By Andrew Bansal
Los Angeles-based Fear Factory have been a highly influential musical entity in the industrial/modern metal genre over the years, and have stayed relevant through a 25-plus year career. Now, even as they continue to release hard-hitting new material such as the latest album ‘Genexus’ (2015), they are also revisiting their seminal years by performing the iconic ‘Demanufacture’ (1995) in its entirety for the first time on a full US tour this Spring. They’re taking out Swedish melodic death metal group Soilwork as support act on this run. Last Wednesday March 16th 2016, guitarist and songwriter Dino Cazares spoke to Metal Assault to discuss this tour, Demanufacture, the latest album, playing the ‘non Dino era’ material, and more. Enjoy the conversation below and catch Fear Factory on the Demanufacture tour.
Dino, it’s a pleasure to have you again on Metal Assault. This interview is mainly about your upcoming US headline tour, where you’ll be playing the ‘Demanufacture’ album in its entirety. First of all, how did that idea come about?
It’s really good because a lot of the songs that we did on that record, we didn’t even play live. Like for instance, a song like ‘A Therapy For Pain’ we had never played live until we started doing this tour in celebration of this record. We actually did it in Australia in its entirety in 2013 and also did it in Europe just last year. So now we’re bringing it to the US, and we’re doing Demanufacture songs like ‘H’K’, ‘Pisschrist’ and ‘New Breed’, songs that we hardly ever, ever play live. It’s good to give those songs the attention they deserve.
So, what was like playing the album live for the first time in Australia? At that time it would have been something new, because as you said you hadn’t played those songs in a while.
People were extremely excited to hear them. Those tours were very successful, and a lot of people came out to check us playing the whole record. It was killer! We can’t wait to do this in the US. A lot of people have been asking us here. I know that some of these upcoming shows are already sold out, which is really cool. I’m hoping that we sell out LA, May 7th!
Yes, the Fonda Theatre! In recent years you’ve been playing the Whisky quite a lot, almost exclusively. This time it’s a bigger show at the Fonda. Have you been going to a lot of shows in the past, through your years in LA?
You’re right that we’ve been pretty much playing the Whisky exclusively and that’s because that’s our family. Really, really good, close friends of ours own the Whisky and the Rainbow, so we’ve been exclusively giving them all the shows but we felt that the Demanufacture set is something special, we expect people to come out, and plus this time we have Soilwork touring with us. So that makes the show a little bit bigger and we thought the Fonda would be a great place. I’ve been to the Fonda a few times to see a few bands, and it seems cool. It’s the perfect spot for us, and let’s hope we get to take it to the next level and sell it out.
When it comes to playing albums in entirety, these albums are not written with that purpose, specially back when it came out, an album like Demanufacture was not written with that it mind. So, how did that translate on stage when you first played it?
You’re right, albums are not necessarily made with keeping in mind that they could be played live in their entirety, but you’re hoping that you can get a record that flows really well. For instance, Slayer has ‘Reign In Blood’. The album is 28 minutes long. Sometimes when you hear ‘Angel Of Death’, you want to hear the next song, and the one after that. But basically you’re hoping that the record is that good from front to back that people want to hear the whole thing. We got lucky with Demanufacture as we felt that this was the case. People have even been asking us if we want to do ‘Obsolete’ for its 20th anniversary in a year-and-a-half. People want to hear those records and it’s really cool. Megadeth has done it, a lot of bands have done it. Playing Demanufacture is really cool because it brings us back to the memory we have of when we made that record. It brings back everything we had to go through, whether it was difficult times or happy times. Sometimes when we’re playing that album from front to back, all these emotions come out, and it’s a good feeling. You’re happy that people are feeling the same way and they get into it, and they love it. Like I said, shows have been selling out across the country, which means that people want to come out and see it.
This album came out in 1995, and in these shows you’re getting some people that were your fans back then, that are kind of reliving the moment as you are, but there’s also this younger generation that was too young or not even born when the album was released. So it’s a special thing for them, and I think that’s more of the demographic you should be aiming at with the tour anyway.
