Few bands are as talented as DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN in making both their records and live shows seem like out of body experiences. The progressive metal/hardcore band is as intense and chaotic live as their studio recordings are examples of the brain’s innermost workings. After several full-lengths on Relapse the group has taken matters largely into their own hands with their new full-length Option Paralysis, which was jointly released on their own imprint in connection with France’s Seasons of Mist. Staff writer James Hepplewhite caught up with ‘tenured’ bassist Liam Wilson in April 2010 to discuss recent events in the band’s history - Jordan.

Pastepunk: How the hell do you guys keep getting equipment, because you break so much of it?

Liam Wilson: Well, we don’t break as much as you would think, or we don’t break as much as you would think beyond repair. We’ve gotten really good at repairing our stuff and you know, when our endorsers know that they don’t have to send us a new cabinet, they can just send us new speakers, things like that make it helpful. Our stuff takes a lickin’. I mean I can’t exactly say I’m the most self-destructive person with my gear, I like my gear. Other people in the band have less caution for their stuff. But, it’s funny, you kind of get to a point where you can afford gear and now they just want to give it to you for free. Well, not for free. I don’t think there’s anybody who gets that much for free, but it’s certainly easier with some discounts, but, that said we have gotten older and slightly less destructive, because we’ve started to see that when Ben breaks a guitar that’s a couple hundred bucks out of my pocket, too. (laughs)

Pastepunk: So there’s a band fund for breaking stuff?

Liam: *smiles* Well, it’s not so much, there’s a general band fund for everything. We have to have one, for better or for worse. 10 years in it is a business, 10 years deep, it’s a business. We have an incorporated name and we… I got a 1099 this year. So, it’s a job, with expenses, with taxes and all that great stuff.

Pastepunk: I don’t deny that, but from what I’ve seen of you guys, which is like two or three shows you guys definitely have a propensity to break equipment, which I don’t see other bands doing.

Liam: A lot of it is… there’s no gimmick to it. If you went to see KISS and you didn’t see the blood flying out of Gene’s mouth, you’d probably be bummed. I don’t think DILLINGER’s a gimmick in that sense, I hope that people don’t come just to see us break stuff or blow fire or whatever… that said, it does happen, but it’s never planned or plotted, it’s rarely… it’s usually a condition based what the venue and the room looks like, if there’s a pole in the middle of a small stage, chances are we’re going to break a headstock. If the stage is wide open, chances are we’re going to come out of it unscathed, or we’ll get injured and our equipment will survive. If it’s the beginning of tour, chances are we’re going to hold on to our equipment cautiously, if it’s the end of tour and we still have some gear left, we’ll probably be a little more reckless, you know?

Pastepunk: I don’t think it’s something that’s coldly calculated, but…

Liam: The only part that’s calculated is the “I don’t give a fuck” attitude, I signed that ‘contract’ 10 years ago. If something happens, so be it. I’m not trying to break my stuff, I’ve grown tight with my gear, but that said, I’m not afraid to ding it either, I’m not out to keep it pretty.

Pastepunk: Let’s talk about FRODUS for a moment, because I know how Jason and Shelby got back together, but how did they get to you?

Liam: Jason and I probably met 10 years ago, through DILLINGER and Shelby was more or less the same. So, DECAHERDON had toured with DILLINGER and that’s pretty much it, once DECAHEDRON toured with DILLINGER, I got to know both those guys pretty well and I just… I guess as a person, when that band’s been through so many bass players, you know? Nate couldn’t or didn’t want to do it, they asked themselves, “well, let’s see who could do it and who out of our friends is a bass player that we’d want to play with?” So they gave me the call and I was local enough where you know, they’re in DC, I’m in Phillly, it wasn’t that complicated for me to come down and rehearse a couple times and I was down to do something different. Of course, those guys are interesting characters.

Pastepunk: I knew there was a connection, and I knew Shelby did the artwork for Ire Works, but I wasn’t sure…

Liam: Where it started? Yeah, that’s all, obviously, the Ire Works stuff came first. Shelby and I talked a lot during that time, went back and forth with our artistic constructive criticisms and I guess we kinda just realized that on a collaboration basis, we could do this again with music, we got to know each other better ‘aesthetically’ through the Ire Works process, well enough to be like “oh yeah, this (Frodus) would be fun,” I knew that for shits and giggles I can do the job and will have fun doing it. Shelby and I got to take the ‘triangle’ theme to new heights!

Pastepunk: It’s not like FRODUS is a gigantic touring commitment anymore either…

Liam: No, they can’t really do it any more either, Jason has a baby on the way, Shelby’s in Sweden and actually in Romania right now with his father, I’m on the road all the time. We have 2 songs that are coming out on a 7″ at some point. I remember recording two new, maybe one old? They might have something else, a remix, or something, some other thing up their sleeve (vinyl pun intended).

Pastepunk: Sweet, when does that come out?

Liam: I have no idea. I would hope it comes out some time this year. It’s been done for months, so…?

Pastepunk: What kicked DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN out of option paralysis?

Liam: Well, maybe finding our drummer? If I had to think metaphysically about it, I think finding Billy was the official “okay, now we can officially move forward and officially finish up any kind of Ire Works touring obligations, introduce him as the dude that can play this old stuff, let’s just start wood-shedding the old records and teach him the vocabulary we use and move forward.” I remember suggesting to Ben the name ‘Option Paralysis’ and discussing the other names we were considering for the label (Party Smasher) at the first Frodus show I played, Ben drove down and I remember like almost simultaneously all the Frodus stuff happening and getting really excited about what Dillinger was doing because I was feeling nice and warmed up playing with Frodus while Dillinger was taking a short nap of sorts. I guess that kind of makes sense? Acquiring Billy was an official ‘kick off’ sort of thing, but everything else, just actually getting in the room to write and rehearse the material and it just happening naturally was all it took. Sometimes it seems like “when are we really going to start?” but you’ve already started by saying that… We had been trading ideas for a little while before we actually fleshed them out, I guess that’s normal?

