Groove – Episode #28: Liam Wilson

It cannot be argued that The Dillinger Escape Plan is one of the heaviest bands our world has seen. From their early days in the late nineties, I would frequent their mathcore shows, and marvel at just how much the heavy music genre had progressed. When I was a young metalhead, I could never imagine music much heavier than Slayer’s 1986 album, Reign In Blood. Yet, Dillinger Escape Plan was this perfect merger of hardcore, punk, metal and something else.

Liam Wilson has been playing bass in the band since the autumn of 2000. Along with the band’s music, Liam is also a vegan and active environmentalist, yoga practitioner and traveler. He’s even written several columns for Bass Player Magazine on the virtues of Bikram Yoga and how it interplays with the instrument that we all love so much.

When we conducted this conversation, it was already announced that The Dillinger Escape Plan would be doing a final tour, and then go on an indefinite hiatus. Some say that the band is breaking up permanently. Not long after our conversation, the band was involved in a tour bus accident in Europe. Thirteen people were injured, but the band members were not seriously hurt. Since this conversation, Liam and I have chatted, as he works through the aftermath of the accident and begins work on his latest project, John Frum, which is being described as “darkly psychedelic and meticulously crafted death metal.”

Enjoy the conversation…