* En anglais uniquement
Videodrone vocalist Ty Elam bagged groceries by day, then jammed in friends' parents' living rooms by night. In Bakersfield, California, a David Lynch-esque oil town, there was no place to play except country-western clubs, gay bars and high schools. So Elam would get together carloads of friends and drive on into LA. In 1990 Videodrone was known as
Cradle of Thorns, stylizing their synthetic aggro-electric sound that was influenced as much by sub-B horror-movie soundtracks as the technoshriek arrangements hurtled out by their pals in
Korn, their Central Valley homeboys. Getting talked into
Korn's own label was a happy convenience for the band. Yet long before signing with
Korn's Reprise/Elementree label,
Cradle of Thorns signed in 1990 with respected indie label Triple-X, home of of
Social Distortion,
Jane's Addiction, and others. Well-known on the thriving Huntington Beach club scene,
Cradle of Thorns released a short series of back-of-the-van one-off albums with Triple-X, including Remember It Day, Feed Us and Download This over a span of four years. Eventually at the urging of bassplayer Mavis, who liked
Korn's Elementree Reprise subsidiary, bassist Fieldy Arvizu agreed to produce a new COT record in 1998. With
Korn acting as A&R reps with Elementree,
Cradle of Thorns had one essential change to make. The boys changed to the name 'Videodrone' styled after the David Cronenberg film Videodrome, to celebrate their new label. They wanted a new name to go with their new feel -- futuristic, but still decidedly "80's." The well received new Videodrone CD featured Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst and Korn's
Jonathan Davis on vocals. Their CD arrived on the heels of sold-out concerts with
Korn and
Rob Zombie. ~ Becky Byrkit