Machinehead

Written by Adam Tibbott

Monday, 26 March 2007

Chris Miles' interview with Phil! March 22nd, 2007   Thanks for the opportunity to talk to you Through the Ashes of Empires was a great album! What are your expectations for the new album 'The Blackening'?? Ashes was an amazing record for us, I think the standards that we set for ourselves, we expect The Blackening to be, With all the extra we put into it, all the blood sweat and tears… We are expecting it to blow up! Is there any one song from the new album that you would say will blow me away when I hear it at the show next week in DC?? I think from the intro to the last song I think will take damage, but to answer your question Aesthetics of Hate! On the tour what will your setlist be like? We got a couple of new songs going on. On the new album do you have any cool solos you can tell me about?? There all cool solos man! The first couple of solos were on ‘Clenching the Fists of Dissent’ are pretty killer man! You guys all seem to interact with the fans on the boards on your website. That’s very cool of you guys to keep the fans involved. Do the fans have input in the songs that you guys play? We kind of look at each show and the demographics there. Playing with Lamb of God (pretty heavy band) so we end up playing our heavier stuff. The songs picked are they decided amongst the band or the record label? Oh its decided by the band that’s for sure! Did you guys resolve the t-shirt issue that I read about on the machine head bulletin boards? We had some shows in Canada and we didn’t get some of stuff from the distributors, but everything is good now! When rejoining the band was there a lot of pressure on the expectations of what you would be bringing to the band? They pretty much knew what they were getting when I joined. I felt pressured after ‘Ashes’ We had been talking and they were riding me a bit bout being able to write. It was time to get the tunes right, time to reform, that’s when the pressure started When you first rejoined in '03, you guys got involved with Roadrunner United, How was that experience? What was it like mixing it up with some of those other artists like Stonesour, Slipknot, Devildriver, Fear Factory, Type O? I didn’t really participate on the record, I helped write one song. I contributed one riff to one song I played the show back in New York. I played with a bunch of the guys there, that was the extent of my involvement. How is your tour so far with Lamb of God? Its going amazing man! All the shows are sold out! We are able to play in front of a bunch of new kids every night! A perfect pre-release tour for us. Do you guys hang out when not performing? We play about 35 minutes a nite. Other than that we are hanging out! Enjoying watching Trivium and of course Just watching Lamb of God tear it up every night! Any shows get out of control? Montreal was crazy, Vancouver, California, Corpus Christi was amazing! You guys have had some great touring opportunities! Touring for 5 months with Slayer! Touring with Lamb of God! Does that have any influence on the song writing? It definitely has an influence on my writing for sure! What was it like playing in Germany? How was the crowds? How did they react? Did they get involved in the enthusiasm that is at a Machinehead show??? The crowds in Germany were really really good. The Eastern front East Berlin, are pretty serious, so you better be on your game. Were there any language barriers while playing over there? There were some but on the most part there were a lot of English speaking people. But when not you just do what you can do You guys supported Korn and Evanescence at a show, and at another show supported Slipknot and Metallica. What were the differences in the shows? Did the crowds react differently at each? The UK is our biggest market. When we supported Korn and Evanescence, you could tell they were into the music, but they weren’t really familiar with it. But once we got to the Download festival everyone knew the tunes. The Download was definitely the show of that tour! Congratulations on opening up for the 'Heaven and Hell' tour! (otherwise known as Sabbath the Dio years!) I am a big fan of Sabbath and Dio that should be a great time! We are stoked about doing the tour! Its our first arena tour. It will be a chance to open for a legendary band. We are all huge fans of. Two of them Megadeth as well. It will pretty killer. What do you think of all the different labels people seem to try to corner Machinehead into thru the years? whether its classified as thrash metal, nu-metal, groove metal, Someone called us a neo-thrash metal. I don’t even know what the fuck that is. We are just a METAL band. Fuck all these other categories, little hyphenated metal crap, We are just metal. If you could tour with any band at all who would you want to do so with?? Hmmmm, I’d say Slayer, I didn’t get a chance to do so when the band did. Who are some of the guitarists that you would say influence how you play?? Back in the day it was Radiohead. It was the reason why I played guitar, But I would say like Michael Schenker. What do you think of Van Halen and the induction into the Rock and Roll hall of fame? I don’t even know what happened there. Why didn’t they show up, and why didn’t they perform. Eddie’s a fuckin mess. He needs to get his fucking shit together. He’s a great guitar player, awesome, killer style, but now he’s a fucking headcase. What are your thoughts on the video music channels and their shows?? ex. The Headbangers Ball, and Uranium?? I think they are killer. I think that anything that is going to be promoting metal like that is awesome. I question some of the programming sometime but otherwise cool. What do you think of bands using myspace to gather fans and attention to their shows? Do you have positive or negative thoughts on the explosive usage of myspace and how it relates to bands? I think its great for bands. Myspace is evil!! It can be totally fucking evil. Its good for bands and networking tho. How does a Machinehead song come about? Who writes the lyrics? Who does the music? Is everyone involved or just some? Rob pretty much does the lyrics and the structure of the song, I help out on some of the riffs but on the most part its Rob. How did you get involved with doing the Metallica cover 'Battery' for Kerrang?? What was that like?? Kerrang notified us that they were going to be doing an anniversary thing. They wanted us to be a part of it and asked us to pick a song. We had done Battery before on our website for our fans. I wanted to do Damage Incorperated, but we had Battery down. Have you guys done any other covers while touring? On our headlining set we will do Sepultura, Iron Maiden. What cds have you been listening to lately? The new Chaimara, early Sabbath with Dio. Thanks for your time! I look forward to seeing you guys play in DC next week!

 

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