I recently helped my mom move from San Leandro to Pleasant Hill, which is closer to me, warmer and nicer. During the move we found all kind of classic #ThrowbackThursday material. She gave me a handful of old pictures the other day including the one below.

I want to say this picture is from somewhere around early 1985, before my Dad and her split up, and before my mom kicked me out of the house. I already had my Kramer strat shaped guitar which meant that it was after I had my dishwashing / table bussing job at Marie Calendars on Fremont Blvd. near The Hub, and I had worked all summer my junior year to save up for that. I probably hadn't started the heavy partying at that point, probably just weekend house parties with weed, mescaline, and booze.

This was the Fremont house we lived in on Kipling Ct. in the Brookvale neighborhood behind Brookvale Elementary and American High the whole time I was in Junior High and High School. As you can see, I was WAY into Judas Preist and Iron Maiden at the time hence all the Priest posters, but I was also getting into the thrash stuff big time. Back then you just couldn't find posters of your favorite thrash bands, so I would cut out pictures from magazines like Kerrang! and Metal Forces. This sounds nuts, but my friend Jim and I would take BART (the local subway system) 40 miles to San Francisco, then walk well over a mile uphill from Market St., up the notoriously gay / junkie filled Polk St. to go to the awesome Record Vault where we would buy bootlegs, imports, magazines and demos of our favorite metal bands. We would then walk the junkie filled / gay mile back down hill, take the 40 mile ride back to Fremont, all just so we could cut out pictures to hang on our wall
...and dream.

If I'm not mistaken the bands hanging up behind me are Judas Priest / Halford, a large red Black Sabbath banner from the cover of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Yngwie Malmsteen, Metallica, an Ozzy Osbourne "Mr. Crowley Live EP" picture disc with bonus track "You Said It All", a Witchfinder General "Death Penalty" picture disc with huge-breasted hottie on the cover that I regularly masturbated to. There's pictures of Bruce Dickenson, Hetfield, Kerry King, a hand-drawn Megadeth logo from the first shirt they made, and Accept / Wolf Hoffman (dude was / is such a bad ass!). The Radio Shack "cassette tape player" on the desk and that brown satin bed sheet are priceless, ah the 80's!!

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Re: JEFF HANNEMAN

I was in Gulf Shores on a company trip with all the owners and top employees, when my best friend texted me the sad news about Jeff H. I pulled up a picture of Jeff put my phone on the bar ordered a fucking Heineken said cheers to my phone drank and cried. Slayer has influenced me and all the bands i have listened to since 86 (and earlier) and nobody i work with has a fucking clue. I felt so alone. They were all very respectful but i was just overwhelmed and they all new it.

Reign in Blood has always been the Bible for all metal for me. Been waiting so long for him to make a come back. I'm just devastated.

I was at that show International Ballroom in Atlanta, SLAYER and MACHINE FUCKING HEAD crushed that mutherfucker. I am so sad for all his brothers and family.
Rest in Piece with so much respect.

Pour all of your frustrations, stress, anger, and feeling of loss into your new music. Cry and fucking write it will all come together that's what you do.
respectfully

Bobby



Re: JEFF HANNEMAN

Touching tribute Robb - The story about the kid on the bus sounds like one of those classic moments haha! The world of metal is going to be a much sadder place without a talent like Jeff. R.I.P Brother!

Jim



Re: JEFF HANNEMAN

Obviously didn't get to know the guy on a personal level, but goddamn if I wasn't floored at this news. Truly is a sad day for the metal community, but hey! look at it this way! heavens gonna have one helluva houseband when we all get there.

Jason



Re: JEFF HANNEMAN

Just beautifully written. Slayer has been one of my biggest influences with my guitar playing. I shed a few tears today and BLASTED South of Heaven today in my car. 49 is way to young.

Tim



Re: JEFF HANNEMAN
It's sincerely sad that Jeff is gone, A Metal Master no longer with us. My deepest condolences to the Hanneman family & to Slayer, We Metalheads won't let Jeff's memory die

Chris


Re: JEFF HANNEMAN

It's good to hear that people like you, Robb, and Jeff are not emotionally stunted and ego-tripping, but that you do care for your fellow human in moments of desperation. I was never a really big Slayer fan, and hearing that Jeff died shocked me big time, but for you to come out and share as personal a memory as the last one honestly made me cry. I'm reminded by Zakk Wylde's quip on bullies "If a man doesn't fucking bleed and he doesn't cry, you don't trust him. He ain't a fucking man." If anything you showed that Jeff was a man in the truest sense of the word.

Thank You for sharing this with all of us. The world is a poorer place now.

