In a brand new interview with Australia’s Heavy, former FEAR FACTORY frontman Burton C. Bell spoke about his plans for brand spanking new music after issuing two singles in 2024 — “Anti-Droid” and “Technical Exorcism” — and a canopy of RAMMSTEIN‘s “Du Hast” in 2023. He mentioned (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I’ve had an amazing response [to the singles I’ve released so far]. Reside, the followers actually prefer it. They actually translate dwell very properly. The band that I’ve gathered, or ought to I say curated, ‘trigger it took me a few years to curate this band and seize these guys collectively. I’ve identified [them] for a number of years, however lastly I acquired this band collectively. And the music that we play is admittedly translating into a brand new group that is actually translating these songs in a heavy, groovy, darkish and moody manner. It is superb. So what you hear is gonna be heavier dwell.”
Requested if he’s sticking along with his beforehand introduced plan of placing out one music at a time earlier than finally releasing a full-length album, Bell mentioned: “I’m, however I have been recording much more new songs. So I have been releasing one factor at a time, however I do plan to have an precise bodily launch, hopefully within the coming yr. So, the band and I, now we have a number of extra songs that we’re engaged on and that we’re gonna simply begin engaged on new stuff. Nicely, we’re already engaged on new stuff, however the two new songs — the primary music that you just guys are gonna hear in most likely one other month is a fucking banger, dude. It crushes — crushes. And the one after that crushes as properly. And we’re simply gonna proceed with that mode — simply crushing.”
Relating to whether or not “Anti-Droid” and “Technical Exorcism” are “a very good sonic illustration of what to anticipate from the entire album”, Bell mentioned: “I’d say come to see us dwell and that shall be an amazing illustration of what you may count on from the album, as a result of, like I mentioned, what we do dwell is we translate these songs to what we’re doing now to our model. So even FEAR FACTORY songs and GZR songs, they’re much extra full. Once you come [to see us] dwell, it is changing into extra of an natural type of feeling; it is simply heavy. It is me, clearly, after which I’ve two guitar gamers. They each commerce off doing rhythm and lead, bass participant and drums. So, in the event you wanna hear what the album is gonna be like, come see what we do dwell and you will perceive and you’ll not be disillusioned.”
Video of Bell‘s December 13, 2024 live performance at The Regent in Los Angeles, California because the assist act for GOD FORBID might be seen beneath.
Bell performed the primary live performance along with his solo band on June 13, 2024 at 1720 in Los Angeles, California.
Backing Bell on the gigs have been guitarist Henrik Linde (THE VITALS, DREN),drummer Ryan “Junior” Kittlitz (ALL HAIL THE YETI, THE ACID HELPS),bassist Tony Baumeister (ÆGES) and multi-instrumentalist Stewart Cararas.
When the 1720 live performance was first introduced, Burton known as the gig a “historic occasion” and vowed to carry out “new songs and classics spanning my profession.”
In August 2024, Bell launched a brand new solo single, “Technical Exorcism”, together with the official Don Pancho Movies-directed music video for the monitor.
In March 2024, Bell, who launched his debut solo single that very same month, “Anti-Droid”, was requested by Knotfest‘s “Nu Pod” podcast if he has a complete album’s value of fabric prepared to return out. He responded: “No. I am engaged on particular person singles at a time. I do have a document’s value of music. However I am adopting the hip-hop technique the place as an alternative of developing, releasing a single after which the entire album comes out a few weeks later, after which a few weeks later, when that album is out, the momentum of the only and the entire document simply type of slows and turns into sluggish and simply nearly crashes. So I discovered watching hip-hop artists and different artists as properly, [where] they’d simply launch a single at a time, hold that momentum, hold that highlight on them and simply launch a single each few weeks and simply hold that momentum going.”
He continued: “At the moment, the quick consideration span of the lots may be very obvious. There’s this outdated saying in economics, much less is extra — provide and demand, much less is extra. So in the event you simply feed ’em just a bit bit at a time, they wanna hear extra. And that is the place the curiosity stays. They’re compelled to maintain listening. ‘Oh, he is acquired one thing else popping out. Oh, he is acquired one thing else popping out.'”
