Fear Factory, Demanufacture, & Bon Jovi

by: VVV
[originally appeared in THC Zine version 2.0 website]

Released in March 3 in the UK, and June 13, 1995 to the rest of the world, Fear Factory’s Demanufacture was a landmark industrial metal album. It featured some of the heaviest guitar riffs by Dino Cazares, soldered organically onto heavy-triggered industrial drums by Raymond Herrera (who also played in grindcore band West Coast homies Phobia) and full-on bulldozer bass by Christian Olde Wolbers, his first recording with the band. Burton C. Bell’s vocals shifted from death industrial cold harshness to his clean trademark vocals, seemingly contrasting the machine vs. man conflict.

Influenced by none other than the Terminator movie, it chronicled the struggles of man against an industrial wasteland world controlled by advanced machinery, and the threat of imminent obliteration for humankind. Demanufacture had one foot in the burgeoning American death metal scene, and the other slowly being consumed by advanced circuitry and machines, slowly assimilating and taking over into total obsolete-processing of humanity.

The Dave McKean artwork was perfect in capturing the vision of the album with a cold, ruthless, machine-overtaking-man graphic design and art direction. Colin Richardson was the engineer in the first phase of recording (also on previous recording “Fear Is The Mindkiller”), but he was soon kicked out by the band due to conflicts in the studio. Nevertheless, it was this perfect combo of heady, grim, and bleak sci-fi concepts and heavy-duty, industrial-strength, calculated musical destruction that made this record one of the most recognized “industrial metal” albums in metal history.

Run-Ins With Bon Jovi

One of the memorable stories behind the scenes during the recording of the album was the band’s run-ins with none other than pop rock icon Bon Jovi, his band, and his studio crew. They were recording in Bearsville at Woodstock in New York, along with good friends Faith No More in the other room, and Bon Jovi next to them. This proved disastrous for the arena rock kings.

According to an interview with Metal Underground, Dino Cazares recounts these hilarious Bon Jovi experiences: “It was a funny story because the drummer from BON JOVI was recording in the room next to us. Here we were, cranking Demanufacture, listening to some of the tracks.”

“The next thing you know the engineer from BON JOVI comes over and knocks on the door. He was like, “Hey man, do you guys mind turning down?” We were like, ‘Why?’ “Because it’s bleeding into the drum mics” on the BON JOVI record. Somewhere in the ambiance in the BON JOVI record that was recorded in 1995 [“These Days”] you can probably hear “Demanufacture” in the background.”

Cazares adds another anecdote saying: “When we were there in the studio, our engineer was on the phone and here comes this guy walking by. He thought it was the runner. We had runners in the studio that go out and get your food or whatever you want. He was like, “Can you go get me a ham sandwich with light mayo?” “Oh no, I don’t work here.’ He said, “Oh, ok.” Then one of our guys came out and saw what happened and he goes, “Do you know who you just asked to get a sandwich?” He goes, “No, who? The runner?” “No, that wasn’t the runner. That was Jon Bon Jovi!” He had no idea who he was.”

According to Bon Jovi’s wikipedia page for their 1995 album, “These Days”, the band used at least three different studios for recording. They did manage to record all basic tracks in Bearsville Studios (with the exception of “Diamond Ring” and “(It’s Hard) Letting You Go”).

Wikipedia states that “There were various reasons why so many different studios were used. One reason for studio changes, while recording in Woodstock, NY, was industrial metal band Fear Factory were recording their album Demanufacture in a neighboring studio. Bon Jovi’s engineers repeatedly complained about the volume Fear Factory were recording at as it was bleeding into their drum mics.”