Metal Anarchy

As previously reported, The Black Queen, the synthwave project featuring Greg Puciato (ex-The Dillinger Escape Plan), recently recruited Danny Lohner (ex-Nine Inch Nails) and Chris Pennie (ex-The Dillinger Escape Plan) for their upcoming “Fever Daydream” 10th anniversary tour. Now, during an interview with Loudwire Nights, Puciato explained how the two musicians got involved in the trek.

Puciato said the following about Lohner:

“The first song with Dillinger that [I] recorded, the first original song was ‘Baby’s First Coffin,’ which was originally not written for ‘Miss Machine‘. It was written as a commissioned track for the ‘Underworld‘ soundtrack and Danny Lohner was the director of that soundtrack…that was the first time we had sort of an interaction.

And then I was asked to do some Nine Inch Nails [stuff] at their, at the time, final shows in Los Angeles. And one of the songs we did was ‘Mr. Self-Destruct‘ from ‘The Downward Spiral‘ and Danny came onstage, too, and guested on guitar. We kind of became cooler then. But then really, one of my best friends is Billy Howerdel from A Perfect Circle, one of my dearest, dearest friends. And he and Danny are extremely close.

And because of hanging out with Billy a lot, I’ve by proxy hung out with Danny a lot. And Danny and I have a very similar energy personality-wise and just get each other. When we were taking about doing this tour a few months ago, I don’t know why it jumped out.

We were talking about getting another member that could kind of play a lot of roles, to play synth, play guitar, play bass, musical direct if need be. I think it was Billy Howerdel who was like, ‘Dude, just talk to Danny Lohner.’”

He also added the following about Pennie:

“Danny‘s pretty responsible for this, honestly, because Danny was like, ‘Dude, we’ve got to get a fucking drummer.’ I’m like, I don’t want to get a drummer. I don’t like Depeche Mode when they have a drummer, I liked them before they had a drummer. We’re an electronic band. I’m not putting a fucking drummer onstage.

And he’s like, ‘No dude, fuck that. I was in Nine Inch Nails. You’ve got to listen to me’ … So I called Chris and we were talking about nothing, I wasn’t even thinking about this. We were talking about the Knicks [and] he was like, ‘Man, I can’t wait to see you in New York,’ and then I was just like, ‘Dude, I’m going to ask you something that you’re going to say no. I don’t know why I’m asking you this.’

I was like, ‘Do you ever want to come on tour again?’ And he’s like, ‘Are you serious? And do what?’ And I was like, oh dude, play drums? And he’s like, ‘Dude, yes.’”

He also discussed how Pennie impacted his career:

“We ended up meeting Gil Sharone [after Pennie left The Dillinger Escape Plan,] who kind of saved the day and sat in. It’s the weirdest fucking thing now. It’s like, you just keep going and shit starts getting weird. Because if Chris Pennie never quit Dillinger, which was so devastating at the time, I never meet Gil Sharone. Gil Sharone is who introduced me to Tyler Bates, who played with [Marilyn] Manson.

Tyler Bates is who asked me to do the Jerry Cantrell thing. So, Chris Pennie never quits the band, I never know Jerry Cantrell, that never even happens. And now he’s back in a different context. It’s just crazy … I always tell people, don’t think too much. Don’t decide ahead of time what something’s going to be to the degree that you get like fixed to it. Because the things that happen, they happen.

You’ve got to just start doing something. Like, okay, I’m going to do this Black Queen tour, even though I don’t really want to do anniversary tour shit, I’m going to do it.”

[via The PRP]