The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman suggests metal bands stop being Meshuggah

Posted by on April 2, 2014

The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman recently sat down with Premier Guitar to discuss the state of metal and hardcore music in 2014. The guitarist is extremely excited about what’s happening in underground music, but he has a supreme dislike for the bands out there that are trying to cop the style, tone, and approach used by successful bands that came before them – namely bands named Meshuggah:

Every metalcore, mathcore, metalcore, whatevercore band uses the same exact guitar simulation tone and drum samples. Meshuggah is great, but you are not Meshuggah—stop!

It also seems like Weinman isn’t much of a screamo or pop-punk fan, either, criticizing bands that use screams and brutal breakdowns to be just kind of heavy, only to turn around and write catchy choruses:

If you want to be a pop band, then just be a pop band. Why scream? Why write breakdowns? Just go be in One Direction, dickhead.

At the same time, Weinman expresses his excitement for the emergence of the hardcore and metal of old: underground, scrappy scenes made up of self-aware individuals who aren’t trying to “make it big,” or be something they aren’t; they simply have a love for writing naturally heavy music that evokes real emotions:

Metal and hardcore are more exciting now than they’ve been since the mid ’90s. It feels like formulaic, over-produced, soulless “metal” is being seen for what it is, and an exciting resurgence of underground hardcore and metal is emerging. The underground grindcore and hardcore scenes are starting to resemble something similar in ethic to what I remember when I was coming up with Dillinger: Bands are creating music and playing shows knowing there’s no way in hell they’re ever going to be on commercial radio or played in an Apple commercial.

Then again, In Flames have kind of been played in an Apple commercial, and Deafheaven have been featured in one. But after earning the spot 68 in SPIN’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time just two years ago, we think he can say whatever he wants.

Tags: , ,

Categorised in: Interviews, News