Chris Pennie Talks About Leaving DEP And How He Feels in Coheed

Chris Pennie, currently the drummer for Coheed and Cambria, has been saying a few things about leaving DEP, and how it's been since then. The following is an excerpt from an article in the Post Gazette:

"Coheed, more of a prog-rock enterprise, had opened for Dillinger, and later when they needed a replacement for drummer Josh Eppard, he got the invite. "I got to go up there and play with them," Pennie says. "I think things really clicked personality-wise and musically."

It looked like Dillinger Escape Plan was going to be on hiatus due to personal problems, so for a while, Pennie thought he could work both bands. The guys in Dillinger seemed to be OK with it, at least until they found out he was going to start recording on Coheed's new record, actually titled "Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow."That's when he was denied permission to either play for or record from Coheed's label, Relapse Records.

"It was a very abusive relationship with that band," he says. "It was an ugly and dark time. I ended up leaving the band and it's the best thing I ever could have done."

Although Pennie worked on the demos with Coheed by sending digital files back and forth, the New York prog-rock band had to bring in Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters at the last minute to play the parts in the studio.

Now, though, Pennie is free to tour with Coheed and enjoying not only the band's energy but the stylistic change.

"With Dillinger, there's a lot of notes being played drum-wise," he says. "The music is really heavy and very busy. With Coheed, there's a lot more space. I'm working with a guy who's crafting melodies and there's a wider spectrum of things to work with. Instead of cramming a lot of notes into one song, it's more a matter of knowing how to use the notes."

And here's an excerpt from an article in The Gauntlet:

"There are a lot of things that excite me about this band right now," says Pennie. "This is probably the happiest time of my life. We have a lot of fun when we're playing, we're relaxed and there's no drama. Things are never so sweet without the bitter."

"The way that I look at it, you have to make certain sacrifices to get to where you want to be," says Pennie. "To me it was very important to be a part of this band. You want to get along with the people you are with, and with Dillinger it just wasn't happening. It became bitter and that was the climactic point of the way everything went, but they got a new drummer and now I'm able to play and tour with Coheed."

Discuss here.

P.S. I know that it's off topic, but if you look around the page, you may notice that I'm now using Apture, which is, in Lawrence Lessig's words, a "fantastically cool code to watch". Check it out.

Edit: Taken it off for now.