Ben Weinman is Surprised People Like The Dillinger Escape Plan All These Years Later
Having spent last year celebrating the 30th anniversary of the band’s first album Calculating Infinity, The Dillinger Escape Plan has been on the road a lot lately. Bolstered by the band’s reunion with co-founding member and original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis, they’ve managed to play to crowds of all ages and connected with fans new and old. Looking back on that time, guitarist and founding member Ben Weinman is struck by one thing — without commercial support, how did people even grow to like the music?
The point he was making came about during a chat with Australian Musician editor Greg Phillips (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). When asked about how he considers The Dillinger Escape Plan’s overarching legacy, Weinman explained how it’s strange given the nature of the band itself.
“It’s really weird, because I just got off an interview with a young guy who does a radio show that does predominantly metal and hardcore music, and he said something like he didn’t think his show was exist if it wasn’t for us, ’cause so many of the bands he felt were influenced by us. And that just sounds impossible to me. It just seems insane to me.
“It’s weird to be a band that I felt never reached real commercial success, but also almost every day someone says something that totally blows me away that I can’t believe that somebody likes this band or it meant something to them like it does, or it could influence their band or whatever. So, it’s sometimes a tremendous amount of imposter syndrome. It’s hard to believe anybody would even like this music, but almost every day I get a really cool kind of reminder that I guess we did do something that was important to some people.”
It’s so weird to hear Weinman sound so effusive about the love the band gets while simultaneously finding it odd that anyone would enjoy The Dillinger Escape Plan. But then again, we are talking about the guy who described the band’s sound as “garbage cans falling down stairs,” so maybe the self-deprecation/humbleness is just par for the course for Weinman.
Either way, TDEP fucking rules and if you have a chance to catch them live, you should absolutely do it. Don’t be stupid. Check the upcoming dates below.
The Dillinger Escape Plan live dates:
07/19 Mansfield, OH – Inkcarceration Music & Tattoo Festival
07/26 Denver, CO – Unhinged Festival
08/10 Fremantle, AUS – Metropolis
08/12 Adelaide, AUS – The Governor Hindmarsh
08/13 Melbourne, AUS – Northcote Theatre
08/16 Sydney, AUS – The Enmore
08/17 Brisbane, AUS – The Tivoli
09/21 Louisville, KY – Louder Than Life
10/03 Sacramento, CA – Aftershock
