Greg Puciato of Dillinger Escape Plan
by Daniel Robert Epstein for SuicideGirls (http://suicidegirls.com/)

A lot of fans of Dillinger Escape Plan were understandably upset when Dmitri Minakakis left the band and they found a fan, Greg Puciato, to replace him. I remember one friend of mine said “This isn’t Judas Priest. Who the fuck is this guy?” But after two years of touring he proved to be a more ample replacement, in fact on a lot of message boards people say he is even better than Minakakis. But up until now we haven’t heard any original music from him. But now with the release of the Underworld movie soundtrack, Dillinger Escape Plan’s latest album and his upcoming collaboration with Brett Gurewitz, Puciato is ready to take over the world.

Check out the website for Dillinger Escape Plan.

Greg Puciato: Sorry About our interview last week, man. I’ve just been waking up real late because our sleep schedules are all messed up from being in the studio until seven in the morning some nights.

Daniel Robert Epstein: It’s cool. So what made you decide to put the 43 percent burnt on the new Relapse Records sampler?

GP: We didn’t have any say in that [laughs]. We didn’t even know what the fuck was going on. I just actually saw that yesterday for the first time. There putting out a re-issue of Calculating Infinity in a couple of weeks too and no one knows anything about it.

DRE: Okay [laughs] and how about the DVD?

GP: Whether or not it’s still happening or what’s going on with it?

DRE: What’s going on with it? Is it still happening?

GP: The DVD kind of got shelved because we were kind of running behind on getting the new album out. That DVD originally came up before we realized how much time the Irony is a Dead Scene EP was going to take out of our time recently. Our original plan was to have the forthcoming album coming out in the summer of 2003. We were thinking that we would get a DVD out around Fall/Winter 2003 or around now and then it turned out we took forever to write the album. Then we filmed a lot of the recording of it, so we’re like man we want to get this on there too and now we want to do some touring. So we’re just trying to keep recording, getting footage and maybe we’ll put out something more substantial later on. We don’t want to put out some 45 minute DVD and charge people 20 bucks for it.

DRE: Right. What took so long with the album?

GP: Well Irony is a Dead Scene was big for us and we knew it was going to be big, but we didn’t know the extent that we were going to have to tour for it. We just thought we’d do one or two tours, that would be it and then we’d get back to writing our album. But opportunities kept coming up that really did a lot for us. So we had to keep touring. Also we’re not a band that really writes on the road, like we always say we’re going to, but we just never ever do. That’s definitely going to have to change or else we’re never going to write another album. But we finally got some time off, and we had a ton of loose ideas lying around, so it didn’t take to long to get the basic structures of the songs down. But then we just kept changing ‘em, adding to ‘em, changing ‘em and adding to ‘em. Plus everybody in the band is, in some fashion, a perfectionist. So it just took a long time, but if we’re going to be the type of band that puts an album out every four years we want the album to be perfect, and we want it to be enough of a musical progression. We didn’t want to take it out of the oven until it’s done.

DRE: How’s it going with Relapse?

GP: Relapse has been great for us. We’ve had our problems here and there. It’s just re-negotiating our contract and things like that. That’s another reason this album took a little while.

DRE: Why did you have to renegotiate?

GP: Our contract was kind of, pretty archaic because the contract was representative of a band that didn’t sell any albums. It was a contract that was for Dillinger before anybody knew how big Dillinger was going to get. When Relapse first started, way before I was in the band, I think they knew that Dillinger was going to be a little over everybody’s head because it was so nutty at the time. Maybe we would do a couple of weekend tours and that would be it. Now we’ve gotten to a size where we can’t do anything but the band because it takes up so much of our time. Our contract needed to be reworked so we could get compensated a little bit better.

DRE: Are you satisfied with the contract now?

GP: Oh yeah man we’re all psyched. Just from a business perspective, Relapse was looking for the best interest in them and we were looking out for the best interest for us. It took some time to get everybody on the same page. But we’re all ready to move forward now. We’re all excited for the future of Dillinger and the future of Relapse because this is all new territory for both of us. Relapse has never really had a band bigger than we are right now and we’ve never been bigger than we are right now so neither of us knows what the fuck we’re doing.

