Fear Factory interview A Little Background.. Fear Factory, the guys who helped creat the sound of the 90's are coming back with a new CD in 2001 to show us all they still have the fire burning within. Mikey met up with Dino to talk about the new CD, Digimortal. BrakeOut - Interviewer Dino - Fear Factory Guitarist BrakeOut: How did you go about writing the album, and was the music written on the road or back at home? Dino: It was written at home, we toured for 2 years on obsolete, and it's kinda hard writing on the road, because its two different mind frames, when I'm on the road I can only concentrate on one thing. So we got home and we took a couple of months off, over Christmas, January, February, and we started writing the album late February, early March. It basically started with me ray and Christian just going in and writing riffs and beats and shit, then we recorded it all, and then we brought Burton back in like a month later. We just showed him the music and he just started singing stuff over it, we were throwing ideas round, but it wasn't really until we got the title of the album, Digimortal, that we really knew what direction we wanted to go in. BrakeOut: Did the recording process take a long time for this cd, because I know you had a lot of hassles with Demanufacture? Dino: Yeh well we mixed that cd twice, we recorded it and our producer Colin Richardson mixed it and we were like 'Oh this is weak,' and so we fired him halfway through, and got Rhys Fulber in. This record was much quicker, because we did a lot of preparation for it. BrakeOut: Did Rhys do any work on Soul of a New Machine? Dino: No he came in on the Fear is the Mindkiller EP, and actually Australia is the only place we ever toured for that CD. I think Soul of a New Machine was more of a raw death metal album, and then we combined the two styles and that's what made Demanufacture. BrakeOut: You can definitely hear the difference in style on that cd. Dino: Totally, fuck yeah, that record inspired so many fucking people, everyone from meshuggah to static-x to you name it, a lot bands were inspired by that cd, I think it took metal to a new level. BrakeOut: Obsolete was a concept album, based around a storyline, is the new album going to be like that? Dino: The new album, there was no space for the concept (in the booklet), because we had lyrics, and photos and everything, so for kids that want to read the storyline, they will be able to go to our website BrakeOut: What's the story behind the artwork on the cover of Digimortal? Dino: It's like the shape of a man, it's supposed to represent a computer chip, like it's saying you can download your soul and put it on a computer chip. The concept Digimortal was about digital immortality. The last record was about technology evolving faster than we had as people, about man becoming obsolete, and there was war going on between man and machine, and the new cd is about how technology can't grow without man, and how man and machine, one can't exist without the other. Like we are at a totally new era, we can clone sheep, cows, fuckin dogs, and now their talking about cloning babies. We new it was coming, and what we are basically saying is if we can clone you, its going to look like you, act like you, but its not going to have your memories and shit, like its not going to remember when you stage dived at a concert and hurt your shoulder, it's not going to have that memory, so basically what it's saying is that you can download your soul, your memories, all your life experiences, onto a computer chip, and transfer it into a clone, and basically you can live forever. BrakeOut: When you're putting all these concepts together, is it a group effort? Dino: We basically had a piece of cardboard on the wall and everyone was adding ideas and stuff, like Burton would think of something and he'd write it on the piece of cardboard and we'd be like oh that's cool man. I remember when Digimortal was up there, and I new that should be the name of the record. BrakeOut: So the idea for the title, that was Burtons idea? Dino: Yeah BrakeOut: Demanufacture and Soul of a New machine had remixes, both had remixes done from them, are you planning to remix the new cd? Dino: Yeah the funny thing about that is when we put out remixes in the past everyone was like 'oh my god fear factory is turning into a techno band' but then everyone went out on bought it and liked it, and now that we didn't do remixes for obsolete people are like where are the remixes? So I was like 'I thought you didn't like them?' and they said 'oh nah they were cool', but I think during obsolete it was trendy, a lot of bands were doing it you know, and we thought maybe the fans won't like it, but a lot of people are asking for it so we are going to do it for this record. A lot of it is going to be for video games. BrakeOut: While we're on that, is that just Ray's thing, or are you all involved? Dino: Well we are all into it but Ray's the one that talks to all the video game companies, and he tests games and stuff. Basically how it started was we were playing games and saying to ourselves, oh this music sucks you know, so Raymond looked up the name of the company and just tried to talk to people. Finally we'd get onto the guy and he'd be like a fear factory fan, so we got our foot in the door. Now a lot of companies ask us for songs for games. BrakeOut: What about movies? Dino: Yeah we do a few soundtracks and stuff, but we don't do many, mainly