ONE ON ONE WITH ROBB FLYNN (THE METALSUCKS INTERVIEW)

Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 4:00pm by Vince Neilstein

2009 is an awesome year to

be Robb Flynn or anyone in
Machine Head. Your band’s
been touring non-stop for
two and a half years on the
well-deserved critical and
commercial success of The
Blackening, all without doing a
single U.S. headline run.
You’ve opened arenas for
Metallica, huge theaters for
Megadeth and Slayer, played
on one of the biggest U.S.
touring festivals, and quite
literally traversed the world
several times over. Not
bad… not bad at all.

At the start of their U.S. tour

with Megadeth, Machine
Head’s publicist contacted us
about interviewing Robb.
The guy’s a character, The
Blackening was fantastic, and
it’d been almost a year and a
half since we last spoke with
anyone in the band (guitarist
Phil Demmel on the 2008
Rockstar Mayhem Tour), so
we figured we may as well.
Crazy as it is that the
Machine Head machine is
still heading on an album
released in 2007… it’s true,
and they’re not even slowing down.

After the jump, read my full chat with Robb. We spent a whole lot of time talking about things
other than Machine Head; the business-like nature of touring with Megadeth (as of interview
time, he hadn’t once seen Mustaine in person on the entire tour!), the down-to-earth nature of
hanging out with his heroes in Metallica, mentoring the young lads of Suicide Silence, and the
always entertaining subject of the constant feuding between Slayer, Metallica and Megadeth. We
also chatted about Machine Head’s constant touring — a dream come true for Robb — and about
what the future might hold for the band, including their next album (writing has begun). And
wouldn’t you know it, Robb reads MetalSucks!

How’s the Megadeth tour going?

It’s going good, man. We’re about a week into it. Most of the shows have been sold out. It’s
pretty awesome, man. Tours and metal have been getting crushed lately, so it’s been cool. It’s
trippy. We haven’t seen Mustaine at all, it’s like he’s a ghost. It’s kind of trippy to be on tour
with the band and you never see them.

Does he have all his own personal handlers and never really shows his face at all? He comes
out, does his show, and that’s it?

Yeah, kind of, I guess. He’s a smart dude. This is a business arrangement. We aren’t friends or
anything. Machine Head is worth a lot and he knows it. It’s good to have us on, and it’s good to
be touring with Megadeth. It’s a business arrangement, so it’s cool. It makes it easier in some
ways.

It’s good that you’re seeing good audiences because all the bands that I’ve talked to
recently are getting decimated out there. Do you think any of that has to do with some of
the bigger tours like the Rockstar Mayhem Fest?

Yeah. It’s been brutal, man. I think things like that [Rockstar Mayhem] are what people . . . are
you saying that people are saving their money for those kinds of things?

Yeah, basically. If you could go and see a big chunk of the

bands in one day for a relatively cheap ticket, why would
you go see all these other shows the rest of the year?

I’m not going to blame that. I think it’s great that those things
are going on. I just think it’s tough everywhere, man. The thing
that’s cool is the pre-sale for all these dates are just dismal. If
you were going to base how a show is doing on the presales, it
would look like a massive failure without the walkups and the
day show tickets. I think people are just scrimping together
their money going “man, can I do this? I want to do this, but I
don’t know if I can do this.” Then on the day of the show,
they’re like “fuck it, I’m going to do it.” That’s cool, I think,
that’s a very metal kind of thing. When I was going to shows as
a kid, I never bought tickets in advance. If I did it, I did it the
day of. I was trying to sell enough weed . . .

[Laughter]

To get my ticket money or whatever.

That’s awesome, man. You mentioned before that you get a business vibe from the Dave
Mustaine/Megadeth camp. Have you actually heard their new record? What do you think
of it?

It’s rocking, man. It’s really good. It’s one of the most… for our band, it’s probably the one we
play the most in rotation. We toured with them on the last record too. There are only a couple of
songs off that [previous record, United Abominations] that I like. This one is solid. The
production is amazing. It’s probably the best sounding, heaviest Megadeth record in a long time.
Chris Broderick is ripping it, good songs, nice thrash beats, and Mustaine’s riffing out again. It’s
cool.

So seeing as you know those guys, and you’ve toured with Metallica and Slayer, what do
you make with all of the feuding that’s going on between those bands at the moment?

It makes for good reading.

[Laughter] Good answer.

[Laughter] I mean, come on, who doesn’t want to hear that? It’s been going on for years. The
funny thing is when we were doing the The Canadian Carnage Tour which was 4 months ago,
we’re friends with some of the Megadeth dudes and we’re friends with the Slayer dudes, and that
was the first kind of squashing of the peace, if you will. I was hanging out with Kerry on the last
night of the tour. We did 5 dates or whatever, so on the last night we’re hanging out and getting
hammered. I walked over to Shawn Drover, the drummer of Megadeth, and said, “Hey come on
and hang with us.” He’s like “I don’t know. I don’t want a weird rival.” I’m like “it’s fucking
[Inaudible] just come on with us.” So I walk him into the Slayer dressing room, and I introduced
him and they were like “oh hey, how’s it going,” and he was like “oh hey, how’s it going?” They
were just meeting for the first time. They’ve been on tour for a week and a half and were just
meeting for the first time. It was an interesting sight. It’s been a great feud. It’s lasted for so long.
You still see Lombardo making comments like he wants to give Lars lessons or something. I was
like “maybe Lars can teach you not to blow smoke up your own ass in the process.”

