as us on an indie would probably have had checks thrown at them left and right, but it's just, this is how it works. We saw a lot of our friends' bands try and go that route, and not really work out too well. So, you know, to us, we want to not be restricted artistically. And unfortunately, if somebody's going to give you a lot of money, they're going to want to have some sort of say on what you're producing. And so in that situation, you know, we wouldn't want to be in that situation. I can't say what kind of label we would be on, but I can say that the label wouldn't influence our music. That's for sure!

KPSU: So you're in a good place then, where you have the stability of being a really popular band, selling a lot of records, doing pretty well for yourself, and you still have all that musical creativity.

Ben: Yea, like I said, there are bands that have been out less time than we have, who are selling a hell of a lot more records than us, that you see all the time now. Look at Warped Tour, or Ozzfest, or whatever the tours, and you see these bands that are selling shit loads of records, and doing really well on big labels, they've bought houses and stuff. We've never been in that position. We've always made sacrifices in order to do this. Like, I just turned 30 years old, and I still live with my parents. I live in the same room that I lived in when I was like, a day old. You know? Those are the sacrifices you make to be able to do this, and to do it on the level that we want to do it. And you know… we're definitely in a good place, because we're able to survive and do what we want.

KPSU: With these kinds of sacrifices, you must have a lot invested, and some big plans. Can you tell us what the next step is going to be?

Ben: Well we've started to write a bit, and we're about to take a break after this tour, and take care of a lot of personal things that have fallen apart since we have been touring. Whether it be physical injuries, or relationships at home… see if they're there anymore, you know! But most importantly, we're going to really dive into writing the new record and getting going. We've started already, and we're really excited about it, and it's making us anxious to get home and get started.

KPSU: What does it sound like?

Ben: So far, what we've written has been really chaotic and crazy. Probably just what people wouldn't expect, just like you said, the last album had a lot of lighter stuff, mid-tempo, that people wouldn't expect from this band, but I think that there will be things you wouldn't expect. There will be an element of surprise; we will include some things that we haven't in the past. But the stuff that we're working on right now is extremely brutal, crazy, fast, chaotic, and really pushing the limits further than we've ever, ever pushed it. I don't want to say that that represents the entire record, but right now, we're kinda in like… destruction mode.

KPSU: Just a few more questions. At the end of a show, when you've played this music, what you've wanted to play for the past few years, do you feel like you've changed from [how you were when you wrote it]? Like you have to live up to a certain amount of energy to keep this going, or that you might not identify with it any more?

Ben: No, that's definitely true. It's really hard, because, like I talked a little bit about the music before, people create an idea of what they think you're supposed to be. And it's all based on what you've done, and the work that you've presented to them. But we've put so much energy and effort into our shows, and into our music. Every now and again you see a band that's just rocking out, laid back, and we're like, "Why didn't we do that?" You know, these dudes don't have to change their clothes after they play. They're not completely covered in sweat, and blood, and piss, and shit and throw up, and we are. And you definitely start to say, "Oh man, I wish I hadn't chosen this path, because now I have to live up to it."

Like, we've been playing with Between The Buried And Me, and they're always saying, "After watching you guy, we feel like we have to have stage presence." They just sit there and they play, extremely technically proficient, they sound great, but they don't move. After seeing us they're like, "We wish we moved." But I'm like, "No! This is what you are, take it or leave it, the crowd is used to it, they know this is what you do, and that's it, that's cool, that's your thing." And sometimes we're thinking, "Oh, why didn't we do that, we'd be chilling right now."

But, at the end of the day, we're super competitive. We're competitive with every band, we're competitive with each other, you know? So, those thoughts of, "Oh, I don't want to be doing this right now" create more of a "What am I saying?" And it just makes you want to do it more. I know that when I start to think that stuff, it makes me disappointed in myself, and it makes me push myself further. So it's very short lived, those thoughts.

KPSU: So it sounds like tonight we can expect a very confident performance.

Ben: We try to have some element of surprise. There's one thing that's missing from music in the past couple of years; it's that element of "I don't know what's going to happen." When I was growing up, going to shows, you had no idea what was going to happen. I was going to New York hardcore shows and punk shows, and I knew my mom would not want me there. Not that that's the purpose of a show, but in underground music, that was the difference between going to… a New Kids On The Block show, and going to see Gorilla Biscuits! You had no idea what was going to happen onstage, or in the crowd. And in some way, it was like that even with some of the popular bands when I was younger, like the Chili Peppers. You had no idea what was going to happen.

It's so paint by numbers now. You can turn on MTV and learn how to be a rock star in like one day. Iggy Pop didn't have MTV, he was just an eccentric artist and found music as an outlet, you know what I mean? David Bowie didn't have MTV to learn how to put his make up on. We try to bring some of that back into music. So we do our thing every night, we always do as much as we can, but you always hope that there is some element of surprise, and something different for us and the kids every night.