Rest in Peace, Jeff Hannemann

Sebastian


Re: JEFF HANNEMAN

Love how you don't sugar coat shit robb you keep it real , a great loss has happened to the metal world and slayer will never be the same. Rest easy jeff see you on the other side

Sean


Re: JEFF HANNEMAN

The most honest memoir and tributary account that I've ever read. Written for a great musician; by a great musician (that I even had the privilege of working with), and both of whom I grew up listening to and have influenced my own creativity in so many ways. Thank you Robb Flynn. Jeff Hanneman IS SLAYER, and just like so many other great musicians who have passed, his music makes him truly immortal and never forgotten in our hearts and minds. Thank you and R.I.P. Jeff Hanneman

Adam


Re: JEFF HANNEMAN

I was trying to think of something profound to say about this, but all I could come up with is: Fuck! . . . And thanks for sharing Robb. Good shit. I went to the Denver leg of the Bio-MH-Slayer tour you mentioned at the old Mammoth Theater.

Paul


Re: JEFF HANNEMAN

Perfect farewell to a great icon in this theater of thrash, metal, music..... well spoken Robb, respect. All the best for Jeff's family. And a big fuckin hail to all thrasers!!!!!! Keep on listening his work!!

Gábor


Re: JEFF HANNEMAN

Thanks Robb, that's better than any crap from any mag, that's humble truth and insight from a top shelf thrasher. Thanks for sharing ur experience with us. Jeff was the quiet foundation of Slayer, he will be missed!

Tommy

Still can't believe that Jeff Hanneman from Slayer is dead, things like that just don't happen. Thrashers don't die??!! WTF!!??

I'm not going to sit here and say how him and I were best buds or something, we definitely weren't, I'd barely call us acquaintances, I did 8 tours and over 120 shows with the dude and honestly, I never really got to "know him". I was always closer with Kerry. Jeff was super quiet, really kept to himself, would get rowdy when he was drunk, but was a bit aloof, and seemed annoyed at the people partying around him despite the fact that he himself would be getting hammered.

I can remember some good hangs with him though. The first was in Basel, Switzerland back in November, 1994 when Machine Head was main support to Slayer on the Divine Intervention tour. It was one of those shows were something so random happens it just never leaves you, in this case, the show was sponsored by Chesterfield cigarettes and every kid entering the show got 2 free packs of smokes. I've never seen so much smoke in a venue in my life. I remember walking onstage and yelling at our roadie / everything-guy Mike Scum, "DUDE, turn off the fuckin' smoke machine", he said "YOOOOO, it's not the smoke machine bro, it's the cigarettes!" It was damn near impossible to breath onstage. After the show we were hanging backstage and Jeff walked back, we started bitching about the crazy cigarette show, and he invited me back to the dressing room to grab a beer, we sat down and chatted for a while, and then I went all Slayer-nerd on him and started grilling him on what songs he wrote.

Me: "Who wrote Angel Of Death?"
Jeff: "I did"
Me: "Lyrics too?"
Jeff: "Yep"
Me: "Reign In Blood?"
Jeff: "Me"
Me: "Dead Skin Mask?"
Jeff: "Yep"
Me: "South Of Heaven?"
Jeff: "Me"
Me: "Black Magic?"
Jeff: "You know it"
Me: "Hell Awaits?"
Jeff: "Yep"

On and on it went, that man wrote both the music and lyrics to a large goddamn portion of my favorite Slayer songs. He was a huge influence on my songwriting growing up in particular with arrangements and the bold use of key changes. The one thing Slayer band always had over so many other bands is they were all over the guitar neck when it came to key changes. Leads would be in some of the most random keys ever, but somehow it made it all that much more frantic, and when the chorus kicked back in, BOOM! CRUSHING! Set up perfectly. He was one of the few metal heads I met who never really got into Pantera, he told me he "liked some stuff", but thought they we're "too bluesy at times", and that he "liked more evil notes or sad riffs"

Another good memory was sharing a tour bus on the August 2001 Korean / Japan / Australia tour, it was all fly-dates and hotels, we were sharing crew, tour manager and manager, so we all rode on the bus together to and from the airport to the hotel every day. Sometimes the rides were an hour or two, so you'd just all BS and hang. One time a kid in Australia bum-rushed the bus while we were all sitting in it, hammered after partying one night. He was desperate for autographs and came on the bus screaming (what else?) "SLAAAAAAAAAYYYYYEEEEERRRR!!!" He then saw me and went all, "Oh shit, Robb Flynn, mate I fuckin' LOVE Machine Head, but it's fuckin' SLAAAAAAAYYYYYYYEEEERRRRR", I looked the fucker right in the eye and slurred, "Oh just FUCK RIGHT OFF!!" Hanneman fell out dying, he laughed for 10 minutes straight, cracked him up, that slightly feminine high pitched giggle that he always did.

Dude backed me when Kerry King and I were beefin' all that time long ago, he would come up to me at festivals and would talk, just be normal. He even backed me in Decibel magazine when they asked him about the beef, saying "Robb is a good dude", and that "Kerry was like the girlfriend of the band, always beefin' with someone". I got a good laugh outta that.

