Greg Puciato (The Black Queen, Jerry Cantrell, ex-The Dillinger Escape Plan/Better Lovers) took part in an interview with Lochlan Watt for the latter’s ‘Music Is My Life‘ podcast amid what turned out to be his final tour with Better Lovers this past January. Less than a month after concluding that Australian run, Puciato & Better Lovers parted ways, with both parties indicating the split was amicable.
This lengthy newly published discussion found Puciato being posed the question of if he would ever return to front The Dillinger Escape Plan. After a lengthy run of farewell shows, that celebrated mathcore band hung it up back in 2017. However, 2023 saw Puciato‘s former bandmates reunite in celebration of their debut outing “Calculating Infinity” — an effort that predated Puciato‘s involvement.
The Dillinger Escape Plan have continued to tour on the back of that album since with their original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis back in the fold. While fans of the band have hoped that The Dillinger Escape Plan‘s ongoing activities may eventually welcome the return of Puciato — especially after his Better Lovers exit — thus far there has been no public indication of such a reunion.
Upon returning to active duty several years ago now, The Dillinger Escape Plan‘s driving force, guitarist Ben Weinman, did note the band had some internal tensions with Puciato, briefly touching upon conflicting “values.” Speaking in 2023, Weinman also revealed he hadn’t spoken to Puciato since the band called it quits.
Speaking in this new chat, Watt posed the question to Puciato of if he would ever return to front the band. Watt eased into it by first asking Puciato if still thinks about Dillinger these days, to which Puciato responded [transcribed by Blabbermouth.net]:
“It’s hard [not to] because it’s in your face all the time. It’s in my face all the time. It’s impossible [not to think about it]. Every single show, there’s people with the shirts, every single show there’s people outside that [have] a record [for me] to sign. They’ve got ‘Ire Works‘, they’ve got ‘One Of Us Is The Killer‘, or they’re asking me about it. But I’m proud of it. I’m not, like, ‘F*ck, that’s not me anymore. No one talk to me about that.’ I’m proud of it. It made both of our, and everyone involved, lives possible to a degree.
Everything that anyone who is majorly important in that band has done since stemmed from our involvement with each other. So I look at it positively. There’s not a single ounce of me that has any negativity towards it. And, yeah, I would say that every day of my life, I’m aware of it, but I’m not thinking about it, if that makes sense. Because you can’t — you need to let yourself be who you are right now. I think the only way to do that is to keep looking forward. You can be aware of what happened behind you, but you don’t wanna like turn around and look at it.
Just kind of be aware of it. It’s no different to me than high school or middle school or elementary school. You know that you went through it, it’s a huge part of your development, you’re proud of everything that happened during that time, or an ex or something like that, but you gotta keep going that way.”
As for the band now touring on “Calculating Infinity, Puciato offered:
“‘Calculating Infinity‘ is massively important. I bought it the day it came out. I was a fan of that band… But, yeah, Dimitri was perfect on that record. That record’s got a vibe that, unlike all of our other records, it’s a very isolated vibe, whereas after that, we started becoming a different band, where we had pretty much a lot of different possibilities vocally and creatively. But I think that that record is so pointed — it’s such a pointed vibe — and for me it’s still cool.
It’s so funny ’cause people expect me to have some negative [opinion of what they are doing], like, ‘Fuck that.’ But I wasn’t on that record. What would be goofy is if I was included in that. I don’t have anything to do with that record. Why would I go out and play that record? If they’re doing like a playthrough of that record, I don’t need to be there just for the fuck of it. If they went out and did a ‘Miss Machine‘ playthrough, or a ‘One Of Us Is The Killer‘ playthrough… I mean, they, obviously that’s not gonna happen, but…”
Puciato was also quizzed about the possibility of him ever reuniting with The Dillinger Escape Plan for a “Miss Machine” anniversary tour, he offered:
“There’s something about doing that, to me, that you really gotta put a cap on it if you were to do it. I feel like it would be a concession in a way to like be, like, ‘Oh, I’m no longer…’ That’s what I used to think. I would be, like, ‘Oh, I, I need to be creatively valid now.’ It doesn’t really interest me, ’cause it takes a lot of your time to do that. And I have a lot of gas for doing new things. I wanna write new music. I wanna write new songs, do new things, collaborate with new people. I’m excited about music, I’m excited about art, and I’m excited about singing.
You already have to drag around something you already did when you go on tour. We already were playing songs from 15 years ago when the band was still going. We were playing ‘Panasonic Youth‘ every night, and it started to become, like, ‘F*cking hell, man. How many times…?’ … So you gotta step away. So when the band ended, I would’ve told you no way. There’s no f*cking way. It’s gonna take too much of my time. I came outta that band just feeling like I was shot out of a rocket and like I had so much fuel for doing new sh*t. There was no question. I wasn’t, like, ‘What am I gonna do now?’ I was filled with fuel.”
