Bands/musicians that lie

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I'm fascinated by the idea of bands that make up stories about themselves, on the order of the White Stripes brother/sister thing, or have alternate identities. Surely this must be a widespread phenomenon.

What are the classic examples (and what's the real story behind them)?

I'm more interested in the realistic-type lie than the hugely fabricated I-come-from-Jupiter type lie. And the run of the mill trying-to-seem-working-class (or whatever) is dull unless there's an actual detailed story.

What've you got?

― Paul Eater (eater), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 14:57 (twenty-three years ago)

Wasn't there some thing with Spirit having to lie about the age of their bald drummer Ed, cos he was over 40 and all the hipsters would have like, freaked man if like, some oldster was on the scene? In some interviews they'd say he was 25, in others that he was 90. Personally, I would have been more disturbed to learn he was California's stepdad. The Family That plays Together. Beautiful.

― Roger Fascist, Tuesday, 20 August 2002 15:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Robert Smith of The Cure lies constantly. Pretty much any given interview with him is guaranteed to contain at least one huge lie (the best one I can think of is a pre-_WMS_ interview where he said the next Cure album was going to be all drum 'n bass).

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 15:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Then there was the sheep story. The 'this is the last tour/album' bit isn't so much a lie anymore as a sign of familiarity, like a worn shoe.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 15:12 (twenty-three years ago)

The Dwarves and their "dead" guitarist was a pretty good lie!

― dead dead bird, Tuesday, 20 August 2002 15:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Man Or Astroman used to claim to be space aliens, but nobody believed them. Does that count?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 15:28 (twenty-three years ago)

"Another Toomey project, this one with Dan Littleton from Ida/Liquorice. Slack was essentially a side project for Jenny and Dan, who were often busy with other bands and only had a limited amount of Slack time. They recorded together but only played a couple of shows before Slack got put on the back burner. With no fan base at all, a full release was a bit ambitious. Instead, Slack's songs ended up as Tool 2, Bates Stamper. Slack eventually transformed into Liquorice."

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 15:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Ned, I don't know the sheep story!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 15:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Vanilla Ice, gangbanger.

This is also more hyperbole/bragadoccio than outright lying, but "We Invented the Remix"... well, uh, yeah.

And calling your band Grand Funk Railroad when you're about as funky as Henry Kissinger is a lie, innit?

― Nate Patrin, Tuesday, 20 August 2002 16:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Sheep story -- allegedly during one of his stints with the Banshees, Robert bought a sheep to protect it from being served up as mutton and all, and took it with him on the road. Sadly, the sheep then simply got old and peed everywhere in hotels. Robert told this story to journalists when feeling bored.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 18:49 (twenty-three years ago)

"the sheep then simply got old and peed everywhere in hotels.."

the journalists misheard him: sheep = mark E smith. True story!

― lawrence kansas, Tuesday, 20 August 2002 19:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Dandy Warhols constantly lie and exaggerate and carry on injokes about Plungers to confused radio djs in foreign countries.
BJMassacre were great at constantly change their/his story. The whole bullits in a shoebox incident, the GoMetricUSA saga, the rollerskating acid freakout in NYC, claims of reincarnation and other such amusing incidents. Now its just sad.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 19:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Obv the Dandy Warhols could just BE themselves: they are already a big (bad) joke.

― nathalie (nathalie), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 19:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Didn't the Hives pretend they were a boyband who didn't write their own songs, or something? That amused me somewhat. Cliff Jones lied constantly, and his interviews were always amusing. I call for more dishonesty in pop. I'd take it over earnest sincerity any day.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 20:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Richard D James keeps saying He's Squarepusher

― brg30 (brg30), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 23:29 (twenty-three years ago)

ANYTHING that comes out of RDJ's mouth in an interview is a huge huge huge lie.

― mt, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 02:36 (twenty-three years ago)

John Vanderslice has a long and colorful history of media hoaxes, which I suppose are basically big elaborate lies that tend to get way out of hand. There's the one about how he bought a 16-track recording deck from Brian Wilson; how one of his old band's albums was actually a soundtrack to an unreleased movie directed by Ernest Borgnine's son; and then there's the whole Microsoft/"Bill Gates Must Die" thing.

― Nick Mirov, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 02:38 (twenty-three years ago)

what about the cannibalism stories surrounding him that kool keith does nothing to dispell ?