they get like top 40 bands to sell the soundtracks, and videogames don't sell soundtracks you know, and these guys love this music and they want killer music on the games. BrakeOut: What do you think about working with other artists on your albums? Dino: Well I think that's cool, but I don't want to go overboard, like I don't want our album to be Fear Factory and guests you know? I just like to keep maybe one guy. I don't want to name any names but a lot of bands are getting like four or five different guys on their albums. BrakeOut: What do you think of all the stuff like MP3's and Napster? Dino: Oh man, that shit is getting worse, the thing about that is that there is so much attention on it now, that everybody is going to it, like a while ago maybe half a million people log on, but now its like millions of people. Like you can just go download our record, why buy it? I think here in Australia tho you kinda get things late, like stuff is still really expensive, so I think that as soon as you guys are getting technology cheaper everybody is going to buy it. BrakeOut: On the technology topic, your music obviously has a lot to do with that, do you want technology to keep going ahead or do you think its bad? Dino: Well I think it depends on who gets a hold of it, like the cloning thing, what happens if someone brings back Hitler you know what I mean, if someone wants to clone the human race, the perfect race or something, that stuff could get really serious, but there's good sides to it you know, like you could clone a whole lot of hot chicks (laughing). BrakeOut: What do you think of all the Fear Factory websites out there? Dino: I think it's great, there are so many, like it just depends how much time you have to just sit there and read through email. Its great though, like Yani (Yani Pavlis, Fear Factory webmaster who recently passed away), he was really important for us, he was a big link between us and the fans, he was in touch with a lot of kids, and a lot of these kids became fans because of Yani, and because they couldn't talk to us all the time, he was always there, and he knew everything that was going on with the band, so all the kids would go straight to Yani. We actually did a deal recently with Music Vision, and they are going to do our site, and it's going to be a sick site but they aren't going to have the fan connection you know. They aren't going to be talking to the kids all the time. BrakeOut: What kind of bands do you guys like to tour with? Dino: A lot of times we will do tours just to gain more fans, like there are a lot of kids who haven't heard of us, trendy commercial kids, like we are touring with papa roach and a lot of their fans are like 12 year old kids and stuff who haven't heard of fear factory, so when we open up for papa roach and just go in there and rip assholes, we are going to get a whole lot of fans. BrakeOut: You guys played on the Sno-Core tour and played some new songs, how was that? Dino: It was awesome, we got an awesome response to the new songs, and we did four new songs. "Acres of skin" got the least response because nobody knew it, "what will become" got the best response because everybody already knew it, like there were fans singing along with the lyrics. "Acres of skin" was the first song, and we came out and everyone was like 'oh, new shit' and they were spun out BrakeOut: So have you got a full world tour planned? Dino: Well we have Europe, 2 tours in the US, then Japan in august, and straight back here (Australia in august September), because we kind of want to beat the rush you guys get in summer, and then maybe come back again later, for a second tour. BrakeOut: Are there any particular tracks that you really like playing live? Dino: Yeah like replica, self-bias resistor, demanufacture, edgecrusher, descent, of the new record I really like playing acres of skin, and what will become, and our old stuff, like scapegoat, martyr shit like that. BrakeOut: Do you still like playing the old stuff? Dino: Yeah it's cool, I love it. BrakeOut: You guys get labelled a lot with different genres, does that bother you? Dino: No it doesn't really matter because we have been called everything. Industrial, Techno, Death Metal, Grindcore, speed metal, new metal, new breed metal, melodic metal, all killer no filler (laughing) BrakeOut: Does the response you get from the fans after one album affect the next? Dino: Kind of, we try to cover what everyone likes. On this one we covered a wide spectrum, we looked back at all our old stuff. When we look back we look at everybody's favorite songs, and a lot of those are shorter songs, like replica, scapegoat, and a lot of those are simpler, or catchier, with melody. BrakeOut: Are there any songs on past albums you don't really like as much? Dino: Well the one song on the last album I didn't really like was the actual title track, off demanufacture, probably dog day sunrise, but people liked it, it was a single and shit. BrakeOut: You guys just did a new video, for the single linchpin, what's that like? Dino: That was awesome, it was actually shot it a factory, that produces parts for car wheels, and it switched between shots of machinery and cool shit like that, and the band playing. It starts out with like this machine pumping, along with that opening tune at the beginning of linchpin, and then it goes into the band playing and shit. BrakeOut: Well that's all we got time for, thanks for giving up your time to speak to us.