Line #2 Trivia/FearFactory


1	* CreativeDifferences:
2	** One of the reasons why the classic lineup of the band broke up in 2002. Christian consistently pushed for more rap and hip-hop elements into the band's sound, but most of the time Dino didn't want to do this. One example of this is Christian having a hard time persuading Dino that it would be a cool idea to have the verses on "Edgecrusher" have more of a hip-hop feel, as well as using a double bass instead of a bass guitar on those parts.
3	** Burton had this with Dino after Dino returned to the band in 2009.
4	* CreatorBacklash:
5	** None of the band seems to have high regard for how ''Transgression'' turned out. Christian hated how the final mix sounded (calling it "the worst piece of shit I'd heard in my life") and Raymond and Burton admit that they were too burnt out to do another record that quickly. It's the only studio album they haven't played live again from since the initial release tours.
6	** Burton has said that he feels this way about reuniting with Dino in 2009. He has fully admitted that he was mainly motivated to do it by the money involved, and he found being in this version of Fear Factory creatively limiting.
7	* ExecutiveMeddling: According to Dino, "Concreto" was meant to be part of ''Demanufacture'''s main tracklisting, but the label thought their cover of "Dog Day Sunrise" would be a hit and made them replace it.
8	* FalseCredit: To date, Christian Olde Wolbers is the only bassist the band has had to perform on an album, with Andrew Shives and Byron Stroud being credited for their work on ''Soul of a New Machine'' and ''Transgression'' respectively despite not playing a note on the albums. Wolbers himself did not perform on ''Demanufacture''.
9	* FanCommunityNickname: Machines of Hate.
10	* HeAlsoDid:
11	** Dino has a few side projects, including Divine Heresy, Asesino and Die Klute. He is also currently a touring guitarist for Soulfly.
12	** Burton is in the music video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by {{Music/Nirvana}}. He lived in Seattle at the time, and managed to get a role in the video as an extra.
13	** During Fear Factory's hiatus in the mid-late 2000s, Burton started the projects City Of Fire and Ascension of The Watchers. City Of Fire is now inactive, but Ascension of The Watchers is still active to this day.
14	** Since leaving the band, Burton has taken up a career as a photographer. His photographs have even been publicly displayed in art galleries.
15	** Christian Olbe Wolbers is a co-founder of Aviata Sports, which makes gloves for goalkeepers. He actually played soccer at youth level back when he was growing up in Belgium, but was expelled from his club for having long hair and tattoos. He's met multiple famous soccer players through his role at Aviata Sports, including Lionel Messi. Interestingly, he's commented that the soccer players [[RecognitionFailure don't realise who he is]].
16	* MissingEpisode: They completed what was supposed to be their debut album in 1991, which was meant to launch a record label founded by its RecordProducer, Ross Robinson. The band didn't like the terms of their contract, so they refused to sign it. Legally owning the rights to the songs but not the actual recordings, they re-recorded eight songs for ''Soul Of A New Machine'' in 1992,and the rest of the material remained unreleased... Until 2002, when the long-forgotten recordings were issued by Roadrunner Records under the title ''Concrete''. According to Burton C. Bell, Robinson had sold the album to Roadrunner, who released it without the band's permission because they owed the label one more album.
17	* MultinationalTeam:
18	** Former bassist/guitarist Christian Olbe Wolbers is originally from Antwerp, Belgium.
19	** Former bassist Byron Stroud is originally from New Westminster, Canada.
20	** Current vocalist Milo Silvestro is originally from Rome, Italy.
21	** Subverted with Dino Cazares, as he is listed by some sources as being born in Mexico, but he was actually born in El Centro, California, which is only 20 miles from the city of Mexicali. Due to this, as well as Dino being involved in several bands with Mexican themes and always identifying himself with his heritage, the confusion is fairly understandable.
22	* ScrewedByTheLawyers: A planned tenth studio album, ''Monolith'', was delayed pending the results of a lawsuit brought on by Raymond Herrera and Christian Olde Wolbers over the rights to the "Fear Factory" name. It was eventually released in 2021 as ''Aggression Continuum''.
23	* ThePeteBest:
24	** Andrew Shives was the live bassist from 92-93. Although he's credited on ''Soul of a New Machine'', he didn't record bass parts for the record (those were done by Dino). He left the band due to differences and was replaced by Chirstian Olde Wolbers, who's much more remembered.
25	** Reynor Diego is often said to be a keyboardist for ''Fear Is the Mindkiller'' and ''Demanufacture'', but this was denied by session musician Rhys Fulber in Decibel Magazine's Hall of Fame entry for ''Demanufacture''. Fulber stated that Diego was Fear Factory's live keyboardist.
