Demanufacture

A band composition, the word "Demanufacture" was conceived as the opposite of "Manufacture" (kind of how Fear Factory influence Devo came up with their name based on De-Evolution). In our interview with guitarist Dino Cazares, he explained: "It means to take apart or to break down, and that's basically how we saw LA at the time. Because in Los Angeles, we had the Rodney King riots. We had the fires, we had floods, we had earthquakes, all within a matter of three or four years. We just saw the destruction of Los Angeles: gang violence, police brutality. And then after the Rodney King riots, we had massive fires that burned a lot of the trees and a lot of the brush. Then we had massive rain and there was nothing to soak up the rain. There were no trees, there was no brush. It was just all dirt. When you put water on it, it turns into mud. So we had massive mudslides. And then after that, in 1994, we had a massive earthquake. So we just saw the destruction of Los Angeles and we decided, Demanufacture. This is perfect. The breakdown of Los Angeles."

This song was written in 1994, not long before the emergence of Pro Tools and digital production. The band used a drum machine for the intro, which gave them a new sound. Dino Cazares told us: "I thought, 'Okay, this is our new style. This is where we wanted to go.' We wanted to show people f--kin' drums. Me being a fan of drums, I wanted the record to start off with drums, and that's what it did. It was a kick pattern. It was a pattern that I played on guitar that I had the drummer follow with his kick beats. So I decided we're going to start the album with the kick drum pattern, and then the guitar comes in and it's going to build from there. Then it explodes, and when the chorus comes in - 'I got no more goddamn regrets, I got no more goddamn respect' - that really hit home with the kids, and it's still a song that all the fans sing live. When you get into that part, everybody likes to shout the chorus. It's amazing."