Bell‘s discography consists of a number of dwell and recorded collaborations with BLACK SABBATH icon Geezer Butler and JOURNEY‘s Deen Castronovo (as G/Z/R); industrial maverick Al Jourgensen and MINISTRY; and visitor vocal appearances with PITCHSHIFTER, CONFLICT, SOIL, STATIC-X, SOULFLY and DELAIN, amongst others. He is the vocalist of ASCENSION OF THE WATCHERS and CITY OF FIRE and, after all, the co-creator of FEAR FACTORY and the one musician to look on each FEAR FACTORY launch from 1992 by 2024.
FEAR FACTORY created a sound that revolutionized excessive metallic, outlined in no small half by Bell‘s revolutionary scream/sing dichotomy and the influences he introduced from post-punk and industrial. Songs like “Reproduction”, “Linchpin”, “Edgecrusher”, “Concern Marketing campaign”, “Archetype”, “Cyber Waste” and “Zero Sign” are trendy metallic anthems. “Demanufacture” (1995) and the RIAA gold-certified “Out of date” (1998) are genre-redefining works heralded by followers and critics as important albums. Orwell, Bradbury, “Blade Runner”, and complex sci-fi and fantasy works fed Bell‘s lyrics and ideas.
The band toured the world with METALLICA, SLIPKNOT, KORN, MEGADETH and OZZY OSBOURNE, taking bands like SYSTEM OF A DOWN and STATIC-X out as assist acts of their early levels. After years of behind-the-scenes band member turmoil and authorized points, Bell left FEAR FACTORY within the fall of 2020.
Bell mentioned “Anti-Droid” is “an announcement about breaking free. Breaking the bonds of what I felt was a jail in some ways. Not simply financially or contractually however creatively, as properly. I felt constrained to this format we would written ourselves into. The ‘manufacturing facility’ does not have a capital F. It is the manufacturing facility of the music business, a sure type of enterprise, and priorities. Being a slave to a longtime mind-set will not be actually freedom. I’m shifting ahead.”
The 55-year-old Bell had been largely inactive on the musical entrance since formally asserting his departure from FEAR FACTORY in September 2020. On the time he mentioned that he couldn’t “align” himself with somebody whom he didn’t belief or respect, an obvious reference to FEAR FACTORY founding guitarist Dino Cazares.
In March 2023, Bell was requested by Joshua Toomey of the “Speak Toomey” podcast the way it felt to see FEAR FACTORY going out on tour with another person singing the components he initially wrote and recorded with the band. He responded: “It does not have an effect on me in any respect. To be trustworthy, I have not been this joyful in a very long time. Extra energy to them, however I am simply shifting ahead in my very own life, my very own profession, and I am simply making an attempt to make a reputation for myself.”
Requested if he has checked out any of the movies on YouTube of FEAR FACTORY performing along with his substitute, the Italian-born singer Milo Silvestro, Bell mentioned: “No, I do not. I do not care to.”
Burton went on to say that he does not thoughts being requested about FEAR FACTORY even though he’s now not within the band. “FEAR FACTORY, it is what I am identified for,” he defined. “And the 30 years I had with FEAR FACTORY have been among the proudest moments of my profession. And every thing I’ve ever executed in FEAR FACTORY I am very pleased with. Even among the questionable issues I’ve executed in FEAR FACTORY I am nonetheless pleased with. It was an amazing legacy.”
Throughout an April 2022 look on an episode of “The Ex-Man” podcast hosted by Doc Coyle (BAD WOLVES),Bell touched upon FEAR FACTORY‘s newest album, “Aggression Continuum”, which was launched in June 2021 by way of Nuclear Blast Information. The LP, which was recorded primarily in 2017, options Bell and fellow authentic FF member Dino Cazares (guitar) alongside drummer Mike Heller.
