On November 28,
KASC The Blaze 1330 AM (
web site) conducted an interview with guitarist
Phil Demmel of San Francisco Bay Area metallers
MACHINE HEAD at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe, Arizona. The chat is now available for streaming using the
SoundCloud player below.
Demmel told
The Nervous Breakdown in a recent interview that
MACHINE HEAD is planning to start compiling ideas for the follow-up to last year's
"Unto The Locust" at the start of the new year for a tentative early 2014 release.
"After this tour, we want to get in and start writing,"
Demmel said. "We've got a couple of things for next year, but for the most part we want to get in and hopefully start recording before the end of the year next year. Have we thought about directions or any of that? It hasn't really been agreed upon yet. I think we're just going to write like we have been."
He added, "Our formula has been to just come up with something and see what happens. Nothing contrived, you know? That's how [
MACHINE HEAD's latest single/video]
'Darkness Within' happened, and that's how a lot of the stuff on the last album happened, so we'll just see how we progress. [
MACHINE HEAD guitarist/vocalist]
Robb [
Flynn] took classical lessons before the last record, so I think it's just going to be an amalgamation of everything we've learned so far. We keep evolving, and it's not going to be
'Blackening II' and it's not going to be
'Unto The Locust II'. I think it's going to be our strongest record."
Regarding the songwriting process,
Demmel said, "I have a little recorder and I mouth riffs into it. Sitting around watching football and just noodling and recording little harmonies come up, and having them come together with these guys is an amazing process. When you write from the heart, it's pure and it's genuine and that's how we're going to do it. I won't be in the band if that's not going to be the case."
"Machine Fucking Head Live", the new live album from
MACHINE HEAD, sold 3,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release. It's the band's second live effort;
"Hellalive" came out in 2003.
MACHINE HEAD is currently seeking a new label home following the expiration of the band's contract with longtime record company
Roadrunner Records.
