In the Light of these 2 articles listing The 10 Best Industrial Bands and Top 11 Influential Minds of Industrial Metal we felt compelled to make another list!

Because we thought some of the ones in the list did not make so much sense(Marilyn Manson? Come on…)

There is more people out there ofcourse that had a huge impact on the industrial scene not mentioned here or in the above articles (like Nitzer Ebb and Front 242 for example) but these one´s below are some we thought a little extra of and that dont get enough attention in similar lists.

Let us know what you think! Comment below or blabber with us on Twatter!

The Most underrated industrial influential

people/bands (in no particular order):

(UPDATE: Here´s Part 2)

Tim Skold



This Swedish guy has been around without making too much of an impact in a way and are maybe more known to musicians than fans. This multi instrumentalist with a career spanning from Shotgun Messiah, via KMFDM(and MDFMK) and Marilyn Manson!

Sköld’s involvement with Marilyn Manson began as producer for the single “Tainted Love“, which is featured in the 2001 teen comedy/parody movie Not Another Teen Movie and appeared on the soundtrack. Manson and Sköld went on to score the movie Resident Evil, released in 2002. Several tracks are featured on the Resident Evil movie soundtrack.

Sköld officially joined Marilyn Manson in 2002 after the departure of bassist Twiggy Ramirez. At this time, not only was Sköld the bassist for the band, but he was also producing, editing, creating artwork, electronics, programming drums and beats, playing guitar, keyboards, accordion and synthesizer bass for the album The Golden Age of Grotesque.

Click Click

Click Click is a British electro–industrial music band.

Click Click formed in 1982 by Adrian Smith, and Derek E. Smith, after the end of their previous rock project “Those Nervous Surgeons” (which formed in 1976 with bassist Tim Wilson). When Wilson bought their first synthesizer, (an EDP Wasp), the direction of the group changed so dramatically, they renamed themselves.

In 1982, the group acquired guitarist Richard Camp from another band and thus the first experimental synth-rock incarnation of Click Click was born. They cut their first single later that year, but Camp departed over creative issues and formed a blues band.

Influenced by artists such as Brian Eno, Cabaret Voltaire, The Residents and Frank Zappa, and of course Blade Runner, Clive Barker and “mind-expanding” substances, Click Click continued on with other revolving members down a more electronic path until their eventual break up around 1990. Other members included guitarist Jon Morris, who was replaced by Graham Stronach in 1987, and Pete Hosier who remained with the group until the end.

After a 7 year hiatus, Adrian and Derek reformed briefly in 1997 to record Shadowblack on the OffBeat label. The album was more EBM than their earlier work and almost completely instrumental. It was greeted with overall positive reviews within the underground music scene. Due to the member’s volatile relationship however, the band split again in1998, with no current plans for another reunion.

A Click Click vinyl release was issued on NYC-based Sonic Groove Records in 2004, but it is most like that only Adrian was involved, but that is still unclear. Throughout the 2000s, Adrian has been involved with Paperhouse, a darker ambient soundtrack project. Nothing has been released publicly, aside from a few odd compilation appearances, but at least 4 CD-R releases are known to exist: Bug Sun, Sappho, Frey, and Sammlung. In addition, three Click Click CD-Rs surfaced offering odd unreleased and remixed material: Lung Function, Crushed, and Behind Dark Glasses.

The summer of 2008 brought the news that Click Click’s back catalogue would be available again, this time via various download platforms including iTunes. The material will come in remastered versions and will also include the early catalogue. Lung Function, a compilation of remastered singles, was released on iTunes, Amazon digital service and eMusic in 2008.

Raymond Watts

Raymond Watts (also known as Nainz, Nainz Watts, and Ray Scaballero) is the founding and sole member of the post-industrialmusic project PIG, sometimes written as <PIG>.

Watts was an early member and periodic collaborator of KMFDM, and has been a visible part of the industrial music scene since the early 1980s. He has toured with KMFDM, Nine Inch Nails, Schaft, Schwein, and Einstürzende Neubauten.

