DIVINE HERESY – Interview with Dino Cazares

Any metal head who paid any mind the scene of the last two decades knows the name Dino Cazares. Cazares gave FEAR FACTORY their chunky guitar sound in the ‘90s and early part of this decade. He also played guitar in the Mexican drug cartel concept band, BRUJERIA. Dino left FEAR FACTORY, a group he co-founded, after the release of their worst album—the horridly nu metal, “Digimortal.” Shortly after his departure from FF, he formed the death/grind project, ASESINO. The said group was a step up in heaviness from his former band. ASESINO’s was also a return to this Hispanic roots, penning all songs in Spanish. Perhaps it was due to the non-English lyrics, lack of big label or just the fact their music is too heavy for his former fans, whether a result of all these factors or just one, ASESINO never found the wide-spread appeal of his former outfit.

Recently, Cazares released “Bleed the Fifth” from his newest incarnation known as DIVINE HERESY. “Bleed the Fifth” finds the perfect balance of melody and brutality, promising to lure back a strong fan base and find acceptance as one of the top albums of 2007. Vocalist Tommy Vext shifts his voice into many styles, screaming his voice box out or singing with an impassioned, clean-toned eloquence. Drummer Tim Yeung is no newcomer to the scene. He hit the skins for such celebrated death metal acts as VITAL REMAINS, NILE and HATE ETERNAL. The last two years he has earned the title as “The World’s Fasted Drummer,” having won the contest in 2006 and this year.

After only a couple months since their first studio release, DIVINE HERESY has already joined a major tour with 3 INCHES OF BLOOD, SHADOWS FALL and the headliner, STATIC-X. Although singer Vext recently injured his foot and requires crutches, the determined front man hobbles around the stage, never disappointing their fans with an injury-related cancellation. Before hitting the stage in Dallas, Texas, Cazares and newly acquired bassist Joe Payne (ex-NILE) set aside a few minutes to speak with Metal Centre.

(While admiring Dino's immaculate Line 6 amp head) Tell me about your gear and endorsements.

I’ve been using Ibanez for almost twelve years. They’ve made me every type of guitar you could think of in seven-string version and now, eight-string version. I’m also with a company called D’Addario Strings. I’m also with a company called Dunlop picks and Seymour Duncan pick ups who has a new design called the Black Out. They are active seven-string pick ups and eight-string pick ups coming out next month. I’ve been with Line 6 since 1998, so almost ten years.

Please tell our readers about forming Divine Heresy.

Forming DIVINE HERESY took a little while. I was definitely occupied doing other projects: BRUJERIA, ASESINO and the Roadrunner United project that came out. I met Tim Yeung somewhere around 2003 or 2004. We kept in touch then he moved to L.A. in 2005. He kept conning me saying, “when are you ready to go, when are you ready to go?” So, in 2005 we started jamming together. Shortly after that, in 2006, Tommy Vext came in. I met Tommy Vext, basically on the internet. He responded to people telling him I was looking for a singer. The owner of Century Media told me about him, as well. Melissa Cross, his vocal coach, told me about him. I met Joe Payne here (motions to Joe) when he was touring with NILE. They were opening for KING DIAMOND. I went and saw them play, met him and we kept in contact. A year or two later, he calls and says, “hey, are you looking for a bass player (Joe laughs)?” I thought, “Who is this?” He kind of refreshed my memory about who he was. So, here he is! Four months down the line, we are a full band.

Joe Payne: I actually didn’t even know that Dino had DIVINE HERESY going. I had no idea. I was just calling to see what he had going on, and it turns out, he had a lot going on. I was already out of NILE for a few months. I didn’t have anything going on after NILE, so it was an easy transition into DIVINE HERESY.

Why did you not have a bassist on the recording of “Bleed the Fifth?”

Things were moving really fast. We had a bunch of bass auditions and we just didn’t like anybody. Some guys were auditioning from other bands, and we didn’t want that drama. They hadn’t left their bands yet. There was nobody that we really liked. I put an ad out saying I wanted a bassist that would either be like an Alex Webster or Derek Boyer. Obviously, Joe is right along there, so we chose Joe, which is killer live, too.

You have an incredible drummer. What does Tim Yeung bring to Divine Heresy?

