Fear Factory guitarist and primary songwriter Dino Cazares has again spoken up about the split between he and former vocalist Burton Seabell last year.
Seabell quit the band after Cazares launched a Crowdfunding campaign to finish Aggression Continuum, which was first recorded in 2017. Burton called the fundraising effort a “scam,” and distanced himself from the project, but his vocals still appear on the final product. It later came out that Cazares had previously acquired 100% of the rights to use the Fear Factory name in a years-long court battle.
In a new interview with Aftershocks TV, embedded below, Cazares says he felt blindsided by Seabell, with whom he hadn’t spoken in three years prior to learning on the internet he’d quit the band. When asked if he felt Seabell tried to “sabotage” his effort, he explained:
“That was something I did not understand. If you’re gonna quit, then okay, quit. Don’t try to sabotage me continuing to move forward with the band. That was something I couldn’t understand. I don’t know why he was being a vindictive ex-girlfriend; he seemed to be very vindictive. And I was, like, ‘Okay. Where is this hatred coming from?’ ‘Cause he hasn’t spoken to me in three years, so I don’t know — I really don’t know. I can’t get into his head and see what he was thinking. I can only go by what he said in the media and what he tried to do to me.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how to answer that question other than the fact that that was kind of fucked up what he did. It’s almost like, ‘If I can’t have it, nobody can have it.’”
Seabell previously said that his decision to leave the band was based on fatigue from the ongoing legal battle:
“It’s been on my mind for a while. These lawsuits just drained me. The egos. The greed. Not just from band members, but from the attorneys involved. I just lost my love for it. I’ve been working [intensely] on The Watchers for the last two years. Working with people who I can trust and who I love, and with whom I have grown to find a niche musically definitely pushed me towards it. There are a lot of surprises. I’ve had a lot of surprises for the last four years. With Fear Factory, it’s just constantly been like ‘What?!’ You can only take so much. I felt like 30 years was a good run. Those albums I’ve done with Fear Factory will always be out there. I’ll always be part of that. I just felt like it was time to move forward.”
Aggression Continuum comes out on June 18; its first single, “Disruptor,” was released last month. Cazares has not yet announced a replacement for Seabell, whose vocals appear on the record, but he has indicated he is very close to doing so and that it could be a woman.
[via Blabbermouth]