Greg Puciato
Gregory John Puciato is an American musician best known as the former lead vocalist and lyricist of the metalcore band the Dillinger Escape Plan. In addition to being a solo artist, he currently fronts Better Lovers and the Black Queen, and is a member of Killer Be Killed, in which he also plays guitar. He also performs alongside Jerry Cantrell providing backup vocals and lead vocals on Layne Staley-sung songs for Cantrell's solo tours. In 2018, Puciato and visual artist Jesse Draxler co-founded the art collective and record label Federal Prisoner.
Puciato is noted for the intensity of his live performances, wide vocal and stylistic range, outspoken views, and controversy stemming from his bands' performances and interviews. Rolling Stone said that "few singers live, breathe and often literally bleed their art like he does." In 2023, Jake Richardson of Loudwire described his style as "echoing the band’s varied and technically proficient take on metalcore."
Early life
Puciato was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. He is an only child. His Belarusian ancestors came to the United States from Slutsk. Puciato's parents owned many vinyl records by artists such as Elton John, Bee Gees, Prince, Black Sabbath, Mitch Miller and Molly Hatchet, as well as an old victrola, and they bought him a small 7-inch record player. They listened to music constantly and Puciato's early memories include beating on things to drum along, and singing along, it. In recent years, Puciato revealed that he grew up in a dangerous, poor neighborhood, which "giant" influenced him in the sense that he does not "feel uncomfortable in any area," while the African-American culture of the area led to his fondness for R&B and hip-hop. As a child, Guns N' Roses was the first band Puciato was "obsessed with." Around the age of nine, he saw Metallica's video for "One", which was the "darkest thing " and inspired him to learn Metallica songs on the guitar. During this period, he describes his life as centered around thrash metal and Nintendo. In early 1990, Puciato went "through a really rapid musical evolution," broadening his taste to bands such as Faith No More and Primus. When recalling the appearance of these or other artists such as Nine Inch Nails on TV, he viewed it as "inspiring" and said it "seemed like the weirdos had infiltrated the system, or created a new one." Puciato had several older friends who traded tapes and they would introduce him to underground music; when Puciato told one of them which were his favorites bands, his friend gave him a tape of I Against I by Bad Brains that "blew mind apart" and subsequently showed him a 1980s' Bad Brains live bootleg that would make a long-standing impression on the singer. In 2013 he reflected:Puciato recorded his first cassette at thirteen, performing original music with his best friend who was a drummer. When he was a teenager, Puciato began to write abstract poetry, his first passion in parallel to songwriting. At the age of fourteen, Puciato started singing for a thrash metal group. While originally their guitarist, he switched to vocals because he was "too much of a control freak to let someone else sing" and could not perform both at the same time, but he continued writing the band's songs on guitar. After people started praising his singing ability and Puciato realized that it came more naturally to him, he shifted his focus to vocals.
Although raised in a non-practicing home, Puciato attended a Catholic private school. He was a good student and skipped grades, graduating one month after he turned 17. He went to college in Maryland and after a year of studying he took a break, during which he was invited to join the Dillinger Escape Plan.
Career
The Dillinger Escape Plan
Puciato joined mathcore band the Dillinger Escape Plan in September 2001 and first performed with the group weeks later at the CMJ music conference in October 2001. Puciato had already played in some bands from the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area, but, at that time, he preferred to refine his vocal style than commit full-time to a band, and waited for the "right opportunity" to do so. In a scenario mirroring that of young Henry Rollins and Black Flag, Puciato started out as a fan of the Dillinger Escape Plan in their earlier days. When the band split with their singer Dimitri Minakakis, they searched publicly for a new singer by releasing the instrumental version of the song "43% Burnt". Puciato sent in a tape with one version of him mimicking Dimitri Minakakis and one with his own take on the song. He was contacted shortly after by the band, auditioned in person, and was subsequently asked to join. Coincidentally, the band's first release with Puciato was for a Black Flag tribute compilation, where they covered "Damaged I and II". In a 2003 interview, Puciato said that the band had gone on to "mean everything to" him. Commenting on his entrance to the band in 2013, Puciato recalled: Puciato sang on every subsequent release.In August 2016, he told Metal Hammer magazine that the previously announced Dillinger "hiatus" was in fact a "break up" and explained the artistic reasoning for doing so.
