MACHINE HEAD frontman Robb Flynn spoke to U.K.'s Kerrang! magazine about the band's upcoming "Burn My Eyes" 25th-anniversary tour. The shows will see MACHINE HEAD's original drummer Chris Kontos and guitarist Logan Mader join the band onstage again to play the group's classic 1994 debut album in full. Asked what the appeal of doing this tour is for him, Robb said: "It's a special moment. It's a special milestone. "I'm completely humbled and blown away by the fact that I'm still here 25 years later able to make music — let alone pay tribute to a record that I recorded all that time ago. That anybody still gives two shits about MACHINE HEAD is just incredible. That I get to do it with Chris and Logan — those guys who made the record originally — is fucking huge. "We've been talking about it for a few years now. Obviously, in light of recent developments, the whole thing has come together a little more easily. "The whole point of it is really just a huge celebration of the music that we got to make together! And we have been talking about this for years." Flynn also talked about the decision to effectively split the set with new musicians playing the non-"Burn My Eyes" songs. He said: "As I was figuring it out with Logan, Chris and Jared [MacEachern, bass], I explained that I can't even imagine playing a MACHINE HEAD show and not playing 'Halo'; 'Imperium'; 'Aesthetics Of Hate'; 'From This Day'; 'The Blood, The Sweat, The Tears…', 'Now We Die' — or even 'Catharsis'. 'Darkness Within' is a show-stopping moment, every time. We had to think about how we were going to pull this off. I wanted to honor Chris and Logan and not have them needing to learn 40 other fucking songs to be able to pull it off. "It's kind of weird. We're gonna have a lot of motherfuckers on tour," he said. "But it's gonna be fucking awesome. I think it's gonna be a bit of a goddamn circus. I really want to pay tribute to the guys that were there and built it with me. I think it's gonna break the fucking Internet!" Asked what it has been like getting Logan and Chris back on board, Robb said: "Logan and I have stayed in touch. We kinda squashed everything and became friends again as far back as 2004. He comes out to all the shows. We played 'Davidian' together at the 'Roadrunner United' concert in New York. Chris and I haven't spoken in a long time for no reason other than that when I'm off the road, I'm just this boring suburban dad. He kinda quit music for a little while to do some BMX racing. He was in a whole other world. As it happened, Logan reached out to me about [the anniversary tour] and I thought it was a killer idea. Then I think my manager reached out to Chris and he was game, too. We just went out for dinner for two hours and just laughed and caught up. [Chris] just has such a huge personality: he's this loud, funny dude. It was a really good vibe, so we decided to just go for it." Flynn also didn't rule out recording new original music together with Chris and Logan, saying: "Nothing's certain right now. I'm not sure what that is at the moment. We're really just focused on re-learning how to play the 'Burn My Eyes' songs. But we'll be out on the road for a while together. I think that I could see MACHINE HEAD forward with just a constant flow of new music." 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. Kontos left MACHINE HEAD before the release of the band's second album, 1997's "The More Things Change", and was replaced by Dave McClain. McClain and guitarist Phil Demmel exited MACHINE HEAD last fall.
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