Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When we first started Fear factory, we asked ourselves what Fear Factory means, it was a cool name, but what did it mean? We obviously embraced the technological side of a factory, as a factory can be anything from something that insights fear, like a government machine, to something of futuristic technology, or it could be religion. So we embraced the technological side of it back in the early days.
The decision to change the name meant we were getting serious, because we couldn't make a record if some other band had the same name as us. I told the boys I was in a record store, thumbing though 45s, and I'd seen a record with the name the Warlocks on it. I've often wondered whether I hallucinated it, because I never saw the record again and I never heard a word about any band called the Warlocks.
If you do what you think is right for the benefit of everybody and everything and you make decisions, to go back and regret them afterwards - it's a futile experience and it's not worth thinking about. Because life just unfolds. Provided you do your best and you think you're on the right track, you can only be right or wrong. But to regret it - I don't think there are any huge errors or misdemeanors.
Symmetria by the Uccello Project is a gorgeous, instrumental and largely unclassifiable record. Best thought of as 'cinematic', each of the tracks conjures up a range of emotions and images, taking the listener on a beautiful journey. The layers of basses, guitars and percussion ebb and flow, drawing on jazz, folk, blues and African music, blending all the elements into one lovely album. Recommended.
I write incessantly, I'm very productive, I write for a dozen publications and blogs and websites. A lot of very hardcore political stuff. I write a weekly feature. I express myself. But when time comes to make music [with the] same absolutely unleashing of total honesty zero inhibitions, it just flows like a stream of conscientiousness because I will not be silenced no matter what my point might be.
For whatever reason, the success still blows my mind - that I'm able to talk to people about the music I've written. I always felt like there was something there because you don't put out music unless you have a sense that people will maybe like what you're doing or you're standing for something artistically. I don't mess with that. It's more about just music and trying to keep the integrity, I guess.
What I would really like to do, if I could have a sort of kingship for a short time and organize the group of my dreams - I would make one group which would be a combination of, say, Parliament and Kraftwerk - put those two together and say, "Make a record." Something that would be an extraordinary combination: the weird physical feeling of Parliament with this strange, rigid stuff over the top of it.
I'm vile and perverted. I'm obsessed and deranged. I've existed for years but very little has changed. I'm the tool of the government and industry too. For I'm destined to rule and regulate you. You may think I'm pernicious, but you can't look away. I'll make you think I'm delicious with the stuff that I say. I'm the best you can get... have you guessed me yet? I'm the slime oozing out of your TV set.
Chanting doesn't stop you from being creative or productive. It actually helps you concentrate. I think this would make a great sketch for television: imagine all the workers on the Ford assembly line in Detroit, all of them chanting Hare Krishna Hare Krishna while bolting on the wheels. Now that would be wonderful. It might help out the auto industry, and probably there would be more decent cars too.
Actually, I caught myself thinking that I was hoping for someone to break into my apartment and steal my computer, or a big fire would take place in my apartment, or thinking of uninstalling my firewall so someone could hack into my computer. I just had all these dreams and eventually realized what I needed to do was delete the songs because I really wasn't happy with them. I needed a fresh beginning.
All kids draw and write poetry and everything, and some of us last until we're about eighteen, but most drop off at about twelve when some guy comes up and says, "You're no good." That's all we get told all our lives. "You haven't got the ability. You're a cobbler." It happened to all of us, but if somebody had told me all my life, "Yeah, you're a great artist," I would have been a more secure person.
I've always explored things that people find a bit more freakish, like free jazz, and I'd gotten to a point where the live music I was making was really hectic and turning much more confrontational. So when I started working on Everything Ecstatic, that was very normal for me. I think it was a departure, but people read it as an escape from something, whereas every record I do is, I feel, a departure.
Confusion is the only state of mind we have where we are really out of our patterns and what we expect. Because of that, you're open to new experiences. The irritation in concert performances is really important. When people get really irritated, they listen on the front of their stool and ask, "What's going on?" If I deliver what they expect - sad, soft piano music - then people would just shut down.
