Fear Factory – Dino Cazares

Hand-picked by Metallica themselves, Fear Factory are currently supporting the thrash metal juggernauts around Australia. Metal Obsession got the opportunity to talk to Fear Factory guitarist and founding member Dino Cazares to chat about the upcoming tour, and on his other side projects, Brujeria and Divine Heresy.

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Metal Obsession: I bet you’re looking forward to returning to Australia?

Dino Cazares: I’m extremely excited. Can’t wait.

MO: And it’s with Metallica no less!

DC: Exactly, and that’s one reason we’re so fired up for it, any excuse for us to go back to Australia. Australia is a very beautiful country, as well as New Zealand and Japan. We love all those countries, but there’s something about Australia… it was one of those countries that really took a liking to Fear Factory. They accepted us for who we are. So it’s always a pleasure to go back there.

MO: How did you get the support slot for Metallica?

DC: They picked us. How do you think it’s done, they’re Metallica, they can pick who they want.

MO: Is this the first time you’ve shared the stage with Metallica?

DC: No. The first time we shared the stage with Metallica was in 2001 at a festival. Earlier this year we did a tour with them in Russia and a few other countries, about April this year. Recently we did a couple more festivals with them. It’s always killer when you’re just direct support.

MO: Did you end up settling the legal dispute with Raymond Herrera and Christian Olde Wolbers over the rights to the Fear Factory name?

DC: At the moment, everything is working out really well. Burton and I are not concerning ourselves with that too much, we hire people to do that kind of thing. It’s important that everyone stays focused on doing Fear Factory and playing shows, writing songs, writing albums. We let the law

yers and all their staff stress out about it!

MO: Well that’s what you pay them to do!

DC: We pay them enough! [laughs]

MO: With your choice in the setlist, will you be playing much from Mechanize, will there be some older songs?

DC: It really depends on how much time Metallica gives us. They usually give us between 45 minutes to an hour. We’re going to be playing some old classics. We’re going to try to squeeze in as much as we can. If you don’t get to hear your favourite song on the Metallica tour, you’ll definitely get to hear it when we do our own headlining tour.

MO: The album Mechanize has been out for a few months now, how has the response been considering the lineup changes in Fear Factory and everything else that has happened in the Fear Factory camp?

DC: Since I’ve been back in the band, it’s been extremely positive. I was a bit nervous about what people were going to think, what their reaction was going to be, but when the record came out and we started doing shows, it was all positive. Of course there were a few haters here and there but the majority of it was positive. I was very surprised, and very happy. Plus how can you go wrong when you’ve got Gene Hoglan in your band?

MO: No arguments there.

DC: …and Byron Stroud. Those guys are from Strapping Young Lad, they played with Devin Townsend. Those guys are talented, amazing musicians.

MO: and Gene Hoglan has been in Death and Dark Angel.

DC: Yeah, where do you start? We knew that were were going to need to get some top-notch musicians. I don’t think we could have made a better choice than Gene Hoglan.

MO: With the album Mechanize, the lyrical theme seems to lean towards the subject matter of the New World Order. Was that intended as the general theme?

DC: Yeah, it’s always been in our music. The Man vs Machine, Big Brother watching over you, a lot of government stuff. We’ve always had a lot of those conspiracy theories and futuristic lyrical stuff and we were always on the border of predicting where our future was going to go but on this record it’s more towards the present, of what’s happening now. The ‘Machine’ is not always technological, ‘the machine’ can also be our government, and it can be that machine that we’re fighting.

MO: What are your current views on world politics as it stands at present?

DC: That’s a really tough question… I hope that Americans can learn from a lot of world politics and what’s going on outside the country. Obama is trying to change things, he’s trying to get our health care free in America, like in other countries, in Australia?

[after briefly explaining the Medicare system to Dino] See, now why is it taking so long for us to have that? There are too many greedy motherfuckers, too many greedy politicians in America. There are big corporations that just want to keep sucking up all of our money, they want our money, but they’ll just watch us die. I’m all for private health insurance, but I don’t believe it should fuck with a free health care system. If people want to pay extra for the extra things, more power to them, but if you can get it for free, then get it for free, and keep it that way.

MO: On a few other things, will Divine Heresy tour Australia in the near future?

DC: Do you want Divine Heresy to tour Australia?

MO: Well, yeah!

DC: Do you think a lot of people in Australia would like to see us tour there?

MO: I believe so.

DC: Well then yes, we will tour Australia, but we’ve got to find time between Fear Factory to do it. I’m going to predict either November or early next year.

MO: Maybe Divine Heresy could co-headline with Fear Factory?

DC: We already did that in the states. We didn’t co-headline, Divine Heresy supported Fear Factory in the states. It was very positive, I don’t know if that’s going to happen overseas, or in Australia. It should, right?

MO: Divine Heresy would have gained fans at the Soundwave tour you did.

DC: Possibly it could happen. That thought has definitely been brought up in meetings. It’s a possibility.

MO: I also wanted to ask about Brujeria. Are they still active?

DC: They’re still active, well sort of. I’m not really involved with Brujeria right now, because I’m so busy. They’ve done a few shows here and there, but sort of. Everyone has been wanting to make a new record, but I haven’t had any time whatsoever to put into Brujeria. But we’ll see what happens.

MO: After the Metallica tour, what are Fear Factory’s plans for the remainder of 2010?

DC: We come back to the states, do a tour, then do a tour of Europe, then we go to South America, do a tour, and that takes us into February 2011. I think sometime either late February after Soundwave, Fear Factory will be coming back. Unfortunately we didn’t get asked to do Soundwave, we’ll have to do our own headlining tour which in a way is better, because we can do a full headlining set and play all those songs that we don’t get to play on the Metallica tour.

MO: That wraps up the interview…

DC: Thank you very much Metal Obsession, and I’ll hopefully get to see you when we’re in Australia.

MO: Thank you. Any last comments for the fans?

DC: [in jest] ‘Get a dog up ya!’ [laughs] We just can’t wait to get back there. Obviously you can tell by what I just said that we’ve been there a lot.

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Q’s: Megan Masters
A’s: Dino Cazares
Band: Fear Factory
Date: 15/09/2010
Origin: USA

Please be advised, there is still tickets available for Metallica’s Sydney show on Saturday, 18th of September. Tickets are available through Ticketek or dirty ass scalpers on eBay.

Metallica w/ Fear Factory & The Sword Australian Tour 2010

09/15/2010 – Melbourne , Australia – Rod Laver Arena SOLD OUT!
09/16/2010 – Melbourne, Australia – Rod Laver Arena SOLD OUT!
09/18/2010 Sydney, Australia – Acer Arena