26	** Also mentioned from the Decibel Hall of Fame interview, Christian Olde Wolbers didn't perform bass on ''Demanufacture'' as Dino Cazares and Rhys Fulber said that the former played the bass parts and Wolbers didn't start playing on studio albums until ''Obsolete''.
27	* PromotedFanboy: Milo Silvestro. The band found him due to him being a fan who uploaded vocal covers of Fear Factory's songs on the internet.
28	* TroubledProduction: Several of their albums went through this.
29	** Their first recorded LP, ''Concrete'', was left unreleased for 11 years for that particular reason. Both the band and producer Ross Robinson were broke at the time and couldn't afford to pay for enough studio time, so the band had to partially record the album guerilla-style, sneaking into the studio during nights to record some of the instruments. In order to avoid legal trouble, Robinson tried to have the band sign a recording contract through his label. Unfortunately, the band was advised not to sign it due to some terms that were deemed questionable, which led the band to be taken to court. Fear Factory, who was unsigned at the time, eventually lost the rights to the recordings, and the album's release was cancelled... That is until Roadrunner Records released it in 2002. Additionnally, half of the album was re-recorded for the next album, ''Soul of a New Machine''.
30	** ''Soul of a New Machine'' had the misfortune to have its recording sessions happen right during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which caused the city to enter lockdown for a few days. This caused the album to be recorded quicker than originally planned, and Colin Richardson almost bailed out of the album because of the unsafe conditions.
31	** ''Demanufacture'' is regarded as a landmark album among the heavy metal community and is cited as an influence by many bands that came later. However, this album is also known for its well-documented lengthy and brutal production, to the point the 2005 remaster has a full paragraph about it in its booklet.
32	*** Influenced by a lot of unfortunate events which shook Los Angeles in the early 90's[[note]]most notably the 1992 riots and several natural disasters that occured afterwards[[/note]], Fear Factory had a clear vision of what would become their second album, both lyrically and musically. With all the songs of this album written by the end of 1993, the band had planned to record the album in the early months of next year. However, a last-minute tour offer opening for Sepultura and the Northridge earthquake decided otherwise, delaying the recording sessions for a few months.
33	*** The band initially booked Chicago Trax to record the album, partly because two of the band's biggest influences, Music/{{Ministry}} and Music/SkinnyPuppy, recorded albums there. The first sessions were booked in the Summer of 1994. However, many problems arose at the studio, notably because of the uncooperative equipment: the computer would crash a lot, the control room had several defective or unresponsive channels, many drum mics did not work either, and the few takes that the band could record had many click noises that would have made the album sound terrible. After a few weeks of recording, Fear Factory chose to abandon Chicago Trax and look for another studio. According to Dino Cazares, ''$60,000'' were wasted in this studio.
34	*** Unfortunately, there was almost no other studio available at the time of recording aside from Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, NY. And even then, the band would have to wait 6 months before being able to settle there. At that point, the band was broke, had no concerts planned, and almost all members of the band were homeless due to losing their apartments during the Northridge earthquake. As such, they had to resort to sleeping in ''hotel receptions'' for a while, then rent a rehearsal space in upstate New York until Bearsville was available.
35	*** Eventually, Fear Factory was able to join Bearsville Studios in October of 1994. Drums tracking went smoothly, but tensions started to appear between Colin Richardson and the band as they had different visions for the record. The former wanted the album to sound similar to ''Soul of a New Machine'', while the band wanted a high emphasis on electronics. The major turning point is said to have been when Richardson tried to force Cazares to change his tone. He demanded him to use a Peavey 5150 with a Tube Screamer overdrive pedal. Cazares refused, preferring to use his live amplifier head at the time[[note]]A modded Marshall JCM800[[/note]]. It came to the point that two weeks later, no guitars were recorded at all. In the end, it took an unexpected meeting with Music/BadBrains guitarist Dr. Know to sort the matter: Cazares stuck to his guns and was able to record his guitars with his amp. He was even offered a new Mesa/Boogie cab which was used on the record.
36	*** The situation, however, only made tensions between the band and their producer worse. Accounts are somewhat conflicted on what really went down during recording: while most of the band agrees that their producer just did not get their vision for ''Demanufacture'', Richardson explains on the album's liner notes[[note]]The 2005 remastered version only.[[/note]] that Dino Cazares had major [[ControlFreak Control Freak]] tendencies and was putting a lot of pressure on him and the engineers, and even said that he wasn't speaking to Cazares at all during the last week of recording because of his allegedly rude behavior. Dino himself admits on those same liner notes that he was often micro-managing Richardson during the recording sessions. Eventually, Richardson got fed up with Cazares and banned him from the mixing sessions in England.