I did cocaine for about a year around the time of Sgt Pepper. Coke and maybe some grass to balance it out. I was never completely crazy with cocaine. I'd been introduced to it and at first it seemed OK, like anything that's new and stimulating. When you start working your way through it, you start thinking: 'Mmm, this is not so cool an idea,' especially when you start getting those terrible comedowns.
I understand why Vladimir Putin is very popular in Russia - he's probably the first Russian leader to not apologize for being Russian. People always pin it down to one man, but there's hundreds of millions of Russians of various sorts. Putin does seem to be very popular in Russia, if only because he stands up for Russians wherever they are, which is exactly what Americans do with Americans, of course.
It's hard to think back. I didn't even know I was going to do it, make actual records. But I was always making up songs, once I figured out that you could do it. I think it's pretty much the same, but there's less urge to get it moving out there. There was a time when it seemed like it was really super important to the audience and now it's just medium-important for people to like us. But that's okay.
I'm not saying we are not to be held accountable. What I'm saying is that we need to appreciate past, if you don't appreciate past, you cannot understand why we are like this, why the churches and mosques are controlling our society, why Africans feel inferior. Why are our girls bleaching or make long hair? They all want to be white, Why are they not proud? Why are we not proud of name, of our clothes?
I lived in a suitcase for a year, and then a relationship brought me to New York for about four months, then I lived in Melbourne. Then I moved back to Gothenburg because the immigrant laws are strict for both Australia and the U.S., and I would have to marry someone to get into those countries. But I wouldn't really be able to get involved in a sham marriage without being able to tell anyone about it.
I'm just made differently. Man, I just love being an American, I love my country. But it happened to me during the Nixon time, especially pre-Watergate, that as I watched Nixon for the first time in my life I felt shame. I had to analyze myself. What is this emotion? I realized that my government was separate from my country. It was the first time I ever felt ashamed of the government, not the country.
I'd never met a woman I considered as intelligent as me. That sounds bigheaded, but every woman I met was either a dolly-chick, or a sort of screwed-up intellectual chick. And of course, in the field I was in, I didn't meet many intellectual people anyway. I always had this dream of meeting an artist, an artist girl who would be like me. And I thought it was a myth, but then I met Yoko and that was it.
With lyrics for me, it's usually musically-based. It's not really poetry- or writer-based. It's rock-based. It doesn't mean that I'm aping rock lyrics, but I'm writing from a music standpoint. I'm thinking more of music heroes, if they're in my mind. Not William Blake or John Ashbury. Sometimes maybe I thought of him a little bit. Or Wallace Stevens. I don't even really fully understand either of them.
Jane Gallagher had wanted to know what time it was, but for some reason Holden Caulfield hadn't wanted Stradlater to tell her. When Stradlater refused to tell Holden Caulfield whether or not he had told Jane Gallagher what time it was, Holden Caulfield became enraged and attacked him in a fit or horological savagery, possibly because he was mentally ill and hated anyone byt him knowing what time it was.
That was the thing about Prabhupada, you see. He didn't just talk about loving Krishna and getting out of this place, but he was the perfect example. He talked about always chanting, and he was always chanting. I think that that in itself was perhaps the most encouraging thing for me. It was enough to make me try harder, to be just a little bit better. He was a perfect example of everything he preached.
To all those whove tried to belong, and just didnt fit inyou are loved. To all those whove tried to stand out and be heardyoure admired. To all those whove tried to be themselves, only to be shut downyou are supported. To all those whove tried to kill themselves because lifes unfairyoure NOT alone. Love your friends, love your enemies, because in the end, theyll all be kissing your ass when you make it.
I've noticed that most authors who are pastors or speakers write books whose message is derived from a sermon series they did at their church. I guess my process is similar except that instead of a sermon, the genesis of the idea is found in the form of a three-minute song. And many of my songs have been inspired by the true stories and testimonies of people who've written to me from all over the world.