The last memory I'll share is from the American leg of the Divine Intervention tour in March 1995. It was Slayer band, Biohazard supporting, and Machine Head opening. We were playing the International Ballroom in Atlanta, Georgia. He had been sitting out some of the new songs from "Divine", which was odd to me. We were hanging out in their dressing room before the show, just him and I, and I mustered up the nerve to ask him what the deal with it was. At first he joked that he just "didn't feel like learning them, didn't like 'em, Kerry wrote them", he was chuckling, and then he stopped. He looked down and got serious. He said he'd been having a lot of pain in his wrists, his hands and wrists were going numb all the time, and would go numb during those songs because they were really fast, then he started to cry. It was a startling confession. I offered some awkward feel-good comment, but he just continued to cry, and I decided to sit there in the silence with him for a minute. He gave me a hug, and said "Whoa!", and laughed, walked out toward the stage, turned back and said "thanks dude".

It was an intense moment, one of those rare, intense moments you have with someone, let alone with someone from another band.

It made me really respect the dude.

That's the Jeff I'm gonna remember.

To Kerry, Tom, Dave, Paul, Rick Sales Mgmt and Jeff's family, my sincere condolences.

R.I.P brother.

Here's the story on Blabbermouth.

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Been writing a lot of lyrics lately, it's been going slow, still trying to find that "thing", that "subject", that "hook" for each of the 4 finished songs we have. It can be goddamn frustrating as all hell. You write and write and write, or you freestyle over the song while playing it, hoping it "tells you something", and one day you think something clicks! You go write it down or go to sing it, and it's a mess, doesn't make any sense, doesn't go with the vibe of the song, back to the ol' drawing board. I read a quote once by Keith Richards (from back when he wrote good songs), "that when you're writing, you're just a vessel, you need to let the music pour in and out of you, go thru you".

It's true in so many ways.

In the past, I've written awesome, poetic lyrics for some songs before, lyrics that I was really proud of, and I just could not get them to work with the song, it just didn't "go".

And that's where I am right now, 2 binders, half-full of cool, different, poetic lyrics that just don't "go".
**pounds head against table**

I woke up this morning at 6AM, wrote a whole a new set of lyrics, on a whole new subject, to the 2nd song we wrote, gonna take a pass at singing it today, no idea if it'll work.

The one song title we have is "Beneath The Silt". In some ways, it kinda reminds me of "Elegy" from "Through The Ashes Of Empires", has a stoner-ish-vibe about it, but tuned way down to F#, and with those Machine Head trademarks, the oft-imitated oscillating high notes, ala- the beginning of "Ten Ton Hammer". It's a cool song, different, pretty straight ahead for us, and short by Machine Head standards 4 and 1/2 minutes (LOL!)

Been finishing up some rough demos that we are recording in our Jam Room, laying down guitar tracks, been jamming thru some new ENGL amps, checked out a Powerball II and their new amp the Savage 120, the Savage 120 is B-R-U-T-A-L! Not digging the Powerball II. Also, going to check out a new Prototype from Randall today called the Thrasher, it was designed by Mike Fortin who is known in amp circles as somewhat of a Mod God (for all the non-musos that means: a god of amp modifications, LOL). Been playing them through the non-jumbo, traditional, straight Mesa Boogie cabinets, it's hard to beat the Boogie cabinet, so fucking TIGHT! It almost adds a pre-mixed expensiveness to any amp once you mic it up.

Got a good chunk of guitars done, will finish those up today before it gets broken down for tomorrow. Got a good chunk of bass done too on the demos, Phil has been laying down the bass tracks so far and it's gone really well, he's got a lot of cool ideas, locking in with Dave's insanely awesome drum beats.

Today is the last day for tracking guitars on the demo as we're getting ready to begin try-outs tomorrow (Friday). Got 8 guys lined up so far, some "known" guys, some dudes who are under the radar, all have touring / stage experience. It's exciting in some ways, and weird in others, I never thought I'd be going through this process again, and it fucks with my head from time to time.

It's just a fill-in slot for Mayhem, but these guys have to deliver on several levels, they got a bit of big shoe to fill, the dude who used to be onstage left was a presence, so we're going to test these guys out musically, performance-wise, creatively, and see if there's any kind of chemistry there.

I'll let you know how it goes next week.

We’re in an exciting period, that’s for sure. There’s some pressure here and there but that comes from within. Machine Head has always strived to bring our people the best of what we have. Whether it’s the music, tours, merchandise, etc. we just want to give our people what they deserve. Right now the focus is the songs, the riffs, the feel and how it all comes together. In addition to the four songs, we also have a ton of riffs ready to be put to use, not to mention all the ideas still in my head. When I look at what our collective craniums have in store for the maniacal Machine Head fan, all I can think of is this…

“We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

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As this summers Mayhem Festival draws near, the Machine Head boys recount tales of mayhem and debauchery in a new blog series called "Mayhem Memories".

This week: Robb tries to remember "the best party EVER... that he wasn't at"

-------------------

Ah, Mayhem 2011, it was a blur, a fun, an often times insane blur that when I look back am, amazed I survived. Let me rewind a little though. John Reese co-founder of the Mayhem Festival and I have the same birthday, so when we do the Mayhem tour, we have a joint birthday party. We've known John for a long time, he is one of the best people you'll ever meet, heart of gold, and MAN, does that dude know how to throw a party!!! We had an EPIC party on the 2008 Mayhem tour, and back in 2011 we vowed to go even bigger!

