So, how did things go with the Road Rage Tour?

The tour was awesome. It was the first time in 3 years that we got to tour with our buddies Chimaira again. We love those guys, they're such a killer band. Trivium were super cool too, really good, so we were stoked. We averaged about 600 kids a night and had several shows over 1,000+ kids, which is damn impressive when you consider we were going up against other summer tours like Ozzfest and Warped. We drank shitloads of vodka and cokes, and Dave our drummer invented a new shot called a "butt burner"! It's evil man...it's vodka and Tabasco sauce! They're addicting, so be careful. The Chimaira guys also have ritual called "Monday Night Mosh" where the idea is to get completely hammered, blast old heavy metal songs, and form a mosh pit in the front of the bus. We had the biggest mosh pit EVER in the front lounge of their bus after the Chicago show! They crowd surfed me all the way to the back lounge, twice! It was so stupid, but so damn fun. We were all bruised up and battered to shit the next day, it was awesome!

Fans/critics seem to be really into your latest material. Has the response been that way when you performing the "Ashes" tracks live?

The kids have been going ballistic for the new stuff. Huge circle pits! It's a trip too, for the first time that I can remember, were getting people really singing along with the songs. New stuff like Descend The Shades Of Night, Imperium, Seasons Wither... the crowd is singing OVER our voices. I think part of it is that, with this new record we've really connected to a younger audience, we're getting 15 year old kids with braces up front now. Kids so young they make us feel old. The other night we had two, 7 year olds up front. We were like... hey, shouldn't you be in bed by now?

As far as the critics, we definitely have the underground and independent press on our side in the U.S. The Tucson Weekly named Through the Ashes... Record of the Year 2004, and several writers for Metal Edge did the same, which was rad. Plus a bunch of Internet blogs and underground zines, raved about TTAOE. Bizarrely, most of the mainstream media in the US didn't want to have anything to do with us. In fact, Revolver, Alternative Press, Decibel, Spin, and Rolling Stone, all refused to do interviews with us, point blank. Revolver's editor even went so far as to say that because we weren't "American Metal" enough... whatever that means..and until MH sell 50,000 records in the states, they won't do an interview. We were like, well...excuuuuuse us Mr. Fancy Pants. Then we sold 50,000 and they said, too much time has passed. Uh... our record has been out for 7 months here?! Whatever man... the press is funny.

What's tripped us out, is even though we haven't got the mainstream metal media on our side, and we haven't done an Ozzfest type festival on this record, and TTAOE had probably 1/3 of the marketing budget that most of these up and coming bands had, all combined with the fact that TTAOE was out for 6 months overseas and available on import, and the Internet for as long. The metal fans of this country went out there, and stood behind this band. They believed in us, and while it may have been off many people's radars, Machine Head have quietly managed to out-sell, and out-draw nearly every one of these up and coming bands that all the mainstream metal magazines are hyping. Even some of the bigger bands like Shadows Fall, who I like, and consider our peers... with all due respect to Shadows Fall, our last U.S. tour averaged twice what their last tour averaged.

It's funny, it's like Machine Head don't really fit in. We're the outsiders, we're the band they want to sweep under the rug, we're the band they hope just goes away..."Jeez, do we have give them an interview?"... we're not as new, and cute, and as fashionable as those other fashion-core bands. But the irony is... while many of the mainstream metal mags of America haven't stood behind us, the metal fans of America have...and that speaks volumes.

Speaking of which, what are your thoughts on your latest work, and how does it compare to previous output? Many have called it a return to the beloved "Burn My Eyes" era of MH. Do you agree?

We feel that if this were our first album, it would knock peoples socks off. I tend to disagree somewhat that it sounds like BME. We don't want to mislead people to think this is BME Part II, because its not. But I do think our new record compares to the first in the sense that it has the spirit of that first record, more so than probably any other we've done. At the same, there are things on this new record that could have never been on BME. A song like "Descend", or "Days Turn Blue To Gray"... we would have been scared, literally scared of trying to pull something off that complex, and that challenging... "It will never work live", blah, blah, blah... It wasn't until we started incorporating those dark, Cure-esque vocal melodies, and U2-ish guitar tones, on The Burning Red six years ago, that we were really able to get wide open with our music and our live show like that. We had to go to those other places, to bring us to where we are now.

This is the first self-produced MH. How did that go and are you planning to make the follow up to "Ashes" another DIY venture?

I dug it a lot. It was done out of necessity at first, not by choice. Colin had to pull out of the recording part at the last minute. But the rest of my guys really believed in me to do a great job. They gave me the confidence to do it. They gave me the trust to drive the best performances out of them. They allowed me to push their limits. While I always think I could have done some things better, I did a good job, and I would love to do it again. It was fun, we had stupid little rituals like "Hawaiian shirt Saturday", where it was mandatory to wear ridiculous looking Hawaiian shirts on Sat. and then after we were done tracking, break out the vodka and get hammered.

