Rock stars have been woofin’ about their past to appear more interesting or glamorous.
Grace Jones was the incarnation of a 1,000-year old African queen, while rock star and Doors singer Jim Morrison was an orphan rather than the son of a Rear Admiral in the US Navy.
The White Stripes’ Jack and Meg were brother and sister, SZA had a degree in marine biology from an Ivy League college and Eminem was “white trailer trash with a crazy welfare mom”. So it should be no surprise that great inventiveness went into wanna-bes’ coming up with new names before stardom beckoned.
THE WEEKND
Growing up tough in Toronto raised by his Ethiopian immigrant mother and grandmother after his father left, Abel Makkonen Tesfaye hated his name and his struggling existence.
“I left home when I was about 17, dropped out of high school,” he wrote.
“We grabbed our mattresses from our parents’ threw it (sic) in our friends shitty van and left one weekend and never came back home.”
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Freedom
That it was the weekend gave him the glamour and freedom he craved.
He originally went for The Weekend, but there was already a Canadian band with that name.
LADY GAGA
In 2006, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta of New York was dating producer Rob Fusari whom she was writing songs with.
They set up a management company Team Lovechild, LLC to guide her career.
Fusari came up with the name Gaga. He thought her singing similar to Queen’s Freddie Mercury and suggested her stage name be Radio Gaga.
Texted
According to him, he texted her as Radio Gaga but the spell checker autocorrected it to Lady.
Their relationship lasted until January 2007. Two years later he sued her for $30 million claiming he discovered her and invented the name, and entitled to a share of her royalties.
SLASH
Saul Hudson was Slash long becoming a tail Gunner. As a teenager he and his best friend Matt would wag school and hang out at the mate’s place.
Matt’s father, actor Seymour Cassel, dubbed him with the name Slash as a symbol (“/”) because “I was always moving quickly, hustling, from one activity to another in a blur.”
DOC NEESON
Later to find fame as frontperson of the Angels, Belfast-born Bernard Neeson arrived in Adelaide on April 19, 1960, at the age of 13.
At Elizabeth High he held the state under-16 high jump record. But his future was in music, theatre and films.
Due to his fascination with the American Wild West, he christened himself “Doc Holliday” (a childhood hero) and “Doc Watson” before taking to the folk clubs in 1970.
Keystone
He then helped form the Keystone Angels with university friends who later became The Angels.
There’s another theory circulated by army folks that the Doc moniker may have started when he was conscripted into the army in 1968, in his last year at teacher’s college in Adelaide.
He was due to be shipped off to Vietnam as an infantryman but at the last minute the army brass realised he had teacher’s qualifications.
Teach
They sent him to Papua New Guinea to teach the Pacific Island Regiment, bumping him up from private to sergeant. The story goes that his title as “educator” later got changed to “doc” by some of the locals.
Back in Adelaide, Neeson studied at the school of dramatic arts at Flinders University.
Character
The head of the department, Professor Wal Cherry, encouraged him on how to bring Doc alive as a stage character.
This was through stage gestures and the use of his eyes.
Prof. Cherry also suggested, “How about, as the show warms up, have him discard the coat, loosen the tie, pull out the shirt tails, and undo the buttons.
“Have him disintegrate into a disheveled mess, and in the end he staggers off into the night – bloodied, but defiant, undefeated. A very romantic figure.”
IGGY POP
Of all the ‘60s bands that James Newell Osterberg was in, it was a pre-Stooges outfit called the Iguanas. They were a high band who combined surf rock and British invasion, and for whom he drummed.
They made some forgettable records but their live shows gave Jim a reputation in Michigan.
When he came into a room, someone would yell, “Iguanas alert!” which was shortened to Iggy.
Stooges
When he was living with the Stooges in Ann Arbor, Michigan, liberally dosing themselves with drugs, he was Iggy Stooge and Iggy Osterberg.
One of their friends was a local character called Jim Pop, who had lost all his hair and eyebrows.
Iggy was said to look like him, especially after he shaved his eyebrows.
JOHNNY ROTTEN & SID VICIOUS
Appropriate for a band called Sex Pistols, John Lydon got his Rotten monicker from guitarist Steve Jones, because the family didn’t brush their teeth and their molars were rotted away.
