Filter

Richard Patrick first met Trent Reznor when their teenage bands played together at gigs in Cleveland, Ohio, but when Reznor returned with new outfit Nine Inch Nails and a dark, experimental, confrontational sound, it opened up Patrick's own ideas and horizons. Patrick went on to spend four years as a touring member of NIN, before the desire to lead his own band led him to form Filter with fellow NIN member guitarist/keyboard player Brian Liesegang in 1993; their debut album 'Short Bus' went on to sell over a million copies.

Mixing distorted guitars with drum machines and gothic awe, the single 'Hey Man, Nice Shot' became an alternative cult anthem and the band were seen as part of a new wave of industrial rock acts. They toured with Smashing Pumpkins and Ozzy Osbourne and worked on music tracks for the movies 'The Dust Brothers' and 'The Crystal Method'.

Liesegang left in 1997 but they went on to reach number 30 on the US charts with their next album 'Title of Record', while the single 'Take a Picture' became a major crossover hit in 1999 and the band's highest profile moment. Changing line ups and Patrick's drinking hampered their progress, but their emotional intensity and open-hearted lyrics saw the band continue to maintain their substantial cult fan base with the high production, gritty ambition of 'The Amalgamut' in 2002. They split the following year but reunited four years later to release the politically-charged doom of 'Anthems for the Damned' in 2008. Patrick also played with brothers Dean and Robert DeLeo from Stone Temple Pilots in the short lived alt-rock outfit Army of Anyone in the mid-2000s, but really hit top form again when Patrick returned with yet another new Filter line-up in 2016 with the high energy, hard thrashing gem 'Crazy Eyes'.