To what extent do you think that’s real and to what extent do

you think that they’re trying to make a Blabbermouth headline
or whatever?

I don’t know. To me, I don’t see Metallica needing to make those

comments. It’s not like Lars is out there taking shots at Lombardo for
slopping up the Angel of Death roll. I don’t think he has to care.

Was it different when you toured with Metallica a year ago? Or

when was that?

I guess we wrapped up about 6 months ago in May with those guys.

Was it similar to the Megadeth experience now?

It’s totally different. We were playing 1,500 – 2,000 [capacity] theaters on this, we were playing
10,000 – 20,000 theaters on that. Nothing against Megadeth and all them, if you see them,
they’re very friendly. There’s not a hostile vibe on this tour, but the Metallica dudes are really
down to earth dudes, man. They’re really surprisingly down to earth. Going into that tour, we
didn’t really know what to expect. I had hung out with those dudes a couple of times, but even
though we’re from the Bay area, that’s a different generation. We didn’t know them back then.
Just recently, we didn’t even have mutual friends. We didn’t hang out at the same places. I think
with The Blackening, Machine Head just came onto those dudes’ radars.

My experience with them is only based on this last year or whatever, but they were super cool.
They’re freaking awesome dudes that want to hang out. Those dudes will hang out and jump on
Dave, our drummer, who has this little electronic practice kit. He’ll jump on the drums and him
and I will jam old Maiden songs and Sabbath or Slayer. It was a hanging vibe with Lars and
Kirk. When those dudes go out and drink, it is stupid. [Laughter] You are not even thinking of
leaving the party until 8 a.m. They fucking reek, it’s awesome. I figured that because they were
older dudes that they’re going to be chill; fucking no way man. Those guys are down for an all
night rage of pounding booze. That’s the kind of shit we do. I guess I had this preconception that
it wouldn’t be like that. It was fun, man. We had a lot of fun nights. They took us on their private
jet and treated us really well, man. Not to say that I expect that from everybody, but it was just
an amazing experience. It was awesome to know that even at that level that they’re at . . . they’re
fucking huge, man. Every show on that tour was sold out. It was fucking crazy how much people
love them and how humungous they are and the fact that they’re still cool, they still hang out.
They’re Metallica. They’re not your average dudes that you run into, but they make the effort to
hang, especially the stuff that they do with their fans. They’re very active in keeping that
relationship with their fans doing meet and greets every day. It was inspiring, really inspiring.

That’s cool, man. You’re also out with Suicide Silence right now, is that right? Do you
think they look up to you in that same way?

Mmm hmmm. I mean, I don’t want to toot my own here, but those guys have said that. It means
a lot. We toured with them last year on Mayhem, and we became friends with them. I know for
us when we take bands out with us, we’ve had some great teachers – the Slayer dudes were
always super cool to us when we were on tour with them, obviously Metallica, we toured with
Dimebag who was incredibly gracious and stuff, and we’ve been on the total flipside of that
where we’ve been out with bands who just fucking treated us like dog shit and there was never
any throw down that happened. We try and just walk away from that. If Metallica can hang with
us and throw down with us, that’s the way to be. If you can do it at that level and still create that
cool vibe, then it can be done. Honestly, I didn’t think it could be done at that level. I thought
that when you got to that level, if they wanted to be assholes and wanted to treat us like shit, we
would have eaten that shit sandwich for the whole 6 months that we were out. They are our idols.
They’ve been a massive influence on this band on a lot of different levels. To see that they were
just that cool and could be that cool was like fuck, man, that’s awesome. You hear so many
horror stories when you go out. I’m sure that they’re in a different place than probably they were
in the past, like the Load era where they might have been in “rockstar fucking asshole” mode
possibly, but they’re definitely in the right place now. It was cool to be a part of that, and an
honor to be a part of that.
How do you view that as it relates to the possible future of Machine Head? Do you see
yourself growing in that way or growing in a different way? What do you see as the next
step for you guys?

Touring with Metallica really, and I’ve probably said this 3 times during the course of this
interview, but it was inspiring, man. To me, the way they’ve done music on their own terms with
writing heavy, progressive, trippy or whatever you want to call Metallica and achieving that
arena level — because they were playing arenas well before the Black Album and Load — and to
see the reaction that a song like “The Thing That Should Not Be” or “Master of Puppets” that
still gets you to this day, to me, I think Machine Head could go to that arena level. To be a part
of that, learning from that, and having that opportunity that they gave us to play at those arenas,
we really got that taste for it now. We can do it. We did it. We did it. We played arenas and
transformed it into 15,000 people who had no fucking clue who we were. They didn’t have a
clue man. They were able to ignite that, and by the end of the show, everybody was standing in
their seats, rocking hard and going crazy. It fired us up, man. I look to Metallica, I look to Rush
as bands that are so oblivious to what everybody was doing and were able to capture people’s
minds. You see so many bands that reach an arena level and you’re like hating that band and
everything about them rubs you the wrong way. There are certain bands that do it another way,
and those are the bands that we take inspiration from. That was what, on a personal level, I walk
away with.

