The Behemoth was an American punk rock / thrash metal (proclaimed as hillbilly metal) band founded by guitarist Jim Martin in November 1994, exactly a year following his dismissal from Faith No More, and shortly after recording his guitar parts on Voodoocult's second album.^[1][21][24] For his new band, Martin recruited Bob Keith on vocals and harmonica, Joe Cabral (of the band The Iguanas) on drums and Ron Holzner (of the band Trouble) on bass and backing vocals.^[2][3][21]

It wasn't until their first show was booked, scheduled for January 16, 1995 at the Trocadero in San Francisco, that Martin came up with the band's name, first using Cootie Club (Kerrang! Magazine reported the band's name as Jim Martin's Cootie Club). After the band's first show, Martin came up with the new name The Behemoth.

^[8][9]

The Behemoth recorded four songs in mid-1995 at Metallica bassist Jason Newsted's home studio and released them on a demo tape, which Martin referred to as "a limited edition 4-song sampler" during an interview.^[15] The demo tape was released through Martin's own music publishing imprint, Living Dead Music^[11]. Two songs from this recording session, Fear and Navigator, were released together as a limited edition 7" vinyl single by Berkeley, California-based punk record label, Wingnut Records in September 1995.^[10] Only 500 vinyls were pressed, all on purple wax, and the release was strictly available through mail-order or through the band.^[13] A music video was also made for Navigator (a The Pogues cover), edited from live footage of the band mixed with cartoons of a dinosaur.^[14] The band also printed a very limited amount of t-shirts (limited to 36) featuring the animated dinosaur seen in the music video.^[13] Finally, the song Fear appeared on the Various Artists cassette tape compilation Foundations Forum '95 Unsigned Band Collection, in support of the band performing at the Foundations Forum festival in early September 1995.^[4][12]

From the promotion garnered by the 7" single, The Behemoth received interest from several European record label representatives, including Tom Miller, A&R at Steamhammer and CBH Records (both imprints of SPV GmbH). But the band held out until they could secure an American deal (which only came years later). Vocalist Keith then left the band and Martin (who had only provided backup vocals up to that point) stepped up as lead vocalist. Bassist Holzner was eventually replaced by Brent Weeks (of the band Fang) in 1996 .^[7]

On June 6, 1996, The Behemoth opened for Metallica at one of their two Metclub-exclusive shows in San Francisco.^[20]

^[4] After failing to secure an American record label deal, The Behemoth officially signed with Germany-based Steamhammer and CBH Records in July 1996.

From August 1996 to February 1997 the band recorded its debut full-length album Milk and Blood, at Martin's own home studio. The recording session featured Metallica's James Hetfield and Jason Newsted on backing vocals.^[18]

Europe's interest in a former Faith No More band member's new project was brought to the attention of the already-established Polish black metal / death metal band Behemoth, and by the end of 1996 (in the middle of recording Milk And Blood), the American band was forced to give-up its name. As Jim Martin was fronting the band, and fans continuously referred to The Behemoth as Jim's Martin's New Band, this ultimately led the band to become officially rebatised as Jim Martin, or The Jim Martin Band on contracts and flyers .

Milk and Blood was finally released on September 29, 1997, on HDCD through Steamhammer and CBH Records in Germany, and on cassette tape through Koch International in Poland.^[16][17] The original compact disc version bared no band name anywhere on the artwork; to compensate, the record company added yellow or black circular stickers to the shrinkwrap mentioning Jim Martin and his former affiliation to Faith No More. The cassette tape version did however bare the name of Jim Martin on the official artwork. Most of the songs on Milk and Blood had been written and performed live as The Behemoth with Bob Keith on vocals, including the cover of Surprise! You're Dead! (penned by Martin, but credited to Faith No More). Several tracks from the album appeared on Various Artists compilations, including Disco Dust, which appeared on Off Road Tracks Vol. 6 and Killing Cuts 4 through Metal Hammer; Dead, which appeared on One Nation Under A Groove! through SPV Recordings and KOCHaj I MACHaj (Tramwaj Nr 14 Z Hakiem) through Koch International; and Mexican Sangwhich, which appeared on A Tribute To Tool through Tributized (although the song was not a Tool cover).^[19]

The Jim Martin Band attempted to tour several times in the late 1990's in support of Milk And Blood, including a planned trip to the United Kingdom and Europe in December 1997 supporting Venom, but with the exception of a handful of Californian dates in 1998, few shows were played.^[5] Lance Dumas was eventually added as keyboardist and backup vocalist in 1998. Martin's schedule was mainly taken up by touring with Fang as their live guitarist. In 2000, he was made an official member of Fang and recorded four songs with them, but ultimately quit the band shortly before an album was planned to be tracked. Martin was also busy starting a new musical collaboration with Indian-American musician Anand Bhatt, which yeilded a full-length album in 1999, a cover of a The Cult song in 2001, and a remix album many years later in 2007.

On June 27, 2000 Milk And Blood was finally released in the United States through Los Angeles-based heavy metal record label Deadline Music Records (a subsidiary of Cleopatra Records).^[18] This release was also put out on an HDCD, and in contrast to the original German issue, the American release featured Jim Martin's name in a purple space-styled font on the front cover. The design and layout of the release also had other minor changes. With the new release and local distribution, more plans were made for The Jim Martin Band to tour in promotion of it.^[6] Unfortunately, this again did not happen due to personal circumstances on Martin's part, and the band parted ways before the end of 2000.