Dino Cazares Biography

Dino Cazares, born September 2, 1966 in El Centro, CA, was the guitarist for Los Angeles-based metal/industrial group Fear Factory until 2002. He now plays guitar in Divine Heresy.

Cazares and drummer Raymond Herrera formed Fear Factory in 1989 under the name Ulceration. However, it was renamed to their current name Fear Factory in the following year. The band's first album, Soul of a New Machine, was dedicated to Cazares' mother, Natividad, and older brother, Joey. Before joining Fear Factory, Cazares was in the grindcore band Excruciating Terror. The Mexican death/grind side-project Brujeria formed later on with members of Faith No More, Fear Factory, and others.

When Fear Factory split up (temporarily) in 2002, Cazares returned to Brujeria, but soon left to form Asesino. Fear Factory reformed later that year without Cazares and with bassist Christian Olde-Wolbers becoming the new guitarist for the band.

Cazares' main guitars in Fear Factory were custom-made 7-string Ibanez models, usually detuned a whole step to allow for even lower registers. His main guitar in Asesino is an Ibanez prototype 8-string guitar (standard tuning with two extra basses: (F#,B,E,A,D,G,B, E) loaded with 2 EMG808 active pickups. In the early days, his guitar tone derived from a modified Marshall JCM800 head with scooped mids and high treble settings to produce the thrashy, chugging tone which has been so influential to the metal genre.

During his time with Fear Factory, Cazares had also endorsed the Line 6 Flextone amp series and POD preamp. He is currently endorsing the Ibanez Toneblaster amps and plays custom-made 8-string RG and Xyphos guitars made by Ibanez. In 2007 Cazares switched from EMG active pickups to Seymour Duncan AHB-1 Blackout active pickups.

In 2005, Cazares contributed to the compilation Roadrunner United with other Roadrunner Records artists.

Dino is now busy with his group Divine Heresy which he has signed to Roadrunner Records and Century Media Records. He will be joined by Tim Yeung (All That Remains, Hate Eternal, Nile, Vital Remains) on drums and newcomer Tommy Vext on vocals. The band's debut "Bleed The Fifth" is set for release on August 27th (Europe) and August 28th (USA). "Bleed The Fifth" was produced by Dirty Icon and Lucas Banker. The cover art has been developed by Joachim Luetke (Manson, Sopor Aeternus, Dimmu Borgir, Arch Enemy). According to Metal Maniacs, during a recent live show he described Divine Heresy as "similar to the old Fear Factory" and that it "isn't pussy music like the new Fear Factory".

Dino was recently seen playing "Replica" with Dutch symphonic metal band Epica on September 25th.

info : wikipedia