MACHINE HEAD's ROBB FLYNN: 'Making A Connection With The Audience Every Night' Is What It's About

In a new interview with Mexico's Summa Inferno, MACHINE HEAD frontman Robb Flynn spoke about how the touring lifestyle has changed since the late 1980s when he first started going on the road as a member of VIO-LENCE. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It's certainly different. I started touring when I was 19 years old. It was a totally different world and, it was all the things that you would imagine it would be. It was in the '80s and '90s and stuff, so it was crazy groupies and drugs and partying all the time. And then I think you slow down. Now I've been with my wife for 30 years, 32 years, and so, to me it's about music. And that's what it always was about — it was always about music. But it's about music, it's about putting on the best show.

"We still party," Flynn clarified. "I still drink beer on stage every night. And the rest of the guys — my bass player, Jared [MacEachern], he fucking rages; he rages every night.

"Just speaking for myself — I'm not speaking for anybody else in the band; I'm just for speaking for myself — to me, it's really about putting on a great show and making a connection with the audience every night. Just trying to find that thing that makes everybody go crazy or makes everybody cry or makes everybody just fucking rage or whatever it is.

"To me, I think music is about — it's a giant release in a lot of ways," Robb added. "It's a release of happiness, it's a release of anger, it's a release of sadness, it's a release of joy. And that, to me, is like… when all of that happens, that's like the fucking best shit ever. That's the highest point of my fucking day every day when I'm on tour."

Earlier this week, MACHINE HEAD announced leg one of its "Slaughter The Martour North America 2024" tour. Forgoing their "An Evening With…" format for the first time in a decade, MACHINE HEAD will have Los Angeles's cyber-metal masters FEAR FACTORY, Sweden's ORBIT CULTURE and Louisville, Kentucky's GATES TO HELL in tow.

"Slaughter The Martour North America 2024" will kick off with a "hometown" show for MACHINE HEAD, their first since 2020, in San Francisco on January 19. Then the tour heads north with shows in the pacific northwest as well as eight shows in Canada. Other stops include: Chicago, Orlando, and Houston before concluding in Los Angeles on February 24 at The Bellwether.

This past April, MACHINE HEAD canceled its previously announced spring 2023 U.S. tour "due to work visa issues," explaining that "half the band, as well as a handful of key crew members, reside outside of the U.S."

The 18-date "The Electric Happy Hour (Live)" trek was scheduled to kick off on May 15 in Ventura, California and make its way to Des Moines, Fort Wayne, and Detroit before ending in Los Angeles on June 9.

MACHINE HEAD has been touring in support of its latest album, "Of Kingdom And Crown", which came out in August 2022. The follow-up to 2018's "Catharsis" includes the three songs that were featured on the 2021 "Arrows In Words From The Sky" single: "Become The Firestorm", "Rotten" and "Arrows In Words From The Sky". Much of the new MACHINE HEAD album was recorded at Sharkbite Studios in Oakland, California with engineer/producer Zack Ohren.

In November 2020, MACHINE HEAD released a single, "My Hands Are Empty", via Nuclear Blast. The song marked the first musical collaboration between Flynn and original "Burn My Eyes" guitarist Logan Mader in 24 years.

"My Hands Are Empty" was just one in a line of singles to be released by MACHINE HEAD, which issued "Do Or Die" in October 2019, "Circle The Drain" in February 2020, and the two-song digital single "Civil Unrest", consisting of "Stop The Bleeding" and "Bulletproof", in June 2020. "Stop The Bleeding" featured guest vocals from KILLSWITCH ENGAGE frontman Jesse Leach, and was written and recorded just days after the murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery.