The West Coast metallers in Machine Head have been around for almost twenty years now, but they keep getting better and better. 2007’s The Blackening, widely regarded as the best metal record of the year, has just been matched by new album Unto The Locust, and the band will be headlining at the Best Buy Theater in Times Square next weekend. I spoke with drummer Dave McClain by phone to discuss touring, the new album, and which metal band has the best catering.
Examiner: Hey Dave, thanks for talking with me today. How’ve you been?
Dave: Doing good. Hanging around, doing a little rocking backstage.
Examiner: What are you rocking out on?
Dave: I have an electronic kit back here, basically a toy. And me and the two Mikes, guitar players from Darkest Hour, have a little cover band. We rock out to Kiss songs, Van Halen, Priest, all kinds of stuff.
Examiner: So the new record is out and you guys are back on tour. It sounds like you like being on the road, right?
Dave: Yeah, personally I love it. It’s been part of my life for 21 years now, so I love pretty much everything about being out here. Doing shows, hanging out and doing our thing and doing what we love, it’s a good life.
Examiner: Do you get a little antsy in the studio or between tours?
Dave: Yeah, when I’m stuck at home for some time that’s when I start feeling a little caged up or something, but not really being in the studio. As long as we’re doing something band-related... I used to kind of just learn to like everything about it. It’s cool if you’re recording, just soak everything in and get back on the road. And that’s when the fun begins.
Examiner: This is Machine Head’s first headlining US tour in a really long time. What are the differences for you as a live musician between the opening and headlining slots?
Dave: For us, we love getting up there and playing. We’re doing almost two hours on this run, and same thing we were doing in Europe and it’s great. Doing the opening tours, sometimes you get 30 minutes, sometimes you get 40 minutes, and it’s over before you know it. And that’s okay, that’s the good thing about doing shows like that is it usually means you’re opening for somebody, you’re trying to gain more fans, or even on the Mayhem tour there were so many bands that everyone pretty much has a 30 minute slot until you get to the main headliners (read my review of Mayhem Festival 2011 by clicking here). And it’s a good feeling you get doing those shows, even if it’s just a half hour, as long as you’re winning people over. When we were doing the Metallica thing, playing 30 minutes, sometimes that 30 minutes with their crowd was a lot of work, trying to win over people that really would be a little happier if there were no opening bands for Metallica.
Examiner: I remember catching you guys when you were opening for Heaven & Hell and Megadeth, years ago, and most of the crowd were baby boomers, old school Sabbath fans, and they didn’t seem to really be getting it, not you guys or Megadeth for that matter.
Dave: That was a rough one for us. We didn’t really know what was going on. There were literally times there that we were on, like if the ticket said 7:30, sometimes we were on at 7:15, and it was like people don’t even know there’s a band playing right now. So that tour was a little frustrating in certain ways, I think that one was a little hard to gauge because it was more of that way older, Sabbath fans coming out to see them, understandably. It was still a cool tour, not like every show was horrible, but sometimes just a little bit frustrating. But at the same time, touring with those guys and getting to sit and drink and hang out with Ronnie, completely worth any bad show we had so can’t complain.
Examiner: At this point, you now have enough records and favorite songs that choosing setlists must be tough, how do you pick the set for the tour?
Dave: Yeah, that’s always kind of been the hard thing. Especially with the last couple of records and writing 10 minute songs. Going into it, we want to represent each record, because there are things from each record we really want to play, but at the same time, you have to find those right songs that make a good set. To where it’s good for the crowd, so there’s no real low points, those points in the show where people just want to go get a beer or something, and then for us, it’s like a good energy throughout the show.
Examiner: You’re playing the Best Buy Theater here in New York next month, which is one of my favorite venues for metal. But Lamb of God just played Irving Plaza here two nights ago (read my review here!), and they, well they f*cked that place up because that’s a tiny venue. You guys have toured with them before, do you think you can match what they bring with their live show?
