I have shifted to Tumblr, for a bunch of reasons, but the main one is following the crowd like a total sheep. Nice one, Brad.
http://everysinglerevolution.tumblr.com/
Please follow me there, please.
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Articles of 2010 Part X: The National
The National finally seemed to catch up with their own popularity and embrace it in 2010. Their record, High Violet, really brought further sympathisers to their cause and made them the sleeper success story of the year. Though their growing fanbase had not gone unnoticed in our circles, the general public only began to learn of this band who've been around since 2000. No complaints here, that's the way it is. I'm glad they've made an impact where most bands don't deserve to. They really do. So below is my November cover story for Playmusic Pickup, header and standfirst intact. Bryce Dessner is a talkative, eloquent chap, as are they all I believe. Read on, dear reader, read on...
Purple Patch
The National have turned their emotive, evocative music into a raging fire to which music fans across the world have finally been beckoned. High Violet represents the apex of their achievements so far, and guitarist Bryce Dessner sheds light on the incredible efforts needed to get there.
Ordinary, daily routine can be the source of as much misery as pleasure. The best music bridges the gap between the melancholy and the joyous, making it one and the same. The best songwriters take that which spans the two and build it from their perspective on life, either at home or away. In doing so it feels like they've somehow touched upon an unanswered question, provided a glint of hope when it feels there is none. The National have patiently been doing this since 1999, garnering a steady stream of accolades and success with each subsequent album. 2005's Alligator, 2007's Boxer and now this year's High Violet have all been lauded for their spacious, elegiac triumph, and it's only now that each one is being cherished by listeners on a grander scale. “There's something in our music,” says Bryce Dessner, co-guitarist with his brother Aaron, one of two pairs of brothers that make up four fifths of the band. “Obviously you could take away almost everything and Matt could sing over a full orchestra or just a solemn piano or a crazy techno beat maybe and you'd still be like 'oh, this is The National'.”
Matt Berninger, vocalist, lyricist and the sole non-musician, is a striking figure quite apart from his sandpaper, baritone voice. He certainly has foresight to craft songs of understated emotional intelligence and gravity. “I think the challenge with the songs is that obviously he sings in a limited range. I think we often get labelled as miserablist or dark rock because his voice is dark, it's like hearing a solo cello or something. The actual timbre of the voice is sombre even if he's actually singing about happy, ridiculous stuff, which often he is actually. There's a lot of humour in the songs, but because it has a slow, gravelly kind of sound to it it does invoke, as I always say to friends and journalists, 'fucking the heartstrings a little bit'.” With that kind of centrepoint around which to revolve, the band's job is all too clear.
“With the music, we've felt, especially live it happens, our job is to make the music dynamic and create arc and flow and make the song go somewhere. We're really sensitive to that and we've written great songs for the first minute and then they don't go anywhere and it doesn't last. Usually it's worked better for us to shade stuff in subtle ways and that's maybe why people call our music 'a grower' or maybe a harsher criticism is that it's boring. It does unfold slowly whereas we really wish sometimes we could be like The Darkness or something,” says Bryce, laughing. “The kind of wanky guitar solos and really over the top in your face stuff has never worked with what we do.”
Whether you take the screamed assault of Alligator era songs Mr November and Abel, the spiralling, brass-pounding anthem of Mistaken For Strangers or the dense, scrambling soundscapes of Terrible Love and Conversation 16, Bryce's point rings true. Colour, light, shade and subtlety are all necessary to trace the lines Matt has sketched for The National.
It's not necessarily a happy family all of the time. Bryce admits that “(Boxer) had been really hard to make and it was very contentious between us. We were disagreeing a fair amount on which direction we wanted to take.” Even a cursory listen to each album reveals a distinct difference in atmosphere, a result of the struggles between the band. Matt's extraordinary energy means that, despite his musical inability, the band are forced to trust his opinion and his obtuse descriptions. Though this is something they've learned to accept over the last decade.
