15 Facts About Front 242

Front 242 is a Belgian electronic music group that came into prominence during the 1980s.

Front 242 were formed in 1981 in Aarschot, near Leuven, Belgium, by Daniel Bressanutti and Dirk Bergen, who wanted to create music and graphic design using emerging electronic tools.

Front 242 became a popular musical group in Belgium, particularly for their "infamous" live performances that involved loud sound, aggressive stage presence, smoke, and bright flashing lights.

At the behest of Alain Jourgensen who was working with Wax Trax at the time, Front 242 was invited to be the support band for Ministry during their upcoming tour in the United States.

In 1986, Front 242 turned down a contract with ZTT Records and instead signed with the Red Rhino label in Europe - a sub-label of Play It Again Sam - who released Backcatalogue and Official Version in 1987.

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Front 242's style shifted abruptly with each of their next two albums, released in rapid succession in 1993 on Epic's sub-label RRE : 06:21:03:11 UP EVIL and 05:22:09:12 OFF .

Four core members of Front 242 regrouped in 1998 to compose radically reworked versions of many of their songs, which they then performed on their first tour in five years, appropriately called the Re:Boot tour.

New tour material was the subject of Front 242's new recording contract in the U S with Metropolis Records.

Front 242 indicated at this time that they were recording new material.

Front 242 promised a new U S tour to perform new material from these releases.

Front 242 toured through twenty venues in North America in November 2005, their first tour as a full band since 2000.

In December 2006, Front 242 announced from their MySpace page that they were writing music for a video game called Cipher Complex and provided a link to a teaser trailer with a short sample of one of their scores.

In October 2008, Front 242 performed for the first time in Finland, at the Alternative Party 2008 media arts festival.

On 1 June 2008, the Alfa Matrix label announced that Front 242 would make an ultimate statement towards abusive audio compression by releasing the free two-track download, First Moment.

In February 2020, Front 242 announced the "Black To Square One" US Tour with a planned 13 dates across the country which were to be preceded by a string of concerts in the EU.