Greg Puciato (The Black Queen, ex-The Dillinger Escape Plan, etc.) spoke to Kerrang! recently with a conversation focused on his upcoming solo debut, “Child Soldier: Creator Of God“. In addition to to discussing that record, which is due out this summer, he also opened up on his various other projects and what else he has in store this year and beyond.
While it was revealed that ex-The Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie played the drums on the first single “Fire For Water“, it turns out he isn’t the only drummer involved on the album.
In addition to help from producer Nick Rowe, Puciato called upon Poison The Well, etc. drummer Chris Hornbrook and his Killer Be Killed bandmate Ben Koller (also of Converge, Mutoid Man, etc.) to flesh out the percussion on the record. Speaking of taking on the bulk of the instrumental duties for the album by himself, Puciato told the aforementioned publication:
“Everything except for the drums. Some of it is electronic and doesn’t have drums – in which case I’ve programmed them or had Nick Rowe help me. But I’ve known Chris Hornbrook since we were 23. He knows how to hit a drum. For a lot of the songs on this record, I knew he was the guy. And then Ben Koller – who drums in Killer Be Killed, Converge and All Pigs Must Die – is on a track. Chris Pennie, the original Dillinger drummer, is on a track, too. He’s also done some orchestration and additional instrumentation on a few tracks as well.”
As for where the album falls lyrically, he offered:
“…This record is post-Black Queen, but it’s hard to tell. When I read these lyrics they do feel a little bit like Dillinger, but they also feel like Black Queen, too. Those two bands are almost like two different aspects of my personality.
I think this record has merged them in a way that they don’t feel like either band, but they do have hints of both. There are songs that sound like nothing people have ever heard me do. And that’s saying a lot, because Dillinger did a lot of different stuff.
But the whole record is sort of celebrating integration, which is something I had a really hard time with in the past, and celebrating owning every aspect of your personality. There’s a lot of newness on this record. It’s not Black Queen meets Dillinger.”
When asked at how his relationship with himself has been impacted by switching gears through his various projects, he replied:
“I just see it as part of this long artistic trajectory. Since Dillinger, I’ve become way more integrated. By the end, all I wanted to do was get away. I was like, ‘I gotta get away from this kind of music, I gotta get away from this emotional energy. I can’t be around this intensity all the time. It’s fucking draining me as a person.’
Now, because I’ve already done so many things… I move forward. Getting done with [The Black Queen’s 2018 album] Infinite Games, move forward. Getting done with the book, move forward. Getting done on the solo record…”
As for the progress on the sophomore album from the Killer Be Killed supergroup, which finds Puciato and Koller teamed with Max Cavalera (Soulfly), Troy Sanders (Mastodon) and Juan Montoya (ex-Torche), Puciato revealed:
“We’ve done a lot, man (laughs). That’s its own thing, and I don’t want to muddy the waters, because we’ve all made a pact that none of us are going to be the person who fucks up and says more than we should say. I will tell you this: it’s not done. And until a record is done, it’s like counting the cheque before it’s cashed.
All of us have been burned by this before. We are significantly further along than we were back then. But we’ve definitely said we’re not going to make any claims as to when it’ll come out or when it’s gonna be done.”
You can read more about how Puciato‘s relationship with Alice In Chains‘s Jerry Cantrell influenced this upcoming solo album and more over at Kerrang!.
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