Back in town for the first time since the release of their third album, The Burning Red, Intoxicated caught up with Robb Flynn for a quick chat before they headed off to their biggest London show to date, at the Brixton Academy. Here's what the man told us...
INTOXICATED: Who are you and what is your role in Machine Head ?
MACHINE HEAD: Robb Flynn, Lead singer and guitarist.
I: Can you explain the sound of Machine head for us?
MH: Like Slayer & Black Sabbath sodomising Nirvana & The Cure
I: What can we expect from the live show tonight?
MH: A pretty good time I hope, I want to see a lot of wild, drunken mayhem, I'm expecting a lot of Vodka consumption on the part of the crowd..
I: The new album, The Burning Red has had very mixed reviews, there are a lot of fans who love it, but a lot of fans hate it too. What do you think about that ?
MH: To me it's the record we needed to make, we wanted to get a reaction out of people, we know people like the first record Burn My Eyes and were indifferent about the second album The More Things Change. We needed to do something to define who we are and by doing this it meant we had to draw a line at what we wanted for the band. I knew we'd get a mixed reaction and in a way, I'm glad we did. It means we made people feel something in a world that doesn't want to feel anything, whether it was love or hate, to me it was cool.
I: It is such a personal album and at the same time, it seems to be a loarge change in direction, Why is that ? Is it a direction you wanted to take form the start?
MH: For me it's not that big of a change, we've always had hip hop influences, we covered 'Colors' By Ice T and we were among the first bands to use 808's, we used them on track such as 'Real eyes, realise, real lies' from the first album. Block was majorly influenced by Hip hop. The records I drew upon for influence for this record are similar to what I drew on for the first record. My two favourite records then were by Temple of the dog and Ice cube. My favourite records while I was writing this record were Radiohead and DMX. For me that'' not drastically different. The only thing we said for this records was that weren't going to put a limit on what we did because someone else might not like it. We wanted try try everything and, if it was cool, we'd keep it for the record.
I: One final question, what would you say to people who claim you've sold out ?
INTERVIEWER - PHIL WEEKS