Actual Records have a review of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s recent show in Philly, complete with 9 minutes of footage, which you can check out here. In addition, there are also some cool photos of DEP’s show in Philly (same venue) from the Miss Machine era, some 6 years ago.
Thanks to Aaron for writing in!
Alternative Press:
Bassist LIAM WILSON tells the stories behind each song on THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN’s Option Paralysis.
A great read, check it out here.
I received an email from Seasons of Mist this morning and figure that I could be at least one of out of the two thousand box set buyers who may have a picture book issue
See email below:Dear Customer!
It has been brought to our attention that in some rare instances there is a problem with the print of the picture book item in The Dillinger Escape Plan box. It is a serious mistake, easily spotted. In case that you are among those customers unfortunately concerned, please do not hesitate to immediately contact my colleague Baptiste Juniot (bat@season-of-mist.com), who will then solve this issue to your satisfaction. As the boxes are now being shipped on both sides of the Atlantic, this means you should receive this collectors’ item soon if it has not already arrived.
Sincerely yours!
Gunnar Sauermann
In the drastic event, please contact the email listed to solve your issues. Please don’t contact Spreadinglikewings.com about fixing it, but if you have a photo of the problem don’t hesitate to post it so we can inform the rest of the community.
It’s been one day since Option Paralysis has been released! Expect a full review shortly!
Wired interviewed recently interviewed Ben Weinman. Here’s an excerpt:
So what’s the live Dillinger experience going to be like when you tour late this year?
“We’ve been working on a new light show that I’m hoping is going to work. Basically a machine is going to be running our lights. It’s influenced by us and by what we do on stage, and it’s going to evolve over the tour and change every single night.
“There are things like sensors on lights that we’re literally going to hit and interact with that cue a machine to pick different light themes based on a number of algorithms. It may pick just the bass drum audio to trigger a light, or maybe the sound from my guitar. Or it may just choose to blow all the lights out based on Greg [vocalist] punching one of them.
“And those lights will be hanging from the ceiling. They’re going to get hit whether we choose to or not.
“We have a guy working with us who’s an engineer. He built this program and sensors that can work with interactions from the heat of your body, to touch, to motion, and we’ve built these sensors into lamps that we’ve surrounded with a material — like a type of rubber — that seem to be taking the impact pretty well.
“This just furthers our effort to do something special and unpredictable.”
Check it out here.
Via Blabbermouth:
Thrash Hits TV recently conducted an interview with THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN frontman Greg Puciato and guitarist Benjamin Weinman using fan-submitted questions ranging from the straightforward (Are you going to tour Asia?) to the controversial (the Reading Festival incident) to the absurd (Would you ever consider covering Beyonce?). Watch the question-and-answer session below.
Been a bit behind the ball lately, but lots of new things have been happening over the past few weeks:
Firstly, Dillinger are back on tour. Watch them kick it off (via Eric Hunsaker).
Billy Rymer was interviewed on The Governor’s Ball the other day. You can give it a listen here.
Dillinger were featured in the Aquarian. Full article here.
Part 2 of the Issue Oriented interview is up and ready to be heard.
Dillinger were interviewed by Artisan News service (via Ben Weinman).
Ben and Greg talk about the new album and the injuries they sustain as a result of their wild stage shows. Watch the interview here.
And lastly: Option Paralysis comes out in a week, but if you can’t wait, you can listen to it in full on MySpace.
Also, a heads up: I’ve been getting quite a few emails about people wanting press passes for the show. Don’t email me – try contacting the band through MySpace. Thanks.
Dillinger fans, head on over to MySpace to listen [if you want] to the brand new album, Option Paralysis.
If not, wait it out until March 23rd, 2010 for paralysis.
Here’s a cover of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s “43% Burnt” by The Cassettes:
And here’s some more info:
Washington, D.C.’s premier Steampunk band covers “43% Burnt” by Dillinger Escape Plan. Guitar solo by Mike Schliebaum of Darkest Hour. Available on their album “Writing Analog Letters”.
You can buy The Cassettes new album from iTunes here.
It’s now been confirmed that The Dillinger Escape Plan will play in Australia this May with Maylene and the Sons of Disaster and The Red Shore. Here are the dates and the venues they are playing:
SUNDAY 16 PERTH, THE CAPITOL – 18+
www.moshtix.com.au
TUESDAY 18 ADELAIDE, FOWLERS – Lic A/A
www.moshtix.com.au
WEDNESDAY 19 MELBOURNE, THE PALACE – 18+
www.ticketek.com.au
FRIDAY 21 SYDNEY, THE METRO – Lic A/A
www.ticketek.com.au
SATURDAY 22 SYDNEY, THE METRO – Lic A/A
www.ticketek.com.au
SUNDAY 23 BRISBANE, THE HI-FI – 18+
www.ticketek.com.au / www.thehifi.com.au
Tickets go on sale Friday 19 March, 9:00 AM.
Firstly, in case you didn’t hear already, you can watch the world premiere of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s “Farewell, Mona Lisa” on Justin.tv, March 1st, 1:00 PM PST. You can watch the trailer here.
Secondly, Dillinger’s MySpace page has been re-designed by Sons of Nero, which includes a biography for the new album:
At first glance, Option Paralysis seems like a highly inappropriate title to describe the constantly evolving output of The Dillinger Escape Plan. But once you’re faced with the cumulative power and vision of guitarist Ben Weinman, vocalist Greg Puciato, bassist Liam Wilson, guitarist Jeff Tuttle and new drummer Billy Rymer, you’ll wonder—right after you pick yourself up off the floor—why more bands don’t achieve similar force-of-nature status.