His schoolmate John Simon Ritchie was bitten by Lydon’s pet hamster (named after Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett), he yelped “Sid’s vicious!”
Ballet
When Vicious encountered Queen’s singer, he smirked, ‘Of course you’re Freddie Mercury and you’re bringing ballet to the masses, right?”
Mercury waved an airy hand, “Ahhh Simon Ferocious….”
BONES HILLMAN
Before Kiwi bassist Wayne Stevens moved to Australia to find fame with The Swingers and Midnight Oil, he decided on a better name.
Bones was from he being slim and lanky, and Hillman from the car he was driving at that time.
ANGRY ANDERSON
Growing up in Melbourne in a family full of mental and physical violence and sexual abuse, Gary Anderson was known as the Angry Ant.
When he started playing in bands as Buster Brown in the ‘70s, the name got shortened.
Eyebrows
The original concept for Rose Tattoo, devised by slide guitarist Peter Wells and first manager Sebastian Chase, was bright orange hair, no eyebrows, whiteface and black pants and tops.
But when Angry arrived with his clean shaven head, that image obviously had to go.
When the Nationals Party tried to entice him to run on their platform, Senator Barnaby Joyce tried to get him to use Assertively Agitated Angry.
ELVIS COSTELLO
In post-punk England, someone with a name like Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus didn’t play clubs unless they were in trad Irish beardie acts.
So Deccy opted for his great-grandmother Elizabeth Costello’s name, on the grounds it was easier to pronounce over the telephone.
Initially the young unknown used Declan Costello and his family pet name, D.P. Costello.
Shock
But in February 1977, his managers and Stiff Records owners Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson went for a send-up of Elvis Presley, more for shock value than respect.
Nick Lowe told this writer that in mid-August that year, he and Riviera were driving around London in the rain when news came through on the car radio that Presley had died.
Lowe was hysterical, blubbering about how Presley had been a massive influence on him.
Riviera peered through the windshield wipers and muttered to himself, “Hmm, how do you think Elton Costello would work?”
CAT STEVENS/ YUSUF ISLAM
Steven Demetre Georgiou was born in London to a Greek-Cypriot father and Swedish mother, and lived in a flat above the family restaurant Moulin Rouge near the Soho theatre district.
In ‘60s when he started playing coffee houses and pubs, he figured a new moniker was in order.
“I couldn’t imagine anyone going to the record store and asking for ‘that Steven Demetre Georgiou album”.
Eyes
He chose Cat because a girlfriend thought he had eyes like one and because “in England, and I was sure in America, they loved animals.”
In 1976, in Morocco, he heard the Muslim morning call to prayers, which was explained to him as “music for God”.
He was fascinated to learn more, said he had the wrong impression of Islam, and converted a year later.
Drowned
That year he nearly drowned off the coast of Malibu, California, and shouted out, “Oh, God! If you save me I will work for you.”
At that moment a large wave picked him up and threw back to shore.
He converted to Islam on December 23, 1977. He became Yusef, the Arabic handle for Joseph, a figure in the Qur’an who bought and sold in the marketplace –which he related to the music business.
Guitars
He gave up pop music for 20 years, sold most of his guitars to fund Islamic schools and made children’s records about Islam.
He managed to do this by the US$1.5 million a year he was earning from Cat Stevens royalties.
Fast Forward
Fast forward to the September 11 attacks on the United States, and someone with his new name triggered off red with authorities… especially with someone with high profile who’d espoused the religion and made unfortunate comments about the fatwa calling for the killing of Salman Rushdie, author of the novel The Satanic Verses.
The singer songwriter was put on the US watch list and denied entry into America and Israel accused of supporting “terrorism”.
As a result, he now calls himself Cat Stevens/Yusuf.
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART
How Don Van Vliet become Captain Beefheart, behind psychedelia slabs from the ‘60s as Trout Mask Replica and Lick My Decals Off, Baby?
Don’s high school friend and future collaborator Frank Zappa had one theory which he expounded in his memoirs.
It goes back to Don’s pervert uncle Alan, who lived in the same house as Don’s parents, his young girlfriend Laurie, and Alan’s wife.
Exposing
According to the Zappster: “Uncle Alan had a habit of exposing himself to Laurie.
