Garza Podcast - 10: Dino Cazares | FEAR FACTORY

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

Dino Cazares is the guitar player for Fear Factory. We talk about watching your money, making Dave Mustaine a sandwich, and a WHOLE LOT more. SPONSORS: Click this link to purchase from Sweetwater & help support the podcast: imp.i114863.net/rnrmVB  

And our guest today is a guitar player for Fear Factory. He is the OG of OGs, man. And they're one of those bands that, if there's no Fear Factory, there's no a lot of bands, us included. And he's been through a lot through his whole career, ups and downs and crazy shit. So no matter where you're at throughout your career, whether you're made way or you're just starting,

this is something that we could all truly learn from. Anyway, without further ado, it's truly an honor Dino Cazaars Number 10 And this is going to be our 10th album Is it really? Yes

It's our 10th studio record But we've released a lot of stuff In between that Right Yeah A lot of remix records Yeah A lot of

Like we released one called The Hate Files Which is like a collection Of all our B sides That we put You know together Just to release on a record Right

Yeah There's a lot of rare stuff Yeah So I take I think they don't call that a studio record, even though it is kind of. Yeah. I like to say that the records that you go plan to make. So it's our 10th record in that sense.

Yeah. But we have so much other stuff. You know, like I said, remakes records, remunufactured, Fears the Mind Killer, hate files. Yeah. And then you could call, we did a first, first record we deal with Ross Robinson, which didn't see the light. 12 years later or so, right? Yeah.

Because we recorded it back in 1991. Yeah. Me and Ross were really good friends. We met each other a long time ago in the 80s. In the 80s. Yeah, in the 80s. And we just ravaged Hollywood. We just went everywhere and had a blast.

And we didn't drink. We didn't smoke. We didn't do anything. We just went around and just went to shows, went to concerts, met people, hung out with people. you know and just we went to his his his parents house in Palm Springs I'm sorry I'm not Palm Springs what am I saying Barstow you went to Barstow Barstow different desert yeah yeah Barstow and we went out there and we would just

you know swim eat Mexican food hang out with his parents with all with friends and Barstow and we just had a blast and then somewhere down the line when I started Fear Factory Ross was like, look, I'll produce the record. Let's do it. Ross was in a band called De Taunt. I don't know if you heard about that. Yes. And he was also in a band called Murder Car. Didn't hear of Murder Car.

With Dave McLean. So you can ask him about Murder Car. That was one with Dave. What's up with Murder Car? Yeah, ask him with that. And Dave McLean was the drummer, and he had double symbols. He had double high hats, double rides. I think double china and a couple crashes

and that was kind of like after seeing that when I started Fear Factory I kind of took that from Dave thank you Dave very much I took that from Dave and I suggested our drummer get double hi-hat, double rides things like that Whoa yeah and I actually first saw that

from Dave McLean I was like that's badass whenever I get a band and you know my drummer has to have that because I could see the benefit of it you know what I mean That's what's up. So, yeah, so me, Ross, and Dave McLean were roommates in Hollywood for, I can't even tell you what, year 88, 89 around there, maybe before that.

Maybe, yeah, maybe 86, 87. Somewhere around there. I can't even remember what year it was. But so Ross also got into production because he was working with a guy named Dana Strom and stuff. And so we ended up to go do a record, our first Fear Factor record with Ross. things didn't actually turn out when it came to the negotiation things didn't turn out right in the contracts

and so unfortunately a judge decided that Ross owned the recordings but we owned our songs so then we had this album quality demo it's album quality demo you know sounds killer

so what I decided to do was to go shop I took the demo and I shopped it to other labels. I went to Metal Blade Nuclear Blast, Century Media, Rotter Records. Whatever was, you know, E-RIC records, whichever was reachable at the time, that's who I went to go talk to and play on this demo. And Ross did the same thing. Ross actually took the demo and he played it for local bands.

And he said, hey, you want to hear something I produced, check this out. And he played them. And I want to say, you might have to ask Ross to clarify, this, but he actually, I think he played it to corn. Wow. That was one of the things he got, how he got the production deal with corn. Wow.

So you have to ask him that. I'll ask him. Okay, ask him to give you the details on that. And maybe he remembers, maybe he doesn't remember, I don't know. But, you know, luckily that, that, I want to say that that happened for a reason because in a positive sense, it, you know, doing that record really helps. helped us go to shop to other labels and people give us attention. You know what I mean?

Yeah. And get interest. And I think it worked in his favor too because he was able to shop it to other bands to produce other bands. So that record kind of helped us both, I think. You know what I mean? Yeah, in a way it worked out. Yes, in a weird way worked out.

So we ended up, you know, doing our first record sold in a machine. We got signed a Roadrunner Records, Max Cavalera. I played Max Cavalera. I played Max Cavalera, the demo. I'm sorry, well, the album, right? I played it for him, the Ross Robinson album. And Max, I had it on cassette, and Max wouldn't give it back to me. He had it in it.

He put it in his little Walkman, right? And he was listening to it. He's like, oh, man, this is so killer. Oh, man. So he really wanted to keep it. And I said, that's my only copy. I don't have any more copies. That's my master copy.

I need it back. And he's like, no. He said no. And I was like, oh, man. So he was in a hotel room because we were actually in a music convention, right? We were at a music convention. Kind of like NAM, right? A bunch of bands playing.

All the rec companies get together. It was really cool. It was a big convention. It was called the Concrete Foundation convention. Okay. This is before your time. You were probably still, you know, playing baseball. Yeah.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Little League. Anyway, so, and that's not a diss because I'm a big baseball fan, you know, so that's not a diss at all. Dean knows how that pictures. Yeah, exactly. I saw his family photos of him playing baseball.

That's amazing. I got a million of those, too. But we were at this convention, and that's how I seen Max, and I played him the demo, and he wouldn't give it to me. But he had a hotel room, and we were in his hotel room when he was listening to it, and I had to wrestle him to get it back. I literally jumped on him on his, bed, grabbed the walkman, and took it from his hands, and got it out of there and put in my pocket.

He's like, I want that. Give it. Give it. I'm like, I can't. I'll make you a copy. I'll come back and I'll make you, you know, I'll make you a copy. But he's like, that day he told Monty, oh, you got to hear Fear Factory. The rear circular, the vocals are amazing. You got to listen. So Monty's like, oh, yeah, really? Okay. So Monty fucking hit me up. And that's how we got signed. Wow. Because of Max. Because that one time I had to wrestle the tape from Max. That's how we got signed.

Damn, what, that's, that's insane. And we've been friends ever since. Probably with both Max and Monty. Yeah. Yeah, Monty still works with a band now. We signed back in 2014. We signed with Nuclear Blast. And we made our first record with Nuclear Blast called Genexus.

Yeah. And now we just completed our 10th studio record called Aggression Continuum, which is the first time you're officially hearing that. And that comes out in June. And that's the first time you're officially hearing that too. Wow. June 18th, actually. June 18th.

Yeah. Beautiful. And that track's coming out in a few days. We have the first single. It's called Disruptor. It's coming out in Friday, April. April 16th. Cool.

This airs on Monday, so that, that track will already be out and we'll probably be cranking it. Yeah, it's called Disruptor. It's a heavy track. It's a groovy track.

It's got a lot of the typical elements that people know. Fear Factory for, double bass, fucking triple picking, you know, heavy, melodic,

heavy vocals and melodic vocal combination. Yeah. It's a badass track and I'm glad that it's going to be the first track. That's great, man. I'm pumped to hear it.

But it does, It also doesn't represent the whole record because you've got to get the whole record to really get into the vibe. You know, of course, all our records are always, you know, conceptual. They always have that kind of production that I think that we perfected back in D-manufacture. So it has that quality of production. It has all the elements that people love about Fear Factory,

double bass, killer riffs, you know, the heavy and clean vocals and the concepts. the album covers that go along with it. You know, we always try to pride ourselves and trying to come up with original stuff. You know, whether it's lyrics, whether it's song titles,

riffs, patterns, you know, stuff like that. But everything that we do all kind of goes with each other. You know, whether it's visuals, whether it's, you know, the sound, production, yeah.

Concepts, you know, we're way into that. Yeah, you guys have always been really great at really making like your records like a concept and really making it the whole thing is a vibe the whole thing is a vibe exactly like from the sound

everything to the vibe to the to the you know like I said the album cover you know tells a little bit of the story of what the record's about you know what I mean yeah it's our 10th record so the Roman numeral number is X right

yeah so the front of the album cover kind of has a little bit of an X. So it's like an FF, but it's like kind of X to represent the 10th album. Wow. Yeah, we've been around, we had our 30th birthday

just last October. So Fear Factor's existed for 30 years. 30 years, man. 30 years, 1990. October 31st, 1990. So this is kind of like a representation of being around for 30 years.

and 10th studio record. And, you know, aggression continuum means just the aggression continues. You know, we're going to... Yeah. Yeah, it's going to continue. I love that. Yeah.

Man, after... This is the first time anybody's hearing about that, so... Yeah, same. Yeah, it's just all happening in real time. Narnly. After, I mean, especially after three decades, how do you... How do you guys keep going forward and, like...

sound old three decades. It's three decades, man. I know it is, but it's so weird to hear that. Wow. But the band's like, bands like me, and I'm in this weird spot where like I'm 35, so I'm kind of in like in that middle ground.

It's really, when you're aware of like where music is going, it's like another 15 years sounds really, how do you do that? You know, how do you keep like the sound, how do you keep your integrity

and still, bring it out there 10 10 records it's in me it's just in me i can't get rid of it it's just there ever since i was a nine years old i just you know seeing ac dc and just being passionately in love with music yeah you know and wanting to discover and learn new music you know uh from new up and coming bands everybody you know when you guys first came out i was like holy fuck this is some badass new shit you know not a lot of people are doing this stuff and i got way into that for a while and just all different types of and i like discovering new things because it helps me it's um it's like eddie van haley one time he said that he's always searching for tone i'm always searching

for new sounds and just what people like you know what people listening to what's coming out new because there's always going to be some sort of new idea coming out you know what i mean maybe it's a little bit maybe it's a lot maybe there's a killer band it breaks through um i just the love for music and it's still in my heart and i i i i can't stop it you can't stop it then i pick up guitar i'm looking at your guitar right now going just foamy and i want to pick it up i'm looking at your car i'm trying to look at you but i'm looking at your guitar you know i just I'm going to play it. You know, that's just, I don't know.

I'm just like kind of dude. Yeah. I'm sure you're that way too. Same. There's only one word I could describe and I could definitely see in you, which you find that you're obsessed. Yes, there you go. It's obsession. Yeah.

I'll also call I'm a lifer or two because this is my life. I'm just, you know, it doesn't matter how poor or rich I am. Because, you know, when you're going into the music industry, it's always up and down. You can have a great year and you can have a shitty year. but it doesn't financially but it doesn't that doesn't never bother me it's more of like

how I can't be away from the guitar too long yeah like you know I used to go on vacation oh I'm going to Hawaii for you know 10 days and and then like 10 days is like fucking two years without a guitar yeah it's crazy

because I don't take a guitar but now I don't know if you've seen those headless guitars those that are really popular headless guitars so I have one and it's much smaller. Yeah.

Right? So I can take that anywhere. It's so small. You know what I mean? Yeah. The gig bag is like the size of your backpack. You know what I mean? It's like so small.

So wherever I go now, I could take that and just like, if I go on vacation, I could take that because it's so small. So now you got a guitar for vacation. Yeah. Great. Pretty much. Dang. Yeah.

So which even if I, even if I didn't pick it up for that day, I had to know, I have to know it's there. Yeah. You know what I mean? There's something about even just being around it I noticed. Sometimes I won't play it, but just knowing it's there and I see it, it has to be there. First thing I noticed when I walked in was that.

Yeah. And then whoever else was in the room, of course. Of course. It's just, you're just drawn to it, you know, and things that, you know, happen probably when you're like a child and your influences that your parents had on you. Just these things just make you. Yeah.

And I'm still baseball obsessed, too. I watch a lot of baseball. Yeah. So baseball, basketball. Those are my two favorite things. Have you been in any games yet? Not yet. I know they just opened up like a few days ago.

I'm saying, I hear it's badass. Dan Kenney, our base player, just saw the Padres San Diego and he was mentioning how dope it is. There's no, there's, you know, 25% capacity. Yeah. And he was saying how dope it is. There's no lines in a bathroom. So we get a hot dog and beard.

There's no lines. He said it was sick. If you want to go to a baseball game, you got to go. I went to a Dodger game. This was like two years ago. I went to a Dodger game. And I had to take a piss really bad, right? there's a line for the

pisser, of course, right? And then I finally make it to take a piss and there's like this drunk dude. Dino! Oh, man, here I am. I'm just about to let it out. I'm like, you tense up because the guy yelled so loud and echoed in the toilet.

Oh, fuck. That it just kind of scared me. Yeah. I'm like, oh, just let me be concentrating and take a piss. I've been holding it waiting in line. And those beers are pretty big there, right? Those big, oh, I don't

if you ever bought any beer at Of course The Dodger Stadium Had they're pretty big The Micholata and all that stuff right I'm like kind of pissed And that guy's like Dino I'm like oh my god

Tents up I was like hey what's up And then he wants to shake my hand I'm like dude I'm holding my dick I'm pissing man He wasn't aware of what You know sometimes there's not aware what's going on They're just like excited to see you

I get it they're excited to see you I mean I gave him a fist pump But still you know it's like Peeing and a fist pump at the same time Dude that's what's up I've happened that stuff to me When you're sitting on a toilet And it's like, oh, Dino's air off

Oh shit Oh man, I'm trying to go I need some A little bit of privacy when I'm doing it You know? Yeah And sometimes it's hard When you know somebody out

It's on the other side of that door Waiting for you Yeah, it's weird To sign something I mean it's not that it's weird It's just a little uncomfortable Because you're trying to go You know what I mean?

Yeah Especially like a public area Yeah I just say yo just let me finish I'll be out there Just you know give me a minute You know?

Yeah. It's all right, man. Do your thing. Do your thing. I'm like, thank you. So you're just like trying to like not to fucking be loud, you know? I think it's hilarious. Yeah.

It's like, you know. Dude, you got to have a game, man. Oh, I'm all for it. I know my nephew just went to a game yesterday. Kirshaw pitched and he was at that game. Sick. Yeah. Yeah, because we don't know when they're going to open open.

You know, when it's going to be even more than 25% capacity, you know? But it might be, you're right. might be better to go now. Yeah. When there's no line, you can get, you know, a Dodger dog with no problem, no line.

Dude, that is the way to go. I was, I was thinking, like, I want to see a game. If it's like that, it might never happen again. Yeah.

