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Recently, acclaimed Ascension Of The Watchers/Fear Factory frontman Burton C. Bell was kind enough to take a break from his decidedly hectic schedule to speak with us regarding Fear Factory's hiatus and the release of the group’s highly-anticipated debut Numinosum…
Todd: How did you become involved with Ministry’s farewell tour? It must be an absolute honor to be involved with such a historical event…
Burton C. Bell: “Last year, (acclaimed keyboardist) John Bechdel, who’s a good friend of mine and is a part of Ascension Of The Watchers…told me that Ministry was doing their last record and I was like ‘Hmm…I’d like to be a part of that’. Basically, I just got (Ministry frontman) Al Jourgensen’s number and just called him up (laughs).”
Todd: Musically, what impact did Al have on writing, recording and production of Numinosum?
Burton: “All of the music was already written and arranged. We just had to record it properly. We had all the sounds, we just needed to record it properly technically. He’s got great gear. He’s got great outboard gear, he’s got an SSL board that we were able to use. He’s got an engineer for Pro Tools and an engineer who knows how to everything properly. …John and I are both experience musicians who have recorded in the past, so we just needed the right help to get us where we needed to go. Al would sit and he’d be like ‘Yeah, yeah…I like it’. He gave me some mixing pointers that I never knew about…it was awesome.”
Todd: What prompted the formation of Ascension Of The Watchers? Any truth to the rumors that the concept behind the group was based on a dream you had?
Burton: “…It all pretty much started with a dream, at least the title did. …The whole idea just came around because of the need that I had to do something that was completely me. …Music that was actually something that I would write. With Fear Factory, I never wrote any music. I was just strictly the vocalist and lyricist, so I never wrote any music. This is a need of John and me to do something really special and different…something that truly comes from our personalities.”
Todd: Overall, is it safe to say you would describe your tenure in Fear Factory as musically frustrating?
Burton: “Yes (laughs). …This is the kind of music that I’ve always listened to, ever since before Fear Factory. I was never the Metal guy in the band. I’m more into Industrial music like Godflesh and Post Punk stuff. Metal music was introduced to me because I was in Fear Factory. When I was in Fear Factory, I never wrote any music and was always into listening to different things, so… …I consider myself a vocalist. …I was getting flack even for the vocals that I came up with, even in the beginning of Fear Factory. People we’re like ‘Well, he’s not a Metal singer. He’s doin’ the heavy parts, but in between he’s singin’’. There was always some sort of scrutiny that I was under. …I’ve never considered myself a Metal singer.”
Todd: Aside from not collaborating with the other members of the group, how did the songwriting process for Numinosum differ from your songwriting experiences with Fear Factory?
Burton: “…It was less stressful (laughs). I would just sit down and play what I felt. I would just sit around and play guitar until I would find a riff that would just resonate through me and stick. (I would) just play it and play it and figure out where the riff was going and then just come up with an arrangement for it. It was completely by feeling. I didn’t follow any formula or template. That was a big difference. It was completely by feeling. That’s why some songs are really short and some songs are really long, ya know? That’s just how they felt…they needed to be that long. …”Quintessence” is a modern day orchestration. Classical music, which I also love, can be eight minutes long or it can be twenty two minutes long. It’s all about the piece…it’s all about the movement. Not all movements can happen between two and a half and four minutes. Some movements take longer.”
Todd: Prior to signing with 13th Planet Records, did you have any significant offers to release Numinosum?
Burton: “I started shopping it when we finished the demo in 2002. …I was shopping it right after that in like 2003 and pretty much shopped it for a whole year and there was just no success. No one was interested. That’s when I decided to turn around, master it and put it out as a special release. I decided that the right label would present itself to me in time, so I was just patient. …When I met Al and (Al’s wife) Angie, they were like ‘Well, we have this label’, so I started listening more and the more I listened, the more I liked what they had to say. I felt that their label was the best place to be. …I did present it to (former Fear Factory label) Liquid Eight (Records) and they passed because they had no idea what to do with it. I also sent a copy to (acclaimed RoadRunner Records A&R representative) Monte Connor and the only thing he came back with was ‘Where’s the guitars?’. I swear to God…true story. That’s all he said about it, so without even arguing I was like ‘Oh, okay’ (laughs).”
Todd: What ultimately led to the departure of Fear Factory from Liquid 8 Records? From an outsider’s perspective, it seemed to be a mutually beneficial relationship…
Burton: “…Liquid 8 just decided to not do anything after a while. They were all gung ho with the first record and then with the second record…there were a lot of factors involved with a lot of bad planning originally. I just don’t think they knew what to do. There were legal issues that the label was going through that didn’t have anything to do with us… It just all kinda fell through, so we were happy when we got released. …Right now, to me, the group is just on hiatus. There is no contractual obligation with Fear Factory right now, so I am focusing all of my attention on The Watchers.”
