Tuesday, March 17, 2009

The Dillinger Escape Plan on Earache


Question: What actually happened with earache\'s relationship with the dillinger escape plan? im wondering as it seems a little short term, surely you would have tried to keep hold of the band longer? Especially with whats happening with them now. I mean how many other obscurish experimental metal bands appear on conan o brian\'s show? From:


Answer: On the front of our earache.com website sits the list of the bands we have signed and worked with over the years.Mostly, its bands we signed before their debut records and Earache can take the credit for planning their careers from the absolute beginning, in many cases we worked with those bands on that list for a decade or more.Dillinger Escape Plan is an exception to that- we can't claim to have been involved in the band's phenomenally succesful period around "Calculating Infinity" that was the work of Relapse and the band's own punishing tour schedule and incredibly energetic live shows.Earache was late to the party on this one.

DEP's debut on Now Or Never Records is now hailed as a classic of the 'mathcore' genre but it was not always considered that way. When I first heard it, I wasn't that impressed -I think NON's Matty Beckerman was interning at Earache at the time, it was his first release by a bunch of his friends, and he was incredibly proud of it.It was decent and certainly original- we called it 'stop-start Hardcore' in the office, because there was no such thing as a mathcore scene then.DEP truly were the first band doing that convoluted yet intense stop-on-a-dime HC style.At the time Earache could have signed DEP easily, but- maybe because they were simply a bunch of unassuming HC kids from New Jersey- it did'nt grab me enough to make an offer, so the opportunity passed us by.

However, as the bands momentum began to rise, I quickly realised I was an idiot to let them pass, and went back to Matty to buy up a license for the record. That's how The Dillinger Escape Plan S/T debut record eventually ended up in our catalog anyway - better late than never eh?

1 comment:

oldirtydep said...

you slept on it! and start-stop hc is funny. I agree, the first release didnt really indicate how amazing a band they would become. How about adding some bonus content to future repressings to make up for the missing infintiy live tracks? like bens remixes or something.