But let's go back a little further bit and explain the whole scenario a bit. It was June 2011, I was producing and recording "Unto The Locust", Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival was starting soon, and we had a few warm up dates before that, recording took a little longer than expected and we weren't finished, Colin Richardson had started mixing our record and it was going slow, we hadn't quite nailed a mix yet, when suddenly his ex-wife passed away. Obviously it was a horrible and very sad time, Colin has been our friend and producer / mixer for a long time, mixed 6 out of 7 Machine Head albums, and understandably, Colin had to leave the mix.

His engineers helped Carl Bown and Ging helped get the mixes up and running at JingleTown Recording, Green Day's Oakland studio, and unexpectedly, it was now up to my engineer Juan and I to mix the record, using Colin's 2 mixes as a template. There was talk of getting someone else to mix it, but some of the songs on UTL were so vast in a recording context (some of them had 110 tracks!), most people just wouldn't have even known where to start, so we thought it best to have Juan and I do it since we had already been involved in every song since the writing process began.

So yeah, that's right, I gotta go on tour in a few days, my engineer and I now have an album to mix that we didn't think we had to, it's the follow up to "The Blackening", some songs have 110 tracks, no pressure!

So I start to ask myself, how am I going to pull this whole mixing-the-album-while-on-tour-thing off? Well, at first, it's almost easy, the tour dates all start on the West Coast, I'm driving around in my 4-Runner to the shows, that night driving back to Oakland to mix, the next morning, then drive out to the next show, drive back, Juan email's mixes, I download while driving, listen, call him, make corrections / suggestions. It wasn't so bad... at first... but once we got outside of California, I had to start flying, and that's when (as the British say) "it all went pear shaped".

So now, I'm listening to mixes all day, playing a show on Mayhem, catching a red-eye flight that night back to Oakland, mix all day, catch a 5AM flight back to wherever the next Mayhem date is, play show, lose mind, repeat.

More than a few times I'd leave Oakland at 6AM, fly for 7 hours, land at 4 PM, find out the venue is an hour away from the airport, have to be onstage at 5PM, jump in cab, freak out on the driver, lose mind, repeat. In Boston, I literally pulled up, hopped out of the cab, threw my stage clothes on and walked onstage. It was fucking bananas.

As "the most epic birthday party of 2011" approaches, I let Juan know that I wouldn't be coming to mix that next day off after my birthday, as I was planning on recovering from the "the most epic birthday hangover of 2011", but as the date got closer, we ended up running into a snag that required that I absolutely had to be there, no way out of it.

I was bummed, like fuckin', SUPER bummed!

Here we are on Mayhem, set to throw "the most epic birthday bash of 2011", and now, I can't be there. AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!! I let John, Keri Lee, and all of the amazing girls on the Mayhem team know the deal, and we bum out over bottles of wine. I flew home, landed at midnight, worked on the "making of UTL" DVD with Scott the director til 3 AM... slept 'til 8 AM... woke up... mixed... stewed in anger.

So there I am, goddamn BUMMED, in goddamned Oakland, working on these goddamn mixes, for this goddamn album, for my goddamn band, missing my goddamn birthday party, and missing the making of what should have been the most goddamn epic hangover, when I start getting photos texted to me from a bunch of my dudes, and other band friends.

You see, Keri Lee and the Mayhem girls had paid to have a full-size cardboard cut-out of me to be at the birthday party, and let me tell you, word on the street was that the Robb Flynn-cardboard-cut-out was getting HAMMERED and having the time of his LIFE!!!

EVERYONE bought him a shot, Suicide Silence fed him cake, the Robb Flynn-cardboard-cut-out had a foursome with 3 hot chicks, did blow, did stage dives, posed for pictures with everyone, and Dan from Disturbed crowdsurfed him across the whole party!! While he started off as a total “stiff,” cardboard-Robb was the life of the party!!
BA DAP PSSSSHH!!!

It was really fuckin' cool. Probably one of the coolest things anyone was has done for me. I was was greatly moved. And even though I missed the party... I have an amazing memory for it.

This year my / our birthday party will fall on either the Camden, New Jersey date or Hartford, Connecticut date, and let me assure you, I WILL NOT BE MISING THIS ONE, in fact, I'm fucking ready now!!!! Are you? Join me!!

Bring on Mayhem 2013!!!!

- Robb

Cardboard-Robb hammered and passed out in his bunk:

Read Dave's Mayhem Memories Here!

Read Phil's Mayhem Memories Here!

Martinez, CA, 3:15 AM, been up for an hour, can't sleep, laying in bed, and thinking. Thinking, and thinking, and thinking. McClain says I think too much, he might be right, so it's better that I write. So here I am, up and writing a General Journal.

I get these occasional bouts of sleeplessness or even insomnia. When this happens, I'll often get up and write... lyrics, music, journals, helps quiet my mind. I wrote the majority of lyrics for The Blackening at 5 AM in my kitchen during the recording of the album. Come home from tracking at midnight, go to sleep at 1 AM, wake up at 5 AM, write lyrics in my kitchen while the dawn came. That was my routine for 2 months.

