MACHINE HEAD frontman Robb Flynn was interviewed on the latest episode of Full Metal Jackie’s nationally syndicated radio show.
Speaking about what the touring circuit might look like post-pandemic, Flynn said: “A MACHINE HEAD show is like a religious experience. It’s so much of a community — the crowd singing along and thrashing along is such a big part of the show.
“I talk to people in the industry, and many of the venues are talking about opening up, and they’re only gonna be able to be 25 percent capacity. And I’m, like, 25 percent? That sucks. It’s the whole everybody mashed up against each other and arm-to-arm and sweating on each other and singing along, that connection of people, that makes it so much fun.
“I’ve been saying this for a while, and I said it back in March, and it didn’t get a very welcome response from the people at large, but I know a lot of people appreciate my honesty about it now,” he continued. “I think this thing’s gonna go on for two [to] probably four years. I don’t think it’s gonna be back to ‘normal,’ whatever that is, for at least four years. I think it’s gonna be very much like the Spanish flu of 1918, where it went on for a couple of years, and it’s gonna come in waves, and then it’s gonna die down, and another wave’s gonna come. By the time everybody’s done with it, we’re all gonna be so shell-shocked and probably financially devastated that it’s gonna take what happened in 1918, where it took another two years for people to just feel safe to go back out, to not feel, like, ‘Oh my God. Is it truly gone?’ And, ‘Do I have enough money to do this?’
“I think we’re in for a long haul. I know that that’s not what people wanna hear — people wanna hear that it’s gonna be back to normal by March of next year.
