20 fake rock bands for April Fool's Day
1 April 2025, 07:00
Radio X looks at the times when rock groups are not always what they seem... from Spinal Tap and The Rutles to Josie & The Pussycats to The Banana Splits.
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Spinal Tap
The all-time greatest "mockumentary" features a British heavy metal band who are way past their prime and their ill-fated campaign to tour their new album Smell The Glove in North America. Turns out they're big in Japan. Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer played the key members with withering accuracy. Biggest hit: Big Bottom.
Spinal Tap - Big Bottom 1984 Music Video HD
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Bad News
As America was readying their rock parody Spinal Tap, the British group The Comic Strip had their own homegrown version: the chronically poor "New Wave Of British Heavy Metal" band Bad News. Played by Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson, Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson, the first instalment saw the group on a road trip to play a date in Grantham (of all places), while the sequel depicts their reunion, the recording of their "political" single Warriors Of Genghis Khan and - incredibly - a genuine appearance at Castle Donington's Monsters Of Rock festival.
Bad News - Warriors of Genghis Khan/Video Shoot
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The Rutles
The "Prefab Four" began life as a one-off joke on ex-Monty Python man Eric Idle's Rutland Weekend Television series, before getting their own TV special in 1978. Neil Innes wrote and performed the devastatingly precise Beatle parodies. "In the midst of all this public bickering, Let It Rot was released as a film, an album, and a lawsuit. In 1970, Dirk sued Stig, Nasty, and Barry; Barry sued Dirk, Nasty, and Stig; Nasty sued Barry, Dirk, and Stig; and Stig sued himself accidentally." Biggest hit: Get Up And Go
The Rutles - Get Up And Go
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Citizen Dick
Matt Dillon's hopeless grunge band in the classic movie Singles. Biggest hit: Touch Me I'm Dick.
Citizen Dick - Interview and "Touch me, I'm Dick"
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Figrin D'an & The Modal Nodes
They weren't mentioned on screen, but this is the actual name of the Cantina Band in the first Star Wars movie. Biggest hit: Mad About Me - that's what it's called!
Star Wars A New Hope - Cantina Band
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Wyld Stallyns
The world-savin', hard-rockin' duo as formed by the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and its sequels.
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure - Clip 1: The Wild Stallions Music Video (HD)
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Breaking Glass
A fictional post-punk band from the 1980 film of the same name. Hazel O'Connor plays singer-songwriter Kate Crowley, who is managed in the story by a useless character played by Phil Daniels and subsequently has a very public mental breakdown. Biggest hit: Eighth Day.
Hazel O'Connor - Eighth Day HQ
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Sadgasm
Homer's 90s grunge band from a continuity-troubling episode of The Simpsons. See also: The Be-Sharps and their hit Baby On Board.
Margerine By Sadgasm (Simpsons)
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Crucial Taunt
The band fronted by Wayne's incredibly glamorous girlfriend Cassandra (played by Tia Carrere) in the Wayne's World movie. Excellent.
Crucial Taunt - "Touch Me" from Wayne's World (1992)
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The Banana Splits
Anthropomorphic animals who formed a band in the late 1960s to record lightly-psychedelic sunshine pop. Often seen cavorting around the streets of San Francisco and the Six Flags Over Texas theme park, the members were: guitar playing dog Fleegle, drumming orangutan Bingo, second guitarist and lion Drooper and organist elephant Snorky.
The Splits were a product of the Hanna-Barbera studio, who used the live action characters to link their cartoon shorts between 1968 and 1970, and on into the summer TV repeat schedules for decades afterwards. Under no circumstances should you confuse this with the 2019 horror movie of the same name. Biggest hit: The Tra La La Song.
Banana Splits - theme song (Tra-La-La song) - intro to the original TV show (1960s)
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The Archies
Archie and his pals had been appearing in comic strips since 1942, but in the Beatle era it seemed only natural that they should form their own band: frontman Archie Andrews, bassist Reggie Mantle, drummer Jughead Jones, percussionist and singer Betty Cooper and keyboard player and singer Veronica Lodge. Incredibly, the cartoon band topped the charts in 16 countries, including the UK, with their slick bubblegum tune Sugar Sugar.
The Archies - Sugar, Sugar (Official Animated Music Video)
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Josie And The Pussycats
Another fake band that appeared in Archie Comics (see above), Josie McCoy (vocals and guitar), Valerie Brown (bass) and Melody Valentine (drums). The characters appeared in a Hanna-Barbera TV series in 1972, which morphed into "Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space" when, in classic style, the original format ran out of steam. A live action film version was made in 2001.
Josie & The Pussycats: Josie McCoy, Melody Anderson, Valerie Brown. Not a real band. Picture: Alamy -
Marvin Berry and the Starlighters
The slick R&B group that play the Enchantment Under The Sea dance in Back To The Future. When guitarist Marvin Berry injures his hand, local weirdo Marty McFly somes to his rescue. "Chuck, Chuck! It's Marvin! Your cousin, Marvin Berry! You know that new sound you were looking for? Well listen to THIS!"
Back to the Future | Marty McFly Plays "Johnny B. Goode" and "Earth Angel"
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Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem
The house band of The Muppet Show first appeared in the pilot episode of Jim Henson's masterpiece and featured Dr. Teeth on vocals and keyboards, Floyd Pepper on vocals and bass, Zoot on saxophone, Janice on guitar, Lips on trumpet and the iconic Animal on drums.
Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem - Rock On (From "The Electric Mayhem")
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The Banned
Originally named Dog Market, this was the group formed by Simon Wicks, Ian Beale, Sharon Watts and Kelvin Carpenter in Eastenders in 1986. They changed their name to The Banned after they blew the fusebox in the Queen Vic during a performance of Venus, with Sharon's dad "Dirty" Den barring them from ever playing there again. The storyline spawned the Number 1 hit Every Loser Wins by Nick Berry and the slightly less successful Something Outa Nothing by Letitia Dean and Paul Medford.
EastEnders - Something Outta Nothing (21/10/1986)
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Stillwater
Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe's memoir of working as a rock journalist in the early 1970s, sees the would-be hack heading out on tour with a wannabe band who scored a support slot with Black Sabbath.
Stillwater keep on rockin' in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. Picture: Alamy -
Barry Jive & The Uptown Five
High Fidelity, Nick Hornby's tale of life in a record store, sees music bore Barry threaten to form a band called Sonic Death Monkey. However, common sense prevails - giving actor Jack Black the chance to demonstrate his vocal prowess.
Jack Black sings | Let's Get It On | High Fidelity [HD+Sub]
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Strange Fruit
1970s rockers - featuring Bill Nighy, Jimmy Nail, Timothy Spall, Bruce Robinson and Stephen Rea - who are persuaded to perform a reunion show twenty years after the death of their singer in the 1998 film Still Crazy.
Still Crazy Trailer 1999
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Toad The Wed Sprocket
And here's a real band that took their name from a fake band. The alt rockers from California found their moniker in Eric Idle's parody of music journalism on Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album (1980): "Rex Stardust, lead electric triangle with Toad The Wet Sprocket has had to have an elbow removed following their recent successful worldwide tour of Finland."
Rock Notes ~ Monty Python "The Band is Breaking Up"
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Animal Kwackers
Yorkshire Television's answer to The Banana Splits confused younger viewers at lunchtimes between 1975 and 1978 with their glam rock weirdness. In the words of the title song, they came from space and were: Bongo (a dog, on drums), Rory (a guitar-playing blue lion), Twang (a monkey bassist) and Boots (a guitar playing tiger in platform shoes and an eye-patch).
Animal Kwackers