“There is tension about that because sometimes he'll be like 'turn all the guitars up' and maybe he doesn't realise that the guitar is the only thing driving the harmony of the song. At the same time Matt is an incredibly gifted songwriter and we know that so he's right about 75% of the time. You've just gotta watch out for the 25% when he's totally full of it. But he tends to have good ideas probably because he doesn't play an instrument and because he doesn't have an attachment to anything he's played. 'Oh I love that guitar part' or 'oh I love that piano part I played'. That's what happens in bands full of heavy musicians and you get that problem of everyone wanting to hear what they did. It doesn't mean its good because you did it!” explains Bryce. “Sometimes it is limiting for us because he'll speak in non-musical metaphors about ideas he has but obviously we've been doing this for a while and it works and I think maybe Michael Stipe from REM works in a similar way. It's not so unique that he's the frontman and not playing an instrument. Its certainly good for us because otherwise I think a lot of bands that seem on paper to be collaborative, really are much less so. It's like one guy with a guitar who writes the song and he probably has the final say.”
They carve their way through acres of “sketches, which are demos of songs” to filter through the foliage sprouting from Aaron, Bryce, bassist Scott Devendorf and his brother Bryan playing drums, in order to strike gold.
“We have to give Matt a lot of music, and he'll listen to maybe 50 or 60 of these. I'll do a bunch, my brother probably does most of them and then Scott will do some and Bryan contributes to the rhythm but usually later once we know what we're working on, so it works like that and Matt might take one and go 'oh it's in the wrong key' or 'it's got to be faster' or 'I don't like the finger picking guitars, let's make it dirtier' or 'I like the B section' and it goes like that and goes back and forth and I'll make like 30 versions of the same thing,. Then once we know out of those that there's a song starting it'll probably go down to 25-30 of those that we can actually work out drum beats for and start to record basic ideas in the studio all together and that then goes to another level of Matt having to finish the lyrics. Then inevitably a bunch of those get tossed out as well and we get 15 or 20 that end up being finished songs.” The huge effort involved from each member in this process accounts for Bryce saying earlier in our transatlantic phone conversation that making an album is a “long and arduous” rigmarole. The results speak for themselves. High Violet churns, savages expectations and billows gently across a broiling soundscape. Terrible Love is somehow gentile and violent before physical tension is burst across an astounding jarring workout. Bloodbuzz Ohio recalls swarms of pain across fields, while Conversation 16 manages to expound the virtues of anxiety via an escalating, aural trauma. England is the most sublime, galloping classical piece they've done and Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks is practically gospel.
“We never really have a plan. I think its hard enough to do what we do, have five people make music together that we all like. There's definitely thematic elements in the lyrics that become cohesive part of the whole record that Matt worked on for a long time. Musically my brother and I write a lot of the music and what we try and do is push the band in a new direction every time even if it's in the same palette of music that we normally work with. I started orchestrating some of the songs whereas, in the past it's been Padma Newsome. He did England, the big one as far as being orchestral, but a bunch of the others I did and as far as playing the guitar, the piano and being directly inside what the music is, maybe it is true that the orchestration is sort of glued closer to what the band is doing,” admits Bryce. Guitar distortion coils around inflamed strings, filling the songs with static charge, pianos pound into cello serenity and clarinets jostle with Bryan's astounding drum ricochets. It's an astounding use of traditional instruments within a modern setting.
“The sound on Terrible Love was kind of happenstance, a kind of combination of effects that makes that crazy, woolly sound of guitars. It was something we stumbled on and just did it and we were able to keep it. To me Boxer became really, really elegant and a very manicured kind of record and High Violet opens that up. If you listen closely there's looser guitar playing it's rough around the edge is some places.” Bryce says that working alongside Kim Deal from Pixies, her looser style and way of composing, really helped to keep parts more natural and improvised in the studio, hence the rough edges on songs that are full of grandeur. Bryce has also worked with his favourite composer Steve Reich on the latter's latest record Double Sextet/2x5, and Lee Ronaldo of Sonic Youth in the past, again citing each man's fascinating approaches to musicality bringing a lot of inspiration to The National. The beginning flux of Boxer's Fake Empire alone recalls Reich's phasing techniques.
“We're collaborative musicians by nature and that doesn't just mean within The National,” says Bryce. “I think if it was just within The National, we'd get quite claustrophobic. I don't know how much the music could evolve if we weren't constantly opening ourselves up to new things and hearing new things and seeing how other people write songs.”
A band like this isn't your typical indie success story. Yet they've sold out three nights at Brixton Academy, as well as playing a sold out Royal Albert Hall earlier this year, and that's without mentioning that the day before this interview, the band played in Madison, Wisconsin at President Obama's request before he spoke to students at the university.
