Origins (early–mid 1980s) The roots of funk metal can be traced back to the Atlanta band
Mother's Finest. In the late 1970s, the band already trying to make the leap from the classic funk rock of their Epic Records label to a more powerful sound. This can be heard in the song "Hard Rock Lover", which features a heavier rhythm section made up of bassist Jerry "Wizzard" Seay and drummer "B.B. Queen" Borden. It would be in 1981 when they could finally make the complete transition in their album
Iron Age, an authentic mixture of heavy rock and funk that establishes the elements of origin for funk metal. The decision to take that direction towards heavy metal had some consequences, such as the departure of keyboardist Michael Keck, who could not find a place in that new sound. The album was produced by
Jeff Glixman, who also worked with bands like Black Sabbath (for whom Mother's Finest opened for on their Technical Ecstasy Tour), Saxon, Magnum or Kansas. According to Alex Henderson of AllMusic, "with the right promotion, Iron Age could have made MF a big hit with the Quiet Riot/Judas Priest/Scorpions crowd, but the album was a commercial flop instead of the big commercial breakthrough that it should have been". The
self-titled 1984 debut album from Los Angeles band Red Hot Chili Peppers has been cited by some as the first truly funk metal or punk-funk release. Unlike with earlier funk rock albums from the 1970s and the early 1980s, it included elements of both punk and hip hop. At that point, the band were already signed to the major label
Capitol Records.
Faith No More released their independent debut
We Care a Lot the following year. Like with the Red Hot Chili Peppers' debut, it also mixed funk, hip hop and punk music. In 1988, Neil Perry of
Sounds Magazine referred to Faith No More's 1987 major label debut
Introduce Yourself as "a breathtaking harmonisation of molten metal guitar, deadly dance rhythms and poignant, pointed lyrics". On the Red Hot Chili Peppers' album
The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, released the same year, guitarist Hillel Slovak started to experiment with sounds other than punk rock/hard rock, including thrash metal. During late 1987, Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers toured together in support of these two albums. Martin recalled: "We were travelling in a
box van with no windows. We drove all the way to the east coast for the first show.
Flea asked me if we liked to smoke
weed. I said: ‘Yes’ and he said: ‘We're going to get along just fine’. We did something like 52 dates in 56 days." Faith No More subsequently went on a solo tour of the
United Kingdom in 1988. Following this tour, their singer
Chuck Mosley was fired due to his increasingly erratic behavior.
Ska-influenced Los Angeles band Fishbone are also noted for being an all-black group. They had ties with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and have been labelled as early leaders of the funk metal/punk-funk movement. The band got signed to the major label
Columbia Records in 1983, releasing several albums through them, but never had a significant hit song.
Entertainment Weekly noted in a May 1991 article that "despite the rise of black rockers like Living Colour, the American funk-metal scene is predominantly white." Many reviewers often cited Living Colour as having been a band that were directly inspired by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The vocalist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Anthony Kiedis, played down similarities between the two bands. He stated at the time, "Living Colour to me sounds nothing like Red Hot Chili Peppers. But I have to deal with [this] on a daily basis: 'Wow, Living Colour's really biting your style. Y'ever see the guy on stage? He moves just like you.'"
The A.V. Club later wrote in 2013 that, "Living Colour was boundary-breaking—and yet the group was given more boundaries right out of the gate. As funk-metal like that of Faith No More solidified into a subgenre with set rules and sounds, the last thing Living Colour wanted was to be called funk-metal." Primus, a band with thrash metal origins formed in the mid-1980s, has been widely described as funk metal, though they have also crossed many other genres and bandleader/bassist
Les Claypool dislikes the categorization. After getting signed to
Interscope Records, Claypool remarked in 1991, "We've been lumped in with the funk metal thing just about everywhere. I guess people just have to categorise you". Claypool has mentioned being inspired by
The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, comparing it to
Led Zeppelin.