So I always wanted to make a Dodger and a Laker guitar. I wanted to do with, you know, like the whole guitar being, having the laces from a baseball. Yeah. You know what I mean? So the,

so the guitar would be kind of like an off-white with the red laces from a baseball. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Then you put like maybe the Dodger logo on the inlay or you put Alley, you know, the Alley logo on the inlay. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And maybe you paint the top of the neck like a baby blue color. You know what I mean? Maybe put some red highlights in there. You know what I mean? That'd be dope. That's what I always thought about making. And same thing with a Laker guitar. I've actually had somebody draw it out on the computer

how it would look like. They look amazing. I'll just haven't been able to execute it. yet. Yeah. That would sick, man. Yeah. I want to see that because you, I mean, you you have so much history in L.A. It's you.

I have a lot of, I had a lot of Ibanez's over the years and you know, I always had those guitars that were themed guitars. Like, what I wanted to do was I had a lot of bunch of old Ibanez's and I wanted to paint or get

like all our album covers painted on all the guitars. Yeah. So I just hang them up on the wall. Yeah. Like the industrialist. Dementia manufacturer. Obsolite. Solvenant machine.

Digimortal. Yeah. Hang up all on the wall. I love that. Yeah. Especially as a band. It's cool seeing that. Yeah.

Well, whoever gets to come over the house. Yeah. Totally. You know? Look at me, when you use them live, he's using like the obsolete guitar. Yeah. I mean, as a fan.

Yes. People have said that. People like, yeah, man, how do I get that guitar? Oh, you can't. Yeah. It's only yours Custom made Yeah so I was always into You know

Getting my guitars themed out too Yeah I mean So that's dope man How man Fuck do you just How did it Since you're from L.A Okay

How I really want to talk more about like About Ross Okay What kind of spun Because I was listening to To scapegoat And that's a sound that

Because the past week I've been listening to every song It's funny you bring up Scapegoat It's funny you bring up Scapegoat That and that When I heard that song I'm like I'm writing rips like this now

You know Yeah It's like Well if this is the Scapego Escape Boat's got that riff Gagang Gagang Gaggan Gaggan Gagging gang gang gang gang Yeah

And then two years later There's a similar corn riff Yeah But um ba bum Bambba bum ba bum Dada da da da da You know I mean So there's a lot of

I think Ross was the connection between us and corn Ross was probably that middle connection between both bands. Interesting. Yeah. Ross recognized talent. Ross had that gift and he recognized talent and obviously he saw that

in us, he saw that in Banzai Corn and from Max doing soul flies, slip knot you know, he saw talent he knew what the, he knew you know you can honestly actually say Ross is responsible for that whole

genre. Yeah. You know? Creating a sound for the genre. Don't get me wrong. Those bands already had that vibe and that sound, right? I'm sorry, the riffs and the music.

Yeah. But Ross created the sound. He helped elevate you know, what the bands were about. He helped bring that out. Yeah. He helped Jonathan Davis

get in touch with his emotions. You heard that on those records, him crying. Yeah. You know what I mean? Ross had that talent to bring that out in people. He brought the best or the worst, in some cases, the worst out in people. You know what I mean? And he recognized and he knew how to do that and he knew how to motivate and he knew how to, you know, understand, just talking to the person, understanding them and, you know,

helping them become in touch with their inner emotions. Wow. He knows that. He knows that kind of stuff. you know, I'm not saying it worked for every band, but you saw it in the bands that he did it with, you know, you can see it, you can hear it in corn, you can hear it on our first record that we did with him.

That's what I want to get to. How much, how much of, you know, did Ross, as you just said, like, he's really good at just maximizing, over-exaggerating, like, at the sound. I'm like, this is what he had, and he was fucking make it a thing. Yeah. How much of it?

Well, he made, not made, I don't know how I say it, he helped that person find out who they were and put that attitude and emotions into their playing, right? Yeah. So, another, the drummer, the drummer, right? He says the drummer's playing this beat. Ross will get there, stand next to the drummer, in front of the drum, set up to the side.

It's like, yeah, man, you know, just get into it. And, like, the guy starts vibing off Ross. He's like, boom, he just comes out with this amazing fucking drum beat, you know, a drum performance. Yeah. He knows how to do that. He gets in there with you. I don't know if he did that with you guys,

but I've seen them do that with other bands. And he also did it with me as well. So I've seen him do that with other bands. And, like, you can hear it. You can hear it in the music. You can hear it. You can. Yeah.

So that would explain, like, the really, you really took what you were doing, and Fear Factor was doing really all. Now you're going to take it to that next level. Well, Ross knew me as a person, so he knew my vibe. He knew what I wanted. create.

You knew what I wanted to do. And sometimes when you're recording, it's called Fear of the Red button. When you press record, some people freeze up. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Ross made you feel very comfortable to record. And that was one of the things he taught me in the beginning. And he would always make it fun. Yeah. You know what I mean? And not so, you know, not a lot of tension.

And not a lot of, you know, if you had any kind of fear, he eased that fear. in you. Wow. Right? Yeah. And I just thought that

that was something that I learned from him. Just to ease attention. Ease attention, exactly. Wow. Yeah, Ross has a way of making you feel comfortable. Mm-hmm.

You know, and the way, and also when he gives you compliments, I don't know why, but when he does it, it just makes you, maybe, and I didn't even notice that, but yeah, actually just ease attention.

Oh, shit, he just said that. How cool. I think, Ross was born with that because that's what his mother had. His mother had that. His mother is a motivational speaker

and I think that that's she had a lot of influence on how he relates to musicians. Which works in some cases. Like I said, I'm not going to say it worked for every band but the bands it did work for it was like, wow.

You know, I was like, wow, listen to this. First corn record, first three corn records and biscuit record, you know, Slipknot record, Soulfly records, you know what I mean, and numerous of others. Mars Vulta? At the driving, right? At the driving, there you go, my bad. At the driving.

You know, you hear that, you hear it. And that's a big Ross influence. Yeah. Because, you know, some bands, when they go on to do different records, totally different vibe. Yeah. Right? So, I mean, he pretty much, I mean, right out of the gate, it kind of, you could, do extremely

heavy stuff. I mean, scapego. I mean, that first record that technically didn't come out until another 10 years. Yeah. I mean, that's fucking heavy, dude. Yeah. You know, the funny thing is that we never went back to Ross. And I don't know why. Yeah. I don't know why we never went back to Ross.

It sucks when that shit happens, dude. It's like, why didn't we go back with this guy? Yeah. But then now I think about it, it's like, I think that I've learned enough that we don't really need. a producer Yeah

Right? To where the artist becomes a producer Because you know What you're going for You know what you're going for? You know what I mean?

So on and so on And we've had engineers Like we have a guy named Damien Rayneau He's a French guy And he's been living here in America For the past 10 years And he became one of my really good friends

So we produced the records together The last couple of records, yeah So we do it together And we know what we want And that's it And we just have have somebody, you know, killer mix it, mix their albums, you know?

Mixing is the big one. Mixing, yes, mixing is very much the big one. Yeah, you can't, you can't see on that. But hold on. But hold on, but before you mix, you still got to get, you still got to get a good performance, right? Yeah. And I think that's probably one of the reasons why I probably never went back to Ross

because I think that, you know, way, way, way back then, you know, he taught me a few things. so I was able to use that and future records to where I was able to grow on my own and do my own thing if you know what I mean. Yeah, 100%. Thank you, Ross.

So you can tell him that. Say, this is what Deino said about you. He was like, oh shit, what do he say? You said thank you. Says thanks, man. But I know he did one of your guys' records. Yeah. Right?

That's great. You know, he helped out very similar to what you were saying, And really, regardless how it turned out, I mean, really regained confidence and truly find myself. And then now, years later, you're able to apply it to and find your own way. When you, okay, just seeing him how he works and then how he, oh, then you take that and then you could apply it. Yeah. And then, you know, Ross, to me, is a very loving guy.

Yes. A very loving person. He's non-judgmental. Yeah. I mean, he makes you feel comfortable. Yeah. Of who you are, which I think is great. I'm not exactly that way.

Yeah. I'm not always that way. I don't think a lot of people are like that. You know, he just has something special about him. Totally. Especially as, especially you're like a musician, there's, you know, maybe a musician might be struggling with some insecurities. I know I was, and I have someone like just fucking open you up.

Like it's huge, man. Yeah, after we made our first record going into D-Manufacturer, our second record, right then there, before, as we were making a second record, I knew what I wanted. I knew it. I knew it.

And I actually butted heads with Colin Richardson, who was producing D-Manufacture at the time. He was producing it. So in the middle of the production, we had a falling out. And one of the falling outs that we had was that I had a modified Marshall head. Jason 800, modified by this guy named Alon Mirman. And he's from Israel, but he was in America.

And he modified this head, and it was amazing. That was the tone, right? Yeah. And I kind of learned that from Ross back in the day because he was getting, because that was the thing in the 80s, you would get your marshals modified. I mean, Eddie Van Haley did it back in the 70s, you know what I mean? Yeah. There was guys out there that were modding the marshals just to give it a little bit more distortion, overdrive.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And, you know, hanging out with Ross and meeting guys that he knew that were modifying these heads, I was like, man, I got to get my stuff modified. So, you know, I got my head modified. That became my tone. That became my sound. Yeah.

But Colin Richardson at the time wasn't into it. He was like, no, man, you got to use the 501. with a tube screamer. And I was like, but that's not my sound. That's machine head on the burning, on the,

burn my eyes. Yeah. That's carcass on heartwork. Yeah. Those tones are great. Don't get me wrong. But that's not my tone. That's those guys' tones.

Yeah. So we had a, we were budding heads. We wasted like five days of arguments. Wow. Five days of arguing on tone. Right? Yeah.

And I was like, but this is me. Why are you trying to change me? I don't get it. You know, this is me. I know what I want. This is the tone. Blah, blah, blah.

And he was like, no, you got to use this. I'm the producer. I'm like, I don't care. I don't care. I wanted my tone. And so I met, I went down, we were in New York, and I went down the street from where the studio was. And there was this little market, right? And I saw this guy, like, sweeping the floor.

I was like, that guy looks familiar. And it was Dr. No from a band called Bad Brains. Wow. I don't know if you know him. He had a little store down there. He was living out there. And he had a store. It was in upstate New York at a place,

a little town called Bearsville next to Woodstock. You know the festival? There's a little town called Woodstock. Yeah. Population of 10,000 people. Maybe. Maybe less. I don't know.

Bearsville was next door. The town was next door. I went down to the market, saw him, And I was like, holy shit, you're Dr. No. And he's like, yeah, man, this is my spot. You know, you want something? Yeah, I'll hook you up, whatever. So anyway, so I was like, I was telling him my problem.

I go, man, I'm recording up there, and I'm fighting with my producer because he doesn't want my tone. He says, he said this, he said that, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, man, don't let nobody change you. Don't let nobody change you, man. You are who you are. That is you. That is you. That should be you.

I'm like, wow, thank you for telling you that. Oh, wow. I got my hair stood up like yeah fuck that producer I was so mad right my hair stood up and I was like you know but I don't know

I think you might be right about my cabinet because my cabinet is pretty beat up and he goes hey man I got some brand new mason buggy triple rectifier cabinets you want to borrow them and I said really and he said yeah so we like later that day

he went and got his truck and he brought these cabinets to the studio and he brought him into the studio, right? I plugged in my head, my Marshall JSPM00 to that Mesa Boogie Triple Walk to Fire cab is the short, the standard cab, not the oversized cab, standard cab, right? Yeah. We plugged it in, you know,

new, finches 30s, selections, right? Cran, I was like, wow. I was like, that's it, that's it. I went back to the producer, I go, that's the fucking tone, that's what we're doing. And he goes, yeah, it sounds about. right. I'm like, you know what? Fuck you. This is it. So I won. We used it. Finally got everything recorded and listened to that record now. That tone's sick. It's sick, man. I'm still looking

for that tone. Wow. That's insane. That was, that's like obsession. That's like you got to, you know, Dr. No telling me that really, this is the first time I've ever said that part, what he told me, you know, that I had to be me, that that's me. That's an extension of who I am. You know, that's your tone. Don't try to get anybody else to change that. And that stuff he told me was like, he's right. He's right. Sure, I can be open to suggestions.

But when you know something and you feel something is right, stick with it. You know, that's what I did. Yeah, some things you just can't budge on. And it's very extremely rare. Those are one of those extremely rare moments where you don't fucking budge, man. You know, and it's hard for you, it's hard for you to explain a feeling.

It's like, dude, I can't, dude. No, this is, this is it. This is my tone. This is my tone. Yeah, exactly. And he was really trying to get me because that was 1995, right? And, you know, the, the, the Burr-Myaz record came out.

Yeah. Great, great guitar tone. Yeah. You know, nice fat guitar tone. And that was an EV, that was a 5150 with a two-scramer, you know? And heartwork came out around that same time, too. Yeah.

Great tone. Great tone. And I love that tone, but that was their tone. Yeah. You know what I mean? And he was trying to sell me on that because he already had done that with those two bands. Because he produced those bands. Oh, yeah.

He had just produced them. Yeah, and so after that, he was coming into our stuff. And it was like, nothing against those guys. Man, those guys are fucking amazing shredders. Bill Stairs, amazing Michael Amott. Those records were amazing, those Carcass Records. and then, you know, obviously, Rob Flan and Logan Mayter on the Burma Eyes record, those were amazing records, and those were, you know,

those are some of those life-changing albums, you know, for those, you know, their career went to another level on those records. And I recognized that, but that wasn't my sound, you know what I mean? Yeah. I stuck with my head, and, you know, Rob Flynn said, still gives me props on that tone. You know what I mean? Wow.

Yeah, it's cool. That's cool, man. You, you know, there's also a thing where, like, sometimes, you know, producers are people, too. They're not right all the time. Just because they're a producer does not mean they're right. Yeah. And sometimes you're like, you know, sometimes you kind of question it. Oh, maybe he is right.

Maybe I should go to this. Yeah. What the fuck? But I should do that. But I wasn't that way. I was sure. I was sure. But don't get me wrong.

I did try his idea just to try it. okay I'll give you the benefit of the doubt hook it up let's try it you got to try it and the minute he hooked it up I plug in my guitar on them I was playing you know down and to down down I was playing all my god

all the machine head riffs and all the carcass riff yeah da da da da da down to da da down da da da da da da da da da da da da you know yeah I was playing all the carcass I'm going look that sounds like those bands especially then where like

you really had to stick your your ground because you were still on beat so it was even more it's like you guys weren't in A yet So it's like you still in B Yeah Still that tone and still that tuning And we ended up firing him

Really? Yeah Oh shit I don't know that We ended up firing him And we got Greg Reilly And Greg Reilly and Reese Fulber Who's worked with us for

Since that app Since Ninety two he's been working with us The keyboard player Rees Fulber yeah And you know We got those two guys to mix the record Wow.