As Bryce admits, they aren't likely to be recognised and mobbed on the street yet touring has become more comfortable thanks to being able to afford a crew, festival billing has risen meaning more time to play to fans and though promo schedules have become tiring now, the overall feeling is that the band have achieved what they have in the right way, slowly but surely. “A lot of our favourite bands existed off the radar for so many years. I would say certainly with the Pixies, their reunion tour was much bigger than they were back in the day and we laugh because Alligator was mentioned as a record of the decade in a lot of places that didn't even list it as a record of the year initially. So it's sort of a funny thing of what time does to music or whatever, but we certainly don't have any chips on our shoulder about not having had success earlier or anything.”
So unstar-like are they that Bryce describes Matt as a “home-person”, as he has a wife and child and really struggles when on tour. Not just that, but his writing is inspired by the everyday, by a real life back at home with his family. “A lot of our songs are about real life or maybe the way we relate to real life, because sometimes touring is surreal so I think getting off tour and going home and absorbing yourself into a daily existence around a more normal schedule is improtant for the songs, what's in the songs,” says Bryce. “I think Matt really needs to get home and soak up a normal life before he'll feel like making a new record.”
They may even have reached the apex of what they've been doing for over a decade with High Violet. Certainly the almost consistently flawless work contained on their last three records draws the kind of defeated-sounding optimism and flight in the face of fear to the very brink of it's intensity and sonic possibility.
“In a way we feel we've achieved something with High Violet and maybe it's a chapter that's kind of closing. I'm not saying we're gonna take a drastic left turn but it definitely feels like it's more open to us now because we've been refining a certain sound and maybe it'll shift next time.” Whatever steps they take, we'll always be able to celebrate the sorrow and the small victories we win everyday with these songs, or endure, as Matt Berninger puts it, the 'uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults.'
Brad Barrett
Purple Patch
The National have turned their emotive, evocative music into a raging fire to which music fans across the world have finally been beckoned. High Violet represents the apex of their achievements so far, and guitarist Bryce Dessner sheds light on the incredible efforts needed to get there.
Ordinary, daily routine can be the source of as much misery as pleasure. The best music bridges the gap between the melancholy and the joyous, making it one and the same. The best songwriters take that which spans the two and build it from their perspective on life, either at home or away. In doing so it feels like they've somehow touched upon an unanswered question, provided a glint of hope when it feels there is none. The National have patiently been doing this since 1999, garnering a steady stream of accolades and success with each subsequent album. 2005's Alligator, 2007's Boxer and now this year's High Violet have all been lauded for their spacious, elegiac triumph, and it's only now that each one is being cherished by listeners on a grander scale. “There's something in our music,” says Bryce Dessner, co-guitarist with his brother Aaron, one of two pairs of brothers that make up four fifths of the band. “Obviously you could take away almost everything and Matt could sing over a full orchestra or just a solemn piano or a crazy techno beat maybe and you'd still be like 'oh, this is The National'.”
Matt Berninger, vocalist, lyricist and the sole non-musician, is a striking figure quite apart from his sandpaper, baritone voice. He certainly has foresight to craft songs of understated emotional intelligence and gravity. “I think the challenge with the songs is that obviously he sings in a limited range. I think we often get labelled as miserablist or dark rock because his voice is dark, it's like hearing a solo cello or something. The actual timbre of the voice is sombre even if he's actually singing about happy, ridiculous stuff, which often he is actually. There's a lot of humour in the songs, but because it has a slow, gravelly kind of sound to it it does invoke, as I always say to friends and journalists, 'fucking the heartstrings a little bit'.” With that kind of centrepoint around which to revolve, the band's job is all too clear.
“With the music, we've felt, especially live it happens, our job is to make the music dynamic and create arc and flow and make the song go somewhere. We're really sensitive to that and we've written great songs for the first minute and then they don't go anywhere and it doesn't last. Usually it's worked better for us to shade stuff in subtle ways and that's maybe why people call our music 'a grower' or maybe a harsher criticism is that it's boring. It does unfold slowly whereas we really wish sometimes we could be like The Darkness or something,” says Bryce, laughing. “The kind of wanky guitar solos and really over the top in your face stuff has never worked with what we do.”
Whether you take the screamed assault of Alligator era songs Mr November and Abel, the spiralling, brass-pounding anthem of Mistaken For Strangers or the dense, scrambling soundscapes of Terrible Love and Conversation 16, Bryce's point rings true. Colour, light, shade and subtlety are all necessary to trace the lines Matt has sketched for The National.