“Now — would I do it? I wouldn’t do a ‘Miss Machine‘ playthrough, ’cause I think that’s a little weird. There’s no real need. They’re doing a one album playthrough, because that’s the only album really that there is [with Dimitri], besides the EPs and stuff. It would have to encapsulate everything from ‘Miss Machine‘ to ‘Dissociation‘, and it would have to have a cap on it. Because the more you start doing that — it’s easy money too, and then you’re, like, you start feeling, like, you’re getting this money, but your life is passing.
I’m 46 almost, and it’s, like, what am I gonna do? Do it for a couple years, then suddenly you’re 48. You can’t let it take up too much of your time. You gotta just keep doing new things. And then you get hooked… There is something about it where you have to feel good about the fact that you got enough new things going that that’s not your whole identity anymore, and you could still go back to it without it sucking up all your time.”
Later in the chat, Puciato discussed his relationship with Weinman, stating, “…Anyone who’s like I’m Ben‘s team or I’m Greg team. I’m like, you realize you’re making this f*cking sh*t up, right? Like there’s not, you know… it doesn’t really exist.” When then asked if he ran into Weinman now if they would have be able to have a chat, Puciato replied [transcribed by theprp.com]::
“I don’t think I could see him without wanting to punch him in the face — No, I’m kidding. I don’t think I could… I’m totally kidding. I I don’t think I could see him without smiling. I just don’t think, like because at the end of the day, all the stuff that you created together has a lot more weight and a lot more positivity. And you were in the trenches with this dude, man. You know?
There’s people… I’ve been in the trenches with that dude. And even if we weren’t getting along offstage, we went on stage and I knew that he’s he’s going to air every f*cking bit out. I’m going to air every bit out. If I get in a fight with security guard — even if we were fighting right before we got on stage — if I get in a fight with security guard, Ben‘s going to be swinging his guitar at that motherf*cker the second he sees that he’s got a hand on me, you know?
And we brought the best out in each other… at a time in our life where we didn’t really know each other that well. Not each other, we didn’t know ourselves that well. We still hadn’t worked through all our sh*t. He had sh*t to work through. I had sh*t to work through. And when you’re younger and you’re in a band, you’re kind of always putting that to the side to progress the band.
And what happens is you end up kind of trying to work through it through each other, like fighting each other. And then you know things like f*cking jockeying for power or being like, ‘this is my band?’ ‘No, it’s my band.’ You know? You’re kind of like always fighting for… If you have two leads, and it’s like are you the main guy and I’m the f*cking sidekick? Or are you the main? But no, you’re both leads.
That requires a really intense kind of relationship. There’s a book out there called The Power Of Two. And it’s about creative partners who had those kind of relationships, whether it’s Lennon and McCartney or you know, there’s plenty of tales of that sort of thing. It’s why lead guitar players and singers often times… it’s an archetype, you know?
And it’s just comical that it seems almost impossible to not happen, especially if you’re young for that. Because you have to figure out who you are without the thing, but you’re trying to figure out who you are in the thing, and that’s just very, very tough, you know?
But no, now that it’s all over with, and we’ve both been successful, we have identities that aren’t dependent on that band. Like my identity isn’t The Dillinger Escape Plan. His identity isn’t Dillinger Escape Plan. If I do something publicly, or say something in an interview, or act a way that he doesn’t vibe with, I’m not representing the just one, it’s not representing just that band. It’s representing you the person, you know?
But when you’re in the band and that’s the only thing you got going on, you’re representing everybody, and it’s very difficult to only have that. Since then it’s like I’ve done a bunch of bands, you know, he’s married, he’s got kids, he’s got businesses, Suicidal Tendencies — you have all these other components to your identity, so it’s not so much… it’s not so drastic if somebody… If I do drugs and he’s straight edge, or if I go here and he doesn’t, and I say this and he doesn’t agree with it, you’re not so wrapped up in [it], ‘like that guy doesn’t represent me.’ It’s like no you’ve got enough now to represent yourself. You don’t have to do that.
So, yeah, I think if I saw him, I would, regardless of what the outcome would be, or if we hung out or something, I don’t think I’d be able to walk up to him without smiling, you know? I don’t think there’s any way that could happen.”
When Watt joked, “You’d punch him in the face and give him a bug hug.” Puciato laughed, firing back with, “That was kind of our relationship in in a nutshell anyway.”
