Greatest Fake Bands of All Time

As “Spooky Season” descends upon us, we’re given our annual romp with our favorite fictitious friends. From thrillers and horrors to classic monsters and just plain comfort films, the dwindling temperatures invite a cozy night in with tasty food and iconic characters.

This got us thinking about some of our favorite musical acts to grace the small and silver screens with their ephemeral, unreal presence, often conflating the boundaries between fact and fiction. In honor of the acts that never were, we’re diving into a handful of the best, worst, and most interesting fake bands of all time!

The Crescendolls — Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystemFigrin D’an and the Modal Nodes — Star WarsDethklok — MetalocalypseJem and the Holograms — Jem, Jem and the HologramsSpin̈al Tap — This Is Spinal TapThe California Raisins — The California Raisin ShowDingoes Ate My Baby — Buffy the Vampire SlayerN.W.H. — Fear of a Black HatBarbusters — Light of DaySteel Dragon — Rock StarThe Blues Brothers — Saturday Night Live, The Blues BrothersStillwater — Almost FamousThe Fabulous Stains — Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous StainsWyld Stallyns — Bill & Ted FranchiseThe Commitments — The CommitmentsEddie and the Cruisers — Eddie and the CruisersHangman’s Joke — The CrowCB4 — CB4Citizen Dick — SinglesCrucial Taunt — Wayne’s WorldHep Alien — Gilmore GirlsOtis Day and the Knights — National Lampoon’s Animal HouseJosie and the Pussycats — Josie and the PussycatsThe Lone Rangers — Airheads

The Crescendolls – Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem

Situated at the center of a dazzling space epic and anime sci-fi musical, the Crescendolls of Interstella 5555 are comprised of Arpegius (guitar), Baryl (drums), Octave (vocals and keys), and Stella (bass) — the band’s only female member and the hero of this aural odyssey.

Curiously, the film itself is devoid of dialogue and nearly all its audio is found in its music, save for a scant few sound effects. This is because Interstella is a visual companion to Daft Punk’s groundbreaking sophomore album, Discovery, which released just two years prior in 2001. As such, the album scores the film in its entirety, following the track order as the interstellar electro-pop sensations are kidnapped by a vicious military force keen on profiting from their fame.

It’s tempting to view the Crescendolls and Interstella as a thinly veiled artifice, an effort to cash in on Daft Punk’s now-iconic “show, don’t tell” approach with a slew of loosely connected music videos. Doing so not only ignores the massive effort undertaken by Japanese entertainment giant Toei Animation and the distinctive art direction and character designs from Leiji Matsumoto (personal childhood hero of the Robots and creator of classic anime space operas), but it also misses the self-awareness explored through the film.

Daft Punk avoided the typical “safe route” of a second major release following Homework, choosing instead to all but totally reinvent themselves by bringing influences from prog rock to baroque into an area of music often known (sometimes derided) for sampling funk and disco tracks.

The idea of having a long-form visual component to Discovery began with the writing of the album, and the film’s themes of greed and corporate exploitation evoke strong parallels between the Crescendolls and Daft Punk’s own journey throughout their first two full-length releases. If Discovery is an assemblage of musical influences reimagined through a prism of French house and synth-heavy original composition, then Interstella is its visual equivalent from its Japanese art direction to its space-opera narrative. Both the film and the album are two sides of the same coin and yet equally representative of a third element: an Ur-artistic core.

Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo may have built a career as Daft Punk, but they’re only human, after all. To this end, Daft Punk, as a multimedia construct used to present their music, is as much a character as the Crescendolls. After decades, the Robots remain mum on who does what in their music. Knowing who plays which instrument in the movie hardly says anything about creative ownership. Daft Punk and the Crescendolls exist in a rhizomatic relationship of mutually reinformed artistic exegesis. Daft Punk is as real as the Crescendolls are fake, and only the music remains.

Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes – Star Wars

Better known by their colloquial name, the Cantina Band, this galaxy-hopping quintet first appeared in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope back in 1977.

We all know the song. Yes, that song. But it deserves more respect than most fans are willing to give it. Not just because “Mad About Me” is canonically a number-one hit and an absolute banger on Tatooine but because this space-swing jazz jam has a very real presence in our musical landscape.

Not only did the same year see American producer Meco define his career with a space-disco rendition of the track (alongside the film’s main theme and more), but it’s gone on to be covered, referenced, parodied, and interpolated in a number of genres. Such artists include Ash, Asylum Street Spankers, Voltaire, Syd Masters and the Swing Riders, Jonas Nordwall (for Close Encounters of the Third Kind), and a litany of jazz and orchestral groups.

Compositionally speaking, the story goes that George Lucas and John Williams were framing the idea of the track around the proposition of “several creatures in a future century finding some 1930s Benny Goodman swing band music... and how they might attempt to interpret it.”

Ignoring the confusing implications this would have for the already borderline-anarchic state of Star Wars lore, Williams took up the gauntlet. Armed with a trumpet, a clarinet, three saxophones, steel drums, a Fender Rhodes piano, and an ARP synthesizer, Williams and his octet cranked out the legendary tune that only a man of his caliber could. For context, the song wouldn’t even earn an official name until well after the film’s release (originally dubbed, simply, “Cantina Band 1”).

As Seth Mulliken describes in his essay “Ambient Reverberations: Diegetic Music, Science Fiction, and Otherness” from Sounds of the Future: Essays on Music in Science Fiction Film, the cantina cabaret could not be more diametrically opposed to what it’s poised to represent. Despite being the result of a fictional universe’s nesting doll of cultures and creatures, “Mad About Me” is “completely recognizable to modern Western popular music,” says Mulliken. But can we really blame Figrin D’an for that?

Ironically, the juxtaposition of the cantina band’s song with its science fiction landscape is precisely what highlights its strengths. Against all odds, Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes made a jazzy “five-part rondo” palatable to listeners in a galaxy far, far away, bringing people together across time and space as all good music ought to do.

Dethklok – Metalocalypse

Who is Dethklok? Imagine the biggest band in the world. No, not those Lads. Bigger. Like “a thousand times more dangerous and a billion times more stupid.” At least, that’s how creator and real-life axe man Brendon Small describes them. Or describes himself?

