Fear Factory celebrate 10 years of making music extreme in imagery, beats and riffs

One of the more intriguing albums of the year is by a band celebrating a decade of noise making: Fear Factory’s ‘Digimortal’, a heavy cerebrospinal music with the neurotic and jolted giant of sound. The four California-based fearsome have been on the verge of breaking into the main arena for a while but it is the uncompromising attitude that might be frightening fans of more cartoon-orientated Metal.

To mark the decade of disturbing our imagination with tales of cyber-doom and extinctions, Fear Factory are releasing ‘Digital Connectivity’ DVD in a few days. They recently had a single out, ‘Linchpin’, lifted from ‘Digimortal’ and came over for a handful of shows. The band were in Astoria’s dressing room, Burton C. Bell asleep on the chairs, Dino Cazares and Christian Olle Woblers missing-presumed-catering-busy, so we took the opportunity to chat with drummer Raymond Herrera that gave us a unique opportunity to find more about his and Christian’s side-project, Kush, that had its live debut only weeks ago.

“The DVD is about us over the past ten years,” Herrera offers in a relaxed mode that is 180 degrees away from what will come onstage in a few short hours. “Shots from the tour, us having fun, each album has its own segment… We had direct input and it’s really good, it shows us in a very informative light. We had so much material that we didn’t know what to leave out.”

The reel highlights

This band of Los Angelinos recruited a Belgium bassist in 1994, before their second studio offering, ‘Demanufacture’, later on recorded ‘Cars’ with its originator, Gary Numan, opening for the reformed Black Sabbath in their homecoming show… Plenty of memories; what are the highlights on the DVD?

“There are so many, different tours, different bands,” Herrera gets listing, “different accidents… What DVD shows, I hope, is how the band became what it is; how it grew into what we are, how easy and natural it has become to be in this band. Things have changed and developed, we have learnt things about each other, we have got used to tour together… That’s what makes the band, that togetherness.”

Success of Fear Factory is respectable although not in the numbers of Marilyn Manson or Slipknot but FF don’t use gimmicks.

“Every band has its own way of doing things,” Herrera gets diplomatic, “image and gimmicks are the two biggest reasons why bands get big. We don’t have either one, the main thing with Fear Factory is music and that’s not always what sells records. We don’t complain about it because it is something we have to deal with; I know this band deserves more and I think this band should be bigger than it is, but we’ll take what we got and work with it. We’ll continue doing what we do and see what happens with it.”

“Personally we do many other things that we feel fulfil us and it gets frustrating from time to time when you see someone getting a bigger slice without having put in as much but that’s nature of the business, luck, or whatever. You soon forget it and carry on.”

Fresh Kushing

Herrera and Christian have grouped with Stephen Carpenter (of The Deftones) and B-Real (of Cypress Hill) for the off-shot project named Kush. This outfit played its debut show in Los Angeles days before Fear Factory embarked on this European trip. (Herrera also found time to do some additional work on the Brujeria’s project.)

“We played three shows in a row,” Herrera proudly announces, “finished recording three tracks and are ready to shop the tape. The music sounds like all three bands together although it’s different; it’s really heavy music but B-Real is rapping over it. I know a lot of bands are doing it but this is different, there is something real, pretty cool… You can hear some Deftones riffs there, some Fear Factory rhythms and then B-Real. It’s a weird mixture but certainly working well. It’s a little bit like Rage Against The Machine, a lot of people have said that, and I think that’s good, I’ve always respected what those guys were doing.”

Kush’s recording plans might encounter problems due to several labels artists are actually signed to.

“That’s the worry, all these business considerations,” Herrera spits in disgust, “and it will take a lot of paperwork but we’ll sort it out. It will take a little time to get everybody cleared and signed to a major label… There is a lot of interest right now and I think it will be a bidding war. Hopefully we’ll sign with a label one of us is contracted to now so that should make life easier. It will work out because no label has ever stopped musicians making music…”