We've got an exclusive guest blog from Dillinger Escape Plan guitarist Ben Weinman responding to the recent press battle between him and Disturbed guitarist Dan Donegan. But first some background. The strange beef started about a month ago when Australian magazine The Beat ran a story about Dillinger, in which Weinman talked about witnessing a Disturbed soundcheck.
"[They were] practicing where they were going to walk and when they were going to put their leg up on the monitor and pose," Weinman was quoted as saying. "That was weird for us. There are times where I don't even know where I am."
The innocent, if insensitive, comment sparked a bonfire of sorts when, in a May 16 interview with MTVnews.com's "Metal File," Donegan defended himself and shot back at Weinman: "When we do a bigger production, there may be certain lighting cues for certain highlights of the show, but I wouldn't call it 'posing,'" he said. "[It's] just a cue for our lighting guy, so he can add more drama to the set. If [Dillinger] sold some records, and were at the level we're at, maybe they'd see that, for bands like Kiss and Metallica, there are certain highlight points during a set that you want to focus on. If I'm going to go over to one spot and do a guitar solo, my lighting guy may need to know that, so he can focus in on that. If that's posing, then so be it. We have millions of fans, and we find ways to connect with them. We utilize theatrics and pyro, so we have to rehearse where the pyro is going to go off, because we don't want to have a James Hetfield moment and get caught in the flame. But that's something Dillinger Escape Plan would know nothing about, because they don't play arenas — they play clubs."
The bickering should have ended there, but on June 2 a post appeared on the Dillinger MySpace site that caused further confusion and animosity between the two players: "The guitar player Dom Deluise or whatever his name is with the little-peen complex from that band Disburbia or whatever they're called thinks that we care about them," it read. "...What's that I hear? The sound of your band still sucking?"
At that point, the beef spiraled out of control and started to stink. Indie-hipster Web site, The Idolator even posted a story about the situation, using it as an excuse to take potshots at Disturbed and heavy metal. Fed up with the media feeding frenzy, Weinman agreed to write a guest blog for us to explain how the whole fiasco is really much ado about nothing. We now hand the microphone to Ben:
In response to this whole Disturbed drama, people have to realize that the press paraphrase things all the time in order to create this stuff. I know what I said and what I meant when I did that interview talking about Disturbed practicing the way they stand and stuff. It had nothing to do with knocking them.
I was asked in an interview about whether or not we practice our stage show based on the fact that we are so active. I simply said no, and that I once saw Disturbed sound check in London when we were playing the smaller club attached to the venue that they were playing the same night. I think our room was 1000 people and their room was like 2,000 people. They were practicing where they would stand and pose and stuff. I was just differentiating what we do and what they do. We don't do that. Big deal.
Considering how the information was presented to them, I don't blame them for being a little pissed. But to imply that we need to be taught a lesson from them about how it works in the big time is ridiculous. This band has been self contained and managed for 11 years. We have played in front of 100 people and in front of 50,000 people. We have been on national TV shows and covered in major publications. I don't really care about their lighting cues or guitar solos. Good for them and good luck with that. I hope they sell a codrillian records and levitate over the crowd on a unicorn. Oh and just to clear another thing up... I never even responded to his comments until now. I don't write our MySpace blogs. So again, misinformation.
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