How has it been working with guitarist Phil Demmel? He seems to have brought some fresh dimensions to the band. Why, out of other potential candidates, did you guys go with Phil?

Phil is awesome, killer lead player, great guy, real positive vibe, very charismatic. He and I really went for that Judas Priest guitar team vibe, and probably from the fact that we played together in the past, it was pretty seamless. As far as why we got him... when Ahrue quit MH to go join Nickelback wannabes Juggernaut, we made a decision to start writing as a three-piece. We didn't want to go through the whole "try out" process, and see if some new guy would fit. We had commitments to some high profile festivals in Europe still, and Phil approached us about helping out. He was going to retire from the music business as he had some family stuff that he needed to deal with, and his thoughts were, "what better way to go out on a high note, than playing a bunch of festivals with some old friends". It was very no strings attached. By the first and second show, there was an immediate chemistry, it was like, wow, this feels so right. But when the tour ended he still had things he needed to deal with. We left the door open and continued writing TTAOE as a three-piece, and in March of 2003 he came back. We were in the studio by June.

So is there still bad blood between you and Kerry King?

Kerry King is an asshole.

There seems to be a few unanswered questions in regard to the "Weapons Of Mass Destruction" tour. Have you spoken with Arch Enemy at all and is there a formal reason of why they dropped off that trek?

You didn't hear? Oh yeah, it was terrible. Angela had a really bad injury. Basically, they were playing the New England Metalfest and she went to make the devil horns for 349th time during their set, and she broke her fingernail real bad. I mean, it looked real painful, knocked her voice right out. Just like that, she went from doing a really good Jeff Walker from Carcass imitation, to doing a really bad Jeff Walker from Carcass imitation. It was crazy!? So, my guys did what any other red blooded American would do, and rushed to her aid and offered her mouth to mouth *cough*, but then her hubby Mike Amott started crying, so we backed off. It was pretty bad from what I hear though, I guess an emergency French Manicure had to be performed. A bunch of prissy chicks told me later on that, broken nails actually can be real painful, and really, who wants to tour with a broken nail anyway... jeez!... who can work under those conditions? There was rumor that they were going to try and get Jeff Walker from Carcass to sing the rest of the tour, cause you know... who would have known the difference... but I guess all 17 fans they have in each city wouldn't have went for it.

What was the main deciding factor(s) that led you to re-sign with Roadrunner?

We had several offers from other labels, but we have a history with Roadrunner. Roadrunner is a powerful label, and after a 10 year relationship, the most of which was positive, we felt there was a lot of ground we could still cover. What we have now though, is a licensing deal. So, we own the masters, we own 100% of the publishing. The benefit to them is that they have a considerably lower overhead. Would they have re-signed us if the record hadn't exploded like it did over in Europe? Of course not. But no one else would have either.

On stage and record, you are both a full time vocalist and guitarist. Have you wanted to drop one and concentrate on the other?

For the longest time my guitar was like my armor, or you could say my security blanket. Then during this one tour, I went to pull a Pete Townsend arm swing, and like a dork, I smashed my wrist on the pointy edge of my guitar and fucked my wrist up bad. I couldn't hold a pick, let alone close my fingers together. We had Meshugguah opening for us, so we asked Martin to ride on our bus and learn the songs overnight. For the next 3 shows he played guitar with us, and I sang without a guitar. It was weird at first, all I wanted to do was go back and hide by the amps, but after a while I started to dig it. For a few tours I dropped the guitar, but I brought it back, I love singing and playing. I get to dig in a little harder, and I don't have to "air-guitar", if you know what I mean. Plus it seems like there are a lot of "frontmen" around these days, so I like the fact that it kinda makes us stand out.

You have personally done a guest spot here and there the years. Any recent appearances on upcoming records you'd like to mention?

I can only think of one "Collabo" as the rappers call it (...that's a joke...a bad one...all right stop snickering dammit!) is the Earth Crisis one, which was cool as hell. I worshipped that band. I don't usually do a lot of stuff like that, and there is a standing rule in Machine Head, no side projects... but RR has been pestering me to do this Roadrunner All Stars thing (a bunch of RR band members all writing with each other). They want me to be one of the 4 Captains, so I may do that, we'll see. To be honest though, I really like jamming with the three guys I jam with, and I don't want to play with anyone else.

I know you did a special one night only 10th anniversary performance of "Burn My Eyes" in Philly. That must have been some experience for fan and band alike.

