Joe Daly of The Weeklings recently conducted an interview with MONSTER MAGNET mainmanDave Wyndorf. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
The Weeklings: Since you broke out in the late '80s, you've survived grunge, the destruction of the old music industry, a shitload of lineup changes, and you yourself have survived some close calls. How have you survived?
Wyndorf: Just duck. Know when to duck. The perception of time gets kind of skewed when you're in a band, because you're always working and traveling all the time. I never stopped touring, so my perception of time is really weird. I could easily go ten years and then look back and go, "Man, that was a tough six months!" Look at yourself in the mirror, man! It's been ten years. What have you been doing? Getting laid and traveling takes up a lot of time, and that's what I did for ten or twelve years. As soon as you get home, you realize that the whole thing is not real. You're not happy with the music that's on the radio, but there's no place forMONSTER MAGNET. In my head, we'd be on the charts with ten other bands that were likeDAVID BOWIE, or that were as cool as HAWKWIND, or as cool as THE STOOGES. That was the world I wanted to live in, but I realized that was my childhood. It ain't gonna happen. Now I'm up there with PEARL JAM. That's what I get. The bands that I like, they got to play withTHE STOOGES and HAWKWIND, I get to play with fucking PEARL JAM! That's not cool. Nothing against PEARL JAM, but you know what I mean?
The Weeklings: What was your goal for the new album ["The Last Patrol"]?
Wyndorf: I really didn't want to fuck around. I made a big mistake on the last one by not taking enough time to do it. I discovered the hard way that just because I can write an album in a short amount of time doesn't mean that I should produce it in a short amount of time. Anybody who listens to the last one and then this one will notice that on the new one, there's a lot more attention paid to the parts. One of the dangers of modern technology is that you can have Pro Tools and you can clean stuff up. Nothing against computers or Pro Tools, but they can be abused, and it was abused on that album, so I was like, fuck that, I'm going to do a whole psychedelic record with just the stuff that I got started on with "Mastermind", and that's all it's going to be. Also, I didn't feel like writing a record with the fist-in-the-air rock anthem on it. I'm too old for that shit. "Come on, everybody, let's rock!" Now, , "How about you rock, because I'm too tired to rock!" [laughs] I'm not going to say, "All you people, jump up and down, while I sit on a chair and have a cigarette." The new album is one of things with a psychedelic rock vibe, atmosphere, weirdness, ambiguity… that's what's important to me now.
The Weeklings: So what's the plan for the album and beyond?
Wyndorf: Well, the plan is the same as usual, to beat the living shit out of it on the road, except this time we're actually going to go in the States. Album comes out [October] 15th and then we hit the States and do the first full tour we've done there in ten years, and then we go to Europe and do the usual, which is play the living fuck out of it. We got to Europe like two or three times a year, for four and five weeks at a time, and then Australia. Anywhere else in the world that's buying. It's quite a busy world out there. I made the decision to ignore the States about ten years ago. Knocking on the door in the States is tough. If they're not buying what you have to sell, you could easily go broke. Or you could be a smart human and go to Europe and drink tiny cups of coffee and stay in nice hotels and rock the way God intended.
Read the entire interview from The Weeklings.
Guitarist/vocalist Robb Flynn of San Francisco Bay Area metallers MACHINE HEAD has posted the following message on the band's Facebook page:
"For those of you just tuning in today, in celebration of the 10-year anniversary of our fifth album, 'Through The Ashes Of Empires', I've written a multi-part story in my General Journals, today is Part 3 of the story. I've decided to do a Part 4 and 5 to 'Through The Ashes Turns 10', because I realize there is more of the story that needs to be told, so most likely on Tuesday and Thursday of next week, I'll throw them up.
"Part 3 goes into the feud that happened between Kerry King [SLAYER] and I back in 2002.
'For the record: I'm not re-telling this to start and/or dig up old shit. I love Kerry, he fuckin' rules! We hung out two nights ago when SLAYER played in San Jose, we had a blast, got HAMMERED! But 10/11 years ago? Things were different, and in order to paint an accurate picture of where our heads were at for the writing of 'Through The Ashes Of Empires', this part of the story has to be told. It played a role. Consciously or unconsciously it definitely played a role.
"In 2002, Kerry King of SLAYER and I got into a public war words over disrespectful comments he'd made about MACHINE HEAD. For over a year, I had bit my tongue in hopes that he would lay off, and just give it a rest, but he didn't, and after a particularly brutal stab at us and me in particular, I went for the jugular. I fucking roasted him. Things got ugly in a hurry in public and behind the scenes it was even worse. The feud would last for 5 years until 2007, when at theMetal Hammer Awards in London it was squashed.
"I hated every minute of it.
"To have someone who had shaped your musical life so much, who took MACHINE HEAD on their second and third tours ever, who was a former friend and mentor to me, just ripping on you… it was tough. But after a while, you have to say 'fuck this.' It doesn't matter who it is, you have to stick up for yourself. I couldn't let the things being said go unanswered. It might've gotten truly ugly, but I think we both earned each other's respect a little more in the long run. I respected him for calling us out publicly, when so many people in the music business just talk shit and plot behind people's backs, he gave his opinion and what can I say? It stung. However, once squashed, I like to think he respected me for standing my ground and protecting what was mine. Maybe it was tough love from Kerry King? Maybe, but one thing's for sure, in some ways it fueled a lot of anger in me. Maybe it worked.
"In and around this same timeframe, Kerrang! magazine had shredded us in a slew of articles and show reviews. The U.K. magazine was famous for building bands up just to tear them down. At this stage in MACHINE HEAD's career, believe me, they were in full-on tear down mode.
"I had mentioned in an earlier journal about the U.S. press and how they essentially had blacklisted us. Coverage in any magazine was just about nil, nada, zilch. To this day, we've only had one major cover story and that was back in '99 for the now-defunct Metal Maniacs. American journalists were asking me during interviews to 'apologize to our fans for'Supercharger'.'
"Tours still did well and despite what the press has repeated over and over again, our fans stood by us. Sure, there was complaints from Head Cases [MACHINE HEAD fans], often times they said them respectfully to my face, or on the Internet, but they stood by MACHINE HEAD, and the ticket sales for those tours (thankfully) proved it.
"But regardless of all that, we had hit a wall in the music business. Sure, we had just re-signed with Roadrunner in Europe but our future in the U.S. was terribly uncertain. Silently getting turned down by 35 U.S. labels... man... it was a lot of rejection. It weighed on me. I began to doubt myself.
"Other bands were talking shit; ex-band members were talking shit (and still do).
"We'd gotten a little merchandise advance, but we were living month to month and about to be broke again at any day.
"It felt like the world wanted us to stop.
"The vultures were circling.
