Burton C. Bell was asked what he made of “Roboticist“, the first Fear Factory single with Milo Silvestro and Pete Webber. He said he has not played it and has no plans to.
The former singer was speaking to Pierre Gutiérrez of “Rock Talks“.
“I have not heard it. I got no comment… I have a feeling it sounds like Fear Factory. So that’s all I’m gonna say.”
Asked about Silvestro as a live performer, he said: “I’ve never seen any videos [of Fear Factory with Milo]. I don’t watch that stuff. So I have no comment. I really have no interest to. That’s the honest truth. I’ve moved on.”
Gutiérrez then put it to him that Fear Factory had recruited a singer who closely imitates him, in voice, appearance and stage manner, and used the word copycat. Bell did not take up the framing.
“There’s no accounting for taste and what people like. I mean, I understand what you’re saying, and I’ve heard some rumblings from friends and stuff about what’s happening over there, but, honestly, I don’t care. I’ve heard rumblings — mumblings. But my friends, they know how I feel, so they don’t really tell me,” he added.
The resemblance is not something Silvestro has ever denied or avoided. He has discussed it repeatedly since taking the job, and describes Bell as his idol.
“Yeah, either if they mean it in a good or in a bad way, for me, it’s a compliment, because first of all, Burt is my idol,” he said when the comparison was put to him in December 2023.
He has also explained how deliberately he approached it, in technical terms. “What I do, which is what Burt did, it’s like a mixed sound between false cord, fry scream and shouting. So you use a little bit of vocal cords, false cords… Burt was probably one of the first in that era,” he told Australia’s “New Breed TV“, describing it as the result of studying Bell‘s style.
At the same time he has been clear that he is not trying to be a facsimile, citing Pantera, Coal Chamber and Slipknot as his own reference points, along with Dez Fafara and Corey Taylor. “They have crazy flows when they do heavy vocals,” he said. “So, there’s definitely a little bit of that, without straying too much from Burton C. Bell‘s style rhythmically.”
On the job itself: “You are replacing not just an iconic singer, but an iconic lineup in general. Every member in the classic Fear Factory lineup [was] iconic in their own way. So, it’s kind of like trying to — I don’t wanna say rebrand, but literally giving different faces to an established brand. So, it’s definitely not easy.”
Silvestro, who is Italian and grew up in Rome, was chosen after Dino Cazares worked through around 300 video auditions. Cazares had approached him years earlier about a separate project. His appointment was announced in February 2023, and his first headline show with the band was at the Whisky A Go Go in May of that year.
“Roboticist” came out on August 29 through Nuclear Blast, the band’s first new music in five years. It precedes an eleventh album, due through the same label, on which Tony Campos has recorded all the bass parts — a first for him in a decade with the band.
Bell co-founded Fear Factory and sang on everything they released from 1992 until he left in September 2020, citing four years of litigation over the rights to the name. His last album with them, Aggression Continuum, came out in June 2021 through Nuclear Blast but had been recorded largely in 2017, with Cazares on guitar and Mike Heller on drums.
He is currently finishing his debut solo album in Los Angeles, and has three spoken-word events booked in California and Nevada next month.
