Burton C Bell Interview

You have been writing the lyrics for your bands for many years but what made you write a graphic novel?

I have been writing stories most of my life. when fear factory began, i was given an opportunity to wrote my sci-fi stories in to the album. yes, i have been writing lyrics, however the lyrics are also part of the story. when i sit down to complete the story after the album has been completely recorded, i use the lyrics as an outline to create the main story. in the album obsolete is the story/screenplay that reads along with the lyrics. i wrote a story for digimortal, but i did not like it. it was too matrix. i did not try to actually write another story for an album until The Industrialist. the concept of the album and lyrics presented me with another great opportunity to create a new world.

What’s the plot of The Industrialist?

This story takes place in the near future. A dystopia corrupted by oligarchs. The protagonist is an automaton called The Indutrialist. Through experiences and memory retention it has become sentient. The antagonist, The Creator, has scheduled The Industrialist's model to be collected and removed for disassembly. The Industrialist has grown a following of other, similar automatons to seek out the creator in order to not be disassembled, to prolong their existence.

Chris Connelly Interview

You have had a very prolific career as a musician but what some people might not know is that you’re also an author. Your first book was Confessions of the Highest Bidder. Can you tell us a little about its content?

Confessions was basically a collection of songwords, starting from around 1982, which is when I was in my nascent stages as a songwriter, I suppose, it follows me through my move to the states and through several subtle stylistic changes as a writer-that being said, to the outside reader (i.e. someone who is not me) I think it is apparent that several things in my writing are constants. I also published a number of pieces in this book which were not songwords, they are simply poems, some of them later became songs.

With the perspective of time, what is the piece from that book that you’re proudest of? Why?

Oh, that’s hard-I actually am looking at it right now, and my answer cannot be concrete-sorry, I am not a contrarian, but writing for me carries with it the perspective of my own abstraction so, to answer your question, there are pieces in there that are very visceral and intuitive, the bits where I am writing about nature or the asymmetry of nature perhaps, that’s when I feel I have bypassed the human and am writing instinctively.

Sean Yseult Interview

Besides being a respected musician, you have also been involved with photography and design. When did you start being interested in those subjects?

As a child I was always drawing abstract designs; our parents surrounded us with abstract coloring books and psychedelic rock posters, so it seemed normal. In high school I attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, and received a scholarship to stay on campus for the fine arts department. I clicked with photography immediately and had a great instructor, Michael Avedon. From high school I received a scholarship to Parsons School of Design in NYC. This is where Rob and I met and started White Zombie – we were both attending Parsons, as were our first drummer and guitarist.

What are your memories about your first days as a designer and as a photographer?

For photography, it was just exciting to create scenarios and put exactly what you want in the frame. I delved into infra-red film for quite a while too, and always loved the ghostly effects. For design, I loved creating the design, and then seeing the finished product, but loathed the whole business side of having to sell product.

Henry Rollins Interview

During the years you’ve written several books. What inspires you?

I am inspired by what makes me curious. Most of my books are travel oriented as in touring and seeing the world. A lot of that comes from curiosity. So, the writing goes outward from there. When I was younger, the writing more self-involved and introspective and now it’s more journalism. Perhaps that’s an age thing.

If you could make a movie or documentary based on any of your books or even asong lyrics, which one would you choose? Why?

It would probably be the new book Occupants, which is photographs and essays. It would have been great to have had a film crew on some of those trips where I got the photos.