He brings a lot of the technical parts to it. He brings a lot of blast beats. He’s really tight with blasts and stuff like that. He plays his whole drum set. He does a lot of rolls. The previous bands I was in, it was mostly kick and snare. Tim brings a whole new element that I never really got to experiment with, the technical death metal side, which is really cool. I have been doing stuff like that before with BRUJERIA and ASESINO, but not that technical. Tim is a lot more technical. He’s a whole different animal. Obviously, I had to keep up with the speed and my picking. It worked out good.

Where did you find Tommy? What does he bring to Divine Heresy?

Like I said earlier, Robert Camp, the owner of Century Media had told me about him. He heard I was looking for a singer, so he sent me an email. His vocal coach also sent me an email. He had all his friends sending me emails, so I decided to give him a try. I sent him some songs. He sang on it and I was like, “wow, this kid’s got it!” He was in a local band in New York, but nothing major. I also had auditioned a lot of guys, too. I had auditioned Vinny from DYING FETUS and people like that. I wanted a guy who could do it all, not just one thing.

That’s what I thought when I heard him sing. He could sound like Phil Anselmo, he could do some black metal shit and stuff like your old singer, Burton C. Bell.

Yeah, I kind of wanted a guy who is part of everything. Tommy is twenty-five; he grew up listening to all those bands: Rob Flynn of MACHINE HEAD, Burton C. Bell, Corey Taylor of SLIPNOT, all those different guys. He was one of those guys practicing in the mirror, mimicking all those different dudes. Now, he has his own style, which is kind of a mixture of all those singers. Eventually, he’s going to grow into something even greater. I think this whole band will grow into something big. I think DIVINE HERESY is an epic name that could be something huge. We are gonna try to accomplish that on the next record. This record we wanted to hit you in the face and say, “here we are, and we’ll be here for a while.” That was our attitude when we made the record. Now, we are gonna go onto some bigger things.

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Tell our readings about how you arrived at the title for the album.

“Bleed the Fifth,” that was something that Tommy came up with. It’s a play on words, obviously. Plea the fifth means you have the right to keep your mouth shut. Bleed the fifth is more like the opposite. We feel like we have a lot to say. Like I said, we wanted to make a record that will hit you in the face, and that’s what we did.

One of the standout tracks is “Bleed the Fifth.” What are your thoughts on this track?

That’s a killer song. That was one of the songs that me and Tim wrote together in the first few weeks we were jamming. When Tommy came in, he threw in his two cents, and it came out killer! The thing is that no matter how fast or how brutal we write songs, we try to make it catchy. We want something catchy, something memorable. Whether it’s a vocal line, guitar riff or drum beat, we try to make it so you get sucked into it when you hear the song. You can’t deny how catchy it is. I think we’ll keep making it brutal, but when you go home, you still have that riff in your head. You still have that vocal hook in your head. Or if you’re a guitar player, you want to go play that riff because it sounds so cool. It doesn’t have to be complicated as long as it sounds fucking cool and gets the point across. That’s what we are trying to do.

Another highlight on the album is “This Threat is Real.” What are your thoughts on this?

It’s a dope track! It’s definitely a stand out track in the live set. The hook, the chorus usually hooks people in right away. It’s an easy, sing along chorus. A lot of people really like it. After hearing Tommy sing it a few times, they start singing right along, too. Like I said, I think we are a force to be reckoned with, and we are coming out strong. As a band, we could be a threat to other bands. There is always some competition with the local bands and such. We’re just saying we’re coming out here positive, no egos, no rock stars. We want to be friends with everybody. We just want to come out hard, powerful, strong! Some people could find that as a threat.

How about “Rise of the Scorned.”

“Rise of the Scorned” deals with a lot of the bullshit: life, the tribulations that you go through. It could be applied to a lot of things. It’s just all the bullshit that I had gone through with the FEAR FACTORY shit. We’re coming up now. It’s our time to shine. After the aftermath, we are coming back up. Here we are, and we’re gonna keep rising!

You made a video for “Failed Creation.” Why did you choose this track?

We all had to collectively choose a track. Unfortunately, I would love to do the whole album as a video track. We were either going to do “Failed Creation,” “Savior Self,” “Bleed the Fifth.” It was going to be one of those. We kind of flipped a coin, and “Failed Creation” seemed to be the best one. The record label loved that track; they felt the same way. Ultimately, it was the band’s decision and that was the track we decided to go with. We picked an area called the Salton Sea. A lot of birds die there. The fish are contaminated. The birds eat the fish then die too. We shot it out there because you can see waves of dead fish in certain parts of it. You think you’re walking on sand, but it’s actually fish bones because thousands of thousands of fish die. So, we thought it was a great place to shoot a video. Also, back in the fifties and sixties it was considered a vacation spot. You could go on your boat and have picnics. A lot of the sewage comes in from Mexico and get dumped in there. It’s just bad. There are areas where you could tell that it was flooded at one point then the water went down and you can see the skeletons of all these houses, which is really cool. We thought it was a great spot to shoot a video, especially for what the lyrics are about. The lyrics are about the end of the world type of thing, destruction, and failed creation. We thought this area would provide great imagery.

