Man, The Dillinger Escape Plan's Ben Weinman has gone from joking about diarrhea in the news to telling bands to stop ripping off bands in one day's time. That has to be some sort of record! Weinman sat down for an interview with Premiere Guitar where he had some choice words about what cliche in metal absolutely needs to die.
"Metalcore, mathcore, metalcore, whatevercore band uses the same exact guitar simulation tone and drum samples. Meshuggah is great, but you are not Meshuggah—stop!"
He also thinks metal is formulaic now in 2014, as opposed to back in "the day."
"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."
I think it's super easy to write the guy off as some crotchety dude who just wants his youth in music back, but in doing that you're ignoring the blatant truth: he's so right. I mean seriously, when was the last time there was a huge wave of insane artists doing something different with the genre? You've got your splashes here and there, but for the most part it's just, to quote Nine Inch Nails, a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. So we've got Weinman railing against the same old same old, Behemoth's Nergal straight up dumping on extreme music for being boring and stale… starting to see a pattern here?
Right on for speaking the truth, Weinman.
