Dino Cazares, the man who co-founded the influential outfits Fear Factory and Brujeria has made a welcomed return to the scene with his new ball-busting, envelope pushing metal band Divine Heresy.
Together with Vital Remains/Hate Eternal drummer Tim Yeung and vocalist Tommy Vext, Divine Heresy sees Cazares pushing the musical boundaries beyond their limits. The band’s recently released debut album, Bleed The Fifth, produced by Dirty Icon – who is better known as Logan Mader – himself having played with Machine Head and Soulfly - and Lucas Banker is set to become a benchmark for future metal bands.
Joe Matera recently spoke to
Dino Cazares to discuss his new band and album, his guitar playing evolution and his interest in making porn movies.
Ultimate-Guitar: Bleed The Fifth sounds a lot more musically involved and a much more aggressive effort than anything you’ve done so far in your career?
Dino Cazares: Yeah I wanted it to be different to what I had done in the past. I purposely didn’t want to make it a full conceptual album with, you know, all that sci-fi kind of stuff. I wanted it to be just more kind of a ripping straight forward, in your face metal. And obviously having a drummer like Tim Yeung onboard who is a real technical drummer, opened up my playing a lot more so it was able to lead me to explore and view different types of riffs to how I had done before in the past.
Was the impetus that lay behind that aggression the result of how things soured between you and your former band Fear Factory?
A lot of people have been asking me about that same thing. I think it is aggression of a lot of things that I’ve had built up over the years. And I’ve been doing heavy music for a long time now and if anybody knows my other projects Asesino, it is pretty much grindcore, death metal kind of stuff. So I just wanted to take this new stuff to a whole new level and just make it…let me put it this way, with a drummer like Tim Yeung you can’t do pop songs! And I’m not going to write pop songs so of course it is naturally going to be heavy. A lot of stuff I will admit is driven by people who want to see me fail. And there are people out there who do want to see me fail. I know this will sound vindictive to people, but these people just want to see me fail so this is my big ‘fuck you’ to all those people.
You actually played bass guitar on the album too?
Yeah I played bass on the record because we didn’t have a bass player at the time so I had to do it. Tony Campos from Static-X who is a good friend of mine also played bass on the three of the tracks. I only had to do it because we didn’t have a bass player. But if I did have a bass player, I would have had the bass player do it.
 |
| "I wanted it to be different to what I had done in the past." |
So do you now have a bass player officially installed within the band’s ranks?
Yes we do have one. His name is Joe Payne and he was originally a member of Nile for two and a half years. He’s going to be a permanent member of Divine Heresy and he just joined about a month ago. We’ve just played a couple shows as a proper band and at the end of next week, we start a small tour and then in October we begin touring with Static-X and Shadows Fall. Then after that we’ll be doing the Chimaira tour and then going to Europe and then I believe, early next year around February, we will be in Australia.
How did the songwriting process evolve for the album?
Some of the stuff did come from us just jamming together but a lot of stuff I had written before that too, before I had even hooked up with Tim. I had demos done with a drum machine and some demos done with some of my other friends playing drums and writing the parts here and there. But it wasn’t until Tim came in that we could put all the ideas that we had together, the riffs and all. And so we made it all flow and made them into songs.
There is also another aspect to your guitar playing showcased on the album with the inclusion of several guitar solos?
Yeah I’m doing guitar solos on this album. Because I’ve been doing guitar solos with my other projects too, I kind of wanted to bring that aspect into this project. But let me say, this is NOT a Fear Factory type band. We are NOT a death metal band. We are a metal band. And I just wanted to have that classic metal stuff that I love and love hearing. I wanted to put it all together like that and obviously that includes guitar solos.
When it came to the recording process, did you utilize a lot of digital technology?
We recorded some stuff on Pro-Tools but a lot of other stuff we just did live. Tim and I tracked a lot of the songs live together. We wanted to give it a different vibe and we wanted it to have more of a natural feel to a lot of the stuff I had done in the past. So we went in and recorded all the tracks that appear are on the album and of course I quadrupled all my guitar tracks too! Just as every other band does too. If you want to make it sound stereo you can’t do one guitar track in mono because it will sound very small. You have to go in there and add some more guitar tracks and add the guitar solos so that it will sound huge on the record.
