Can you guess the band by the urban legend?
Urban legends aren’t limited to just Hollywood stars. As rock music got bigger, many hard rockers and heavy metallers found themselves implicated by fantastical stories of dubious origin, and once they stuck, they stuck. An urban legend is pretty hard to dislodge, and many celebrities have gone to great lengths to disprove them, while others saw them as valuable publicity and decided to let them persist. Can you guess the heavy metal artist by the urban legend they’re part of, whether it’s true or not?
1. Which band was involved in this alleged incident?
This band was said to have used a ‘mud shark’ in an unwholesome way.
Answer: Led Zeppelin
This is just gross, and we’re not even going to explain what happened here, preferring to let you Google it instead. Let’s just say that this one was said to be true, and the fact that the band didn’t get canceled for it is a miracle.
2. This rock star really went ‘batty’ on stage.
This rocker is synonymous with biting the head off of a bat.
Answer: Ozzy Osbourne
This one is true. At an Ozzy Osbourne concert in 1982, someone brought a dead bat and threw it onstage. The Prince of Darkness, thinking it was a toy, picked it up and bit its head off, necessitating immediate treatment for rabies.
3. The origin of this band’s name is still an enigma
Their name is supposed to mean ‘Knights In Satan’s Service,’ which the band has always denied.
Answer: KISS
If you like acronyms, this one was a bit of a “gimme.” Having said that, there were people in the 1970s so terrified by the demonic appearance of KISS that they believed the New York City band was in league with the devil. But who knighted them and at what ceremony?
4. This theatrical rock artist was infamous for bringing chickens on stage
This shock rocker was rumored to kill chickens onstage.
Answer: Alice Cooper
In 1969, Alice Cooper was performing in Toronto when a chicken appeared onstage. Pleading ignorance, the singer said that he thought chickens could fly and threw it out into the crowd. The crowd tore the poor animal to shreds, but it turned into “Alice Cooper kills chickens onstage” overnight.
5. This band’s music was linked to two tragic fatalities.
This band put subliminal messages into their music, causing two fans to shoot themselves.
Answer: Judas Priest
In 1990, Judas Priest was sued when two fans shot themselves, one fatally. The prosecution said that the band had put backwards messages into the grooves of its records, hypnotizing fans into shooting themselves. The band was acquitted.
6. This band is referred to as ‘Anti-Christ/Devil’s Children.’
This band is supposedly known as ‘Anti-Christ/Devil’s Children’ but they’re really just a bunch of nice lads from Australia.
Answer: AC/DC
More fun with acronyms! Apparently, while some were alleging that the members of KISS were agents of Satan, they also took the time to say the same thing about AC/DC. Both bands have been touring and recording successfully for 50 years, so we think it’s safe to say the controversy didn’t hold them back.
7. This singer is credited with inventing the heavy metal trademark sign.
This man is said to have invented the ‘devil horns’ hand gesture.
Answer: Ronnie James Dio
While he famously popularized the hand gesture in heavy metal culture, Dio always openly credited his Italian grandmother for teaching him the sign.
8. The CIA aided this hard rock band to write an anti-communism song.
The CIA helped this hard rock band write a song to defeat communism.
Answer: Scorpions
Apparently, there are people out there who believe that the CIA helped Germany’s Scorpions write the cheesy ballad “Wind of Change” to hasten the fall of communism and the end of the Soviet Union. In reality, the band wrote the positively execrable song all by themselves, with no help from anybody.
9. The members of this band were rumored to be Nazi sympathizers.
The members of this band were rumored to be Nazi sympathizers.
Answer: Slayer
Thrash metal gods Slayer had used Nazi imagery on their album covers and lyrics, leading some to conclude that they were sympathetic to Nazi ideology. The band denied these claims but kept playing “Angel of Death” at every encore of their careers.
10. This band performed Satanic rituals onstage.
This band performed Satanic rituals onstage, although it didn’t make their music any better.
Answer: Venom
Before bands like Metallica came along to take heavy metal and turbocharge it, there was Venom, who basically did the same thing but were really terrible at it. They were rumored to perform Satanic rituals onstage, but even if that’s true it didn’t make people buy more concert tickets.
11. Achtung! Achtung!
This band was the product of a secret German military experiment!
Answer: Rammstein
If you’ve seen “The Boys from Brazil” then you know that a lot of people believe escaped Nazi war criminals moved to South America to evade justice. According to urban legend, the band Rammstein was the product of a secret German military experiment, an idea that certainly seems cooked up by people who believed in that stuff.
12. This metal band set out to be more extreme than any other.
The members of this Norwegian band engaged in cannibalism and murder, sometimes on each other.
Answer: Mayhem
Mayhem was a Norwegian black metal band who set out to be more extreme than any other. They went as far as to do things like burn down churches to prove how Satanic they were, and one member, Varg Vikernes, murdered his bandmate and was sent to prison for it. Rumors of cannibalism, meanwhile, are untrue.
13. Rumor has it, this band really lived up to their name, literally.
The members of this Florida death metal band engaged in cannibalism, but not murder.
Answer: Cannibal Corpse
They probably should have seen it coming when they chose their name, but apparently a lot of people believe that the members of Cannibal Corpse engage in cannibalism during their performances. Ridiculous! It’s much too hard to play that music while eating a human foot.
14. This heavily made-up singer is also a practicing Satanist.
This heavily made-up singer is also a practicing Satanist.
Answer: King Diamond
King Diamond is a heavy metal singer who screechy high voice is the perfect weapon for anybody who wants to clear out their house at the end of a party. He sings about Satan a lot so many people have assumed he’s in league with the fallen angel, but the fact is that he’s just an average Danish dude who likes to sing at a very high pitch.
15. This band is officially known as the world’s loudest.
This band is officially recognized as the loudest in the world.
Answer: Manowar
Deep Purple once claimed the mantle of “loudest band in the world” from Guinness World Records, but times change and so do amplifiers. The loincloth-clad Manowar dethroned them in 1984, and they successfully defended their title twice since then. Bring earplugs.
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