According to the official website, PIG is currently in the studio recording a new album with Marc Heal. Watts, Dr. Shinto and John Gosling released a four-song EP Titled Mellan Rummen on November 15, 2010 on Amazon.com

On June 8, 2012 Marc Heal revealed a demo version of “the first new PIG track in eight years” entitled “Drugzilla (Rough As A Hog’s Arse Mix)” via Cubanate‘s Official Facebook page and providing their followers a link to his personal SoundCloud page. The link was reposted by Watts a few hours later. A second demo entitled Shake was released on July 15, 2012; again via Heal’s Soundcloud page, this time also noting Dan Abela as engineer.

Jim Thirwell

Thirlwell was born in Melbourne, Australia. He briefly studied Fine Art at Melbourne State College (now part of the University of Melbourne) before moving to London, England in 1978, where he played with the post-punk band prag VEC and formed the first of his numerous musical projects, Foetus. In the 1980s, under the pseudonyms Clint Ruin and Frank Want, he contributed to various releases by Nurse With Wound, Marc Almond, The The and Nick Cave. He released his first 7″ single, OKFM/Spite Your Face, in 1981, on his own Self-Immolation record label in his first incarnation as Foetus. Over the next few years, he would release two more singles, a 12″ EP, and four full-length albums, Deaf, Ache, Hole (his first release on Some Bizzare Records) and perhaps his most seminal album from that period: Nail released in 1985. After visiting the United States during a live stint with the Immaculate Consumptive (Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave and Marc Almond) Thirlwell settled in New York City, where he is still based. Since his move he has released several singles, fourteen EPs (including Stinkfist, with fellow New York artist Lydia Lunch and Thurston Moore), and seventeen full-length albums.

In addition to being a prolific artist in his own right, Thirlwell has remixed and produced numerous pieces for artists including Nine Inch Nails, Pantera, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The The, Zola Jesus and Swans. He has also done voice-over work for MTV and other entities.

Since 2000 Thirlwell has become more active as a composer, having written commissions for Bang on a Can, League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots and Kronos Quartet, and scoring the Adult Swim cartoon The Venture Bros. He also revived his primary instrumental project, Steroid Maximus, and initiated a more experimental instrumental project in Manorexia. He continues to write and perform regularly as a solo artist and with various ensembles. He is also a member of the freq_out sound art collective, and has created solo sound installations in Kaliningrad, Santarcangelo and Vienna.

Musical projects

Foetus: Thirlwell’s main project. From 1990 until 2010’s ‘Hide’, most Foetus songs featured lead vocals. Though popularly known as simply “Foetus”, Thirlwell released albums under diverse variations of the name, including: Foetus Art Terrorism; Foetus Über Frisco; Foetus Corruptus; Foetus In Excelsis Corruptus Deluxe; Foetus Inc.; Foetus Interruptus; Foetus Over Frisco; Foetus Under Glass; Philip and His Foetus Vibrations; Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel; The Foetus All-Nude Revue; The Foetus of Excellence; The Foetus Symphony Orchestra; and You’ve Got Foetus On Your Breath.

Youth (Martin Glover)







His Butterfly Records label has produced such artists as Take That, Wet Wet Wet, Tom Jones, The Orb, Maria McKee and Heather Nova. Youth was the co-producer of The Verve‘s Urban Hymns and Dolores O’Riordan‘s ‘Are You Listening?’.

He also worked, produced and remixed for other bands including Guns N’ Roses, Primal Scream, Embrace, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Art of Noise, Crowded House, Zoe, P.M. Dawn, Yazoo, Erasure, U2, Bananarama, INXS, James, Suns of Arqa,Wet Wet Wet, Depeche Mode, The Shamen, Misery Loves Co., Texas, Dido, Dolores O’Riordan, Gravity Kills and Fake?.

