Alien Ant Farm
Alien Ant Farm's singer-songwriter Mitchell, guitarist Terry Corso, bassist Tye Zamora and drummer Mike Cosgrove demonstrate their playful-yet-purposeful brand of music on there debut album, ANThology (released March 6, 2001, on New Noize/DreamWorks Records).

The CD was produced by Jay Baumgardner, whose credits include Papa Roach, Orgy, Slipknot and Coal Chamber. Corso calls the disc "new, emotional, romantic yet totally metal."

"Music does good things to people - it's one of those art forms everyone enjoys," says Alien Ant Farm frontman Dryden Mitchell. "It's magical when we play our stuff for fans and they light up. We take our music very seriously, but we're also a very tongue-in-cheek group. We want to keep that enjoyment going. Everything with us is a pun or a half-way joke, even if we're the only ones in on it."

Alien Ant Farm's personal and musical give-and-take began to gel in 1996 in Riverside, Calif., where the members' appetites for music were whetted at an early age. One of Mitchell's first inspirations was his father, a guitarist: "People would always ask my dad to play during family gatherings," he recalls.

"Seeing how he changed the mood of the room made me want to do the same thing." Though Mitchell started out on guitar (check his chops on "Death Day"), friends prodded him to tune up his vocal chords. He lists The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Tracy Chapman and Edie Brickell as influences. His admiration for these artists came to bear as he developed his own style singing for pre-Ant Farm bands.