It's not necessarily a happy family all of the time. Bryce admits that “(Boxer) had been really hard to make and it was very contentious between us. We were disagreeing a fair amount on which direction we wanted to take.” Even a cursory listen to each album reveals a distinct difference in atmosphere, a result of the struggles between the band. Matt's extraordinary energy means that, despite his musical inability, the band are forced to trust his opinion and his obtuse descriptions. Though this is something they've learned to accept over the last decade.
“There is tension about that because sometimes he'll be like 'turn all the guitars up' and maybe he doesn't realise that the guitar is the only thing driving the harmony of the song. At the same time Matt is an incredibly gifted songwriter and we know that so he's right about 75% of the time. You've just gotta watch out for the 25% when he's totally full of it. But he tends to have good ideas probably because he doesn't play an instrument and because he doesn't have an attachment to anything he's played. 'Oh I love that guitar part' or 'oh I love that piano part I played'. That's what happens in bands full of heavy musicians and you get that problem of everyone wanting to hear what they did. It doesn't mean its good because you did it!” explains Bryce. “Sometimes it is limiting for us because he'll speak in non-musical metaphors about ideas he has but obviously we've been doing this for a while and it works and I think maybe Michael Stipe from REM works in a similar way. It's not so unique that he's the frontman and not playing an instrument. Its certainly good for us because otherwise I think a lot of bands that seem on paper to be collaborative, really are much less so. It's like one guy with a guitar who writes the song and he probably has the final say.”
They carve their way through acres of “sketches, which are demos of songs” to filter through the foliage sprouting from Aaron, Bryce, bassist Scott Devendorf and his brother Bryan playing drums, in order to strike gold.
“We have to give Matt a lot of music, and he'll listen to maybe 50 or 60 of these. I'll do a bunch, my brother probably does most of them and then Scott will do some and Bryan contributes to the rhythm but usually later once we know what we're working on, so it works like that and Matt might take one and go 'oh it's in the wrong key' or 'it's got to be faster' or 'I don't like the finger picking guitars, let's make it dirtier' or 'I like the B section' and it goes like that and goes back and forth and I'll make like 30 versions of the same thing,. Then once we know out of those that there's a song starting it'll probably go down to 25-30 of those that we can actually work out drum beats for and start to record basic ideas in the studio all together and that then goes to another level of Matt having to finish the lyrics. Then inevitably a bunch of those get tossed out as well and we get 15 or 20 that end up being finished songs.” The huge effort involved from each member in this process accounts for Bryce saying earlier in our transatlantic phone conversation that making an album is a “long and arduous” rigmarole. The results speak for themselves. High Violet churns, savages expectations and billows gently across a broiling soundscape. Terrible Love is somehow gentile and violent before physical tension is burst across an astounding jarring workout. Bloodbuzz Ohio recalls swarms of pain across fields, while Conversation 16 manages to expound the virtues of anxiety via an escalating, aural trauma. England is the most sublime, galloping classical piece they've done and Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks is practically gospel.
“We never really have a plan. I think its hard enough to do what we do, have five people make music together that we all like. There's definitely thematic elements in the lyrics that become cohesive part of the whole record that Matt worked on for a long time. Musically my brother and I write a lot of the music and what we try and do is push the band in a new direction every time even if it's in the same palette of music that we normally work with. I started orchestrating some of the songs whereas, in the past it's been Padma Newsome. He did England, the big one as far as being orchestral, but a bunch of the others I did and as far as playing the guitar, the piano and being directly inside what the music is, maybe it is true that the orchestration is sort of glued closer to what the band is doing,” admits Bryce. Guitar distortion coils around inflamed strings, filling the songs with static charge, pianos pound into cello serenity and clarinets jostle with Bryan's astounding drum ricochets. It's an astounding use of traditional instruments within a modern setting.
“The sound on Terrible Love was kind of happenstance, a kind of combination of effects that makes that crazy, woolly sound of guitars. It was something we stumbled on and just did it and we were able to keep it. To me Boxer became really, really elegant and a very manicured kind of record and High Violet opens that up. If you listen closely there's looser guitar playing it's rough around the edge is some places.” Bryce says that working alongside Kim Deal from Pixies, her looser style and way of composing, really helped to keep parts more natural and improvised in the studio, hence the rough edges on songs that are full of grandeur. Bryce has also worked with his favourite composer Steve Reich on the latter's latest record Double Sextet/2x5, and Lee Ronaldo of Sonic Youth in the past, again citing each man's fascinating approaches to musicality bringing a lot of inspiration to The National. The beginning flux of Boxer's Fake Empire alone recalls Reich's phasing techniques.