That show was rad! Philly is always a fun town to play, but there was something incredibly special in the air that night. People were just going ape shit. We were nervous as shit, cause we hadn't played some of those songs in years, but we nailed it. They wouldn't let us leave, we did like 3 encores. What's really bizarre is that, we secretly did BME one more time just recently in Manchester, England. Manchester is a real blue collar town like Philly, and like Philly, has always been a stronghold for us. We decided though, that we weren't going to announce it this time. Not to the press, not even to our record company, it was strictly a surprise thank you to those fans who had supported us in the one city on earth that has always been sold out for the last 10 years. The first 1/2 hour of the set was newer songs from all the records, and then the last hour was BME. At first when we started doing it, people were genuinely stoked, and incredibly just... floored... to be surprised like that, but it wasn't like Philly, to be perfectly honest, it was kinda weird. Yeah, they were chanting between every song, and the enthusiasm was there, but... I know this sounds crazy, but it really brought the crowd to a stand still. There was a good 4 or 5 song section in the middle of the BME set where people were just watching. I mean, I was looking at kids trying to get them sing along, and they were, looking away from me, breaking eye contact and shit, like... "I don't know the words!". I wouldn't have believed it myself, but we got the video. I was like what?! Burn My Eyes! The record everybody supposedly loves so much?

We talked about it afterwards, and we think a lot of it had to do with the fact that; with the Philly show, we announced it, made a big deal out of it. Every kid who was going knew it was a special, "one night only" event, and the excitement built upon itself. With Manchester it was un-announced, everyone was expecting our TTAOE setlist, and they hadn't had a chance to brush up on those old songs. Let's face it, we draw kids now, young kids. A lot of the people who bought BME back then, don't even go to shows anymore. A good chunk of the kids who come to our shows now, got into MH on Supercharger or Burning Red, or even Through The Ashes...and then they've worked there way back in our history.

Even though it tripped us out, we looked at it as a great thing, and I mean that in the best possible way. We're growing, we're evolving, we've got forward momentum. This isn't rehash, this isn't some 1994 jukebox. Our new music has captured the imaginations of a whole new generation of metal kids. Even though it's been 10 years, and we realize some people consider it a long time, it really isn't, you know? I'm not saying we're teenagers by any stretch, but I bet most people would be surprised to know that Adam our bassist is 3 years younger than Howard from Killswitch Engage. I think most people would be surprised to know our first album came out 4 months after Pantera's "Far Beyond Driven!" The same year as AFI's "Answer That and Stay Fashionable," In Flames "Subterranean," and Korn's debut.

With Machine Head having more than ten years under it's belt, and the legacy of Vio-lence, do you feel like you've accomplished what you set out to do and if not, where next to conquer?

In many ways I still feel very unfulfilled. I never really feel satisfied with anything I do, but I guess that's part of what motivates me too. We're still hungry, we want to keep growing, we feel re-invigorated, re-energized, and re-focused on the plan. Fuck yeah we have stuff we still want to conquer. I think we've covered all the ground we can cover with this record over in Europe. The tour we just wrapped up was the biggest, highest attended, most profitable tour in the history of this band. Some shows sold out a month and a half in advance. Bootleggers were selling rip offs of my FUCT stage T-shirt outside the shows...which was just fuckin weird... In the U.S. however, where the record has only been out 7 months, I definitely feel there's still a lot more ground we can cover. We are in the middle of setting up a U.S. headline tour right now, most likely going out in April 2005, and the concept is a bit unconventional, but we're really stoked about it. Basically, we want to hit all the places in the U.S. that most bands, or booking agents, don't want to go to, the places that are often left off for the major cities, the REAL outsiders of America. We won't play ANY of the major cities we've headlined twice already, so, no NY, no Chicago, SF, LA, Detroit, Philly, Cleveland, Denver, etc... And instead, will focus on playing small clubs, in the small cities of America. The Spokane, WAs, the Omaha, NBs, the Lubbock, TXs, the Tulsa, OKs, either that or play what are considered secondary cities, like Sacramento,CA, and Seyerville, NJ. Set up a bunch of meet and greets, and get into those grassroots places that have tons of metal and hardcore kids, who have nothing better to do than skate, listen to music, and drink beer all day, but rarely, if ever, get to see a show.

Our goal is to bring heavy music to these places the old fashioned way, with a good ol, beer soaked, sweat drenched, rock-n-roll show. Machine Head may not be the best band out there, but we're better than 90% of the bands out there playing this type of music, and we deserve to be heard more than they do. Just because their record companies through a few more bucks around, and they sold a few more records than us, doesn't count in our book. We've known since day one, that because of the nature of the music we play, we we're going to build this band a different way, through touring, hard work, and creating a network of fans and like minded individuals that would be able to support itself. We're gonna keep on methodically pounding the pavement, and fighting this fight, until we show the rest of this country, that there is something else out there, that is more real, and more intelligent than the standard crap they get pummeled with by MTV, and "rock" radio, and Machine Head are that something.