Source link : https://las-vegas-news.com/steely-dan-duran-duran-and-7-other-bands-named-after-books-or-films/
Band names often come from odd places. A few of the best known came from the pages of a novel or the credits of a movie, picked up by musicians who liked how the words sounded.
Some of these choices were playful, and others were deliberately dark. Here are nine acts whose names trace back to a book or a film.
Steely Dan
Walter Becker and Donald Fagen took the name from William S. Burroughs and his 1959 novel Naked Lunch. In the book, Steely Dan III from Yokohama is the name of a steam powered device, and the joke was not subtle. The pair met as students at Bard College in New York.
The band’s debut album, Can’t Buy a Thrill, arrived in 1972. Becker died in 2017, and Fagen has continued to perform under the Steely Dan name. The literary reference stayed a piece of rock trivia rather than a defining theme of the music.
Duran Duran
The Birmingham group borrowed its name from the 1968 film Barbarella, directed by Roger Vadim. A villain in the movie is called Dr. Durand Durand, and the band shortened the spelling slightly. Keyboardist Nick Rhodes and bassist John Taylor were the core of the early lineup.
The band formed in 1978 and became one of the defining acts of the early MTV era. Duran Duran were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. Few groups wear their film…
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Author : Matthias Binder
Publish date : 2026-10-11 02:29:00
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