Tag Archives: The Dillinger Escape Plan

It’s not often in communities around bands where we see the glimmer of humanity shine through. Despite what many people think about rock bands and the inner circle surrounding the band itself, there are some moments that need to be mentioned. This is one of them.

My passport didn’t come back in time to do the Canada dates so I have to skip them. If you or anyone you know can get me from Syracuse, NY to Kalamazoo, MI you get your pick of merch, you and your homies get into whatever show you want, and you can hang out with us on our day off in Kalamazoo on the 8th. You can ask me all the annoying questions you want which I’m sure will last the entire 600 hour drive. – Doug

This is for real. Reply to this thread if you are also for real. I leave Syracuse tomorrow morning at like 11am and need to be in Kalamazoo on the 8th.

Basically Doug, the official merch guy for the band got stranded. He needed someone to give him a ride to the rest of the band. m4tthew on the forum heeded his call.

Some of the back and forth:

Holy shit I live in Kalamazoo!! My car is in the shop but will be done tomorrow..I’m half tempted to take her to NY and back…Let me find out what time it’s going to be done and let me know if you still do need a ride in the first place. – Matthew

Matthew Wasick for the motherfucking win. Thanks a million brah.

Don’t not show up.. Because like I said.. Greg is short and fast. And can jump freakishly high for dude who has to hop up on a bar stool. And Ben is fast and Jewish. What all that means.. I’m not sure.. Some lost episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.. But anyway, I need a ride so please don’t leave me in this frozen tundra. – Doug

Read the rest of the thread here.

So Matthew made the journey and he did with absolute dignity. He posted a new thread on the forum [click here.] and well, the replies came in from everyone with huge envy for what he divulged.

If you recall the thread from a few days ago where Dillinger Merch (Doug) said he needed a ride, I’m the guy that responded and then embarked on a three day rock ‘n roll-DEP style adventure for the ages. Below are some of the details.

After a night of celebrating my roommate’s birthday and sleeping awkwardly on a couch for a few hours, I came back to my place and logged onto the forums here to see if anyone had posted footage of the new songs. Instead, I found Doug’s post which I basically interpreted as saying: “your #1 favorite band is going to be hanging out in the shitty city you live in in a couple days, and they need your help. In exchange, you will be able to:
-hang with the guitar tech and hear DEP stories
-get free merch
-get paid gas/toll money
-hang with the band on their day off
-hear new OP songs
-experience random DEP hilarity as it happens”

I only had to read that offer once for it to be an obvious snap decision so I then did everything I could to make it happen as fast as possible. First, I pulled some strings with my dad since my p.o.s. car was getting fixed, and he loaned me his. I then began driving what would be 20+ hours and 1200 miles in that day, only stopping to eat and get gas for the car. Got to Doug in Syracuse, NY at about midnight and then realized that the mission for the day was only half over. After grabbing some food and watching the newly posted “Farewell, Mona Lisa” footage on YouTube, I was ready to ‘do it drive!’ and get the hell back to Michigan. Doug and I were both relieved that our hastily arranged internet to real life meeting didn’t turn out to be the next Chris Hansen Dateline special, and he was relieved that I didn’t look like Zakk Wylde. For the next 11½ hours we watched 600 miles of roadway go by while listening to mostly shitty metal on the radio (wtf Sirius??) while talking about a wide range of interesting topics, along with awesome DEP stories thrown in. A blizzard, sleep deprivation, and any other obstacles we encountered couldn’t stop us and we made it back to K’zoo at about 11:30am the next day. We spent the rest of the day sleeping/eating pizza and soon it would be the following afternoon and we would be on our way to the tour bus…