You see, Dethklok is the fictional-but-not-unreal death metal band at the center of Metalocalypse, a show created by Small and Tommy Blacha for Adult Swim, which originally aired from 2006 to 2013. It’s also the artistic moniker under which Small — aided by Pete Griffin, Nili Brosh, and Gene Hoglan in the studio — releases the music used within the show, put out by the band in their own universe. Which is not to say it’s a soundtrack. Confused yet?

The various entries in the Dethalbum LP series include additional material not played within the show, placing it in a strange, liminal, hyperreal dimension. Some songs have also been featured in several Guitar Hero games as well as 2009’s Brütal Legend video game. The latter’s main character is voiced by and modeled after Jack Black, who has also lent his voice to the Deth-verse on The Doomstar Requiem soundtrack album (which is a proper soundtrack while also being a “real”-life Dethklok album).

Equal parts pastiche and parody of heavy-metal music culture, the show’s massive popularity lent it to a sort of folding on itself by including many notable artists of the very scenes and genres they satirized.

Dethklok’s real-world influence would grow to include album writeups in publications like IGN, Loudwire, and Billboard alongside demi-real and very-real endorsements from the likes of Marshall Amplification, Gibson guitars, EMG pickups, Dunlop, MXR, Universal Audio, and more. These would extend to Dethklok’s live performances and tours, which feature Small and co. tearing up stages alongside the likes of Mastodon, Converge, Megadeth, All That Remains, and the Black Dahlia Murder.

Adding to the surreal nature of it all, Gibson has produced two distinct signature models for Brendon Small, neither of which had appeared on Metalocalypse prior but would go on to be included in universe as instruments for characters Toki and Skwisgaar. To make matters even more convoluted, the album Brendon Small’s Galaktikon II would be released in 2017, described by Small as a sort of spiritual successor to the Dethklok lineage.

Why is Galaktikon II not a Dethklok album? Well, despite the fact that Small composed, recorded, performed, and toured most of the music, co-created the show, and voiced half of the cast, it was Adult Swim who technically owned the rights to the name of the fictional band Dethklok, preventing the release of (yet) another real album. Fortunately, there was never any bad blood between parties, and Dethklok is once again working on new material (whatever that means in terms of personnel, real or otherwise).

They may not reach micro-nation levels of popularity in our corporeal plane, but the simulacrum of Dethklok and Metalocalypse represents an unmatched blurring of layers of reality, reflecting and refracting off and through one other, bookended with satire and tunes that genuinely rock, making for an intriguing ouroboros of heavy metal.

Jem and the Holograms – Jem, Jem and the Holograms

A cruel joke about 1980s cartoons is that many shows were just long commercials for the toys of the various intellectual properties peddled and produced by the likes of Hasbro.

Riding on the success of G.I. Joe and Transformers, Hasbro — alongside Marvel and Sunbow Productions — tapped writer Christy Marx to develop a new IP and television program that would channel the energy erupting from the success of MTV, which had come to life just a few years prior. Jem and the Holograms was the result.

With a plot truly befitting its 1985 debut, Jem told the story of front person Jerrica “Jem” Benton (vocals), her sister Kimber (keyboards, songwriting), Aja Leith (guitar), and Shana Elmsford (synth drums) — together comprising the Holograms.

Secret identities, villain-of-the-week formatting, teenage melodrama, and musical rivalries veiled the show’s underlying themes of loss, identity, acceptance, unity, and resilience. Jem even has a through line of standing up to the forces of oppression wrought by capitalist greed — a theme not uncommon among the show’s cyberpunk contemporaries.

If the latter seems heavy-handed, then the core conceit revolves around Jerrica and Kimber’s late father and his magnum opus, Synergy. Synergy is a supercomputer built to be “the ultimate audio-visual entertainment synthesizer,” capable of complex, remote holography that Jem would activate from her earrings to spice up the Holograms’ live shows and protect the world from those who wanted to use Synergy for evil.

Unlike most “anybody can be a hero” stories of the time, Jem had a strikingly sentimental bent. Aja and Shana weren’t just bandmates and best friends; they were also Jerrica and Kimber’s adopted foster sisters. Moreover, Jem’s personal stakes in protecting Synergy and leading the Holograms could be seen in her care for a group of 12 foster children that lived with the band, known as the Starlight Girls.

A diverse cast of characters and a versatile scope of themes that included race, socioeconomic status, greed, power, community, ethics of technology, exploitation, and espionage, Jem‘s façade of love triangles and high-gloss hijinks may have hindered the band and their story from being remembered as more than a convoluted marketing project.

Japanese juggernaut Toei Animation handled the visuals for the show while production teams in New York and Atlanta produced the impressive 151 distinct tracks over the series’ 65-episode run. In keeping with the overarching merchandising interests, full-production music videos were developed for each episode, drawing sonic and visual inspiration from an assemblage of punk, electronic, pop, and disco with a total of 187 music videos being produced over the course of the series. Because Jem always revolved around the music it was made to market, merchandise often included cassettes containing tracks from the show.

Jem and the Holograms may not have dealt in Dethklok’s hyperreal simulacra, but its presence in the physical world as action figures and intellectual properties allowed for a deceptively complex and morally challenging program to endure in an era when toy-driven shows were the norm, whose themes and concerns are just as worthy of contemplation today as they were in the 1980s.

Spin̈al Tap – This Is Spinal Tap

No compilation of fake bands would be complete without Spinal Tap. While many know them from the titular mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap, the band’s first appearance actually came about in 1979 — five years prior to the film’s release.

The characters of David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls were first featured in the ABC sketch comedy The T.V. Show in the form of a mock promo video for “Rock and Roll Nightmare,” a song written by program star Rob Reiner and the band. The pilot also included real-life musician Loudon Wainwright III on keyboard duty. This led to Reiner’s working with Michael McKean (St. Hubbins), Christopher Guest (Tufnel), and Harry Shearer (Smalls) to adapt the idea for a larger project.

