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20 Movie-Inspired Band Names

November 23rd 2009 4:00PM


Plenty of bands have taken their names from film titles, but it takes a special kind of movie nerd to rock a reference to some obscure character or snag a favorite line of dialogue for their moniker. Here are 20 bands that probably still pay to see movies in the theater.

Duran Duran

Here's a shocker: The stylish, oversexed British New Wave superstars borrowed their name from an "erotic science fiction" movie about a stylish, oversexed space vixen. In Roger Vadim's 1968 cult classic 'Barbarella,' bounty hunter Jane Fonda was sent into space to capture a bondage-gear-clad mad scientist named Dr. Durand Durand.



!!!

This Google-defying indie-dance band was inspired by the linguistically challenging 1980 comedy 'The Gods Must Be Crazy,' about a Xhosa community in remote southern Africa. In the film's English subtitles, clicking noises in the tribe's language show up as "!" -- which is why you pronounce the band's name "chk-chk-chk."



Mogwai

These loud-quiet-loud Glaswegian math-rockers must not be much fun on tour: They hate bright lights, you can't get them wet, and they're not allowed to eat after midnight. No, wait: that's the adorably deadly creatures in Joe Dante's 1984 classic, 'Gremlins.'



Pussy Galore

Frankly, we can't believe it took until 1985 for a band to pick this one. The Jon Spencer-fronted art-punk outfit borrowed the titillating moniker of the most infamous Bond Girl of all, played by the sultry Honor Blackman in 1964's 'Goldfinger.'



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