How you doin', everything good?

Been sitting here doing interviews with quite a lot of people in Australia.

Thank you for calling.

1990 was actually the year we started, Fear Factory and we never thought it was going to take us this far we are really proud of how far we have gotten and where we have gone in our career and where we going to continue going and we're extremely excited and that we are able to come back to Australia.

Yes, I do remember. I was roughly about 13 years old & I picked up an acoustic guitar that was lying around my house, I just picked it up and started playing music and then shortly after that I got an electric guitar and I was practicing songs from AC/DC and Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and all the other killer bands that was out in the late seventies early eighties.

We're excited that we went with Nuclear Blast as well we feel that it's the right home for Fear Factory. A gentleman by the name Monte Conner who was originally from Roadrunner Records, he was the guy who originally signed Fear Factory and now he has teamed up with Nuclear Blast. With his own imprint called Nuclear Blast Entertainment and when he approached us about signing the band to this label, we said HELL YEAH!!! We really get along with him and he understands the band, he knows where we're going, he knows where we have gone and he has been responsible for part of the success of Fear Factory. So we're very excited to be with Nuclear Blast.

You do wanna take it to new places but you never want to take it too far. Fear Factory is the band that always been the one that experiments a little here and there. From our very first record that came out in 1992 "Soul of a New Machine" there was a big jump between that record and "Demanufacture" and then we just had to take it somewhere different on "Obsolete" and then we took it somewhere different again on "Digimortal". Now when I re-entered the band, we took another big jump and we put out "Mechanize" and then we kind of wanted to go back a little bit and we did "The Industrialist". Now this record, it's probably going to be somewhere in between "Demanufacture" and "Obsolete". It's got the groovier darker elements of "Obsolete" but it has the fast riffing and the cold harshness from "Demanafacture".

(both laughing)

Years and years of practice ever since I have picked up a guitar. I was actually a really big fan of drums and I heard Metallica when they did the record "and Justice for All" they have a song called One, the whole world knows that song, well there's a part in the midsection where guitars sync up with the kickdrums and I took that element and I applied it to Fear Factory & pretty much made a whole career out of it. That's basically coming up with different patterns on guitar to where the kickdrums follow or back and forth. We developed our own sound, we developed their own style and it was just me pushing the drummer to follow my riffs and it kind of like grew from there. But thank you for the compliment. I don't consider myself one the greats, but thank you for the compliment I appreciate it.

One of the reasons why I wanted to reverse the headstock was because back in the 80s there was alot of guitar players who had reverse headstocks I have always liked that and it's a little different so I wanted to put it on my signature guitar. I think it looks amazing. I have a lot of guitars that have been built that way and people always ask me about it and people have always wanted something like that. So doing it, I believe, is definitely an attraction for a guy who's into that kind of stuff and I'm really happy that Ibanez was able to put it together and put it out.

Ooh (laughs) no problem. It's pretty much the exact same thing that I play, there really is no difference to be honest with you. You have the option to change the pickups if you want to and it also comes with my signature Seymour Duncan pickups. The guitar comes with the low pro bridge which is the good one that all the Steve Vai models had back in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. I wanted to bring that bridge back because I love the way my palm feels on the saddle, feels very comfortable.

The Jumbo frets, correct. I also like the one volume knob. To me less is more and I like the way that that is set.

The Titanium truss rod is more to keep the neck very sturdy because most of the necks that I have are pretty thin, so they have given me something that it pretty solid that is going to keep it just as straight as possible. It's not going to be able to move as much, especially when you're in a tour position and you're on tour a lot and you encounter extreme weather changes from really super cold to hot, you want a neck that's gonna stay straight, because depending on the wood that neck is gonna move.

Back in the day when we first started out with the industrial music, a lot of industrial bands will always loop samples and things like that, like the would sample an industrial guitar riff and they would just loop it over , loop it over and loop it over and I would copied that. That's kinda like how I came out with my own machine style of playing.

That was HIS question? (laughing)

Oooooh (laughing).

I'm expecting what I always expect. Them to be extremely happy, because of songs that we're going to be playing. It's always a good time when we play there it's like a home away from home for us. We have a few gold records in Australia, actually, we had our first gold record in Australia. It always definitely excites the band every time we go there because the fans there always seem like they get Fear Factory they love Fear Factory they are all about Fear Factory and to see the crowd singing all the songs is going to make us happy. We're going to figure out a way to come out with a great song list for Australia for the Soundwave fest. We are entertaining the idea of the fans possibly choosing the setlist in Australia, but we're just entertaining the idea. We haven't put it out there yet. We are kind of in the middle of making a record, so we aren't going to even start thinking about doing a live show until at least January. We will stop putting our heads together and figure out what we're going to do for Soundwave.