CHRIS KONTOS Discusses MACHINE HEAD's 'Burn My Eyes' 25th-Anniversary Tour (Video)

September 14, 2019

Metal Hammer journalist Dom Lawson recently sat down with MACHINE HEAD's "Burn My Eyes"-era drummer Chris Kontos to talk the album's impact, what it's like to play with Robb Flynn and Logan Mader for the first time in 24 years, and the excitement of the upcoming anniversary tour. Check out the discussion below.

A new MACHINE HEAD song, "Do Or Die", will be released later this month to coincide with the announcement of the U.S leg of the band's "Burn My Eyes" 25th-anniversary tour. The shows will see Kontos and Mader join the band onstage again to play the group's classic 1994 debut album in full.

According to Flynn, "Do Or Die" was recorded last December with the help of WARBRINGER drummer Carlos Cruz, who stepped in to play on the track following the departure of MACHINE HEAD's longtime drummer Dave McClain.

Flynn previously told Metal Hammer magazine that he wrote "Do Or Die" in August 2018, before McClain and guitarist Phil Demmel announced they were leaving the band. "Two days after that announcement on Facebook Live, I was back in the studio and working on ideas and lyrics," he said. "I guess I was really just pissed off that day. After all the haters and all the negativity, all the bullshit. It's vicious!"

The first leg of MACHINE HEAD's 25th-anniversary tour for "Burn My Eyes" will kick off in Germany on October 5 in Freiburg, and continue across Europe, wrapping in Dublin, Ireland on November 8. The U.S. leg will take place in November and December.

Building on MACHINE HEAD's "An Evening With…" format, these shows will be a three-hour musical extravaganza, comprised of two parts: Part one will feature a battery of MACHINE HEAD's modern classics, such as "Imperium", "Halo" and "The Blood, The Sweat, The Tears", featuring Flynn and MacEachern performing alongside two soon-to-be-announced musicians on guitar and drums. Part two will feature "Burn My Eyes" played in its entirety for the first time ever, with Kontos and Mader joining in.

Kontos left MACHINE HEAD before the release of the band's second album, 1997's "The More Things Change", and was replaced by McClain.

Mader contributed to two MACHINE HEAD albums, the aforementioned "Burn My Eyes" and "The More Things Change", before exiting the group and being replaced by Ahrue Luster and, later on, Demmel.

Find more on

Prev More News Next

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).