We left New York, went back to L.A., mixed it in L.A. And boom. I even, on my Patreon page, I even put like three songs. My buddy recorded us mixing three songs, and you can hear,

you know, the guitar tone. You know, EQ in the guitar tone. You can hear it. It's amazing. That's an real man. It sounds really good, even for old VHS tape. And we converted it to digital,

and it still sounds amazing. Yeah, what was it like recording that kind of music on tape? And what is it about tape? Anoin. It's annoying. Yeah, because there was a few techniques that we had to do that took a long time. Really? Yeah.

For instance, on the first record, we wanted to trigger the kick drums. Yeah, yeah. But from when you roll it off tape, through the board, through the triggering system, back on tape, there's a delay. in the words You'll hear the live kick drum Then you hear the trigger Just shortly after that Tid t t t t t t t t t t'it

You heard like two hits So you had to record it that way And you flip the tape over Weird technique I don't know Flip the tape over And you re-trigger it So the delay will be going backwards

And it'll be on time What the fuck? Weird shit That's weird I'm sure Ross can explain it to you But better than I could but that was it just took a long time.

Wow. Yeah. But you guys needed that? I'm sure there was other techniques. I sure there was other techniques, but that was the main techniques. If you go to, I'm probably going to ruin this for a lot of people,

but if you go to demanufacture and there's a couple of snare hits, you might hear a, like a little flam. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of little things that bother me. Is that?

I hear it. Maybe other people can't hear it, Of course. It's one of those things for only we hear it. Yeah, exactly. And like someone else, they're like, what? I know that one little part, dude. I'm one little, it's like, you know,

only we know like the small details. However, we got to pay attention to the small details. You know, it's what gives it like the whole picture and the whole sound. I'm obsessed, dude. I listen to every little thing. You hear that? I didn't hear anything.

It's there. Go back. You hear it? I go, I hear it. And you tell somebody, look, listen. Oh, I hear it now. But sometimes. It's because I'm obsessively listening to it.

Yeah. It's weird. Yeah. I can hear certain. I've been, I don't know, my ears have been trained to hear certain noises. Like if there's a really bad edit or just a little, not necessarily a bad edit, but just an edit. Yeah. You can hear a little pop.

Yeah. I hear it. I don't know why. Do you ever struggle with like, if you hear something or see something going on, especially when, like, when there's editing or mixing or whatever, you ever feel like, I want to say something about all that, but I don't want to be a dick? Do you ever struggle with that or do you say fuck it? Only in the very beginning. Okay. Because you don't want to like, like when we did the first record, I heard things.

I'm like, you know, I just, I said, you know what? If I didn't speak up and it's already on CD, fuck it. There's nothing I could do about it, right? Yeah. And I, in the first record, I was kind of like, you know, that way. Because I didn't really, I didn't really know the producer we were working with that well. Yeah. And I didn't want to, you know, piss anybody off or rub somebody the wrong way.

or you know, rub somebody the wrong way. Like, what if I said, hey, man, the guitar needs to be up? Oh, you're just saying that because you're the guitar player. You know, I was like, no, it does need to be up. You know, now I, you know, I just make my own decision. I don't really need to worry about pissing off a producer. Great. So you don't worry about that.

If you hear something or see something that you, like, you speak up. Well, most people now, most guys I work with now, trust me because I've made so many records that they trust my ear, right? So they give me the benefit of the doubt or they say, okay, let's work on it. Let's figure out what it is. Okay. Then we, that's it.

We just figure out what it is. And we get it done. Oh, wow. Yeah, there's no arguments or nothing like that. Damn. Okay. So you've got to do it. You just got to do it.

Always struggle with that. I went. Whereas a guy like Ross, oh, man, that thing's off. But it gives it a vibe. Listen to that thing. You know, it's like. Yeah.

So you can't. You can't capture that again. It's already, it's there. It's amazing. Trust me, people won't notice it. Yeah. Yeah, there's a difference between going on a vibe and feeling and it feels good other than like just, I don't know the right word,

nitpicking. Yeah, nitpicking. I'm very much. I can't say a nitpick, but I would definitely if I feel something is, even if something's played right, even if something sounds right, like whether it's me or the drums or whatever,

even though something sounds right, played right, but it doesn't feel right, I'll still do it again. Yeah. It's so weird how you can play something perfect, but it won't feel right. Yeah. To this day, it's fascinates me. I don't know what it is either, but it just, it's there. It's like, man, that doesn't feel right.

You got to do it again or sometimes you ever, like, you ever record like a sick demo, like the song, but then you record it, you're like, what happened? Yes. It's not like, it doesn't feel right. Yes, there was one song on the new record that had a really fat groove to it, right? And then, but we did a demo version of it first. Yeah. We gave it to the record company, you know, Monty Connor.

Yeah. And then when we went to go re-record it, he's like, I don't know, man. I like the demo version better. I go, what do you like better about it? And he goes, it had a better swing to it. And I was like, you're right. It does. Yeah.

It does have a better swing to it. So we went and recorded the drums. Yeah? Yeah. That's what's up. But I had enough time because of Corona, blah, blah, blah. So I had time to go back and re-record it. You know what I mean?

I redo the guitars in that part. And I go, and Monti's like, what did you guys do? I go, we just went and re-recorded. It just like, oh, sounds way better. Really? Yeah. Damn. I wish I knew that was even an option.

That's, you go and re-record it. That's fucking sick. I've never done that before. But our, you know, our drummer Mike Heller, always been with us for the past almost 10 years. He has his own studio. He has his drum set up. Oh yeah, you want me to do something?

I didn't change the mics, nothing. Yeah, all the EQ's set up the same, all the preamps of the same. Sure, let's go. That's what's up. Yeah. And it's like, so it didn't sound any different. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, though, I mean, you've seen way more than me. I mean, as far as like tone, you know, it didn't sound different. Any tone. But of course, his vibes sounded different. So that was cool. Totally. Yeah. What's it been like?

for you seeing pretty much every kind of scenario with producers, engineers, way of recording to all those years. Like what do you see it's more convenient and do you, like, you know, let's say like the drummer could re-record like the drums right then there. Like you've seen and done it all, you know, like what's... Pretty much. We've done everything where we use program drums. Really?

Where we use live drums to no-click drums. to no click track, to click track, to insane time signatures click tracks. Yeah. Like the record, okay, I'll give an example. On D-Manufacture, excuse me, on D-Manufacture our second album, we wrote the click tracks,

but the click track was only one time. So it was like 195. The whole song was 195, right? There was no natural flow or nothing, I guess. It was 195. So that thing sounded like a machine. Whereas on obsolete, excuse me, I keep burping, but on obsolete, we first on the demo, me and Raymond,

wouldn't record it with no click track. Recorded with no click track. We did it about three or four times, and then we picked the one that had the best vibe. Okay, that one sounds good. Let's go with that one. Then Reese Fulber, or producer, engineer, keyboard player, he wrote the click track to the live.

live drums. So in other words, if it was started at 190 and it went to 195 and it dropped down to 185 and all these different click tracks, we left it that way. So when we recorded the record, Raymond followed the click track

as it naturally changed and flowed and it sounded great. Whoa. Crazy. That's crazy. It was amazing. I loved it. Love it. That's what I gave that record of a fucking epic vibe to it. Obsolete, yeah. Yeah.

The third album. So you had multiple click tempos. Yeah. By the time 1998 came around, I never really said anything about this before. But by the time 1998 came around, when that record came out and we were making that record, you know, music had changed, right? Like in other words, glam rock, in early 90s, glam rock died when Nirvana came out, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. just fucking disappeared for a minute. Yeah. And then even bands like Thrash Metal went away for a little while. I mean, don't get me wrong. It didn't go away. It was still there,

but a lot of bands weren't doing much and those kind of bands were getting a lot of attention. So you can kind of say it disappeared, right? Yeah. But, of course, those bands still existed. But, you know, the music had changed

and then all of a sudden, 94, by the time corn and Limp Biscuit, and all those new metal bands came around, deaf tones, a lot of shit changed. Right? So, and we noticed that a lot of stuff started to go fucking groove, like big groove.

Everybody had these fat tones, and they just, everybody went groovy. You know, corn was really groovy, Limpisket, Soulfly, I'm sorry, Subal Tura, Roos record, super groovy records, right? Yeah. All that shit was a fat groove, right?

Yeah. And I was like, we need to bring some fear factor groove. Yeah. So we were having the fucking double kick patterns, right? Yeah.

With this groove on top. In other words, the kicks are doing one thing. You know, the guitar, I'm sorry, the snares are doing another thing. Because there was no, you know, new band of bands doing shit like that. Everyone was like, you know,

corn to subletour to Cold Chamber that seemed to be that seemed to be kind of the beat you know what I mean this is the way it's got to be you know it's like fuck yeah all that

all that groovey stuff we're like all right you guys doing that we're gonna do that right now we're gonna fucking we're gonna make this fucking insane fat groovy masterpiece

and then you know turdum dra ta turdra you know and you got songs like shock you know it's just that fucking killer riff yeah

right but with the groove on top. Yeah. And it just worked. And we were like, that's it. That's it. That's it. We guys do it year away.

Exactly. It then sounds like you guys. So we were consciously aware of, I mean, we were directly involved in that scene that was coming out. And that scene that was happening in L.A., actually. You know what I mean? California. You know what I mean? You got the top bands, you know, corn, you know, coal chamber, fucking deaf tones.

Yeah. Right? All those top bands. Of course, you had, you know, Libis that were from Florida, which I believe moved here. Possibly. Because this is the scene.

The scene was happening here. And, you know, obviously, Sabatura from Brazil. I think at the time, you were living in Arizona by that time. But you had a scene that was going on. System of it down, you know, spine shank,

you know, all those bands. So there was a scene here. And we're like, okay, we need to bring our vibe of what's, what's going on and so we brought that fat groove we gave

you know we used different click track tempos you know what I mean we thicken up our guitar tone by that time I was really I had already used started using 7 string in 1996 but we went

when we went and did obsolete that was when I first recorded with a 7th string yeah right yeah so it was my first recording with a 7th string and we dropped the tune down to A, right?

And I had some, I had EMG make me 801s, right? Yeah. And the seven-string version. Yeah. So I had the first active, seven-string pickup. I know, that's crazy, man. First after, and so that was,

that's what you heard an obsolete. So you had, you still had that crunch, right? Like, like, you know, metal as fuck. Yeah. And then you just had that fat groove. So. How did you get him? And then we were like, oh, sorry, sorry, to catch you off.

Then we were like, okay, let's make a song with no double bass. Yeah. And we're like, okay, let's do that. And so we're like, uh, da-down, bap the dome, do, bap. It was an edge crusher came out. Yeah. You know, no double bass on the song. Yeah.

We're like, whoa. That's crazy, man. Because every song we had was double bass. Yeah. Had some form of double bass, right? It works. That's why there's a lot of dynamic in that record, but it was still extreme metal. and was still Fear Factory,

but it's a lot of cool vibes. And, you know, when a corn kid likes me, you know, I was just like hearing, I just heard heavy music. Like, it was like a span of a year. Then I was watching, like, MTV, and then you guys came on, you guys were playing like a spring break,

Bash. That was amazing. Dude, so fucking cool. I remember you were talking about rave Mysterio. I was like, who are these guys? And then when you see it... That was the first time you saw us? Yeah.

Really? That was the first time. I saw you, I said, I'm like, who is his band? It's a little kid. I'm just hearing, like, having music for the first time. And then, uh, listening to, like, to, like, the interview. And then you guys were rocking out and, like, that shit, like, when you're a kid and you see stuff like that, it's there forever, dude.

Yeah. And you just, like, I bought, I went out. I think your record, either was coming out or it just came out. Just came out when that happened. Yeah, I told my dad to take me to warehouse over here at the mall. I saw it and bought it. And like, for those who don't know, warehouse record. right?

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of those record stores don't exist anymore I know. A lot of kids coming out don't even know what that was like.

You know what I mean? Going to a record store, Jesus. Man, that was insane. I used to work at one. Did you really? I used to work at the record store, yeah.

It was one of the biggest ones in Hollywood. It was before Amiva ever existed, right? Yeah. It was called the Rock Shop. Sick. And it was on 6, 6, 6, 6,000,

Hollywood Boulevard. four sixes and this was in the 80s remember vinyl was massive still cassettes yeah barely CDs were coming out

damn yeah and I used to love working there love it and I was there for a few years loved it I met so many people

met so many musicians just fans like I'll give an example when I started a Fear Factory I was still working there when we put out our first record, right? Yeah.

My owner's like, I'm going to order, I'm going to order, you know, 100 sets of your band. I'm like, thank you. So you order 100 sets. I go, I promise you, I'll sell them all by the weekend, right? Because I told everybody that came in that I knew, you know, from working there for years, I'm like, I got my band, my album's coming out. Oh, I can't wait to hear.

Yeah, I'll buy it. I'll buy it. So then when the album came out, the first day I was working there, I go, the records out, and so all these dudes I knew and all these people I knew that came in, I sold 60 cassettes, like, within the first two hours. Wow. Everybody that came in, and then that day,

the whole, all 100 were sold out. So the next day I had to work, and I'm like, dude, we don't got no records. Wow. So we had to wait until, like, the following few days later to get some more. Wow. And that, to me, it was, like, amazing.

I was like, wow, like, all my buddies came in and about the record, and people that I knew, people I just met on Hollywood Boulevard. The store was on Hollywood Boulevard. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And, oh, yeah. And also, that weekend, you could see it on YouTube where you played in front of the store.

Caused the traffic jam. There was a bunch of people out there. There's a lot of people out there watching us. Putting it in front of the store? In front of the store. On the sidewalk. Well, the store was inside, but everybody had to stand out in the sidewalk, and it just caused the traffic jam.

Whoa. Yeah. We played about, I don't know, six or seven songs. The weekend that the record came out. That's probably how we sold them all. That's probably why. That's massive. Yeah, it was great.

It was fun. It was just like, I had a blast. You can see it on YouTube. It's on there. It's on there? Yeah, it's on YouTube. Dude, I want to see that shit. Yeah, you can see like my sister's on one side.

You can see her in the crowd and then other friends that I knew and just a bunch of people we didn't know. Wow. Yeah. Dude, that's a fucking like a dream, a bank-owned. they have the play in her Becker's sword outside that I worked at yeah that I worked at it was amazing it's a good time did you ask him hey can't can we play here and yeah they they they were like fuck yeah do it damn I go what about it what if they come and shut us I don't care they said didn't care they were they were had a punk rock attitude about it like

they were like fuck yeah you're part of the family here yeah play do it you know this help promote the record hell yeah let's do it wow but their attitude was like They also had a punk rock vibe about it. Like, oh, we don't give a fuck about the cops. Let them come. Yeah. You know what I mean? Damn.

It's going to tell us to stop. It doesn't matter. Look at all these people here. Wow. That's talked about non-existent. Yeah, you could see us. My hair was like all the way down to my ass. Hell, yeah.

