Filter

Richard Patrick had been touring guitarist for Nine Inch Nails, and he wanted a band of his own. In 1993, in Cleveland, he got one: Filter, with Patrick singing and Brian Liesegang on guitar, keyboards and programming. Short Bus, on Reprise in 1995, is industrial rock with the machines turned up and the doors kicked in, and "Hey Man Nice Shot" was the song that carried it, all grinding loops and a chorus that goes off like a car alarm. The album went platinum.

That was the last time Filter looked the same twice. Liesegang left in 1997, and Patrick made the follow-up with the players who'd toured Short Bus, who became full members: Geno Lenardo on guitar, Frank Cavanagh on bass and backing vocals, with Steven Gillis on drums by 1999. Title of Record came out that year and did about as well as the debut, thanks mostly to "Take a Picture", a woozy, drifting single that swapped the hammering for something softer and stranger. "Welcome to the Fold" and "The Best Things" came from the same record.

The Amalgamut followed in 2002, with "Where Do We Go From Here" and "American Cliché", but sales stalled, and just as the touring started Patrick checked into rehab after years of heavy drinking and drug use. Filter went quiet. Patrick went through rehab, formed another band, Army of Anyone, made one self-titled album with it, and then came back to the old name.

From there Filter became Patrick plus whoever was in the room, with Josh Freese and John 5 among the drop-ins: Anthems for the Damned in 2008, The Trouble with Angels in 2010, The Sun Comes Out Tonight in 2013, and Crazy Eyes, with yet another new lineup, on April 8, 2016. Liesegang came back in 2018 to work on reBus, meant as the true sequel to Short Bus, but the PledgeMusic bankruptcy sank it, and Patrick recorded The Algorithm instead, released in August 2023.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.