“We're collaborative musicians by nature and that doesn't just mean within The National,” says Bryce. “I think if it was just within The National, we'd get quite claustrophobic. I don't know how much the music could evolve if we weren't constantly opening ourselves up to new things and hearing new things and seeing how other people write songs.”
A band like this isn't your typical indie success story. Yet they've sold out three nights at Brixton Academy, as well as playing a sold out Royal Albert Hall earlier this year, and that's without mentioning that the day before this interview, the band played in Madison, Wisconsin at President Obama's request before he spoke to students at the university.
As Bryce admits, they aren't likely to be recognised and mobbed on the street yet touring has become more comfortable thanks to being able to afford a crew, festival billing has risen meaning more time to play to fans and though promo schedules have become tiring now, the overall feeling is that the band have achieved what they have in the right way, slowly but surely. “A lot of our favourite bands existed off the radar for so many years. I would say certainly with the Pixies, their reunion tour was much bigger than they were back in the day and we laugh because Alligator was mentioned as a record of the decade in a lot of places that didn't even list it as a record of the year initially. So it's sort of a funny thing of what time does to music or whatever, but we certainly don't have any chips on our shoulder about not having had success earlier or anything.”
So unstar-like are they that Bryce describes Matt as a “home-person”, as he has a wife and child and really struggles when on tour. Not just that, but his writing is inspired by the everyday, by a real life back at home with his family. “A lot of our songs are about real life or maybe the way we relate to real life, because sometimes touring is surreal so I think getting off tour and going home and absorbing yourself into a daily existence around a more normal schedule is improtant for the songs, what's in the songs,” says Bryce. “I think Matt really needs to get home and soak up a normal life before he'll feel like making a new record.”
They may even have reached the apex of what they've been doing for over a decade with High Violet. Certainly the almost consistently flawless work contained on their last three records draws the kind of defeated-sounding optimism and flight in the face of fear to the very brink of it's intensity and sonic possibility.
“In a way we feel we've achieved something with High Violet and maybe it's a chapter that's kind of closing. I'm not saying we're gonna take a drastic left turn but it definitely feels like it's more open to us now because we've been refining a certain sound and maybe it'll shift next time.” Whatever steps they take, we'll always be able to celebrate the sorrow and the small victories we win everyday with these songs, or endure, as Matt Berninger puts it, the 'uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults.'
Brad Barrett
Saturday, 5 February 2011
Articles of 2010 Part IX: The Dillinger Escape Plan
Yeah so I'm cheating with the alphabetical thing now. This should really have been further back, as should The Chap. Still, who cares. I'm not in a record store.
The Dillinger Escape Plan mesh brutality and finesse...and then crush them both. But with Option Paralysis, the winding, waltzing jazz flecks became more than just mere flourishes and the compelling evolution that came with Ire Works continued into their most fully formed work so far. Frontman Greg may be a compact powerhouse, but his mind is working overtime constantly, proving DEP to be one of the most forward-thinking, passionate bands in existence. Plus various members hang from ceilings while playing on occasion. Undeniable. "There has to be intent in everything", indeed.
The Dillinger Escape Plan
Almost nothing can prepare the uninitiated for the aural ferocity of The Dillinger Escape Plan. It truly is something to behold. Mere moments into their fourth longplayer, Option Paralysis, you’ve been lulled into a false sense of security with slinky, sleazy, clean chords. You’ll never trust anything ever again. The blazing intensity and complexity of the unexpected warring guitars, scattershot drums and Greg Puciato’s terrifying vocals all consume you immediately. Within a minute you’ve been tricked at least three times more: frenetic turns to hammering power chords which melt into clean tremolo strumming which lurches into eerie voices upon sweep-picked jazz scales. By the end of the fifth minute of Farewell, Mona Lisa, you’ve got an indelible choral refrain painted in your head and your expectations will never be the same again. You may have to take a breath before going any further. If this all sounds like hyperbole, try and remember the first time you heard something you’d never heard before; something so audacious, brave yet completely convincing in its power. You’ve just imagined what you’ll feel when you hear Option Paralysis for the first time.