Yeah, we’re hoping to get the new generation of kids who just recently discovered us, or on the internet. Thank god for the powers of the internet, because certain genres or styles or scenes of music have had a resurgence. For instance, a few years back, thrash metal had a resurgence because a lot of the younger generation of kids discovered bands like Exodus and Testament on the internet, and so on. We’re hoping that we get that resurgence of the new generation of kids coming to check out Fear Factory and what we’ve created over the years. Of course you want that. Some parents are bringing their kids to these shows too and the kids are loving it because of their parents and are getting turned on to it, then going on the internet and discovering more new bands and so on. It’s a cool feeling.
So, on this tour, other than this album you’ll also do some other tunes to make it a full headline set. What are you planning on doing?
Of course we plan on going through a collage of stuff that we’ve done from our previous records, like we’ll be doing stuff off of ‘Obsolete’, ‘Mechanize’, ‘Digimortal’, even records that I wasn’t on, such as ‘Archetype’, and all the way up to the latest album ‘Genexus’. We definitely want to showcase the new album, still, and also we want to go as far back as our first record. I think we’ll be closing the show with old stuff from our first record. So, that’s going to be a good show for fans.
Sounds like a pretty comprehensive set list. Talking of ‘Archetype’ and the stuff from the ‘non Dino years’, I did an interview with you in 2010 when you were on the touring cycle for ‘Mechanize’ which came out that year. At that time you said that you were not planning on playing anything you didn’t record with the band, which kind of made sense to me. But I was pleasantly surprised when you started doing those songs again. What brought you to this point?
What brought me to this point was the fans. A lot of fans were questioning me and basically saying that even though I wasn’t in the band, why can’t we play stuff from those records. So they were crying for it, and we decided, let’s do one song at least. People were happy, and I’m in the business to make fans happy. So, it doesn’t really bother me at this point. It’s been what, six years since I said that. So, we just decided to add it and we’ve been doing it all of last year and it’s been cool.
As you were saying, playing Demanufacture now brings you back to what you were going through and feeling in ’95. Back then, Fear Factory had a lot to prove. It was a much younger band, and all that stuff. But it’s now 2016 and you don’t have all that much to prove. How do you motivate yourself to write new music and keep playing?
I don’t feel that’s quite true because I still think that I need to improve on a lot of stuff, definitely. I mean, Fear Factory has its own signature sound, and yes we have a particular style, but we always want to try to push the envelope as far as we can, whether it’s a little bit or a lot. We always feel like we need to prove ourselves because this is an up-and-down industry. With one record you can be really popular, and the next record not so much because something else might come out that’s new and fresh that people are getting into. Once you make it to the top, you have to fight to stay at the top. We always have to keep fighting to stay up there and to be relevant, and to be known. For instance, on this new record Genexus, we were like, OK we’ve created a lot of stuff over the past 25 years. What’s our approach for this record? One of the main things that Burton was talking about was, let’s go back and try to relive the memories of how it was when we created those early records, and bring all those emotions and feelings and that vibe into this new record. That’s exactly what we did, and we felt that it helped the record. We took our time, roughly about eight months to complete the record, giving each song proper focus. We wanted to bring the energy of records like Demanufacture and Obsolete, and we feel that we accomplished that.
Would you say that playing Demanufacture triggered some of the stuff that ended up on Genexus, or was the new album already written before that?
Well, we did Demanufacture first in 2013 in Australia, which was two years before Genexus. So I can say that playing that record from front to back provoked a lot of vibes and feelings for me, and I was able to channel that into the new record. I’m not going to say that I copied what I did in the past, but it was more about adding the energy that was provoked in me.
Over the last years, as we were talking earlier about playing the Whisky and all that, you’ve been mainly headlining. The only one that I remember where you were the support act in the US was with Megadeth on their ‘Super Collider’ tour, late 2013. But other than that, you’ve been pretty comfortable with headlining. Is that just something that you guys prefer and do on purpose, or is that how it has worked out in terms of the tour offers?
We get a lot of tour offers to open up for other bands but usually it doesn’t work out because of schedules or financial situations. So, we always have to end up touring ourselves and headlining. Yeah, the last support tour that we did was in fact the Megadeth tour you mentioned, and before that it was with Metallica, but that one was in Europe. I think ever since then we’ve been headlining.
