Metal Hammer journalist Dom Lawson recently sat down with MACHINE HEAD's "Burn My Eyes"-era drummer Chris Kontos to talk the album's impact, what it's like to play with Robb Flynn and Logan Mader for the first time in 24 years, and the excitement of the upcoming anniversary tour. Check out the discussion below. A new MACHINE HEAD song, "Do Or Die", will be released later this month to coincide with the announcement of the U.S leg of the band's "Burn My Eyes" 25th-anniversary tour. The shows will see Kontos and Mader join the band onstage again to play the group's classic 1994 debut album in full. According to Flynn, "Do Or Die" was recorded last December with the help of WARBRINGER drummer Carlos Cruz, who stepped in to play on the track following the departure of MACHINE HEAD's longtime drummer Dave McClain. Flynn previously told Metal Hammer magazine that he wrote "Do Or Die" in August 2018, before McClain and guitarist Phil Demmel announced they were leaving the band. "Two days after that announcement on Facebook Live, I was back in the studio and working on ideas and lyrics," he said. "I guess I was really just pissed off that day. After all the haters and all the negativity, all the bullshit. It's vicious!" The first leg of MACHINE HEAD's 25th-anniversary tour for "Burn My Eyes" will kick off in Germany on October 5 in Freiburg, and continue across Europe, wrapping in Dublin, Ireland on November 8. The U.S. leg will take place in November and December. Building on MACHINE HEAD's "An Evening With…" format, these shows will be a three-hour musical extravaganza, comprised of two parts: Part one will feature a battery of MACHINE HEAD's modern classics, such as "Imperium", "Halo" and "The Blood, The Sweat, The Tears", featuring Flynn and MacEachern performing alongside two soon-to-be-announced musicians on guitar and drums. Part two will feature "Burn My Eyes" played in its entirety for the first time ever, with Kontos and Mader joining in. Kontos left MACHINE HEAD before the release of the band's second album, 1997's "The More Things Change", and was replaced by McClain. Mader contributed to two MACHINE HEAD albums, the aforementioned "Burn My Eyes" and "The More Things Change", before exiting the group and being replaced by Ahrue Luster and, later on, Demmel.
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