MACHINE HEAD - Welcome Home... Page 2
by Martin Popoff

"I'm not going to slight Ahrue," continues Flynn. "I think he had a lot of good ideas. He definitely brought some cool stuff to the band that I don't think was there before. I think he was better at writing the textural stuff, the very kind of ambient stuff that went on in the background, that created a whole atmosphere in the song, whereas Phil is more like a riffer. And I just think, for what it's worth, what Ahrue brought to the band at the time was something we wanted to add. But I think ultimately, we're more of a band that is based in the riffing."

"It's nothing too out there for us," notes Flynn, when asked about lyrical themes. "I think when you're in a band, and you have your own niche, I think you try to look for new ways to say the same thing. And I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean that in a good way. You know, we're not going to start writing about a topic that Britney Spears would talk about (laughs). And I don't know anything about ripping out entrails, so I'm not going to go into that (laughs). You know, I think with this, if there was one word to sum up the lyrics of this record, and just the theme of the album in general, it's death, death as finality, and death as something that oftentimes bears new life. And there was a lot of that going on in my personal life, in our personal lives, in the band's life. There was a lot of new. And to large degree, I feel like after Ahrue left, and all the changes that happened with the band, there was a part of Machine Head that did die, and this new Machine Head came out of it. And that's where we are now, and that's where our headspace is."

Do you think there was extra mystique added to this new record just by it coming out in Europe first? It's almost like a buzz grew from overseas...

MACHINE HEAD - Welcome Home... Page 3