The Current

Issue date: 10/15/07 Section: Arts and Entertainment

Media Credit: Danny Reise Machine Head performs songs from its new album, 'The Blackening' on Oct. 7.

Media Credit: Danny Reise Robb Flynn, lead singer of Machine Head talks about his return to politically charged lyrics during an interview with The Current.

Sunday, Oct. 7, I was privileged to sit down and talk with Robb Flynn, lead singer of the metal band, Machine Head.

The band played later that same evening with co-headliners Arch Enemy, as well as Throwndown and Sanctity.

Machine Head released their latest album "The Blackening" in March 2007.

Since then, they have been getting rave reviews.

Some going so far as to call this the "greatest album of all time" possibly even edging out Metallica's "Master of Puppets" (Maximum Metal).

At the concert, Sanctity and Throwdown warmed up the audiences for amazing performances from both Arch Enemy and Machine Head.

The Current: How do you feel about "The Blackening" being called the "Master of Puppets" of this generation or the even the greatest metal album of all time?

Robb Flynn: When we hear things like that, it blows our mind. What do you say? Thank you. We set out to make a timeless record. We really wanted to make a record that would be revered as a classic from this band and as a classic, in the larger sense, of the genre. When we would write, we wouldn't know what that meant, we didn't know what that would be. There were even times when we were writing it and recording it that we were like "We're opening with a ten and a half minute song; are we losing our f****** minds? Are we becoming completely self-indulgent a**holes?" We had these conversations and the only thing that we could go on was that it just felt right. The songs, even though they were long, longer than we had ever had, or even though they were more LYRICALLY? abrasive than we've ever had, it just felt right.

TC: Did anything on this album happen on accident?

RF: It was totally by accident. We were as surprised as anyone. If a song goes on too long, then it just feels boring. We're short attention span guys.

TC: Do you think "The Blackening" will ultimately be as universally popular as "Master of Puppets"? Do you think it will cross genres and bring metal to non-metal heads?

RF: I think it could. When you look at "Master of Puppets," it isn't Metallica's biggest record. It's one of those records that's just continued to sell a lot of records over a long period of time. When it came out, it wasn't like this massive album. It was very slow in laying down the foundation they were building and that's just what we're trying to do. If "The Blackening" sells a million records or if it sells a hundred thousand records, we're not cognizant of that. We're not writing music to sell product. We're writing music to make art, to get this s*** that's inside of us out.

TC: Was the move back to more political lyrics intentional or just a natural progression "Through the Ashes of Empires"?

RF: Well there are still introspective lyrics on there in songs like "Beautiful Mourning," "Slanderous," "Wolves." I think that one consistent thread that Machine Head has always had with lyrics is questioning of authority. Even if you back to songs off the first album, like "A Thousand Lies," which is about the Gulf War. When we went into this album, we had just seen a lot more, we were questioning a lot more. We had gotten turned on to movies like "Loose Change" and "The Ground Truth," which is a movie made by Iraq War veterans who are now against the war. These things came into our psyche. There's a lot of stuff now that even the government has said is bad information and we were pissed about it. We were in a very angry state. And in some ways it was also a reaction to what was going on in music. If you look at the Vietnam era music, there were a lot of protest songs even with the popular artist like Bob Dylan. Where are the Bob Dylans now? Everyone has gotten on this flag-waving bandwagon and there are these real American 'love it or leave' metal bands. We were just didn't agree with that. So about three months before we went into record, I brought all the lyrics to the band and said, "I'm saying to pretty heavy s*** here and wanted to make sure you would all stand behind this. We could face repercussions." They read it and one by one they all came back and said "This is totally what I believe in" and that they would stand alongside me with these lyrics.

TC: Having just been removed from two House of Blues venues by Disney, do you think that is some of those repercussions to your album or just a reaction to the metal scene in general?

RF: They're phasing out metal. Our album went under some kind of internal review. We thought that we might face repercussions, but we didn't think that the people inflicting those repercussion would succeed. It's 2007, America. Is it so bad off in this country now that the very idea of these words being said is now enough to have the offenders removed? The first [venue] was definitely like "we're phasing out metal" and there's nothing wrong with that. It's not unusual for that to happen. What is unusual is to have a show go on sale for six weeks, two months, and then the record gets reviewed by some internal process and because they disagree with the things we're saying then our show is being moved. We're not politicians. We drink everyday. I think Republicans suck; I think Democrats suck. All we're saying is that there's a lot going wrong and, we don't have the answers, but this is what we're pissed about and we're going to sing it.

TC: Co-headlining with the Swedish band Arch Enemy, do you think that brings the American and European fans together?

RF: Totally. It's great because there are so many more girls in the audience too. Girls totally dig [Angela Gossow's] vibe and they're empowered to see a girl on stage throwing down hard vocals.

TC: How has the tour been without bassist Adam Duce, who broke his leg dirt biking?

RF: It's weird. He's never missed a show in Machine Head's career. When I look over to my left, I don't see that blond mop of hair flailing everywhere. It's bizarre, but we got the two guys fill in. We could have him up in a wheelchair, but he was like "That'll be lame." He joins us in a week and a half. We don't want him to come back and risk damaging it.

Robb Flynn also reports that the band favors a drink called "brown eye" which is essentially vodka and coke.

"We drink Grey Goose," says Flynn. "We even have a saying for promoters: No Grey Goose, we vamoose."

Also, he laughingly reported that drummer Dave McClain may in fact be related to the infamous John McClain from the Die Hard movies. "He has a very secret life and he's bald."

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