FEAR FACTORY Frontman Focusing On ASCENSION OF THE WATCHERS

Vassil Varbanov of Bulgaria's Tangra Mega Rock recently conducted an interview with FEAR FACTORY/ASCENSION OF THE WATCHERS frontman Burton C. Bell. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Tangra Mega Rock: Burton, the idea to have you with us this time is this forthcoming debut album by ASCENSION OF THE WATCHERS. If you compare it to your very first EP that surfaced some two years and a half ago, where do you see the differences?

Burton C. Bell: I think it's mostly technical. The EP was originally meant to be a demo, se we recorded it as well as we could with the equipment that we had — just me and John recording all the parts. The initial concept and ideas of the songs were there, but technically it wasn't exactly the way I wanted it to be — I mean, the actual sound and production quality. To me the idea is mostly the same, but now we have a better production quality, because we had more opportunities available to us.

Tangra Mega Rock: If we check the Internet, we can read that the idea to form ASCENSION OF THE WATCHERS came to you as a decision to come out of this vibrant concrete jungle out in the nature. Why? People normally do the opposite — they rush from the suburbs to the center of town. You're not that old to try to find some... what should I say...

Burton C. Bell: Serenity?

Tangra Mega Rock: Yeah.

Burton C. Bell: I've been through a lot in my life, you know — I'm gonna be 39 this year. If I stayed in L.A., the WATCHERS record would have never happened. I had to leave and find myself in introspection — through journeys, travels and tribulations. This brought me all the way here with John. In the serenity, the solitude and the beauty of this place I'm really able to think, explore my feelings and emotions and relate them to music. And this is the type of music that's been in me for a long time. I've never written music for FEAR FACTORY — I've only done vocals and lyrics. Nobody was interested in the music I wrote, so I decided to save it for myself.

Tangra Mega Rock: You spent quite a while there in Pennsylvania...

Burton C. Bell: Yeah, this time I ended up moving here. In the beginning I came here and I pretty much lived in the studio, which is in the middle of the woods — it's actually surrounded by 15 acres of woods and a beautiful landscape. I landed there and basically didn't leave. My heart kind of never left as well.

Tangra Mega Rock: I'm sure lots of people are curious what’s happening with FEAR FACTORY.

Burton C. Bell: I'll say never say never, but at the moment FEAR FACTORY does not have a record contract with a label, so there's no contractual obligation. I'm not worried about it and I'm focusing all my attention on ASCENSION OF THE WATCHERS.

Tangra Mega Rock: Is there gonna be a video for any of the songs?

Burton C. Bell: I'm glad you asked. We're finishing up a video right now - it's for the song "Residual Presence". My friend Edu Mussi, who's the newest guitar player of the WATCHERS, is Brazilian. He has a friend called Victor Hugo who is an animator. He had just finished an animated movie called "Icarus", and he loved "Residual Presence", but it would have been too expensive to animate a brand-new full-length video, so he took parts from "Icarus" that actually fit very well with the song and its lyrics.

Tangra Mega Rock: By the way, is it true what they write in the Wikipedia — that you shop up in NIRVANA's video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit"?

Burton C. Bell: Is that on Wikipedia now, ha-ha!

Tangra Mega Rock: Yes.

Burton C. Bell: Yes, I did participate in this NIRVANA video — the first one for "Nevermind". This was some 16 years ago... Back then I was listening to SubPop bands and industrial music and I was a huge fan of NIRVANA back in the "Bleach" days — I saw them so many times... and the last time I saw them was this particular show they played before "Nevermind" came out, when they were handing out flyers saying, "Come down tomorrow to hang out and shoot a video with us!" So me and a couple of friends of mine went over and took part in the video. I can point myself four or five times in it.

Read the entire interview at Tangra Mega Rock.