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Interview
by SashaS
24-10-2003
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| Mac-Head: 'Through The Ashes of Empires' |
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Cruel kindness
Machine Head: Heavy Metal and philosophy of wicked phrases
Read this variety: “No f**king regrets/F**k these chains/No god” (‘Imperium’), “The hate you feel is nothing more/Than love you feel to win this war” (‘Bite The Bullet’), “Our lives are not your toys/mercy, not a drop to spare” (‘In The Presence On My Enemies’), ‘All our hate is a product of a world.../We created’ (‘Descend The Shades Of Night’)… Lyrics from the new U2 album? Nope…
Other themes are environmental concerns and warning about the time bomb we’ve set up (‘Elegy’), dysfunction and addiction to family tragedies (‘Days Turn Blue To Grey’), general fear (‘All Falls Down’)… Eminem without ego-tripping? Rage Against The Machine’s abandoned tapes? Korn returning to some pertinent issues rather than self-pity? Still negative...
This is a selection of lyrics from ‘Through The Ashes of Empires’ by Robb Flynn, the Machine Head mainman’s vision of life on the planet we are damaging daily. And, the bottom feeling here is – Fear: not only the paralysing kind but the one that kicks, motivates, informs actions.
“Fear, yes a lot of songs deal with it,” Flynn pronounces in his deep tones. “Fear that let’s you free yourself from the fear kind of thing… There is anger and wish to revenge, it is like drawing a line: there is what I can accept and there is what I like but this is what I don’t like, don’t accept and don’t want any part of it. There are a lot of times when people make decisions based on fear and I reached the point in my life when I used to be like that.”
“I used to be feeling fear, like what people are thinking about me, making decision and writing songs, in a lot of ways I have had time to experience it but also transcend that and not feel so concerned but feel free to express yourself truly. Everything we do in life is about feeling insecurity and the thing is that I write about that, my own personal experiences, but also saying to the listener to inspire them to do the same… I wish somebody had told me that when I was younger.”
The big question is whether you’d have listened to it?
“Most people don’t listen to the lyrics,” Flynn shrugs, “so… People go for a feeling, the vibe, playing air-drums or air-guitars, but I hope that 10 or 20 per cent will listen and if the rest only rock out on the riffs, that’s fine by me. But, if one is really hearing it, fine, it is what I decided to write about.”
Broken views
Robb Flynn lyrics on ‘Through The Ashes Of Empires’ open up another chapter of his mental set-ups and touches on political situation, environmental issues as well as some personal conflicts. It’s like he is getting wiser, more determined and gutsier in expressing his stands, disses, attitude.
“I don’t know how much…” Robb suddenly stops and looks around the fairly empty hotel bar, “I’m sure not everybody will relate to these lyrics because I’ve taken my stand on things, how I feel and I know that this lyrics don’t agree with how a lot of people feel. There is going to be reaction to them but I feel that I have really drawn a line in the sand – where I stand. There is no more beating about the bush…”
… About the G-dub Bush, perhaps?
“Good man! I just felt I had to do it, it needed to get out and I felt burning desire to say things that no one was saying.”
That’s going against the grain, which is total entertainment and blocking out reality?
“Yeah, totally. It’s funny because in America there is almost this sense that you can’t question anything because it is viewed as anti-American… It is strange but you can’t ask why we are in the Iraqi war; it’s anti-patriotic… Our country was built on the premise of being able to express you opinion freely. There is a lot of paranoia going on. I can only do what I do as one man and I chose to speak out.”
Furnished vistas
The opening song on the album, ‘Imperium’, talks about slavery. Now, this is not the Iron Maiden, i.e. mediaeval, but the modern society’s malaise: restriction of free will, brainwashing and pre-conditioning into an army of yes-humans.
“I think I am different to all people,” Robb expends his theory on Western civilisation, “and whatever I see on television I don’t believe. I feel that all the programmes are made to make you act certain way: take your pills, have a perfect body, consume right [and loads], it is all advertising, a big [capitalist] billboard… But, I’m saying that I’m not going to buy into this, I’m not buying into conditioning, into f**king Reality TV, and it was very liberating to write this album.”
“Especially that there are a lot of bands that are like Heavy Metal boy-bands, playing to a formula, angsty, radio-friendly, heavy with major chords, maddening… Our record is not that at all, it is real angry, it is not holding back, we are going for it and if the radio don’t wanna play it… We are not trying to be played on the radio, we are trying to write great music, we are trying to write art for the sake of creating art… This is very pure record, from the heart, and a blast.”
But, you need downtime as everyone else; so what do you do to escape?
“I need a lot of downtime, I need time to decompress,” Flynn states calmly. “There is so much sh*t going on in my life I need all the downtime I can get. My wife and I, we have a boat, and we are both made on wakeboarding; it’s like skateboarding on water. I’m a wakeboarding junkie; I also go camping all the time, I love outdoor life. Hanging out on a lake with my friends and drinking bear. I chill out on the boat every weekend I can.”
“When I am out, there are no cell-phones, no TV, I only take my CDs and extra pack of batteries!”
Robb Flynn and Machine Head return to intensity, frenzy and insanity of touring at the following UK venues:
27 November – Astoria, London
28 November – Astoria, London
29 November – Pyramids Centre, Portsmouth
01 December – Academy, Bristol
02 December – Rock City, Nottingham
03 December – Academy, Birmingham
04 December – Academy, Manchester
05 December – Barrowlands, Glasgow
SashaS
24-10-2003
Machine Head album ‘Through The Ashes of Empires’ is released 27 October 2003 by Roadrunner
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