| Alien Ant Farm | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Moreno Valley, California, United States |
| Genres | Alternative rock, alternative metal, post-grunge, nu metal |
| Years active | 1995–2008, 2009–present |
| Labels | Universal |
| Website | alienantfarm.com |
| Members | |
| Dryden Mitchell Terry Corso Tye Zamora Mike Cosgrove |
|
| Past members | |
| Joe Hill Alex Barreto |
|
Alien Ant Farm is an American alternative rock band that formed in Riverside, California, in 1995. Their name comes from an idea original guitarist Terry Corso had about aliens and the earth: "I was daydreaming at my dull desk job with my feet up, and I thought to myself, 'Wouldn't it be cool if the human species were placed on earth and cultivated by alien intelligence?' Maybe the aliens added us to an atmosphere that was suitable for us, and they've been watching us develop and colonize, kind of like what a kid does with an ant farm." The band has sold over 5 million units worldwide, and has 4 studio albums, and 8 music videos.
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Alien Ant Farm was formed in 1996 in Riverside, CA. At first, it was an "All-Star Band" made up of the best members from local garage-bands. The compiled band included Dryden Mitchell (Vocalist), Terry Corso (Guitarist), Tye Zamora (Bassist), and Mike Cosgrove (Drummer). They played their first show on Mitchell's 20th Birthday & released their $100 EP that year. In 1998 they released their Love Songs EP.
In 1999, Alien Ant Farm released their underground debut album, titled Greatest Hits. It went on to win Best Independent Album in the L.A. Music Awards that year.
In 2000, after forging a friendship with the alternative rock band Papa Roach, Alien Ant Farm signed with DreamWorks SKG for their first studio album, Anthology.
In 2001, their cover of the Michael Jackson's song, "Smooth Criminal", was a #1 single in Australia and New Zealand, a #3 single in the UK, and #1 on the US Modern Rock charts. The music video features numerous tributing homages to Michael Jackson and his videos, but has been considered by many as a parody to his work. Terry Corso, the band's guitarist, addressed this in an MTV interview on the set of the music video, saying, "We want to pay homage to Michael Jackson, but on our level. Obviously we're not that glitzy, so we just want to tastefully take the stuff that's cool in his videos and apply it in our own dirty little backyard way."
The song was featured on the soundtrack of the first season of WWE Tough Enough and in the movie American Pie 2. Their following single "Movies" was a Top 5 hit in the UK and a Top 20 hit in New Zealand. The band began touring in promotion of these two singles and their album, which later went platinum.
In spring of 2002, the band contributed "Bug Bytes" to the first Spider-Man soundtrack.
In May 2002, the band was involved in a bus accident while touring in Spain. While the whole band suffered minor injuries, the driver, 26-year-old Christopher Holland, was killed, and lead singer Dryden Mitchell suffered a fractured C2 vertebra.
Alien Ant Farm soon returned to the studio to work on their next album, Truant, which was released in 2003 and produced by Stone Temple Pilots' Robert and Dean DeLeo. The video for "These Days", the first single from the album, was filmed on top of a nearby building during the Red Carpet at the 2003 BET Awards. "Glow" was a mainstream radio success, achieving long lasting Top 20 success in New Zealand. Two months after this album was released, however, their record label closed its doors. This hindered the album's popularity over time, but truANT as a whole was a commercial failure in the first place. Looked over by many critics, and lowly rated by those who paid attention to it, Alien Ant Farm's second album did not carry the same commercial power as their first; sprouting only a few hit singles (Formerly Mentioned).
Corona native, Ben Lacascia played the drums for Alien Ant Farm at the Corona High talent show.
In October 2003, guitarist Terry Corso split with the band citing "irreconcilable differences". Soon after, he joined Powerman 5000 for a time.
Victor Camacho (a long time friend of the band and guitar player) immediately joined the band and completed the remainder of the Truant tour until the band returned home. Joe Hill was named the new guitarist in 2005 (formerly in Spiderworks).
In 2004, the band recorded the song "Dark in Here" for the The Punisher video game. Unfortunately, the band was forced to wait for Geffen to allow them to record another album (after Universal Music bought DreamWorks and assigned the band to its Geffen Records label).
In 2005, the band recorded with producer Jim Wirt (who recorded their independent, debut release Greatest Hits) and planned to release the album during that summer. However, Geffen shelved the album and subsequently denied the band the rights to release it themselves. The band hit the road and made bootleg copies of the album material available to all of their fans. This unofficial release was dubbed 3rd Draft by fans.
Their song "Wish" was in the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 video game. Their song "Courage" also featured on the Shaun Palmers Pro Snowboarder and the ATV Offroad Fury 2 video games.
In 2004, the band's song "These Days" was featured on the Madden 2004 video game.
In late 2005, Geffen finally agreed to let the band release the album on another Universal label, Universal Music Enterprises (its catalogue division). On May 4, 2006, information began showing up on music store websites and release calendars about an upcoming release from the band. The band also released information about a DVD that same day. On May 30, 2006 the new album, Up in the Attic, was released digitally on iTunes and sold at various retailers. The Best Buy Edition included a bonus track, "Repeat Defender". The first single was "Forgive and Forget", the one added track to 3rd Draft.