“The title Option Paralysis represents being in a situation where you have so many choices you can’t decide, and end up being frozen,” says founding member Weinman about the mindset permeating the band’s fifth full-length album. “Back in the early days when I started to discover music, go to shows and find out about new bands, there were ‘filters’ from various circumstances – geography, economic status, etc – which deeply affected how a band sounded and what they stood for. Now, everyone is going through the same filter—namely computers and the internet—and everyone has the same circumstances: Everybody’s seeing the same thing for the first time at the very same time, simultaneously all over the world. That very system is negatively affecting art and has created a situation where everything is influencing itself and art is not based on struggle, personal scarcity or unique and personal inspiration. This cultural revolutions is a big part of what determines our mission. We’re not listening to any of the bands around us for some kind of input as to what we should sound like. At this point, we’re using our own accomplishments as a measurement of what we need to do next.”From their early days in the late-’90s as short-haired Rutgers, New Jersey, college students delivering hyper-complex thrash to audiences of boorish long-haired surly metalheads, to performing with Nine Inch Nails on the pioneering electronic band’s farewell shows, the Dillinger Escape Plan have merely one prerogative: to go forward in ALL directions simultaneously. Their groundbreaking 1999 debut full-length, Calculating Infinity, is inarguably the essential technical-metal talisman for the 21st century, melding hardcore’s blinding rage with a musical vision that made most progressive-rock bands sound positively lazy by comparison. Irony Is A Dead Scene, the band’s 2002 collaboration with Mike Patton, maintained their patented extremity while exploring electronic textures. The 2004 follow-up, Miss Machine, (the first record to showcase frontman, Puciato) was a distillation of the band’s work thus far, while including jaw-dropping flirtations with mainstream metal (“Unretrofied”) that further enforced Dillinger’s desire—and ability—to take their music wherever the hell they wanted. 2007’s Ire Works had the band finding inspiration from underground glitch and breakcore electronica, as well as indigenous music genres, in a world seemingly overrun with metalcore bores and screamo trend-hoppers. The Dillinger Escape Plan’s unerring sweat equity has consistently found resonance with listeners on both sides of the stages the band trod upon.
Option Paralysis marks the beginning of another trajectory in the DEP mythology. After aligning themselves with the renowned Relapse label for most of their career, the band entered into a deal with the French label SEASON OF MIST to put out OPTION PARALYSIS, tagging their new PARTY SMASHER INC label. “We signed a pretty traditional record deal with them for one record,” explains Weinman. “What’s exciting is that Michael [Berberian, SOM label founder] is a really big music fan and has a great understanding of how we operate. He was totally aware of the possibilities and limitations of working with a band like us—he’s not expecting pop hits—and he’s been extremely enthusiastic to dive right in and make it work for everyone.”
Produced by Steve Evetts, Dillinger’s new music is positively abundant with possibilities. Drummer Billy Rymer, whom Weinman describes as “young and hungry,” now occupies the engine room that powers the band. Frontman, Puciato has always had a knack with a bellow that could make reciting a grocery list seem like an exhortation to open the mouth of Hell. But feeling some of the lyrics on Paralysis, you can’t positively determine if the singer is handing down indictments (“Farewell, Mona Lisa”) or feeling emotionally wounded. “This record is concept driven but there is still a very emotional and personal aspect to his lyrics,” says Weinman soberly. “He’s going through transitional stages in his life right now.” Nothing so eloquently supports that statement than the six and-a-half-minute “Widower,” where the band are joined by veteran David Bowie keyboardist Mike Garson for an aural excursion that incorporates piano-trio jazz, tender balladry and anthemic power. While there’s no shortage of DEP plasma-balls on Paralysis (“Room Full Of Eyes,” “Good Neighbor”), the band keep things fresh with the math-rock/free-jazz convergence of “I Wouldn’t If You Didn’t,” the electro-tweaked “Chinese Whispers” and the closing “Parasitic Twins.” The latter track sports lead vocals courtesy of guitarist Tuttle, as well as Beach Boys-styled harmonies and a major-key Weinman solo that’s more Clapton (ca. Derek And The Dominos) than calculus crush. Clearly, this is not your older brother’s Dillinger Escape Plan. “We’re just trying to make music we can be stimulated by,” says Weinman about the assorted directions and sonic vistas on Option Paralysis. “We consider ourselves songwriters, which is kind of odd when you consider the kind of band most would consider us.”
As passionate about their craft as ever, DEP are looking to ramp up things even more in 2010, with a planet-beating touring campaign that includes basement shows, a stint on the main stage at this summer’s Vans Warped Tour, a performance at the legendary Cochella festival, and various points in between. But after 12 years of deliberately challenging themselves, as well as the preconceived notions of critics and the strict genre-specific zealots of the world’s underground music scenes, the big question remains: What is the mission of the Dillinger Escape Plan? It’s a question Weinman addresses with equal parts melancholy, unwavering determination and humor. “I’ve been trying for a while to have someone explain that to me,” he says, laughing. “Seriously, Option Paralysis represents why we’re here and why we’re still making music. We started at a time when there wasn’t all this access to the larger world. Our only goal was to make a small dent in the scene that we were in. The fact we’ve made it this far and that we’re still relevant is really special to me. I feel that it is extremely important for bands like us to continue to represent the ethic and attitude that was present during a time that doesn’t exist anymore.”
“That,” he says, pausing to smile. “And I have to pay my mortgage somehow…”
And lastly, Dillinger have set up a site for Option Paralysis updates, which you can check out here. According to Ben on Twitter, you should “Repost and Retweet this link with Option Paralysis updates and links and we will pick a handful of you special people to hang out with us and get free stuff.”