DRE: What has made you guys so much more popular then ever before?

GP: Definitely the [Mike] Patton EP did a lot for us in terms of exposure but also the climate was right. Like you see all these bands that sound nothing like us like Thursday, Thrice, Poison the Well and bands like that are really starting to get a lot bigger. But it shows that Extreme Rock and then the Headbanger’s Ball shit are coming back. Then you see bands like Limp Bizkit and Korn who are selling a fraction of the albums they were selling three or four years ago. It’s kind of like a mirror image of what happened at the end of like the Hair Band Era, and the beginning of the Grunge Era, where the scene is totally independent of the scene that came before it. Bands like us aren’t extensions of like Limp Bizkit, P.O.D. and bands like that. It’s a whole different thing and I think that’s exciting for kids who have just grown totally sick of what’s been going on for the last four or five years. Hopefully it’ll continue, it can just keep digging deeper and finding more underground bands that are worth listening to.

DRE: What do you think about having your first song on the Underworld movie soundtrack?

GP: It was cool. I was just excited to have a recording out with me on it but I’m more excited for the new album. I’ve been in the band for two and a half years now and still I’ve only sung other people’s songs live. This current line-up has never recorded an album. There are only two people in the band that were there for the recording of Calculating Infinity, Ben and Chris. They’re the two main people so the sound doesn’t change that much, but me, Brian Benoit and Liam never really contributed to a full length album at all. So that’s 3/5 of the band that adds something totally new creatively to our sound. We’re just excited to have everything in place. As far as Underworld goes, I don’t really care. We didn’t have any particular affinity for that movie; I’ve never even seen it. At the time we signed on to do it, the only other people that had signed were David Bowie, and Maynard Keenan so we thought that sounds pretty fucking good. You can’t get much more artistically acclaimed than those guys.

DRE: How did the fans react to you at your first appearance with the band at CMJ Festival?

GP: That was a surreal experience. I had only been with the band for two weeks. When I joined the band it was like my second audition and after the audition they were they were playing a show together in two weeks and they told me I was in the band. So we only practiced twice. It was just like so quick and since then it’s been such a constant onslaught of shows. That particular show I was really nervous, I had no idea what to expect. I really don’t even remember how people reacted.

DRE: So it was just a blur for you?

GP: Complete blur. Well I remember the first couple seconds of the first song and nothing else.

DRE: How has it been singing songs that you collaborated on?

GP: For a while now we’ve played songs that are going to be on this album. Just testing them out and seeing how an audience responds.

DRE: How have they been responding?

GP: Good man but it’s hard. You can’t expect an audience to take in the type of shit that we do by hearing it live. It’s all going to be a blur to them. I don’t really expect them to go home and remember them. It’s not like where you hear a song on the radio and then later on you can hum it. It’s a totally different kind of thing. Everybody’s been pretty enthusiastic about it. We’re going to play a lot of the new songs on this upcoming tour. The whole purpose of this tour is to preview songs off the album. We’re probably going to play five or six a night. Hopefully kids will bring their mini-discs [laughs].

DRE: Have you had any conflicts with old school fans?

GP: No not at all, everyone’s been really supportive. As a fan I would have been really skeptical myself. I was a giant fan of the band before I was in it and if there had been any kind of member change, especially at the singer position, I definitely would have been skeptical. This album is so good, not to toot our own horn or anything, but we really worked hard on it, and we really feel like this is the best this band could possibly do at this point and time. Everybody’s abilities, songwriting, the technicality, intensity and everything can’t be taken any further. So anybody that is questioning whether we’re going to be as good as we were on past CD’s, well we’re going to be like a million times better.

DRE: I read that Mike Patton made time to work with the band while they broke you in. Is that right?

GP: When I joined the band that album was already recorded musically. I was in the band for like a year before Mike Patton got time to do his vocals it was just a really hard to get his schedule pinned down because he has so many other projects.

DRE: So what did it do for you to have him help you out?

GP: You mean as a band?

DRE: As a band and you personally.