In universe, Spinal Tap are the subject of a documentary by filmmaker Marty Di Bergi (Reiner) as he follows the chaotic, devolving saga of their 1982 US tour and crumbling career. While conceptual outlines were given to manage the cohesion of the film’s loose narrative, nearly all the film’s dialogue was improvised. Cinematographer Peter Smokler — a known entity in documentary camera work — added to the film’s cinéma vérité style. This, combined with Reiner’s insistence on using first takes to capture the most authentic responses and interactions, led to an uncanny realism that caused some viewers of the time to miss the joke entirely.

Fictional lore of the film includes the band’s trajectory under previous names and genres before settling on heavy metal accompanied by the iconic cues of spontaneous human combustion and amps that go to 11.

A combination of the actors’ abilities as real, capable musicians, their impeccable comic chemistry, and the masterful direction by Reiner made sillier moments feel like the only things differentiating the surreal from the believably real. Obvious points of parody include the intrusive girlfriend manager, the mid-tour breakup, zany side projects, and the “big in Japan” success story.

Spinal Tap manages to nail the subtleties of the rock-star experience in the most comical and terrible ways. Musicians have regularly lauded the film for its incisive accuracy of the worst aspects of the music business with the Edge, Kurt Cobain, George Lynch, and Ozzy Osbourne being just a few of its supporters. The film succeeds in going beyond the Rubicon of rock music clichés and road-life details, deeply criticizing the likes of Don’t Look Back and The Last Waltz for their outrageously hagiographic depiction of a touring musician’s career.

Spinal Tap’s legendary status was marked by numerous promotional performances, supplementary work, and even a few special tours — solidifying their significance as a pop-culture staple. In 2002, the film was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The California Raisins – The California Raisin Show, Various

A Frankenstein’s monster of merchandising, PSAs, and 1980s excess, the California Raisins are a group of anthropomorphized, Emmy Award–winning raisins who’ve aged like fine wine.

The group was conceived by ad agency Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB) for Sun-Maid on behalf of the California Raisin Advisory Board. The story goes that Seth Warner — a writer for FCB — suggested the new commercial should feature “dancing raisins singing ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine,'” a track originally released by Gladys Knight & the Pips in 1967, popularized by Marvin Gaye in 1968, and contemporized by Roger Troutman of Zapp fame in 1981.

As comical as that is, the rest is history. The Raisins’ distinctive claymation stylings were designed and created by acclaimed animators Will Vinton and Michael Brunsfeld, leading to their use in numerous commercials. Throughout the ’80s, the grape-line would continue to rise with the Raisins releasing four studio albums with the aid of Buddy Miles on lead vocals, following a feature in the 1987 CBS TV special A Claymation Christmas Celebration.

The following year would see the release of Meet the Raisins!, a claymation special and mockumentary that detailed the meteoric rise of the Raisins. This work also gave the band their canonical names: A.C. Arborman (vocals), Beebop Arborman (drums), Red Raisin (guitar/piano), and Stamford “Stretch” Thompson (bass).

Not content with garnering a Primetime Emmy nomination and cracking the Billboard Hot 100, the Raisins would go on to be immortalized in the form of almost every merchandise medium imaginable, including toys, posters, clothing, lunch boxes, and Halloween costumes. They’d even start their own fan club in 1987, spawning the Grapevine Gazette, giving fans and readers access to news, updates, and memorabilia. As if that weren’t enough, Blackthorne Publishing released a six-issue comic book series, The California Raisins 3-D, which — you guessed it — came with 3D glasses.

There was even an effort by Capcom to produce a side-scrolling video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the early 1990s. This type of tie-in wasn’t uncommon for the era, but, in a somewhat baffling decision, the plot of The California Raisins: The Grape Escape revolved around combatting evil fruits and vegetables who had stolen the Raisins’ music. Despite being completed and even reviewed by critics, this ontologically unsettling NES title would never see a full commercial release — despite a beta cartridge selling for around $1,000.

Though their popularity would wane throughout the early 1990s, the California Raisins had already solidified their institutional significance via merchandise that has since been included in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution. To this day, the Raisins have remained elusive, choosing to preserve their legacy by shying away from the spotlight and to live the rest of their existence in peace.

Dingoes Ate My Baby – Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Even if you don’t know the band by name, you’re probably familiar with its grim reference. It’s an adaptation of a phrase made famous by Meryl Streep in A Cry in the Dark, itself an adaptation of the very real case of missing baby Azaria Chamberlain in 1980.

Shocking though it may sound to modern viewers, consider the fact that fictional band Dingoes Ate My Baby play a prominent role in Joss Whedon’s late-nineties/early-aughties supernatural horror teen drama, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s also worth noting that the band’s lead guitarist, Daniel “Oz” Osbourne, is a werewolf. Portrayed by Seth Green, this iconic character would appear with the band during seasons two, three, four, and (briefly) eight.

Fronted by Devon MacLeish (the only other named member of the band, portrayed by Jason Hall), Dingoes held a significant place in the Buffy-verse’s internal lore, their music being featured diegetically (in world) as well as through in-show performances.

Interestingly, the music behind the band was written and recorded by real-life alternative rock band Four Star Mary. Many of the tracks featured were taken straight from their 1998 release, Thrown to the Wolves. The story goes that John King — music editor for the show — heard Four Star Mary’s music at a party hosted by then-girlfriend of their bassist, Steve Carter. Whedon would eventually get word and decide they embodied the sound needed for the show.

Interestingly, Dingoes Ate My Baby are regularly shown to play frat parties while Four Star Mary’s music was occasionally featured in era staples like Road Rules, The Real World, and Charmed, suggesting a reciprocal relationship with the sounds of the time and the expanded role Oz — and the band, by extension — would play in the story.

In universe, Dingoes Ate My Baby have nine known, titled tracks to their name. A distinctive poster for the band is occasionally seen, depicting a 1950s-inspired art style with an apron-wearing woman serving up a silver platter to what are presumably dingoes dining at a dinner table.

Despite Freddy Iverson’s absolute dismantling of the band in the school’s Sunnydale High Sentinel, wherein he describes them as “playing their instruments as if they have plump Polish sausages taped to their fingers,” the band would nevertheless remain a prominent influence throughout the show as well as an iconic keepsake of the show’s vast lore and detailed writing. Though, that may be more due to the band’s shocking name than the quality of their music.

