Burton C. Bell was given several openings to comment on FEAR FACTORY's new era, and declined all of them. In a new interview with Pierre Gutiérrez of Rock Talks, the singer was asked what he made of "Roboticist," the band's first release featuring vocalist Milo Silvestro and drummer Pete Webber.
"I have not heard it. I got no comment," Bell said. "I have a feeling it sounds like FEAR FACTORY. So that's all I'm gonna say."
On Silvestro's live performances, the answer was the same. "I've never seen any videos. I don't watch that stuff. So I have no comment. I really have no interest to. That's the honest truth. I've moved on."
Gutiérrez pressed further, putting it to Bell that the band had essentially hired a copycat — a singer who sings the same, dresses the same, wears the same haircut and uses the same between-song patter. Bell would not take the bait. "There's no accounting for taste and what people like. I mean, I understand what you're saying, and I've heard some rumblings from friends and stuff about what's happening over there, but, honestly, I don't care. I've heard rumblings — mumblings. But my friends, they know how I feel, so they don't really tell me."
Bell's last FEAR FACTORY record was "Aggression Continuum," released by Nuclear Blast in June 2021 but recorded mostly back in 2017, with Dino Cazares on guitar and Mike Heller on drums. He announced his departure in September 2020, saying he could not align himself with someone he neither trusted nor respected.
He has been consistent since about what drove him out, and it was not the music. "Stepping away from FEAR FACTORY was not an easy decision by any means," he said on "The Ex-Man" podcast in 2022. "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."
He told Kerrang! much the same. "These lawsuits just drained me. The egos. The greed. Not just from bandmembers, but from the attorneys involved. I just lost my love for it. I felt like 30 years was a good run."
Bell is currently finishing his debut solo album, following four singles over the past three years: "Savages" in May 2025, "Anti-Droid" and "Technical Exorcism" in 2024, and a cover of RAMMSTEIN's "Du Hast" in 2023. Earlier this month he announced "Obsolete By Word Of Mouth," a series of intimate spoken-word events in San Diego, Los Angeles and Las Vegas in October, built around the story behind FEAR FACTORY's "Obsolete." The past, it turns out, is fine — provided he is the one telling it.