That, and not sleeping in my bed.

My oldest son Zander (then-2 years old) would be sleeping in my "really comfortable" Eastern King bed with my then-pregnant wife Genevra. I'd be sleeping in his "really uncomfortable" Twin bed in his room. Not that I wanted to sleep in the Twin bed, but he'd only sleep in his bed for a couple hours, then sneak into our bed every night, and Zander was such a crazy sleeper, that after he crawled into our bed, sleep was literally impossible. There he'd be, the craziest sleeper in the world, tossing and turning all night, arms flailing, punching our faces during the night, his razor sharp baby-toe-nails scratching down our backs, I'd wake up with his whole body laying across my throat choking me, wondering why I was dreaming about being strangled, LOL, ... ah kids... gotta love 'em.

Yeah, the Twin bed was as good as it got back in November / December 2006, in fact it was heaven.

And for some reason now, that's always what my mind goes back to when I can't sleep, The Blackening period, and I like that thought. It's better than the other thought. It's better than the thought that used to be there

Back when I was a kid and I couldn't sleep, I'd lay in my bed, shade pulled down, and I'd hear the train off in the distance (I just heard a train laying in bed earlier and it triggered this memory), we lived near the train tracks and the BART (subway) station when I lived half way down the block on 810 Viddel St. in San Lorenzo. I'd listen to that train getting closer and closer, and then it would finally pass. I'd listen for hours, sleepless, crying, the rain and the train.

I have bad memories of the train tracks.

I went back and visited those train tracks during the recording of The Burning Red, I don't know what I hoped to find, it was different than I remembered it. I sat there hoping to feel something, anything, but nothing ever came. I went back to my house off of Grant St. in Berkeley that afternoon and started writing. The first line I wrote was "To whom it may concern"... I'm not sure why... it never got used cause it's such a random way to start a lyric, but ultimately the the lyrics that poured out of me that day became "From This Day". A heavy, deep, set of lyrics that I put over a sort-of pop melody. I've always admired artists who could pull that off, take a somber, depressing or fucked up lyric (ala - Robert Smith or Morrisey) and put it over a catchy melody so that people go around whistling this catchy hook, with a totally fucked up meaning.

A lot of people try and shit on that song (mainly for that god awful video with me dressed like a box of orange juice!) but the lyrics to that song came from a place of deep pain, of real pain. That song is what opened the floodgates for the song "Five" to come about. The wound had been picked open, now it was time to dig around through the maggots.

It's 5:15 AM now, I'm gonna try and go back to sleep. Sleep so that I can get up and "not" think, but enjoy, enjoy life.

Yesterday was a fucking frustrating day of demoing, went in with such high expectations and got almost nothing done, AGH!!

But it's a new day.


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DEMOS

McClain and I had a really good jam session on Monday. It was one of those jam-days where you feel a breakthrough happen, a day where for no apparent reason several things fall into place and start to make sense. It is an amazing yet hard to explain feeling, but you know that a huge chunk of progress just happened! New riffs flowed, new ideas materialized and new concepts explored. It was definitely one of “those” days. We had one more day of rehearsals yesterday and we'll start demoing the new tunes today with my trusty engineer Juan from Trident Studios manning Da Tools. Phil begins his Jackson Guitars Clinic Tour overseas for a couple weeks, so it’s a perfect time to demo. I tend to take over the jam room when demoing, so rehearsals fall by the wayside as I track and experiment with a million different ideas. Europeans interested in checking out any of Phil's clinics, dates below.

Musikmesse Frankfurt
Fender/Jackson booth Hall 4.0 booth E08
Thursday April 11th, Friday 12th, Saturday 13th

Bologna @ 19:00 Sunday 14th
Music Academy 2000's Theatre

Milan @ 13:00 Monday 15th
Lucky Music Store

Helsinki @ 19:00 Tuesday 16th
DLX Musikki

Gothenburg @ 12:00 Wednesday 17th
4SOUND

Stockholm @ 19:00 Wednesday 17th
4SOUND

Paris (Juvisy Sur Orge) @ 19:00 Thursday 18th
MUSIC ESSONNE

La Garde @ 17:00 Friday 19th
STEEL MUSIC

Brighton @ 18:30 Saturday 20th
GAK

Glasgow @ 14:00 Sunday 21st
Guitar Guitar


DESERT ROADS

"In the desert you can remember your name, 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain"

As I mentioned in my last Journal, the fam and I went on a much needed vacation to Rancho Mirage in the Palm Desert area of Southern California. Genevra, myself, the 2 kids and the 2 dogs. The hotel is dog-friendly which is a cool perk and they don't even charge for the dogs, they just ask you to sign a damage waiver. The hotel itself is based around 2 smaller waterslide parks and several pools, way kid-friendly and there’s also a large golf course (though I don't play). The Rancho Mirage area has quite a few hotels based around waterparks, pretty rad, and seeing how it's the desert and was 92 degrees (33.3 Celsius to the Euros) on most days (in APRIL!!) why the hell not?