In April 2006, bassist Tye Zamora left the band and decided to go to college. He was replaced by Alex Barreto (formerly of hardcore bands Chain of Strength, Hardstance, and Inside Out). On June 29, 2006, the band performed on G4's Attack of the Show, and on July 18, 2006, Up In The Attic was released worldwide, along with BUSted: The Definitive DVD. Included on the DVD were music videos for "Forgive and Forget", "Around the Block", and "She's Only Evil". Notably, the three videos feature only Dryden Mitchell and Mike Cosgrove.
Since the July 2006 release of Up in the Attic, very little has happened. Their website remained unchanged from November 2006 until April 2007 when an update promoting the Alien Ant Fans website, created by a long time Polish fan, Bartek, was added.
The band released "Around the Block", the second single from Up in the Attic, on the iTunes Store in 2007.
On February 11, 2008, the band posted a statement on their website stating Terry Corso and Tye Zamora had rejoined the band. It was also revealed that the band had "unofficially broken up" in 2007 due to the fact that 2006's Up in the Attic was their least successful album.
It appeared that they had broken up again since the vocalist Dryden Mitchell has joined/formed the band Send the Sages. Also, guitarist Terry Corso and drummer Michael Cosgrove have been putting in time with their own project band Ghost In The Flesh, as has Zamora with the band eEnik. But on May 29, 2009 A.A.F.'s official website announced a show for June 17, 2009 in Kansas City, MO. Also on May 26, The band's first live album, entitled Alien Ant Farm: Live In Germany was released on iTunes, featuring the same cover as their 20th Century Masters album.
In 2009, they were announced to play Sonisphere Festival in Knebworth, UK on Saturday 1 August.[1] They had also performed "Smooth Criminal" at the 2009 Vans' Warped Tour in memory of the now late Michael Jackson, in which Alien Ant Farm had also posted several entries on their site concerning his death.
The band's MySpace profile was redesigned with a new layout, featuring a blog posting that featured the June 27th show in HD, and an announcement that new material was being worked on.
On February 9, 2010, Alien Ant Farm posted on their official website that the original line up (Dryden Mitchell, Terry Corso, Tye Zamora and Mike Cosgrove) is back together for the first time since 2003. On February 27, 2010, the Alien Ant Farm official website was released the bands first "webizode" titled Bassmasters.
Alien Ant Farm recently signed with Field House Management, who also has 12 Stones, Egypt Central among others.
On October 18, their Myspace was updated and live videos of several new songs such as Godlike, Yellow Pages, High On The Horizon and Simpatico have been uploaded.
Smooth Criminal was re-released on iTunes as a single, and as a (7" version) with a (Die Krupps Remix) also available, and iTunes. Also, A new, remastered/re-released version of Smooth Criminal can be found on the soundrack of The Green Hornet. The new version of Smooth Criminal was released by Cleopatra Records exclusively on iTunes.
Alien Ant Farm announced the ANTicipation 2011 Tour which took place across the continental U.S.. The tour began July 9, and ended in October. They had supporting act MeTalkPretty. They also took part in the "Michael Forever Tribute Concert" which took place on October 8th, 2011 in Cardiff, Wales. They announced in Mid-October that they have started writing and recording new material, and hope the new album will launch in Spring 2012.
Alien Ant Farm typically has quirky videos, such as the Michael Jackson tributes in "Smooth Criminal", the film homages (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands, The Karate Kid, Ghostbusters) in the primary version of "Movies", and the personified appliances in "Glow". They also crashed the BET Awards, a Gay Pride parade, and a scheduled performance by Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera for their music video of "These Days".
In an interview on Vinnie Langdon's webshow in 2010, Dryden Mitchell seemingly regretted the humorous music videos from earlier in the decade, Claiming that, "I think we got kinda coined as this funny band, even though the music wasn't really funny, but all of our videos were kind of a little more silly hearted, even if the song wasn't."
| Year | Album details | Peak chart positions | Certifications (sales threshold) |
|||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [3] |
US Heat | UK [4] |
AUS [5] |
NZ [6] |
FIN [7] |
SWE [8] |
AUT [9] |
SWI [10] |
||||||
| 1999 | Greatest Hits
|
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
| 2001 | Anthology
|
11 | 1 | 11 | 18 | 24 | 13 | 58 | 32 | 45 | ||||
| 2003 | Truant
|
42 | — | 68 | — | 26 | — | — | — | 71 | ||||
| 2006 | Up in the Attic
|
114 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | ||||||||||||||
| Year | Album details |
|---|---|
| 1996 | Singles: $100 EP
|
| 1998 | Love Songs EP
|
| Year | Album details |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 20th Century Masters: The Millenium Collection: The Best of Alien Ant Farm
|
| Year | Album details |
|---|---|
| 2009 | Alien Ant Farm: Live In Germany
|
| Year | Single | Peak chart positions | Certifications (sales threshold) |
Album | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [15] |
US Mod [16] |
US Main [15] |
UK [4] |
AUS [17] |
NZ [18] |
FIN [19] |
SWE [20] |
AUT [21] |
SWI [22] |
|||||
| 2001 | "Smooth Criminal" | 23 | 1 | 18 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 4 | Anthology | ||
| 2002 | "Movies" | — | 18 | 38 | 5 | 29 | 35 | — | — | — | 62 | |||
| "Attitude" | — | — | — | 66 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
| 2003 | "These Days" | — | 29 | 38 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Truant | ||
| "Glow" | — | — | — | — | — | 5 | — | — | — | — | ||||
| 2006 | "Forgive and Forget" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Up In the Attic | ||
| 2007 | "Around the Block" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | ||||||||||||||
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