The sound on “Bleed the Fifth” is enormous. How did you achieve this sound?

On the record, I used a Marshal that Wayne from STATIC-X let me borrow and I combined that with a Peavy 5150 in some parts. We quadrupled the tracks. I did four rhythm guitar tracks to make it sound great. I had to sit there for hours doubling and quadrupling what I was doing. That was one of the ways that we got it big. It took a long time because we wanted it to be precise and tight. It was hard! I had to do that and the bass, but Tony from STATIC-X filled in a few parts on the bass. It’s like 50-50 for Tim. We sampled some of his kicks and we used some of his live kicks from his playing. We kind of blended a few sounds together, like little cuts here and there. It came out really powerful, man! It came out really good.

How did working with Logan Madder (ex-MACHINE HEAD) help shape your sound?

It helped a lot because Logan is a really good editor. He’s a good musician, good editor, good editor, and good idea guy. He also has another guy named Lucas Baker who really helped a lot, too. He was really great at helping us write lyrics. Like if Tommy were stuck on a word, he would say, “how about this word?” He was like a Thesaurus. We had a really good production team going on. Logan is just fast, amazing, he knows what I want, and he knows all the FEAR FACTORY, BRUJERIA and ASESINO, MACHINE HEAD records. He knows all the metal records. He knows how to create the sound on the record that we are trying to achieve.

You played with Fear Factory for many years. Obviously, you shaped and molded your guitar playing in this band. How does Fear Factory compare to Divine Heresy?

I think the closest thing to DIVINE HERESY is all the early FEAR FACTORY records, “Soul of a New Machine,” “Demanufacture,” and a little bit of “Obsolete.” That’s really about it. Obviously, a lot of people know my style. I have a very unique way of writing and playing songs. Sure, a lot of the structural ideas that I had in FEAR FACTORY apply to this project. Any project that I work on, I try to use some of the same mathematics to write a song. My picking style is very unique. I lock it in with the drums. I love drums a lot, so I like the drums to really stick out. I like to make the guitars and drums lock in together. I like the syncopation of the drums and guitars. Sure, you could say that’s very FF influenced, but it’s still something that I created, so it’s all good. Like Decibal said, “FEAR FACTORY on steroids.” I’ve also incorporated a lot of guitar solos. There is a lot more technical stuff going on than when I was in FF. FF had great songs and killer rhythms, but there were no solos and stuff like that.

Speaking of FEAR FACTORY, I heard you joined EPICA on stage to perform “Demanufacture.” What was that like?

We performed “Replica.” It was really cool. They contacted me a few months ago and said, “We are going to do this cover song. What do you think about this song?” That’s cool. They sent me the song and it sounds different, but cool in a way. It has a girl singer. It sounded really cool. They call me up just before they came into town and asked me if I wanted to play live and I said, “hell yeah!” They were all really nice people. The girl is beautiful. They aren’t really my style for what I like, but they are killer for what they do.

How do you feel about your current tour?

Killer! The size at some of the shows has been amazing. It has been really amazing! Kids are coming out and asking, “Is that Dino, what band is this?” Then all of a sudden it clicks and they say, “Oh shit, this is fucking sick!” Then they are at the merch booth buying CDs and t-shirts. We usually do signings every night at the merch booth. We couldn’t do it today because they have house sellers—people that sell the merch for you, so the meet and greets are us walking through the crowd.

After this tour is over, what is next for Divine Heresy?

Touring. We have another one coming up with CHIMAIRA and KATAKLYSM (with TERROR). It comes right after this one. We’re done with this one, few days later we’re on the CHIMAIRA tour (they recently announced a string of headlining shows before the CHIMAIRA tour). Then we go over to Europe. We are leaving that tour to go over to Europe and do a handful of shows there. Then we come home for Christmas and start again in late January and early February. We gotta stay busy. That’s the only way to sell records nowadays.

www.myspace.com/divineheresyband