Filter

American band Filter is known for its soundtracks for movies and videogames as much as fot its original albums. It was formed in 1993 in Cleveland, Ohio by Richard Patrick (professional musician) and Brian Liesegang (musician, also a programmer with a degree in philosophy). They got acquainted through working with Nine Inch Nails – Patrick worked as a touring guitarist for Nine Inch Nails and Liesegang was an assistant engineer on their Broken and The Downward Spiral albums. Filter disk, Short Bus, became both commercially successful and controversial, mainly because of the hit single Hey Man, Nice Shot. It was seen as capitalizing on the public suicide of Budd Dwyer – an American politician who committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with a revolver during a televised press conference. Kurt Cobain's suicide was widely rumored to have inspired the song.

After the Short Bus release Filter concentrated on soundtrack contributions. The first of these tracks, Thanks Bro, was written for the Songs In The Key Of X - album of music from and inspired by The X-Files (Patrick is a big fan of this show). Later Filter recorded a cover of Harry Nilsson's One for The X-Files film soundtrack. In 1996, Filter recorded and filmed the video for the song Jurassitol, for The Crow: City of Angels soundtrack, but it was used later for The Crow: Salvation soundtrack in 2000. Filter also recorded Trip Like I Do for the Spawn movie soundtrack. Filter continued with Title of Record in 1999. The album moved somewhat away from industrial to rock, and this movement continued with each album. The mellow ballad Take a Picture became a great hit, with the line "Do you want to take my picture 'cause I won't remember?" becoming a popular phrase refering to an alcoholic blackout. The song Captain Bligh (named after Vice-Admiral William Bligh, whose crew rebelled) was written by Patrick after leaving Nine Inch Nails and was about Trent Reznor's notoriously anti-social habits.

Next album, The Amalgamut, was released in 2002, featuring the singles Where Do We Go From Here? and The Only Way, which was included in Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life soundtrack. But then Filter's work stopped – Richard Patrick voluntarily checked himself into rehab. After that he started new project Army of Anyone. Patrick also joined The Damning Well band, which consisted of Wes Borland from Limp Bizkit, Danny Lohner from Nine Inch Nails and Josh Freese from Guns N' Roses. The band has only released one track on the Underworld movie soundtrack in 2003, despite an entire album was planned. Filter reunited in 2008 to release Anathems For The Damned album. The band took a step towards mainstream music, however, the album received critical acclaim. A year later the musicians released an incredible compilation album The Very Best Things (1995-2008) (2009) which included the band’s best works. In 2010 the rockers’ discography was enlarged by a strong long play entitled The Trouble With Angels. That album was very well received by the experts, while numerous fans enjoyed Filter’s signature powerful sound.