MACHINE HEAD's ROBERT FLYNN: New Songs Are 'Heavy As Shit'!

MACHINE HEAD's forthcoming studio album will be "heavy as shit" but will not mark a return to the ultra-aggressive sounds of the band's classic debut, 1994's "Burn My Eyes", according to frontman Robert Flynn.

"We're not writin' 'Burn My Eyes' part two, even though there's a small yet very vocal part of our fan base that wants that," Flynn told Terrorizer magazine. "We've moved territory and expanded our horizons and we're happy with what we've done. For us, the goal is to take all the elements and meld them together. But there's a couple of songs on here that are full-on, rip-your-head-off-and-shit-down-your-throat songs. It's nice. We've definitely got a fire up our ass. I'm not gonna say it's the heaviest thing we've ever done. It's not heavier than 'Burn My Eyes' and I wanna make that clear. I don't wanna mislead anybody because some people in the past did. It's not fair to our fans. But do I think it's the best stuff we've ever done? Yes, I do. Is it heavy? It's fuckin' heavy as shit!"

With regards to the songwriting process for the new album, Robert had the following to say: "I'm the main guitar player now — obviously! So that classic MACHINE HEAD guitar sound is back — 'The More Things Change', 'Burn My Eyes' — just full-on, kill-everyone guitar tone. The 'Flynn' crunch is there.

"Right now we have 14 songs. We had 18, canned four of 'em 'cos they sucked. We're in the process of whittling down four more. We're pretty ready to go. We're lookin' to go in April to start recording and we're not plannin' on any tours, at least at this point. We've already been asked to do a couple of things but we didn't feel it was worth blowin' off the studio time. We wanna get another record out this year — we're doin' good, we feel like we're on a flow."

Any finished song titles ready yet? "Fuck we got tons — you'll be the first to hear shitloads of 'em. We got 'All Fall Down', 'Bite The Bullet', 'Descend The Shades Of Night', 'Pins And Needles', 'Left Unfinished' — and we got a couple of other goofy titles that aren't finished yet."

With regards to the impending release of the band's live album, "Hellalive" (due on March 11 through Roadrunner Records),Flynn said: "We really like touring Europe and we just wanted to record a show. We knew the London show [on Dec. 8, 2001] would be great but it was just more electric then we could have imagined. We had a shitload of technical difficulties, but it was still a blast and hella fun. That vibe, that charge of electricity is what we wanted to capture." On adding two songs from their With Full Force set [recorded in July 2002], he explains, "After Ahrue (Luster — guitar) left, it opened us up to thinking about the album in a different way. We headlined which was the first time we'd been able to do something like that and we decided to put a couple of the songs on from there — songs we hadn't played in a while. Sonically, it flows. I mean, you can tell the difference, but to me the sound comin' outta the speakers is irrelevant to the heart of the music."