Interview with Rob Flynn of Machine head
For those of you who don’t know, Rob Flynn is the guitarist/vocalist of the American metal band Machinehead. This band along with a few worthy others performed in the Desert Rock Festival 2005 that took place in Dubai. This is part of an interview done by FourteenG.net with him regarding his first experience in the Middle East. I think you guys will enjoy this…
— INTERVIEW —
-FourteenG.net: Tell me a little about your experience when you guys played the Middle East at the Dubai Desert Rock Festival. How was the climate of the people: were you well-received? What was your impression of it?
-Robb: It was actually completely shocking, to be honest, you know. It was just one show and it was in Dubai; it was in the United Emirates and it was us, SEPULTURA was opening’a couple of other band, WITHIN TEMPTATION, MACHINE HEAD and THE DARKNESS. It was like totally out of nowhere and randomly THE DARKNESS was headlining, but this was when THE DARKNESS was worth something! [Chortles ensue] You know it was kind of scary when we were going over there, you know we were just like, you see all of this stuff on the media. We had never been there so we didn’t know what to expect.
Then my wife was literally pleading with me the night before, “This has got to be some kind of terrorist plot!” and I was like, “I don’t think so!” They were paying us a lot of money and I don’t think they would do that, you know. But I’ve got to say that it was in the back of my head and just landing there. We got there, we were expecting to see nothing but mosques and turbans and camels! We drive out of there and we the first thing we see is Starbucks and Roundtable Pizza! We were like, “What the f*ck?” and the next day it was McDonalds and Burger King and Arby’s and Nordstrom’s and Cactus Jacks! [Shakes head in disbelief, reliving the moment] They put us up in the Fairmont Hotel, they took us to the Rock Hard, I mean the Hard Rock Hotel for a press conference. It was like Las Vegas on crack but it was on the beach. So, it was like Las Vegas on the beach, which was the coolest thing about it. In the outskirts, it was a little weird but the show, I mean 5,000 people, kids from Iran, Grenada and just like all these crazy places like Beirut, and obviously Dubai and Saudi Arabia, and they were all just metal heads, you know.
[Beams] Long hair, METALLICA shirts, MACHINE HEAD shirts, SLAYER shirts, SLIPKNOT shirts, they were jumping and headbanging. They knew the “Machine Fucking Head”, [eyes widen] we were like, “What the fu*ck?” I mean, we ended talking to a bunch of[coughs]. They had kind of a big after-party and a bunch of the kids that were at the show actually got to come in and hang out. They were all just SUPER-COOL man! We were just talking! [Robb's phone rings unexpectedly] and we were just so freaked out what it was going to be like to be [there] You know how the media, especially here in America how the media really manipulates everything. We expected bombed out cities and it was one of the nicest cities you could ever be in, you know. But they hammer that perception into America and totally build that fear. It’s total fear-mongering and in the same they expected us to be a certain way. Americans, just a bunch of “la, la, la la’s” And you know it was this cool cultural experience that we got to trip off of.
— END OF INTERVIEW —
This is wonderful news for all metal heads in the middle east, especially ones on MidEast Youth who want people to see the Middle East isn’t just “mosques and turbans and camels”. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go listen to some Machine Head.
Join the Conversation
Excellent post Busac! I definitely understand his culture shock.. the way this region is portrayed in the U.S media is just wrong. Few months ago they reported something about Bahrain – EVERYONE was in burquas, it didn’t look like Bahrain at all! You’d think we were a bunch of zombie sheep herders if you rely solely on TV. Traveling makes a huge difference.
I enjoyed this interview a lot, thanks for posting it, and yes great news for metal heads here (whose number seems to be increasing!)
Thanks again for the post. It’s good to see someone is spreading the right image about our progress for once.
Esra’a Said:
it’s good to see somebody but not anybody to speread the right image! I’m glad at least one artist could see the truth about middle east, but so what? they’ll still treat us like before! they are likely to believe what they hear on TV rather than thinking about what Machinehead’s vocalist says! anyway; one step forward to show who really we are!
\m/
i wish a metal band would come to Jordan!! 
THis is great ! really, it is a pleasure to read that !
Think of it this way. A well known artist can spread the work much better than your average person. If he says he enjoyed his time here, chances are more people will listen to him than if any other person just said it. It might still not be much considering what is actually happening, but at least it’s a small step, right?
If they played in Dubai, tell ‘em to play in KUWAIT
PLEASE!!!
It would be so fucking amazing!!!
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