Machine Head Frontman Discusses Possibility of Rescheduled Fall Tour Being Canceled
A few weeks back, Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn posted an entry to his General Journals online diary in which he was extremely candid about how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the touring world and Machine Head in particular, speculating that it’s quite possible the band won’t be able to tour until 2022 at the earliest. That caused quite an uproar, as the band’s previously planned spring tour was rescheduled to the fall, and those dates are very much in doubt.
Flynn was our guest on The Quarantinecast a few days later, so we asked him to explain his comments further and tell us his truthful opinion on whether or not those rescheduled dates will happen, and here’s how he answered:
“We had some pretty serious conversations, like, ‘Are we going to continue to do this? How can we do this?’ We made the decision because it was like, look… nobody knows what’s going to happen. I’ve read a bunch of stuff and I’ve got an opinion on what I feel like’s going to happen, but nobody knows what’s going to happen. We just gotta be positive and think that this is going to work itself out and keep what we had in motion.
“I wanna do the dates. Our fans want us to do the dates. Like I said, I’ve been on the road since I was 19 years old, I don’t know anything different, dude. This is it. I don’t want to go off the road for two or three years. I posted my journal, you posted it. I don’t wanna go off the road but my mind, and everything I’ve heard, is telling me that [it will likely be canceled], but we’re going to go ahead because look, I could be wrong, and we’re just going to move ahead and do this like it will get sorted out and hopefully it will. All my fingers crossed, toes crossed, nuts crossed, everything crossed — I want this shit to happen. There’s a lot of money at stake, everybody wants to get paid, promoters wanna get paid, venues wanna get paid, agents wanna get paid, you know.
“And that was a whole other conversation that we started coming back with. First of all, I was pissed off at fuckin’ Blabbermouth for putting that, they took part of my journal and then ran with “All Machine Head Shows Cancelled!” [The Blabbermouth headline read “Robb Flynn: Machine Head Shows Will Probably Not Resume Until Summer of 2022” – Ed.] Promoters were freaking out [the next day] like ‘What the fuck!?’ That headline just as easily could have been, ‘Robb Flynn Goes Off On Fuckin’ Billionaires.’ It could have been, ‘Robb Flynn Ponders On The Fuckin’ Coronavirus” … but ‘Cancels all fucking tours?’ He took my thing, took it out of context, didn’t put the whole journal up so it was very out of context which is what he does A LOT, and he put a little ‘read the whole thing here’ [link] but, you know, nobody does that, they just read what’s there.
“It set off a whole fire drill in our world but then it also brought up a lot more questions, too. Because then the promoters were freaking out and I’m like, ‘Well, look… venue capacities are going to be cut down by 50%. Restaurant capacities, bar capacities, public gathering capacities. This isn’t me speculating, this is a fact. Those things, if they do open — rock concerts and football and basketball — that shit’s going to be the last thing, this is the most non-essential shit ever. It’s entertainment. I’m an entertainer. That’s what I do. I’m not essential.
“If we start a tour and two thirds of the tour gets cancelled cause those countries are shut down, are you still gonna pay us? Are we supposed to lose all that money? Are you going to ask us to cut our pay because you got a 50% cut on your capacity now? So what, do we gotta take a 50% pay cut? Some of these questions aren’t even being asked, everyone’s just like, ‘Yeah! Let’s get it goin’!’ Wait a minute, stop here. We all know what is coming down the way, this isn’t rocket science here.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Flynn told us about having the coronavirus very early on in the pandemic, discussed his feelings on wealth inequality in the U.S. and more. Listen to the full chat below.
