FEAR FACTORY Frontman: 'We're Breaking Boundaries, Traversing New Ground'

The Metal Forge recently conducted an interview with FEAR FACTORY frontman Burton C. Bell. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

On the fan reactions to the group's new CD, "Transgression":

Burton: "It's been very mixed like I knew it would be. I had a feeling when we finished this record that a lot of people would be surprised and my decisions were correct. However it still sounds like FEAR FACTORY. Sonically, it's a little different. There's a lot of transgression going on. There's a lot of experimentation going on on this record. We're breaking boundaries, traversing new ground and we're expressing ourselves in different ways on this album. I knew people would be surprised and just like every FEAR FACTORY record that we've ever done, there's always been somewhat of a discussion about it."

On what the band was trying to achieve with "Transgression":

Burton: "When I was coming up with the vocal ideas, I wanted to challenge myself with this album. I wanted to do something different other than my formula, patented FEAR FACTORY style. I just wanted to try something different and I experimented myself and did some interesting things… some things that I'm very proud of but yeah, things that would definitely surprise people. To me, I'm glad that I'm surprising people. It was to push myself further…to try something different. Another mentality was, I remember some of my favourite metal songs back from the '70s and '80s, and it was all singing, y'know? Why does it always have to be aggressive? That's my question. It doesn't always have to be. I wanted to experiment. It was like, 'I'm gonna sing over this. I'm gonna sing over the whole damn thing and see what happens.' It was definitely an experiment."

On working with veteran producer Toby Wright:

Burton: "Y'know, it was just a different ear. It was his experience. He's experienced with working with a lot of different types of bands like METALLICA and KORN and tons of others, but he's never worked with a band like FEAR FACTORY before. So that was an experiment for him and it was an experiment for us to have a producer recording us — recording the drums, recording the vocals. It was the first time I was ever sitting in the same room doing vocals with the producer…there…just listening. I had ideas and lyrics and forms and flows and stuff like that and if I was stuck, I trusted the man enough to listen to him and say 'OK, let's see if we can work something out together.' So that was a great experience! Then, we used him for the mix. It was the first time that we've used someone else for the mix other than Greg Reely ever since 'Soul of a New Machine'. That was another experiment… another transgression for FEAR FACTORY. He just has a different ear. This is his interpretation of FEAR FACTORY."

Read the entire interview at TheMetalForge.com.