50 Fun Facts About Death Grips

Which English actor's guitar riff, recorded on an iPhone, did Death Grips sample for the single Birds?

Robert Pattinson played the riff into the drummer's phone, and the band cut the recording up to build the 2013 track around it.

Which singer's vocal samples appear on every track of the first disc of Death Grips' The Powers That B?

Björk recorded original vocal samples for the band after it remixed two of her songs in 2012. Her contribution to the disc is credited as a 'found object'.

Which rock star was inspired by Death Grips while making his final album, according to his saxophonist?

David Bowie was listening to the trio during the sessions for Blackstar, which came out on his 69th birthday, two days before he died.

Andrew Adamson, who speaks the intro to Death Grips' Dilemma, directed which hit animated film?

Shrek won the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature under Adamson, a New Zealander who went on to direct the first two Narnia films.

Death Grips announced a breakup in July 2014 by posting a message handwritten on which everyday item?

A napkin carried the note, which cancelled every live date, including a support slot with Nine Inch Nails. The split did not last: new music followed within months.

Death Grips appeared in a viral 2013 photo taken backstage at a concert by which pop superstar?

Beyoncé met the trio backstage at one of her own concerts, and the picture also included a film actor who had played guitar for the band.

Hackers replaced the homepage of which country's Constitutional Court with Death Grips' Guillotine video?

Thailand's court site was defaced in 2021 in protest at rulings against pro-democracy activists, and the hackers also renamed it 'kangaroo court'.

Death Grips' self-leaked second album topped a chart of legal downloads on which file-sharing service?

BitTorrent put the band at the top of its list of most legally downloaded music after the trio gave the album away against its label's wishes.

Death Grips' System Blower samples the on-court grunt of which tennis champion?

Venus Williams's grunt opens a recurring section of the track, one of several odd sounds on a record that also samples a city transit train.

The executive who signed Death Grips to a major label had earlier championed which future pop star?

Katy Perry was 17 and unreleased when Angelica Cob-Baehler became one of her earliest supporters. Cob-Baehler later ran marketing at the label that signed the trio.

Death Grips formed in which California city, where two of its members lived next door to each other?

Sacramento is where the vocalist and the drummer had lived on the same street for several years before starting the band in 2010.

Which major label dropped Death Grips in 2012 after the band leaked its own album online for free?

Epic had wanted to hold the record back until the following year. After the leak, the band also posted the label's confidential emails on Facebook.

Stefan Burnett, the vocalist of Death Grips, performs under which stage name?

MC Ride formed the band in 2010 with his next-door neighbour. Before that he had rapped in a local trio with his brother and pursued a career as a painter.

Though not its frontman, which drummer is credited as the driving creative force behind Death Grips?

Zach Hill co-produces the trio's music as well as drumming on it, and set out to write and direct a feature film while working on its 2013 album.

Death Grips' debut studio album was the first record that which YouTube music critic rated a 10 on release?

Anthony Fantano, who runs the channel The Needle Drop, had never before given a newly released album his top mark.

In Death Grips' Guillotine video, where does the vocalist rap as white noise slowly corrupts the picture?

He raps the whole clip in a car, a setting the drummer felt suited an anxious, claustrophobic song.

Death Grips' 2013 slot at which festival was cancelled after the band skipped its own after-party show?

Lollapalooza dropped the trio after it left a playlist running at a Chicago club instead of appearing. The band later said the stage set and the recorded music were the show.

Death Grips' Bubbles Buried in This Jungle plays in the third-season premiere of which television series?

Westworld used the track in Parce Domine, which opened its third season in March 2020 with much of the action set in Los Angeles.

Death Grips walked off stage mid-show in Arkansas in 2023 after fans kept throwing what at the band?

Glowsticks hit the band several times in Fayetteville before it cut the set short, during its first North American tour in four years.

Death Grips' drummer skipped a 2013 SXSW show in person and played his part over which video service?

Skype carried the drumming into the venue from elsewhere, and footage of the show became the music video for Lock Your Doors.

Guillotine, one of Death Grips' best-known songs, was the lead single from which free 2011 mixtape?

Exmilitary was given away through the band's website in April 2011, a month after a self-titled EP that shared three of its tracks.

Which Death Grips album, the band's studio debut, includes Get Got, Hacker and I've Seen Footage?

The Money Store arrived in April 2012 on a major label, after the band had already sold it on cassette at a festival and put it out on vinyl.

Which Death Grips album did the band give away online in October 2012 against its label's wishes?

No Love Deep Web had been promised for that month, but the label would not commit to a date before 2013, so the trio released it without permission.

At which California festival did Death Grips sell its debut studio album on cassette days before release?

Coachella crowds could buy the tape on April 20, 2012, four days before the official release and a day before a vinyl edition.

Which music website gave Death Grips' debut studio album its Best New Music label in 2012?

Pitchfork awarded the same Best New Music tag to another of the trio's albums the following year.

Justin Chancellor, who plays bass on the Death Grips track Disappointed, is the bassist of which rock band?