I'm happy to say that I have not been fired off a film. The score is usually the last thing to be done. So a lot lands on the scores shoulders. A lot of problems that seem to have nothing to do with the music gets blamed on the music , because it's relatively cheap to change, where as a reshoot etc is not. Music is often expected to help or fix bad cuts, bad acting, bad filming, bad timing, you name it.
I think it’s really important, and it’s a lesson I didn’t learn until my late teens: Whatever bands that you love, go find out what bands they love, and what bands turned them on, and then you really start getting into the human aspect of it because the further back you go in time the less technology you had, and consequently the better records you had. There’s this incredible library of music thank god.
You write down a paragraph or two describing several different subjects creating a kind of story ingredients-list, I suppose, and then cut the sentences into four or five-word sections; mix em up and reconnect them. You can get some pretty interesting idea combinations like this. You can use them as is or, if you have a craven need to not lose control, bounce off these ideas and write whole new sections.
When we decided to marry, we had two ceremonies - one was more bureaucratic for the sake of the Swiss authorities,then a church service in Florence, and I wrote the music for the church service. The challenge in that was that Iman's [Abdulmajid] family are Muslim and mine are Protestant. I had to be careful about the prayers that we chose and the music I wrote because I didn't want to offend either side.
Well, at first the band were simply called Horsepower, but a lot of people thought that was something to do with heroin. That really pissed me off, so I decided to put something in front of it to distract them. “I got '16' from a traditional American folk song, where a man is singing about his dead wife and 16 black horses are pulling her casket up to the cemetery. I liked the image of 16 working horses.
You have to be able to grow and move with the organism that is the music industry. You need to maintain flexibility. Ownership of your own stuff is key and then you're able to dictate on a present-terms basis what would be the most effective way to protect yourself and what you've created. You also don't want to lock yourself into a situation where a major label owns part of your touring and merchandise.
Sexuality, and sexual orientation - regardless of orientation - is just natural. An act of sex is one of the most human things. But an organization like the church, say, through its doctrine, would undermine humanity by successfully teaching shame about sexual orientation - that it is sinful, or that it offends God. The song is about asserting yourself and reclaiming your humanity through an act of love.
Looking back, the only person that really surprised me was Chris Vrenna only because I've known him since 1992, and for him not to be able to say it to my face, "Hey, I don't want to do this anymore." Instead, he said "I'll see you tomorrow" and then he never came back. I find that strange. I don't know if he is afraid of me or thinks I'm going to beat him over the head with something. I'm not like that.
You know, like, there's songs like "Valerie" and "Bang Bang Bang" that I was so proud of. And, you know, the level of success that they had - if they were little cult hits meant that, you know, I could sellout Webster Hall or Williamsburg Musical Hall or the El Rey theater in LA. Like, that was having made it to me. So the thought of having a number one song in my own career, like, never even registered.
I used to play Saturday night shows with different little groups. If I could get a show, I would do it. I used to do mad things - I used to go and do these shows and go on my knees and roll on the ground - when I was 15,16 years old. And my parents were extremely disapproving of it all. Because it was just not done. This was for very low-class people, remember. Rock & roll singers weren't educated people
See, if you put a musician in a place where he has to do something different from what he does all the time, then he can do that - but he's got to think differently in order to do it. He's got to play above what he knows - far above it. I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens.
Birth of the Cool' became a collector's item, I think, out of a reaction to Bird and Dizzy's music. Bird and Diz played this hip, real fast thing, and if you weren't a fast listener, you couldn't catch the humor or the feeling in their music. Their musical sound wasn't sweet, and it didn't have harmonic lines that you could easily hum out on the street with your girlfriend trying to get over with a kiss.
When I perform on stage I do achieve quite a variety of ways of singing. I was interested in trying to replicate that in the studio environment. I think it is an interesting alternative position, just to stretch people's imagination, myself included, as to who is actually singing the song. It's not to create alter-egos or characters - it always feels like me, even when the voice is extremely manipulated.
