The 20 Best Fake Bands Ever (and don't argue with us)

We would be seriously amiss if we, purveyors of fake band merch, did not have a Best Fake Band list of our own. 
There's so many out there (fake bands and fake band lists - just Google for yourself), but we're pretty confident that this one is the definitive list of the fake band genre. We say this with absolute confidence and arrogance. 

And now, in descending order: 

 
​20) Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes (Star Wars - A New Hope)

- Ask anyone to hum music from the Star Wars movies, and they'll either give you the theme song, or The Cantina Song played by "Fiery" Figrin D'an and his all-Bith band of renown, the Modal Nodes. Here's were I go full nerd:

a) they are all from the planet Clak'dor VII

b) they were big during the Clone Wars, but were reduced to playing seedy bars like Mos Eisley by the time Luke Skywalker and Co. happened upon them

c) the band lineup: Figrin D'an (plays the Kloo horn); Nalan Cheel (Bandfill); Doikk Na'ts (Dorenian Behsniquel): Tedn Dahal (Fanfar); Tech M'or (Ommni box); Ickabel G'ont (Double Jocimer, naturally); and Sun'il Ei'de (drums) 
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d) Han shot first

19) Cold Slither (G.I. Joe, The Animated Series) 

- Music has been a tool of propaganda for time began, but not as desparately obvious as Zartan and his Dreadnoks on the 80's G.I. Joe cartoon. 

Cobra Commander thought he could make them into a hard rock / heavy metal band and insert subliminal messages into the lyrics making everyone join the Cobra cause. Zartan's group of primitive Aussies had a difficult time pulling it off, however... 

18) Infant Sorrow (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him To The Greek) 

​- Is anyone more perfectly suited to play an arrogant-and out-of-touch-with-everything-yet-charismatic-for-days lead singer than Russell Brand? After stealing the show in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Aldous Snow got his own movie (where Sean 'Diddy' Combs steals that show), where we can see the full scope of his talents. 

Russell is so good, we actually believe he's Aldous believing he is Jesus. 

17) Crucifictorious (Friday Night Lights - the TV show)

​- The name is as unwieldy as the musical subgenre (Christian metalcore?!?), but from one appearance alone on Friday Night Lights, Crucifictorious has developed quite the cult following, and rightfully so, I'd like to add.

Why, you ask? The band's entire attitude is obviously "just go for it". With the name, their ferocious 'performance' in front of (counting on one hand...) people. I could go on. But I'd rather not. Simply sit back and listen to their Christian metacore majesty. 

 
​16) The Zit Remedy (Degrassi Jr. High/Degrassi High)

- Our mandated CanCon entry, this was the original band on the show. But don't be fooled by the lo-fi production. Try to not get this earworm of a melody lodged into the deepest, darkest recesses of your brain. 

Later versions of the show produced other solid entries such as Downtown Sasquatch (feat. a pre-Drake Aubrey Graham!), Ape Sex, and Gourmet Scum.

​​15) The Hong Kong Cavaliers (from The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension)

- Possibly the ultimate 80's cult movie, with the ultimate ungainly title and ultimate 80's character actor cast (Ellen Barkin! Jeff Goldblum! John Lithgow! Christopher Lloyd!) and starring Peter Weller as the greatest hero-cum-multi tasking renaissance man, physicist/neurosurgeon/test pilot/rock star Buckaroo Banzai. 

And predictably, Buckaroo shifts from guitar to wielding a mean cornet (it couldn't be a regular trumpet, now could it?).

14) Autobahn (The Big Lebowski)

- Where do we begin...

Perhaps with the fact that this techno-pop group of German nihilists is named after the classic Kraftwerk hit.

Or maybe that two of them are played by rock bassist god Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Coen Brothers go-to creepy actor Peter Stormare.

And let's not forget their love of marmots. 

13) 2GETHER 

- Give the glut of boybands that clogged the airwaves in the late 90's/early Aughts, who better than MTV themselves to come out with a very solid spoof of their own? 2GETHER had all the demographically requisite bases covered (ie. bad boy, virgin etc.) and their songs could've passed for anything on air at the time (the lyrics were the true star of the show - listen closely).

​Their rivals on the show, Whoa!, came out with a fairly impressive single of their own, perhaps the prettiest ode to many a male's *ahem* solo activities. 