“He’d piss with the bathroom door open and, if she was walking by, mumble about his appendage – something along the lines of: “Ahh, what a beauty! It looks just like a big, fine BEEF HEART.”
But on a Late Night With David Letterman appearance in 1982, Don said it was a reference to him having a “beef in my heart with society,” especially with regard to cruelty towards puffins he had once witnessed at a Los Angeles marina.
BON SCOTT
When Ronald Belford Scott started school after the family arrived in Fremantle in 1956 from Scotland, there was another Ronald in his class.
So to tell them apart, the teachers and students did a play on Bonnie Scot.
When asked if he was AC or DC, he responded, “Neither – I’m the lightning bolt in between!”
KORN
Bassist Reginald Quincy Arvizu’s large cheeks got him the childhood nickname of Gopher, then Garr, then Garfield after the cartoon cat.
According to the band’s site, “Arvizu was given the name “Fieldy” after a massive real-life game of Chinese whispers.”
Munky
James Christian Shaffer became “Munky” due to his ability to spread his toes to resemble a monkey’s hand.
Brian Phillip Welch was dubbed “Head” for his massive cranium. A lot of hats don’t fit him.
CHET FAKER & MURPHNICK
Nick Murphy had to change his stage handle in 2016 because people were coming to see Nick Murphy, ex-singer of 1990s band The Anyones.
Being a jazz fan, he opted for a homage to the American trumpeter and singer Chet Baker, whose vocal style he admired.
Fragile
“He had this really fragile vocal style—this really, broken, close-up and intimate style.
“The name is kind of just an ode to Chet Baker and the mood of music he used to play—something I would like to at least pay homage to in my own music.”
He’s since jumped between using the stage and birth names.
Alias
Ironically, the Anyones’ Murphy had to change his alias to Murphnick because the global success of the Faker wiped him off the internet.
He stated: “He originally became Chet because of me, friends and fans of his were attending my shows, seeing the wrong Nick.
“His transition back to being NM came with a big publicity push, online and on the street.
Images
“He was everywhere, images of him were next to my songs online, I had been removed from a famous online music platform, and legal options were limited.
“I was lost to the determinations of dominant search engines; no one could find me.”
RICHARD CLAPTON
Terry Goh was the son of a Chinese-Australian surgeon and an Australian nurse who separated before he was born and divorced when he was two.
Goh was ten when he reunited with his father at his mother’s funeral.
Mentor
At boarding school, he found a mentor with his music teacher although he dropped out and headed for London armed with just his guitar.
His relationship with his father remained distant. So when he made music, he paid tribute to guitarists, Keith Richards and Eric Clapton.
DAVID BOWIE
Given the spectacular music and fashion ideas he is remembered for, it’s understandable why David Robert Jones wanted to escape the grey lower class family from London’s Brixton.
He initially used the name David Jones in early bands as The Lower Third and David Jay when playing sax for the band Kon-Rads.
Monkee
But meantime Davy Jones, was getting very popular as a member of The Monkees.
So at 18, he used his love for American wild west characters and Hollywood movies.
In the 1950s movie The Alamo, Richard Widmark played the Texan rebel Jim Bowie, who also invented the Bowie knife.
Jones wasn’t just interested in becoming Bowie. He created a full character around him, even swanned about London sporting a specific jacket.
Through his career he took on identities as Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and Thin White Duke.
MEAT LOAF
Marvin Lee Aday was set to become Meat Loaf even at the age of four days.
“I was born bright red, so the doctor suggested that they should keep me in the hospital for a few days.
Chuck
“My dad actually spoke like this… ’So, uh, I want you to name my son there ― because he looks like nine-and-a-half pounds of ground chuck ― I want you to put a name tag on the front of that plastic crib and it say ‘Meat’ on it.’”
In his pre-teens, at 5’ 2” and weighing 240 lbs, and with the initials ML, it was inevitable school mates were putting Meat and Loaf together.
Coach
Marv says a football coach clinched the name when he was in eighth grade.
“I stepped on a coach’s foot and he screamed, ‘Get off my foot, you hunk of meat loaf!’”
STING
Recalls the man born Gordon Sumner on TV’s CBS Sunday Morning, “I used to play in a traditional jazz group when I was 16 with much older guys.
