San Francisco Bay Area metallers MACHINE HEAD released a brand new single, titled "Is There Anybody Out There?", on June 3. "The song was made available digitally for purchase on iTunes, Amazon and Google Play, and was also released on Spotify, Apple Music, and all streaming services. During an appearance on SiriusXM's Octane earlier this month, MACHINE HEAD frontman Robb Flynn stated about the band's decision to release "Is There Anybody Out There?" as a standalone track: "That's one of the things that we were most stoked about, because in 2016, you don't have to put out an album; you can just record a song and release it. And I think that that's one of the coolest things that's happened from the Internet — I mean, the ability to just record things. Personally, I think that's where it's gonna go. I think you're gonna see artists now, going forward, are gonna record songs and just release them and just have… kind of like how the rappers do. Rappers are constantly putting out mix tapes and constantly just… and then a record is almost something that happens after the fact, and in between that record, there's, like, fifty songs that come out. And we've never done that, and I think part of it's because, in metal, you wanna get it on CD and you wanna try and get it at Best Buy. And it's, like, where the hell are you even gonna put it? We didn't even print up CDs — this was released digitally only — because where the hell would it go? You know, where the heck can you even buy a one-song CD nowadays? I think the Best Buy by my house, the CD section's as big as my couch at this point. [Laughs] So this is exciting, and that's one of the things that I love about this new era of the music business, man; I think it's so awesome." Flynn also talked about the songwriting inspiration for "Is There Anybody Out There?" and whether it contains any leftover ideas from MACHINE HEAD's latest album, 2014's "Bloodstone & Diamonds". He said: "It was all brand new. I wrote it on a plane home after an eight-week tour of Eastern Europe. I was in a total song rut; I didn't even wanna write new music. And then I was on this plane and I had this vocal melody going through my head, and I was, like, 'What is this?' And I just pulled out my phone, because nobody carries a lyric pad anymore [laughs], and I started typing 'em into the Notes [app] on my iPhone. So we got home, and I started putting it together with everybody, and then I was, like, 'Let's record this, man. We've got this inspiration, we've got this fire right now. Let's just go in and document it and see what happens.' And we didn't really know where it was gonna go lyrically — it was kind of all over the place — but I just felt like the hook itself was just so big and so strong that I had this fire under my ass to get it done." MACHINE HEAD recently completed the "Bloodstone & Diamonds" touring cycle and is taking the summer off while considering gig offers for the fall. "Bloodstone & Diamonds" sold around 18,200 copies in the United States in its first week to debut at position No. 21 on The Billboard 200 chart. Photo credit: Travis Shinn
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