Source link : https://las-vegas-news.com/8-bands-that-took-their-names-from-books/
A band name has to do a lot of work. It sits on posters, record sleeves and streaming pages, and it usually gets chosen long before anyone knows whether the music will last. Some groups invent something from scratch. Others take a shortcut and borrow from the shelf.
The bookish route has produced some of rock’s best known names, and a few of the stories behind them are stranger than you’d expect. Here are eight bands whose names trace back to novels, memoirs and other printed pages.
Steppenwolf
The Canadian American rock group Steppenwolf took its name from Hermann Hesse’s 1927 novel of the same title. The book follows a lonely, restless intellectual who feels caught between his human side and a wolfish, outsider side. It became a favorite of the counterculture in the 1960s.
The band formed in Los Angeles in 1967 around singer John Kay, who was born in Germany. Producer Gabriel Mekler is generally credited with suggesting the name after reading Hesse. It suited a group best known for the biker anthem “Born to Be Wild.”
Joy Division
Few band names carry a heavier source than this one. The Manchester group first called itself Warsaw, then changed to Joy Division in 1978 to avoid confusion with another band. The new name came from House of Dolls, a novel published under the pen name Ka-Tzetnik 135633.
In that book, the Joy Divisions were units of women forced into sexual slavery…
—-
Author : Matthias Binder
Publish date : 2026-11-05 07:23:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
—-
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8