Spahn Ranch (band)
Spahn Ranch was an American electro-industrial group from Los Angeles. Active from 1992 to 2000, the band played a subgenre of industrial music with its fusion of electronic dance, industrial and gothic music.
History
The band was formed in 1992 in Los Angeles by Matt Green and his New York–based collaborator, Rob Morton. The band's name refers to the Spahn Ranch movie filming location in the hills north of Los Angeles. They collectively used the funds they had saved up to jump-start the band. Rob Morton had been Matt Green's musical partner for five years prior. That same year in 1992, they signed to Cleopatra Records and released their four-song EP Spahn Ranch, with vocals supplied by Scott "Chopper" Franklin.In 1993, they added vocalist Athan Maroulis and recorded their first full-length album, Collateral Damage. Their second album, The Coiled One, appeared two years later in the midst of Morton leaving the band due to creative and logistical differences. After his departure, the line-up was expanded to include Christian Death drummer David Glass, Screams for Tina guitarist Kent Bancroft, and Tubalcain drummer Harry Lewis. This offered a beginning of the fuller, more diverse, dark electro-industrial sound that Spahn Ranch would continue to pursue. By 1997, Spahn Ranch had pared themselves down to the three-piece unit of Green, Maroulis and Lewis.
Spahn Ranch continued to release albums throughout the late 1990s. Architecture, released in 1997, featured contributions from Killing Joke/Prong bassist Paul Raven and Rockats/Nancy Sinatra guitarist Danny B. Harvey. This album took an even more experimental approach to the Spahn Ranch sound, incorporating elements of drum and bass, dub and for the first time, live guitar parts. Beat Noir, in 1998, followed a similar path even further and included work with Bauhaus/Love & Rockets bassist David J. The compilation Anthology 1992–1994 was released in 2000 and contained the band's first four releases in addition to previously unreleased material.
The band regularly toured throughout North America during their existence with the likes of Front Line Assembly, Front 242, Switchblade Symphony and Apoptygma Berzerk. Spahn Ranch also made a couple of European treks prior to their demise as a group in 2000.
Closure, their final album, was recorded in 2000 and released in 2001.
Discography
Studio AlbumsCollateral Damage The Coiled One Architecture Beat Noir ClosureExtended playsSpahn Ranch The Blackmail Starters Kit Breath and Taxes In Parts Assembled Solely Retrofit EP
Compilation albumsAnthology 1992–1994
Music videos
- "Breath and Taxes"
- "Locusts", directed by Joseph Kahn