“We’ve tapped into some creative artery that we need to fucking mine as much as we can because we feel like little kids right now,” says Greg, sitting opposite Playmusic at the unseemly hour of noon in the Camden Barfly venue where, later today, the band will play two shows: one in the afternoon and one in the evening. “We’ve had so much stress and inner turmoil. We started to believe the lie that we had to be fighting with one another to make something good and I do believe there has to be challenge and conflict but it shouldn’t have to be between us.” You’d give anything not to be the challenge or conflict in Greg’s way. He’s a striking figure, a short but stocky powerhouse whose figure can be seen throwing itself upon audience’s heads and hanging from light riggings by its legs. A man possessed by the pure energy of the music this quintet have somehow formulated against the odds.
“We’ve never had the same lineup between records. It’s crazy. Well, this is the best we’ve ever felt. This is the first time we haven’t been fighting a lot. This is the first time there hasn’t been some kind of stress on the horizon,” explains Greg. Dillinger’s potted history is renowned. Greg stepped into the vocalist role after a self titled mini LP, The Running Board EP, their debut proper Calculating Infinity and the Irony Is A Dead Scene EP with the inimitable vocal virtuoso Mike Patton. The result was Miss Machine, where Greg admirably altered the tone of the band for the better. 2007’s stunning Ire Works was marked by the departure of founding member and co-constructor Chris Pennie, leaving guitarist Ben Weinman as the only remaining original DEP conspirator. Though Gil Sharone stepped into his shoes for their third album, he was never considered a permanent member. “We knew that Gill wasn’t the permanent guy going into it. Even when we went into the tour we knew there would be an end we just didn’t know when it was going to be because he knew we knew everyone knew it was temporary.” Billy Rymer however has already earnt his stripes, collaborating with housemate Ben in the early stages of Option Paralysis. “They would wake up in the morning and start working on songs everyday so they formed more organically. They went in directions on their own instead of forcing yourself to write something. We actually ended up writing the record much faster than normal and to me I think its better. I think in the past we’ve been stuck on this thing where we need to take forever to write records to justify to ourselves that we worked hard. People being in a room together and listening to a million different variations on the fly, seeing what works and what doesn’t, instead of being in a bedroom by yourself thinking of how something will sound loud makes a big difference.”
These directions are both surprising and wholly welcome. After the electronic experiments that underpinned Ire Works in sound and writing process, we hear a greater sense of space, string arrangements and real tugs at the DEP signature sound. Yes it has those extreme time signatures, that incomprehensible fret work and Greg’s impassioned roar. But it also contains some of Greg’s most touching vocal performances and some exceptional ivory melodies from pianist Mike Garson. With these sonic lattices co opting the airwaves, it’s inconceivable how Greg still manages to make such a striking and integral impact within the songs, both lyrically and vocally. Part of it is down to an honest approach to writing words and melodies, as he explains.
“I have to have an emotional attachment otherwise I might as well just yell syllables and consonants and vowels. When I’m writing vocal parts I’ll write patterns before I have words. Kinda like scatting you know? And sometimes I actually get stuck on some of the vowel sounds so I find words that sound like gibberish that come out of my mouth but for the most part even if that’s the case the lyrics have to mean something to me. It’s my one chance every couple of years to really dig deep and get something good out of myself. It’s good for me to find more out about myself artistically to figure out what’s going on.”
For a band so replete with nourishment, to be able to express yourself vividly through a vocal performance must be an eye opener. Greg’s free-writing is often a “revelation” to himself. “Every time we’ve written an album, I’ve kinda peeled back layers of myself that I wasn’t aware of and it’s a good thing. That to me is the point. If there’s no honesty then art isn’t that interesting to me. If there’s no soul to something, what’s the point? That’s why I’ve never really understood trying to pick a certain topic and writing about it, especially in a style of music that is inherently very emotional. It seems to make more sense to give a shit about what you’re saying.”
Weirdly, this 'style of music' is often criticised by those who don’t really listen to it as being overly dramatic and that lyrics are lost amongst the noise of the delivery. It’s also what makes a lot of metal sound so awfully generic and throwaway at times. Yet, with torrents of emotion pouring forth from each element of the band, DEP never fall into that category.