While I had planned to stay "on the wagon," (ie: sober) so if you're GONNA fall off the wagon, well, THERE is the place to do it. While I wasn't sure IF I'd fall off the wagon while on vacation, hell...I fell off the wagon in GLORIOUS fashion. My friend Tracy who went sober for 2 months said when he fell off, "he fell off the wagon, rolled down the hill, bounced in the air, hit a tree, smashed into a branch, punctured a lung on the way down, and landed on his ass."

While I didn't fall off THAT hard I will say after 3 months of sobriety, it's was a freakin' blast! The hotel allows you to bring your own booze as long as it's in plastic containers, so the wife and I drank Chopin Rye Vodka Mojito's with agave instead of sugar syrup and fresh mint all day. No responsibilities except going down the waterslides and swimming, playing foosball or air hockey, making sure the kids had burgers, and the dogs got a walk to go poop. It was nothing fancy, just good times.

Sometimes you need to hit the reset button, and that's exactly what happened.

We take our time getting down there, it takes about 2 days and rather than drive through downtown Los Angeles halfway through the Grapevine we'll cut across towards the Mojave Desert. It's a beautiful drive with way less traffic and some of the most unusual towns and places on Earth, it's a lot like visiting an alien planet and I HIGHLY recommend it. That there is actually ANY town out there in the desert is amazing and when you consider that in the summer they're smack dab in the middle of a desert that reaches 125 degrees and in certain areas have 50 mile an hour winds to boot! But yet, there are these weird, unique, abandoned ghost towns and occasionally very depressing and very real towns. Like the movie "The Hills Have Eyes" but for real and that is part of the charm. Part of what makes it such an interesting place to travel through. I bet there are some brutal bands out there.

Because of the heat (or not), many of the houses have burned down. On our travels thru the desert whenever I'd see one of these burned out houses, I'd park, and much to chagrin of my wife would go in and take photos. The smell was nothing short of brutal so I held my breath in most of them.



We also stopped at an Exotic Feline Breeding Reserve near Lancaster. There were fuckin' black leopards, panthers, snow leopards, tigers, all just cool as hell! This too comes HIGHLY recommended!



There are also these areas where the wind just RIPS, its nutzo! We’re talking 50 to 70 mile per hour winds ripping at your face! So powerful that all the energy companies have erected these Star Wars-looking wind-mills in the windiest areas and it's a goddamn trip to drive through. I know these pictures don't do the height or scale of how far they stretch over the mountain-sides justice, but take my word, they're fucking HUGE!



Driving along these roads can also be a bit dangerous as the mind can start to wander. Being in deserted areas surrounded by the Earth’s energy just does things to you. It forces us to adapt and adjust. Just being out of your comfort zone forces us to do things differently and this isn’t lost on me. As I write this I’m back at home and the kids are back at school and we’re all back in our “comfort zone”. Machine Head is about to hit “record” on the next step of our (damn near) two decade journey, there are songs to write, demos to track, tour dates confirmed and obstacles to climb. Windmills have been replaced with city landscapes and the empty desert highway is now clogged with Bay Area traffic. I find comfort in all of the above as I really have no choice.

I learned a long time ago how to adapt to just about any surrounding, it’s all just another extension of the desert road.

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For 4 years in a row, the family and I have taken a trip down to Rancho Mirage in the Palm Springs area of Southern California for the kids Spring Break. They have a few hotels down here that are built around waterslide parks and for 5 days we'll hang at the pool, endlessly hit the waterslides, swim, eat amazing Mexican food, while Genevra and I drink vodka-Mojitos and Blue Moons w/ orange.

It is one of life's little treasures.

I really enjoyed this break, been stressed out. I have a bad habit of letting Machine Head consume my life (and it can be all all-consuming) so from time to time I go "off the grid". Turn off the phone, not check email 100 times a day, not answer texts 300 times a day. So while I'm writing this journal, (this is something I enjoy and don't consider work), I'm on vacation, full journals will resume next week, promise!

My son Wyatt said something today that I liked the sentiment of, we were walking back to the pool, we both had no flip-flops, we're barefoot, the ground was hot, and he said, "Dada, we have to walk in the shadows"

Yes son...

Yes we do.

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As this summer's Mayhem Festival draws near, the Machine Head boys recount tales of mayhem and debauchery in a new blog series called "Mayhem Memories".

This week: Phil Demmel tries to remember 2011.

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Mayhem memory?

It's more of what people remind me that I did one fateful night in Chicago. It all started with our friends from Soil playing a one-off on the Jager stage and raging on (literally) their bus. The drinking started a bit earlier that day so by the time the Underoath-sponsored Cornhole Tournament (a beanbag tossing game) rolled around, Ivan from 5FDP and I were donning red/white/ and blue Evil Kneviel Helmets and bashing bottles over our heads.

