MACHINE HEAD : THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK...

-Rob : Basically, Ahrue didn’t want to play any heavy music anymore, he wanted to do a style of music that was mellower, he wasn’t enjoying playing songs like ‘Davidian’ and stuff like that, and we didn’t think it was gonna be productive for him to be in the band anymore, it wasn’t like this huge clash of egos or anything, it’s just like, one cannot be productive, if the three of us want to go one way, and Ahrue’s gonna find the other way, so he left and it wasn’t a big deal, not like some huge drama or nothing, so...

-So came Phil Demmel : Is it some kind of new blood for Machine Head ?

-Rob : Definitely. We made a decision to start writing as a three piece at that point, and we actually wrote until April of this year as a three piece. Phil joined in April, and it was cool, him coming in to the band was, we’ve kind of been in a state of mind about what we could do and he was a hell of a guitar player, and we started kind of like realizing how much more musical we could be, harmonies, guitars and him riffing, me riffing, it was cool, he brought that passion for metal and his love for Machine Head to hear and it definitely was energizing.

-Phil and you were together in a band called Violence before Machine Head. Did you have to feeling to loop the loop with him, that you had to meet again ?

-Rob : Yes, it definitely feels that way, it’s great having him in, especially because it’s like me and him have been through so much, we did van tours, seven guys in a van, with all your equipment and all your luggage, sleeping on people’s floors, it was pretty grueling, so we definitely saw a lot and it’s cool to have him back in.

-Did he participate to the writing of the album ?

-Rob : Phil contributed to two songs : ‘In presence of my enemies’ and ‘Days turn blue to grey’.

-About the production : you did assume this role too ?

-Rob : Yes, I did it ! In the beginning, on the initial set up day, Andy Sneap came in and helped us get tones, another guy, Mark Keaton, engineering at Shark bite studios, in Auckland, where we recorded everything, and Andy had a big role on it, him and I just spread ideas around, he knows how to turn all the knobs and work on a computer, I kind of oversaw the vision and when it came time for me to do stuff, he was the guy who definitely kept me in check. So it was great. Colin Richardson mixed it, and it turned out excellent. Andy Sneap mastered it as well. In fact, I didn’t want to produce the LP myself, we wanted Colin first, but he was working on something and ended up going way over time and he ended up not being able to do it at the last minute, so we tried to get some other people, like Andy, but he was connected to something else, Freddy’s got a couple of other people, and they couldn't do it, so we thought let’s do this ourselves, just to kind of keep it in the family. I have produced our demos since 96, so we made so many demos, we recorded them so many times in that context that it wasn’t a weird thing, it’s very like common to do it like this, like an extension of that.

-Are there special themes in this album, special topics, a general idea ?

-Rob : No, there’s no concept, it’s a dark record, absolutely. It's got uplifting songs, angry songs, songs about death, kind of dealing with one's own mortality and death as the coming of a new life a lot of times, as when you close a door another door opens. Maybe that’s a theme, I don’t know, I’ve never looked at it like that !

-What can we expect with the new album ? A sort of fresh band , with a lot of energy ?

-Rob : We’re definitely firing on our cylinders, we’re happy just to make music that we love, music that challenges us, music that’s actually like difficult to play, like we made like some of the riffs that are super hard to play and we challenge ourselves to write really difficult beats and some complex songs structures and things that made it fun to be a musician again, it was a killer and it was really cool, like some stuff we’ve never done, like acoustic guitars on the record, longer songs, six, seven, eight minutes songs, those things just made us so fun for us.

-Considering your live lp, can it be seen like a kind of state of affair in the career of Machine Head ?

-Rob : The coolest thing, about the live album was that that some of the songs from ‘Supercharger’ and ‘Burning red’, like the production of those two records were not that good, definitely like sledgier, that's what we were going for, but in some ways, it muted the song itself and I think the live energy that was put into it on some on the songs really like re-energized us , it’s like we reinvented those songs in a lot of ways ; when we go on tour, people say they never really like that song on ‘Supercharger’, but fucking live, it kicks ass ! We couldn’t quite wrap our heads upon that, but it did and I think that put the songs in a different light, like some on the versions, even ‘Ten ton hammer’, like ‘Number my own’ I think we just actually kicked the album version’s ass and this is like a cool energy going on there.

-Something which have nothing to do with that ,but what do you think of the end, the disappearing of Pantera ?

-Rob : I haven’t really heard a whole of reasons for it at this point, but they were one of my favorite bands, one of our favorite bands, and hopefully in the future they can work out something.

-It’s better sometimes to stop and separate than go on like that..

-Rob : I guess that’s what they needed to do.

-If Machine Head was a movie, what movie could it be ?

-Rob : It’s a difficult one : maybe ‘The road warrior’, mixed with ‘The Schindler’s list’ with a little bit of ’Happy Gilmore’ !

-Could you tell some records which changed your life ?

-Rob : Black Sabbath’s ‘We sold our souls for rock’n’roll’, 'Ride the lightning' and ‘South of Heaven’ by Slayer.

And NWA : ‘Straight out of Compton’.

-One record you would have loved to participate to ?

-Rob : I don’t know if I would have been part of it because it would have changed the dynamic of the record, and so that wouldn’t had been that record.

-Something more ?

-Rob : We’ll see you on tour, men, beer drinking, vodka stinking !

Interview made by JP Coillard in Paris.