Spylacopa
Puciato was involved with Spylacopa, an experimental musical project headed by Candiria guitarist John LaMacchia. Spylacopa released a self-titled EP in 2008, with vocals, as well as some guitar and piano/programming, written by Puciato. Similar programming and piano playing would appear on the Dillinger Escape Plan's Option Paralysis album as the bonus track "Chuck McChip". Puciato affirmed in 2012 that Spylacopa is "dead as of now."Killer Be Killed
In February 2011, Max Cavalera, in an interview with Swedish magazine Metalshrine, revealed that he and Puciato were working on a full-length album, similar in style to Cavalera's Nailbomb project. The band, later named Killer Be Killed, was announced in 2013 to feature former Mars Volta drummer Dave Elitch, and Troy Sanders of Mastodon. In September 2013 the band recorded their self-titled debut album at Fortress Studio in Los Angeles with producer Josh Wilbur. It was released on May 13, 2014. The sophomore release Reluctant Hero was released on November 20, 2020, with Elitch having been replaced in the interim years by Ben Koller of Converge.The Black Queen
Puciato announced in an interview with Revolver Magazine that he was involved in a new band with Josh Eustis and Nine Inch Nails/A Perfect Circle guitar technician Steven Alexander, called the Black Queen, with a release originally expected at some stage in 2014. The band posted their first song, "The End Where We Start", and an explanation for the long wait in June 2015. The debut album Fever Daydream was self-released on January 29, 2016, debuting at number 2 on the Billboard Electronic chart.On June 15, 2018, the band announced that a new album called Infinite Games would be released on September 28, as well as the formation of a label named Federal Prisoner with frequent visual collaborator and fine artist Jesse Draxler.
Federal Prisoner
In June 2018, Puciato announced the formation of the record label and art collective Federal Prisoner, as well as its first release, the Black Queen's second album Infinite Games. Co-founded by him and visual artist Jesse Draxler, he called the label "as much an act of refusal as it is a statement of intent", further elaborating in a blog post for Spotify that they would be "giving more than we would be gaining" by signing to an outside label, and that "everything I used to see as help, I suddenly saw as unnecessary at best, and a liability at worst."Puciato sees Federal Prisoner as an "infrastructure" to release material dear to them rather than a label which tries "to go out there to sign this really big artist." Federal Prisoner started off completely from scratch and its output has been independently released and funded in every way, including international distribution and music videos, without being assisted by other labels.
The template for the label was established in the 2016 Black Queen's debut record, Fever Daydream, where Puciato set about developing every aspect of the album by themselves, both musically and non-musically, tackling record pressings, merchandise, managing, etc. The Independent commented that the enterprise involved "a wealth of difficulties", stating that "they could have easily secured label funding considering the associations that each member has with established bands", yet Puciato saw it as rewarding because in the end they did not "corrupt" any aspect of the band, in particular its aesthetic, which "is on everything touches ." When Fever Daydream was released, the singer was initially against the use of a moniker but later changed his mind after discussing the logistics with Draxler.
Better Lovers
In 2023, Puciato formed Better Lovers along with former Every Time I Die members as well as producer and Fit for an Autopsy guitarist Will Putney. They released their debut album Highly Irresponsible on October 25, 2024.Solo career
On March 1, 2020, Puciato premiered the single "Fire For Water" on BBC Radio 1, featuring Dillinger original drummer Chris Pennie. The next day, he released a music video for the song on Revolver. The surprise single was the first off of his debut solo album, Child Soldier: Creator of God, announced that day, which will be released through Federal Prisoner. On May 1, Puciato released the second single "Deep Set" alongside its music video premiered on Consequence of Sound. Both 12-inch vinyls were limited to 250 copies and each sold out within hours, but digital editions remain available.More singles were released, culminating in Child Soldier: Creator of God, a 15-song multi-genre album released early due to a leak on October 9, 2020. The live album/video release "Fuck Content" followed later in the same year, with five new songs and eleven live songs.