N.W.H. – Fear of a Black Hat

If you’ve never seen Fear of a Black Hat, then you’re missing out. Actor/screenwriter Rusty Cundieff’s 1993 mockumentary is as much an ode to This Is Spinal Tap (a favorite of Cundieff) as it is a comedic commentary on the state of rap music culture of the 1990s. The film mirrors Spinal Tap‘s treatment of heavy metal while formulating its own approach to ’90s-era films like Juice, Do the Right Thing, New Jack City, Friday, and more.

N.W.H. — a clear reference to N.W.A. — is a rap group comprised of Ice Cold, Tasty Taste, and Tone Def. Each of their personas represents various threads in ’90s hip-hop, and the film’s name itself is an allusion to Public Enemy’s 1990 album, Fear of a Black Planet.

Though it’s tempting to view the journey of N.W.H. as a masterful homage to the stylings of Spinal Tap, what the characters represent runs much deeper for Cundieff. During a 1994 interview with Robert Levine of the Los Angeles Times, Cundieff recounts he was inspired to reimagine the concept of the heavy metal precursor through the lens of hip-hop after the notorious 1990 Florida arrest of 2 Live Crew members for the supposed “crime” of performing tracks off their album As Nasty as They Wanna Be.

Considering his early work with Spike Lee in the 1980s, it should come as no surprise that Cundieff would see the opportunity to present the oppressive, racist fear elicited by incidents like this as a satire of how Black culture and the intersecting spheres of hip-hop music are often misinterpreted both within and outside the culture.

The story follows sociologist Nina Blackburn (portrayed by Kasi Lemmons) who’s documenting a year with N.W.H. for her thesis. Each member of the group is themselves a multiplicity of satire, juxtaposing names, fashion, and musical styles such that no character is a 1:1 parody. In-universe references to additional artists, known feuds, racial appropriation, clichés tied to the rap industry, and the common misunderstanding that “rap is a performance” work at multiple levels of comedy and commentary — something of which Cundieff was acutely aware and which was a major intention of the film.

To that end, N.W.H. exists in a world of pure pastiche: deliberate, overexaggerated proxies for complex socioeconomic and ideological issues that are much easier to experience than they are to explain. With its many nods to Spinal Tap, it’s easy to overlook the kind of deconstruction N.W.H. accomplish in Fear of a Black Hat. Some aspects of N.W.H. may seem silly at first until you realize that that’s the point; rap and all other music are types of performance that may be able to express very real ideas and emotions but, like all artistic expression, benefit from the self-awareness in knowing how to find your voice. Taking yourself too seriously can make it a challenge for others to take you seriously at all. Maybe try out a funny hat.

Barbusters – Light of Day

Casual fans might associate Michael J. Fox’s musical output with the high-output stylings of Marty McFly. But there’s more to the Canadian wunderkind than meets the eye. A dedicated singer and guitarist in his own right, Michael J. Fox proves he has the chops to star opposite real-life rocker Joan Jett as siblings Joe and Patti Rasnick in Light of Day.

The 1987 film explores the working-class struggle of the Rasnick siblings navigating the turbulence of everyday life by using music as an escape. This primarily takes the form of their band, the Barbusters, with whom a tour is attempted to a debatable degree of success. Following some hard-hitting family drama and a brief flirtation with heavy metal, the duo play out the film to the tune of their real-life credited track, “Light of Day.”

Director Paul Schrader reportedly wrote the film with Bruce Springsteen in mind for the lead, providing him an earlier draft with the working title Born in the USA. Schrader allegedly lifted this title from the lyrics of a track by Cleveland rock outfit the Generators, upon whom the fictional Barbusters are based. Springsteen would still go on to pen the titular track, which became a staple of live performances by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts for many years after.

Moira Bailey even wrote an Orlando Sentinel report the same year that detailed a Cleveland concert by Jett and co. in which Michael J. Fox joined the band on guitar and backing vocals for a few tracks including “Light of Day.”

As the film is set and shot around Cleveland, Schrader spent a few years researching the local music scene prior to shooting. This led to inclusions of local band the Pelicans as well as then-bandmates Trent Reznor and Frank Vale of Exotic Birds. The Fabulous Thunderbirds also perform and serve as a point of inspiration for Patti in the film.

Given its obvious affinity for heartfelt rock-and-roll themes, the soundtrack would go on to include contributions from Springsteen, Jett, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Ian Hunter, Dave Edmunds, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bon Jovi, and Michael J. Fox with several tracks publicly credited to the Barbusters on release.

Though the film itself may have garnered mixed reviews and a fair share of criticism, it marks a serious effort by two uniquely talented musicians to deliver a story of musical triumph with which even the most casual instrumentalist can identify. Plus, if the lore is to be believed, then it gave us Springsteen’s megahit, “Born in the USA,” though whether that’s a blessing or a curse is a matter of personal preference.

Steel Dragon – Rock Star

Rock Star explores the fantasy of every musician who’s dreamt of taking the stage with their favorite arena-packing act. Inspired by the real-life story of a regular guy given the chance to put it all on the line and play in the majors... no, wait. That’s Invincible.

Really, though, the two aren’t far off. Rock Star is inspired by the also-very-real story of Tim “Ripper” Owens, lead vocalist of a Judas Priest tribute band who was selected to join the group following Rob Halford’s 1996 departure.

Mark Wahlberg portrays Chris Cole: photocopy technician by day, heavy metal vocalist by night. Following the firing of Steel Dragon lead vocalist Bobby Beers, Cole is given the chance to audition as his replacement. Ditching Blood Pollution — Cole’s own Steel Dragon tribute band named after a Steel Dragon track — after simmering tensions with guitarist and fellow bandmate Rob Malcom (portrayed by Timothy Olyphant), Cole auditions with a cover of the group’s hit, “We All Die Young.”

In universe, this is a Steel Dragon chart buster. But it’s also a real song by glam metal act Steelheart, whose lead singer, Miljenko Matijevic, lent his pipes for Chris Cole’s on-camera singing voice throughout the film (with one exception we’ll get to momentarily).