On the guitar side of things, you’ve been known primarily as a seven-string guitarist but now you’re also added an eight-string guitar to the mix?
Yeah that [eight-string guitar] is something that I am very happy about. When I was playing six strings way back when, I was always tuning them down really low and then I had the problem of the strings being too floppy. Then in 1995 I had Ibanez approach me about the seven-string and so it was only a natural progression for me to go down that route. And here I am playing the seven-string and I’m realizing that I want to go even lower. So I am tuning the seven strings even lower and am tuning down to A and G and F sharp and stuff like that. Then all of a sudden Ibanez comes out with an eight string and I’m like, ‘I’ve got to get that’. So again it was a natural progression of where I wanted to go. But I don’t think I’ll be going to a ten string or 12-string or 14-string or anything like in future.
 |
| "There are people who want to see me fail, so this is my big "fuck you" to all those people." |
But isn’t there a ten-string acoustic guitar on one of the album’s tracks?
Yes you are correct. There is a ten-string acoustic guitar on the intro to Rise Of The Scorned which was played by me and Marc Rizzo. It was a classical, flamenco ten-string acoustic guitar. A friend of mine had it and I was like, ‘wow let me see that thing’ So I started playing it and I was ‘well I can track the acoustic stuff with this’ You know, you can’t really tune an acoustic guitar down that low as it will sound really bad. So I did it with this ten string guitar and it worked out really well. But I don’t really see myself going to a ten-string electric guitar because I might as well just fire the bass player!
What sort of amp configuration do you employ in order to achieve your tone?
For the record I used a few different amps. I combined a JCM 800 with a Marshall Valvestate. While all the clean stuff I did with a Line 6 POD Pro and Mesa-Boogie power amps. I used different amps for different stuff. Line 6 was the amp I used back in the day with Fear Factory after all of our gear got stolen, where I switched over to Line 6. I used that for all my clean channels and for all those little different effect type stuff. But as far as the meat and potatoes of my sound, I use the Marshalls.
Are you one for keeping up with all the new and up and coming metal bands on the scene?
Of course I do as I’m very much involved with the Californian metal scene and I follow a lot of bands and stuff like that. Music is my life and my passion and I love going out and checking out new stuff. There are some very good up and coming bands like for example All Shall Perish from San Francisco who are really, really good.
What is the current status of Asesino?
Asesino is still happening but we won’t be touring until late December after we are done touring this year with Divine Heresy. And because Asesino is just a project that Tony from Static-X and my self have, we will do it whenever we have the time.
So does touring for you today get as wild as it was in the Fear Factory days?
Everywhere I go, it is wild man. Where ever I go something is going to happen. We have video cameras capturing all the actions so that is good. And the cameras have night vision on them too!
 |
| "I have been asked if I plan on going back to Fear Factory. And no, I don't want to." |
I hear you have a passion for making home-made porn movies?
Yeah I have a lot of stuff that I’ve collected over the years. I’ve been contemplating about putting it all together and putting it out. But a lot of kids wouldn’t be able to buy it because they would too young. I enjoy making appearances in a lot of my own home porn movies and like I said even if I could compile it all together, a lot of the kids wouldn’t get to see it. Put it this way I would get in to trouble if somebody under the legal age bought it. Unless that is, I put out a censored version, where everything is cut out. But then it wouldn’t be worth watching!
Looking back over your career with Fear Factory what do you consider to be your favorite Fear Factory album and why?
I think it is only the obvious choice; Demanufacture. That album I believe was when everybody in the band had the fire, had the passion and really loved what they were doing. And it was a great two years touring that record because it took us to the next level and it was very exciting time. In the same way the kids were reacting and the band was growing. And also because the girls got better!
Are you in touch with any of the guys in Fear Factory?
I don’t speak to any of the guys at all whatsoever. I have been asked if I plan on going back to Fear Factory. And no, I don’t want to. I don’t see why I need to anyway as I now have some great guys with me. I have a great band now and it is only a matter of time before we start growing and getting better and getting out there on the road, selling many CDs and traveling the world. I’m very happy with what I’m doing now and where I am at.
2007 © Joe Matera
/ my profile 