Dave: Yeah, for sure. We respect those guys because they’re a great live band. We’ve done shows where we open for them, and they open for us, and we’re two bands that keep each other on their toes. You don’t get to where they’re at without being a great live band, they’re killer, so I’d imagine they f*cked a place like that up! We’re going to be playing with those guys in Australia, Soundwave, and I think our whole summer this year in Europe, almost every show they’re also on the bill so it’s going to be killer.
Examiner: Have you heard their new record yet?
Dave: We were just listening to it today. I only heard a couple of songs from it so far, actually the ones we were playing in here are the ones that I’d heard already, that leaked out on the Internet. But yeah it sounds really good, a couple of things sound really different for those guys, which is cool. They’re probably digging it a whole lot.
Examiner: What did you like that was different?
Dave: Randy seems like he’s doing some different stuff, and bringing in the opera singer and keyboard parts in some things, it’s pretty cool man. Adding something new to their stuff.
Examiner: Well on your new record you guys did similar things to that as well, some strings and some different instrumentation.
Dave: Yeah. That’s something that came about, the strings, in particular, came about because I’d written music for this one song and I gave it to Robb and I told him I just wanted it to be a piano and him. Kind of like Changes by Black Sabbath. So he had the guitar stuff that I’d transcribed on a piano, and then the song never came to in the studio, we were just never happy with the subject matter or the melodies he was doing on it. But that was the song where we were going to bring in the orchestra you hear on some of the songs, so the day that the quartet came in to do all this stuff, Robb said maybe try this and it snowballed from there. And it’s the one song that didn’t make the record.
Examiner: So I’ve been listening to Locust all winter, and one of the most striking drum parts to me is the intro on Who We Are, when the children are singing. You have that military style drumming go on, it reminds me of Alice in Chain’s Rooster. Where do the similarities between military drumming and metal drumming overlap?
Dave: I think it kind of creates a mood, more than anything. I don’t know if the drumming styles really... I guess they parallel a little, but it’s more about the mood and the staccato rhythm. It’s just heavy!
Examiner: I was talking with Charlie from Anthrax over the summer, and I asked him what defined thrash metal drumming. He said it’s that he plays his drums locked in with the guitars, as opposed to in step with the bass. Do you lean towards one way or another?
Dave: Well, that’s where a lot of the double bass stuff comes from, just keeping up with the guitars and everything. A perfect example of that would be an old song by Accept called Fast As A Shark, everything kind of chugging and the bass drums are following... Overkill by Motorhead. Kind of neanderthal, over the top kinda going for it.
Examiner: And so would you consider Machine Head to be a thrash band?
Dave: I always just say we’re a metal band. There’s so many different styles of music that we’re inspired by, not all of it metal. We turn it into metal. There’s metal bands we’re inspired by, but also more poppy bands, there’s early hip hop stuff like NWA, that the band was first inspired by. And still to this day, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Pantera, NWA, Korn. There’s some stuff on The Blackening that was kind of My Chemical Romance-inspired, that nobody would ever know by listening to it. But they were one of the bands we were listening to.
Examiner: So now that you’ve finished touring the world with just about every A-list metal band, who was your favorite to open for or play with?
Dave: I think back in ‘97, when we were doing Pantera dates, that was a great tour. Just crazy sh*t going on every night, great shows, so that was a fun one. The Metallica tour, obviously, was great for us, just seeing Metallica every night. That’s a good sign of having a great band to open for, just like with Pantera, because you get to see them every night. Just play your half hour, take a shower, grab a drink, and go watch Metallica from the crowd. Get the best catering in the whole world every day.
Examiner: Does Metallica have the best catering of all the bands out there?
Dave: Oh my god. Insane. Every day, they have something different. Roast beef, chicken pot pie, sushi sometimes. Anything. It’s always killer food, they know how to do it right.
Tickets for Machine Head at Best Buy Theater are still available for Friday night, February 3rd.
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