DINO CAZARES Although, one might not guess it from their name, the only one who should be afraid of Fear Factory is the one who chooses to compete with them, musically. Fear Factory, made up of Dino Cazares on guitar, Raymond Herrera on drums, Christian Olde Wolbers on bass, and Burton C. Bell doing the vocals, is one of the most exciting and ambitious heavy metal bands in existence. With two albums released and a number of tours under their belt, Fear Factory has earned the respect and recognition they deserve. I recently conducted an interview with the band's guitarist and "heavy-duty scarifier," Dino Cazares. Avion: How did you get started? Cazares: After the first three months together, we did a demo, and it was like a seven song demo. ...this was about five years and some months ago, that we did this. And that was in '91,...and we got a few responses. Then we did a second demo a few months later, and it had, like, sixteen songs on it. We sent that out and, all of a sudden, we got instant response. People were just ready to sign the band. You know, we weren't even together a year before this happened. Avion: That was just three of you, right? The other guy [Christian Olde Wolbers] hadn't started with you? Cazares: Yeah. Well, we didn't really have a bass player...until this record. He [the bass player listed on the first album] didn't even actually play on the record. I played all the bass on the record. We just put him in there as a face. And, he played with us for that year. And, then, later on, he left and did his own thing, so now, finally, we've got a permanent bass player. He's from Belgium, and his name is Christian Olde Wolbers. Avion: So, you did that demo and you got pretty successful after that. Cazares: Well, the demo got assigned, and we chose Roadrunner as a label. Then, we just started touring since then. And, you know, a band like us, we don't rely on commercial radio or commercial television. We had MTV, so we just had to keep on touring and touring and touring. Avion: But you enjoy that? Cazares: Oh, totally. We totally love it. Of course, there are times, when you stay out over a couple of months, and you get kind of worn down. You've got to come home for a while. But, once you've come home, like, the first couple of weeks you're home, you want to go back out. I've been home for a month, already. All of January, and I just want to go out. And, you know, we're doing this Iron Maiden tour... We went on tour with a lot of older bands; Megadeth, the Ozzie tour, and now we're doing the Iron Maiden tour. We've just got to stay out there and keep on doing it. Avion: Where do you get your inspiration? I mean, do you have a favorite band? Cazares: I really don't base my music on one particular band or one style of music, whatsoever. I mean, everybody on this band has definitely different tastes. And, we do agree on a lot of things, in music... Some of the influences are on the record... Everything from hard-core to New Wave to Techno to Industrial. It's just a mixture of so much good stuff. It's kind of hard to pinpoint one style or one particular band that really influenced us. Avion: Yeah, I noticed. When I listened to your second album Demanufacture], it doesn't sound like anything else. It's sounds very distinctive. Cazares: Yeah. There's a couple of bands that have really been influenced by us, that are really good, actually. There's one band called Misery Loves Company. They're very much Fear Factory-ish. There's another band...called Lost Souls. I think that they listened to our record, and actually wrote their record, listening to our record. I can tell that we've influenced a new wave of younger bands... There's older bands, like Ministry to Nine Inch Nails to, you know, Techno bands that can say, they influenced us. Avion: What do you like to do when you're not performing? Cazares: I scout a lot of bands in Los Angeles. There's a lot of good bands here, like Manhole, Cool Chamber, Snot. There's a lot of new bands coming out. Burton's more like a homey kind of guy. Stays at home and writes, stuff like that. Raymond, our drummer, is a video-game addict, and he works in a video game store. So, he's got all the new systems; 3DO, Sony Playstation, and that kind of stuff. Our bass player is more into the beach life, because he lives at Venice Beach. He likes to hang out there. Avion: But, you don't usually have a lot of time between your tours? Cazares: Well, this is actually one of the longest times I've had, and it was one month. And, if we're not writing for a new record, well, like last time, between albums, we were touring most of the time. For like, two years. But it took us about eight months to do the record. It took us a whole year before it was actually out. So, it was three years in between albums. Now, what I'm going to do is, after all these tours are over, because we're going to be busy all the way up to September, we're going to be doing the States tour, we're going to be going to Australia, New Zealand, Japan, then we'll be going out to Europe, and doing an extensive three-month tour in Europe. Then, we'll be coming back to the States and doing another tour. Then after that, we're going to be doing remixes. And it's almost like a reconstruction, not just remix, of the songs. Totally do them in a different version. That's going to come out in between records, to keep it flowing, you know what I mean? When that's done, we're going to start writing some new records. Remixes usually take about a month; they'll take less than a record. I would expect the new record out by next year, 1997. New Year, new album. Avion: Well, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to me. I know you're kind of busy. Cazares: Well, thanks for interviewing me.