Fear Factory
Demanufacture (Roadrunner)
An interview with vocalist Burton C. Bell
by Paul E. Lee
Beware! Those tech-core terrorists Fear Factory are tearing up the road again. On tour with the legendary and graying epic metal heads Iron Maiden, FF is doing their damnedest to brutalize new legions of fans around the US while bludgeoning the previously converted. I had a chance to hang out with Burton C. Bell, dry lung vocal martyr, and the most dynamic voice in the grindcore/industrial scene today.
It seemed a funny choice for a modern band like Fear Factory to head out with Iron Maiden, a band that has made little progression since the ’80s. Burton explained: “They’d been touring in Europe for almost two months, and then we finished and while we were still in Europe, they asked us to tour. We had nothing to do in the States when we got back, so we said OK. We knew it would be a good tour for us, so we said fuck yeah!”
This stop at Boston’s Avalon was the fourth they’d done so far and it seemed, from Fear Factory’s high energy level, that they were charged up and raring to lay waste to the land. “We’re fresh out of the box,” the throat man exclaimed.
Following on the heels of a tour with the formerly retired Ozzy Osbourne, Burton was more optimistic about this new tour with Maiden. As Ozzy fans tend to be notoriously skeptical of non-Ozzy type music, FF found it a hard road touring with the madman. “Compared to the Ozzy tour, the [Maiden] fans are like five to fifteen years younger, so they’re a lot more open and a lot more responsive. This is definitely a better tour for us.” In Europe, FF has hit big with their unique style of extreme music. The Brits especially have hooked into FF’s vibe. Between Kerrang, Metal Hammer, and Terrorizer, you can’t avoid getting the skinny on these California sonic killers. “They definitely like metal out there, the more diverse or radical the metal is, the more they like it. The Ozzy shows we did in England and Germany, we probably had half of the audience.” Pretty good when opening for someone as infamous as the once-mighty Ozz.
In case you were unaware, FF’s throat man did a side gig with bassist Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath fame. GZR was Butler’s band name, and Burton lucked into working with the god of low end thunder. Though Burton wasn’t first pick (Eric from Boston’s Stompbox was first on the audition list but couldn’t be located), Mr. Bell was next on the list. “He [Fear Factory and Stompbox’s manager] sent a copy of our new promo to Geezer who listened to it and said ‘Yeah I’ll definitely audition this guy, this is the kind of show I’m looking for.'” So with that, Burton took a day off from his promo tour with FF axe crusher Dino Cezares in England and went to Geezer’s place in Birmingham for an audition. “I had no idea what I was going to do, but I just screamed my balls off and he liked what I did. I went back to London and found out that night.”
So with that achievement, Burton went into the studio with Geezer and GZR to record Plastic Planet (TVT). It’s a project that definitely has a Sabbath feel, enhanced by Bell’s distinctive roar and croon. As if he hadn’t toured enough, with a month free after touring with Ozzy, Burton headed out with the other Sabbath alum, doing 15 to 16 shows. “It was a mellow tour, we had a lot of days off. It was a totally different attitude for me, a different style. I got to be somebody different for a while.”
Our conversation turned to our mutual addiction – collecting weird toys like Spawn and Godzilla figures. Then we discussed the goofy and whacked Norwegian Viking/Black metal scene. Finally, we got down to the near future. Burton informed me that the remix album for some of the cuts from Demanufacture (Roadrunner) and a new tour are headed our way come summer.
After all this, I got to see Fear Factory shake up the jaded Maiden heads showing them where the present and future of extreme music really are. For a guy who could decapitate people with his roar, Burton C. Bell is a hell of a guy, and so are the rest of Fear Factory – four guys whose tastes range from techno to alternative to hardcore. Expect more great things from them in the future. They are the brutal shape of sonic terror to come!
