FEAR FACTORY Frontman: How I Ended Up Appearing In NIRVANA's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' Video

July 31, 2012

John Doan of MusicFrenzy.net recently conducted an interview with vocalist Burton C. Bell of Los Angeles cyber metallers FEAR FACTORY. You can now listen to the chat in four parts below.

Asked how it came about that he made an appearance in NIRVANA's iconic "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video, Bell said, "I was a big NIRVANA fan for a long time, and I saw them a bunch of times on the 'Bleach' tour. After seeing them a few times, I'd run into them, a friend of mine actually played on [NIRVANA's 1991 record] record, 'Nevermind' — he played cello on 'Something In The Way'. So we had a copy of that record almost five months before it came out. What happened was that, before the record came out, they had a show in L.A. at the Roxy, and after the show, they threw out flyers saying, 'Hey, come to our video shoot.' And so me and my roommate got the flyer with the directions on it and we went to the video shoot the next day. . . And what happened in the video wasn't even supposed to happen. The audience just went nuts."

He added, "I saw NIRVANA once after that, and I knew it was gonna be the last time I saw them because ['Smells'] was on the radio and they were blowing up."

FEAR FACTORY later recorded a cover version of NIRVANA's song "School" for its 2004 album "Archetype".

FEAR FACTORY's new album, "The Industrialist", sold 9,300 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 38 on The Billboard 200 chart. The band's previous CD, "Mechanize", opened with 10,000 units back in February 2010 to land at No. 72.

Released in North America on June 5 via Candlelight Records, "The Industrialist" is a conceptual record based around a story written by Burton C. Bell. The album's artwork was created by American designer Anthony Clarkson with additional direction from the band. The effort was made available on three formats — standard CD, a limited edition deluxe digi-book (featuring two additional songs),and 180-gram double vinyl.

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