You may not have hard of the band Tomahawk, but chances are you have heard of some of its members and their previous bands.

You may have heard of a band called Faith No More who exploded in the early ’90s with the hit single “Epic.” You may also have heard of The Melvins, a Seattle grunge pioneer that was around way before Nirvana.

Or how about Helmet and the Jesus Lizard?

Tomahawk is a blend of all of those elements, one of those bands that is called a “supergroup.” This Friday the most famous band that nobody knows about will be opening for Tool at Hilton Coliseum.

Tool fans can be a rough bunch, especially for a band that hasn’t gained all that much attention in the States. Tool fans are a rabid pack; in many cases they like to listen to Tool, and Tool only – unless it’s A Perfect Circle of course. But according to Tomahawk drummer and former Helmet stickman John Stanier, the Tool tour has been very cordial for the most part.

“[Tool has] been beyond nice and courteous,” Stanier says. “Tool is like one of those bands like Slayer or something, where the audience is pretty much just there to see them; I know that and understand that. There’s been a couple nights where the audience isn’t jumping for joy to see us but I would say 98 percent of the time they have been . at least checking it out. We’ve also had some really receptive audiences.”

Tomahawk has been traveling the country with prog-rockers Tool for about two months now. Pretty impressive when you consider that the band only started to come together in 2000.

As Stanier’s story goes (or as much as you can make out between the static cut-outs of his cell phone) he and guitarist Duane Denison had been speaking for years about starting some sort of project. It started to come together when Denison met Mike Patton in Nashville. Denison was checking out one of the former Faith No More front man’s current projects, Mr. Bungle. Denison, former guitarist with the Jesus Lizard, was handling guitar duties for Hank Williams III.

After Patton tried to coax Denison into doing something for his label – Ipecac Records – the two instead decided to exchange tapes with hopes of possibly starting a band of their own.

Denison then enlisted Stanier and Patton proceeded to recruit Melvins bassist Kevin Rutmanis.

Enter Tomahawk.

In an age when bands spend upwards of two years recording an album, Tomahawk got together, rehearsed and recorded their self-titled debut in the span of two and a half weeks.

“It all depends on how focused you are and how solidified the songs are. Bands like U2 write a record and go into the studio and work on it for a year and a half; there are obviously various ways to do it,” Stanier says. “Obviously we didn’t have a huge budget or anything either, but we were pretty focused and just kind of went in there and banged it out.”

When Stanier is asked for his own personal description of the band’s sound, he replies with “cinematic rock,” the official slogan of the band.

It is probable that you aren’t very familiar with that coining, but Stanier tries to explain it the best he can by calling it a very layered sound.

Anyone familiar with some of the projects of Patton knows they can be very unorthodox to say the least. Going into the Tomahawk record Denison wanted to make sure that the band’s sound would be much more formatted and straight-ahead rock-sounding.

It is a goal Stanier believes the band has definitely accomplished.

“I think Mike said one time that this was the most straight-forward rock band he had been in, and I totally agree,” Stanier says. “The songs aren’t as much of a free-for-all like it was in Helmet. It’s more of `less is more’ kind of vibe.”

Much of the mystique behind Tomahawk comes from its singer. The man carries a reputation as being somewhat of an oddball, and some of his stage antics from his days in Faith No More solidify the image. There have been supposed accounts of both urine drinking and feces eating. And during a Tomahawk European tour, there was an incident of urinating on spectators and security. But despite these reported incidents, Stanier claims that Patton is nothing but normal.

“He is completely normal. I don’t know about all that shit and I don’t want to know, to tell you the truth,” Stanier says about his front man.

Maybe the biggest question regarding Tomahawk beside its peculiar front man is what about its future? With each member except for Denison also working on other projects, can Tomahawk coexist with all of the other things Denison, Patton, Stanier and Rutmanis have going on?

Although each member is located in a different city across the country, Stanier says there is no doubt Tomahawk will be around for time to come.

“When this tour ends we are going to take some time off, then we are going to head back into the studio and record and the record should be out by about spring,” Stanier says. “For some reason people thought that this was just a little side project, but it’s definitely not. This is a full-time thing for us.”

The good ol’ boys

As one reviewer says of Tomahawk’s record release, “The band had sold thousands of copies before its album even came out.” It couldn’t be said any better. Each member of Tomahawk comes from a relatively successful background in rock music. Here is a quick rundown of the band history of each Tomahawk member.

Mike Patton, vocalist – Mike is probably most famous for his days spent with funk/metal/alternative hybrid band Faith No More. But even before his days in FNM Patton was the leader of Mr. Bungle, which he is still involved in today. He also fronts a group called Fantomas, which also features former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo, and worked on a project called “Lovage” for Dan “The Automator” Nakamura (of Gorillaz fame).

John Steiner, drums – Steiner’s biggest claim to fame was Helmet, a critically acclaimed hardcore band that was popular in the ’90s. After the breakup of Helmet, Steiner went on to work on a number of projects, including playing drums on Primer 55’s second album and joining the Australian rock band The Mark of the Cain.

Duane Denison, guitar – Denison was the behind Tomahawk, but before his current band, he was best known for his work with The Jesus Lizard, a noise rock band that gained attention in the mid-’90s. Denison also worked with Firewater, then went on to do a number of studio projects with various artists and played guitar for Hank Williams III before meeting Patton and starting Tomahawk.

Kevin Rutmanis, bass – You probably know Rutmanis from the Melvins, a Seattle band that started in the `80s but didn’t gain national attention until its prot‚g‚ Kurt Cobain hit it big with Nirvana. The Melvins are still plugging away today (on Ipecac Records, also home of Tomahawk) and Rutmanis also plays in The Cows, a stripped-down Minneapolis-based punk band.

-Trevor Fisher