You know, we were just kids. Just kids rocking. Yeah. And still rocking. Still rocking. I'm fucking crazy. I still love what I do. Again, I'm what they call a lifer.

This is my life. This is what I do. Even if I was working at McDonald's, I would still be doing music. Still putting music out. Still playing. Still having that drive, that passion. You know what I mean? It's like, you could say it's like a drug addict, a guy who needs to go get his fix. But for me, it's tone, riffs, guitar, pickups, strings, guitar pick. Wow. Is it something that that meant happen to me recently? Is it like this for you where to already get, you actually might even borderline love it more? I don't know.

I think that I just, I just, I loved it the same my whole life. Yeah. I just love it. I don't know. I don't know how much more I could love it. I mean, the only way I could love it is I guess if I, you know, stuck my dick inside the, you know, the pickup cavity. I mean, I don't know how much more I could love it.

Yeah, that might be where, okay, Dino has lost his fucking mind, dude. like I think you better have an intervention on that guy. Oh my God. And you've already proved that your life and you love it. I mean you walked it even when there is

essentially like even when we got kicked out of a pure factory. Yeah. You prove that you still play music. Yeah, for those of people who don't know like in 2002 yeah, me and the singer

how the following out. He quit the band. Just to make it a long story short, he quit the band. And then the band reformed without me. Oh. So it was kind of a weird kind of way of getting kicked out. Huh. Saying, oh, we're going to reform Fear Factory, but not with you.

So I was like, oh, I was a big shock to me, but then I was like, okay. So what did I do? I went fucking right back to writing wrist for a new band. Wow. Well, I started, I was able to start to start. two other bands. Well, I also had a side band called Brueharia. So the minute I was out of Fear Factory, we did

a tour. It was our first tour. Yeah. Bruderia. Let's go on tour. Dino's free. Let's go. Right? So we went on tour. I did that. Monty Connor, who was working at Roadrunner record at the time, said, hey, man, we're putting this project together. It's called the Roadrunner All-Stars. I want

you to be a team captain, and I want you to write these songs. Boom, no problem. I hooked up with, you know, I picked all the musicians I wanted to play. was the best exactly and so we wrote these songs

and it came out on the compilation called the Roadrunner R Stars you can go pick it up and everybody who was on Rotter Records was on that compilation

so I did that that was in 2005 I also started Divine Heresy and I also had just finished before that I also finished

my first Ossasino record Asasino so in case people don't know Ossasino is a project that I have with Tony Campos

from Static X and immediately Leo Marcus from Possessed, the band Possessed, classic death metal band called Possessed. And so we did a record with that band. And then I was like, okay, I needed to start, I need to get serious about a new band called Divine Heresy. Right?

And we got signed to Central Media Records, and we put out our first record in 2007. Wow. So these are all the things that I got to do when I was out of Fear Factory. So it actually freed up my time and let me go explore other things and jam with other musicians that I wanted to jam with. Yeah. Right?

Because sometimes when you're fully committed into a band and a band's like a big, you know, rolling machine, you just don't have a lot of time for other stuff. Absolutely. Right? And a lot of times I was always afraid, if I write a riff for this band, but it's too good, I got to use it for Fear Factory,

and then I don't get to use it for this band. You know, it's like, oh. So, you know, I was kind of like in that kind of weird place, and I was like, so I kind of looked at it as a blessing, that I actually was out of the band for a little while. Wow. Yeah. I know it was a,

you know, at first, of course, you get kicked out of your own band, right? Yeah. And then you're like, oh,

fuck. And then you're just like, it kind of hits you like a ton of bricks. So I was, I was probably, you know, I think you guys might have been to the house where I was at in Lincoln Heights.

I admit, not me personally, though, but I've heard stories, though. Okay, you've heard stories. Yeah.

I'm not sure what stories here. I mean, I hear, like, oh, you know, Dino lives out there, and that's pretty much it. Oh, okay, yeah. I know I've met some of the guys in your band and stuff like that and other bands, All Sharp-Harrish guys and just, whatever was happening at the scene at that time, a lot of them came over to the house. Yeah. And I met a lot of guys.

And so when some of the guys in your band and, you know, All-Sharpershiresh guys would come over to the house, I'd play them new shit. I'd play them Divine Heresies. They're like, oh, fuck. Yeah. But they would always say, where's the solos, man? Where's the solos?

Because I don't really do that many solos. Yeah. Right. Anyway, so... I love that. So, yeah, I think it was a blessing that I was out of Fear Factory because it allowed me to do all this other... To finish all this other stuff I wanted to work on.

Yeah. Divine Heresy was, you know, was up and running. We put out two records that were great. They did really well worldwide. They did really good. As a matter of fact, we did... Divine Heresy, we did so many tours right off the... bat we went out with camira shadows fall static x arch enemy all that remains you know we did a lot of

tours and so it was kind of cool because when i did divine heresy and the record was coming out i started calling on my friends hey man can you take us on the road yeah static x yeah let's go static x took us like i don't know how many tours two or three tours wow and o'sicino yeah and then arch enemy took us out you know, Camara, Shadow's Fall, all that remains, you know,

we did some really good tours. And, and, so then, but something happened with those other three guys in Fear Factory, some drama went down

in that camp. Bert asked me if I wanted to come back, to make a long story short, but I asked me if I wanted to come back in 2009. And then I, eventually did go back, right? So in 2010, in literally 2010,

I was recording two records at the same time, and it sucked because my ears were shot. Yeah. Because I was recording the Fear Factory record mechanized, and I was recording Divine Heresy Bringer of Plagues. We were mixing at the same time, too. So during the day, I'd go with Fear Factory at night. I'd go with Divine Heresy.

So we finished the records They came out around the same time And then we I brought both bands together to tour Oh my God Yeah And so it was like Fuck this is

It was like getting to be a lot So I decided that Okay I need to commit to Fear Factory And I need to You know Stop this project for a while And so Divine Heresy pretty much stopped

Everybody went to other bands And then I'd continue on in Fear Factory Wow What, that's, there, there's a lot of work. It was a lot of work. That's, that's nuts, man. And in between that, I was doing tours with Ossino, doing tours like all through Mexico and South America and stuff like that.

Yeah, and you did that in a band, huh? Which one? I think it was, uh, Bruea, where you said you went on tour in Mexico in a band, correct? No, no, it was with Ossesino. We went on tour. We did a van. Some of the big cities we flew into, but the small cities in between, we're in a van. No one does that.

Who does that? Not a lot. I think just people over there might do it. But it was rough, but fun and crazy. I mean, we've seen people getting kidnapped. We've seen all kinds of shit. Dude. I don't know if there was drug cartel.

I don't know if it was like police. But we've seen guys getting taken away. at gunpoint crazy stuff but we also had a blast wow but we also had a blast I mean we had a blast

we had a fun time and the one of the most funniest times where we were driving a van and the van was kind of like putting along like what the fuck's wrong with the van well the guy who was driving the van put diesel in a regular you know, unleaded

van, right? To red and the gasoline. But he put diesel gasoline inside the van. So we broke down in the middle of nowhere, right?

Yeah. But luckily, just down the road, it was a little taco stand. So we wouldn't fucking had a blast at the taco stand. We ended up drinking beers.

Just fucking eating tacos waiting for another van to pick us up. Whoa. So by the time the van picks us up, we were wasted. Oh my gosh.

The fact that you know. Just something like bad happened, but something good happened in the same way. Yeah. You know what I mean? What experience, man. We went to this hotel one time

and we're like, oh man, look at that light shade. This is outside the hotel. Yeah. They had like a light, they had lights. And the light shade was a big jalapeno can cut in half to be as a little light shade. I go, that's fucking badass. I took pictures.

I was like, that was so cool. Like a jalapeno can as the, like the light shade. Wow. Oh, that's fucking Mexico. That's Mexico. How do you find, even for you to do it, it's already insane. And you find other people to do it with you? Yeah.

That's crazy. Dude, yeah, Tony and Emilio are definitely mega troopers. Tony's a life or two. Tony's alive for two. Yep, so is Emilio. And, you know, we just had fun. Wow. We just had fun.

We saw some crazy shit and dangerous stuff. but we were like it's Mexico what are you gonna do I hope it's not us you know what I mean yeah how do you stay away from that you can't

it's just there oh it just happens you don't know when it's gonna happen so you just watch like someone getting kidnapped and you're like oh what am I gonna do they got like AK 47s and pistols

and stuff like that I can't there's nothing I can do and be like oh shit duck ducked we ducked in the van so maybe they wouldn't see us Wow. It's crazy. Especially with like, you know, those, you know, those two bands are like you, I mean, you

really did a great job with, like, the whole concept of, like, making, like, the drug cartel into, like, music. And the whole concept with both those bands. There's band, there's mariachi bands out there. Like, there's Banda. They call them Banda and they call Colidos. There's, like, stories, tales, you know what I mean? And they were, they sang about that stuff.

And, you know, they have a whole. drug cartel Northenia music you know lyrics yeah right when they talk about fucking you know

dealing with drugs or killing somebody or blah blah blah I personally like it when they sing about women you know when they you know the woman broke their heart or whatever and they get back with her

you know it's always a sad song but I like those yeah they're fun especially when you see the videos are kind of like novellas yeah I love that anyways yeah

Yeah, we kind of took the concept of something that happened back in the 80s. We're a drug cartel who believed in satanic. There was a satanic cult that they were a drug cartel. That's what they call them narcos satanicos. Satanic narcos, right? Yeah. It's called narcos satanicos. Wow.

And this happened back in the 80s. there was a guy who believed in Bruharia, which is Black Magic. And he was the guy that all the, in the beginning, he was the guy that all the drug cartels went to him because they felt that if he would kind of bless them in a satanic way, he would bless them, this is for reals, he would, there's a whole story about it, it's called Hell Ranch. He would bless them in a satanic way that they,

They felt that his power, that he was giving him, the dark power, that they wouldn't get caught, smuggling drugs. So big cartel guys. Then he started getting involved in that and smuggling drugs, right? Wow. But it turned out that one of the guys got caught, and he ratted everybody out, the drug federally's went down to this thing,

and they call Hal Ranch. There's a book called that, Hell Ranch. Look it up. went down and they busted the whole operation. You know, how they put all the drugs inside the trucks and the tires and into the body of the, you know, the paneling of the car to everything where they put it in coffee cans, you name it, right? They mouthed the drugs, put them in dolls.

So you couldn't even tell that it was cocaine. Whoa. And then, yeah, it's just all kinds of stuff, right? So anyways, they got caught. They busted the whole operation. and there was a ranch. But they noticed, the drug failure has noticed, like, look at that shed way back there.

And there was a shed back there. And they went there, and there was all these dead bodies. There was, like, bones and all kinds of stuff. And what they were doing was there was sacrificing people, white people. They would kidnap them. College students that went across the border to go party. For spring break, right?

Spring break. Spring break. To go party. And they would kidnap them. have them, then they would go sacrifice them, and they were like, pour their blood on them, drink blood, you name it, have orgies

with all these drug you know, noticles, leaders, leaders, and, you know, little henchmen. What the fuck? Crazy stuff. And there's a whole book, this happened like 1987, around 88.

And there was a whole book about it, and there was a whole thing. And then we saw it in the newspaper, and it said Brouharia. that means black magic. Yeah. Bruheria. And it showed all these little bowls with blood and just bones and all kinds of skulls.

It was crazy stuff. So we were like, that's a good name for a band. We've got to take that name. So we took the story. Yeah. And we just applied it to us. It's a fictitious story. Well, started out as the real thing, but we obviously made the lyrics more funnier.

Yeah. Right. So then my character in the band Bruheria was called Assasino. Yeah. And I was the assassin. I was the hitman. And I was also the money collector for the Brouheria cartel. Wow.

And so that was my job. And so I took that character, Assasino, and applied it to my story. And my story wasn't necessarily about drugs so much, a little bit here and there. But it was more about being the assassin and what assassin does. and before he kill somebody he investigates who they are you know so you can see somebody's coming and going

their work, their home they have kids, they're married what time to eat lunch, what time to eat dinner and a real assassin knows investigates the person right finds out and then he goes out and does the kill because he knows what time to go

he's like okay at this time he's going to walk you by this street take him out done my god So that was my character in Ossino. Is that bothering you? No, it's sick, though. Like, the whole concept, and he took the concept,

and you took, like, your character and made your character a band. That's fascinating, dude. So the first record was called Corridos de Muerte, which means tales of death. And it got into the character of who he was, what he was. So even though he was an assassin,

he was also a family man. Not necessarily a family man, but, you know, a guy who had sympathy, towards that. Like he didn't believe in he wasn't into killing kids or nothing that stuff at all. You know. It was only guys who fucked over the boss or

you know, other drug guys. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. But in the first record, the Coriados de Morta, Tales of Death, he gets set up and he gets caught and he gets thrown in prison

for life. Death sentence, right? So when he was on his on the last song on the record it's called la eheccution which means the execution he is being read his last rights by the priest

a priest read your last rights whenever you're going to get executed you know you usually a priest can read you your last rights you have your last meal so on and so on right yeah so he had a priest read him his last rights and he's like fuck you I don't need your fucking last rights I'm going to hell I don't fucking need you

whoa you told the priest that like fuck you Wow. He told the priest, so the priest took a personal. He's like, oh, this guy's evil. This guy's bad. The priest. So then he gets, he's going to be electrocuted.

So he gets strapped in an electric chair, right? And one of the guards says, look, see, I don't know if you know, like when sometimes, back in the day, when people get executed, they used to have families, victims can watch through a window of that guy getting killed. Like in the movies. It's a real thing. Back in the day it was. Wow. So they could watch, right? And so the guy, the one of the guards, as you was strapping him in and he said, look, I know you're responsible for a lot more murders.

Why don't you tell us where you hid the bodies? Just tell us, man, because you're going to die right now. We want to know, see these people's, you know, these people want to know what happened to their father or their son or whatever, right? even though there were bad people, still they have families, they want to know what happened to them. Because the assassin could have dropped them in a vat of acid.

You could have buried him somewhere in the desert. You could have threw them in a lake, right? Yeah. You know, concrete shoes, as they say, you know. Yeah. So the assassin decides, well, you know what? You're right. I'm just going to fucking say it out loud

and maybe they'll all hear me. So he says, yeah, I buried your fucking dad over here. I fucking did this to him. I did that to him. right fuck you guys i don't care kill me right so the priest heard that he's like fuck this dude i'm gonna kill him so he fucking pushed the guard out of the way and you pull the lever to electrocute him whoa so assasino died on the first record he died and where does he go he goes straight to hell right straight to hell so he signs a deal with the devil you know like every musician

as you go down to the crossroad and you sign your soul away. Right? So he signs a deal with the devil because the devil says, hey, if you go, I'll grant you life back on earth, but you're going to have to carry out

a few killings for me. I got a few people on my list that I need you to take out. I want them down here. And so, Osse, I was like, sure. I'll go out there and kill some fuckers for you, no problem, right?

