Fear Factory - The Rolling Stones are still onstage so why wouldn't we?
It all started at the third of may when I was on my way back home after the Fear Factory concert in Amsterdam. I believe it was somewhere around Utrecht when Buzzin Hornet asked me to do an interview with Fear factory the next day in Tilburg. It looked like fun to me but I didn’t had much time to prepare the interview. During the rest of our trip home Buzzin Hornet, Carn and I made up some nice questions to ask them. That’s how I got to do an interview with the former bass player and now guitar player of Fear Factory, Christian Olbe Wolters.
How’s the tour going?
´It’s going great but it’s been really long and we’re close to wrapping it up now. It’s like two or three more shows over here in Europe and after that we’re heading home.’
What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you’re home?
‘The first thing is getting some good food and a nice shower. After that it’s getting back in my own environment. Just pick up the normal daily life.‘
And the weeks after that?
‘I think I’m going to relax a while until we’re getting ready for some festival shows in Europe in the summer and after that we’re heading to South America.’
Yesterday in Amsterdam I noticed that there was a huge amount of “older” people in the audience. Are those really dedicated fans from the beginning or are that just fans who came to listen some old Fear Factory songs?
‘You probably noticed that the responds on the older songs is better than when we play the new songs and of course there are always people who just know the old songs. But actually I’ve been seeing a lot of new faces during this tour. Every night we ask how many people haven’t seen Fear Factory before and every time many people raise their hand. I think we’ve been crossing that generation a lot of old fans are coming to see us but also a lot of new kids who never seen Fear Factory before.’
Burton got his Ascension Of The Watchers, Byron got Strapping Young Lad what are Raymond and you doing in your spare time?
‘We have another band called Kush with B-Real from Cypress Hill and Stephen Carpenter from Deftones. But it’s been on the background for a while because of record company issues with Deftones.’
Are there any releases from that band you’ve just mentioned?
‘No we haven’t been able to put something out. We had some plans of releasing some demos but it ended with a lot of record company problems. Maybe in the future but I’m not sure of that.’
Before the split the theme’s of the lyrics where mostly man versus machine and after the split the lyrics became more aimed at the society. Does it have a specific reason?
‘I don’t know, the lyrics are mainly Burtons point of view, it probably depended on the things that surrounded him back then. Maybe he felt more real when Fear Factory revived or maybe he felt a little redundant to do another man versus machine concept. Also a lot of time Burton has double meanings with the lyrics. You can look upon the government as if it was the machine and look upon us if we were the man.‘
The obsolete album was a complete concept album. Are there any chances of releasing another concept album in the future?
‘I can really tell it depends on what kind of mind frame we all are. Especially with concept albums it’s important to have a complete story in your head and if nothing comes up you can’t force it.’
In the past you’ve remixed the complete Demanufacture album. Why was that?
‘At that time we felt like doing something different and it turned out pretty nice.’
Are there any plans of doing that again?
‘There’s a lot of remixes that we did from the Archetype album and we also did some remixes of the Transgression album so if we have enough material we might put out another album like that. We just don’t want to take away the attention of Transgression right now because a lot of people don’t even know that this record is out.’
How can that be?
‘Mainly in the States there’s been hardly any kind of promotion at all. So that’s why we’re focussing on Transgression right now. We really want to promote the album. Also al lot of people ask us when we’re going to release a DVD. But right now it isn’t the time, we are completely focussed on Transgression right now.’
And are there any plans of releasing a DVD?
‘Not directly plans. We now we should put out a DVD and we have a lot of footage which is all digitised and compiled. So we definitely want to put out a DVD but then again now isn’t really the time. Maybe next year but I’m not sure.’
If you look back at the career of Fear Factory how would you describe it?
‘I don’t know, I don’t get very philosophical. I don’t look back on things. I always want to look forward. A lot of people ask me what I think of our 15 year career and I’m always: what about our next 15 years. I mean the Rolling Stones are still on stage so why wouldn’t we?’
I’m out of my questions do you have anything left to say to the readers of metalrage.com?
‘Thanks for the support for al these years and go check out our last album Transgression.’
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