Burton Christopher Bell (born February 19, 1969) is an American musician. He is best known as the co-founder and former frontman of the

industrial metal Industrial metal is the fusion of Heavy metal music, heavy metal and industrial music, typically employing repeating Heavy metal guitar, metal guitar riffs, sampling (music), sampling, synthesizer or music sequencer, sequencer lines, and Distor ...

band

Fear Factory Fear Factory is an American industrial metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1989. Throughout the band's career, they have released ten full-length albums and have evolved through a succession of sounds, all in their main style of industrial met ...

. Until 2021 he was the only member to perform on all of the band's albums. His singing style mixes clean and shouted vocals with

death growl The death growl, or simply growl, is an extended vocal technique usually employed in extreme styles of music, particularly in death metal and other Extreme metal, extreme Heavy metal genres, subgenres of heavy metal music. Sometimes death gro ...

Career

Fear Factory

Prior to his role in Fear Factory, Bell was in the band Hateface. In 1989, after Hateface disbanded, his housemate

Dino Cazares Dino Cazares (born September 2, 1966) is an American musician, best known as the guitarist and one of the co-founders of industrial metal band Fear Factory. He is also a co-founder of Divine Heresy, Asesino, and Brujeria (band), Brujeria. Cazar ...

invited him to meet a drummer ( Raymond Herrera) to possibly work with. On October 31, 1990, Bell, Cazares, Herrera and Romero jammed for the first time in a studio in

South Los Angeles South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of Downtown Los Angeles, downtown. It is de ...

. The group recorded four studio albums before Fear Factory disbanded temporarily in 2002. The band reformed in 2004 with Christian Olde Wolbers switching from bass to guitar and Byron Stroud on bass. This line-up recorded two albums. During the following period of inactivity within the band, Cazares and Bell patched up their differences, and in 2009 decided to have Fear Factory return to form. Bell is the only member to have appeared on every Fear Factory release from their first demo in 1991 to their tenth studio album ''Aggression Continuum'' (2021). In 2012, Bell and Cazares received the Revolver Golden Gods Icon award. After 31 years as the singer of Fear Factory, Bell announced on September 28, 2020 that he had left the band, citing "consistent series of dishonest representations and unfounded accusations from past and present band members" and a bitter feud between himself and Cazares. However, his vocals appear on their tenth studio album '' Aggression Continuum'', which had been completed in 2017 but not released until 2021. On June 16 2021, Bell performed the Fear Factory song "Replica" with a group of Australian musicians in Sydney. This happened after he'd done a DJ set at a local venue.

Ascension of the Watchers

After

's hiatus in 2002, Bell went on to form Ascension of the Watchers with John Bechdel at Bechdel's studio in Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania. The Watchers released an online-only EP titled ''Iconoclast'' in 2005. On February 19, 2008, Ascension of the Watchers released their first full-length album ''Numinosum'' through Ministry frontman

Al Jourgensen Alain David Jourgensen (born Alejandro Ramírez Casas; October 9, 1958) is a Cuban-American singer, musician and music producer. Closely related with the independent record label Wax Trax! Records, his musical career spans four decades. He is t ...

's record label 13th Planet. In February 2017, Bell rebooted Ascension of the Watchers and began recording at Northstone Studios, South Wales, collaborating with Welsh solo artist Jayce Lewis. With Bell regarding Lewis as a "musical soulmate", the pair recorded a new album titled ''Apocrypha'' and released it via Dissonance Productions.

Guest appearances

left, Bell performing Bell has performed guest vocals on many records in addition to taking lead vocal duties for G/Z/R's '' Plastic Planet'' album released in 1995. Due to commitments with Fear Factory, Bell was not the vocalist for G/Z/R's second album, '' Black Science''. Bell, alongside fellow bandmate,

, appeared on the

Soulfly Soulfly is an American heavy metal music, heavy metal band formed in Phoenix, Arizona in 1997. Soulfly is led by former Sepultura frontman Max Cavalera, who formed the band after he left the Brazilian group in 1996. To date the band has release ...

song "

Eye for an Eye "An eye for an eye" (, ) is a commandment found in the Book of Exodus 21:23–27 expressing the principle of reciprocal justice measure for measure. The earliest known use of the principle appears in the Code of Hammurabi, which predates the wr ...

" in 1998. Bell featured as guest vocalist on the Apartment 26 song "Void", a bonus track from their debut album '' Hallucinating'' in 2000. Bell recorded a track for UK metal band This Is Menace; the track was then cut out of the final edit from the album ''No End in Sight''. Bell performed live in the encore segments of the Ministry 2008 Tour, singing songs such as "Stigmata", "Thieves" and "So What", taking over vocal duties from Al Jourgensen. Bell joined with Byron Stroud to form City of Fire who released their debut album in August 2009. Bell featured on Delain's 2012 album ''

We Are the Others ''We Are the Others'' is the third studio album by Dutch symphonic metal band Delain. It was released in the Benelux and Germany on 1 June 2012 and in the United Kingdom and France on 4 June by CNR Music, who took over Delain when Warner Musi ...

'', providing vocals for the track "Where Is the Blood". Bell was featured on

Chris Vrenna Chris Vrenna (born February 23, 1967) is an American musician, producer, engineer, remixer, programmer, and founder of the electronic band Tweaker. Vrenna played drums for the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails from 1988 until 1996, and was ...

's project Tweaker on the song "I Am the One", intended to appear on the album '' The Attraction to All Things Uncertain''. When Vrenna reedited the album, Bell's song was cut only to be included in a DVD instead. Bell provided backing vocals on the 20th anniversary re-recording of Pitchshifter's "Un-United Kingdom". Bell from 2017-2018 did guest vocals on '' AmeriKKKant'' by Ministry.

Personal life

Bell has three children and is married.

Discography

''All appearances are as a vocalist, unless mentioned otherwise''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Burton C. 1969 births Living people American male singers American heavy metal singers American industrial musicians Fear Factory members GZR members Musicians from Houston Nu metal singers Industrial metal musicians