Popularity (late 1980s–early 1990s) of
Primus The success of Faith No More's 1989 song "
Epic" helped heighten interest in the genre. In the wake of Living Colour's success, another all-black funk metal band from New York called
24-7 Spyz gained popularity. Anthony Kiedis later claimed Faith No More's new singer,
Mike Patton, had stolen his style, specifically in "Epic" and its popular music video. He said "I watched [their] 'Epic' video, and I see him jumping up and down, rapping, and it looked like I was looking in a mirror." In an interview with
Kerrang! Kiedis further said, "what a drag if people get the idea that I’m actually ripping him off. Especially in the UK where FNM is much better known than us. In America, it’s a different story, people are aware of the profound influence we had on them." He also threatened to "kidnap [Patton], shave his hair off and cut off one of his feet just so he'll be forced to find a style of his own." Faith No More's keyboardist
Roddy Bottum responded to Kiedis by saying in an interview, "to me, our band sounds nothing like Red Hot Chili Peppers. If you're talking about long hair, rapping with his shirt off, then yeah, I can see similarities [...] I haven't talked to them since this whole thing started." Patton addressed Kiedis' allegations in 1990 by saying to
Faces Magazine that, "it just kind of came out of the blue. It doesn't bother me a bit. I got a real big kick out of it to tell you the truth. I mean, if he's gonna talk about me in interviews, that's fine - it's free press! Either he's feeling inadequate or old or I don't know, but I have no reason to talk shit about him." Kiedis and Patton were thought to have gotten on good terms with each other after face to face encounters in the 1990s, although the feud would eventually continue into the late 1990s and early 2000s with Patton's other funk metal band,
Mr. Bungle, who were heavily inspired by the Red Hot Chili Peppers in their early days. They signed to
Warner Bros. Records in 1990 on the back of singer Mike Patton's success with Faith No More, and by then had started mixing their ska/funk metal style with avant-garde sounds. Their 1991 debut on Warner Bros. has been labelled as "funk metal madness" and "an irresistibly vulgar fusion of jazz, funk, metal, and a great wealth of other things." Spruance has mentioned the first two Red Hot Chili Peppers albums as an influence, with Mr. Bungle even covering their song "Baby Appeal" at a high school talent show. However, bassist
Trevor Dunn has since claimed that he wasn't as big a fan of them as other members in the band were, saying "I was way more into Fishbone and
Bad Manners back in the day." In January 1991,
Spin observed that major labels were seeking out bands with a "thrash-funk" or "funk metal" sound, and commented, "all of a sudden there's a virtual army of funk-metal bands, primarily centered in the
San Francisco Bay Area. They range from thrashers, who lend an occasional funk edge to some of their material (Mordred and
Death Angel) to straight-out funkers (Primus,
Psychefunkapus and Limbomaniacs) to those who defy categorization (Faith No More)." The funk metal bands formed in the San Francisco Bay Area were influenced by the earlier, punk-oriented Los Angeles bands such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Fishbone, and there would be interaction between bands from both cities.
John Joseph, who left
crossover thrash band
Cro-Mags to form funk metal band Both Worlds, told
Spin in 1991 that, "funk is fun music to play, and it's good to see girls having a good time up front, not just dudes with spikes on their arms." Vocalist Pat Dubar distanced Mind Funk from the more funk-oriented bands in the movement, saying in 1991 that, "everyone's jumping on that bandwagon. We may have funky parts in our songs, but as far as playing straight funk, forget it. We couldn't do it as well as the guys who originated it. We take a lot of different elements from rap to
the Doors and jazz and mix them together." Infectious Grooves, another Los Angeles band, also signed to Epic Records at the beginning of the 1990s. Infectious Grooves included vocalist
Mike Muir and bassist
Robert Trujillo, both of Suicidal Tendencies, a
hardcore/crossover thrash band. Suicidal Tendencies themselves had signed to Epic in the late 1980s and already begun adding funk metal elements to their music on 1990's
Lights...Camera...Revolution!. The drummer for Infectious Grooves was
Stephen Perkins of
Jane's Addiction, a band from the same scene as the Red Hot Chili Peppers who occasionally delved into funk metal. Muir gave Infectious Grooves equal status as Suicidal Tendencies, and the two bands often toured together, necessitating an exhausting two sets per night for Muir and Trujillo. Neg Raggett of AllMusic claims that by 1992 "oodles of (mostly horribly bad) funk-metal acts were following in Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' footsteps." In an interview from around this time, Flea spoke negatively about derivative acts that were inspired by Faith No More and Red Hot Chili Peppers. After a writer compared Red Hot Chili Peppers to the new funk metal band
Ugly Kid Joe, he said "I just know where their music is coming from – copping us, copping Faith No More, copping Pop-Rock Band No. 17B. We're coming from listening to
Miles Davis,
Ornette Coleman,
Defunkt,
Funkadelic,
the Meters,
James Brown – the real shit. And it's coming from jamming and playing billions of hours of shit that no one will hear." Guitar virtuoso
Buckethead began releasing albums through avant-garde labels in the early 1990s, and many of them have been associated with funk metal. Additionally, Buckethead was in the experimental band
Praxis with veteran funk musician
Bootsy Collins and former Limbomaniacs drummer
Brain (who later joined Primus). Their music has also been associated with funk metal, particularly their 1992 debut
Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis).
