BUTCHER BABIES‘ Heidi Shepherd joined FEAR FACTORY on stage last night (Friday, November 24) at the Backstage Halle in Munich, Germany to perform the song “Martyr”. Fan-filmed video of her appearance can be seen below (courtesy of the TrulyStucker YouTube channel).
Last month, FEAR FACTORY kicked off a European headlining tour with support from BUTCHER BABIES from the USA and IGNEA from Ukraine. The 44-date trek marks FEAR FACTORY‘s first European shows since 2016.
FEAR FACTORY and MACHINE HEAD will join forces for the “Slaughter The Martour North America 2024” tour in January and February. Additional support on the trek will come from Sweden’s ORBIT CULTURE and Louisville, Kentucky’s GATES TO HELL.
In a recent interview with Nyva Zarbano, FEAR FACTORY guitarist Dino Cazares spoke about the band’s plans to make a new studio album in 2024. The effort will mark FEAR FACTORY‘s recording debut with the group’s latest addition, Italian-born vocalist Milo Silvestro, whose addition to FEAR FACTORY was officially announced in late February.
“Well, the future [plan for] FEAR FACTORY is definitely to go in [the studio] after a lot of this touring,” he said. “We’re gonna be touring all the way to June next year. After that, we wanna go in and we wanna make a record. We have to. We have to showcase Milo Silvestro. He’s from Rome, Italy. So we’ve really gotta get him on the record. We’ve gotta finish the record, gotta put it out there. And again, tour, tour, tour. That’s pretty much the future of FEAR FACTORY. Now, as far as conceptually what the next record is going to be about, that’s too soon to tell you. It’s too soon.”
Regarding what Milo has brought to the table as far as the FEAR FACTORY sound is concerned, Dino said: “Well, Milo brings obviously a freshness that FEAR FACTORY needed. The last singer that we had [Burton C. Bell], obviously he had a lot of vocal issues and he really couldn’t sing or do any of this kind of heavy touring. It just was a big setback for us. So bringing Milo into the band, obviously he’s got a great voice, he’s very talented, he’s a multi-instrumentalist. He could play more than one instrument. The kid’s very talented. Of course, the story is I found him on the Internet. He was releasing videos of him doing FEAR FACTORY covers and he was posting them on all the FEAR FACTORY fan sites. And I saw him there, and I was, like, ‘Okay, that’s really got my attention.’ But we had many people audition, but he was the one that really stood out. And he’s a huge fan of FEAR FACTORY. And he pretty much learned from listening to our older vocalist. So he learned a lot of his stuff. And so, I mean, if you close your eyes, you think it’s the original singer.”
In a recent interview with Australia’s “Everblack” podcast, Cazares was asked if Silvestro was “getting more comfortable” with his position as the frontman of the long-running California metal act. Dino responded: “Oh, yeah. I mean, from the first day, we talked about a lot of stuff. Before the tour started, we rehearsed, and we were, like, ‘Okay, these are the kind of things that we’ve done before. And I think you need to do this, this, this.’ And he goes, ‘Okay.’ So then the first day [of the tour] comes, he just goes wild. And I’m, like, ‘Oh, shit.’ I was, like, ‘Calm down.’ I go, ‘You don’t need to go insane everywhere. Just focus on singing, focus on getting everything, giving the crowd all equal attention,’ blah, blah. There’s certain things you just gotta teach him a little bit, right? And so he pretty much nailed it the first day.”
Dino also talked about the progress of the songwriting sessions for FEAR FACTORY‘s next studio album. He said: ”We’ve been working on new music. Yes, we have songs done. No, we’re not releasing anything yet. You’re gonna have to wait. We’re still writing stuff, we’re still writing a lot of stuff. The record’s not complete, and we have to finish it soon, when we get time.”
He continued: “The thing is what’s been preventing us from finishing it is that we keep getting tour offers, and I’m not turning them down. I’m like, ‘Let’s go.’ People wanna to see it. Like, by the time we hit Australia [in early March 2024], I’m not even sure if we’ll have a song out by then. Maybe. I’m hoping. Maybe special for Australia. I don’t know.”
FEAR FACTORY played its first headlining concert with Silvestro and touring drummer Pete Webber on May 5 at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, California.
Earlier in the year, FEAR FACTORY completed the “Rise Of The Machine” U.S. tour as the support act for STATIC-X marked the Cazares-led outfit’s first run of shows with Silvestro and Webber.
Webber has been filling in for FEAR FACTORY‘s longtime drummer Mike Heller who is unable to play with the band due to “scheduling conflicts.”