I felt I had nothing more to say. Everything would have had to be a replay of the previous two or three albums, and that decided me to stop. What bothered me most was not playing guitar at all anymore. I felt I had no more contact with the instrument. It was just a piece of wood to me. I even thought music had definitely left me. After fourteen albums, there may be an overload phase, a sort of lassitude.
Maybe certain aspects of what I was doing were reacting against what was happening or what people said, too. That's something that happens when you're starting out. After some time goes by and you get a little perspective, you realize that you don't need to react. You can just carry on with what you're doing. That took me a long time figure out; I've only gotten to that point in the last five or 10 years.
I'd always had an interest in guitar from about seven years old. But I first actually had lessons when I was about fifteen in Scotland, in Edinburgh. There was a folk club there and a girl called Jill Doyle taught me the guitar, who happened to be Davey Graham's sister. Davey Graham is one of my heroes and always has been. Fantastic guitar player. And he's had a strong influence on me all the way through.
I don't like that the government is going to manipulate the information to try to convince me that what I'm eating is not what I'm really eating. If people choose to eat cardboard because it's ten cents cheaper, then let them. That's at the root of freedom. But in the reverse, I'd like to know if what I'm eating or consuming or buying is somehow hurting or exploiting someone in another part of the planet.
I had ambitions to set out and find, like an odyssey or going home somewhere, set out to find this home that I'd left a while back and couldn't remember exactly where it was, but I was on my way there. And encountering what I encountered on the way was how I envisioned it all. I didn't really have any ambition at all. I was born very far from where I'm supposed to be, and so, I'm on my way home, you know?
The book was just something that came along after we played the Super Bowl and I wrote a little essay that went online. Then I had two or three weeks and I said, wow, that essay was pretty good. Maybe I'll try and write some other stuff. Writing about the depression, I just felt - you know, when you write a book like this, you have to open up your life. You have to be willing to do so to a certain degree.
This year's Hippiefest tour is truly a 'Classic Rock 'n Blues Tour' - a landmark, historic, musical celebration of which my band and I are proud to be a part. It's going to be a Guitar Guru Gala of Gargantuan proportions. For me personally, it will simply be the Greatest! So, see you at one of the dates on the tour. Believe me, this is not one you want to miss. All I can say is Get Ready To Rock'n'Roll!!!
I'm a person who's trying to live within divine law, to the best and it's very hard because it's self-discipline, because the more you realise, the more you've got to get yourself straight, so it's hard, you know. I'm trying and there are a lot of people who are trying, even people who are not conscious that they are doing it, but they are really doing things for the good, or just to be happy or whatever.
I'd like to say that people... people can change anything they want to; and that means everything in the world. Show me any country and there'll be people in it. And it's the people that make the country. People have got to stop pretending they're not on the world... It's time to take that humanity back into the center of the ring and follow that for a time... Think on that. Without people you're nothing.
That is a goal, to step out on stage and to actually be present. Honestly alive and present. Although, it doesn't always happen. We're fallible, we're imperfect. That's what a lot of books are written about; that's what a lot of religions have sought after is that kind of zen mentality of just being totally neutral and open and vulnerable to all of the forces in the universe without being attached to them.
I always loved writing songs - writing for myself and demo-ing songs, really with no intention of ever letting anyone else hear them. Finally the Foo Fighters stuff happened when I just went to the studio down the street from my house and recorded some stuff in about five or six days, and all these people wanted to release it as an album. I wanted to release it on my own, with no photos and no names on it.
Style is about the choices you make to create the aspects of civilization that you wish to uphold. I will buy a chair for my house. What style of chair are you gonna buy? Everything we look at and choose is some way of expressing how we want to be perceived. I mean, why bother choosing a chair because it looks a certain way? Because there's gonna be something about that chair that says something about you.