The Dillinger Escape Plan talk song writing

21 July 2010 | 4:18 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

Renowned by their technical styling, US math metallers The Dillinger Escape Plan recently caught up with German music site Diskant.dk to talk about elements of their song writing.The German site chatted with three fifths of the band – vocalist Greg Puciato, bassist Liam Wilson and drummer Billy Rymer in Flensburg to discuss topical issues such as song writing, rehearsing, merchandising, and the band’s musical progression.In an interesting ten-minute video interview, The Dillinger Escape Plan talk specifically about their routines, how songs are conceived, and the current state of music.“Ben seems to be a fountain head for a lot of the ideas,” Wilson initially notes. The bassist goes on to affirm many of his ideas come from rehearsing with Rymer.“Any one of my ideas after jamming with Billy for 10 minutes becomes ten ideas. He changes the drum feel every couple of bars and its like oh shit, that’s half a song right there, we’ve just got to feel where that goes,” Wilson said.“Billy ca...

Renowned by their technical styling, US math metallers The Dillinger Escape Plan recently caught up with German music site Diskant.dk to talk about elements of their song writing.

The German site chatted with three fifths of the band – vocalist Greg Puciato, bassist Liam Wilson and drummer Billy Rymer in Flensburg to discuss topical issues such as song writing, rehearsing, merchandising, and the band’s musical progression.

In an interesting ten-minute video interview, The Dillinger Escape Plan talk specifically about their routines, how songs are conceived, and the current state of music.

“Ben seems to be a fountain head for a lot of the ideas,” Wilson initially notes. The bassist goes on to affirm many of his ideas come from rehearsing with Rymer.

“Any one of my ideas after jamming with Billy for 10 minutes becomes ten ideas. He changes the drum feel every couple of bars and its like oh shit, that’s half a song right there, we’ve just got to feel where that goes,” Wilson said.

“Billy can just be drum soloing for five minutes and there can be like 30 or 40 seconds of really crazy shit in there,” Puciato adds.

On the topic of practicing, the band asserts most preparation is done individually instead of rehashing old material together.

“We don’t rehearse a lot unless we’re writing for a record, but we’ve played '43% Burnt' 2000 times so it’s not necessary for us to get into a room and beat it to death,” Puciato says.

In regards to music downloading, The Dillinger Escape Plan is quite precise in their thoughts, declaring for a band of their kind, live shows and merchandise are more important than physical CD sales.

Puciato states older trends have been replaced by the advent of new technology. “We are in a time where the basic concept of having to pay for a record is gone. It’s an undeniable fact that you can go out and get music for free.”

Concurrently, Wilson believes the live show is where true support is best traced.

“I think lately I’ve realised also, we started doing a limited run t-shirt thing for every song on the last record. And I started noticing kids at shows with those t-shirts and its like, I don’t know how many kids here downloaded our record, (or) how many people stole this, but I do know that you bought a t-shirt, and everyone in here bought a ticket and that means something. As a band we’ve always kind of been aware of that because we were never really ahead of the curve in regards to making a lot of money off our records, it was always about the live show and that merchandise kind of thing, and that’s how you show support,” he observes.

To view the full video interview click here.