More Disturbed Stuff

From Blabbermouth:

The war of words between DISTURBED and THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN guitarist Ben Weinman has come to an end after DISTURBED guitarist Dan Donegan "confronted" Weinman in person at the UK's Download festival and "cleared up" the matter once and for all.

The entire thing started when Australia's Beat magazine published an article on New Jersey's THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN in which Weinman said he was taken aback by what he witnessed at one of DISTURBED's soundchecks. "[They were] practicing where they were going to walk and when they were going to put their leg up on the monitor and pose," Weinman said. "That was weird for us. There are times [during live gigs] where I don't even know where I am."

Weinman's comment sparked a response from Dan Donegan, who told MTV News' "Metal File" in a May 16 interview, "When we do a bigger production, there may be certain lighting cues for certain highlights of the show, but I wouldn’t call it 'posing.' [It's] just a cue for our lighting guy, so he can add more drama to the set. If [DILLINGER] sold some records, and were at the level we’re at, maybe they'd see that, for bands like KISS and METALLICA, there are certain highlight points during a set that you want to focus on. If I'm going to go over to one spot and do a guitar solo, my lighting guy may need to know that, so he can focus in on that. If that's posing, then so be it. We have millions of fans, and we find ways to connect with them. We utilize theatrics and pyro, so we have to rehearse where the pyro is going to go off, because we don't want to have a James Hetfield moment and get caught in the flame. But that's something DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN would know nothing about, because they don't play arenas — they play clubs."

A June 2 post on the THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN MySpace page added fuel to the fire when it referred to Donegan as "the guitar player Dom Deluise or whatever his name is with the little-peen complex from that band DISBURBIA or whatever they're called" and proceeded to slam the guitarist for being a "douche bag" who "thinks that we care about them." It added, "What's that I hear? The sound of your band still sucking?"

Fed up with the media feeding frenzy, Weinman agreed to write a guest blog for Headbanger's Blog to explain how the whole fiasco is really much ado about nothing.

In an interview with Norway's "Tinitus" radio show conducted at this year's Metal Hammer Golden Gods on June 16 in London, Donegan and DISTURBED frontman David Draiman were asked if this "silly feud" between them and THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN had finally ended.

"Oh, absolutely," Draiman replied. "In fact, there wasn't really a feud. I mean, Danny walked to them and confronted them…"

Donegan added, "Whatever. A few things were said, and we had the opportunity at Download [festival, held June 13-15, 2008 at Donington Park, Leicestershire, UK], I'd seen the guy [Weinman] and confronted him on it and we cleared it up. I just asked him, personally, just one-on-one, if there is a problem."

Draiman continued: "We wish them whatever luck and success they may have. They just need to learn that, look, you know [chuckles], be careful what you say, because there are guys like Danny who'll walk up to you, so…"