Fear Factory’s new singer, Milo Silvestro, recently defended his decision to emulate the vocal style of the band’s former frontman, Burton C. Bell, on the upcoming Fear Factory album during an interview with Impact Metal Channel.
Silvestro discussed the challenges of joining a band with a new lineup and explained why they chose to maintain the classic Fear Factory sound.
“New album should be 10 songs,” Silvestro said. “And having a new singer, let alone a new lineup… I mean, Tony’s [Campos, Fear Factory bassist] been in the band for quite a few years now, even though they had a gap, because of the legal suit, but he’s still been in the band since 2015, 2014. But Pete is also a new drummer. I’m the new vocalist. So, it’s not always easy for fans, especially the most skeptical ones, to accept a new lineup, especially with a new vocalist, because for some reason people always think that a vocalist, particularly, it’s like the soul of the band. So it’s not always easy for fans to digest it. This change was already a pretty significant and huge change, so we purposely tried to stay on the Fear Factory realm sound-wise, stay on that sound.”
He then addressed the feedback regarding his vocal style and his effort to honor Bell’s legacy.
“Of course, as a lot of people noticed [while listening to ‘Roboticist’ and seeing Fear Factory live], both haters and fans and supporting fans, I tried to sound as much as possible like the original vocalist, Burton C. Bell, because I think that this band… To me, as a fan of the band also, it couldn’t sound any different, because Burt has been such an iconic vocalist, and I don’t think that any other vocalist in the world sounds like him or ever sounded like him, both in harsh vocals and clean vocals,” Silvestro continued. “He was the pioneer of the combined style of harsh vocals and melodic vocals. And his harsh tone and his clean tone were so identifiable. So me and Dino [Cazares, Fear Factory’s founding guitarist] never felt like chang[ing] that.”
Silvestro also shared how his natural vocal style aligned with Bell’s and how he prepared for the role.
“One of the reason why Dino got interested in me as a vocalist, it’s because I was so influenced by Burton C. Bell vocally that it already came natural to me to sound like him,” he added. “It’s not even that I tried to sound like him; it just comes natural. But when I got hired in Fear Factory, I studied his style, his sound, his nuances even more to pay homage to his sound even more and provide the fans the real Fear Factory vocal sound, as close as possible.”
He went on to describe the musical direction of the upcoming record, comparing it to classic Fear Factory releases while noting some fresh additions.
“I’m saying this just to say that the record, vocal-wise, and guitar-wise and everything-wise is gonna sound like classic modern Fear Factory,” Silvestro explained. “So I definitely say that, to me, it has a lot of ‘Mechanize’, ‘Genexus’, ‘The Industrialist’ kind of vibe. But there is some modern and innovative or fresh elements as well here and there. We tried to put these elements in a way that you’re not gonna change… It’s kind of like a a dish. I’m Italian, so I’m always gonna do a comparison with pasta. It’s the same pasta recipe, but there is a little sprinkle of a different cheese.”
Finally, Silvestro detailed the specific electronic influences and vocal effects he brought to the new material.
“So, I brought my influence not only as a vocalist, but also as an effects nerd and tweaker, because I also come from electronic music and turntablism,” Silvestro concluded. “I mean, there’s no turntables, but I’m just saying I come from that realm — synthesizers, vocoders. In my other small band that I have in Rome, Dead Channel, that I founded years ago, I’d always done live vocoder, kind of like Kraftwerk. Vocoders, for those who don’t know, it’s like a process of a synthesizer that makes your voice a filter for the synth. So the sound comes out of the synth, but your voice acts like a filter, so you make a synth talk. You can do harmonies and stuff. I’ve always been in love with that. And so I brought some of that. There were some vocoder parts in the new album. And, also the new song ‘Roboticist’ has vocoder parts, so I’m, like, ‘Why not play it live?’ Because, as fans know by now, I love to reproduce live all the vocal effects, and most of them doing myself.”
This upcoming release will mark the band’s first full-length album featuring Silvestro on vocals.
Silvestro’s push to preserve the classic Fear Factory sound makes more sense given how the band arrived at its current lineup. The path to this new era runs through a decade of lineup changes and legal battles, which explains why the singer is so focused on reassuring longtime fans.
The band’s name rights became the subject of a long dispute, and the outcomes shaped who could legally carry the Fear Factory banner forward. The earlier name-rights dispute saw Bell and Dino Cazares on one side and Raymond Herrera and Christian Olde Wolbers on the other, ending in a settlement that split the trademark between the singer and the guitarist, before Bell later lost his rights in bankruptcy proceedings.
Bell’s exit itself was not a sudden break, and he has since described the years leading up to it as draining. Bell left the band in September 2020 after saying he “cannot align” himself with someone he does not trust or respect, and he later stated, “Stepping away from FEAR FACTORY was not an easy decision by [any] means. But what I experienced for the 10 years before that, the lawsuits, the acrimony, that was the one that killed me.”
Silvestro’s arrival was not immediate, and the current rhythm section took shape alongside him. Silvestro first joined the band in 2023, following Bell’s 2020 departure, while Tony Campos has been part of the group since being announced as bassist on May 1, 2015, after his time in Static-X and Soulfly.
The first taste of this era arrived with “Roboticist,” the song Silvestro repeatedly references when discussing his vocal approach. The track was released in late August via Nuclear Blast and serves as the band’s first release featuring Silvestro on vocals and Pete Webber on drums.
Bell, however, has made clear he is not following the band’s new chapter closely. When asked about “Roboticist” in an interview with Pierre Gutiérrez of Rock Talks, Bell responded bluntly: “I have not heard it. I got no comment. I have a feeling it sounds like FEAR FACTORY. So that’s all I’m gonna say.” He also added that he has “no interest” in watching footage of the new lineup.