GP: The greatest thing about that collaboration is that you don’t really know what Mike Patton is going to do next. His next CD might sound nothing like his first CD, even though it’s the same band. Mr. Bungle sounded like a completely different band on all three CDs. The new Fantomas sounds completely different. The new Tomahawk sounds completely different than Fantomas. The new Fantomas sounds different than the last Fantomas album. His whole thing is to not know what to expect from him and I think working with someone like that kind of put us in a similar position, which is a great position to be in because we don’t have the shadow of Calculating Infinity hanging over our heads. Now they’ve heard Mike Patton sing over our music, which is something that people probably never thought they’d hear. He’s got a million different types of vocal stylings. I’m sure a lot of people are expecting this album to be awesome and a lot of people are expecting it to suck. If they didn’t like the Mike Patton thing they’re probably thinking to themselves “This bands done, they’ll never do anything as good as Calculating again. We’ve heard stuff like that from people and we’ve heard people say Irony is the greatest thing we’ve ever done. That’s great because no one has any idea what to expect and that just puts us in a good position. Me personally it was a lot of pressure taken off because he did so much vocally on that album. Now I can pretty much do anything and have it not be a shock to people.

DRE: I heard you’re like an ape up on stage.

GP: [laughs] Aw man how did you hear that particular word? I want to know where that came from.

DRE: I read it in some article. That you’re like King Kong on top of the speakers.

GP: That’s so fucking funny man. Everybody in the band is always comparing me to a monkey. People in other bands just refer to me as the Ape. We toured with Icarus Line and after two shows “hey were just like “Hey what’s up Ape.” They didn’t even refer to me as Greg. Everybody keeps comparing me to a monkey or something. I really can’t figure it out. The guys will get a kick out of that. I’ve got to tell them that you brought that up.

DRE: Well its because the way you sing is so animalistic. Do you feel like you revert to something else when you’re up on stage?

GP: Oh, I definitely think so. I don’t walk around in public destroying things and flipping out. We were in a Denny’s once and there were some younger kids like 13 or 14 years old who just saw our show. They were talking to us and they couldn’t believe that we could just sit and have a good time. Did they think we were going to walk into Denny’s and start fucking throwing chairs across the room and jumping on top of the table?

I think I probably would have a lot more frustration in our day to day life if I didn’t have this band. The band is a great outlet for that. Just day to day stresses that just build up, we don’t really have any other way of dealing with it and I think that’s a problem in society right now. People don’t have a way of coping in a world where everyone’s just kind of squeezed into particular molds and a lot of people are unhappy with the role that they play. It’s just great to have music as a way to deal with it because so many people don’t.

DRE: So it’s a big release for you?

GP: Oh yeah. Also besides being a release we just get so caught up that you can’t really separate the music from the physical manifestation of it because you just feel when that the performance is just channeling through you. So as long as you keep yourself relaxed, you just allow it to take control of you and whatever happens, happens. We don’t plan on flipping out or plan on going ape shit. It’s not like that. If we were to play and the vibe felt pretty dead, we’d just be “Alright we’re just going to stand still tonight.” That would be perfectly fine as long as it felt non-forced.

DRE: And if you weren’t doing music, would you walk into Denny’s and flip out?

GP: [laughs] You never know, man. I think that’s a lot of the reason why certain stuff happens now like teenagers committing violent crimes. It’s the whole scenario where you hear about people going into offices and just flipping out. You never know what would happen if you didn’t have the thing that kept you sane. For some people it’s their families for us it’s music. Who knows what would happen I might become like an alcoholic or a drug addict, or you might walk into Denny’s and fucking throw French fries around.

DRE: When did you start blowing fire?

GP: Well I started breathing fire pretty soon after I joined.

DRE: Were you doing it before you joined?

GP: I had done it a couple of times. It seems to really add something to the show but now we can’t do it because of Great White.

DRE: Oh that’s right.

GP: They ruined it for everyone. We used to do it in clubs and now as soon as we get to the club the first thing they say to us is they can’t have any of that on stage. Some clubs are actually concerned about lights being too close to rugs and things. People don’t realize what an impact that incident had on club’s fire codes and things like that. It was immediate across the country. Every single club on the tour after that happened, called us up beforehand to make sure there wasn’t going to be any of that, or they’d get fined five thousand dollars.

DRE: That’s too bad.

