BILLY GOULD Explains Why He Left BRUJERIA Nearly 25 Years Ago

During a recent appearance on the 4AM Chicken Soup YouTube show hosted by Dushan Zarić, FAITH NO MORE bassist Billy Gould spoke about his involvement with BRUJERIA, the extreme death metal project he had co-founded with FEAR FACTORY guitarist Dino Cazares. Regarding BRUJERIA's formation, Gould said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Honestly, I went to high school with these guys in L.A., and these guys from East L.A. were coming to my school and they were, like, listening to punk and I was listening to punk and there were not many kids in my school listening to punk. I was, like, 'Who are these dudes, these Mexican dudes listening to punk? And we started talking. We were, like, 15 years old and we became really good friends and going to gigs. So I moved up to San Francisco and I came back down to hang out with my buddies, and we'd go to punk shows and drink beer in the car, and they're, like, 'We wanna do a metal band. 'Cause all these kids in East L.A. were listening to like TERRORIZER and all this shit… The world was changing. NAPALM DEATH was playing, and it was this shit that you couldn't even sell — it was unsellable music. And we were, like, 'We're gonna do this. We're gonna [sing] in Spanish.' We were just, like, 'We're just gonna fuck shit up.'"

Asked how long his involvement with BRUJERIA lasted, Gould said: "Well, I left the band around 2001, because nobody knew who we were and we were wearing masks. And I kind of liked that part of it because I had FAITH NO MORE. 'Cause BRUJERIA started touring and stuff. When they started touring is when I left the band. It was kind of like KISS when they took their makeup off. I liked KISS with the makeup on. And I was kind of, like, there was a mystery and the whole thing, but it's okay — I think it's great. They did it. They did great amazing shows. I'm a hundred percent behind it. It's just that I already had a band that was touring and doing all that shit. I didn't wanna do two of them."

Referencing last year's deaths of BRUJERIA's frontman, lyricist, leader and co-founder John Lepe, a.k.a. Juan Brujo, and longtime BRUJERIA vocalist and samplist Ciriaco "Pinche Peach" Quezada, Billy added: "Two guys from BRUJERIA died [in 2024] — Peach and Brujo — and those are the guys that we started everything with. And so I was just in L.A. meeting with Brujo's sister and we were just talking about all the crazy shit that we did and just kind of trying to process it. 'Cause when you do things, you don't think about them until after. And it's, like, what did we do exactly? And what was that shit?"

Back in October 2003, Gould told Perfect Pitch Online about his decision to leave BRUJERIA: "I was involved from the beginning, and it's just a different band now. I left around the same time that [ex-FEAR FACTORY drummer] Ray [Herrera] did. What I really liked in the beginning was that nobody really said who was in the band, it was something done purely out of fun, and it didn't take itself too seriously. It ruffled a lot of people's feathers too, so it was all really positive. At that time, Mexico didn't really have death metal bands, and it was great to be involved in something that was interesting on so many levels. I think the way the band turned — I can't stop other band members from giving their names and saying who they are — it changes the focus of the whole thing, and it becomes just a typical rock band that really doesn't have any meaning that interests me. You know, that just doesn't do it for me anymore. BRUJERIA was one of the things that gave [Gould's label] Kool Arrow [Records] a kick-start, and I think all the BRUJERIA records that have come out have been pretty good. I think they can still put out good records, but the focus on what the band's doing and where they're headed, and what I want to do creatively and where I want to go with my life, they've really gone apart."

Billy added at the time: "My guess [is that] [BRUJERIA] are just going to do [things] by the book [going forward]. It's going to become more about all those things that I always hated about rock — backstage passes and the ego thing. I'm just not into it. I'm just telling you how it makes me feel. I don't want to say that the band is this or that and put a bunch of labels on them, but I just don't get the inspiration from it, and I want to do things that keep me interested and make me want to learn new things."

BRUJERIA played the first show after Brujo and Peach's deaths on January 15 at Trix in Antwerp, Belgium. It was the first concert of BRUJERIA's "Europa Rigor Mortis Part I" 2025 European tour with CARCASS as headliner and support from ROTTEN SOUND.

In September, BRUJERIA announced that Juan Brujo died after suffering a heart attack during the "Mexorcista" tour in Saint Clairsville, Ohio.

BRUJERIA released its fifth full-length album, "Esto Es Brujeria", in September 2023 via Nuclear Blast Records.

BRUJERIA's recent lineup also included Jessica Pimentel, the American actress best known for her role as Maria Ruiz on the Netflix original series "Orange Is The New Black".