​12) Dethklok (Metalocalypse)

​- Now, there is an almost 100% probability that a death metal band won't be the most popular group on Earth, but that's why there's cartoons. 

Billions of fans, the world's 7th largest economy... Dethklok is serious business. Plus, they can shred. Yet another excellent example of a fake band being supremely better than half the real bands out there. 

11) Hedwig and the Angry Inch

​- A movie, bestselling Broadway show, and far and away the best song about a sex-change operation gone wrong. This qualifies Hedwig's creator, John Cameron Mitchell, as a certified genius. 

Great music, great character, and quite possibly the only true mainstream trans icon. Hedwig is bigger than an inch, by far. 

10) Stillwater (Almost Famous) 

- Before Cameron Crowe became a bigshot Hollywood director, he was a pimply, underage writer for Rolling Stone magazine in the 60's. His movie, Almost Famous, was a fictional account of this very thing, minus the pimples. 

Cameron brought in his wife (convenient, eh?) at the time, Nancy Wilson of Heart, and legendary rocker Peter Frampton to put together the music. Together, they came up with an Allman-Brothers-on-steroids sound that was a perfect match for the movie. 

 9) The Weird Sisters (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

​- Essentially the 90's Britpop version of Steel Dragon (see #2), they answer the timeless question, 'What would happen if you put together the lead singer and bassist of Pulp, the guitarist and drummer from Radiohead, and sprinkle in two blokes from way-more-obscure-yet-equally Brit bands?" 

A: a fake band with tons of stage presence, and enough hooks to make even a song about Hippogriffs awesome.

8)​ PoP! (Music and Lyrics)

​- The second entry with an exclamation mark on this list, but definitely the best. Seeing Hugh Grant getting his Wham! like nobody's business is good enough, but when one factors in the catchiness of PoP! Goes My Heart and its dead-on 80's music video, they're oh-so worthy of the #8 position. 

7) The Rutles

​- How note-perfect can one get with satire? Eric Idle (Monty Python) created a fake version of the Beatles so spot-on that one would swear they were watching John, Paul, George & Ringo singing about cheese and onions. 

It doesn't hurt to have Terry Gilliam create animation that looks straight out of Yellow Submarine and have George Harrison as a co-creator. 

6) *TIE* Dorchester Melon, Endomorph, and every other band from the Gordon Korman novel "Who Is Bugs Potter?"

Because they're literary references, it's tough to really get a sense of how cool these bands were/are/could be. Except for the album descriptions from the novel. 

These, and #1 on this list, Spinal Tap, were the main inspirations for Faux Rawk. 

5) Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem (The Muppets)

- Not only a great fake band name, but perhaps one of the best band names, real or fake, ever. 

They oozed 1970's groove rock vibes, with Dr. Teeth being an insane version of Dr. John, and the one and only Animal (definitely the great fake drummer) basically the lovechild of The Who's Keith Moon and Cookie Monster.

4) Flight Of The Conchords

​- Yes, yes, these guys are seriously funny, and yes, their series was a proving ground for some of today's funnier entertainers (Kristen Schaal, Rhys Darby, Eugene Mirman, Aziz Ansari...), but man, can they play, and write, and sing!

Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement wrote many of the episodes, all of the music, and can flit around from one musical genre to another like the skittiest hummingbirds.

So many examples to choose from, but their Bowie homage has to heard to be believed. 

​3) School Of Rock

​- Director Richard Linklater has a varied filmography, but the one constant in each is the music and the influence it has on him and his films. 

In Jack Black, Richard found a muse for his love of everything rock. But the casting of the students to fill out the band is nothing short of genius. They can all play and sing, and not for one second does production veer into a Disney Channel territory. 

2) Steel Dragon (Rock Star)

- Based on the true story of (what turned out to be temporary) replacement vocalist of Judas Priest after Rob Halford left, Rock Star stars Mark (whoda thunk?) Wahlberg and a hard-rock backing band for the ages. Their material in the movie is better than many real bands' entire output. 

​Even the band Marky Mark leaves, Blood Pollution, has a solid lineup, not to mention an excellent name and theme song. 

1) Spinal Tap

​- The definitive fake band. So eerily authentic that real bands feel the movie is not a mockumentary, but a documentary. Almost every music group in existence has experienced one or more of the mishaps that occur in the film (including the spontaneous combustion)

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