GP: Yeah, whatever, but we’re not about breathing fire. It’s actually kind of a relief we can’t do it in some ways. Some kids get bummed, they come to us and they’re like “oh I went home and told my friend that you were crazy and you breathed fire. Now I bring my friend to the show and you guys didn’t breathe fire.” I’m like “Sorry, I let you down dude. We’re not about fucking fire or having a trapeze artist on stage.” I don’t want a gimmick to become more important than what we are really about.

DRE: That makes sense. Is Error happening?

GP: Yeah man, I’m really happy about how that’s come about. That was just an amazing thing to be involved in, I mean.

DRE: Yeah, It’s Brett [Gurewitz] and Leopold Ross right?

GP: It’s Brett, Leopold, and Atticus Ross. Atticus is a sick programmer. He’s just a guy from England, who is just disgusting at electronic things, somehow he caught the eye of Trent Reznor and now he’s working with Trent on the new Nine Inch Nails record. Atticus and Brett met at a party or something and found they have a lot of the same musical ideals. I think him and Atticus really wanted to catch the spirit of punk and hardcore, but use more of an electronic medium, just because you do so much more with it. You can turn anything into part of a song by sampling, distorting and fucking with it so much that you can’t even tell what it is. It could be car horn or a dog barking or something you’d never even know. So they just came together and wrote five songs. Brett had seen us play a couple times and he said “After hearing you live we’d definitely like for you to sing on Error.” I was just blown away that they even asked me because being involved with someone that is involved with Nine Inch Nails and someone from Bad Religion, its two people of a high caliber right there.

DRE: That’s so cool.

GP: Yeah, it’s coming out February 24th. We’re all excited to see how it’s received and if we can get our schedules together hopefully we can get a full length out by 2005.

DRE: Awesome.

I know it’s been a couple of years now. But do you ever just go “I was just a fan and now I’m in Dillinger Escape Plan.”

GP: Sometimes it’s weird man, because you think of a band as being on a pedestal, before you actually meet them. I was blown away by this band before I was in it. The first year I would just be in sound check watching Chris play drums and Ben play guitar, and I was like “Shit, these dudes are absurdly good.” There has to be a like a point where you think “I’m not good enough to play with these dudes. This has got to come to an end. The joke is over.” Now that we’ve realized that we’re all just right for one another musically. It feels like a perfect fit and I feel like I’ve known these dudes my whole life musically and personally.

DRE: And where did you grow up?

GP: In Baltimore.

DRE: How old are you?

GP: 23

DRE: You’re 23?

GP: Yeah I’ll be 24 in a couple of months.

DRE: Jesus!

GP: [laughs] Yeah.

DRE: Did you go to college?

GP: Yeah, I went to a year in Maryland and then I didn’t really know what I was doing. All I really wanted to do was music from the time I was young. If you want do music then it’s hard to see what college is going to do for you. If you want to be a symphony player, you’re studying horn or something like that It’s really not what you want to do. You say you want to sing, you want to be a good rock singer, there’s not really too much you can do for that. I’m not the type of person who can focus energies on more than a couple of things at once. I couldn’t focus on getting a degree just in case this didn’t happen. I just had to try to focus all my energy on singing and music and where I need to be, talent wise. I knew that if I kept working at my own ability, that eventually the right opportunity would come. As soon as the Dillinger thing happened, I knew that was it and it felt real natural.

DRE: How are the Dillinger groupies?

GP: They don’t exist man. If you find them ask them how they are because I’ve never seen them. Honestly if there are girls at the show, they’re usually girlfriends of guys who dragged them there and they really aren’t to it. I don’t understand why there aren’t a lot of girls at are shows. I don’t know if we’re just not a cool band for girls to like or something. Maybe we’re not good looking enough; I don’t know what it is.

DRE: Do you have a girlfriend?

GP: Yeah, yeah

DRE: How long have you been with her?

GP: Not to long, I don’t know how serious it is. We might not be boyfriend/girlfriend. I’m not really certain what’s going on to be honest with you. She’s just a cool chick that I hang out with a lot we don’t really have a title for a relationship.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/words/Greg+Puciato+of+Dillinger+Escape+Plan/