― mike (ro)bott, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 03:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Dumb-ass rock groups (foo fighters, weezer) sometimes think it's funny to claim that their next album is going to be rap. It's not.

(forgive me if this double-posts, I'm exp.tech.diffs.)

― Dan I, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 04:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Rod Stewart has probably sold millions more thanks to a certain rumor about being backstage consuming a gallon of

― donut bitch, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 04:46 (twenty-three years ago)

But I doubt somewhat that Rod himself perpetuated that particular (and all too common, and rather unlikely) rumour

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 04:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Tool have done this sort of thing on numerous occasions, for one, inventing a religion they all supposedly practised (lachrymology), and Rocket From The Crypt were in the habit of telling journalists who weren't really up with the group about their new electronic direction.

― Damian (Damian), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 09:05 (twenty-three years ago)

The Ramones were all brothers...

― Siegbran Hetteson (eofor), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 10:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Brian Molko's 1999 obsession with claiming that he'd fellated both Marilyn Manson and Cliff Jones. I mean, of all the people to pick...

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 13:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Classics: Jim Morrison claimed his parents were dead. Bob Dylan claimed he was actually the orphaned son of hobos from Texas. And Johnny Rotten claimed that he cuts off his piles with a razor blade.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 13:50 (twenty-three years ago)

"Another Toomey project, this one with Dan Littleton from Ida/Liquorice...

I'm confused...what are the fictional parts? I remember that Slack tape being in the SM catalog.

― Ernest P., Wednesday, 21 August 2002 21:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Red Cross in Flipside 1982:

FS: Are you and Steve getting sex changes?

Jeff: Yeah when we can afford it. When we make as much money as the Circle Jerks.

FS: You want to be an all girl band.

Jeff: It's definitely our goal.

Steve: Then we can play all Runaways songs - cool all girl bands are hot, but there aren't any more.

Tracy: Me and Janet are planning on kicking Steve and Jeff out...

I think were also claiming that Tracy Lea was Russ Meyer's daughter around that time.

― Arthur (Arthur), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 22:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Jenny Toomey, 1999:

"Slack was the name given to a tape of some songs that Dan and I wrote together over ten years ago . . . In fact we only practiced a half dozen times in order to record and we never played a live show . . . Liquorice was an entirely different band that also grew out of Dan and my friendship."

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 22 August 2002 10:19 (twenty-three years ago)

the residents

1st album was beatles-esque so it had crawfish, crawfish, mccrawfish and starfish on the cover, but it does not follow that therefore there were four residents (are dick clark/hitler, buster and glen these same residents moonlighting ?)

ok 4 eyeballs but that came years later with more cover art leading one to believe that these were four guys with eyeballs (women don't wear tophats and tuxedos ? well they don't have eyeballs like that either)

when they bought their 13th anniversary tour to christchurch new zealand ("our worst audience ever") ok they'd already had one eyeball stolen in l.a. (but the christchurch audience was still pronounced "worst") so we had the skull, but once they got on stage and they took their headwear off, one played the sampler, one sung and did a lot of that (p)elvis stuff, but the other two who danced and constantly re-assembled air-bags shaped like headless camels for most of the songs appeared to be women

(oh, and the late "snakefinger" looked cool and sounded great in guitar and white lab coat)

but those early videos featured numerous uncountable identical newspaper/kkk dwarfs

25 years after they'd begun and 10 years after parts 1,2,4 and intermission music from the mole show "The Big Bubble (not part three of the mole trilogy" had 4 actors eyeballing the front cover uncomfortably, so i'm still confused

and what happened to N Senada ?

― george gosset (gegoss), Thursday, 22 August 2002 10:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Wasn't Ian Masters of Pale Saints reasonably practised at this? I'm sure Andy Dean has all the clippings.

Giving up playing live because his arms had become too short. Telling MM that Lush had put in orders for helicopters to do their shopping with. Insisting that all the Pale Saints material was cover versions. Claiming 'In Ribbons' was so titled after a fan club competition to name the new LP, and the least popular selection was used. Telling journalists he'd never heard his own music because he was profoundly deaf and could only understand their questions thanks to lip-reading.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Thursday, 22 August 2002 12:06 (twenty-three years ago)

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