The film progresses with a “don’t meet your heroes” story arc. Cole is given the nickname “Izzy” (presumably an allusion to Izzy Stradlin) by his bandmates and quickly finds himself engaging in indulgences of a bona fide rock star. A bitter dose of disillusionment is delivered when Izzy — eager to participate as a “real” member of the band — shows up to rehearsals with new songs and concept artwork only to be shot down in favor of doing what’s needed to meet the expectations of fans rather than pursue the art in any true sense.

This goes about as well as you’d expect for a movie underpinned by themes of staying true to oneself, and before we know it, “Izzy” is no more, and Chris Cole is back in Seattle working a day job, rockin’ the midnight circuit, and rekindling his relationship with once-girlfriend Emily Poule (Jennifer Aniston).

Despite its intriguing true-story inspiration, the film falls short with its by-the-numbers story beats. But what makes Steel Dragon a memorable metal militia is its cast of real-life rock stars peppered throughout. Jason Bonham, Zakk Wylde, Jeff Pilson, and Dominic West make up Izzy’s Steel Dragon bandmates as do fellow Black Label Society alum Nick Catanese, Brian Vander Ark (the Verve Pipe), and Blas Elias (Slaughter), playing guitar, bass, and drums, respectively, in Blood Pollution.

The Verve Pipe wrote and recorded the track “Colorful” to be used in the film as Chris Cole’s first original track post-Steel Dragon. Musical cameos also include singer/guitarist Myles Kennedy, Steel Panther’s Ralph Saenz, Jeff Scott Soto, and Third Eye Blind front man Stephan Jenkins.

Was Rock Star a great film? Not really. But, like the heavy metal history about which it waxes poetic, it’s a good time with some valuable truths sprinkled in. And Steel Dragon is as much a parody as it is an ode to the very bands and story that inspired it.

The Blues Brothers – Saturday Night Live, The Blues Brothers

Commonly remembered for the dual front of Dan Akroyd and John Belushi on Saturday Night Live and their eponymous 1980 film (and the less-successful 1998 sequel), the Blues Brothers were far more than the fictional personas of Elwood and “Joliet” Jake E. Blues they played on-screen. A very real music career for Akroyd and Belushi included a double platinum, number-one album on the Billboard 200, a plethora of live shows, and a suite of blues music greats both in the studio and on the stage.

Elwood and Jake first donned their trademark suit-and-tie combos, attributing their Wayfarer shades and matching fedoras to icon John Lee Hooker and recording their 1978 debut album, Briefcase Full of Blues, while opening for Steve Martin at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. Comprised of notable covers of the likes of Otis Redding, the Chips, Sam & Dave, and more, the chart-topping release would be dedicated to Portland-based blues and soul artist Curtis Salgado, who was reportedly Belushi’s chief inspiration for the band and project.

But the duo’s interest in blues music didn’t start there... or with the SNL skit. Rather, Dan Akroyd had begun renting the Holland Tunnel Blues bar in Lower Manhattan around the time he joined the cast of SNL, making it a common destination for the staff. Akroyd’s own history with the genre dates back to his Ottawa upbringing. Between his time at Carleton University and regular attendance at the iconic Le Hibou Coffee House, Akroyd’s love of the blues would blossom, including the occasional performance at Le Hibou and with the Downchild Blues Band (another major influence on the Brothers).

Fast-forward to the late ’70s when Akroyd and Belushi would stock the bar’s jukebox with blues and punk records, leading Belushi to store instruments at the venue. As his fascination grew and the vision began to take form, the Blues Brothers would be born.

According to the lore found in the liner notes of Briefcase Full of Blues, Elwood and Jake were steeped in the blues from a young age, learning the art from Curtis, the janitor of the Rock Island Roman Catholic orphanage where the pair grew up. Following a blood pact made with the aid of a string from one of Elmore James’s guitars, their fate was sealed.

Across the pantheon of Blues Brothers albums, projects, and tours, artists like Tom Malone, “Blue Lou” Marini, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, Alan Rubin, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Chaka Khan, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Ray Charles would lend their talents. Belushi’s unexpected passing in 1982 put a premature seal on the original incarnation of the Brothers in a darkly poetic tragedy befitting the artists that preceded and inspired them.

Between the SNL sketch and the two Blues Brothers films, it would be easy to believe that this was a very dedicated bit run by a few talented actor-musicians with the chops and connections to let us collectively suspend our disbelief and enjoy the fun. What’s overlooked, however, is the dedication and reverence Akroyd and Belushi felt for the artists, works, and cultural institutions that comprised the blues.

Elwood and Jake may have been characters on the silver screen, but, for the actors who played them — and the star-studded list of musical collaborators — the Blues Brothers are just as real as the greats who came before them.

Stillwater – Almost Famous

This Georgia-based southern rock outfit may have only had two albums released before Capricorn Records closed — wait, sorry. That’s the real Stillwater. This entry is about the fictitious Stillwater as depicted in the 2001 Academy Award winner Almost Famous, which happens to revolve around the career and tour life of the band in the early 1970s (shortly before the real Stillwater would release their first album).

The use of the name was purely coincidental: a culmination of concepts from writer, director, and producer Cameron Crowe’s experiences with various bands over the years. That said, the real-life band caught wind of the usage and, according to guitarist Bobby Golden, had their lawyer get in touch with production so they could get “a little bit of change out of it” and help the film avoid “a bunch of different lawsuits.”

In Golden’s defense, the setting and context of the film could be misleading. This Stillwater features Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee) on vocals, Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) on guitar, Larry Fellows on bass, and Ed Vallencourt on drums. Mark Kozelek of Sun Kil Moon and career drummer John Fedevich portray bassist Larry Fellows and drummer Ed Vallencourt on-screen.

Almost Famous is loosely based on Cameron Crowe’s real experiences as a teenage journalist writing for Rolling Stone. Set in 1973, William Miller is a prodigious young writer who, through a series of fortuitous events, ends up with the Rolling Stone assignment of following and documenting Stillwater on their tour despite being only 15 years old (hey, it was the ’70s; didn’t we still give kids cigarettes for Halloween?). We witness Stillwater’s rise through William’s evolving disposition with the usual rock-and-roll rigmarole that ultimately leads to tragedy — something for which young William, for all his knowledge, is unprepared.

