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Heavy Metal Thunder Funk Metal

Genres Heavy Metal Alternative Metal Funk Metal

Funk Metal

Slap bass under heavy guitar, played by musicians plainly enjoying showing off. Groove first, aggression a distant second.

Peak years
1985 – 2000
Origin
USA (California / New York)
Family
Alt / Groove / Nu-Metal
Bands here
13

Start here

Four records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. Vivid Living Colour, 1988 The landmark

    The record that proved the combination worked. Vernon Reid plays like a jazz guitarist who has discovered volume, "Cult of Personality" is the riff everyone knows, and the band spent their career being asked about being Black in metal rather than about the music.

    Listen to Vivid

  2. The Real Thing Faith No More, 1989

    Mike Patton's first record with the band, aged twenty-one, and the one that made the sound famous. Rapped verses, sung choruses and a rhythm section playing funk under a metal band.

    Listen to The Real Thing

  3. Sailing the Seas of Cheese Primus, 1991

    Les Claypool plays bass as the lead instrument and sings like a cartoon, and it is far heavier than that description suggests. The strangest commercially successful record of the era.

    Listen to Sailing the Seas of Cheese

  4. Extreme II: Pornograffitti Extreme, 1990

    Full title Extreme II: Pornograffitti (A Funked Up Fairy Tale), which nobody prints. Nuno Bettencourt is the best guitarist in this genre by a wide margin, and the record is remembered for the one acoustic ballad on it.

    Listen to Extreme II: Pornograffitti

What it sounds like

Slap bass, and a rhythm section having considerably more fun than the guitarist. The bass is a lead instrument here — popped, slapped and high in the mix — with drums playing actual funk patterns underneath and metal guitar layered on top. Horns are not unusual. Vocals are sung, often with a comic edge. Nothing is dark and very little is heavy by the standards of this site; the mood runs from playful to outright silly. Compared with rap metal, which shares some of its rhythmic DNA, there is no anger in it at all — this is groove music played by people who wanted you to know they could play.

  • Heaviness 3 out of 5
  • Speed 3 out of 5
  • Aggression 3 out of 5
  • Technicality 4 out of 5
  • Darkness 1 out of 5
  • Melody 4 out of 5

Where the name came from

A descriptive compound from the late-1980s American scene. Faith No More, Living Colour's Vivid (1988) and Red Hot Chili Peppers' heavier moments made it briefly unavoidable, before nu-metal absorbed the rhythmic ideas and dropped the funk.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Living Colour USA
  • Faith No More USA
  • Primus USA
  • Extreme USA
  • Fishbone USA

And 8 more

  • Infectious Grooves USA
  • Mordred USA
  • Mind Funk USA
  • Suicidal Tendencies USA
  • 24-7 Spyz USA
  • Dan Reed Network USA
  • Scatterbrain USA
  • King's X USA

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.