Interviews

Fear Factory Interview

Hi Dino, I am glad to talk to you. How are you recently?

I am doing really good. I am very excited for this record to come out tomorrow. I can’t wait for people to finally get to listen to it.

You started making songs for Fear Factory in 1990. On your second album ,,Demanufacture”, we hear something that might have been never done before. This work of yours got a lot of praise. How many did you sell of them? Were you surprised about it’s success?

I don’t know how many we sold right now, but we sold a decent amount. It is not our highest selling record at all. I am surprised, because it is very popular, and it is the 26th anniversary of ,,Demanufacture”. We also released it on a vinyl, remastered for the US, because we never released a record in the USA on vinyl. So we wanted to make something special, we made a 3 album disks in the packaging, 2 of them is the record, and the other one is a live album from us playing in 1996.

Since then you made a huge amount of albums. How did Fear Factory’s life go after 1995? What changed?

In 1995, we became much more known. We were able to tour the world as ,,Demanufacture” was really groundbreaking, and it opened a lot of new doors for us. We travelled everywhere you can think of, and we stayed on the road for 2 years straight. We went out with Ozzy and Iron Maiden with that record, and Megadeath. I am just really proud that we were able to come up with a sound and a new style for everybody to get into and get influenced by. That record still holds up today.

What you do is great, but there are critics that are saying that your music didnt’t change through the time and we can all hear the same sound on every record. Could you tell us how did you develop during making these albums throughout the years?

Well, critics can say what they wanna say, that’s fine. But the way we develop, we just didn’t fear experimenting, because music is about experimenting and it can be challenging, it’s also about discovery. And it should be dangerous and radical, and I thought that we were radical, when we first came out, because we had a different element, and people didn’t really hear these kinds of extreme records before. But you can’t fear to try new things, because those fearscould keep you from discovering something new. And that’s pretty much how we thought about our music is not fearing about new things, and add them. Also music can be hard work, like we did on our last record. No matter how good or bad your music is, it still took hard work, to create it and put it together.

It’s been a few years since you and Burton C. Bell doesn’t really get along, to a point where you sued each other. I hope this won’t go on forever. Would you want to talk about this?

I am sorry to correct you, but me and Burton never sued each other. We were never in a lawsuit. I don’t know where you got that information from, but we never were in a lawsuit with each other. Not at all. Me and him were in a lawsuit against Ramen and Christian.

What’s intresting about this is that the album ,,Aggression Continuum” was already done in 2017, where we can hear his voice on the tracks. How hard was the situation? Did you see the light at the end of the tunnel?

How hard was the situation to do vocals? That wasn’t hard at all. At that point we were still getting along and we were still being creaitve. I don’t know what happened later on. He through his court proceedings with Raymond and Christian, not me. And his outcome wasn’t really successful. And that’s when things just changed and fell apart. But that has nothing to do with me, and it was not my fault, and that was his own thing against the other 2 ex band members. Yeah, the vocal process was not hard at all.

The drums, bass and guitar got re-recorded along with some keyboard parts. How much do they differ from the original recordings? Why did you decide on retaking them?

I’m sorry, the guitars and bass did not get rerecorded. They only been reamped. It’s much different, than rerecording. The other thing we rerecorded was the live drums, because the original album had drum programming on it. So I thought it would be best, to add live drums as well. I thought that that was much better and add more dynamics to the music. Also we got Andy Sneap to mix the album, that deffinitely made a huge difference in how this record sounds overall. We also got Demian Reino, who is a producer. We got him to help us, and we have quite a few keyboardists on the album as well. We got Igor Korochkojev from the band ,,Yes”. He is no longer in that band, but he was in the band for many years.

The pandemic I assume didn’t help with your mental health. How did you get through it? What gave you comfort and brightened your days?

First of all, it wasn’t the covid that exaclty was so bad for me, It was more of the illegal lawsuits that was more bad for me. One of the benefits of covid, is that I was able to work on other stuff and get things prepared for this new record. We also put out the 26th anniversary of ,,Demanuifacture”, as you know. So in that way I was pretty busy.

How do you imagine moving on? Are you already searching for Burton’s replacement?

Yes. We’ve been searching for a replacement for a few months now, and soon as the covid restrictions are open, the travel restrictions are open, we will be able to get these singers here into Los Angeles. And do an in-person audition.

More than 30 years has past since Fear Factory was formed. How much bad luck do you think you had with member changes? Is it a lot for this amount of time?

It’s not a lot. I don’t know how to answer this question. I haven’t necessarily had bad luck with line up changes. I just had bad luck with 2 members, or 3 members actually. But so far the other line up changes are fine.

How did you see the band’s state in the early 90’s to 15 years later to now?

How we were in the 90’s, it was really groundbreaking. With albums like ,,Demanufacture”, ,,Soul of a New Machine” and ,,Fear is the Mindkiller”. Even ,,Obsolete”. Those were some very fun times, it brought the band to a whole new level. We’ve got to tour the world many times. And then the 2000’s obviously I was out of the band for a few years, and went off to do my own projects. Divine Heresy, Asesino and Brujeria… I released 5 records from the time I was out of Fear Factory. And then I came back in 2009-2010 and we released 4 records since then. And it’s killer, I look forward to the future.

Do you like Sci-Fi movies? Are you into aliens or futuristic stuffs?

I think everyone knows the answer to that question. Yes, of course. Terminator, Alien, Blade Runner… And many many more. Dune as well.

In what world would you like to live in best? What are you most important factors?

Obvioulsy in a world that is not so divided. Because this political enviroment that we had, this political infection we had here in the United States and how it affected the rest of the world, it changed a lot of things for us. For us as human beings. It divided countries, it divided our country. In that aspect I wish, that everybody got along and not just in the world, but even in just my personal space. I wish the certain things never happened, but I can’t do to much on the past, and I need to move forward.

Thank you for this opportunity, and I hope, that you are gonna go on and write more successful albums! If there is anything left in you or to add, you are more than welcome to say it.

I want to let everybody know, that I am very excited to get this record out, very proud of this album. I want to thank everybody who supported the band for 30 years. And also supported the band in the GoFoundMe compaing, to help us get this record out. And I would like to thank everybody that has been involved in the production and the creation of this album, and Nuclear Blast for having my back and being behind me and giving me the support that they have to get this record out as well. I am excited for everybody to hear it. And go to fearfactory.com for everything. For vinyl, CD-s, cassettes, merchandise, tour dates, all the above. Just go there and you will find anything you are looking for.

The interview was taken with Dino Cazares on 17.06.2021.

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