Wow. So he grants them back on earth. And the first, the second record, this is the second record. It's called Christi. satanical, which means satanic Christ. Doesn't make sense, right? Yeah.

It's a play on words, right? So he signs a deal with the devil. It's called Regressando Audio, which means returning with hatred. Returning with hatred because the assassin's pissed. He wants that priest. Yeah. He wants the priest. So he goes back up on earth, takes out a few killings for Satan, for the devil.

He's done with that. Now he's on earth, he's back. He resurrected. He's there. So he investigates the priest, and he finds out the priest is molesting little boys. Wow. And he finds out the priest is taking money from the church and living very lavishly. Right?

So he's like, fuck this priest. I'm going to get this motherfucker. The motherfucker that pulled the trigger on me, you know, the lever to kill me, I'm going to take this priest out. That guy's a molesting little boys. Fuck that. taking money from poor people you know what I mean

so he was like I'm pissed so the priest so he captures the priest tortures him right tortures him and he buries him buries him alive

right he doesn't kill him because he just buries him alive then as the record goes he finds out that his boss set him up that's how he got caught Oh, wow

That's how we got thrown in prison, got caught, you know So He's like, I'm going to go confront my boss And I'm going to take that motherfucker out too Right So it's kind of like classic scarface Yeah The boss is in this fucking beautiful mansion

And he has You know, he's sitting there with a mound of cocaine You know snorting cocaine All fucked up, right? Yeah And he's got all these dudes With fucking M16s guarding the facility, right?

Guarding his mansion. But here comes the assassin. Just with a machete. Nothing else, machete. And these guards see him. Remember, he used to be part of that crew, right? Yeah. The guards see him.

We're like, what the fuck? I thought you died. I seen you die. Like, what are you doing here? Yeah. Like, holy fuck. Hey, man, I got the dark side on my side. I got fucking, you know, Satan let me back up on earth.

Like, what the fuck? They're like, we don't even want to fuck with you, right? And Ossesino goes, well, I'm here for him. I'm here for the boss. I'm here for him. They're like, go ahead, go through. They all backed off. And you got to remember, there's like a hundred dudes out there, right?

Yeah. You can just picture that Scarface scene where fucking everybody's trying to take out Scarface, right? Yeah. That's, those dudes are protecting the, you know, the big mansion. right so they all let him walk through but they all want to see what happens so of course when he gets to the top there's these big double doors he goes through the double doors

he sees his boss and his boss sees him he's like what the fuck like his boss is going through his head I know I set you up I know you're dead like how the fuck are you here you know that's what's going through his head until the assassin of course confronts him and I know he goes I know you set me up

I know you're at he manages to walk up to him right grabs him by his head and chops his head off with the machete right

so the assassin comes out of the room and all these guards there with all these fucking guns and shit looking like what happened and he holds up the head

of the boss and every one of those dudes with their guns you're all like yeah they're holding it up in the air like yeah like you took out the boss like yeah

wow and they're thinking Ossasino is going to be their new boss but he's like fuck you I don't want to fuck with your crew I'm out I got my guys I got Maldita Weckis which is Tony and I got Sadistigo which is Emilio that's his crew

you don't need nobody else right but on the new record the priest doesn't die because remember he buried him alive yeah the priest doesn't die so the priest gets out of the shallow grave. So you see the hand

bust through the shallow grave with a rosary in his hand and you see the light coming down from Jesus resurrecting him from the fucking grave. So he comes out. So the new record is going to be a battle between the priest and Ossesino. That's sick, dude.

Hope you guys like this story. That's going to be an epic record, dude. Yeah. That's epic. And so we're trying, I think we're going to call it uh la secunda venida which means the second coming wow you know the you know the second coming of jesus christ yeah so that's sick is there is there a timeline for that um soon cool yeah yeah i get it trying

i'm trying to try i'm trying to make time is fucking impossible dude well you know this last few year i'm sorry this last year just i'm calling the corona year right yeah um we i just had a lot of time, worked on a lot of stuff with Fear Factory. Like we did, we were releasing demanufacture on vinyl for the first time ever. Whoa. So Fear Factory is releasing Demonufacture on vinyl for the first time ever in the United States or in North America. Only in Europe and other countries.

It was released, but not here. So we did that. And then we also mixed six live tracks from the first OSVEST in 1996. Whoa. So it was 1996 D-manufactured live like six songs, right? So we put that on the third disc

so it's going to be three discs. So we put that on the third disc and that's coming out next month. You can pre-order it now at runoutgrews.com. You can still pre-order it, but it comes out. Ships in May.

Damn, that's sick. Where can we pre-order it? Runoutgroove.com. Okay. Or runoutgroove records.com. Sorry. I'm not sure. run out groove

but anyway so we got that we got that and we you know it took a little time to mix those live songs the band was on fire we were on fire remember we were young

1996 it was just my guitar tone was ripping I got the head with the fucking Mesa boogie cabinet it was rippin if the tone was killer and then then after that

we decided we put out a record in 2012 called the industrialist and that one We had drum programming. We didn't have any live drums, right? Yeah. So we thought it was to go back

and actually add live drums. So that's what we did. Mike Keller, our drummer, went and record the live drums. It was great. And then now, right now, Greg Reilly, the guy who mixed D-Manufactures, mixing that record right now as we speak.

Whoa, interesting. Yeah. That's sick, dude. Yeah. So then also the new record that's coming out, Fair Factory Aggression Continuum, we are we also had drum programming

on the first inclination of that record we had drum program on it right Chris Collier which you're going to be working with soon he did the first mix of that but we didn't I didn't like the fact that I had drum

programming again that was something that Burton or singer wanted but I was like you know I got we got to put live drums on this so luckily Monty Connor at Nuclear Blast our A&R guy agreed

and so we were able to go in and record live drums sick yes but the fun thing I noticed is that when we recorded live drums I was like for some reason the guitar is not vibing with the live drums because it's a different feel

yeah so I went back and I re-recorded some of the guitar parts which is really cool yeah and I got to do that. And then we just had Andy Sneep mix it. The legendary Andy Sneep. Yeah. I think some people know who he is. Yeah. Yeah, he's a great mixer. So he mixed the new record. And so I can't wait for everybody to hear it. A lot of riffs on the record. A lot of riffs. There's some eight string groove on there, slow eight string groove. And of course, some of the faster tempo ripping fucking

triple-plick fucking riffs everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Classic dino riffs. Yes. What hell yeah. Exactly. not a lot of people can say that dude you know where they have like their own which I told you before do you have like your own personality when you play the guitar yeah you know it's like if you play anything oh that's that's that's Dino playing

yeah the one thing that I don't like to do that much is make things sound too happy yeah you know I don't know why I'm not that I mean not that I'm not a happy person it's just that when I come across music and I make it too happy it almost seems like kind of funny sure

You know what I mean? I do want people to feel good when they hear the music, right? But if it comes out too happy, I don't really like to do it. So I like the stuff that's, you know, discordant, you know, something that sounds sad. So when you tune your guitar, like the way I play, I tune it down to 8. I'm sorry, A, it has a different vibe to a different sound. Yeah. Sound darker.

It gets super dark. Which I like it. But if I tune my guitar up, right, the standard tuning, and I play the same riffs, it doesn't have the same. vibe to it. Yeah. It's weird. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's especially A-tuning that's a part of like, it's just an emotion. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And so I like stuff that sounds a little bit more sadder and just, I don't know,

it makes people feel a certain way. Yeah. You know what I mean? Is it interesting that even when, like, you'll play something and like it's, you get like a, you know, very, you know, sad feel to it, but it makes other people feel good. Yeah. Totally. I've had people tell me all kinds of stuff that, music our music has helped people overcome suicide depression you know what I mean because it makes them feel that good yeah I mean we wrote we've written some pretty epic concepts like we have a song called final exit which means this is actually an organization called the final exit and they help with assisted suicides like if somebody's terminally ill

right yeah and they want to kill themselves but they legally they don't they have somebody who comes in and helps them with that it's a sad it's a very sad heavy concept but we actually reached out to the guy who does that so we actually had him say a few words on the song crazy and so we So we wrote lyrics and a lot of people felt it because they were crying. Because, you know, somebody's had a sick uncle or a sick aunt or a mother or a father who had cancer or who had some kind of leukemia or whatever, right? You know, who were terminally ill and, you know, and they passed away or they seen them suffer. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And it really, you know, bothered them. Obviously, you know, you have to deal with that. but the song deals with that. Because my mother had, when I was a kid, my mother had multiple sclerosis, and they only gave her a few months to live, but she lasted seven years. But she was confined to a wheelchair, right? This is my early teenage years, so it was kind of hard for me to adjust to that, right? I actually missed a lot of school.

When she passed away, I actually missed a lot of school, and I had to go to continuation. I don't know if you know what that is. No. For fuck-ups. Oh, okay. But I wasn't necessarily a fuck up. I just, like, was too depressed to go to school.

Because my mom passed. I was 15. My mom passed. And I was like, how do I fucking deal with that? And I just couldn't for a little while. And so when I was my whole 16th year, 16th year of what? I was like, what are you, a junior in high school? Yeah.

Sophomore? Yeah. Junior, right? So anyways, I went to continuation, which is like a school for people who fall behind. or just fuck-ups gang members. You name it just people who don't want to go to school, but they have to go there. So I went there,

and then finally when I clicked out of it, I was like, okay, this shit's easy. Finished it. So I graduated like six months ahead of my class. Yeah. But I didn't get to go to graduation. I didn't get to go to prom. I just got my diploma in the fucking mail.

Whoa. But I was happy. In a way because I was like, fuck, I'm only 17. I'm out of here. I'm going to fucking L.A. So I got a fucking bus ticket. I was like, hell yeah.

Later, dad. Later, my brother was still out there. Later, brother. You know, I'll see you guys later, man. I'm going to make it. I'm going to come back for you guys. Whoa. And so I came out to L.A.

I'm from El Central, which is like three and a half hours from here. So it's not that far. Right? It's not like I left the state or went to a state. or went to another country. I just went three hours away. And so I came to L.A. And that was a big culture shock for me

because I never seen a lot of things. I never seen an Armenian. Yeah. I never seen, it may be saying kind of weird for me to say this, but I've never seen, you know, two different people kissing each other. I never seen, like, two men kiss each other.

I never seen any of that stuff. So I landed right on Holy Boulevard. And I'm like, oh, what's all this? Oh, my God. sex shops oh my god people kissing like you know opposite sex kissing i'm like oh shit i mean same sex kissing is what i meant to say um i never seen anything like that because i'm come from a small town you know traditional get married you know fucking kinsanietas and you know i came from

a whole different vibe i just came to l.a and i'm like holy shit you know people cruising down Boulevard crank and rap music. I never seen that. I was like, oh, at first I was in shock, but after that, I was like, I'm in heaven. Yeah.

Music's here. All the music is here. That was 1984. How old were you? Were you born yet? No, I was born a year later. That a boy. Sorry, do you know?

It's okay. I think it's hilarious. I was born in 1984. You got to remember, like, what records came out in 84? A lot of fucking, first Exodus record. Yeah.

I don't know. A lot of records came out and I was like just in heaven. In heaven. And I worked at, check this out. I'll tell you this story. I got a job working at a place called Togo's Eatery,

which is a sandwich shop. You ever heard of it? Yes. Yeah. I'm not sure if they exist anymore. But it was right across the street from the Hollywood Palladium. Okay?

Prime location. Remember, I had just turned 18 at that point. Just turned 18. Fresh off the boat. Right? In L.A. Working at the sandwich shop, who walks in?

Dave Mastain. Dave Mastain. When he first had Magnethe going, right? I think before the album, first walked in. And I was like, I was desperately trying to be in a band. Right?

Yeah. Dave Mstain walks in. I was like, holy shit. That's Dave Mstain. Fuck. So I started talking to him. And I made him a band. sandwich. Remember, I was a sandwich maker. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's funny to say gloves on,

hairnet, you know, making him a sandwich. And I don't remember what kind of sandwich you like. People have asked me before. What kind of sandwich you make them? I don't remember. Anyways, I gave him a sandwich and I gave him a beer. I said, it's on me. Go for it. He's like, oh, man, thank you. Right. So he wouldn't sit down. And I go, hey, man, whenever you want to come back, come back. I'm always here. We usually work in these hours. Come back.

He's like, all right, man, cool. Thank you. Yeah. And then a couple days later, he comes back in. He sees me. I go, I tell everybody, I'm taking care of Dave. I'm taking care of Dave. I'm taking care of Dave, right?

Yeah. So I made Dave some sandwiches. And Dave and Dave Elson, the Dave Jr., they called. Yeah. I made both of them sandwiches, gave them all free, free beer. They went and sat down.

I'm like, you know what? I'm going to ask him, how do you start a band? Where do you go? What do you do? Right? And he gave me a bunch of ideas. He said, man, you got a network. Go to gigs, right?

Go to gigs. Try to meet people. You know, what kind of music you like? Obviously, I like you. So I'm into Thrash, right? Yeah. Well, go to Thrash. I start meeting people.

There's a lot of musicians hanging out there. Go over there. Do this. Do that. I'm like, oh, yeah. And there's like, a matter of fact, you know, my band's playing. When did you come see Megadeth?

I'm like, all right. So he invited me to a show. So I went to one of his shows. He took me backstage, introduced me to people. Wow. He might not remember that, but he did that. And then I never forgot that. So he came in and I was fucking hook him up for food all the time.

And then I started a network, started to meet people. And boom, I had a band. Met Ross. Wow. Met Ross. Had a band. Made Dave McLean. Start a band.

Ross would drive me to, before Fair Factory, Ross would drive me to fucking auditions. What the fuck? Crazy, right? I also had another band that Ross produced. It was our first demo. It's funny shit. It's called the douche lords. Stupid shit.

It was like S-O-D rep-off, right? Yeah. Ross produced that demo. But yeah, those are the people that I met, and they helped me along the way. Wow. Yeah. Some people don't know that about Dave,

but yeah, you helped me way back then, gave me a bunch of advice. I think people should probably hear that, you know. get like a different shot up on I got lucky I worked at that sandwich shop because Maltly crew walked in Wow Maybe you're not a fan

Maybe you are a fan I don't know But to me that was a big deal I fucking love shout at the devil Yeah You know They came walking in Quiet riot guys

Bang your heads You know you bang your head right Yeah Those guys came in I met Bright down the street Was Where they filmed all the soap operas

Yeah Like days of our lives and I don't know, all those other ones. I can't tell you. My mother used to watch those shows, right? And so I would recognize some of the girls that would walk in. Like, oh, shit, that's faith from, you know,

whatever show it was. That girl's fine, you know, like, want to talk to her, you know, and make her a sandwich show. What do you want? You know, but you ask her dumb questions, right? Wow. Yeah. So I've met a lot of people,

a lot of movie stars, musicians, and all kinds of stuff working right there. Remember, the Hollywood Palladium was across the street. The guy's working there, like the crew that would come in. I said, yo, hook me up with some tickets for a fucking Slayer. And I'll give you a fucking sandwich. Okay?