“I’m less afraid of my own voice than I used to be and I think when you’re a kid it’s very easy to yell and scream. It’s what you want to do; you’re full of piss and venom. I think as you get older you start to realise you can be extremely effective in other ways. Way heavier and way more impactful than yelling all the time. Because when you start off screaming there’s really nowhere to go, you’re already at 10 so you can’t do anything but drop down and when you drop down its underwhelming so I’m starting to realise that if you keep your average around seven, it’s still pretty intense but you have room to go down to two or up to 10 and that’s way more interesting to me. I love screaming honestly but to me it’s not about trying to make vocals fit. Like I don’t wanna force screaming I don’t wanna force singing. As long as you’re comfortable with every tool in your arsenal it should all flow freely.”
It’s a far cry from composing, yet while Greg is insistent that thinking corrupts the original idea, there’s still a lot of work that goes into it. This isn’t ‘do what you feel’, this is ‘expell what you need to express’. There’s a difference.
“I try to write as fast as I really can then go back a day later and then be critical because it’s important to have that initial block of output to be pure and then later on you can refine it but that initial thing has to be to be like shooting it out of yourself.”
There’s so much to discuss – self-releasing their new record via their own label Party Smasher Inc., their dedication to the band meaning each member knows every detail from finances to t-shirt material, the need for perspective on work/life balance, their European tour of small venues as a treat for fans, reaching your thirties – but sticking to the core and heart of DEP is perhaps where we learn the most.
“The key for me now is to make sure things are honest,” says Greg. “Because I don’t ever want it to become consonants and vowels and not even know what’s coming out of my mouth. There has to be intent to everything.”
The Dillinger Escape Plan mesh brutality and finesse...and then crush them both. But with Option Paralysis, the winding, waltzing jazz flecks became more than just mere flourishes and the compelling evolution that came with Ire Works continued into their most fully formed work so far. Frontman Greg may be a compact powerhouse, but his mind is working overtime constantly, proving DEP to be one of the most forward-thinking, passionate bands in existence. Plus various members hang from ceilings while playing on occasion. Undeniable. "There has to be intent in everything", indeed.
The Dillinger Escape Plan
Almost nothing can prepare the uninitiated for the aural ferocity of The Dillinger Escape Plan. It truly is something to behold. Mere moments into their fourth longplayer, Option Paralysis, you’ve been lulled into a false sense of security with slinky, sleazy, clean chords. You’ll never trust anything ever again. The blazing intensity and complexity of the unexpected warring guitars, scattershot drums and Greg Puciato’s terrifying vocals all consume you immediately. Within a minute you’ve been tricked at least three times more: frenetic turns to hammering power chords which melt into clean tremolo strumming which lurches into eerie voices upon sweep-picked jazz scales. By the end of the fifth minute of Farewell, Mona Lisa, you’ve got an indelible choral refrain painted in your head and your expectations will never be the same again. You may have to take a breath before going any further. If this all sounds like hyperbole, try and remember the first time you heard something you’d never heard before; something so audacious, brave yet completely convincing in its power. You’ve just imagined what you’ll feel when you hear Option Paralysis for the first time.
“We’ve tapped into some creative artery that we need to fucking mine as much as we can because we feel like little kids right now,” says Greg, sitting opposite Playmusic at the unseemly hour of noon in the Camden Barfly venue where, later today, the band will play two shows: one in the afternoon and one in the evening. “We’ve had so much stress and inner turmoil. We started to believe the lie that we had to be fighting with one another to make something good and I do believe there has to be challenge and conflict but it shouldn’t have to be between us.” You’d give anything not to be the challenge or conflict in Greg’s way. He’s a striking figure, a short but stocky powerhouse whose figure can be seen throwing itself upon audience’s heads and hanging from light riggings by its legs. A man possessed by the pure energy of the music this quintet have somehow formulated against the odds.