Todd: What are your current touring plans? I’m assuming you’ll be touring as much as humanly possible…
Burton: “…East Coast dates in February, then John and I will be going on tour with Ministry. I’m only doing the States. John will continue on in Europe. …They don’t have a need for me in Europe He’ll be done by July, so I’m coordinating a European tour and I’m trying to coordinate an American tour and a tour for different regions around the world. There will be touring later this year. It won’t be excessive, but my plan is to really make it special and make the tour an event in case it ends up being the only time we come through (laughs). …I’m working on a tour for later this year in the states. I’m trying to open for one of my favorite bands. Ever heard of The Young Gods?”
Todd: No, I haven’t…
Burton: “They’re a Swiss band that’s been around for a long time. They’re signed to (former Faith No More frontman Mike Patton’s) Ipecac Recordings. …They’re one of my all-time favorite bands. I’m tryin’ to get the opening slot for that American tour and it’s lookin’ pretty good.”
Todd: Have you found it difficult to recreate the atmospheric nature of Numinosum in a live setting?
Burton: “No. Not at all. We’ve been rehearsing a lot…and we sound good. …It has a very passionate feel live, ya know? So it comes across. I made sure that when we were writing the music that it could be played live. All of the songs were written on guitar first, so that’s the basis. It can be done live, it has been done live and it sounds pretty wicked. …We’re probably gonna do the whole record along with a few other surprises. The record is like seventy two minutes long, but we’ll still be playing everything off of the album. We’re still working on “Sounds Of Silence” (laughs). …When we went into the studio, that one became like a real studio project. Al got real gung ho with that one and wanted to do all sorts of different things on it because he loves that song…”
Todd: What musicians are you currently working with as far as a touring line-up is concerned?
Burton: “Well, there’s the three of us: John, (guitarist) Edu (Mussi) and myself. For right now, I’ve hired on a drummer (Bones Padilla) and a bass player (Alex Terhune). We’ll see how they work out. The bass player that I wanted was (the late Paul) Raven, so that’s not gonna happen. And the drummer…I’ve still got a few ideas of drummers I’d like to get in contact with. It’s been a strange year so far with trying to get a hold of people. Everyone’s been busy, so if I can bide my time properly, I think I’ll be able to find the right people later in the year, which would be cool. But we do have a touring band. There’s five people…a drummer, a bass player, Edu on guitar, John on keyboards and me playing guitar and singing.”
Todd: I wasn’t aware that you actually played guitar…
Burton: “Given the chance, I’m able to do all sorts of things. That’s the huge difference between this band and Fear Factory. To me, this band is a lot of fun because we’re all sharing and playing different instruments. We’re all sharing…I played bass on a couple of songs, guitar on all of the songs. …We switched off on different things and it was a lot of fun. I’m not really a trained musician with any of these things, but given the time, I can figure out parts for them. …This is probably the most fun I’ve ever had in a recording studio as far as recording goes (laughs). I’ve had some fun in studios before, but not while I was recording (laughs).”
Todd: Overall, how would you describe the music Ascension Of The Watchers creates?
Burton: “…I have yet to put a label on the music. …I leave it to whoever is listening to it to categorize it in their own personal way. To me, it’s just music. …I really love Ambient type of stuff. I remember when Fear Factory was touring with Obituary. We were in a van and I was doing most of the driving. I only had two CDs with me. One was a Mazzy Star CD and one was a Velvet Underground CD, so I’d be listening to Obituary in the evening, but in the morning, I’d just be listening to Mazzy Star and Velvet Underground (laughs). That’s all I wanted to listen to, really. To me, Industrial music predates Nine Inch Nails, so there’s actual Industrial music like…Swans, Whitehouse…really Throbbing Gristle style stuff that predates Nine Inch Nails…or anything like that. This is really avant-garde on the border of being Ambient, ya know? There’s a German band out there called Can and they we’re doing it was back in the ‘70’s…”.
Todd: How did you become involved with photography? Prior to the release of Numinosum, I wasn’t aware of the extent of your accomplishments…
Burton: “…It started way back. Really, my interest in photography started when I was eight years old. I was living in Austin, Texas and I was one of the first children involved in this afterschool program designed to generate an interest in the arts for children. These artists in the community would come together and give their time for these seminars…that would last a whole year. There was a local artist teaching Drama and Dance, there was a local artist teaching painting and sculpting, there was a local artist teaching video and there was a local artist teaching photography. …We’d stay afterschool and these artists would really just share their craft with us. Our Elementary School has darkroom of all things. I was only eight years old, but I was taking my own pictures and developing my own pictures. I’ve still got negatives from when I was eight years old and I’ve got books and books of pictures that I’ve taken. Basically, it’s my first love…before writing, before music, before anything. I still take pictures. I look at the world like I’m looking through a lens. Everything is a picture to me. …The photos you see on the album are a series that I’ve done over the last few years of nighttime shots when it’s been really foggy…”
Select Discography
Numinosum (2008) **
Iconoclast (EP) (2005) **
Transgression (2005) *
Bite The Hand That Bleeds (EP) (2004) **
Archetype (2004) **
Hatefiles (2003) *
Concrete (2002) *
Digimortal (2001) *
Obsolete (1999) *
Remanufacture (1997) *
Demanufacture (1995) *
Fear Is The Mindkiller (EP) (1993) *
Soul Of A New Machine (1993) *
* as a member of Fear Factory
** as a member of Ascension Of The Watchers