Fear Factory and vocalist Burton C. Bell split in 2020. Fear Factory has since recruited new vocalist Milo Silvestro and is working on new material, while Bell has been focusing on his art and various musical endeavors like Ascension Of The Watchers.
In an interview with Joshua Toomey of the Talk Toomey podcast, Bell unsurprisingle said he doesn't really care that Fear Factory has replaced him and is carrying on. "It doesn't affect me at all," he said. "To be honest, I haven't been this happy in a long time. More power to them, but I'm just moving forward in my own life, my own career, and I'm just trying to make a name for myself." When asked if he's checked out any footage of Silvestro with Fear Factory, Bell simply responded "No, I don't. I don't care to."
Bell went on to say that he's of course proud of what he accomplished in Fear Factory, but it's now a part of his past. "Fear Factory, it's what I'm known for. And the 30 years I had with Fear Factory were some of the proudest moments of my career. And everything I've ever done in Fear Factory I'm very proud of. Even some of the questionable things I've done in Fear Factory I'm still proud of. It was a great legacy."
Seems like Bell's attitude about the whole thing is pretty good, right? Dude left a extensive legacy with Fear Factory and now he's on to other things. Bell has also made it known that leaving wasn't an easy decision, but one he felt was necessary.
"Stepping away from Fear Factory was not an easy decision by [any] means," he said in an interview with The Ex-Man podcast. "But what I experienced for the 10 years before that, the lawsuits, the acrimony, that was the one that killed me.
"And I just had to step away to realize, you know, they can take all this stuff from me — they can take the money, they can take the royalties, they can take the trademark away from me — and I realized that didn't define me. They can take that, but I'm still Burton C. Bell, motherfucker, and whatever I have they can't take. So I'm just kind of moving forward and doing new things."
