Celtic Frost - Legacy

Legacy

Celtic Frost have influenced a number of black, death, thrash, and heavy metal bands. The band Therion, for example, took its band name from the album To Mega Therion. Other bands that have cited Celtic Frost as an influence, or have covered Celtic Frost, include Obituary, Dimmu Borgir, Goatwhore, Sepultura, Gorgoroth, Gallhammer and many others. Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic from Nirvana were fans of Celtic Frost. Dave Grohl (ex-Nirvana, Foo Fighters) and Mark Tremonti (Alter Bridge, Creed) have both stated on several occasions that Celtic Frost were an influence. Grohl subsequently invited Celtic Frost singer Tom Gabriel Fischer to participate in the recordings of his 2004 solo project, Probot, resulting in the co-written song "Big Sky".

In 1995, Dwell records released In Memory of Celtic Frost A collection of songs covered by other bands. Notable bands that appeared on this tribute collection include Enslaved, covering the song "Procreation (of the Wicked)"; Opeth, covering the song "Circle of the Tyrants"; Swedish death metal band Grave, covering the song "Mesmerized"; Canadian thrash metal band Slaughter, covering the song "Dethroned Emperor"; Apollyon Sun (featuring Tom G. Warrior himself), covering the song "Babylon Fell"; and the Norwegian black metal bands Emperor, covering "Massacra", and Mayhem, covering the song "Visual Aggression". The tribute album also features Celtic Frost songs covered by several lesser known and now defunct metal bands. The hard to find CD is now out of print.

Despite this, when Fischer was asked to comment on their influence on heavy metal, he replied: "No, I try to stay away from that. I'm a musician, I don't want to get involved with all that. It's not healthy. I want to do good albums. I'm still alive and I feel there's still so much in front of me. I don't want to be bothered with who has influence and where we stand and all that. I think it's a negative thing."