“I used to be simply joyful that document lastly got here out,” Burton mentioned. “We completed that document in 2017. By the point it got here out, I might forgotten all about it. ‘Oh, yeah, I keep in mind that music. Oh yeah.’
“There’s some good songs on that document. The music ‘Collapse’ is an effective music. The title monitor ‘Monolith’ is an effective music,” he added, referencing the LP’s authentic working title, earlier than it was modified by Cazares.
When Coyle famous that the combination on “Aggression Continuum” is “nice,” Bell hesitated for a few seconds earlier than reluctantly agreeing. “I assume,” he mentioned. “Once I completed the document [in 2017], the document was executed and agreed upon after which additional work was executed with out my say.”
Elsewhere within the chat, Burton admitted that “it was troublesome” for him to depart FEAR FACTORY. “Stepping away from FEAR FACTORY was not a straightforward resolution by [any] means,” he mentioned. “However what I skilled for the ten years earlier than that, the lawsuits, the acrimony, that was the one which killed me. And I simply needed to step away to understand, you realize, they will take all these items from me — they will take the cash, they will take the royalties, they will take the trademark away from me — and I noticed that did not outline me. They will take that, however I am nonetheless Burton C. Bell, motherfucker, and no matter I have they cannot take. So I am simply type of shifting ahead and doing new issues.”
In keeping with Bell, hardship is par for the course for many musicians, who typically discover themselves victims of unhealthy contracts, unscrupulous administration and, all too typically, what seems to be a penchant for self-destruction.
“I knew a very long time in the past I needed to be an artist — manner earlier than I used to be in FEAR FACTORY,” he mentioned. “Once I was in highschool, I used to be, like, ‘I wanna be an artist.’ To be an artist, you’ve got gotta endure. You’ve got gotta perceive that individuals wanna take from you all the time — what you create they wanna become profitable off of and take it away from you and simply provide you with a pittance. However being bitter will not be my fashion — by no means has been.
“No matter negativity has occurred up to now with FEAR FACTORY does not even maintain as much as the quantity of positivity that has occurred,” he continued. “If you consider the adverse, it may weigh you down a lot, however it’s not likely that a lot compared to what the band achieved, what we created, what we offered to the music world, and for that I am proud and really joyful.
“Nobody likes to speak to a bitter particular person in any respect,” Burton added. “Me for one. It is, like, ‘Man, simply recover from it and simply transfer on.’ ‘Trigger holding on to the previous does not serve me something, it does not serve anyone else something. Transfer on and present ’em what you can do from that time ahead.”
Bell‘s exit from FEAR FACTORY got here greater than two weeks after Cazares launched a GoFundMe marketing campaign to help him with the manufacturing prices related to the discharge of FEAR FACTORY‘s newest LP.
Bell later informed Kerrang! journal that his break up with FEAR FACTORY was a very long time coming. “It has been on my thoughts for some time,” he mentioned. “These lawsuits [over the rights to the FEAR FACTORY name] simply drained me. The egos. The greed. Not simply from bandmembers, however from the attorneys concerned. I simply misplaced my love for it.
“With FEAR FACTORY, it is simply continually been, like, ‘What?!’ You’ll be able to solely take a lot. I felt like 30 years was a very good run. These albums I’ve executed with FEAR FACTORY will at all times be on the market. I will at all times be a part of that. I simply felt prefer it was time to maneuver ahead.”
In 2023, Bell unveiled “Paradise Discovered”, his debut exhibition of photographic works, on the Vincent Castiglia Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The pictures Bell introduced have been representational of his industrial and science-fiction aesthetic.
“Paradise Discovered” consisted of 20 authentic full-color images of deserted industrial buildings taken in darkness and fog from 2002 to 2003. Bell‘s photos are printed on aluminum utilizing the dye sublimation course of — an strategy Bell calls “celluloid impressionism.”
Bell‘s ASCENSION OF THE WATCHERS mission launched its second full-length album, “Apocrypha”, in October 2020 by way of Dissonance Productions.
