Steroid Maximus

by Bradley TorreanoActing as another bizarre side project for the ever busy J.G. Thirlwell, Steroid Maximus first came to life at the beginning of the '90s. He assembled several of his favorite underground musicians to help him with the finished albums, both Quilombo and Gondawanaland appeared soon after. But he returned to the Foetus tag and stuck with it for ten more years, when he finally decided to resurrect Steroid Maximus. Lured onto Ipecac Records by avid fans/labelheads Mike Patton and Greg Werckman. The resulting Ectopia continued in the vein of the previous Maximus albums, blending reverb-drenched "spy" music with manic blaxploitation-style funk. He even managed to put together a Maximus live show with the help of Lounge Lizard Steve Bernstein and the UCLA brass ensemble!