Since their formation in 1992 Machine Head has been a force to be reckoned with. Bursting onto the scene and having breakaway success in Europe before returning to conquer their home country, America, Machine Head have cemented themselves as the pioneers of the New Wave Metal scene.

Having had so much success and being held in high esteem by colleagues and critics alike, Machine Head knows the value of working hard and never losing sight of your goals.

As they are coming to the end of their epic tour in support of The Blackening which was released in 2006, drummer Dave McClain lets us in on how it feels to be so close to the end, how they manage to keep it together behind the scenes and how it felt to have The Blackening nominated for a Grammy and being named Album of the Decade by Metal Hammer Magazine.

So you have been touring in support of The Blackening for the last three years and it is about to come to an end; it has been an epic journey for you guys, how are you feeling about it coming to a close?

It feels weird you know. It kind of hit me on the UK part of the tour. It was like ‘Oh God, we only have 3 weeks left of this tour!’ The Blackening has taken a four and a half year chunk out of our lives. It is sad to see it go, but we are super excited for it to end so we can get back into a new album. The only reason we are ending it is because we want to write again. We have had offers coming in until September but we have had to say no and put the brakes on so we can move on to the next part for Machine Head.

When you are on tour for so long, how do you stay mentally focused?

You know, it is really not that bad. A lot of the touring that we were doing, especially the Metallica touring was the easiest touring that we had done in a long time. They would go a week and then have a week off in the States, and then in Europe it was two weeks on, two weeks off, so it wasn’t that bad. This last ten months of touring we have had some good breaks in our touring where we have had some good breaks at home. You learn to kind of keep to yourself and your days off are to yourself, so you go and get a good dinner or something and relax in your own way.

You guys would know each other very intimately after being together for so many years, and have had some personality clashes in the past, how do you all keep the peace now?

Yeah, we have been doing this for so long, even when we are on the bus we know how to stay out of everybody’s business and to do your own thing. But there have been a lot of things happen. About two years ago Robb [Flynn, lead singer] and Adam [Duce, bassist] started going through some stuff and they went to therapy and some things kind of came to a head. Those guys needed to get in with a therapist and work through it. So you know we definitely know how to work in amongst each other but also when to give the space!

Is there anywhere in the world that you have yet to visit but would really love to tour?

Umm… let’s see. Well I don’t know about touring there, but I think I would love to see Egypt and the pyramids. We have done some crazy one off shows before in Tel Aviv and Dubai but it is really hard to get over there.

How did it go in those types of places, to do a show, do you find you have the same type of fan base that you have in the western world?

Well we have played in Dubai a few times now and because it is kind of a resort country you have a lot of European people coming in, but then you also have a lot of people coming in from like Libya and weird places like that and it freaks you out because you never realize that you have fans there! Like going to Israel was definitely a crazy experience! Those countries don’t get a whole lot of shows so when bands do get over there, they just go nuts. It’s unreal.

The Blackening has been Machine Head’s most successful album to date with a Grammy nomination and being named Metal Hammer Magazine album of the Decade, how did you feel when you heard this news?

All that stuff was crazy! When we heard the Grammy nomination we were just like WHOA. It was something that we never really thought was going to happen. When it did, we just stopped and went ‘Holy Crap!’ Getting voted Album of the Decade as well, it was amazing. It’s a lot of fans voting for things like that and we are just so appreciative of everything that has come our way since the release of our last two albums.

But it also leaves a lot to live up too! But it is a good pressure. The Blackening is going to be a moment in time for us and be special. We aren’t going to go into the next album and be like ‘Ok, we have to beat The Blackening with this and get TWO albums of the decade’ you know. A lot of bands don’t get to experience half of what we have and we know how fortunate we are.

How did it feel to be going against your idols in the Grammy race and then lose out to Slayer?