Tickets to Slayer. Dude. My first show was Ex-Ith. My first show there was Exist Slayer Venom. Oh, my God. 1985 or 86. 86. I was like, fuck yeah.

I can do this all the time. Dude. Till they just came over and they just dropped tickets off for me for whatever show. Whoever played. I went to go see every fucking band from George Thurgood, Jesus in the Mary chain, the fucking Ramones, whoever, I would go, just the going out and meet people.

Dude. It was fun. It was very, very fun when I got here. Dude, that's like, that's the Hollywood people always, you know, talk about. But we never, you know, I never experienced that, but just hearing those stories, like, well, it happened. I'll tell you another thing. This is a weird, this is another weird story.

we were you know everybody who was working at that sango shop was a was young we were all young yeah 18 19 20 21 um the manager was she was she was 21 right she was cool as fuck she was like let's close the store after we clean up the store let's close it fucking party right just bring your own cups because the manager would count the cups that's how he would count how many beers we sold but if you bring your own cup you fill up the keg you know we'd be partying

right yeah so one and so it came it'd be turned into a little party inside this fucking sandwich shop where we would have like 10 15 people and one day a girl named Dana Plato

I don't know if you ever heard of her Dana Plato no you ever heard that show called different strokes with a little the midget I'm sorry the small person

she could probably look it up but Carlene Dato played it was on the show she came she was on a big TV show huge TV show in the 80s yeah she came over she was hanging out with us she was hanging out with somebody she gave me a ride home and I got to make out with her like oh yeah you know movie star chick you know not movie star but

television show is hanging out with this chick and making out with her and then next thing now like a few years later she's living in an RV and she passed away from drugs. Crazy. Hollywood ate her up, yeah. It's crazy, I just eats up some people and other people thrive in it

and it's so, I mean, you got lucky, dude. Yeah. So anyways, if anybody's out there watching, look up the show different strokes. Different strokes. And had a guy named Gary Coleman was the little... Yeah. You know Gary Coleman?

Yes, yes. It was his show where he came from. Okay. Right? And his... And his sister on the show was a white girl because they were adopted, right? White girl, that was the girl I'm talking about. Okay.

So, yeah, that's the first time, I think I've said that in an interview. Wow. Weird. It's a weird thing. It just reminded me because of the sandwich place and the parties that we would have and meeting Dave's staying and all that stuff, just things that happened to me there was crazy.

But I went from the sandwich shop to the record store. And then I felt like I was at home. yeah and then you stay there for a few years yeah a few years dang yeah at what at what point did you uh did you go straight from putting the record shop till right now okay now i'm touring full time yeah that that was it right yeah pretty much but if i ever needed to go back

to the record store like there was times i would come back from tour it's like yeah i'm back from tour you need me for anything you said you know i need some work and he was yeah yeah come over on fridays and saturdays and sundays we'll lead you then oh sick yeah so i would go and I'd go back to work for a little bit and then go on tour man and they would want me to tell him you know because a guy named Sep on Sep they call him Sep

and he was the the owner's son and he was closer to my age and he was like he would always want me to tell him stories on the tour tell me how it went tell me what happened you know how was Europe how was Germany because they're part German and they're like tell us how was Germany was how this was Holland Did you guys smoke any weed out there?

I'm like, I don't smoke weed. Yeah. But everybody else did, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Do you smoke weed? No. Not at all?

No. We don't. No, but you're looking at me kind of funny. I don't know why I'm so shocked. I don't know. No, I mean, I tried it when I was 14. Yeah. Like about, I don't know, 10 times.

And then I tried it one time in Europe, hash. Yeah. One time in Europe. And then I tried it one time with B-Rill. And after B-Real, I said, I'm never doing it again because that shit was too strong. Yeah.

Too strong. It knocked me out. I mean, I was asleep. You were asleep. I was at the rainbow and B-Row's like, come on, it's your birthday, do it. So I took a hit and I was like, ah.

Dang. I forgot my birthday. I was out. It just knocked me to fuck out. I'm like I'm never doing this again. Wow. But I mean, I've gotten contact high and stuff like that. Yeah.

You know, got the giggles, things like that. Yeah, just. I never got into drugs. tried cocaine one time never got into it dude lucky jeez I just never liked it

you know and I go through I go through phases with beer yeah right I probably now I probably drink once or twice a year whoa I had to go through phases you know but when I was like

you know 1819 partying at the at the sandwich shop yeah we were partying fucking you know yeah that was fun and your body can handle it you know yeah but I don't know

when we went on tour there was times where there was years I just didn't drink at all and then there was like I don't know then there was another year like I didn't drink for the first two records and then during obsolete

we had a nice we had nice buses and everything was really comfortable yeah I was like okay I can have a beer or two you have a few beers or you know there was times I've had my moments where I got wasted

but not really not that much whoa yeah the last time I got wasted it was probably two years ago on my birthday. Wow. Yeah. That's a pretty great track record, man.

I just never got into it. I just not that much. I mean, I go through phases. Like I said, I go through phases with beer. You know what I mean? Yeah, I was like, does he drink? I don't know.

Should I buy him a beer? I don't know. That's when you said, yeah, should. Hey, man, you want some of Wendellas? I'm like, nah, it's okay.

I got to drive back and I don't, you know. Wow. It's pretty cool because you, I mean, during those early tours up until now, you probably have a fairly good memory. You were there. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. You know, when you're... I wasn't, I wasn't fucked up like some people who forget. Yeah.

You know, a lot of the years. I'm just, you just, you look back and like, fuck. I just, it's very foggy.

I have my, I had my moments. I had my, have my moments. I got a really good story you want to hear. It's a funny-out story. Let's go.

Let's go. I was 16. Right? Yeah. 16. And I was at, I was at one of those classic 80s parties

that you hear. that you see like you know that when they make those teen movies they always have that one house party yeah where everybody's at right yeah and it's usually like some preppy dude's house or some rich people's house right yeah so i was like it was like that i was at one of those parties right yeah and some dude goes hey man you got to drink all these i'm like why do i got to drink it's a bet you got to drink five shots of vodka and five shots of tequila and i said jeez i said you know what, let's do it. So I did it. It was a bet, right? So I did it. I blacked the fuck out. I blacked out. Right. And my buddy said I was running around the party naked. Say, I don't fucking remember that.

Naked. Right? Yeah. And then he said, man, and then I had to fucking wipe your ass. I'm like, what are the fuck you talking about? He goes, you went into my mom's closet and you took a shit in her closet. Oh, no. And he goes, you were fucking out after that. And he goes, I had to fucking get you in the shower, clean your, fucking wash you up. Put boxes on you and put you to bed.

Oh, my God. Really? And so it was just a great story. I got fucking shit in my buddy's mom's closet. Wow. And I don't remember it. That's the thing that sucked. Damn, maybe that kind of... I go, did you take any pictures? There was no pictures, no documentation other than the factor but they told me maybe they lied to me maybe they made the

whole thing up but i woke up the next day was somebody else's underwear a clean pair of underwear thank god but so the next day i woke up like where the fuck am i like oh my god so i woke up and i found my friend i go dude what the fuck happened what the fuck's my clothes that goes go to the go to the dryer because you put him in the dryer because you had to wash him yeah put him in a dryer happened dude and he goes motherfucker he was pissed but I didn't remember

man I was bummed I just from the last thing I remember was taking those shots that was it that was it and waking up well it's probably better out that you don't drink then so then I well look what I drank yeah I mean I don't know who can I mean I'm sure there's people can handle that but when you're 16 yeah and doing it like that not like

my body wasn't trained for that. I didn't drink years before that to where I can do that. I couldn't do that now. I don't know if I'd black out, but it would be pretty rough, right? I'd probably throw up five vodka shots and five tequila shots. Yeah, that's

a blackout. You're combining liquors. That's the problem. That too. It was even worse. Yeah? So yeah, that's my funny story. Damn, dude. You go zero to like 100.

Now, I know some guys who really go from zero to 100. How was it then, like, when you, especially like when you guys are starting to take off, that's always a very interesting time for everyone still kind of growing up and everyone's dealing with a certain level of success and in their own way. Everyone's so different. Yeah. Success changes everybody in different ways. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Some people, you know, obviously their heads get bigger. Some people turn into like introverts and they get worried and they just kind of become sheltered from everybody. Not or seclude themselves from everybody else. You know, I've seen success treat people in many different ways. Some people get into drugs and alcohol because they think that the party's never going to stop. Oh.

You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know about that before. Huh. I think that it might, like once it's going to go away. Well, my friend Billy Gullough and Faith of Marr he once told me, he goes, when you become wealthy,

it makes you who you really are. So in other words, maybe there's thoughts. Like you said, hey man, what if I had all this money? I can go and buy this house. I can go and buy this car.

I can go and, you know, pay for this, pay for that. You know, some people like some kinky shit. Maybe they couldn't afford it, but now they can afford it. Right?

Let's say I want to get fucking beat up by some Dominicius, but I can't pay her $500 bucks. or $1,000. Now I got it. I can go become this meet. This guy who likes to be, you know,

their cock slapped to buy a fucking whip. You know what I mean? You kind of like all those things that you want to do, you have the money to do them now. And some of them, people have weird things.

You know what I mean? So he says, when you make a lot of money, it kind of let those things can come out because you can afford them. Fuck, dude. So I understood

what he was saying by that. You know what I mean? For me, I'll be like, well, if I had the money, I can, like, build a bigger studio. I can get more gear. You know, that's kind of like my thoughts. You know what I mean?

More gear. I can pay, you know, other engineers to come in and do this and do that. You know, it's like, I'm thinking music. I was never thinking, well, shit,

I can go buy some more cocaine. Yeah. You know what I mean? I never thought anything like that. Wow. I can get somebody to make me another guitar. I can get something to paint me

me a guy. guitar. You know, I can do this. I was always, it was always, it was always, it was always focused around music. A lot of people don't have that focus, man. It's crazy. I didn't, I fucking fell on my, on my face. When? What do you mean you fell on your face? Oh, yeah, like.

Like when you, you got really drunk? Yeah. You know, like, when, like, you know, when the band got successful? Yeah, when you kind of like get past that, like, all you, especially when you go from like, like, the clubs and now you're playing, you know, oh shit you go from a club to like now you're in a fucking outdoor festival in front of 10,000 10,000 people. Yeah.

And that fucking extreme change, you're like people, everyone wants changes so quickly. Mm-hmm. And yeah, I definitely lost focus. One thing I noticed is that, um, friends. Okay. People you thought were your friends. Huh. You know what I mean?

Yeah. People who just want to, they're like tags, like skin tags. They're hangar-ons. Huh. You know? maybe you've dealt with that, maybe you didn't but there's a lot of people, when you

start to get to a certain level, there's a lot of people who want to come into your life and they want what you have or they want to benefit what you have or they want to use you, right? But you don't see that because you think they're your friends. And then it turns out that they never really were

your friends, that they were only there because maybe you were popular, maybe you were famous, maybe you can get them something. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I noticed that, when I noticed that, was when in 2002, when I was, when I got kicked out of Fear Factory, I noticed a lot of, hey, man, what's going on?

Oh, you're out of the band later, man. Like, those friends were gone. Whoa. When the party was over, as they say, when the party was over, everybody was gone, you know what I mean? Like, in other words, because I got kicked out of the band, you know, maybe they thought, well, he's not going to, be successful anymore so what do I need to use them for what you never experienced anything like

that you never experienced fake friends I've kept a pretty tight-knit circle yeah but when you get to a certain level it got to be crazy yeah yeah crazy right I'm not I'm not I'm not just talking about dudes women a lot of women no offense but I had a lot of girls who I thought were cool but they just wanted you for what you have You can get them in. Dude, I've had girls that were hanging out with me just because they wanted to go meet the next musician. Jeez, man.

Yeah. It works that way. I had a girl. I took her to one of the weenie roasts. You know the wingy roast? Oh, shit of K-Rock ones? Yeah. I took a girl to took her to the weenie roast, right?

And all of a sudden, she's texting me saying, hey, man, I'm outside, and the security guards won't let me. me back in. I go outside where? She was outside the venue. What happened? Why'd you get kicked out? I don't know. So I asked security guard, hey man, why'd you throw that? Why'd you throw my girl out? What's up of that? She was, oh, well, she was trying to get into, uh, what the fuck's his name? The singer of Incubis. Brandon Boyd. Yeah. Brandon, what? Brandon, Brandon. Boyd. There you go. She was trying to get into his dressing room. She actually made it in his dressing room. Whoa. She was trying to hook up. Dang. So when I, she told me that. I said,

you staying out there, I'm going back in. So I left there. You're trying to play me like that? Okay, I see. You better get a cab home. It was before Uber. You better get a cab home. Wow.

That's fucking crazy. Shit happens, bro. That's just how it is. The industry is full. What's that? The industry. The industry is full of people. Correct.

Everybody's out to use each other, yep. especially when you're going through multiple levels as well when you're going through multiple levels and I've been through every level when uh you know a figure of speech when I was in Fear Factory obviously you know you were at a certain level where it was comfortable yeah right but then I was when I was at a Fear Factory I was like okay divine heresy we got to go back in a van let's do it

I was ready let's go I know where I got to start again to go back to get back up to the top some people can't handle that right yeah so I went back in a van and I said look this is just a mindset it's just how you if we are a team and we make everything

work everybody finds her little position of what they got to do when we're on tour like hey man you know you got to go to the merch table you got to move the van so we can we can load up the gear you got to you know help him pack the drums you know

there's a little was a little plan that you got to make to make it work, right? Yeah. But some dudes fuck up. Some dudes, oh, fuck that. I'm going to go with the bar. Fuck that.

I'm going to go, I'm going to try to chase this chick. I go, you know what? The chicks are going to be there. It'll only take us 15 minutes to load this van up. Let's do it. But some guys just didn't want to follow that plan. And things got fucked up. People got bitter.

People fighting. You know, the band members fighting because I didn't want to do that. And now here I was in Fear Factory at the top and all of a sudden at the bottom, but I've already experienced all that and these guys are still kind of young. And I was like, look, all that shit's going to be there.

That chick is still going to be here. You know what I mean? Don't worry. Let's just take care of this shit really quick. Yeah. And it was, you know, it did eventually work out, but I just had to show these guys that it could work. I could watch this.

We're going to load it. this van in 15 minutes. You can go back and you'll be fucking... Get some baby wipes, wipe your underarm, wipe your balls off, go talk to that girl and it's all good. And they realize that. They're like, damn, this shit works.

Hell yeah. Yeah, you gotta use the baby wipes. The Gazzar's plan. The baby wipes and deodorant and a quick little spray. You're good, man. You're ready to go. Exactly.