Though at least three of the four on-screen band members possess a considerable amount of musical talent, the five Stillwater songs to be featured in the film were penned by Crowe, his then-wife Nancy Wilson (of Heart), and Peter Frampton, who worked as a technical consultant for the film.

Fitting for the time of its production, Mike McCready of Pearl Jam lent his licks to Stillwater’s lead guitar parts. While Jerry Cantrell — a previous collaborator of Crowe’s — was initially tapped for the band’s on-screen bassist, he was too busy working on Degradation Trip to make it work. And, depending on your opinion of Almost Famous, it may have been the smarter move.

It’s purported that Cameron Crowe personally courted Jimmy Page and Robert Plant to provide a private screening of the film, resulting in their blessing to use several tracks for the production, one for the soundtrack and four for the film. Interestingly, Page and Plant turned down the use of “Stairway to Heaven,” although a “bootleg” edition of the film’s DVD release includes on-screen cues for those looking to participate in its inclusion at home.

Of further semi-autobiographical import, Gregg Allman noted in his 2012 memoir, My Cross to Bear, that several on-screen Stillwater incidents were seemingly inspired by Crowe’s own time with the Allman Brothers Band.

The Fabulous Stains – Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

Producer Lou Adler helmed this 1982 coming-of-age musical drama of an all-female punk band’s rise to infamy amid the socioeconomic turmoil of the early 1980s recession.

Adler’s extensive history as a record producer throughout the ’60s and ’70s saw him working with the Grass Roots, the Mamas & the Papas, and Carole King, the latter earning him Grammy Awards for both Record of the Year and Album of the Year in 1972. On the film front, Adler had previously executive-produced The Rocky Horror Picture Show and produced Cheech & Chong films.

All of this is to say that Adler’s multidisciplinary expertise culminates with The Fabulous Stains through a very potent blend of music industry knowledge and the interrelationship of lived struggles and musical expression. Combined with the writing of Nancy Dowd, who worked with Caroline Coon — a journalist and political activist known for her firsthand experience in the London punk scene of the 1970s and her work in the intersectional spheres of gender and sexuality in the evolving attitudes of punk — The Fabulous Stains pulls no punches in its portrayal of the grim realities of the record industry.

More incisively, the Fabulous Stains are challenged with the proposition of abandoning ideological solidarity for material success and financial stability: “selling out.” Adding to the film’s authenticity is the casting of multiple punk musicians, including Paul Simonon (the Clash), Fee Waybill and Vince Welnick (the Tubes), and Steve Jones and Paul Cook (Sex Pistols) along with LA icons Black Randy and the Metrosquad. Lead performances from Diane Lane and Laura Dern solidify the Stains as a band worth remembering, not just for their canonical MTV validation but for the lasting impact they — and the film — would have on punk to come.

Despite a lackluster box office performance, the film gained a cult following through heavy syndication on cable TV. In particular, the USA Network’s Night Flight counterculture weekend block would air the film to a steady audience in 1984, leading to its eventual theatrical re-releases and art house presence. This would go on to inspire many younger, female artists who would be integral to the riot grrrl movement of the ’90s, owing to its themes of feminism, ideological solidarity, antiestablishmentarianism, and artistic identity. The likes of Kate Nash, Sarah Jacobson, and members of bands Bikini Kill and Bratmobile would cite the film’s importance in their musical outlook with Nash even reportedly dying her hair to match protagonist Corinne Burns’s skunk-stripe style.

These themes are exemplified by Dowd and Coon’s ultimate decision to walk away from the project following disagreements with Adler’s vision for the film’s conclusion. Dowd is credited under the name “Rob Morton” to distance herself from the film as well as to vaguely allude to the crux of her tensions with Adler — that his male gaze had snuffed out the feminist narrative Dowd and Coon had been tasked with writing.

Nevertheless, the Fabulous Stains have remained an undeniable influence to artists everywhere from its proto-riot grrrl disposition to its proposition to viewers (regardless of gender): to stand up for what’s right and to remain true to who you are.

Wyld Stallyns – Bill & Ted Franchise

In their own universe, Bill and Ted’s exploits as Wyld Stallyns take them across space, time, Heaven, Hell, to death, and back to life, culminating in their apotheosis deep into the future. As literal rock gods, their music led to universal harmony, peace, and progress, elevating humanity to its final and most sophisticated state.

Air-guitar salutes abound for these saviors of mankind as they make allies of Sigmund Freud, Joan of Arc, and a deified Martian scientist, just to name a few. With the help of their time-traveling techno-shaman, Rufus (portrayed by the late George Carlin), Bill and Ted use the power of music, friendship, and futuristic wizardry to defeat evil, be that in the form of passing a high school history class or winning the San Dimas Battle of the Bands. The latter even involves the duo preventing their own future doom via killer robo-clones sent back in time by the fascistic anti-Rufus, Chuck De Nomolos, who wants to destroy the future utopia to rebuild paradise in his image, sans Stallyns.

As a story, the idea that Wyld Stallyns will write and record the music that quite literally saves the world takes the most nonsensical pulp-fantasy fever dream of the archetypal aspiring musician and cranks it up well beyond 11. Of course, this is what makes it fun, right? One-time Renaissance-era princesses Joanna and Elizabeth are ripped straight out of time (presumably to great effect of their native royalty) to become the duo’s wives and musical collaborators, playing drums and keyboards, respectively.

Oh, “Who plays bass,” you ask? Good question: it’s Death! The literal emissary of corporeal abandon and harvester of souls — midwife to the afterlife — agrees to slap some bass after repeatedly losing (even when cheating in) several board games, parodying the 1957 Swedish film The Seventh Seal. Meanwhile, Station — the possible angel, Martian scientist, smartest person who ever lived, and sort of two small beings who fuse into one — handles the band’s inaudible and unneeded miscellaneous percussion. He’s pretty important, so it doesn’t seem too bad to throw him a bone and have some fun at the local Battle of the Bands as a reprieve from his holy scientific duties.

