Machine Head

In the new metal landscape, Machine Head has carved out a niche for itself in the blood of its listeners. Of course, that`s just silly demonic imagery. But it`s nothing Machine Head would object to.

While Metallica has earned millions of new fans since taking a radio-friendly turn with its eponymously titled 1991 album, it alienated a significant portion of its former fan base. And it`s these disgruntled fans and their impressionable younger brothers who form the core market for this younger Bay Area quartet.

"Yeah, sure, I`ll take that," singer Robb Flynn says of the synopsis, phoning from his home in Berkeley, Calif. "Writing a song that sounds like what the radio might want to hear, that sounds horrible to me." Since its 1992 formation, Machine Head (named after a 1972 Deep Purple album), has been known for its torturous guitar riffing and raging lyrics. Unrelenting tracks such as "Exhale the Vile" and "Desire to Fire" (from last year`s "The Burning Red" album) threaten as much ear damage as having Mike Tyson for a boxing opponent.

Sample: "1, 2, (expletive) this place up!/We turn desire to fire/electric spark to the wire./Highered the stakes when we brought this monster life!"

"That`s one of the things I enjoy about being in a band, that you can push buttons," says Flynn, 28. "It`s like when I read the satanic bible in high school English class, just to p--- the teacher off." (He received an F.)

With its tuned-down guitars and pile-driving rhythms, Machine Head also featuring bassist Adam Duce, drummer Dave McClain and newest member Ahrue Luster, who replaced original guitarist Logan Mader in 1997 sounds so vile it even remade the Police`s melodic 1978 hit, "Message in a Bottle," into a teeth-gnasher. The song appears on "The Burning Red" and in the band`s live show.

"Ahrue is an extremely huge Police fan," Flynn says. "One day in the studio, I was screwing around trying to learn the song, because he was playing it so much that it was in my head. Our producer came in and said, `What is that? Let`s record that!` I gave him a bunch of lame excuses about why we couldn`t do it, and none of my excuses held up." While Machine Head benefits from the Korn-fed interest in all things rap-rock these days, Flynn disavows his band from that movement.

"We`ve incorporated that type of style into our music, but I don`t think we`re a rap-rock band," he says. "I think there`s so much more extremity to our music. There`s a Slayer side and there`s a mellower, Cure side to us, which I don`t think any rap-rock band is capable of delving into."

Flynn`s anger bubbles up from a childhood tainted with sexual abuse. He won`t name names, but he was reportedly adopted at the age of eight months. (His original name was Lawrence Matthew Cardine.) The repressed memories led to a bout with bulimia early on in Machine Head`s career.

"I was in a weird place then," Flynn says. "I needed to deal with a lot of personal stuff from my childhood and my parents and a lot of stuff. When success hit us, it hit us ultra-fast. And there were just some things that were hard to deal with. On top of all that other stuff brewing inside of me, and not dealing with any of it, it made me lose my mind for a little while and I went crazy."

Flynn, whose previous band was called Violence, reports that he`s doing better, and without the aid of anti-depressants, he adds.

"I pulled out of it myself and started dealing with a lot of that stuff," he says. "If you`re asking me what I`m mad at right now, it`s trivial stuff. I think the thing that makes me the most mad right now is whenever I hear the Barenaked Ladies on the radio.

"How on God`s Earth has this been allowed to happen?"

Of course, it`s not hard for a band to remain uncorrupted by the mainstream when the mainstream has yet to make an overture. But for Machine Head, that`s an argument that falls on ears already deaf from the loud music.

"Every once in a while we`ll have a crossover, where one of our songs starts getting played," Flynn says.

"But it`s not like we plan it that way."

(c) Copley News Service

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Author: Corey Levitan