TheGauntlet.com recently spoke with MACHINE HEAD mainman Robb Flynn, where they discuss the band's latest album The Blackening in addition to shedding some light on the happenings on the Black Tyranny tour, the band's co-headlining jaunt with Arch Enemy and the plans for the remainder of 2007 going into 2008, and politics in music. An excerpt follows:

TheGauntlet.com: Let's talk about The Blackening... first and foremost, how'd you come up with the title?

Robb Flynn: "Basically, we have a lot of dark kind of social, political lyrics, and we didn't want to have anything that was too overtly political sounding. So we settled on the fact that the lyrics were gonna be darker and The Blackening seemed to fit."

TheGauntlet.com: Was there a conscious effort to write longer songs and approach The Blackening with a discernibly old-school thrashier '80s metal vibe?

Robb: "We've always had thrash stuff on all the records. We've always been pretty heavily steeped in Bay Area thrash and Bay Area metal. So it was just basically an extension of the things that we had done before and just expanding what we had started."

TheGauntlet.com: Who would you say were some of the influences when you were making this album? Were you looking towards someone? Was there something you felt was lacking in the metal scene you wanted to bring back? Was there something that you said, hey, maybe we could do this differently?

Robb: "We were all pretty sick of the Swedish thrash thing, which is kind of IRON MAIDEN with less beats. We really wanted to have a kind of Bay Area defining record. We're really proud of where we grew up, and are pretty fortunate to have been kids basically growing up in the Golden Era of thrash, fourteen year olds going to see METALLICA on the

MAster Of Puppets tour and stuff. We really wanted to just carry that spirit along, and I think also because the band grew up heavily influenced by both the metal and the punk scene and in particular, the Bay Area punk scene, bands like ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT and DEAD KENNEDYS and stuff that we really wanted to include. I think just by nature

that very kind of social commentary came out really wanted to come out and say something different than what other metal bands are saying. A lot of the lyrics on the record, especially the more social lyrics…they're pretty blunt. They're very pointed in their stance on being anti-war and anti administration. It was the type of thing where we knew that they were so strong that it was possible that we would face repercussions. We actually all sat down and had a discussion

about if we could all agree, is this what we really believe in. Are the four of us gonna be able to stand behind this? Eventually everybody came back, and I gave everybody the lyrics that I had written up until that point, and everyone came back one by one and was like 'this is what I believe in. This is killer, and I totally 100 percent stand behind this. So let's go ahead'. Part of it was a reaction to the times and what was going on, and this is a very timely record. It's very much a reflection of the times. But at the same time it was also a reflection of just what was going on in the metal

community. We weren't really seeing any bands take a kind of stand. Most of the stands that a lot of the metal bands had taken was kind of the opposite, the flag waving and hooking flags on shirts and love it or leave it kind of things. It's very trendy to be love it or leave it in Cali right now and we were just weren't into it. We kind of as much want to make a statement against that as the other stuff."

TheGauntlet.com: Have you got any backlash touring the States from your political standpoint?

Robb: "Well, I mean, we don't really have a political standpoint. That's the thing...we're not saying Democrats are cool or Republicans are not cool, we think they're both fucking dickheads. But, we have had some backlash from a lot of conservative groups. We just went through the whole Disney situation. Disney reviewed our record and deemed our lyrics inflammatory and had our concerts ejected from the property and stuff. And now it's kind of triggered a fall out. Now they're canceling many other shows. They're allowing certain shows to play some shows are still okay, some metal bands that now fall under that, it's okay to play at Disney, and I don't know, exactly know what their criteria is, but Machine Head definitely wasn't okay."

The Gauntlet: I was gonna ask you guys about that. Now I see that they cancelled SHADOWS FALL and STATIC-X.

Robb: "But they haven't cancelled AVENGED SEVENFOLD and MEGADETH."

TheGauntlet.com: When you see stuff that happening around you, how does that make you feel? Does it fuel you to maybe write more seething lyrics and continue more towards that route?

Robb: "I don't know if it makes we want to go more towards that route, but it makes us still a whole lot more justified in the things that we're singing about."

Head to this location to read the interview in its entirety.