MACHINE HEAD are continuing to write material for their fifth studio album, which is not expected to surface until late 2003 at the earliest. About 14 songs have been finished musically, with the band having recently demoed 12 of them in rough form.
"People keep asking, what's the new stuff like? Is the new stuff good?" guitarist/vocalist Robert Flynn wrote in the latest installment of his online "diary". "It's a tricky question. On the one hand, you can take the humble approach, and, regardless of how good you think it is (if you do), you basically kinda lie, and go, 'Oh, it's just pretty good.' On the other hand, you can basically be honest (if you believe in it), and say, 'Yeah, I think it's really, really good,' then look like an A%#hole, for tooting your own horn. I usually opt for the latter because, while I don't necessarily want to look like an a#%hole (though sometimes I don't need to try), honesty without arrogance just feels more right to me.
"Don't quite know why the writing is going so good," the singer continued. "Maybe it's the fact that, it's the three longest standing members of any of our line-ups writing everything, or maybe it's the fact that we're SO bored with music these days, that we just want to hear some f#&king EPIC songs. Maybe it's all the sunshine from the Indian Summer we're having here in Northern California that is just so damn rad! Or, maybe it's the fact that the three of us have a chip on our combined shoulders, that's bigger than the God Damn Rock of Gibraltar. Whatever it is, this just might be the best thing this band has ever done. Period.
"And ......the classic, full-on, 'MH Wall Of Guitars' is back, in a BIG way. We've busted out 'The' 5150 from the 'More Things Change' era, and the metal is flowing like molten hot lava.
"In other news, I keep hearing rumors, well, more like cryptic messages from Jason [Newsted]'s 'people' about this QUARTETO DE PINGA jam [featuring Flynn, Newsted, SEPULTURA guitarist Andreas Kisser, and EXODUS drummer Tom Hunting] getting released thru Jason's label. As far as I'm concerned, nothing is getting released.
"Live album is getting mixed in early Nov., released in early Feb. We want YOU, the MH diehards to name it!!!!! Contest coming soon. MACHINE HEAD is also making a video for the song 'The Burning Red', shot live at the With Full Force festival in front of 20,000 Maniacal Machine Headerz. That will coincide with the release of the live CD, and should go to MTV in Jan., as well as coming out on a 'limited' amount of CDs as a CD-ROM."
