Industrial Metal Icon Burton C. Bell Heading To Australia This June…
‘Here’s another tidbit that no one really knows or catches on, the chorus for ‘Martyr’ I ripped off from ‘Territorial Pissings’. That song inspired the chorus for ‘Martyr’.
Burton C Bell, the dry lung vocal martyr himself of bands such as City Of Fire, Ascencion Of the Watchers, G//Z/R and, yes, Fear Factory is recalling the time he was in Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit video as he talks with me about his upcoming Australian solo tour, his musical history and, unsurprisingly, the future. We will come back to Nirvana, and others later, however for now lets start with the space Burton is in currently.
‘I still follow the advancements of technology and now AI, I still follow science in general. I’m a firm believer in science and I enjoy how it really intertwines with our daily lives, especially more so these days. As a writer, I am observing and taking note’
Burton throughout his career has been at the forefront of singing about technological advancements, as well as content that would make Edgar Allan Poe look like a cheery fellow, so now on his own two feet, and describing his music as ‘heavy, groovy, dark and moody’, it’s fair to say expect more darkness than ever before.
‘I think you could expect a little bit of everything. Obviously in Fear Factory, it was really technology oriented, future oriented. It’s a topic I enjoy thoroughly. What people don’t understand is that a lot of those lyrics are generated from personal experience and personal feelings. Putting these ideas into a third person concept where it’s based around technology was a whole another level of writing essentially. The Watchers, that was very gothic Allan Poe. As you say, a lot of my writings have been very socially aware type of topics and I will continue to do so. Being socially aware is paying attention to not just technology and the advancements of AI, it’s about the world we live in, political, social, famine, disease, pestilence, all that great stuff, but I’m going to retract the political part. I don’t want to talk about politics, but social behaviour that is reflected through that. I mostly touch upon that aspect. My next single, which is going to be coming up by the time I get there, is a social commentary called ‘Savages’.
Savages will be Bell’s third release, after Anti-Droid, a more electronic based track and the heavier Technical Exorcism.
‘Anti-Droid’ is a great song. It’s even heavier live. I have two guitar players and no keyboard. It came about as I was really starting to develop my concept for my solo career, developing my next chapter. I was in the studio doing the ‘Du Hast’ cover with the producer of that, his name is Alex Cone in Stitching Sound. I decided upon myself to start putting my thoughts out there, putting the ideas of what I wanted to achieve for the next chapter, he responded by saying ‘I have this great song, would you like to check it out?’ It happened to be called ‘Anti-Droid’. First of all, the title’s amazing, can I keep it? He’s like, yes. We started working together. He produced a song, I did the vocals on it. It was through that process that I started working with a band. After that song, I knew I wanted to write more songs. So when I started working with Henrik Lind, I presented the song ‘Technical Exorcism’. I wrote the guitar parts for it. He helped me work out an arrangement and we eventually recorded it and that became my second single. Working through these guys that now we’re writing music together, where everyone’s presenting ideas, we’re in the studio writing and recording together, that is something I’ve missed for a long time. So ‘Savages’, it’s a banger, it’s heavy, it’s guitar driven and it’s sick. It’s got everything you’ve ever heard me do in it.’
When pressed if recording music is now more organic, Burton responds with ‘on the nose’. It’s a nod to something we will end up at later, for now though, Burton is preparing for four shows across the East Coast of Australia with his new band, begs the question, what can we expect from the set?
‘I’m not going to give away the set list right now. I mean obviously there’s a show, our last show you can find here and there on YouTube. I have a thirty plus year career, which has various projects in it. Fear Factory, Ascension Of The Watchers, Geezer Butler’s first solo record ‘Plastic Planet’. I did two City Of Fire records. So on top of my original songs that I’ll be playing for the Australia, I’ll be just pulling songs that fit the idea and concepts that I want to do moving forward. I’ve come up with a mantra which is heavy, groovy, dark, and moody. If it fits that I’m bringing it in. I’m not a cover band, I’m not doing FF 2.0, I’m ‘these songs to fit my narrative’. It’s not going to be completely different but I’m adding a new twist to it instead of keyboards, I got a second guitar player doing those sounds. Both guitar players are going to be switching off between leads and rhythm. To me, it just makes it heavier.’
