Diesel Machine was originally formed in 1996 under the monicker Diesel by Halford guitarist Pat Lachman. A six track demo was recorded after which the band was joined by bassist Rich Gonzales. In 1999 the band recorded a cover of Metallica's "The Thing That Should Not Be" for the Dwell Records tribute album "Overload: Tribute To Metallica". Diesel Machine entered the studio and financed the recordings of their debut album "Torture Test" themselves. It was mixed by Pat Regan and finally released by the German label Steamhammer Records (owned by SPV) in February 2000. The bassist Rich Gonzales suffered from very serious injuries after an accident with his Harley Davidson in August of 2002. He was in a coma for two days but recovered amazingly fast. Since then the band has been very quiet and are no longer contracted under Steamhammer.