Decline (mid–late 1990s) By the latter part of the 1990s, funk metal was considered to be represented by a smaller group of bands, including
Incubus,
Sugar Ray,
Jimmie's Chicken Shack and
311. Incubus formed in 1991 at the height of the genre's popularity, and they were inspired by funk metal bands. Vocalist
Brandon Boyd has mentioned being a fan of Mr. Bungle's debut when it was first released, and has also said "Primus was one of those bands that myself,
José from our band,
Mikey from our band, the three of us fully bonded over them. We would just crank their music in the car, outdoors." unlike with the band's prior releases
Fungus Amongus (1995) and
Enjoy Incubus (1997), it further incorporated elements of
electronica into funk metal. Guitarist
Mike Einziger said in 1997 that the band had set out to record an album that sounded like "weird science and energetic funk." At the time, they garnered heavy comparisons to Faith No More, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Primus, with critics noting similarities between the voices of singer Brandon Boyd and Mike Patton. Some of the band's later releases still retained elements of funk, but they were viewed as being more musically straightforward than before. In November 2001, Amy Sciarretto of
CMJ New Music Report claimed that Incubus was "poised to be hard rock's bastard child of Faith No More and Primus thanks to its resident hottie Brandon Boyd's easy-on-the-ears emulation of Mike Patton and
Dirk Lance's bass thwapping. But between 1997's
S.C.I.E.N.C.E. and 1999's
Make Yourself, the album that broke Incubus at rock radio, the band took a stylistic turn."
Hoobastank, a band from the same Southern Californian neighborhood as Incubus, were also heavily inspired by Mike Patton and Faith No More/Mr. Bungle. Their early independent releases
Muffins (1997) and ''They Don't Sure Don't Make Basketball Shorts Like They Used To'' (1998) contain elements of ska and funk metal. After signing to
Island Records in the early 2000s, the band changed to a more mainstream sound, garnering comparisons to the style of music that Incubus was making in the early 2000s. Initially beginning as a
hardcore punk band in the 1980s, Sugar Ray's first two major label releases
Lemonade and Brownies (1995) and
Floored (1997) have been frequently labelled as funk metal Subsequent releases from Sugar Ray completely abandoned the sound of these albums in favor of a more mainstream approach, as they had gained massive popularity in 1997 with their pop/
reggae single "
Fly".
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic says that after the success of "Fly" they "no longer tried to ape the Red Hot Chili Peppers." In 1996, Australian band
Regurgitator released a major label record in the country titled
Tu-Plang, which has been associated with funk metal. The album would be given an American release the following year, although the band went on to explore other sounds. Bands usually associated with other genres such as
nu metal (
Korn,
Primer 55),
pop punk (
Zebrahead) and
comedy rock (
Bloodhound Gang) also incorporated elements of funk metal into their sound during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Snot's first and only full-length release
Get Some (1997) has been described by critics as not only a funk metal album, but also as a hardcore punk album and an early nu metal album. Korn, who are often credited with popularizing the nu metal sound on their 1994 debut, have named Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers as their two biggest musical influences. Korn has also cited 24-7 Spyz, Fishbone, Living Colour, Mr. Bungle, Primus and Rage Against the Machine as influences. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine considers their debut to be "building on the funk-metal innovations of the late '80s/early '90s instead of merely replicating them." Some of the members of Korn were formerly in a funk metal band called
L.A.P.D., who formed in 1989 and released their sole album ''Who's Laughing'' in 1992. Guitarist
James 'Munky' Shaffer has still considered Korn to be funk metal, saying in 2014, "Korn began as, and has remained a funk-metal band." The term nu metal was not yet in usage when albums such as
Get Some were first released. Nu metal is generally considered to have entered the mainstream with Korn's 1998 album
Follow the Leader, and the label was being used by the early 2000s. Critics have occasionally categorized Korn's work as funk metal, even after the nu metal label became prevalent. AllMusic described Korn's breakthrough 1997 single "
A.D.I.D.A.S." as "a kinetic funk-metal track" in their retrospective review. While the more well-known work of
Papa Roach has been described as nu metal, vocalist
Jacoby Shaddix has noted that the band's independent releases from 1994 to 1997 had a more funk metal sound. He reflected, "if we go back and listen to the first P-Roach recordings, we sound like a cross between Mr. Bungle, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Primus. You know, that whole '90s scene that was funky and freaky - I even wore
panty hose on my head."
