Fear, Emptiness, Decibel: Fear Factory’s Demanufacture Inducted Into the Hall of Fame
Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…
Now that the July issue is available for consumption, we have no more goddamn regrets about Fear Factory’s conspicuous absence from the Decibel Hall of Fame. Demanufacture—an inspired synergy of industrial propulsion and, well, substantially less death metal elements than Soul of a New Machine—has been rightly honored. Took a while, didn’t it? Here’s the scoop on why.
In 2010, we put Fear Factory on the cover in advance of what was then their first album in five years, Mechanize. Only Burton C. Bell and Dino Cazares (himself fired by Bell in 2002) were tenured members at that point, but we went the extra mile and interviewed recent expats Christian Olde Wolbers and Ray Herrera. Suffice it to say, everyone was more than frank about their feelings toward one another. The following excerpt was really just the tip of the iceberg.
Herrera: “At one point, Dino and I were really good friends. But I never felt that way with Burton. We never really hung out, you know? It always felt like a business.”
Olde Wolbers: “I’ve never trusted Burton with business matters. In fact, I wish he was more of a businessman, like a lot of other singers are. If he took charge with things, we would be a huge band by now.”
Suffice it to say, Cazares and Burton were (understandably, from their perspective) not thrilled with their big comeback national cover story mutating into he said/we said shit-stirring. From our perspective, we were trying to tell a thorough story about a classic veteran band that had recently undergone substantial adversity (see also: our Electric Wizard cover feature, which resulted in a ton of acrimony after it went to print).
Fast forward to roughly 2011 or 2012. When our industrious Nick Green approached the band about the Demanufacture HOF, an apology was demanded before they would again appear in Decibel’s pages. Drama! Intrigue! Just another day in Camp Fear Factory! Ultimately, we have to give big ups to Nuclear Blast’s upper management for soothing the burn behind the scenes and facilitating a pretty damn entertaining HOF—even with pretty much none of shit-talking that we all love! Give it a read.
The July 2015 issue of Decibel also features Lucifer, Pentagram, and Pig Destroyer, and can be purchased here. But if you don’t just get a full subscription you’ll eventually have to apologize to Dino Cazares.
