Murder By Death is one of the most ridiculous, and ridiculously hilarious, spoofs of all time. A smoking cast, a conscienceless goof on mystery greats like Hercule Poirot and Sam Spade, Truman Capote, the list goes on. This is pretty much what the band named after it thought years ago. I chatted Murder By Death up about the immortal spoof that inspired it, and then dropped six more bands named after alternately brilliant and terrible films for Wired.
6 Bands With Cinematic Names (Starring Murder By Death)
[Scott Thill, Wired.com]
Goth-rock folk quartet Murder By Death takes its name from a 1978 mystery spoof movie. “We just thought it was a funny name that didn’t make sense,” vocalist and guitarist Adam Turla told Wired.com in an e-mail interview. “The movie is great, a campy murder-mystery with a bitchin’ cast.”
Murder By Death’s sonic cinephiles have plundered Hollywood for album titles like Like the Exorcist, But More Breakdancing and songs like “I’m Afraid of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “The Big Sleep” and “We Watch a Lot of Movies.”
“We prefer dark music, books and movies. But we love a good laugh,” said Turla, whose band’s latest effort, Good Morning, Magpie, hit stores April 6.
The film Murder By Death, starring Peter Sellers, Alec Guinness and a casket-load of ’70s stars goofing on literary figures like Sam Spade and The Thin Man, is loaded with ‘em. And Turla’s band is just one of a slew of groups whose names are inspired by films — some brilliant and some terrible. We added Murder By Death to our list of five film-inspired band names below. Roll it!
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