Tool's English bassist was one of several unexpected guests the trio announced for its 2018 album, alongside a film director and a noise artist.

Among Death Grips' notorious live antics, the band's drummer has performed while wearing what?

Handcuffs are part of a stage reputation that also includes drumming to the point of severe injury.

The drums fans smashed after Death Grips failed to appear at a 2013 club show were later revealed to be what?

A children's kit, sold for learning, stood in for the drummer's real one, so the angry crowd never touched his actual drums.

Just before a 2011 label meeting, what did Death Grips vocalist Stefan Burnett do to a Sony Music bathroom?

He tagged it with graffiti, and the stunt unexpectedly sold the label on the band: a deal was struck within five hours.

In its 2014 breakup note, Death Grips claimed that the group had always been what, rather than simply a band?

An art exhibition, and a conceptual one anchored by sound and vision, was how the note put it, adding that the trio was stopping while at its best.

Which Death Grips album appeared without warning in 2013 with a music video for every one of its tracks?

Government Plates was posted as a free download on November 13, 2013, and videos for all eleven of its tracks went up on the band's YouTube channel.

Hot Head was the first song released from which 2016 Death Grips album, the band's fifth studio set?

Bottomless Pit followed in May 2016, a week after the whole album had already leaked from the band's own SoundCloud page.

Every track title on Death Grips' instrumental album Fashion Week begins with which word?

Runway opens every title, and the single letters that follow spell out fans' impatient question about a long-delayed disc.

Before Death Grips, the trio's drummer made his name in which math rock duo with guitarist Spencer Seim?

Hella started in 2001, and AllMusic called the band one of the most prolific acts on the American noise-rock scene.

Death Grips' 2014 breakup cancelled its support slot on a tour by Nine Inch Nails and which grunge band?

Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails had announced the North American run that March, with the trio as the opening act.

Death Grips has often invoked which cult leader, whose voice is sampled on the band's debut mixtape?

Charles Manson's recorded voice appears on the 2011 release, and fans later speculated that the title of the trio's 2018 album nods to a Manson Family witness.

Death Grips recorded its first song on the 2010 winter solstice, a night that coincided with which sky event?

A total lunar eclipse fell on the same date as the solstice for the first time since 1638. The song was Full Moon (Death Classic).

After losing its major-label deal, Death Grips launched which imprint of its own through Harvest in 2013?

Third Worlds also names the band's website, and every later album came out through the imprint, with Caroline handling distribution.

Under which title did Death Grips release the stems and instrumentals of its debut mixtape for fans to remix?

Black Google came out free in 2011, with a cover that darkens the mixtape's artwork and swaps in the new title.

Noise artist Justice Yeldham appears on Death Grips' Year of the Snitch playing which unusual 'instrument'?

Glass is what he is famous for: he fits a pane with contact microphones and plays it with his mouth, often cutting himself on stage.

Death Grips spent two months before its 2012 album leak living at which famous Los Angeles hotel?

Chateau Marmont is where the trio took the album's cover photo, and a balcony shot from the same stay fronts a tenth-anniversary vinyl reissue.

The cover of Death Grips' debut mixtape is a photograph of an Indigenous man from which country?

Australia was home to the Aboriginal man in Douglass Baglin's picture, a print of which one band member carried in a wallet for about ten years.

Which industrial metal band co-headlined an autumn 2017 tour of the United States with Death Grips?

Ministry shared the bill months after the trio put out a 22-minute EP mix and announced that a sixth studio album was under way.

Which Oscar-nominated actress reads from a film script by Death Grips' drummer in a 2015 band video?

Karen Black filmed the scenes in early 2013 for a feature the drummer was writing, and she died that August before it could be completed.

Which Primus frontman plays bass on More Than the Fairy, a non-album single Death Grips released in 2016?

Les Claypool's guest spot reached vinyl as a B-side in 2019, and the track did not arrive on streaming services until 2021.

Guitarist Sergio Pizzorno cited Death Grips as an influence on 48:13, an album by which English rock band?

Kasabian named the trio beside Kanye West, Nirvana and Led Zeppelin as inspirations for the album, which is titled after its running time.

Which American music magazine named Death Grips its Artist of the Year for 2012?

Spin gave the title to a band that had, in a single year, signed to a major label, cancelled a tour and been dropped for leaking its own album.

Under which name did two Death Grips members release three experimental rock albums between 2015 and 2017?

The I.L.Y's surfaced with no explanation when a download link appeared online, and ten days passed before the band confirmed who was behind it.

Death Grips' 2019 mix Gmail and the Restraining Orders marked the 30th anniversary of which record label?

Warp, whose publishing arm signed the trio in 2014, premiered the mix on NTS Radio. The piece had opened the band's concerts back in 2015.

Which turntablist, who once toured with Beck, plays on most of Death Grips' Year of the Snitch?

DJ Swamp won the US DMC title in 1996 at his first attempt, and the trio revealed his role with a clip of him at a turntable in the studio.