Since that wasn't enough, I proceed to impersonate a Bull and knock over all the garbage cans in the parking lot with my head and, rumor has it, tackled a Port-a-Potty like it was game-saver at the goal-line. I guess I had forgotten to take my laptop out of my bunk before I poured into it, and woke up to a cracked screen.

Needless to say this started a 7 month sober period for yours truly. THANKS MAYHEM!!!!!

Man...

I was in a pretty dark place last week, probably the darkest place I've been in a while, one of the most brutal depressions that I can remember. I'm in a better place now. Some really good talks came out of it with the people around me and thankfully the black fog has lifted.

I also want to thank all of you for the well wishes. I just finished reading through a lot of them. A bunch of friends and family both in as well as outside of the music business reached out to me and offered some fantastic insight and advice. Most of all, I want to thank Dave, Phil, and Joseph for being there for me when I needed it. I needed their patience, their strength, and their understanding, and they gave it to me.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: I do these Journals because I want a connection. Because I have some kind of disconnection in my life, I NEED this. I get a lot out of these. This is a Journal about not only Machine Head, but a little bit of my life too. And just like everyone else I have good days and bad days, happy and sad days. There are days when I want to take on the world and then the total opposite when I want to just sleep all day. While I would love to deliver you just the good news and do my best to keep it positive, that also isn't the reality of the world, yours or mine.

Sometimes life is hard, sometimes the world is fucked. Most of the time it isn't, and these Journals will reflect that, but sometimes it is, and these Journals will reflect that too. It would feel so phony to me to just pretend like everything is always good and that no bad ever happens in our lives. To only write these uplifting motivational “Machine Head-is-kicking-ass"-things once a week would burn me out. It would make me feel like a salesman trying to sell you some positivity. I am a lot of things to a lot of people, but one thing I am not is full of shit, so these Journals will never be about a sales pitch.

One of the main reasons I stopped doing the Journals back in 2010 was because I WAS burned out on them. It felt like all I talked about was how "Houston was great," "record is doing great," "here's what Machine Head are up to," a maybe a little bit of personal stuff. But mostly it was just "the good stuff."

There’s nothing wrong with the good stuff, especially when it's absolutely warranted and true, but writing a consistent Journal (once a week like I'm making the effort to)... it gets boring. Writing these takes some effort. I mean the first 5 are easy but then what do you write about? When I became inspired again to share this stuff with you guys (and girls) I decided that it needed to be more than just Machine Head and more than just the “good” each and every time, and while I always tie MH into it somehow, truthfully our life just isn't always that interesting (LOL!).

I certainly didn't expect to be writing things like "Beneath The Silt," I had no idea what I was even going to write about that morning. I sat down and started typing, and it felt like a broken fire hydrant of shit just poured out. It's a topsy-turvy moment in our lives too.

So I'm trying to find a balance. But it won't be perfect, and not being perfect is something I need to be "ok with" in my life. Not all my journals can be "thrash reminiscing", not all of them will be funny and uplifting. Some will be great, others will suck, just like life itself. I'm not here to lead you; I'm not here to inspire you. I’ve said it in song lyrics, "I'm just as lost as you". That’s 100% true, and getting that connection I mentioned earlier... maybe we can help each other out? Maybe we can learn from each other along the way? I’ve accomplished a few things so far in life but I still have A LOT to learn, believe me!! Teach me.

I also realize that I am a lucky man. I get to make music for a living. I get to tour the world in a band that's kicking ass. I’m surrounded by band/management dudes who believe in me. I’m lucky to have fans who believe in me. In my opinion most bands never want you to think that the band life is anything but glamorous. However, that being said, if we could all trade problems with one another, I'm certain that once we saw each other’s problems… we'd be more than happy to trade them all back. They’re just different problems.

Believe it or not, writing "Beneath The Silt" made me feel a little better. When I was finished with that journal, I wrote lyrics for about an hour. What came out was some of the most fucked up, depressing, hateful lyrics I’ve written in my life. They may not ever get used. I mean they're so weird and fucked we’ll just have to wait and see. But writing them made me feel a little better too. Talking with Genevra that night helped me figure out a lot of where it was coming from too (as it usually does when we talk). Over the last week, I've climbed out of the hole. If there was a silver lining (and there always is) some great music has come out of it. We've been really productive writing-wise. As of last night we have 4 songs pretty much done musically, another 5 jams / half songs. The song we finished last night felt like it could be something really special. Phil has been on a riff roll, bringing some really unique sounding riffage and Dave McClain (our secret weapon) has brought some damn cool riffs to the table as well.

I appreciate you guys reading these, I'm lucky to have you guys reading. I'm lucky to have anyone who gives a shit about these ramblings. You don't have to read them, and if you don't like them, by all means, you are free to stop reading them. If I was in a shitty mood, I'm not sure I would want to read about someone else's shitty mood...? Then again, I follow a few peoples blogs, and sometimes reading how they’re going through a shitty time too, helps me make sense of the world.


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You ever feel let down?