How do you take that musically for the next step of

Machine Head? Obviously the music that you write
will be a big part of whether you can take things to
that level. What does the next album hold for you
guys?

I don’t know, and that’s the exciting part about it.

Through the Ashes was a big record for us, man. People
are like “fuck, how are you going to top Through the
Ashes?” Then we did The Blackening, and people said
that we more than topped Through the Ashes and that it
was one of the greatest metal albums of the decade. We
just tried to go in a different direction than Through the
Ashes. We had never written 10 minute songs before –
we wrote 4 of them, not because we were trying to write
10 minute songs but just because that felt right. I think keeping that mindset of not giving a fuck
what everyone else is doing, working on what we’re jamming on and working to get my blood
boiling is what we care about. That was our mindset, and as long as we keep that mindset and
keep on doing what we’re doing and what we’ve been doing – fuck what everyone else is doing.
Try and make the best that the 4 of us can create with this chemistry that we have; that’s the right
way to do it.

Do you guys continue going after this tour or are you taking a little break and write
something?
We go from Megadeth, one more week of West Coast dates with Metallica with the last show for
us in San Jose. It’s a dream come true to be main support for Metallica in our hometown. This is
a huge moment for us, and we’re so fucking stoked about it, man. We’re the first Bay Area band
that they’ve taken out since 1986.

[Laughter]

Like 23 years ago or something. It’s crazy. Here we are playing those last week of dates. Then
we’re going to go and do one last headline tour in Europe real quick, and then we start writing.
We actually started writing right before this tour started. We had 3 months off, our first 3 month
break in 2 1/2 years (our first real break, at least). I bought a little $150 guitar the other day that I
can plug into my MacBook Pro and do some recording in GarageBand. We got some riffs that
we’ll start banging out at the beginning of the new year.

That’s awesome. You guys have definitely been on tour for a long, long time. This record
has gone a long way for you guys. It’s really cool.

Thank you, man.

We spoke with Phil when you guys did Mayhem in ‘08, and he was telling us . . . he didn’t
say Metallica, but it was obvious that it was Metallica that it was going to be. He was telling
us that you’re going to be out on the road through the end of 2009, and we’re just thinking
“wow, that’s insane.” That was a year and a half ago already.

[Laughter] We’ll be on tour until 2010.

Wow. Doesn’t seem to bother you. You seem to be real

psyched about it.

Yeah. This is our life, man. It’s had it’s moments where it’s been
one tour after the other, and it’s been grueling and you’re like
“wow”. Your kids are like “when are you coming home, dad?”
That’s hard. This is what you dream about — to have a moment
like this. We’re lucky that we’ve had several moments like this
where people care this much about the band to want to come and
see us when we’re on tour. The touring has always been good,
but obviously record sales and whatever [are also good now]. It’s
amazing. We’re lucky, man. There are so many bands that I
watch where I’m like “fuck, that band is so fucking killer, man.
Why aren’t people connecting to it?” Then I turn around and I’m
like “Jesus Christ, why is anybody giving a fuck about this
band?”

[Laughter]
We’re on this crazy rollercoaster, man. For 2 1/2 years it’s been amazing. I think the future is
even brighter. The future just feels so much brighter right now.

Congrats on all of that. One last question for you: how’s Phil’s health?

He’s doing a lot better, man. It has only happened once this year. It’s still scary, and it’s still a
hard thing because on the one hand we want him to stay home and get it sorted out, but on the
other hand if he stays home it kind of makes it worse so it’s almost better for him to be on the
road. It’s complicated, man. It’s a very complicated situation, but he’s been doing really good. It
hasn’t happened in a long time and, fingers crossed, it isn’t going to happen ever again. He’s
been taking steps to deal with it, but yeah, he’s been doing good.

Cool, man. Thank you so much for taking the time out this afternoon, man. I hope the rest
of the tour goes well for you. I know you guys just did a special headline show in Long
Island. We couldn’t make it out to that one. We’re city cats and don’t really ever leave.
Next time you’re around New York City, we’ll see you then.

Yeah, it was awesome. It’s funny, I was actually on your site and you guys put up some things
where it was me singing with some kid.

Oh yeah?

[Laughter]

It was me hammered in the crowd going “ahhh” during, I think, “Master of Puppets” or
something. That was fucking awesome, man. I laughed my ass off during that tour. Very cool
site you guys have.

Oh thanks a lot, dude. I really appreciate it, man. It definitely makes me feel good when the
bands we speak with say that. Thank you so much.

Right on, man. Take it easy. Late.

-VN