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Interviews : “We are going to use robots for sex” – An Interview With Dino Cazares (Fear Factory)

By on August 7, 2015

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Industrial metal veterans Fear Factory are about to release their ninth studio album entitled Genexus. I phoned up guitarist and co-founder Dino Cazares to have a chat about the new album, Australian tour dates and robot hookers…

Metal Obsession: Hey Dino! What’s up?

Dino: I’m good! Where are you calling from?

MO: I’m calling from Sydney on behalf of Metal Obsession. How are things going? You’re on a tour right now aren’t you?

Dino: Yeah, we’ve been on tour for a month and half now. We’re pretty much touring right till the end of this year.

MO: Alright, cool. You’ve premiered a couple songs from Genexus, how has the reception been so far?

Dino: It’s been great! We started out in Europe a couple weeks ago and we were doing “Soul Hacker” live and the response has been killer. And now we’re here in the States and we’ve been doing “Protomech”, “Dielectric” and “Soul Hacker”. And the response has been really good. We’re very happy with how people have been taking to the songs. Especially “Soul Hacker”, that seems to be the big song. We couldn’t be happier about how things are going.

MO: Awesome. After the release of the album, will you progress to playing more new songs or will you keep it to 3-4 or something like that?

Dino: Well we can’t play all the new songs! We have such a big catalogue, we have so many big songs, we kinda have to space things out, you know what I mean? 2 new songs is always scary, 3-4 is kinda pushing it. We’ll see how it goes. I think we’re going to rotate the songs.

MO: Let’s talk a bit about Genexus. I think it’s really clever, Metal Obsession spoke to Burton in October last year and he said that you were considering three different titles. Do you remember what the other two were?

Dino: Ohh, well, the main one was Genexus. Another one was Reset, I don’t remember what the other one was. It might have been Battle For Utopia.

MO: Could you just briefly describe the album? I understand that it’s a sort of continuation on Industrialist?

Dino: Well, conceptual-wise it’s the singularity process. On the album it is here now. It’s pretty much about a human/machine hybrid and what it’s going through to survive in society. Military, how they’re using the technology. Wars. Assassination. We talk about how there’s basically a little computer cell that’s injected into your body that can actually kill certain types of cells. It gets into your blood stream. What else.. We are going to use robots for sex. Female hookers. Female robot hookers. I know it sounds funny! We’re already having sex with our IOS devices every day! So why not buy something? You can order exactly how you want it to look! People already do it now!

MO: Yeah, I saw a documentary about how they make the dolls in Japan, and they look exactly like you want them to. Pretty creepy!

Dino: Yeah, imagine when they can move and feel as well!

MO: You’ve signed with Nuclear Blast now and you’re working with Monte Conner again. How does that feel? Back to old ways?

Dino: It definitely feels like how it was when we were signed to Roadrunner Records. We have such a big relationship with Monte. We’ve done a lot of the classic records with him. Signing to Nuclear Blast, for him signing us to Nuclear Blast, it feels like coming home. We’re familiar with it. We feel comfortable here. It reminds me of when we were on Roadrunner. How much they are behind us. We’re pushing Fear Factory back to where it needs to be.

MO: Do you have a favourite song of Genexus? I think Protomech is absolutely addictive!

Dino: I don’t have a favourite song. They are ALL my favourites! I can’t pick!

MO: I can imagine. But yeah, when the Protomech video first came out I listened to it for hours!

Dino: Hahaha! Where are you from originally?

MO: I am from Sweden originally, I’ve lived in Sydney since last year.

Dino: Aha, I can hear a hybrid of accents there!

MO: Yeah! Burton mentioned last year as well that you were heading to India for a couple of shows. How did that all go down?

Dino: Yeah! That was amazing! I’ve never been to India and it’s just a big difference. Parts were very beautiful, but there’s also a lot of poverty and stuff. The festivals were amazing. I never realised how many metalhead kids that were in India. We were playing a festival that had all kinds of music and there were hundreds, thousands of people there. It was really cool. I really hope we get to go back there again!

MO: You went to Soundwave this year. I haven’t really listened to you a lot before this year but you totally blew me away in Sydney. Do you think it’s important to be a good live band nowadays, especially when you can’t rely much on record sales?

Dino: Oh yeah. Very, very important! Because if you’re a good live band people want to come back. Especially for a band like us. We don’t make any money of record sales anymore. CD sales are pretty much obsolete. It’s all live, t-shirt sales and ticket sales. So you have to put on the best live show you possibly can so that people come back. That’s really what we concentrate on. We were very happy that we had a great turnout at the Soundwave festival. Many people watched the band and we were happy. I think we should’ve gotten the main stage.

MO: Yeah, same! Do you think you’ll come over here for a Genexus tour over here?

Dino: For sure! Would you come if we did?

MO: Yeah. Of course!

Dino: Hahaha okay! We are planning something for later in the year. We’re not doing festivals again, but we’re coming back later in the year next year, for sure!

MO: I guess we better wrap up now. I was just wondering, since you’re signed to Nuclear Blast now, what kind of future do you envision for Fear Factory? I can imagine that being with such a big label provides some sort of stability in this industry that I guess you can say is unpredictable at best?

Dino: Well we’ve signed a few records to Nuclear Blast so we’re not going anywhere anytime soon. We’ll continue putting out records, going on tour and doing what we do!

MO: Alright! Well thank you so much for talking to me today. I will definitely see you on the tour!

Dino: Thanks a lot! I’ll see you then!

Genexus is out August 7th through Nuclear Blast Records.

About

Martin is an aspiring music photographer/videographer. He is originally from the southern parts of Sweden and now he's living in Sydney, Australia. Thanks to his older sister, he got into Rammstein at the age of 9, and since then he's been into all types of metal/rock. He loves to combine photography and music, but also filming concerts and produce live material. Follow him on Twitter and check out his website.