37	*** After the stressful recording sessions at Bearsville, the tapes were sent to England for mixing. However, Richardson chose to mix the album according to his vision of the record. The keyboards were barely audible on Richardson's mix, which proved to be unfitting to the band's wishes. To add insult to injury, they also discovered that the drum tracks had been deleted. Colin Richardson was dismissed from the record at the request of the band, and Greg Reely was brought in as replacement. The band also relocated the mixing sessions to Los Angeles. At that point, the album had run over schedule and budget by several months, and the label was putting pressure on the band to complete the record as quickly as possible.
38	*** Eventually, the rest of the album's production went without any incidents once Greg Reely joined the mixing sessions, despite the tight deadline. The band also took the time to re-record all the drums, albeit with a basic kit, as well as some random parts from various songs. After a year and a half of production, ''Demanufacture'' was released in June 1995 to critical acclaim and unexpected commercial success; "Zero Signal" was even included on the soundtrack for ''Film/MortalKombatTheMovie'', and is considered Fear Factory's best album by fans, critics and the band themselves alike. However, the band also told in many interviews that the Demanufacture recording sessions were probably the hardest times of their respective lives because of what happened during this period, combined with the personal problems they were going into at the time.
39	*** On a more positive note about Richardson's original mix, two songs from the album as mixed by him are available on B-sides album ''Hatefiles''.
40	** ''Transgression'' also had a very tense recording process, as their label at the time pressured them to finish the album as quickly as possible so it could be released and promoted during the Gigantour festivals, in which Fear Factory participated. Unlike ''Demanufacture'', the results were not as stellar. Fans disliked the album heavily, and most members who participated in the recording don't have fond memories of it. Christian Olde Wolbers in particular [[CreatorBacklash was vocal about his distaste of the album]], as evidenced in a Facebook post :
41	-->"We had some really heavy shit on Transgression that never made it to the album because Burt didn't wanna sing on fast blast beat songs. We had over 20 songs. Burt picked the songs he wanted to write too. I helped create and helped write at least 60% of the vocal hooks and melodies on Archetype. I held his hand during the writing and demo process. I wrote the verse in "Cyberwaste", chorus melodies in Archetype, etc... Only "Bonescraper" was done on the spot in the studio. On "Transgression" I wasn't allowed to interfere with Burt's writing process. It was Burt and Toby. When I heard the first takes I cringed and thought it was demo stage to still find the melodies etc. They told me it was a done deal and to stay out of it. Transgression, I am NOT proud of at all. It's crap. I produced Archetype. Burt produced "Transgression" with Toby Wright. That is the truth."
42	** ''The Industrialist'' reportedly had one too, because the band had been given a much smaller budget than their previous record. This resulted in Burt and Dino ditching drummer Gene Hoglan[[note]]He would later reveal that he found out about this album's completion online[[/note]] in favor of a drum machine, booking fewer studio time than usual, and basically having to record by themselves. As a result, the album was not finished on time for the release date; one song, Enhanced Reality, was missing from the original album. Needless to say, the album was met with a mixed response, with many people citing it had an 'incomplete' feel to it. The album was remixed and partially re-recorded with live drums in 2022, and re-released the following year under the name ''Re-Industrialized'', with Enhanced Reality added as the second-to-last track[[note]]It was previously available on digipak editions of their Genexus album[[/note]].
43	** ''Aggression Continuum''. Recording had started in early 2017, but it was eventually shelved due to the band's legal troubles that happened right at this moment. After a massive delay and once the lawsuit came to an end, Dino ended up re-working several songs and finished the record. It is worth noting that by the time the album was released in 2021, Burton had left the band (his takes on the album had been recorded ''5 years'' prior to the album's release).
44	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
45	** A music video for "Edgecrusher" was planned with visual effects provided by ''VideoGame/{{Wipeout}}'' creators Psygnosis (now known as SCE). Some footage was shot but it was never finished due to the band's touring schedule.
46	** A planned video for "Final Exit" never materialized.
47	** Music/SarahMcLachlan was asked to sing on "Timelessness", but turned it down as she felt the album was too heavy for her.
48	** The original album title for ''Obsolete'' was going to be ''Securitron'' earlier on.
49	** Christian and Raymond were in the middle of writing a new Fear Factory album when they heard that Burton had reunited with Dino to form a new version of the band and taken Byron with them in the process.
50	** If his youth team in Belgium hadn't dismissed him, Christian could very well have pursued a career in soccer instead of music.
51	** As it turns out, ''The Industralist'' was supposed to include live drums, and 11 tracks instead of ten on the 2012 version, which didn't happen because of budgeting issues. Eventually averted in 2023 with the release of ''Re-Industrialized'', a remixed and partially re-recorded version of the album which is closer from its original version

Context Trivia / FearFactory