“I used to wear these yellow and black sweaters. And they thought I looked like a wasp.
Joked
“They joked, they called me Sting and they thought it was hilarious – they kept calling me Sting and that became my name.
“I’m grateful for it now as when you have to sign something, it’s short!”
BONO
Growing up in Dublin, Paul David Hewson was part of a teen gang called Lypton Village who gave each other nicknames.
Hewson’s was Bono Vox of O’Connell Street, taken from the famous 50-year old shop that sold hearing aids in the city centre.
Good Voice
He wasn’t crazy about the name, but warmed to it big time when he discovered that “bonavox” was Latin for “good voice”.
It became Bono when he was 14 or 15.
BOB DYLAN
It make sense to Robert Allen Zimmerman that when he left Hibbing, Minnesota for New York’s folk clubs in the 60s, no-one was to know his comfortable middle class Jewish family ran a furniture store.
Instead he came up with baloney about running away at 13 to join the circus, made a pilgrimage to find folk hero Woody Guthrie, learned to play slide with a switch knife, and sold his body for between $150 to $250 to pay his rent.
Talking Point
It worked because it made him the talking point in New York, a city where he knew nobody.
The voice of a generation always denied his stage name was from Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.
King
He tried out Elston Gunn, Robert Allen (“it sounded like the name of a Scottish king, and I liked it”) and Robert Allyn.
Then Allyn led to Dylan, because the Zim thought it was more forceful to say.
On August 2, 1962, he adopted Bob Dylan, and an awesome career took off.
RINGO STARR
The sickly Richard Starkey started sporting rings on his fingers by the late ‘50s.
The two he wore the most were a circa-1920 onyx on his left ring finger and a sapphire pinky ring on his right hand – now worth between US$30,000 to $50,000.
In his pre-Beatles band, Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, a huge live band around Liverpool, Storm wanted his band members to have a nickname.
Rings
The rings brought Ringo, and Starr came from Starkey. Ringo also called his drum solo spots in the Hurricanes “Starr Time”.
That consolidated the name, and he was Ringo Starr in 1959 before he became a Fab Four.
Help!
The drummer’s love for drums was also incorporated into the plot of the Beatles’ 1965 film Help!.
An Eastern cult about to sacrifice a victim noice she’s not wearing her sacrifice ring.
It seems she’s a Beatles fan, and sent it to Ringo in London.
Bling
The cult head off to England to recovering the bling, and the band take off to the road to escape while singing Beatles songs.
After unsuccessfully trying to steal it without Ringo noticing, they confront him in an Indian restaurant and threaten to make him the next sacrificial victim if he doesn’t hand it over.
But Starr can’t, because it’s stuck to his finger.
FREDDIE MERCURY
Farrokh Bulsara was born to British Indian parents on the island of Zanzibar.
When he went to study at St. Peters in India, his school friends affectionately called him Bucky because of his protruding teeth.
Signed
He figured he’d call himself Freddie to stop being called Bucky, and after the family moved to London, signed himself as Fred Bulsara on letters until 1970.
After that he changed it to Mercury, either because of the god, or according to an Instagram post by Brian May, because he wrote about the character Mother Mercury in the song “My Fairy King” and thought it cool.
ALICE COOPER
Alice Cooper was originally a band’s name. They were Nazz, but had to change it because Todd Rundgren already had a band by that name.
In a band meeting, the band had two choices: Husky Baby Sandwich or Alice Cooper.
Wholesome
Their singer Vincent Damon Furnier wrote they liked Alice Cooper because it sounded wholesome in contrast to the menace of their music and stage show.
“It conjured up an image of a little girl with a lollipop in one hand, and a butcher knife in another.”
Legally
In the mid-70s when the singer went solo, he legally took the name Alice Cooper.
The image of Alice onstage came from actress Bette Davis who, he said, “wears disgusting caked makeup smeared on her face and underneath her eyes, with deep, dark, black eyeliner”.
Switchblades
Anita Pallenberg in the 1968 movie Barbarella playing the Great Tyrant, “wearing long black leather gloves with switchblades coming out of them, I thought, ‘That’s what Alice should look like.’
“That, and a little bit of Emma Peel from (‘60s British spy TV series) The Avengers.”