Like everyone you know is just a complete and utter fucking idiot? That the people in your life are all part of some gigantic plot to test you to your very breaking point? That you're in some fucking game that you don't even want to be playing in, and yet, somehow you are forced to roll the dice over and over again, so that you can lose, and learn some goddamned lesson you're supposed to learn, but are never sure if you do learn the lesson, because not shortly thereafter, you have to roll those same black and white squares again, and the same irritating cluster of black dots comes up, and the identical result happens.

That's what I feel right now.

Frustration.

So unbelievably frustrated beyond belief.

A hamster wheel, continually spinning under my feet.

Groundhogs Day, you wake up and the same thing happens day in and day out. You just watch it, powerless to change it. You wake the next day, and the same people are doing the same things, and you just have to fucking take it. Take it, and take it, and take it, over and over and over again.

Swallowed by the suffocating silence of a breathless watery abyss.

At the bottom of a spider hole, staring at the faintest light up above, so far away. Clawing at the jagged rock walls until fingers are bloody nubs

A thick black fog behind my brow, forcing eyes closed.

A dream, running as fast as you can, feet stuck in some invisible quicksand.

A dream, flying, for one brief moment in the air, free... some inexplicable reason you start to fall... nothing stops the descent.

You want to change it, you try to change it, you fight to change it, and just before you hit the ground you wake up. Or you don't... like some slow motion scene in a movie, you watch your body slowly break apart. Smash on the concrete. Shatter in the dirt. Guts splattering. Bones breaking. It doesn't hurt, but you know it's bad, it's very bad.

And then you wake. "Is this dying?", "Is this the afterlife?"

You realize you're awake, heart racing, normalcy sets in, you remember it, understand, take it in.

That every failure, you have to own, it was your fault, that you deserve it, that there is no one to blame but yourself.

Nothing is going to change. Nothing will change.

There's no happy ending.

What did Mitch Lucker write?

"The dead are living".

Sink to the bottom.

Beneath the silt.


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I was scrolling through my Instagram feed the other day, and I stumbled onto Randy Blythe’s page. It’d been a while since I last visited his page (sometimes I disconnect from all social media for a week or two just to get away from it all) so I checked it out and MAN! He has a REALLY good page!! If you didn’t already know, Randy became an amateur photographer when he went sober; I'm assuming to keep his mind occupied. I remember he started taking photos of us around 2011 and he's good, he knows "what" to shoot and how to "frame it."

He's always been an inspired writer, great lyricist, and just a really all-around smart dude. But, the writing he's put up alongside the Instagram pictures while he was in Prague awaiting his trial... it's truly some of the most emotionally honest and raw writings I've come across in forever. It was so painful, almost uncomfortable to read. The rollercoaster of emotions he's been on, it's powerful stuff, everyone should read this.

http://instagram.com/p/Waoi24osr7

"Earlier today I walked across the Legion Bridge to see the Memorial to the Victims of Communism. It is a series of male statues going up a forested hill, each statue appearing to dissolve a bit more until only a single foot is left. It's an amazing memorial. I climbed up the stairs and looked back towards theVltava River and Staré Mesto ("Old Town" in Czech). This shot pretty much shows how I've been feeling for a whole now-torn in half, stuck in between two worlds, neither here nor there, waiting and watching for an answer to come, so that I can move forward again as a whole man. What direction I will move in, I do not know yet. Regardless, I am ready for the waiting to be over. I will move forward no matter what, and I will not be split in two anymore, no matter where I wind up. This is frustrating for me, but I am slowly learning to be a patient man. Life just happens. Deal with it."

One of the last photos he put up, he spoke about how's he's been writing a "gratitude list." Basically a list of things he's "grateful" for. It reminded me that Genevra and I had once discussed doing this. We had gone to some classes to help us with patience when it came to the realities of raising kids. We were going through a rough time, it’s the best-est-toughest job you'll ever have, and with both of us having come from dysfunctional families, we felt it would be a good idea to seek advice, learn some coping and additional parenting skills. They were great, very helpful, and one of the things they spoke about was the 'gratitude list'. To make a simple list of all the things you're grateful for.

"Big" things: Your kids health, awesome job at factory, tons of money, nice car, great sex...

To the "smallest": Healthy food, a heater that works in your house, at least one true friend...

Genevra and I had discussed doing this, but we never got around to making our lists, life just works like that sometimes.

I'm gonna make my first "gratitude list" tomorrow; I think I need that in my life right now. Inspired, in part, by “witnessing” Randy's ordeal/journey through Instagram and also in the fact that I’ve been “on the wagon” for over 70 days now. Although I have come up “a bit short” at times, it’s something that has been working for me during this REALLY stressful past couple of weeks, months.

I’ve realized that I think about having a drink everyday. I’ll think to myself, “it’s just to escape for a bit”, but the truth is, I want to drink and I want to escape it all, all the time lately. It's crazy to me how much I think about it. Maybe I'll get to a place where I can control it again and have a few drinks and a little fun. But, maybe, I'll never be able to control it again and have to accept the fact I’m better off without it. Who knows??! I Don't.

…But either way, there's always something to be grateful for.

What are you grateful for?



Randy's Instagram: http://instagram.com/drandallblythe

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