Vocalist Greg Puciato (ex-The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Black Queen, Killer Be Killed) released his first solo song "Fire for Water" last week. The song was a pissed off, industrial-heavy banger, which is a first for Puciato considering his recent output has been only The Black Queen.
So why return to heavier music? Puciato tells Revolver that he wasn't suppressing his more abrasive side or anything, it's just that he didn't really want to make music like this for a while.
HAS IT BEEN WEIRD KINDA SUPPRESSING YOUR "ABRASIVE SIDE," AS YOU CALL IT, AT LEAST PUBLICLY? HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE IT BACK OUT THERE?
Not at all. I'm not a cartoon character. I wasn't suppressing anything. I just didn't have enough of it in me for it to need a creative vessel. It just wasn't there. I'm not trying to brand myself. I don't give a shit about being known for one kind of music or one emotion versus another. I'm not being led by any sort of past work or genre-based expectation. I just do what feels creatively and emotionally honest for me at the time, or what feels exciting to me, and just deal with the step that's happening as it happens. It's really that simple. I just have a certain emotional need, or I feel a spark of passion towards a direction and then I try to fan or follow that spark. The abrasive, aggressive side … Look, the end of DEP was exhausting. The record was emotionally exhausting, the tour was physically and emotionally exhausting. Other things happening in my life were exhausting. So I just didn't really have much of that energy in me two years ago, and it had all sorta become married to the ideas of exhaustion and negativity. But then some time passed, post–Infinite Games and post–Separate the Dawn … and I could feel the energy and love for this sorta feeling growing as the Black Queen tour was happening, but it felt like it was coming from a good place. It felt like a source of strength … like energy was coming from it … instead of it taking energy from me. It feels good. I feel very very me. And I feel very actualized and realized, etc., etc., and able to integrate everything now from a position of ownership and power. I think the people following closely, they could maybe see this happening … things were sorta ramping up towards the end of the last TBQ tour. The ferocity. The animal was awake.
"Fire for Water" is the first time Puciato and ex-The Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie have teamed up to make music since The Dillinger Escape Plan's 2004 album Miss Machine.
"Fire for Water" was produced by Nick Rowe (Vampire Weekend, Haim) and mixed by Steve Evetts (The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Cure). Puciato will release Child Soldier: Creator of God this summer, which he adds is "15 or 16 songs and almost 70 minutes long … and people should know by now to expect the unexpected … both with this and as a rule overall."
