Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn shares the story behind Davidian's original, rather cringey chorus
Tonight (November 21) we are streaming Machine Head's knockout performance in The K! Pit, in association with Rizla. A super-intimate one-hour performance from one of the biggest metal bands of all time that we will never ever forget, and you can watch the whole thing for free.
But it wasn't just a night of iron-cast heavy metal bangers, Robb was in full storytelling mode, regaling the London audience of how their iconic track Davidian came to be – and its original chorus.
While we all love bellowing out 'Let freedom ring with a shotgun blast' nowadays, the first incarnation wasn't quite as menacing or cool. Or, as Robb says, it's "fucking horrible."
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“Logan (Mader, guitarist) came up with the intro riff and I had this other riff that went good with it (sic), which is a total Exodus ripoff, but I was like ‘Fuck it, I’m gonna put some double-bass on that shit and make it sound nothing like Exodus,'" says Robb.
"We started jamming it, and a lot of the time when I write lyrics I just freestyle, I don’t have anything set, I don’t write down stuff first I just see what comes. I make up words and look around like, ‘PAs! Spines! Blood! People!’ whatever comes in my mind.
"For some very bizarre reason… the very first chorus of Davidian was ‘Get the fuck up to the bone-breaking groove.’ And I thought that was good! I thought that was good for like three weeks. Then I remember we did a warehouse party – when we started out there wasn’t a lot of clubs in the Bay Area, and we were just playing our punk rock friends’ warehouse – we were playing a parking lot.
"I remember getting up, we were getting to Davidian, we’re gonna do this fuckin’ chorus, I said it one time and I was like, ‘Holy shit! This is fucking horrible.’ In that moment, in that warehouse parking lot… this shit’s gotta change, right fuckin’ now, because this sucks. So that night I wrote, ‘Let freedom ring with a shotgun blast.’"
So there you have it! Performed live in a Bay Area warehouse, never to be repeated. But if you want to see Davidian in all its glory, blasted out to a capacity crowd of just 50 people, check out Machine Head's K! Pit set on Kerrang!'s Facebook and YouTube from November 21 at 7:30pm BST/2:30pm EST/11:30am PST.
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