It’s been just over two years since the 2010 release of FEAR FACTORY’s brilliant comeback album Mechanize, yet so much metal has been issued during that time; it seems like a distant memory. “Oh I know; the music industry’s saturated,” admits FF vocalist Burton C. Bell. “It’s time to make people notice again.”
And that’s exactly what Bell and guitarist Dino Cazares plan to do with their brand new album, The Industrialist, released June 5th via Candlelight. Serving as their eighth studio effort, The Industrialist is a concept album. Now the Industrial Revolution occurred from 1750 to 1850; obviously not the time period that Fear Factory’s story takes place in. “Very true,” states Burton. “We were trying to come up with a title for a while. Dino came in one day and said The Industrialist. Obviously it deals with those barons of the late 18th century manufacturing and assembly lines; they were the industrialists of their age. After some thought, I turned it around and gave it a new entity; not only is The Industrialist a futuristic concept, it sonically influenced us as well. We wanted to go into the studio – me, Dino and Rhys (Fulber, producer) thought we should bring back that industrial element – make it more prominent and a hybrid with the metal again. As the story develops, I wanted to do something different, so the character I started writing about, this Automaton, became The Industrialist – the culmination of all industries. It was the best Automaton that could be made at that certain point in time in the future. As technology moves forward, that model becomes obsolete. The Industrialist is basically the prodigal son of all industry.”
So The Industrialist is a single super robot fighting for its own mechanical life? “I wouldn’t say it’s a super robot, but it’s the best tool all the manufacturing industries could make, combining all technologies at that point in time. As time has gone by, this Automaton has become more sentient, gaining memories and experience; it’s discovered the will to exist. It is showing the path to other types of its kind, other models, that we can survive. And so the fight of man against machine is from the machine’s point of view.”
Man versus machine and man versus technology are topics Fear Factory has always dabbled in, why revisit that subject matter again, as opposed to doing something completely different? “To me, it’s something I’ve always enjoyed; it is a different story. You know, if you do something well, why stop doing it? AC/DC – no one told them to be different.”
The Industrialist is very science-fiction oriented. Do you think that may alienate a few fans? “I’m not concerned about that at all. First and foremost it’s about the music. We’ve always been considered an industrial metal band, and that is what people hear first and foremost. There are those who delve deeper into concepts, lyrics, thoughts, ideas, theories, and that doesn’t scare them away.”
Learning that the entire Industrialist album features programmed drums, especially given the tremendous talent of previous Fear Factory drummers Raymond Herrera and Gene Hoglan, was very surprising. Why leave it up to a computer program this time? “Because it just seemed like a natural progression; when Demanufacture came out (in 1995), people thought it was a drum program. It was all about timing on this one; Gene had prior commitments that he couldn’t get out of. So we decided to do something different and actually write with a drum programmer, it made a lot of sense and actually made the whole process smoother, easier and quicker. It was like, man, we should have done this from the get-go.” And then you don’t have to pay a performance royalty. “Well… you know… that’s way, way on the backburner of thought, it was all about precision. Even if a drummer does it, he’s still got to go into the computer – for us at least – go into Pro Tools and make everything so precise. No matter how great the drummers we’ve had are, there’s still imperfections. With the drum program, it’s done. The fact that we’ve always had sampled sounds anyway… we were wasting all this time.”
Dino played bass on The Industrialist. “Yes sir.” So this time out, Fear Factory is really a duo with a sideman, that being producer/keyboardist Rhys Fulber. “Yeah, Rhys has pretty much always been a silent member. He’s always understood Fear Factory; he’s been there since the beginning in 1992. So it was a trio writing this record, and it worked out really well. There’s no denying, when people hear this, they’ll say ‘yeah this is Fear Factory’.”
How long did it take to record The Industrialist? “We started writing in October (2011) and we finished recording and mastering in March (2012).” Was it a difficult studio session, or did things go smoothly? “It was actually pretty smooth; everyone was all on the same page. And the fact that it was just the three of us really doing everything made it go quicker. I was working in Rhys’ studio a lot with the vocals, and Dino was in Logan’s studio doing the guitars and bass; Logan (Madder, former MACHINE HEAD guitarist) was a great guy, very helpful. There were really no hiccups at all; everyone had great ideas. It was an instant spark of creativity – for me, that’s what this whole record is.”
Throughout The Industrialist, Burton’s clean vocals and melodic choruses aren’t as prevalent as they have been on previous albums. “The music just dictates; if I feel a melody I’m going to feel it… if I don’t, I don’t. You shouldn’t force a melody when there’s not one there. They stand out as little pieces of gold here and there.”
Nine-minute album closer ‘Human Augmentation’ comes as a bit of shock in that it’s much slower moving than all the songs that come before it. “Well you know, Fear Factory’s always done experimental things with our records, and this is something we wanted to experiment with. That’s where our music was taking us.”
In addition to the ten songs that make up the regular edition of The Industrialist, the digi-book features two bonus tracks: ‘Blush Response’ and ‘Landfill’. “Well ‘Blush Response’ is a remix of ‘Difference Engine’ done by this young guy out of New York who is a friend of Rhys’. ‘Landfill’ is a cover song from PITCHSHIFTER’s first record (appropriately titled Industrial).” What made you want to cover that? “Just showing people our history; this is something that influenced Fear Factory from the very beginning. That first Pitchshifter record – man, unbelievably heavy! That’s one of the songs we’ve always loved. We’re just paying homage to some heroes really. There’s other covers we did that will appear on various other releases around the world too. We did covers of ‘Passing Complexion’ by BIG BLACK, ‘Saturation’ by SONIC VIOLENCE, and we actually covered one of our own tunes. We did a new version of ‘Timelessness’ from Obsolete; it’s an acoustic guitar performance. It’s like what JOHNNY CASH did to ‘Hurt’ (by NINE INCH HAILS). I think that’s for Japan.”
On the road you’ve got Mike Heller on drums and Matt DeVries on bass. How are they gelling into the whole Fear Factory machine? “They’re doing great. Mike Heller is a young – I call him a kid, he’s 30 but he’s a kid to me – he’s doing really well and with every show he just gets better and better. He’s a great drummer to begin with, but he’s becoming more natural with the songs and he’s super tight. And Matt DeVries, he was the guitar player for CHIMAIRA turned bass player. He fits perfectly because he’s playing exactly what Dino plays.”
In July and August, Fear Factory will be headlining the Shockwave tour along with VOIVOD and nine other bands. “It’s a new kind of touring festival, like a smaller version of Mayhem. It’ll be cool to see MISERY INDEX and DIRGE WITHIN, it should be interesting.” How much of The Industrialist are you going to play live on that tour? “At least two songs, I would like to play three.”
For bands such as Fear Factory who have an extensive history, it’s trendy these days to play complete albums live in their entirety. Have you ever been asked by a promoter to play Demanufacture live from start to finish? “No one’s offered that to us yet.” If it came across the table, would you be receptive? “I would do it for the 20th anniversary, which will be 2015. It’d be cool cause there’s some songs on that record that have never been played live before. It’d be exciting; it was definitely a pinnacle moment in Fear Factory’s history. I think if people heard it from start to finish live they’d be pretty stoked.”
Source : Bravewords.com
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