Fantômas

Fantômas is an avant-garde metal band from California, USA formed in 1998 when Mike Patton, previously famous for the multi-million selling Faith No More and art-rock heroes Mr. Bungle, composed a handful of experimental metal songs. Patton then sent the original compositions to musicians he thought would be right for the job, guitarist Buzz Osborne (of sludge outfit Melvins), his childhood friend and ex-bandmate bassist Trevor Dunn (of Mr. Bungle) and drummer Igor Cavalera (from thrash metal band Sepultura), but Cavalera rejected his offer. Instead, Dave Lombardo (from Slayer) joined on drums, thus his own dream group, Fantômas, was born. Patton named the group after an anti-hero featured in a series of crime novels popular in France before World War I. Fantômas' debut into the limelight came not even a year after forming with their self-titled album, "Fantômas" on April 27th, 1999, under Mike Patton's record label Ipecac Records. Fantômas are known for their manic and experimental take on both metal and just experimenting all together, with clear artistic themes coming with each album release. "Fantômas" their debut, takes on the theme of a comic book that doesn't exist, with each track title depicting a page number corresponding to a book. Their next album, "The Director's Cut" came shortly after in July of 2001. Coming back once again with a set artistical theme, this time being cover's of movie soundtracks, but reimagined in the Fantômas style, it's by far their most popular and widely acclaimed to date. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.