Mega!! Kung Fu Radio, the 1997 major label debut of
Powerman 5000, showcased an aggressive form of funk metal, which the band themselves branded as "action-rock". Les Claypool claimed that Primus's 1997 album
Brown Album was a return to the aggressive sound of their earlier material, although critics labelled it as "flat-sounding" and as moving "even further into
progressive and
jazz-rock territory." Primus's next studio album
Antipop (1999) was co-produced by
Fred Durst of the band Limp Bizkit. Durst has cited Primus as a major influence, and he encouraged them to return to the aggressive sound of their earlier material. Mike Wolf of CMJ New Music Monthly called the album "
ozzfest funk metal" in his 1999 review, and compared it not only to Limp Bizkit but also Korn. Later in 1999, Primus went on tour with Incubus, another artist who cite them as an influence. The band entered a hiatus the following year, and would not release another full-length album until 2011. Other influential 1980s and early 1990s acts such as Faith No More, Mr. Bungle and Red Hot Chili Peppers had largely abandoned the sound in favor of other styles by the latter part of the 90s. Faith No More's bassist
Billy Gould claimed he was "sick" of the genre as early as 1992, though the band's 1992 album
Angel Dust has been described as having some funk metal characteristics. In 1995, he said: "we were perceived as a gimmick: a mixture of metal and funk and we had this pretty-boy singer. We found it really repulsive. We started getting tapes from bands who were heavy metal funk bands and they were saying we were their main influence, it was horrible.
Angel Dust was a way for us to stretch our arms out and hold on to our identity, [Mike] Patton cut his hair and changed how he looked."
Spin wrote in 1992 that
Angel Dust had "slow, scary songs, and not as much funk-metal thrash as the average fan would expect." In 2003, Brad Filicky of CMJ New Music Report claimed that after the success of their previous album
The Real Thing (1989), they "grew tired of the trappings and limitations of the genre [so] rather than release that era's equivalent of
Significant Other, the band flipped the script entirely and dropped an experimental bombshell on the scene." Faith No More would eventually announce their initial split on April 20, 1998. The band's final two albums in the 1990s,
King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime (1995) and
Album of the Year (1997), have usually been considered alternative metal albums rather than funk metal albums, although
Rolling Stone still referred to Faith No More as a funk metal band when announcing their split in April 1998. however, beginning with 1999's
Californication, they began heading towards a more mainstream funk-influenced pop rock direction. According to
The Washington Post in 1999, acts such as Korn and
Limp Bizkit built on the "funk/metal/rap hybrid" of Red Hot Chili Peppers during the four year interval between
One Hot Minute and
Californication. Anthony Kiedis stated in 2002, "I don't think any of those conservative, ultra-aggro, rap metal bands had the funk influence or punk-rock energy that we had." The feud between Kiedis and Patton was re-ignited in 1999 when Mr. Bungle's album
California was pushed back by their label
Warner Bros. Records as not to coincide with the similarly titled
Californication, which was to be released on the same day by Warner Bros. Following the album release date conflict, Kiedis had Mr. Bungle removed from a number of European summer festivals that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were set to perform at. As a result of the concert removals, Mr. Bungle
parodied the Red Hot Chili Peppers on
Halloween 1999, in Pontiac, Michigan (the home state of Kiedis). Patton introduced each Mr. Bungle band member with the name of one of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, before covering the songs "
Give It Away", "
Around the World", "
Under the Bridge" and "
Scar Tissue", with Patton deliberately using incorrect lyrics, such as "Sometimes I feel like I'm on heroin" and "Sometimes I feel like a fucking junkie" on "Under the Bridge". His bandmates also mocked the heroin overdose death of former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Hillel Slovak. Mr. Bungle ceased being active in late 2000. Some of their last shows were with Incubus in 2000 at the
SnoCore Tour. By then, Mr. Bungle had stopped playing music from their first album, instead playing their avant-garde/
experimental rock songs from
Disco Volante (1995) and
California.
Later years and legacy (2000s onward) During 2001,
Alien Ant Farm released a hugely successful funk metal cover of
Michael Jackson's "
Smooth Criminal", an
electro funk song. Bands formed in the 2000s and 2010s that have been described as funk metal include
Psychostick, and
Prophets of Rage (a supergroup featuring members of
Cypress Hill,
Public Enemy and Rage Against the Machine). In 2016,
Vice referred to funk metal as "a mostly-forgotten and occasionally-maligned genre". In 2022,
Blabbermouth.net labelled the genre as "absurdly entertaining and considerably more inventive than many of the cross-pollinated subgenres that came later", further adding that "obviously, funk-metal was not built to last and both grunge and nu-metal were far bigger commercial propositions in the years that followed."
Fox News host
Greg Gutfeld injected himself into the Kiedis-Patton feud in 2016, calling Red Hot Chili Peppers "the worst band in the universe" and "poor man's Faith No More." In 2020, Mr. Bungle reunited as a
thrash metal band, with the band's earlier funk metal material not being performed live. German band Slope's 2024 album
Freak Dreams, released on
Century Media, was widely described as funk metal upon release. ==See also==