MACHINE HEAD's Upcoming Album Is 'Amazing', Says Guitarist VOGG

Polish guitarist Wacław "Vogg" Kiełtyka (DECAPITATED),who joined MACHINE HEAD's touring lineup prior to the launch of the band's "Burn My Eyes" 25th-anniversary tour in late 2019, spoke to Metal 101 about his experience playing with the Robb Flynn-fronted outfit so far. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Since more than two years right now, I've become a member of the MACHINE HEAD. It was just great to join the band and it feels amazing to be part of that. I did two tours with them — a European tour and touring the United States — and it was amazing; it was a great experience.

"MACHINE HEAD have a new album ready, which makes me also really happy about feeling that I'm a part of the album," he continued. "I did a few riffs for two songs and I did a few solo parts.

"I have to say the album is amazing, and Robb and Jared [MacEachern, bass] did an amazing job. It's gonna be a really strong album and a really amazing comeback with the new songs and production. The production is amazing."

MACHINE HEAD's new full-length album is tentatively due this summer. The follow-up to 2018's "Catharsis" will include the three songs that were featured on last summer's "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 producer Zack Ohren.

Earlier this month, MacEachern described the upcoming MACHINE HEAD album to Primordial Radio as a "pretty big-, epic-sounding" affair. "It's a ride — a really great, heavy, beautiful, melodic, raging, thrashing ride," he said.

Back in November 2019, Flynn told France's HEAVY1 that Vogg's MACHINE HEAD audition "just fucking blew my mind — it was so fucking tight and fucking accurate. He sent over [a recording of] 'Imperium' as his first song just as a test. We always had all the dudes do a sound test, just to make sure the levels are good and stuff. I was, like, 'Oh my God! This dude is playing 'Imperium' better than I can right now.' [Laughs] It was crazy. And we ended up talking. Super-nice guy."

Last May, Vogg told Finland's Kaaos TV that his addition to MACHINE HEAD's touring lineup was "a big surprise" for him, because he "didn't plan" to play with the band. "It kind of accidentally happened," he said.

"In 2019, when we started the summer festivals with DECAPITATED, I sent an e-mail to Robb Flynn about congratulations, because I heard about the upcoming 'Burn My Eyes' tour," he explained. "Because I'm still a huge fan of the first album, I just wanted to share my happiness about that with Robb. So I sent a message to him. And he replied, saying, 'Thanks, man.' And, 'Maybe you can play with us one song as a guest in Warsaw,' because they planned a Warsaw show. So we started to talk. And then it became a serious talking about the guitar player they were looking for, and I was sending my proposition that maybe I can help with that. So I did an audition. They sent me song requests for the audition, so I did it. And in a few days, I became a new guitar player of MACHINE HEAD. It was really fast. Because I didn't hear about that they were looking for a guitar player. I heard about Phil Demmel, the issues with Phil and the rest of the guys; they quit the band before. But I thought that the 'Burn My Eyes' anniversary tour was only the 'Burn My Eyes' lineup, and then I found out that it's also a second lineup to play [the other] songs. So, it was cool. It was [such] a positive shock for me."

Vogg went on to say that he was "so happy" to have been part of the "Burn My Eyes" anniversary tour "because I'm a huge fan of MACHINE HEAD since I was a kid. And to have the opportunity to go with them as a guitar player on tour which celebrates my favorite [MACHINE HEAD] album, which is probably one of my [favorite] ten albums ever, it was unbelievable," he said. "And it was such a great experience for me seeing a really big band on tour and seeing the pre-production process and traveling with all this huge crew and a few buses and trucks and all this equipment. It was really something new for me. Even [though] I'm an experienced musician, I had a big lesson from those guys and from the crew. It was such a great experience. It was such a great feeling being on stage in front of thousands of people every night. And then, after I finished my set, which includes the best songs from MACHINE HEAD — it takes two hours — then I go to change my clothes and come back to the side of the stage to see 'Burn My Eyes', the whole album, played by the original lineup. It was amazing. I have to say it was one of the best life experiences I had."