So once they figured it out, after I loaded the van, I went straight to the merch table. It's a selling merch. And people would be like, what the fuck are you doing here selling your merch? I'm like, it's my merch. I'm selling it.

Yeah, man, but you're a fear factor. You should hire something. Fuck that. I'm trying to get back on top. Right? And this is where I'm at right now. And it's okay. You know why it's okay?

Because this is what I love to do. This is, you have to, you know, some people say, hey man, do you become that VP, that vice president? You got to work in the mail room and work your way up. that way you know every level right yeah and that's kind of like how i looked at it you work at the you work at the bottom and you work your way back up you work away to the top that way you know every level

and you have experience in every level so if that one janitor guy says hey man i can't do this because of this you'd be like i know i know i've been there this is what you do you know what i mean yeah or that one guy in a mail room i used to deliver mail i know what it's like this is what you got to do okay thanks for that fucking advice or that I don't know maybe somebody didn't know how to work a computer maybe somebody didn't know how to work a certain thing but you were there you've been there you experienced that

boom you can give that advice to the next guy below you right or he just doesn't know and then that's kind of like how I was right and so I like to know every level of whether it's

tuning your own guitar changing your own pickups, you know, fixing your own amps, moving your own gear, which I know you guys did this a thousand times. Sell your own t-shirts, you know what I mean? Go to the actual t-shirt company and make the t-shirts with them. You know what I mean? Things like that. Know every level, you know what I mean?

And that's kind of like what I like about the business. When you like the business, those things are not hard to do, right? You just have to apply yourself. And there's musicians who don't apply themselves and they don't really care. You know what I mean? Yeah. They don't want to play and that's it.

And I get it. That's cool. But if you, I think you're more valuable or you're more knowledgeable. You're more valuable with the more knowledge you have, you know, when it comes to certain things like that. Yeah. You know, know your publishing deals.

Know how publishing works. You know, that's a number one thing. You know, you don't want to get ripped off in this business because there's a lot of people there ready to rip you off right there just right behind you you know just ready to take what you just earned

or you're earning it but you're not getting it you know what I mean managers ripping you off you know other other band members ripping you off yeah you know what I mean because you don't know you just like oh fuck this is fun

I don't like you said earlier you know like you don't want to say anything because you don't want to piss anybody off yeah Or you think you're going to piss somebody off. Yeah. But, you know, you have to, you have to, you got to know. So that way you know that if somebody's ripping you off, you know, say, this is why you're ripping me off.

Or this is how you're ripping me off. You want to be knowledgeable. You know what I mean? Because if you're saying, hey, you ripped me off. Really? Prove it. And you don't know how to prove it. But if you make yourself knowledgeable, you can say, this is why you're fucking ripped.

me off and this is how you're ripping me off motherfucker. Wow. Yeah. Sorry for my language, but... No, no, I know that says how... You seem to also find that balance, which literally I'm just now experiencing, like, you seem to know the balance between the music and the business side. You have to. If you don't know it, you're going to get fucked. And trust me, I go through it all the time.

I mean, as you know, from the very beginning, you know, of... my good friend, Ross. I mean, even the beginning with Ross, you know, we were, this was the first album that was supposed to come out, didn't come out. We were in a lawsuit right there. Fuck, man.

That's crazy. Just right out of the gate. And the thing about it was, is that, and they'll get me wrong, I love Ross, but back then, the contract stated that

he was going to, to own our publishing. And so once I had somebody help me, a girl named Laura Porter, rest in peace, she helped me, she was a good friend of mine, she knew a lawyer, and she hooked us up with a lawyer, and the lawyer looked at this contract, said, if you sign this contract, you're not going to own anything. You're not going to own your songs. So I was like, okay, so I went back to Ross, and I said, Ross, this is what the lawyer

said. Ross said don't just let the lawyers handle it You know that's nothing for us to worry about I go Ross but you know you're taking the publishing bro You're taking my our publishing He goes I don't know it's whatever's on the contract I don't know So we kind of like spoiled our friendship there for a little while Right and uh but like I said a judge made a decision

Uh that he gets to keep the recordings But we get to keep our songs so we were able to go re-record those songs for Roadrunner Records when we got signed. So that's the kind of stuff that you have to watch out for. Yeah. You know what I mean? So.

Yeah, it seems to be at all levels. All levels. Yeah. Jeez, that's fucking, well, at least now we have two versions of scapegoats, so that's cool. Right?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. Oh, well, you had to re-record the song. Well, actually, we didn't... Yeah, you're right. Yeah. There's two versions. of a bunch of songs. Well, the album had 17 songs.

The one that Ross did had 16 songs. Wow. Yeah. So there's a lot of double. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it works. Oh, wait.

You got the vibe. Correct. And that's it against Ross. We were all young. We didn't know what the fuck was going on. You know, just stuff like that. Yeah. Young, too.

Even a double whammy, dude. Double whammy. I found out this is all, you know, Like what you're saying is what, you know, why I want you on the podcast. And I know younger bands will probably listen to this. So they'll learn from you. And also what happened to us literally this past two weeks. We just found us out.

Our first three records, we signed a contract. We don't, we'll never own the masters. Yeah. Well, that goes for me too. What the fuck? All my best records. De-manufacture, obsolete, digital. Every record that was on Rotorner Records,

we don't we don't we don't own the masters at all ever okay I remember when we signed we were kids we were young same thing with you guys

not a lot has changed trust me not a lot has changed in contracts not a lot has changed so is you sign your rights away to let them own the masters

that's that's uh but for us we thought that was how the business work which is how the business works but we thought Okay, we were young We just signed like you guys

We were young, we signed We were like, fuck Years later we found out Like fuck But there was an opportunity one time For us to buy those records out But there were so fucking There were millions of dollars

We couldn't afford it Man We could have bought them back But we're talking about millions So it was too expensive It's just I mean Is this normal? I mean, it might sound like a kind of silly question, but is that normal?

Yes. Is it normal for a band to get ripped off by a rare company? Yes. I say that I'm laughing because it's very much so. Now things are different. We do licensing deals. We get the masters back five years, ten years. Yeah, yeah.

Manches come back. We can re-sell them again. You know, do relicensing deals again. Unfortunately, it's true. true that it was so shocking man I was we we couldn't believe it I was like because you know especially being a kid

and like you have like your you know a full of team memory sometimes I'm like wait I could have swore it's so vivid sometimes I could have swore we had a conversation we're going to own our masters in 10 years and then we look at the fucking fine print man

you don't own this shit ever you gotta get the fucking quadruple magnifying you gotta get the But now we know, Matt. You got to go to the observatory, the grip of the observatory and get that telescope to read the fine print.

Oh. It's it. That's what it is. You guys don't, you know, now you guys know, don't do it again. You know what? You say, fuck it.

You know what? Fuck it. I'm going to write another sick record and we're going to license it and we're going to own all our own shit. You know who is smart about that? Metallica. But Metallica made so much fucking money

that they bought their master's. That's what they did. They bought their bottom. They bought their masses back. They started their own record company called Blacken Records. And then they have Warner Brothers, you know, work it. Yeah. But they own all their own shit.

But they also had enough money to go and buy all their shit back. Right. We're in a different position than that. Yeah. You know, sure, if we, tomorrow we won a lottery for fucking $200 million, you don't think I'm not going to go fucking try to get those things back? Of course. And, and try to.

go get, you know, and try to buy up, you can actually start your own publishing company. Yeah. And there's publishing companies right now that their job is to go out and try to buy old publishing. Huh. Right? Yeah. So they can collect money off of it forever. Whoa.

There's a lot of musicians, okay, there's a lot of musicians who at certain times they get desperate and they need money. So they sell their publishing. Yeah. You know what I mean? We're talking like, you know, like, you know, it's been going on since, you know, way back, right? Since the Beatle days. Yeah.

Right? You heard that story that Michael Jackson bought Paul McCartney's publishing for $100 million bucks. I don't know if you've heard that story. Yes, yes. Yeah. So that shit goes down. Shits like that.

It's heavy. A hundred million bucks, I can fucking, you don't ever have to work a day in your life. Yeah. But he bought it from the publishing company that owned Paul McCartney's publishing. So Paul McCartney didn't even own that publishing. People have been getting ripped off since... As your parents will say...

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So where do you see it going now? As far as like this surface level for me is owning your masters. Okay. What do you think? I think a lot of people, a lot of people are starting to do.

their own shit. It's been going on for a while now. Yeah, it has. Not signing over your masters, doing licensing agreements. You know, unfortunately, record companies try to push you

into signing over your master's. Oh, okay. Well, we don't sign you then. Later. You're like, oh, you're a young band. You're like, fuck it. Oh, I'd sign a contract. Yeah.

They don't think about their future. They think about right now. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so, you know, It's just been part of the industry forever, right? Yeah. It's just something, it's a, in some ways, it's a necessary evil that you got to go through in some ways.

I mean, it's fucked up to say that, but that's kind of like how it is. Yeah. But what I like now is that a lot of musicians are just doing everything online. You know what I mean? Yeah. Whether it's YouTube, Patreon, OnlyFans. That's mainly for porn, but. Yeah.

Cool. People have that, too. Only fans records. Is that? Only fans' records. Only fans' records. Only Fas Records. There you go.

You know, but even those companies now are taking bigger percentages of the money. I've seen that, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So they're seeing the benefits of how much people are making. You've got these, you know, a lot of, and I'm not saying anything against any women at all, but there's a lot of women who are doing that now. They're making millions, $100,000 a month doing OnlyFans. Crazy.

It's insane. So obviously now that kind of ruins it for the smaller person. Yeah. Because now OnlyFans commission is getting bigger. Yeah. Right? Oh, these chicks are making this much money. Oh, fuck that, man.

We need a bigger cut. So they take a bigger cut. And it ruins it for a lot of other people. So it's changing too. My point is that it's constantly changing. Yeah. Whether it's YouTube, whether it's Patreon, Only fans, it's constantly changing.

Yeah. So, but now a lot of people are doing their own stuff and that's, I mean, it's been going on forever, but a lot of people now are doing their own stuff, whether it's music. Yeah. Whether it's modeling, whatever kind of modeling you want to apply it to. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

I think you know what I'm saying. Yeah. And it's just, you know, it's constantly evolving. The one thing that hasn't evolved, is the music contracts. The only way that it's involved is now, like for instance, if you sign a contract

with a record company, now you're going to see, oh, well, we want a cut of your YouTube channel. Oh, we want a cut of, you know, a bigger cut from your streaming. We want a bigger cut of this. So those things, the contracts

has evolved to better the record companies. But the record companies have to try to figure out how they're going to make money from lack of CD sales. Yeah. So they take more money from the artist now from YouTube channels and wherever you have stuff like that where you're monetizing music or, you know, your videos and stuff like that. Hmm. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think, let's say there's like, you know, there's a younger, guards or like your younger dino starting their own band do you think they could come out now and put up their own shit on spotify have their own youtube channel push their own stuff on instagram and facebook and do their own thing and still get the same result yes uh you have to do what every anybody who is an influencer on instagram you got to build up your following yeah

without a following, you can't do anything. You can do everything you said, you just said, but you're not going to have anybody buying or listening to your shit. So you got to, as a musician, or as a band, you got to do what every influencer does. You've got to get out there. You've got to start promoting your stuff. And it's not hard to do, right?

You just got to know how to do it. And then if you build up your following, 100,000 people, 200,000 people, boom. You start putting records out. you start putting stuff on Spotify, then you can start advertising your shit, and people will, you know, hopefully go listen to it or buy it.

Yeah, so you got to... It's just like, let's say you're a clothing company. Let's say you started a T-shirt company tomorrow. I'm going to make an Instagram and a Facebook and all this stuff for my T-shirt company. Okay, nobody knows my teacher company, but I got to promote it. I got to get out there.

And I got to, you know, get people to buy my T-shirts. And so you got to work at the same way. Yeah. any business that you start. Yeah. But a lot of people, a lot of, a lot of people are becoming, you know, more aware of that, a lot of musicians, obviously are becoming more aware of that because they're able to monetize all their content.

And a lot of musicians are making a lot of money on Twitch, stuff like that. Yeah. Matt Heafy, Herman Lee. Those guys are very... Those guys killed it. Killed it on Twitch. Those guys are making great money for that. Great money with that.

Mm-hmm. They fucking did it right, man. So, so cool. Some people don't even want to leave their house. Like since COVID and a lot of people got into this stuff, people's like, well, fuck it, I don't need to go on to work. I can just fucking be at home playing guitar all day. Yeah.

And make money. Good money. Yeah. Yeah. You have a guy like Old England who's been doing it for a long time. He's been on YouTube. He's been working it. He's been working it, working it.

To where he's able to monetize it. I'm sorry, he's been able to forever. And he's become, you know, able to make a really good career out of it. Very cool. It's great to see that. It's great to see it another way. Yeah. But, you know, there's people who get lazy and don't want to do it.

Musicians, that's the nature of the beast. Some musicians are a lot lazy and they don't want to get, they don't want to do it. They're like, eh, they make excuses. They want to sit on the couch, smoke weed, whatever, you know. And not to get out there and do it. It just takes a lot of commitment. You have to really work it. You have to really get out there and do it and build a following and build a fan base online.

There's a lot of new, a lot of up-and-coming guitarists that you don't even, you don't even know who they are. They're not any big band or nothing, but boom, they're fucking got a million followers on YouTube. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It's been that way for a while now, and I'm not really saying anything new, but it's just, it's just become more common now.

Yeah. It's more common, especially since COVID. A lot of people got into find. A lot of people had to find other ways to make money since they can't tour. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. Still, ultimately, I'd love to get back on the road.

I have my own Patreon page. I do a lot of content on there and stuff like that. A lot of play-throughs, a lot of breaking down the songs, showing people the riffs, how to play the riffs. Oh, sick. Yeah. Because, you know, we have a pretty extensive catalog. So there's a lot of songs to go through, right?

It's a lot. Yeah. And sometimes when I play play play throughs, I try to make them as creative as possible. Yeah. like, you know, going to the tunnel, the 3rd Street tunnel. I saw that. And do video there.

It looked sick. Yeah. Video looks amazing. You put the play-through. People were like, oh, this fuck badass. And then I, and then later on I show you how to play it. Whoa. You know what I mean?

