MACHINE HEAD Guitarist: No New Album Until 2011

MetalSucks recently conducted an interview with MACHINE HEAD guitarist Phil Demmel at the Long Island, New York stop of the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival tour. An excerpt from the chat follows.

MetalSucks: There was, obviously, a hugely popular response to "The Blackening". You guys have been touring behind it for over a solid year now.

Demmel: February of last year with LAMB OF GOD was our first run.

MetalSucks: So do you feel any battle fatigue?

Demmel: Yeah, dude. We had a little bit of time off, but I mean this is what we signed up for. We're probably halfway through our touring cycle now. We've got shit lined up at the end of this year with SLIPKNOT and then we've just landed something real super cool at the beginning of next year, we got summer festivals next year, and we want to do a proper headlining in America and overseas because we haven't done that. We've just done co-headlining. We're halfway through, man.

MetalSucks: So you're not even ready to be thinking about a new album yet?

Demmel: No. We tour to the end of next year, 2010 to write it, out for 2011.

MetalSucks: Wow. How does it feel to have been a part of an album that's been so well received by old fans, new fans, and the press? Everyone seems to have just really climbed on top of this album and loved it...

Demmel: I'm proud of it, man. I am, because it was a long writing process and the recording process... it seemed like nobody wanted us to finish this record. Problems just kept coming up with gear, the studio, ProTools and everything. I mean anyone who's an artist wants their art to be liked, so it's like redemption because I joined this band when it was at its lowest point. It's been like an escalator ever since. It hasn't stopped. I'm playing with the guys that I've always wanted to play with. They're my favorite band, and to be able make music like this makes me really proud.

MetalSucks: Did you have some sense when you were working on the album that it was really something special, or did it kind of catch you off guard when it came out and people responded so positively to it?

Demmel: I knew that we had an epic/classic sounding record. And that's what we wanted, and we were so stoked about it, so we knew people would like it, though not to the degree that it was accepted. We knew that we had something special here.

To read the rest of this interview, visit MetalSucks.