FEAR FACTORY Drummer Talks About The Band's Songwriting Process

Simon Milburn of Australia's The Metal Forge recently conducted an interview with FEAR FACTORY drummer Raymond Herrera. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On the response to last year's "Transgression":

"I think it's been good. It's been kind of interesting. We've had some reaction from Europe that was mediocre and then we've had other reactions that were that this was the best record that we've ever done. It's kind of weird this time. This time, it's almost like it's varied depending on who you ask. Usually, every record you pretty much get the same kind of feel — everybody's really excited about it, they think it's great. But on this one, it was almost either you loved it or your hated it. It was weird. So go figure. It was pretty interesting."

On Herrera's personal opinion of the last album:

"I would've personally liked something more heavier throughout. But I'm just one person in the band. I'm probably more the metalhead in the band. So for me, I'm more into the heavier, more fearsome, fast stuff. So I would've maybe liked it to be a little harder and heavier. There are a few tracks that are very heavy, very FEAR FACTORY-esque. But of course, there are some other tracks that are very different, which is something that we also do a lot as well. We kind of change things up a little bit sometimes. I kinda like that. I like the fact that we can do a wide array of metal and still make it sound like FEAR FACTORY, y'know?"

On what he would change about "Transgression", if given a chance to do so:

"If anything, I would've probably liked Burt to interact more with us as we were writing the record. That's probably the only thing I would change that we're probably gonna change for this next time around. I think I'm so used to writing around guitars and writing with guitars, that it would be nice for me for a change to actually write around what Burt was singing. A lot of times, Burt does his lyrics and vocals so late in the game that I've already kind of committed to my parts, because I try to… during pre-production, I really concentrate on what I'm doing and try to make things more interesting and add other little nuances that I do on the songs that really kind of add to each song's character. A lot of times when I'm doing that, I'm not doing that with vocals either. If I had the vocals, I think I could actually write my parts a lot better. So that would probably be the one thing I'd like to change … maybe have a little bit more networking between the drums and the vocals as much as there is between the drums and guitars, which is what we're known for, y'know?"

On why it has been difficult to get Bell involved in the writing process:

"I don't really know what the definite answer is. I guess it could just be that Burt's state of mind is on touring and not so much on writing at that time. If I had to take a guess, maybe that would be it. I know part of the problem last time is that he didn't ask for music and we just assumed that he really didn't want to start yet. So part of the problem has really been us as well, y'know? It's kind of like the 'don't ask, don't tell' thing but at the same time, I definitely want to make it more of a focal point that Burt starts writing a little bit earlier. It's just one of the things. It's like, i'll be doing records for the next ten years and I'll probably still learn something new every time. It's always different. Even if you're working with the same people, there's always different situations in life that you gotta work around and that's what makes it different."

On Bell's near-electrocution on May, 2006 in Luxembourg:

"Well, essentially what happened is, we were told before we went on stage that there was a power problem in the venue. So we were like, 'OK, well, we'll see what happens.' So, we start playing and I think halfway through the second song, the power went out. Then, I think after the fourth or fifth song, Burt got shocked from the mic, and then I think a song later, Christian got shocked because he's doing back vocals. Then nothing really happened for two songs and then I think it was during 'Archetype', Burt got shocked again. It shocked him so hard that he fell to the floor. After that, he was like 'That's it. I can't take any more.' But at that point, we had already pretty much done the entire set. We had done about an hour and twenty minutes at that point. So it's not like it was gonna be a huge issue for us to not continue to play anymore. But I didn't blame Burt. I was like ‘Well, how can I argue with that?' So essentially, that's what happened. Luckily, he didn't get shocked enough the first time, because the first time, we would've only been like two or three songs into the set. Fans would have been really disappointed, and we probably had some legal issues with the venue. I'm not glad that it happened to Burt, but I'm glad it happened when it happened and we were able to just say 'We can't do this anymore', and I'm sure the fans could understand as well."

Read the entire interview at www.themetalforge.com.