“We’ve never had the same lineup between records. It’s crazy. Well, this is the best we’ve ever felt. This is the first time we haven’t been fighting a lot. This is the first time there hasn’t been some kind of stress on the horizon,” explains Greg. Dillinger’s potted history is renowned. Greg stepped into the vocalist role after a self titled mini LP, The Running Board EP, their debut proper Calculating Infinity and the Irony Is A Dead Scene EP with the inimitable vocal virtuoso Mike Patton. The result was Miss Machine, where Greg admirably altered the tone of the band for the better. 2007’s stunning Ire Works was marked by the departure of founding member and co-constructor Chris Pennie, leaving guitarist Ben Weinman as the only remaining original DEP conspirator. Though Gil Sharone stepped into his shoes for their third album, he was never considered a permanent member. “We knew that Gill wasn’t the permanent guy going into it. Even when we went into the tour we knew there would be an end we just didn’t know when it was going to be because he knew we knew everyone knew it was temporary.” Billy Rymer however has already earnt his stripes, collaborating with housemate Ben in the early stages of Option Paralysis. “They would wake up in the morning and start working on songs everyday so they formed more organically. They went in directions on their own instead of forcing yourself to write something. We actually ended up writing the record much faster than normal and to me I think its better. I think in the past we’ve been stuck on this thing where we need to take forever to write records to justify to ourselves that we worked hard. People being in a room together and listening to a million different variations on the fly, seeing what works and what doesn’t, instead of being in a bedroom by yourself thinking of how something will sound loud makes a big difference.”
These directions are both surprising and wholly welcome. After the electronic experiments that underpinned Ire Works in sound and writing process, we hear a greater sense of space, string arrangements and real tugs at the DEP signature sound. Yes it has those extreme time signatures, that incomprehensible fret work and Greg’s impassioned roar. But it also contains some of Greg’s most touching vocal performances and some exceptional ivory melodies from pianist Mike Garson. With these sonic lattices co opting the airwaves, it’s inconceivable how Greg still manages to make such a striking and integral impact within the songs, both lyrically and vocally. Part of it is down to an honest approach to writing words and melodies, as he explains.
“I have to have an emotional attachment otherwise I might as well just yell syllables and consonants and vowels. When I’m writing vocal parts I’ll write patterns before I have words. Kinda like scatting you know? And sometimes I actually get stuck on some of the vowel sounds so I find words that sound like gibberish that come out of my mouth but for the most part even if that’s the case the lyrics have to mean something to me. It’s my one chance every couple of years to really dig deep and get something good out of myself. It’s good for me to find more out about myself artistically to figure out what’s going on.”
For a band so replete with nourishment, to be able to express yourself vividly through a vocal performance must be an eye opener. Greg’s free-writing is often a “revelation” to himself. “Every time we’ve written an album, I’ve kinda peeled back layers of myself that I wasn’t aware of and it’s a good thing. That to me is the point. If there’s no honesty then art isn’t that interesting to me. If there’s no soul to something, what’s the point? That’s why I’ve never really understood trying to pick a certain topic and writing about it, especially in a style of music that is inherently very emotional. It seems to make more sense to give a shit about what you’re saying.”
Weirdly, this 'style of music' is often criticised by those who don’t really listen to it as being overly dramatic and that lyrics are lost amongst the noise of the delivery. It’s also what makes a lot of metal sound so awfully generic and throwaway at times. Yet, with torrents of emotion pouring forth from each element of the band, DEP never fall into that category.
“I’m less afraid of my own voice than I used to be and I think when you’re a kid it’s very easy to yell and scream. It’s what you want to do; you’re full of piss and venom. I think as you get older you start to realise you can be extremely effective in other ways. Way heavier and way more impactful than yelling all the time. Because when you start off screaming there’s really nowhere to go, you’re already at 10 so you can’t do anything but drop down and when you drop down its underwhelming so I’m starting to realise that if you keep your average around seven, it’s still pretty intense but you have room to go down to two or up to 10 and that’s way more interesting to me. I love screaming honestly but to me it’s not about trying to make vocals fit. Like I don’t wanna force screaming I don’t wanna force singing. As long as you’re comfortable with every tool in your arsenal it should all flow freely.”
It’s a far cry from composing, yet while Greg is insistent that thinking corrupts the original idea, there’s still a lot of work that goes into it. This isn’t ‘do what you feel’, this is ‘expell what you need to express’. There’s a difference.
“I try to write as fast as I really can then go back a day later and then be critical because it’s important to have that initial block of output to be pure and then later on you can refine it but that initial thing has to be to be like shooting it out of yourself.”
There’s so much to discuss – self-releasing their new record via their own label Party Smasher Inc., their dedication to the band meaning each member knows every detail from finances to t-shirt material, the need for perspective on work/life balance, their European tour of small venues as a treat for fans, reaching your thirties – but sticking to the core and heart of DEP is perhaps where we learn the most.
“The key for me now is to make sure things are honest,” says Greg. “Because I don’t ever want it to become consonants and vowels and not even know what’s coming out of my mouth. There has to be intent to everything.”
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