So that's really cool. I've done a bunch of stuff like that recently where I go to locations. I went to the old L.A. Zoo. I don't know if you ever saw that. I don't know if you ever been there. No. It's an LA Zoo You can go to like where the monkeys were

Put in and where the lions were and stuff like that Yeah And we went there and we shot a bunch of content there It's really cool Well that's dope Yeah We just try to go to different locations To shoot something cool just for people to see something different

Than just me sitting in my fucking living room Or in my studio just playing Yeah Yeah Some people like that too But I want to be a little bit more creative And try to make it like a cool video you know totally yeah yeah and then you know obviously when i break down the riff i'll do it on my

couch or wherever you know what i mean yeah just to show you up close on how to play it dude i think that's sick yeah you know there's been a lot of people have been doing that for a while and uh but you know like i said we have an extensive catalog and so you know put it on my patreon page i think was a good move for me it's good yeah so so you've been digging in the uh like they move to patreon yeah great do you see like a like you're saying earlier how maybe like you know places like like a Patreon

or eventually taking bigger cuts do you see them being consistent where where they're at now like as far as I don't see them taking much more of a cut it's probably going to I think it's going to I think the I think it's going to keep evolving

and they're going to figure out ways to to charge you for something or yeah you know what I mean yeah like if you want to put your videos if you want to put your content on Patreon they are part of they did a deal with vimeo which is a video company that rub me that run me the wrong way yeah and you got to pay like two or three hundred bucks just for your content to be only like you got to get vimeo pro wow so that way

they don't um that way no one can rip your shit right and to put it to put it on Sure, you can put your stuff on YouTube Yeah And then put it on Patreon But they can just rip it from YouTube Yeah Interesting Oh, but if you want to keep your shit exclusive and private

Then nobody can rip it You gotta sign up with Vimeo Oh, and Viva is gonna charge you $300 a year to do that Huh And then you do it Right? You want to do it Because you don't want anybody

You gotta do it Yeah, exactly And then that's how I mean there's always There's always a way I mean people can screenshot it I mean, our screen video it now on your fucking phone, take it, right? Yeah.

But still, you still go to that procedure, a process to keep your stuff, you know, to where somebody can't really rip it. It just makes it a little harder, but not that much. Yeah. But that's just what you do, and that's what we do. But we try to make them as creative as possible. Yeah. I still do it because, you know, thanks to Patreon, I was able to,

you know, make a good cut, you know, last year, you know, doing all that turned to COVID years. Yeah, that's great, man. Yeah. So I was able to survive in that way and it was really cool. It's great. It's good to see you. I mean, in a weird way, technically, you're already in, like, the digital world with the whole peer factory vibe. But now it's cool to see you, like, evolving still, you know.

You know, I've been saying this lately, like, I haven't worked so hard with the band. in the past few months, just going, evolving into, like, the digital world. There's so much stuff to learn. It's so much stuff. I'm like, this is way more mind power now than ever. You know, either, as you said earlier, either you could sit down and be comfortable and smoke weed

and say, fuck it, I'm too lazy, or you could every day just get up and start doing it. Yeah. You know? I see the joy that it brings people, you know, to learn the real. correctly. Because, you know, sometimes

when you're trying to learn a riff, like, I can't tell exactly what note he hit there or what kind of pick was there. Yeah. And so I see the joy that it brings people that they learn,

because they leave comments for you, you know? Yeah. Like, oh, dude, thanks for showing me that stuff. That's so badass. Thank you, thank you. I've been playing it wrong

all these years. Yeah, yeah. And then, so I see the joy that it brings people, so I enjoy it. It's great, man. I got used to it. And I tried to film,

at least, you know, I filmed like six videos this past week. Sick. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. Keep doing it, man. Well, because I'm doing all the stuff from the new record. Oh, yeah, yeah.

So I want to do all 10 songs. You should. So we're now I only got six, but I'm going to film a few more. You should. The rest of them, sorry. So when those songs come out, like, the single is going to come out April 16th. Yep. Right?

Yeah. And I already filmed the play-through for it, and I filmed the riff breakdown of how to play it. So on that day, this April 16th, it's also going to come out on my Patreon. So people can hear the track and then learn it. That's badass. Yeah.

Out now, once people, once it's out. There you go. Cool. Yes. Wow, that's amazing. And eventually, like, which is actually been, like, the bright side of this whole thing. I've been enjoying this.

Like, learning new stuff, like you eventually kind of love it. So, oh, this is like a new way to get creative. And like, you get, you're just doing, evolving. It's like, look, I love this. Weird. And it's so weird to like love something that's not, because you're so used to, especially in our cases,

like years of just, you're going to do a record, then you're going to tour, then you're going to come back home for like a month and you're doing another record and tour. That's what you love. Yeah. And to have your love evolve for your music. I'm like, oh wow, there is another way.

Well, one of the cool things now is that when I do eventually go on tour, I got different locations to film a play-through video. Absolutely. Right? Absolutely. What happens if I'm in Chicago? I go to fucking, I don't know, the train tracks or the subway tracks that they have above you. I don't know, go shoot and just, you know, different clubs and different fucking cool landmarks.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Sick. Go to the rocky statue in Philadelphia and fucking film a play-thew video next to Rocky. Great idea. I think that's a phenomenal idea. Just all kinds of stuff you can do. Go to the Grand Canyon fucking film, but don't

fall. Yeah. Dude, it's funny. What you just said, I've been thinking about last month, because we just announced dates. Like, now, you look at dates differently now. You see, oh, I could do a video there. Or this state, or this studio, I could do a video there. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm going here.

Oh, fuck, that Mexican restaurant's down over. Oh, yeah. Or those, you know, or that those Philly cheese steaks or whatever. You know, just like, sometimes you think, we used to follow that guy, man versus food. Oh, fuck. So when we got to those towns or those cities,

we're like, we gotta go to that. I would write them all down and fucking we have, let's go try this super, it was like Amarillo, Texas, and they had this fucking burger that was supposed to be mega hot. Dude. Right. Habbaneros, jalapenos, serrano peppers. They put all these peppers in it.

Yeah. So we're all like, okay, let's go try that. So we get there, we order the burger, and we cut it in pieces so everybody can get a piece. Too, that's sick. And I was like, oh, fuck. Some guys were like, oh, fuck, it's hot.

And I go, it's hot, but I can deal with it by Mexican. I'm fucking, my tea had salsa in it. You know what I mean? It's like, it's just in our blood, right? But, you know, some of the other guys who it was like, it's hot, you know. Yeah.

But we did that. We went to go get like, just whatever. We just went there, you know. Look at this mega hot dog. go there you know it's like yeah things like that just try to make touring fun and go experience different stuff yeah yeah do you find now you're gonna balance that with uh with maybe like a new way of touring like you're gonna you're still gonna hit up like your food spots but also you're gonna

try to balance oh i could film a shit here i need to part uh work this amount of a lot of hours or even full day you know well i'll definitely get up and uh obviously my day would be consistent of doing something with guitar, whether it's filming it, or maybe going to a music store, maybe doing a little meet and greet. That's sick. Yeah, stuff like that.

Yeah. Keep myself busy. Keep yourself busy. There's a lot of time in a day. Yes. You do so much. Yeah. I mean, I've hated those days where you're like,

oh, there's nothing to do. It's a Sunday. Everything's closed. And there's nothing to do and you're just stuck at this area. Yeah. You have the venue. And it's like, okay.

Yeah. You're twilling your thumb. Yeah, sometimes. When you get the bending that's in the middle of nothing, you're like, fuck, there's nowhere to go, man. Yeah. There's nowhere to go. Goose.

It's a way for the show. Yeah. Like, we played one time with Megadeth at this place in the middle of fucking nowhere in Texas. And like the nearest anything was like eight, nine miles away. Yeah, that's the worst, dude. Yeah, yeah. So 10 miles away. And so we had an Uber won't even go out there.

Yeah. Dude, I don't even know what it's, I mean the Uber is still recent Like the fact that you're going on You know you just show up And like oh I could take an Uber somewhere That's still very recent

Mm-hmm The thought of like getting in taxes I'm gonna know it's too fucking expensive man I'm not I'm not gonna get a taxi Yeah To go to like To go to like to the fucking mall Because I'm bored

You know Yeah But now it's Well we try to park next to a mall Like whenever we have days off We try to park those malls That have hotels by it Same

Yeah That's, that, that, that's, that, that's sick. We go to the mall, we go to the movie, eat the food court, buy some socks, buy some shit that you really don't need. Yeah, it was that, that's that too. You know what I mean? Yeah. Or just cruise around.

Yeah. You get somewhere to walk around. It's interesting to look at. You start to get to know all the same stores and all the same malls. Yeah. Every mall had the same store. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Maybe the restaurants changed, but some of them are the same stores. You know, you can, back in the day, you know when the ops Lee came out you could walk in a hot topic yeah and that was like that was like the golden era of hot topic too when you walk in oh shit this is fucking creepy yes it was the golden era of hot topic exactly remember when i first walked uh it was exactly night 98 i was too scared to walk in how old were you uh fuck 98 she's 12 12 i was like what did you say what did you say you're gonna be okay nino come come come on something along along i was lines. I dated a topic

manager. Sick. Oh my God. Hopefully you got a couple of shirts. I remember seeing like the wall and you see like the fucking like the corn shirt. I'm like there it is. Yeah you see all the killer bands right? All the killer bands dude. Shit and they're

they're all sick. And then the emo bands took over. Yeah. That was kind of the The other thing. No no you're right. You're right. I didn't even put those two together where yeah that was kind of beginning of like a a switch. Yeah.

My chemical romance. Yeah. A. I was just about to say that. A.F.I. All those bands took over. Sublime. All that shit took over Hot Topic. I know. And now it's, who knows?

That's a combination of a lot of different stuff. You see some punk stuff, some metal stuff. Yeah. Some of those other bands that we just mentioned, you see their stuff, you know. Well, now you go to H&M. You have a fucking Misfit shirt. than ancient them now. I was like... I got you beat. Go down to

fucking Malrose Avenue and some of those high-end restaurants. Got Metallica, Sabbath, seppelin, you know, anthrax. Crazy. Warbid Angel. Morbid Angel? You never see the Kardashians wearing a Morbin Angel t-shirt? Oh, I heard... Or a sweatshirt? Yeah. It's like that. Fuck.

Wow. Do you think... What do you think about that? Well, I think it's cool as far as as them, you know, because other people see it. And maybe other people will, maybe other people will try to buy the original t-shirt and not buy it like for a hundred bucks at some

you know, mega, very rich mega store, right? Yeah, yeah. Or maybe they would go out and say, hey, let's actually buy it from the band. Yeah, yeah. The band's merch store or whatever. Yeah. That usually doesn't happen that way. It doesn't, huh?

No. Hey, let's fucking let's stream a few songs. You know? Yeah. Well, most of the people, most of the people like Kardashians and stuff like that, they have people who dress them daily. Whoa. Crazy. They have wardrobe people. Yeah, you don't see it, but it's behind the scenes. Here's a Morpid Angel T-shirt.

Yeah, pretty much. You think they actually went and picked out a Mord Angel T-shirt? No. That shit was given to them by somebody. You'll wear this because it's cool. Crazy. Old vintage. They look at an old vintage rock t-shirt, but it's fucking death metal.

It's a death metal. shirt. Yeah. That's crazy. I mean, I personally like, hey, if it's getting the name out, I guess that's cool. Yeah, that's what I was saying before. Like, you know, they're on TV, whatever. You know they're going to be photographed, right? If, you know,

if Kim Kardashian was wearing a Fair Factory shirt, she's walking around and fucking whatever, doing an appearance, and she's going to get photographed, you don't think I'm not going to be promoting that shit? Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to go post a picture right now. Oh, shit. Exactly. I'll put it. Instagram, Instagram, Twitter, you name it.

It's everywhere. A fucking tagger, too. I'll even send it to the metal sites. Oh, dude. Sick. Yeah, I think it is a good thing. Yeah, of course. You know, I think it is.

But the only, like I said, the only bad thing is they're not buying it from the real source. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's true. They're buying it from some fashion designer who maybe cut the shirt up for them. You know, I made it into it. Cut the, you know, the top part and cut the sleeves and put some holes in it. Yeah.

Made some little knots. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. So they buy it from somebody who's doing all that. And they buy it in a high-end store for $100. $100 for a more than an angel t-shirt. You know, and then they could have bought it for $15, $20 from the merch store.

Yeah. Damn, dude. Well, do you know, I don't want to take too much more of your time. I think we could talk way longer. Endless stories, man. I love them. I got stories for days. Years.

Yeah, dude. Well, then what I do you part two or something? I do want to close the interview with. We have a new record coming out. It's called Aggression Continuum. New singles coming out April 16th. The record comes out June 18th. And you can go to Fear Factory.com to do all the pre-orders.

We've got a shit-top. ton of different vinyl. We got cassette. Sick. Cassette. Bring it back cassette. And CD, which is not very popular these days, but we got CDs. And a bunch of merch stuff. You can buy, you can buy a bunch of, you can bundle it up. You know, we have about at least 10 different color vinals. It's a lot of stuff.

Great. Yeah. Great. How about, yeah, where can people find you as far as social media or where do you want people to find you? Just type in my name. You'll find all. Dino Cazars. That a boy. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook,

everywhere there's the social media my YouTube channel. It's all Dino Gazzar's. So. She will, Dino, I want to say this publicly, but man,

I borrow so many rips from you. So thank you for the multiple records and years of influencing suicide silence and really, I mean, you really help pay the road for a band like us.

Like you were doing like the death metal group years before us. And I still listen to those beckers and like, you know, I'm going to try that. You know, so so so this, I thank you for helping, pay them in a way for us. And of course, you know, in our whole, you know, subgenre. Thank you, man. It's badass.

Zach Wilde once told me when Dinebag passed away, he's like, look, Dinebag gave past the torch to us. And it's up to us to pass the torch to other people. And so what he's talking about is basically, basically passing on the knowledge metal, you know, and then giving it to other people, sharing the knowledge with other people. And I believe in that concept.

I like it. You know, I believe in that. And so I'm glad that I was able to pass the torch to you in some way or another, whether it's your guitar playing, your tone, or your riffage or whatever. And I totally appreciate that because when you,

it's not success isn't always about money success is about you know creating something original right and then sharing it with everybody else and hopefully somebody can be influenced by that and take that and make something new out of it to me that's success that you created something original that everybody else can learn from and take and create something else from that and that's art And that's whether it's a painting, whether it's music, whether it's fashion, you name it. And that's just the theory that I live by. You know, I've been through my ups and downs as far as financial situations. But that was never really, I was never really nervous about that.

I was never really scared about, because I can be the guy who just goes, gets a job, but still would be obsessed with the guitars and music and, riffs, right? That was more of my success, was just creating something original that could be passed on to somebody else. Well, mission accomplished.

Thank you. It's crazy. And still going, too. Still going. I'm going to be going when I'm your dad's age. I want to be 70 years old going going, tr, tr, tr, tr, tr, that is, that's the goal. It might be a little slower. Hey, man, Dickdale,

on until he was 81. There you go. There you go. He was torn until he died, man. There you go. Still speed picking. That's exactly where I want to be. Likewise. Exactly where I want to be.

I'm a lifer. Lifeer. Well, this is, this is to what? Big Dale, honor, man. All right. Everyone, thank you. Until next time. Later.

Thank you very much.