Burton C. Bell
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Burton Christopher Bell (born February 19, 1969) is a vocalist, lyricist, guitarist, and keyboardist. Born in Houston, Texas, Bell is best known as frontman of the death metal/industrial band, Fear Factory. His singing style is considered influential and innovative, in that he was one of the first major heavy metal vocalists to mix clean vocals with death growls. Bell and Fear Factory have often been noted the pioneers of combining these styles.[citation needed]
[edit] Career
Prior to his role in Fear Factory, Bell performed in a group by the name of Hate Face. In 1989, he joined guitarist Dino Cazares and drummer Raymond Herrera to complete the original incarnation of Fear Factory under the name Ulceration. The group recorded four studio albums before a rift in the group, particularly between Bell and Cazares, temporarily ended Fear Factory.
Bell has performed guest vocals on many records in addition to taking lead vocal duties for G/Z/R's Plastic Planet album released in 1995. Due to commitments with Fear Factory, Bell was not the vocalist for G/Z/R's second album, Black Science. One song in particular, "The Invisible," mentions the word "Obsolete" often, which is also the name of the 1998 Fear Factory album.
After Fear Factory's hiatus in 2005, Bell went on to form Ascension of the Watchers with John Bechdel at Bechdel's studio in Mifflinburg, PA. The Watchers released an online only selling EP entitled Iconoclast in 2005. In October of 2006, Burton announced via the Ascension of the Watchers website, "I have had to focus on Fear Factory for a while, but 2007 is all about Ascension of The Watchers."
On February 19h, Ascension of the Watchers released their first full length album Numinosum. This has kept Bell's hiatus with Fear Factory, allowing him to explore other veins of music.
Burton also recorded a track for UK metal band This is Menace, the track was then cut out of the final edit from the album No End In Sight.
[edit] Personal life
Bell and wife, artist Amy Abattoir, have a daughter, Violet, born Feb 17, 2006 and a son, Atticus, born Dec 2007. He has a fraternal twin brother, Ben, who is a Country Singer, librarian and an information science graduate student at Louisiana State University. Burton is a photographer and writer when not on tour.
Bell was one of the young audience members in Nirvana's music video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Although there are only a few snippets of him in this video, Bell is most visible at 2:12 in the song. This has been noted a few times by himself, his band, and often members of the Fear Factory online community. His favorite Fear Factory songs are Shock & Resurrection.
[edit] Discography
All appearances are as a vocalist, unless mentioned otherwise.
| Band | Release date | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Fear Factory | 1992 | Soul of a New Machine |
| Fear Factory | 1995 | Demanufacture |
| G/Z/R | 1995 | Plastic Planet |
| Fear Factory | 1998 | Obsolete |
| Spineshank - guest | 1998 | Strictly Diesel |
| Kilgore - guest | 1998 | Search for Reason |
| Static X - guest | 2000 | The Crow: Salvation |
| Fear Factory | 2001 | Digimortal |
| Fear Factory | 2002 | Concrete |
| Fear Factory | 2004 | Archetype |
| Fear Factory | 2005 | Transgression |
| Ascension of the Watchers | 2005 | Iconoclast EP |
| SOiL - guest | 2006 | True Self |
| Ministry - guest | 2007 | The Last Sucker |
| Ministry - guest | 2007 | Cover up |
| Ascension of the Watchers | 2008 | Numinosum |
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