PHIL DEMMEL Says His New Song Was Rejected For Use On MACHINE HEAD's 'Catharsis' Album

Former MACHINE HEAD and current VIO-LENCE guitarist Phil Demmel has released the song "The Permanent Decay", featuring an all-star cast, including BLEEDING THROUGH vocalist Brandan Schieppati, MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson, and SACRED REICH (and ex-MACHINE HEAD) drummer Dave McClain. The official lyric video for the track, which was written by Demmel in late 2016 and rejected for use on MACHINE HEAD's "Catharsis" album, can be seen below.

Says Demmel: "I had some tracks I had written and submitted for a previous band, that were never used, and I really liked them. Dave McClain and I had worked some of them up, and I kept thinking of who would be perfect to sing on it. My wife plays in BLEEDING THROUGH with Brandan, he ended up writing all the vocals, and singing on it, and it came out killer. Ellefson and I had been talking at NAMM last year about doing something together, so when this came up, it was the perfect opportunity to do that as well. We don't know if we're a band, we don't know what we're doing, other than that we all played on this song, and that we dig it. No one knows what the future holds.”

Adds Ellefson: "About a year ago when we were doing METAL ALLEGIANCE at the Anaheim House of Blues, I mentioned to Phil that we should collaborate on something together. And as the year went by, he contacted me back in October about a track, and he sent it over to me, I loved it. It was fun to work with Brandan, who is so respected in his genre, I always love playing with innovators, and in this case, I've had a great experience and friendship playing with Phil, and to be able to branch out and play with Brandan, and to be back playing with Dave McClain who played on 'Hammer Comes Down' on my 'Sleeping Giants' album, was really kinda reuniting the family in a way, but at the same time stepping out into some new turf, and a new sound, for me, that we kinda touched on on 'Sleeping Giants' as well. I love to branch out and work with a new cast of people, and dive into different styles and genres of metal, and that's really what this was all about.”

McClain says: "Originally when me and Phil were in MACHINE HEAD, and it came time to start writing stuff for the next record, Phil had some ideas and riffs, and I'm always down there practicing all day. He just came down one day, he had these riffs, we started messing around. I mic'ed up everything in the room on my laptop, and we recorded this stuff live, and then it ended up not being used for anything. Fast forward to all this time later, when we're both out of MACHINE HEAD, and Phil was going out on this guitar clinic tour, and he was like, 'Let's record some of the riffs and songs I had.'"

"The Permanent Decay" will be the first track released digitally under Demmel's Echoes Of Reckoning umbrella of music, a collection of songs with various artists covering various genres.

Demmel announced his exit from MACHINE HEAD in October 2018, explaining at the time that he wanted "to step away and do something else musically."

Last spring, Demmel told the "In The Pitts Of Metal And Motor Chaos" podcast that MACHINE HEAD ended up becoming a Robb Flynn solo project toward the end of his time with the group. Demmel also said that the musical side of MACHINE HEAD took a sharp turn for the worse during the writing stage for "Catharsis", an album that he said he hated.

Photo credit:

Phil Demmel - Melody Myers
David Ellefson - Anthony Frisketti
Brandan Schieppatti - Olly Hanks
Dave McClain - Stephanie Cabral Photography