New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ RoadRunner Records) Machine Head guitarist/singer Robb Flynn wrote the following today on the band's website, MachineHead1.com:
At "Day On The Green" No 19, featuring Metallica, Queensrÿche, Faith No More, Soundgarden, I started Machine Head.
Well, sort of... it was more of a figurative thought as I didn't have a band yet, but after watching / being blown away by
Metallica for the umpteenth time, I decided that I was going to start a side project, as I was unhappy in my then-current band Vio-Lence. Later that night backstage (or maybe while
Metallica was still playing and we were watching from the stage-right backstage bleachers?) I turned to my friend, partner-in-crime and long time Vio-Lence fan Adam Duce, and said I was going to start a then-unnamed side project and asked if he would like to play bass. He eagerly agreed.
I had two songs written by then, the heavily Godflesh-inspired "Death Church", and "
Blood For Blood", both songs that I had already brought to Vio-Lence, but they were not interested in jamming either of them. Vio-Lence had gone through numerous label changes, were unsigned again, thrash was dead, and the vibe in the band at the time was that the new tunes were going to take a more heavy rock/grunge approach which seemed a bit crazy to me. Though I wasn't thrilled with our new direction, I said I would stay on, and though no one seemed happy about me doing it, starting a side project seemed fairly reasonable considering our circumstances.
4 months later following a (thoroughly documented) AM/PM gas station brawl after an Unjust/Deftones show (Deftones opening) at the Omni in Oakland, I quit Vio-Lence and focused on
Machine Head full time. But that was still 4 months away, and for now, it was just a thought, an idea, a dream, that metal could be taken to a different, heavier place.
Did I think that 20 years later
Machine Head would be a Top 25, Top 10 or Top 5 charting band throughout the world? Hell no.
Did I think
Machine Head would even be going 20 years later? God no!
Did I think that we could become one of the best American metal bands on the planet? Yes.
20 years ago on this very day (October 12, 1991),
Machine Head was born.
Happy Birthday, Machine Head.