Glover is credited with founding the first psychedelic trance record label, Dragonfly Records. Youth formed other record labels such as Liquid Sound Design and Kamaflage Records. He is well known on the psychedelic trance scene and participated in collaborations such as Celtic Cross with Simon Posford and Saul Davies, Dub Trees with Greg Hunter and Simon Posford, and Zodiac Youth.

He performed both full-on trance as well as chill-out DJ sets at several Return to the Source parties and released a mix album, Ambient Meditations 3 on their label in 2000. His Butterfly Studios were also home of the Return to the Source offices circa 1999 – 2002.

He is most famous for being the bass player in Killing Joke. Glover had also made plans to work with Duran Duran in the later stages of their lost album, Reportage, before it was shelved later in 2006.

He is a member of the band Transmission with Simon Tong of The Verve, Paul Ferguson of Killing Joke and Tim Bran of Dreadzone. He has also played guitar on several tracks on the 2007 Client album “Heartland.” In 2008 he produced the Delays album Everything’s the Rush, the Futureheads‘ This Is Not The World and worked on the debut album ofAmerican band The Daylights.

In mid-2010 Martin Glover teamed up with Alex Paterson (The Orb) to compile a retrospective compilation album of tracks from the WAU! Mr Modo label. The album titled “Impossible Oddities” was released on CD and double vinyl on 25 October 2010 via Year Zero records.

On 27 October 2012, during the International Festival of Music Producers and Sound Designers SOUNDEDIT, he received The Man with the Golden Ear Award.

In 2013, Glover produced the debut album Collective by the DIY indie rock band Echotape followed by Meteorites by Echo and the Bunnymen, and Lion by Peter Murphy, both set for release in 2014.

Christopher J. Connelly



Chris Connelly (born 11 November 1964) is a Scottish musician who became famous for his industrial music work of the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly his involvement with the Revolting Cocks and Ministry. He has since established himself as analternative singer-songwriter. His vocal style has been comparedto that of Scott Walker and David Bowie.

In 2008, Connelly published a memoir of his early years in the music industry, Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible, and Fried: My Life As A Revolting Cock (ISBN 0946719950). It describes his professional debut in Finitribe, meeting Al Jourgensen in London, his involvement with the Revolting Cocks, Ministry, PTP, Acid Horse, Killing Joke, and Pigface, and the development of his solo career.

En Esch

En Esch, born near Frankfurt, is a studied orchestra percussionist, drummer, programmer, producer, guitarist and singer. He was a member of the German industrial rock group, KMFDM, from 1985 to 1999, during which time he contributed to ten studio albums and more than a dozen singles as musician, composer and producer.

Sascha Konietzko claims to have given Esch his nickname because the latter felt that his real name was inappropriate for the stage. It is derived from the German pronunciation of his initials (N.S. is pronounced En Esch in German). Esch lived in Germany until 1992, when he moved to Chicago to join Konietzko, who had moved there a year earlier.

It was at this time that Esch first worked with Pigface, whom he also toured with in the early 1990s. He released a solo album, Cheesy, in 1993. A few years after that, Esch moved to New Orleans.

When KMFDM temporarily broke up in 1999, Esch briefly worked with the band Pizza Whore, which changed its name to Barely Legal, and included Trixie Reiss of The Crystal Method. The band didn’t last, and Esch began traveling to Canada to visit Günter Schulz, the former KMFDM guitarist. They formedSlick Idiot, and released their first album in 2001. They have released two more albums under that moniker since then.

Esch has since begun working actively with Pigface again, joining them on tour in 2005.

Esch was rumored to be the replacement lead singer of industrial group Rammstein, but this turned out to be a hoax.

In 2007, he began collaborating with fellow German musician Mona Mur. The two released the album 120 Tage in February 2009, and toured together in support of the release over the next two years. Esch and Mur joined Schulz, Raymond Watts, and Mark Durante to perform at the Wax Trax! Retrospectacle in Chicago, a charity event celebrating the industrial music label, and performed KMFDM songs from the 1990s.A second album by the duo of Esch and Mur was released in 2011. Esch currently resides in Berlin.

(UPDATE: Here´s Part 2)



