During a recent episode of “The NFR Podcast,” MACHINE HEAD talked how the band was touring with SLIPKNOT back in the day, and how SLIPKNOT eventually quit the tour.
On touring with SLIPKNOT, Robb said: “I used to climb up on the P.A. and do a stage dive into the crowd during ‘Nothing Left.’ So, I do this, and as I do it, somebody puts their hand up in a crazy way to brace themselves for my fall, and I f*cking crack a rib.
“And I’m like, ‘Oh, f*ck…’ I get hammered after the show, I’m in tons of pain, I take some pills, I do some coke, and I’m kind of a wreck… The next thing I know, Joey [Jordison, drums] and Shawn [‘Clown’ Crahan, percussions] are coming onto my bus, and I’m like, ‘What’s all this about…?’
“They hadn’t been on my bus at all, they hadn’t partied with us, and I’m just like, ‘This is weird…’ They’re like, ‘Hey, can we talk to you?’ I’m like, ‘Sure, let’s go in the back lounge.’
He continued: “So they sit me down, they’re like, ‘Hey, just want to let you know, we’re bailing off the tour, and we’re gonna do our own headline tour.’ And I’m like, ‘What…?’ I’m f*cking high and drunk, I’m a mess, and I’m like, ‘Wait, what? Dude, that’s f*cked up…’ I get pissed, but they’re both very calm, they’re just, like, they’re both very calm.
“And they’re just like, ‘Hey, our record’s doing really good, we can headline, our manager wants us to do it, we just wanted to come in and tell you personally. We didn’t want you to find out from the manager — we just wanted to say it to you, but good luck with the tour.’ I can’t remember what I said, I think I probably got pissed off — I remember being quite pissed off, but looking back on it.
“I was like, ‘I’m glad they came up to me and just said it like a man, they just laid it out.’ You got to respect that, you don’t get that a lot in the music business. Many, many other bands would’ve just let their managers tell my manager that they’re off and f*ck off, but they had enough respect for me to come up and say it to my face.
“When I woke up and I was sober and clear-headed, I was like, ‘Yeah…’ Fast forward, we do our record, we do our tour cycle, they do theirs, they become a phenomenon, I mean like the biggest band in the world, it’s THE BEATLES of that generation. There’s no other way to put it. You can’t fathom how big this band got in such a short amount of time. It was a phenomenon.
“And we ended up doing this show at the end of the year, it was about a year later, and our band has gone through a bunch of f*cking ups and downs. MACHINE HEAD‘s gone through a bunch of ups and downs, they’ve gone through a bunch of ups and downs, and now it’s a year later in the tour cycle, and now they’re headlining their own festival ù they’ve got a festival, something about tattoos or something. They’re headlining over SLAYER, and I’m like, ‘What the f*ck? This is insane.'”
