Former Fear Factory vocalist Burton C. Bell has released “Anti-Droid,” his debut solo single.
“I’m starting my solo career,” Bell said. “I’m working with different producers and co-songwriters, making music that I love, with full control of the music and creative direction.”
Stream “Anti-Droid” here, and watch the video below.
Bell’s discography includes multiple live and recorded collaborations with Black Sabbath icon Geezer Butler and Journey’s Deen Castronovo (as GZR); industrial maverick Al Jourgensen and Ministry; and guest vocal appearances with Pitchshifter, Conflict, Soil, Static-X, Soulfly and Delain, among others. He’s the vocalist of Ascension of the Watchers and City Of Fire and, of course, the co-creator of Fear Factory and the only musician to appear on every Fear Factory release from 1992 through 2024.
“Fear Factory ushered in an entirely new strand of metal when they emerged from the sweatboxes of L.A. in the early ’90s,” Metal Hammer wrote.
“‘Demanufacture’ was so innovative that it sounds as fresh today as it did then; a blistering collision of metal and hardcore that easily rivals any of its peers. In short, a masterpiece,” wrote Kerrang! in an anniversary retrospective.
Fear Factory toured the world with Metallica, Slipknot, Korn, Megadeth and Ozzy Osbourne, taking bands like System of a Down and Static-X out as support acts in their early stages.
After years of behind-the-scenes band member turmoil and legal issues, Bell left Fear Factory in fall 2020. In the chorus of “Anti-Droid,” he declares: “I’d rather be dead than a slave to the factory.”
Bell said “Anti-Droid” is “a statement about breaking free. Breaking the bonds of what I felt was a prison in many ways. Not just financially or contractually but creatively, as well. I felt constrained to this format we’d written ourselves into. The ‘factory’ doesn’t have a capital F. It’s the factory of the music industry, a certain form of business, and priorities. Being a slave to an established way of thinking is not really freedom. I am moving forward.”
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