After interviewing Greg Puciato on THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN’s tour bus just hours before their sold-out show at The Blender Theatre in NYC, MetalSucks' Axl and Vince agreed upon two things: Puciato might be the best interview subject they’ve ever had, and he’s definitely the nicest. After half an hour of giving incredibly open, honest, and detailed answers to the MetalSucks boys’ every query, he told them they could just hang out and help themselves to some food and drinks from the band’s fridge. Some horrifically scary Satanic metal dude, Puciato is not.

Puciato shares his thoughts on The Dillinger Escape Plan’s current tour, the band’s new members, the making of the band's new album Ire Works, how he chooses song titles, and the lawsuits brought on by the angry parents of injured teenage concert goers. An excerpt from the chat follows:

MetalSucks: How long have you guys been out on the road so far?

Puciato: "This is two weeks and a day, today. And that’s the first time we’ve played shows in the last two years. It’s pretty crazy ‘cause we have two new people on stage who have never even played us before in front of people. And the reception has been better than ever, they’ve been totally embraced by our fans. And as far as consistency goes… I don’t think we’ve ever played this many shows in a row at such a consistent level. I don’t know whether’s that’s ‘cause we’ve had so much time off, or ‘cause there’s so much newness at once – between the two new members and the new record and I haven’t toured in awhile anyway, there’s just so much good energy. You know what I mean? We want to be here, it’s not just like “Fuck, this is the 200th show this year.” We’re still pretty fresh, so…"

MetalSucks: You actually just kind of addressed one of our questions: like you said, this is a very fresh line-up, but you obviously feel like it’s gelling…

Puciato: "Oh, man, I’ve never felt more confident going on stage that we’re gonna have a good show. I feel like if you’re playing shows – you don’t have a perfect 10 every night. There’s always two shows where you get a 10, but all the rest of them hover around 7 or 8, y’know? Whereas right now I feel like every show is a 9. And the odds of there being a 10 are much higher. There’s never time on stage when I’m mad because someone isn’t doing their job or someone’s fucking up a lot.

I was really worried. That first show we played, I was like “Am I gonna even be able to enjoy the show? Or am I gonna be so busy looking over and listening to the two new people that I’m not gonna feel comfortable?” ‘Cause being in a room practicing with people and actually being up on stage are two completely different things. But everything’s been great. It’s astonishing, honestly, considering the magnitude of the line-up changes."

MetalSucks: How has it been from the perspective of fans? Have they been embracing the changes?

Puciato: "Honestly, the fans kind of seem to be more into the new members than they were the old members (laughs). It’s funny, when we play shows, the only thing I hear in-between songs is kids being like (in screaming teenage girl voice) “GIL SHARONE!” and yelling about our new drummer. And that’s really cool for me to hear, because I remember when I first joined Dillinger – and it was way smaller back then – how fuckin’ nervous I was, and how I felt so aware that people were gonna be sitting there with their arms crossed, waiting to see someone fuck up.

And with Chris Pennie, he’s an original member, he’s been in the band for ten years, a lot of people consider his style of drumming to be pretty much a back-bone of what this is all about, so for Gil to be there… and not to like… y’know, everyone always says the new thing is better than the old thing, but there’s honestly… Chris is phenomenal, I would never, ever take anything away from him, he’s a ridiculous talent, but Gil’s just on another level. When I tell people that, they’re just like, “Yeah, the album sounds good,” but he’s the kind of person where you have to watch him play to really understand. There’s something innate in him that you can’t teach, that can’t be practiced for ten hours. He has some sense of rhythm and groove that we’ve never really had before in our music. Our music’s always been super technical and super fast, and Chris was perfect for that because he’s the type of drummer that wasn’t a feel player. Everything about Chris that was respectable was because Chris sits in a room and practices twelve hours a day,

turning a metronome little by little and grinding just a b.p.m. faster and faster every day. Whereas Gil has never been that type of player. It’s like the kid in school who always gets good grades because he studies all the time versus the kid in school who always gets good grades just because he’s naturally, like, fucking super gifted, y’know? Not that one’s necessarily better than the other…"

Read the full chat transcript here.