Machine Head did a ton of touring and livestreams around the 25th anniversary of their Burn My Eyes album in 2019. The lineup for those shows included Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn and bassist Jared MacEachern alongside Burn My Eyes-era drummer Chris Kontos and guitarist Logan Mader. Flynn went on to recruit guitarist Wacław "Vogg" Kiełtyka and drummer Matt Alston for the band's new lineup at the time, while Mader and Kontos went their separate ways… but that wasn't the plan.
In an interview with Sakis Fragos of Rock Hard Greece, Flynn said he tried to do another record with the Burn My Eyes lineup, but the pandemic screwed things up financially for everyone. Still, Flynn said the quartet got as far as the demo process and Mader even has a writing credit on the new song "My Hands Are Empty."
"[We] tried to do that. Logan actually has a co-write on 'My Hands Are Empty.' And we tried. I sent everybody the demos. The stuff that I had till that point, I said, 'Hey, add some riffs to this' or 'Add some drum ideas.' I think the timing of it was just crazy. Once the pandemic hit, everybody was just trying to hustle and make money and live and stay afloat.
"Even Logan and I had a conversation at one point. He was, like, 'Dude, I'd love to do this, but I need to fucking find a way to pay my rent. I've gotta figure out some other shit to make money here.' 'Cause he lost a lot of… When the pandemic hit, many people lost their jobs. So it just, unfortunately, didn't pan out. Not to say that it won't in the future, but for this time it didn't. And so Jared and I just kept on plugging along."
