Interview - Fear Factory
7/31/04
Sean and Sam sit down with Raymond Herrera
Sean Michael
Coale: How's the tour been going for you guys so far?
Raymond Herrera: "So far, so good. It's been good we've done 5 shows
maybe, it's only been a week. So yea, so far so good.
It's a pretty short run."
SMC: Actually, a few days ago I heard about the
whole thing that went down at Hellfest. Did you
guys actually get to play?
RH: "Yea, we played a full set. I heard a bunch of
stuff too, but I actually didn't witness any of it.
I heard there was some stuff that went on but I
didn't witness any of it, I didn't even about it
until I heard about it a couple days later when
some friends told me about it. We did our set and
everything was cool. It was more of a hardcore
crowd but it worked out pretty well."
SMC: Are you guys disappointed not being asked to
play Ozzfest this year?
RH: "Not so much disappointed, but we hinted about it
and asked about it in January. I know there were
couple a of bands that dropped off and there might
be a possibility, I know Dimmu at one point was not
gonna do it cause of their personal problems and
legal stuff or whatever. And then they had another
problem was visas and shit. So I thought maybe there
might be a possibility there. But we asked about it,
I mean we ask about it every year when we can do it.
We've done it twice, the one which was the original
one before it was actually Ozzfest and then we did
two Ozzfests. We've done it a few times and we're
not gonna take it personally, cause we've already
done it twice. Technically three times, maybe next
year."
SMC: You guys doing any
soundtracks right now?
RH: "Soundtracks, the only thing we did was that
came out recently was that "Man on Fire." That was
with Denzel, and we're working on a couple games
stuff right now. As far as movie stuff not really
too much on the horizon, we're working on a couple
new tracks for video games and thru my production
company I worked on a DVD soundtrack.. Which
actually comes out August 24th. There's a new
well not a new but a remix version of Archetype,
which was just never released so I'm putting it on
the soundtrack."
SMC: Are you guys gonna be doing
a whole remix album for Archetype?
RH: "The whole album, well actually we're meeting
with the owner of the label on the 11th to talk
about either that or maybe some different packaging
with Archetype. "
SMC: Ha, who came up with the
Golden Ticket idea?
RH: "That was the label. Yeah, that was one of their
marketing ideas. "
Sam: With the whole DVD that came with the
album, do you guys think you'll be making another one?
RH: "You mean like a full DVD, like a
two hour thing."
SMC: Maybe like a live album...?
RH: "That's one of the possibilities, that's one of
the things we're thinking about doing. In addition
to the album, we'll see. We're not sure what we're
gonna do yet. "
Sam: Have you and Christian been
doing anything with the Kush project?
RH: "The Kush thing has been put kinda on hold, for the
past maybe year/year and a half or so. Stephen has
some legal troubles with Maverick and Warner. We've
got a crisp deal with Sony/Columbia and of course
Maverick and Warner aren't a part of Sony. Well,
there might be a bit of legal things to get Stephen
cleared to do it. But we've got a lot of songs
written, probably already got two albums written
worth of music. But obviously we're not gonna put
a box set out in the beginning. Well, continue
working on that when we can, we can keep writing
songs forever but no deal. There's nothing we can
take advantage of records and stuff."
SMC: Besides that do you have
any other projects you're working?
RH: "Naw, just jammin' with whatever, I got a lot of
friends back in LA. September I'm gonna be producing
an album for a friends band of mine in LA. But as
far as other things go I'm not really, I'm just
mostly concentrating on Fear Factory stuff, I got
my hands full with the Production company stuff."
SMC: What's the production
company called?
RH: "Herrera Productions"
SMC: Nothing too fancy?
RH: "Well I was trying to think of all these names
and it became a hassle. I just liked putting my
last name and adding production to it. Self
explanatory."
SMC: What are you playing these
days?
RH: "Xbox. Racing games like
Rally Sport, Project Awesome, Halo of course."
Sam: I know Burton has like
one political track on the album wondering how you
guys feel about it?
RH: "We have a political track,
which track..Ha?"
SMC: You guys played it last
night, the one where he's going "No more violence
in our name. (Human Shields)"
RH: "Oh, that's not really a political track, I guess
it could kinda be seen as one but it's more in the
prospective of the people who are left. Like you
have a family and your son goes out to war. It's
almost like in the prospective of the family more
than the actual person fighting. So yea, I guess
it's kinda a political but it's not really obviously
it could be used for any time your child has to go
off to fight. But I don't think Burt was meaning
directly to what's going on right now. When I first
read those lyrics I thought damn those are pretty
strong."
SMC: Speaking of songs, with the ones you're writing
now are you gonna bring back the more industrial
feel to them?
RH: Well, the songs right now are just guitar and
drums, so you can't really be industrial till you
bring the keyboards in.
SMC: Is that something you just
wait for till you're in the studio?
RH: Naw, we might jump right in and for instance
with the song we're working on right now. Once we
give them to Steve he might do something to them
that might make them sound more industrial. 'Cause
a lot of the industrial element is the electronic
element and when you're just listening to say a Nine
Inch Nails track and just hear the guitar it's gonna
be just a metal album. So right now it's just guitar
and drums, there's no vocals. Christian hasn't
written bass lines yet, it's just guitar drums
that's it. Really stripped down kinda melodic
sounding, there's some really sick stuff on there
that I started writing. I don't even know if I can
play yet. I mean a lot of the same stuff on
Archetype, a lot of stuff I wrote on the drum
machine I couldn't even play yet. Still kinda
going back to a lot of that, like I got my drum
machine right here and I write really difficult
stuff not for the sake of being difficult just
really good patterns. So try to write on that for
a blue print, you know Christian writes on his
'lil Marshal amp and his Mac and kinda collaborate
that way. And you know come up with all these parts
but like I said we only have like 3 songs, but we
got like 50 different beats or like 50 riffs. But
they're not real songs until....You know that's
the one thing I like more about Christian, our
old guitar player was that.....well Christian is
willing to write on the road and well our old
guitar player wanted to wait till we got home.
And look at it this way we're already 3 songs
into the next record, whereas before we wouldn't
have even been into that.
SMC: What are the 5 album you
have to have on the road with you?
RH:
1. Slayer "Raining Blood"
2. Terrorizer "World Down Fall"
3. Metallica "Master of Puppets"
4. Police "Synchronicity"
5. U2 "Joshua Tree"