INTERVIEW: Dino Cazares Of Fear Factory

Fear Factory are supporting Metallica in Christchurch in September. I had a chat on the phone with Dino Cazares (Fear Factory guitarist) over the weekend to talk about the preparations for their new tour.

How are the preparations going for your tour of Australia, New Zealand and Japan?

Well right now we're on a break for a little bit because we just got home from the European festival tour. We've been on tour straight since December of last year. We're actually not going to start preparing for the new tour for at least another week or so.

You are supporting Metallica in Christchurch on 21 and 22 September. Are you looking forward to those gigs?

Yeah, very much so. I mean who wouldn't want to tour with Metallica? They're like the biggest metal band in the world right now. Whenever they ask us ‘come and support us’ we're like of course! How could anybody say no to that?

What's it like being on tour with Metallica?

They're really down to Earth guys and they're very aware of the music scene right now. They've taken us out for dinner a few times; we've partied with them a few times. One of the coolest things that happened was last April, we toured with them and James Hetfield came in to our dressing room and said ‘hey, that new record is really happy’. It was great because it meant that they actually listened to the record. That was really cool.

Have you ever been to New Zealand before?

Yeah, I've been to Auckland and it was amazing. We were there for the Big Day Out in January. New Zealand is amazing. I can't wait to go to Christchurch, I've never been to Christchurch and I can't wait to go.

Does living in Los Angeles inspire you?

Yeah, Los Angeles does inspire our music. Back in the early 90s there was a lot of things going on. We had massive fires, floods, earthquakes and riots. Yeah, it was pretty intense, it was pretty heavy. All of those things inspired us to write Soul of a Machine and Demanufacture.

Who are your favourite new bands?

I don't really have a favourite new band right now but I do have a couple of bands that I really like ones called After The Burial, they're from Minnesota. The other one is Dirge Within and they're from Chicago.

Fear Factory have existed in one form or another for over 20 years. What are your favourite Fear Factory albums?

Wow, that's a very tough question. I would have to say the new one [Mechanize], Obsolete and Demanufacture. Thoes are my favourites.

The sound of your guitars has become ubiquitous with the industry metal sound. How do you feel about being a pioneer of the metal sound?

Everybody is inspired by something, you know. We were definitely inspired by a lot of different musicians and bands and we definitely wear our influences on our sleeves. It's no secret who influenced us but it's what you take from your influences to try to create something new out of it. I just hope that other artists can take whatever it is from what we did or from what I did to go out and create something of your own.

Metallica have been around for 29 years, what’s your favourite Metallica album?

It would have to be... that's a hard question. ...And Justice for All and Master Of Puppets are my two favourite Metallica albums.

Are you glad to have rejoined Fear Factory in 2009?

Yeah of course I was very happy to rejoin Fear Factory. Being able to work with one of my favourite partners, Burton C. Bell was really cool. I was a little reluctant about coming back because I wasn't sure about how it was going to work out but me and Burt really hung out for a while and we talked on the phone for a while. We wanted to be sure that our relationship was going to be able to be tight again and that we could do this. Once we got past that part, we were able to create and bring the two styles back together again, put our heads together and come up with a great album.

If money was no object, what would be the first thing you buy?

How do you answer that question? There are so many things that I would buy straight away. I would buy a big house with a lot of rooms so that friends and other musicians could come and stay there and it would have a studio built in it.

For more info check out the official Fear Factory website and Dino's Twitter feed.

Interview by David Apple.