I discovered Dillinger just before Ire Works came out and they soon became my favorite band. Since then I haven’t stopped listening to their cds and I always enjoy watching a random interview with one of the members on YouTube or reading articles about them whenever I can. So you can imagine it was pretty fucking surreal to find myself all of a sudden walking up to their bus to hang with them. We went in and said hi to everyone and started hanging out as Greg finished up an interview on the phone. The guys couldn’t have been more awesome/hilarious and I probably seemed lost for words at the beginning since my brain wasn’t prepared for experiencing something like this. Later on a few of the guys wanted to go to the mall so we fit Jeff, Ben, Greg, Billy, Doug, Zach, and myself into my car and headed there. Normally I drive to this mall while listening to the Dillinger Escape Plan, but on this day I was driving the Dillinger Escape Plan to my local mall….definitely a mind fuck of an experience hahaha. We spent some time there and then drove back to the bus. (Let me emphasize that the whole time hilarious/cool shit is happening)

So we get back and a few of us are chilling in the living room portion of the bus when Greg has Liam throw Option Paralysis onto a cd. I’m sitting there watching in awe as Liam hands Greg the newly burned cd like it’s that top-secret deadly virus thing from the movie Beavis and Butthead Do America…I’m just thinking to myself, “holy shit, there it is!” Greg gets up and puts it into the cd player for the bus living room and then makes sure to ask if I have any kind of recording device on me or if my phone is recording. I assure him that I’m not wearing a wire and I simply took my phone apart and set the cover, battery, and phone on the table in front of him. I felt like I was in a secret government lab and they were about to show me evidence of aliens or something. Turns out what I was about to listen to was way more badass than that would have been. I sat and listened as my face melted away and I was simply blown away by the entire cd. I don’t even know where to begin describing what it was like…all I can say is imagine the footage of the new songs you’ve seen on YouTube so far, multiply how badass that sounds by ten thousand, leave plenty of room for shit you don’t expect and/or see coming, and you might come somewhat close to imagining how great it is. It is THAT. FUCKING. GOOD. As if that wasn’t enough, Greg then turns to me and says something along the lines of “you are the first person outside of people involved directly with the band to hear this record.” I’m still having a hard time realizing just how badass that is and how awesome the past few days have been. I think I described it best to Greg when I was leaving at the end of the night when I just told him to imagine back in the day when he was really into Metallica doing the same thing I did but with them. I have more appreciation and look up more to Dillinger than any other band/celebrity and so in my own world, meeting and hanging out with these guys and having them play their new masterpiece of a record for me is way more cool to me than hanging out with any other bullshit celebrity or whatever in the world would be, by far.

Hope that wasn’t too long winded and didn’t sound like too much of a brag, although it was pretty much the coolest thing some random Joe Fan could hope to have happen to them…

And a nice little follow up after questions came.

As far as the questions in regards to more specific details about the record, the best I can answer is this:

-I definitely feel like the record had an awesome flow to it. There wasn’t any ‘two awesome songs-one ok song-2 more awesome songs-a 50 second buildup track-3 more awesome songs’ type of deal going on. Personally I don’t think any DEP cd is like that and I listen to them all from beginning to end, but I think everyone will agree that OP is an unstoppable freight train of great songs. It’s one you can put in the cd player and not worry about skipping any tracks until it’s over. And then you will want to just play it again.
-As for electronica/heavy/lighter/in between: there is no way you can define the entire album as being one specific adjective like that or throw a blanket over it, let alone one song in particular. The best analogy I can give is the song Farewell, Mona Lisa itself. That song has so many different parts to it that when it’s over you are like ‘what the fuck did I just hear?’ And that’s kind of how I felt the whole album was.

-As for production, what I listened to wasn’t the final-ready to go to the stores version, but we are talking about Dillinger here, guys. When I spoke to Billy after listening to the cd, he said something like, “we would leave the studio after working all day and be excited/happy about getting 14 seconds done on a track.” They didn’t cut any corners and took their time on this and that will be very apparent on March 23.

Another thing I want to say is it’s not a record where you hear a song and think “there’s 43% pt.2″ or “Mouth of Ghosts jr.” OP is a whole new batch of songs and I can promise you guys will be the opposite of disappointed with it.

This is definitely a once in a lifetime experience. It’s not that often you see a fan do this for a band. Kudos to the entire band and Matthew. He deserves it.

[Let's hope the band doesn't give me flak for writing about it.]