Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares said late last year that he was planning to announce the band’s new singer via a new song in early 2022, but so far that hasn’t happened. Original singer Burton C. Bell said on a recent episode of “The Ex-Man” podcast with Doc Coyle, “Stepping away from Fear Factory was not an easy decision by [any] means. But what I experienced for the 10 years before that, the lawsuits, the acrimony, that was the one that killed me. And I just had to step away to realize, you know, they can take all this stuff from me — they can take the money, they can take the royalties, they can take the trademark away from me — and I realized that didn’t define me. They can take that, but I’m still Burton C. Bell, motherf*cker, and whatever I have they can’t take. So I’m just kind of moving forward and doing new things.”
Cazares explained the delay to The Garza Project Podcast in announcing a new singer. “What I was gonna do is announce the new singer just before the Static-X tour that was supposed to happen right now,” he said. “So I was gonna announce it, I was gonna release a track just before the tour, just to get some hype for the tour [and] introduce the person. But the tour got postponed, and I went on tour with Soulfly and then all this other stuff. The thing is if I announce his name right now, everybody’s gonna attack — boom! They haven’t even heard him yet, and they’re gonna attack him. So I wanna do where I release a track. Everybody’s, like, ‘Release a track right now.’ Well, there’s planning involved. I don’t wanna put a song out just to put it out and nothing behind it. So, in other words, what I’m trying to say is what most fans don’t understand is you wanna create hype for something.“
“In other words, just before a tour, I would release a song with the new singer, and people would get excited — boom! — you’ve got something to tour on. It would hopefully help generate more ticket sales, generate more interest for the band, blah blah blah blah. But if I release a track now, there’s nothing behind it and it’s just whatever. That’s what most fans don’t understand — there’s planning and there’s timing involved. So I’m withholding who this person is till the time is right… So that’s my thing that I’m saying to everybody right now, is that.”
Cazares also spoke about Bell’s departure. “I think he just lost interest in … I can only assume, because we went through some really heavy lawsuits for four years, and it financially crippled us — personally as well — and I just believe that he lost interest. I think that possibly all the stuff that we went through in Fear Factory was just, like… He’s one of those guys, ‘F*ck it. I’m out. I quit. F*ck it.’ He doesn’t come across as a fighter — as somebody who’s gonna be, like, ‘F*ck it. We went through it. Let’s go through it and let’s just continue.’ I mean, I left the door open for him for a while to come back into the band, but he pretty much said f*ck me, Raymond [Herrera, former Fear Factory drummer] and Christian [Olde Wolbers, former Fear Factory bassist] — everybody. F*ck everybody.”