Talking of the thirty plus year career, few people know that Bell was in Nirvana’s classic Smells Like Teen Spirit video and on the anniversary of his death, it seemed appropriate to go through the back catalogue of Bell’s starting with Kurt Cobain.
‘When that video occurred. I was already a fan of Nirvana, even before that record came out. A friend of mine had actually performed on the ‘Nevermind’ record, he played cello on the song, ‘Something In The Way’, Kurt Canning. So six months before the record came out, he had a cassette, an advanced copy, and he was blasting it. Holy fuck, it was fucking great. So I was already getting inspired already. Another tidbit is that my bass player, Tony Baumeister, he was also in the video.’
A band that was dark, heavy and groovy was City Of Fire who did once tour Australia supporting Soulfly. For fans of the band though, there is no future however if you buy a ticket to see Burton’s show, there will be a surprise.
‘City Of Fire has been laid to rest. We did two records and that seemed to be all the steam that band had. We put out a couple of records that no one can get. Lyrically that was a very fun band, it was wide open for me. I was able to just write about essentially whatever I was feeling or thinking. I do plan to play a City Of Fire song on this tour.’
Burton earlier described his new venture as ‘heavy, groovy, dark and moody’ which moves the conversation to the original ‘heavy, groovy, dark and moody’ Godfather of metal himself, Geezer Butler and the Plastic Planet record Burton sung on.
‘He wrote all the lyrics for the G//Z/R record. I had all these songs to go through, we got 10 songs and I’m like, okay, well do you want me to write some lyrics? He goes, no, I got lyrics and he goes to his room, comes back with a folder of paper, I actually still have the folder. It’s a Black Sabbath folder he gave me! I have it and I open it and there’s 10 sheets of typed written lyrics. Each one had a title. It was like poetry, this is great. So which song goes with which? He goes, you figure it out!
‘His lyrics, I found how beautifully simple they were and pretty much so literal in the sense of that it was beautiful at the same time. So much alliteration and so many such little words, just five syllables. He painted this beautiful picture and I was like, that’s really cool. He pretty much wrote about what he liked and what he was on his mind. ‘Detective 27’ is about Batman. ‘Catatonic Eclipse’, which is a fucking great song. I enjoyed doing that record so much. Reading his lyrics, singing his words and just seeing how he did it, it did influence me, I would say influenced me quite a bit.’
We are twenty-two minutes in and no interview goes by without asking the obvious question of the only man to appear on every single Fear Factory album, is the relationship completely broken?
‘Dino and I have parted ways. I’ve had a few years to reflect, meditate and be introspective about it and I’ve come to I had to do a lot of healing. I’ve moved forward and I feel good about that’.
Has he though? Technical Exorcism mentions about selling his soul to a machine and toxic cancer manipulating, not unlike that previous spilt on Fear Factory’s Archetype record which mentions infections being removed
‘I’ve done what I needed to. I’ve gotten it out, I’ve purged that and that’s what that ‘Technical Exorcism’ is all about. I got that out of me. I am moving forward. ‘Savages’ is, as I said, a socially aware, lyrical song. If it’s going to be personal, it’s going to be about something else.’
Burton I finish discussing a mutual love for Type O Negative, for which Burton contributed the chapter for the song Blood & Fire in the upcoming graphic novel for Bloody Kisses.
‘I was very honoured to be included into that. The story I did for Type O Negative, I went out of my comfort zone and I did something like a supernatural Cold Case Files. The Out of the Ashes mix of ‘Blood And Fire’ is just, that song is the best song to me. It’s one of the best songs on that record. I had the opportunity to watch it live when we toured with ’em on a couple of occasions and it just brings chills to my spine. There was only one Type Of Negative. Peter Steele was a giant among the music scene. I mean literally and figuratively. He was just a giant!’
Interview By Iain McCallum
Catch Burton C Bell on the following dates, tickets from SBM Presents…