I think it’s cool because you always get to play in front of your own fans, which is quite a privilege which a lot of other bands don’t necessarily get so often.
Yeah, well, look at Machine Head. They’ve been doing the ‘evening with Machine Head’ shows for the last couple of years where they have no opening bands. And they haven’t been doing any support tours either. They’re playing in front of their fans and it’s been working out great for them. We kind of have been taking the same road, but we take support bands with us. If something good comes along and the opportunity is right, we’ll take it.
Obviously in LA I meet a lot of musicians that tell me they’re influenced by Fear Factory. For you personally, do you get to see that influence, or hear abut it or feel it at all in other people’s music, around here specially?
Definitely in LA, and it’s not just Fear Factory, it’s my other bands like Brujeria, Asesino and even Divine Heresy. I hear people telling me that those records influenced them. But of course the main thing is Fear Factory. You hear what we created back in 1990, you hear the formula we put together for writing songs, whether it’s the guitar parts syncopated with the drums, or Burton’s vocal style of melodic choruses with heavy verses. It transcended into modern music today, whether it’s extreme metal, melodic death metal to screamo to pop metal, to everything. You hear Burton’s vocal style, and for lack of a better word, it’s gone viral. Everybody is doing it. Some people forget where it came from. Some people don’t know that it started with Fear Factory. Basically our groundbreaking record was Demanufacture, and that’s when most people heard that style. So since ’95, there could have been a band that came out in 2000 that was influenced by it, but then a band that came out in 2005 could have been influenced by the band that copied it in 2000. So a lot of people forget, you know. So, that’s one of the benefits of doing Demanufacture and doing these interviews, to let people know where it came from. It is a big compliment, for sure, to see how it has evolved over the years. People add different twists to it. But, if Burton had put a patent on that vocal style, he’d be pretty rich right now.
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Fear Factory ‘Demanufacture’ 20th Anniversary US Tour Dates With Soilwork:
3/21/2016 The Juggernaut – Gallup, NM (No Soilwork)
3/22/2016 Sunshine Theatre – Albuquerque, NM (No Soilwork)
3/24/2016 Korova – San Antonio, TX
3/25/2016 Trees – Dallas, TX
3/26/2016 Scout Bar – Houston, TX
3/28/2016 House of Rock – Corpus Christi, TX
3/29/2016 Majestic Lounge – Fayetteville, AR
3/30/2016 Warehouse Live – Clarksville, TN
4/01/2016 Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
4/02/2016 Rock Shop – Fayetteville, NC
4/03/2016 Norva – Norfolk, VA
4/05/2016 Rams Head Live – Baltimore, MD
4/06/2016 Gramercy Theatre – New York, NY
4/08/2016 Reverb – Reading, PA
4/09/2016 Palladium – Worcester, MA
4/10/2016 The Chance – Poughkeepsie, NY
4/12/2016 Altar Bar- Pittsburgh, PA
4/14/2016 Agora Ballroom – Cleveland, OH
4/1/52016 Machine Shop – Flint, MI
4/16/2016 Piere’s Entertainment Center – Fort Wayne, IN
4/17/2016 Big Shots – Valparaiso, IN
4/19/2016 Concord Music Hall – Chicago, IL
4/20/2016 Q and Z Expo Center- Ringle, WI
4/21/2016 The Rave – Milwaukee, WI
4/22/2016 Pop’s – Sauget, IL
4/23/2016 Aftershock – Merriam, KS
4/24/2016 Summit Music Hall – Denver, CO
4/26/2016 In The Venue – Salt Lake City, UT
4/27/2016 Hitt Event Center – Idaho Falls, ID
4/29/2016 Revolution Concert House – Boise, ID
4/30/2016 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
5/01/2016 Hawthorne Theatre – Portland, OR
5/03/2016 Slim’s – San Francisco, CA
5/04/2016 LVCS – Las Vegas, NV
5/05/2016 Brick By Brick – San Diego, CA
5/06/2016 Marquee Theatre – Tempe, AZ
5/07/2016 Fonda Theatre – Los Angeles, CA