Greg: loving the solo life
In 2001, Greg Puciato became the frontman of notoriously chaotic upstarts The Dillinger Escape Plan. Not only did Dillinger’s live shows become legendary for the way that Greg and his bandmates pushed their bodies to the limit, the records they made showed incredible growth; from the mathnoise terrorism of their early days to the vast, alt-synth-jazzmetal mash-ups of their latter albums, none of it would have been possible without Greg’s pipes. As we introduce ourselves over Zoom, and joke that every question will be about his infamous bowel movement onstage at Reading Festival in 2002, he sighs and tells us, “It’s so weird, because it never gets brought up anywhere else except the UK! I’d just say the same thing I have already said.” His boredom with the topic is fair enough, because there’s so much more to the man than one dirty protest from 20 years ago.
Metal mourned when Dillinger called it quits in 2017, but it was far from the end for Greg. He’s continued to explore his creative urges in supergroup Killer Be Killed (alongside legends Max Cavalera and Troy Sanders), released ambient electro-pop albums with his band The Black Queen, and produced impossible-to-categorise solo material, including his new album, Mirrorcell. He also worked on Brighten, last year’s solo album from Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell, who calls during our conversation. Greg, ever the gentleman, will ignore it and tell us, “You’re more important.” Aww, shucks! It’s clear Greg’s the most fascinating character on this particular call, as he talks us through