During an appearance on the latest episode of The Candid Mic With Fran Strine podcast, Phil Demmel reflected on his exit from MACHINE HEAD nearly seven years ago. The 58-year-old guitarist said in part):  ”At that point, it’s a great gig. MACHINE HEAD‘s on fire. The record we put out (2018’s ‘Catharsis’) was less. I think that we all agree on that. But it wasn’t horrible and it wasn’t a career killer. It was something it would need to be bounced back from. But I just got lost in my place in the band.”

He continued: “There’s a story about a guy telling his daughter, ‘Here’s this old car. Take it and see what they’ll give it to you.’ Takes it to the used car lot. ‘Hey, I’ll give you a thousand for it.’ Take it to the pawn shop. ‘Oh, I’ll give you a hundred for it.’ And you take it to the car club people and they’re, like, ‘Holy shit, I’m gonna give you a hundred thousand dollars for this car.’ It’s just, like, know what your value is and don’t stay where you’re not valued. And I think that a combination of either I lost my value in that band or I wasn’t being valued the way that I felt that I should be. And it was time to move on. And when you reach your point, you just reach your point. I had heard something, and I just was done. I took my credit card, my key to the studio and everything, and just handed ’em off. And I was so good with it. And I think that (MACHINE HEAD frontman Robb Flynn) was too, and it was just, like I was saving him the job of having to fire me. (Laughs) The marriage, it just needed to be dissolved. And we did. And it was fine. I was salty for a bit. I don’t feel like I… I don’t think I talked a lot of shit. I think that I talked some facts that I wasn’t able to while I was in the band. I wasn’t able to do press towards the end for the last few years. And so I just think that my side hadn’t been told, and it was fair to have it be told. There’s a reason for leaving, and I gave my reasons. And it took me a minute to get past that. I was happy I was gone. I’ve never regretted doing it.”

Asked what he misses about being in MACHINE HEAD, Phil said: “I miss traveling in business class every flight. (Laughs) I mean, I still do — I still travel business but not every time I go somewhere. Traveling with that band was business towards the end. And that’s what I miss about it. I miss jamming with those dudes. I loved playing and writing music with Robb and Dave (McClain, then-MACHINE HEAD drummer) and Adam (Duce, former MACHINE HEAD bassist) and Jared (MacEachern, current MACHINE HEAD bassist). They’re tremendous musicians, and we wrote some awesome stuff, man. I miss when it was good. And it was good a lot. We traveled well together. There was that dichotomy. And then you didn’t. But I miss the good stuff, because it was really good. It wasn’t all bad.”

Asked if he still keeps in talk contact with Robb at all, Phil said: “Um, not really. Not really. I hadn’t for a long time, and I bumped into him at a couple festivals last year, and I think that we’re at a point where it’s civil. We’re not buddies, but it’s not bad. And I think that was probably 95%, 98% my fault. I’d ignore him when we were in the same room. And it just got to be so silly. It’s just, like, ‘What am I doing? He’s walking in here, and you’re just pretending he is not there. It’s just fucking dumb.’ I needed to really get past a lot of shit on my end. And I think that he had probably — he’s had so much other shit to deal than me in all these years that he had been there years ago. But it took me a minute, man, and I’m glad that it did, that I was able to go through what I needed to go through to get there and put it in its right spot and forgive myself for what I was feeling, but forgive him for a lot of stuff too and realize that at the end of the day it’s not that important to be carrying so much weight. ‘Cause it was a lot of weight for me. And I’ve been able to do that with a lot of things. Knowing that I was at fault for a lot of the breakup too and being okay with that. People fuck up and people don’t get along. And here we are. So we just need to move on from it. So I’m trying to move on.”