The Stallyns would go on to feature in numerous projects, including several video and board games, an animated series, and a live-action TV series, before leading to the 2020 conclusion of this triptych tale: Bill & Ted Face the Music.

Say what you will about remakes, but, if nothing else, it somehow raises the stakes of Bill and Ted’s odyssey to outlandish heights that are only appropriate for their reality-warping adventures. Determined to produce the prophesied album to unite the universe, their final romp takes the duo (and their daughters) through a timeline-hopping mission to rectify fate, taking another lap through Hell to re-recruit Death (an eclectic solo bassist that would have found a fan in Jaco Pastorius) and Station, who has taken the form of Kid Cudi. A convoluted alternate-timeline disaster puts the group (including the daughters) in Hell, following the efforts of Dennis Caleb McCoy to kill the rockers at Dave Grohl’s house. Dennis (named after a daughter’s ex-boyfriend) is also there, where they eventually reunite to actualize the prophecy bestowed upon them decades earlier, preventing the fabric of space-time from tearing itself apart and achieving harmony.

Disregarding the extremely troubling implications of a robot attaining sentience and being sent to Hell for his sins (and the subsequent presumption he had or gained a soul) alongside the problems of free will posed by Bill and Ted’s knowledge of the future, determinism, and more, the Stallyns persevere.

Maybe that’s overthinking things, but it’s more fun to imagine the band’s triumph as being so powerful and inevitable that they heal and unite the universe itself. That feels like a good way to be excellent to each other and the ultimate avenue to party on.

The Commitments – The Commitments

Originally published as a novel in 1987, The Commitments would release in 1991 with Alan Parker directing and Roddy Doyle (the book’s original author) working alongside Ian La Fenais and Dick Clement to write the screenplay. The story follows the young music fan Jimmy Rabbitte as he pulls together various friends and familiars to form a band: the Commitments.

Set in Dublin’s Northside, the film tells the story of an Irish soul band whose work was, in many ways, a love letter to the 1960s Motown music scene. As the band navigates the hardships of working-class life and the harsh truths of the music business, tensions rise as they attempt to balance dreams and reality.

One of the many reasons The Commitments sticks with us is the whopping variety of music included with 68 different musical cues, 52 songs, and 24 tracks performed by the cast. It should be no surprise, then, that the film doesn’t have a score of its own; it’s chock-full of legendary works from Otis Redding, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Mary Wells, James Carr, and more. The soundtrack would be released in two volumes, its first going triple platinum in the US and 5x platinum in Australia, topping out at #8 on the Billboard 200 over a 76-week run.

Many notable Irish singers are featured throughout the film, including Angeline Ball, Maria Doyle, and the Flames’ Glen Hansard as well as all four members of Irish Celt-rock family band the Corrs.

While it may not have smashed the box office, the heartfelt story and musical menagerie of the Commitments have solidified their place in our hearts with their transcendent love and reverence for the soul-sound greats of the ’60s.

Eddie and the Cruisers – Eddie and the Cruisers

Unlike most music-centered films, Eddie and the Cruisers tells the story of its titular act in a noir-adjacent flashback, chronicling the murky circumstances surrounding the disappearance of rock icon and front man Eddie Wilson. Martin Davidson directs the film, adapted from the novel of the same name by P. F. Kluge (which Davidson personally financed to option). Davidson described his vision as an effort to “get all [his] feelings about the music of the last 30 years of rock music into it.”

The film unfolds through the eyes of the band’s members as they recall their time in the ’60s spotlight, reaching stardom after their first record, not knowing how high they could climb or how far they could fall. Prior to his vanishing, Eddie had pushed the band beyond their outer artistic limits, setting his sights on a Platonic ideal of “Greatness” that would cement the group as legends. Fueled by the nihilistic poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, their sophomore effort, A Season in Hell, is rejected by the label for its strange darkness, its master tapes disappearing just before Eddie meets the same, unknown fate.

Davidson’s dedication to authenticity included hiring Kenny Vance of Jay and the Americans to provide insight and credibility in the creative direction of the Cruisers. The band’s distinctive sound stemmed from Davidson’s vision of a tripartite influence of Dion and the Belmonts, Jim Morrison and the Doors, and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band all wrapped into a single 1960s New Jersey rock outfit. He would find the closest real-life approximation in John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, hiring Cafferty to score the film.

Within the film, the then-current 1980s iteration of the band’s remaining members are gathered for a documentary about their music and Eddie’s strange disappearance. The cold light of history offers a revealing view of their past, poisoning the nostalgic positivity with the sober truth of their mishaps and prompting a search for the truth behind Eddie and the missing tapes. Between Davidson’s personal dedication to this vision and the hiring of musicians like Vance, Cafferty, and Southside Johnny for their various musical expertise, Eddie and the Cruisers represent the artistic tragedy of the “tortured genius” shackled by the chains of capital and a society not yet ready to hear “True Art.”

It’s the type of tragedy any artist can understand and that’s vindicated by the film’s ending (we won’t spoil it). Helping to make Eddie and his Cruisers so memorable is the film’s soundtrack going quadruple platinum in 1984 with its theme, “On the Dark Side,” hitting #1 on Billboard‘s Mainstream, Rock, and Heatseeker charts and #7 on the Hot 100.

Fun fact: The soundtrack to Eddie and the Cruisers was recorded and mixed by one of Sweetwater’s very own premier engineers (who would prefer to remain anonymous).

Honorable Mentions

Hangman’s Joke – The Crow

It felt wrong to leave Brandon Lee’s swan song off the list. As far as the movie is concerned, the unfortunately named band, Hangman’s Joke, is far less significant to the story than Eric Draven’s penchant for supernaturally amplified guitar. The band is also featured in the subsequent 1998 television series, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, but its dubious canonicity doesn’t give us much to go on for the film.

If nothing else, it subtly and compassionately portrays the importance of music in many lives, helping us find comfort and meaning at times when even the worst of tragedies would have us all but catatonic. Even if Draven’s post-resurrection revenge doesn’t include time for band practice, there’s a clear through line between his time with the band and the methodical, therapeutic place for the guitar in his afterlife.