We were bummed about it! We didn’t care who we were up against, we wanted to win! It was a totally bittersweet feeling! But one thing that was cool, afterwards, Kerry King texted Robb and was like ‘Well you guys deserved it. I am going to take the Grammy, but you guys really deserved it!’ which was really cool. If you are going to lose, Slayer is not a bad band to lose too!

In your mind though, how does The Blackening compare with your previous albums? Do you think it is your best work to date or do you think that maybe a previous album would have been more worthy?

No, I think that Through The Ashes definitely has had a lot to do with The Blackening’s success. It kind of paved the way for us. We knew when we were writing The Blackening that the reason we kept it to eight songs was something really special. We had a few more songs but they were filler songs and we thought they watered it down. It was one of those albums were everyone was really happy with the songs and every song was a song we felt that we could play at any time on the tour and be happy with it. It’s kind of rare to be able to do that.

With that in mind, what is Machine Head’s vision for the next album?

I don’t know if we really have one! There are a lot of things we have talked about and there are a lot of long songs on The Blackening and so maybe the next album will be a bunch of short songs. But we don’t really know! We do know that we want the next record to be something like Moving Pictures was to Rush. We want this to be the good points of our last records all coming together… but we really don’t know! We really have no idea!

So has writing begun on the next album?

No, not really at all. We all have a few riffs that we have written but we haven’t put anything together. We usually don’t do anything like that until we are in the practice room and we are done touring. You know once we know the tour is done and everything is done for that touring cycle then we just focus. We have never really written songs in the back of the bus or anything like that so. In April, that’s when we are going to start doing everything.

Are you taking time off after this tour or are you jumping straight into the next chapter of Machine Head?

I think we are going to jump straight into it. We are back home for a couple of weeks and in that time go down to the practice room and getting it all ready and then yeah, just getting down there probably three times a week at first as we will only have a few riffs at that stage so it will be a little while before the words come and we get back into the mode. But hopefully after that everything will start coming together.

When you are writing, do you all write and jam together collectively, or is it more a solo effort and you all bring your ideas to the table after a little while apart?

We kind of write at home and then bring it together. What I usually do is I write a bunch of stuff at home and then put it on a CD and bring it to Robb. Robb has this talent where he can just build songs. Like with me, I can put a couple of parts together, but as far as having that foresight of how a song can come together, I don’t! Robb usually has a lot of lyrical ideas and melodies in his head as to where they are all going to go. He can hear the transitions and has a great ear for all that stuff.

You produced The Blackening yourselves, do you think that this will be the plan for the forthcoming album or will you look to outside inspiration do you think?

We aren’t sure yet. Maybe for certain things bringing some outside people in might be an idea. But we are just throwing ideas around at the moment. I mentioned that I would like to work with Ross Robinson who is a good friend of mine and worked on The Burning Red and at the time Robb was into that. But probably just music wise, Robb will probably just be producing again. We do so much pre-production stuff anyway that by the time we get into recording it is just a matter of getting a good performance down. It would be cool, to have someone come in and give another perspective on things but who knows!

Have your influences and inspirations changed over the years from the beginning until now?

Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of the influences from the beginning are still there, but some have changed. There are definitely new bands that we are into that come into our music. There is stuff we listen to that isn’t even metal. There is so much stuff out there that is different and we can take a lot from it. But a lot of our influences are still there like Pantera, Sepultura and Master of Puppets. Our main thought though is to just keep it timeless. We don’t want to have anything that is a sign of the times or a fad that is going on and then ten years on people go ‘Oh my God’. Our favourite records that we always listen to include Master Of Puppets from Metallica, Roots and Arise by Sepultura.

Catch Machine Head’s Australian tour with Hatebreed, Bleeding Through and Emmure:

Monday 22nd March – Metropolis, Perth
Wednesday 24th March – The Barton, Adelaide
Friday 26th March – Festival Hall, Melbourne
Saturday 27th March – Luna Park, Sydney
Sunday 28th March – River Stage, Brisbane