Greg Puciato on New Book Written During Dillinger Escape Plan's Dark Final Days
KONTAK PERKASA FUTURES - Greg Puciato is a busy, some would say manic, person. His wild, reckless performances as frontman of the Dillinger Escape Plan are untouchable in their lore, and yet his transition from this high-energy, sometimes destructive style of music to the calmer, more introspective vibe of the Black Queen's lush electronic synth-pop was shockingly seamless. Since DEP came to an end, he's held onto a secret: a book of poems and photos he created during the band's last tour, a time of intense anxiety and unrest for the singer.
KONTAK PERKASA FUTURES - When he picked up the phone for a recent chat with Revolver, his characteristically passionate disposition was clear before the topic of the book even came up. He spent two solid minutes expounding on the benefits of Apple AirPods, explaining how they helped him get past his phone aversion and made him want to call his friends nonstop now, thus directing the conversation into a fun, lighthearted place, offsetting the dark, deeply traumatic tone the book, titled Separate the Dawn, sometimes takes.
KONTAK PERKASA FUTURES - Putting it lightly, Separate the Dawn is heavy. The themes explored throughout are addressed from the perspective of someone standing on the edge of a cliff while fire closes in from the back, and the only option left it to jump and find out if flight is possible. Childhood trauma segues into substance abuse, empty sex filters through the intimacy issues Puciato has discussed with Revolver before, and the whole project is cemented with intensely beautiful, abstract photographs that feature unrecognizable structures and their close-up details that convey a feeling of profound sadness among his deeply moving words.
As a complete work, the book is absorbing and unpretentious, a rare balance to strike when delving into the saturated, self-indulgent world of poetry. Much like his work in music, Puciato has no problem ripping himself open to bleed on the page. Separate the Dawn is set for digital release on February 12th, the two-year anniversary of the infamous Dillinger bus crash, an event that acted as what the singer describes as an "emotional torpedo" that shot him further into the depths of anxiety, eventually forcing him to confront the unresolved psychological issues he'd been burying.
"A lot of your identity is as the mascot of this band," he says of his time as Dillinger's frontman. "You're like, 'Well, what happened to the person before this is what happened and do I have enough of another person outside of this to withstand losing this massive identity?'" Luckily, through realizations like this and intense self-examination, Puciato has uncovered new facets of himself that let his true creative self shine. Below, the artist discusses how this book came to be, what it's been like to heal from such an enormous transition in his professional life, and why giving up his past coping mechanisms shed light on the problems that drove him to self-destruction in the first place.
Source : revolvermag.com