Pastepunk: What attracted you guys to Seasons of Mist that you couldn’t get from any other small label?

Liam: Well, okay. One, we knew what we were familiar with having worked with Relapse and I guess, loosely, Seasons of Mist could be seen as a French sister-label at least by certain standards. A label that exists as much as a distro as it does a label. We saw some of the other things they were doing, we knew they were interested in packaging and being creative with the artwork and the layouts and we knew that out of the other ‘options’ they were the ones most aligned with our approach, or at least the ones most willing to go with our ideas… when we talked to label X or label Y, it was like “this is like what we’re going to do for you, this is the videogame we’re going to get you on” just like selling themselves, talking about themselves and what they had done for other bands we simply can’t relate to, and we were just like, “We kinda know how to do that already, we’ve already done that for ourselves, and we’re not stupid”. We’ve been doing this for 10 years, we’re not idiots, not to say that we’re “know-it-all’s” either, but we take this seriously and we’ve done our homework, we read the fine print.

We realized that what we really needed was somebody who was willing to give us a one record deal and enough money to record it the way we wanted it recorded and to package it with bonus packaging and box set stuff. They were willing to pursue almost any idea we suggested. They were into our ideas, took them and ran. We wanted to do an imprint with Party Smasher Inc. and they were willing to do that, they gave us everything we needed to do what we do and other labels kind of had other stipulations, or other hooks or strings attached to these other offers. Some offers were better in some ways than others, this one might be more money, this one might be more you know tour support – whatever it might be – this one might have a better marketing team or we might relate to the other bands on that label. But overall, after all the discussions and renegotiation, they still came out on top. Do I relate to all the bands on Season Of Mist? Not exactly. Not exactly any more than I did to all the bands on Relapse, either. When we did that Irony EP, do I relate to all the bands on Epitaph? Somewhat, like I dig TOM WAITS, I dig CONVERGE, I dig REFUSED, I see certain things on different labels for different reasons. We wanted a label that understood us and was willing to back it. And they do.

Pastepunk: Who’se idea was it to put a vinyl side on a CD?

Liam: That was something that Ben and I talked about. I remember saying to myself when we were talking about all the potential ‘options’ – “I think that we can do this, or I think I heard of this.” For a couple months before the record came out, and while we were writing, we were all just leaving post-it notes to ourselves about things we see or hear of, or want to see if it exists, and different packaging ideas. That was something that I’m almost certain that I read about, or realized that nothing is impossible and said “Ben, check this out, we gotta write something else just to utilize this technology”, you know? It’s pretty rad. That’s technology working for us!

Pastepunk: I have a vinyl player at home but… why?

Liam: Why not?

Pastepunk: Well, fair enough…

Liam: Because ultimately, I hate to say it, but I think that vinyl will out live the CD by decades, of course, so in a sense it’s like gilding the lily. Maybe the other way around, but I think putting vinyl on a CD is almost tongue in cheek.

Pastepunk: It’s tongue crammed into the side of the mouth. I saw that and I thought: that’s the craziest shit ever. Of course they’d do it.

Liam: We’ve always tried to increase the level of interactivity between the band and our audience, live and ‘at home’. We did a live 7″ on Relapse, there were some different groove patterns on that. This song starts on the edge, the next song started and ran parallel to the center, the other side has two more songs: one starting at the edge and working towards the center, and the other at the center working its way back to the edge. We’ve always been interested in undermining the norm, in some way.

Pastepunk: Is there a line in songwriting that’s just too crazy to go with for the song and one that you have to work with?

Liam: Almost everything is work with it until you can play it, or work with it a little slower until we can play it really fast. If something feels to woodshed-ish, if something feels too exercise, too complicated, like we’re trying too hard, usually we know. How many times we play something doesn’t matter half as much as if it sounds cool. If playing four times and then four times and then four times and then four times sounds cool, then we’re gonna do that. If playing it nine and then seven and then five and then three sounds better, then that’s what we’re going to do.

It truly all depends on how it feels. We never do anything to complicate it, we don’t do it for the sake of complicating it. Usually it’s a matter of “can we imagine ourselves playing this live and not just standing there still, concentrating too much?” Does this make me want to smash stuff? Does it make me want to move? If it does, then it stays. If it doesn’t, it goes. Or, if it doesn’t, we figure out what’s wrong with it then change the drumbeat or whatever and figure it out until it feels right.

Pastepunk: But! Because the battery is running out: What is it about mountain top removal that is so heinous to you?

Liam: I can’t think of anything that’s not heinous about mountain top removal and valley filling. [It] destroys ecosystems, it kills wildlife, it destroys not just animal habitats, but human habitats, it’s making already poor areas that much poorer by robbing them of the only thing that could possibly get them out of their economic situation and not only removing [that], but also removing part of what makes living where they are bearable, which is the scenery, and the tranquility which is destroyed by big trucks hauling that stuff away down little country roads. It’s a very insulting industry, there’s really nothing good about it, I can’t imagine why anybody in their right mind or in their clear conscience thinks it’s anything more than a way to make money and quite literally rape the earth. Well, I do know, but that’s what I think. I could go on, but there’s enough National Geographic and Scientific American stories and other resources to learn more. I think that’s a really important issue.