A Band Called Pain

A Band Called Pain (abbreviated ABCP) is an American heavy metal band from Oakland, California.

The band was formed by cousins Allen Richardson (also known as Allen Anthony formerly of the Roc-A-Fella Records R&B group Christion)and Shaun Bivens who both hail from the San Francisco Bay Area. The band's debut studio album Broken Dreams was released in 2006, and was dubbed one of the ten best (#6) California albums of the year by Zero Magazine. The first single from the album is the song "The Pieces". The song has a music video as well. The band's song "Holy" appeared on the Saw II soundtrack.

A Band Called Pain is also notable for being a rare heavy metal band consisting of four African American members. Guitarist Bivens alluded to this saying:

We could have easily gone down the hip-hop or R&B route and each of us at one time or another given it a shot. We could be making raps about growing up in the hood and gang violence, but that's just not who we are. We're four guys who grew up loving heavy metal, so that's what we play. For us, it is the song that matters most.

The band is also the only heavy metal act released on the independent, alternative hip hop label, Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings.

ABCP has performed at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

In October 2008, Tony Providence left the band and was replaced by Akili Peyton the following year.

Read more about A Band Called Pain:  Discography

Famous quotes containing the words band, called and/or pain:

    And the heavy night hung dark
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    When a band of exiles moored their bark
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    The spiritualization of sensuality is called love: it is a great triumph over Christianity.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    At this very moment,... the most frightful horrors are taking place in every corner of the world. People are being crushed, slashed, disembowelled, mangled; their dead bodies rot and their eyes decay with the rest. Screams of pain and fear go pulsing through the air at the rate of eleven hundred feet per second. After travelling for three seconds they are perfectly inaudible. These are distressing facts; but do we enjoy life any the less because of them? Most certainly we do not.
    Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)