CB4 – CB4

Not unlike Fear of a Black Hat, the story of CB4 follows the trajectory of M.C. Gusto and his childhood friends, Dead Mike and Stab Master Arson, as they attempt to scale the world of gangsta rap and find success. Chris Rock holds the lead in this Tamra Davis–directed film, and cameos range from Eazy-E and Ice Cube to Shaq, Halle Berry, and Butthole Surfers.

Like Fear, the film takes inspiration from This Is Spinal Tap, similarly satirizing the prominent hip-hop scene with an N.W.A.-style group and mirroring Fear‘s own commentary on first-amendment expression and racialized fear of the “Other.”

The emergence of CB4 and Fear of a Black Hat occurred around the same time and purely by coincidence. Lumping them together would do a disservice to both and choosing one over the other shortchanges the unique, artistic decision to parody the culture of the era.

It is purely this writer’s opinion that Fear of a Black Hat offers a bit more range, eschewing named cameos for the sake of immersion, but CB4 is just as incisive and entertaining and well worth inclusion on this list for the work it accomplishes.

Citizen Dick – Singles

If there’s a more comprehensive love letter to the 1990s grunge scene of the Pacific Northwest, then we’ve yet to find it. Written and directed by Cameron Crowe, Singles follows the lives of several Gen X’ers as they navigate the turbulence of youthful precarity throughout Seattle.

Matt Dillon portrays Cliff Poncier, local front man of aspiring grunge rock outfit Citizen Dick. Their most remembered song in the film, “Touch Me I’m Dick,” is a parody of Mudhoney’s 1988 college radio hit, “Touch Me I’m Sick.” Seattle grunge alumni and Pearl Jam members Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard, and Jeff Ament actually appear in the film as Poncier’s band members despite Mudhoney performing the aforementioned parody that would be credited to Citizen Dick on the film’s soundtrack.

Paul Westerberg of the Replacements and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden/Audioslave would handle most of the music for the film, being featured alongside the Lovemongers, the Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, and more for the RIAA double platinum–certified 1992 soundtrack release.

Ironically, as Steve Huey would note in his review for AllMusic at the time, Singles — and Citizen Dick, by extension — would solidify the idea of a cultural “canon” to Seattle’s scene, making Crowe’s “you had to be there” authenticity of the film that much more prescient.

Crucial Taunt – Wayne’s World

Core to the exploits of Wayne and Garth’s silver-screen adventure is Crucial Taunt, the band fronted by Cassandra Wong: vocalist, bassist, and Wayne’s love interest. Playing the rock circuit of the bustling Aurora, Illinois, scene, the band is a staple at local metal hangout The Gasworks.

Though the band’s journey to stardom is integral to the plot and is Wayne’s primary vehicle of his romantic pursuits, Cassandra and co. are remembered for their distinctive style, both in fashion and as “wailers” in their performances. Beyond the realm of the film, Tia Carrere (who portrays Cassandra) lent her voice to the Wayne’s World soundtrack, singing covers of Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz” and Dwight Twilley’s “Why You Wanna Break My Heart.” Carrere also performs the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Fire” as well as her original track, “Touch Me,” for the film, but neither of these have been commercially released.

Hep Alien – Gilmore Girls

In its original incarnation, Hep Alien consisted of Lane Kim on drums, Lane’s one-time boyfriend Dave Rygalski on guitar, Brian Fuller (not to be confused with his cousin, also named Brian) on bass, and Zack Van Gerbig pulling double duty on lead guitar and vocals — triple duty if you count his eventual role of father to Lane’s children.

While plenty of character drama unfolds as a result of the group’s various roles in the broader social mesh of the Gilmore-verse, Hep Alien solidified its place in our collective consciousness after Dave departs for college in California.

Enter Gil, sandwich shop owner by day, finely aged rocker by night. Oh, and he’s portrayed by none other than the Sebastian Bach. His perceived “old” age initially gives the band pause, speculating he might be in his 30s or even 40s. Even so, his legitimate time spent in the biz proves to be more valuable as a guiding force for the young musicians (alluding to his real-life time spent in Skid Row’s heyday).

In 2019, Bach revealed in an interview with popculture.com that he found his way onto the show following a 10-ish year stint on Broadway, taking roles in Jekyll and Hyde, Jesus Christ Superstar, Rocky Horror, and more.

Otis Day and the Knights – National Lampoon’s Animal House

An homage to the R&B and P funk acts of the era, Otis Day and the Knights are a focal point in 1978’s classic Animal House. DeWayne Jessie fronts the band in the film, but Lloyd G. Williams sings the tracks heard in the movie: the original “Shama Lama Ding Dong,” written by Mark Davis, and a rendition of “Shout” by the Isley Brothers.

On an interesting real-life note, DeWayne Jessie is the brother of Young Jessie, known for his work in the Coasters. Also interesting is that five-time Grammy Award–winning artist Robert Cray plays bass in the Knights. In a more bizarre twist, DeWayne Jessie would go on to purchase the rights to the band’s name sometime in the 1980s, ultimately assuming the Otis Day name and persona.

Years of touring led to an album, Shout, produced by Mister Funkadelic himself, George Clinton, in 1989, which, unfortunately, was a flop.

Josie and the Pussycats – Josie and the Pussycats

The fictitious band has endured for more than half a century from Dan DeCarlo’s Archie Comics series in the ’60s to the Saturday-morning Hanna-Barbera cartoon in the ’70s and the 2001 live-action film starring Rachel Leigh Cook, Tara Reid, and Rosario Dawson. There’s even an offshoot storyline in the Afterlife with Archie world where Josie and the Pussycats are revealed to be vampires born in 1906.

More recently, the band made a contemporary appearance in the CW’s Riverdale, but not as vampires if you could believe it, given the scope of the show. Regardless of their depictions, they’ve consistently represented unity, friendship, and the power of music with their timeless and iconic style never failing to triumph over the evils of the world, be they petty thieves, music-business moguls, or supernatural fiends.

The Lone Rangers – Airheads

The name says it all. The tri