The Best Fictional Bands (and the Artists Who Make Them Great)

A music-themed film has the dual challenge of needing to be a great movie with believably great music. It doesn't always work—even Taylor Swift couldn’t save 2019’s film version of Cats.

But when it’s good, the lines between fiction and reality blur, as it did this past summer when Netflix’s animated smash hit KPop Demon Hunters sent four songs to the Billboard Hot 100’s top 10 chart.

Other fake bands have found themselves in careers that have lasted decades. This is the case for “one of England’s loudest bands,” Spinal Tap, the fictional hard-rock band featured in the 1984 film This Is Spinal Tap. After years of touring and releasing albums like any proper band, they return to the screen with Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. As the film’s director Rob Reiner recently told Billboard, “This fictional thing that we created—we have definitely invaded the real world.”

Watch a guitar lesson with Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel (played by Berklee honorary doctorate recipient Christopher Guest):

But what makes a band fake? Musicians have used personas and anonymity for ages. Gorillaz is four anthropomorphic cartoon characters, the arena-packing Sleep Token wear masks and use aliases, and don’t even get us started on the whole Velvet Sundown thing. Invention is a critical and inevitable part of music. For the purposes of this article, then, a fake band is one that exists because they were written into a story, whether that be a film, TV show, or comic book. So as Spinal Tap promises again that tonight, they’re gonna rock you…tonight here are some of the best fake bands, including the musicians who made them real.

'These Go to 11': 11 of the Best Fictional Bands

1. Spinal Tap,This Is Spinal Tap

This Is Spinal Tap singlehandedly invented the “mockumentary” style that would go on to influence shows like The Office, Modern Family, and Parks & Rec. Erasing the lines between fictional and actual band, the film launched a career that’s lasted decades. Their discography, for example, boasts 17 albums that don’t exist, but they’ve released four real albums, the newest of which is timed with the release of the film’s sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. Also setting them apart on this list is the fact that all their songs are written, recorded, and performed by the film’s actors themselves, which include Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and former Berklee trustee Christopher Guest '08H.

2. HUNTR/X / Saja Boys, KPop Demon Hunters

Don’t be fooled by the fact that KPop Demon Hunters shows up on the Kids section on Netflix—this animated feature became Netflix’s first box office smash during a special two-day theatrical run. And while it’s quite common for soundtrack songs to top the charts, no film until this one landed four tracks simultaneously in the top 10 on Billboard. The film recruited writers and producers who were no strangers to K-pop chart dominance, including EJAE and Teddy Park, as well as Lindgren, Stephen Kirk, and Jenna Andrews, who have collaborated with BTS, BLACKPINK, and TWICE. Binding the film’s standout songs together is a score by Brazilian composer and Berklee alum Marcelo Zarvos ’88.

3. Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem: The Muppet Show, The Muppets Mayhem, various Muppet film cameos

Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem made their debut on The Muppet Show in 1975, making them the longest-running active band on this list—think the Rolling Stones, but as puppets. The Mayhem have been mainstays of the Muppet cinematic universe, usually serving as supporting roles, but made the leap to protagonists in 2023’s limited series for Disney+, The Muppets Mayhem. Each band member’s persona is an amalgam of various real-life artists, from Dr. John to Janis Joplin, but the musicians bringing them to life were historically session players, including the Wrecking Crew’s drum legend Hal Blaine. The 2023 series featured songs written by Linda Perry (4 Non Blondes) and drums from Ringo Starr.

4. Stillwater, Almost Famous

If you didn’t know the song “Fever Dog” was written for a film, it would slide in undetected between “Freebird” and “Whole Lotta Love” on any classic rock radio station. That’s just how convincing of an homage Cameron Crowe pulls off in his 2000 film Almost Famous, which follows a young music journalist who travels with Stillwater. Based on Crowe’s own experiences, the film takes great care to get the details right. To imbue the music with all the passion and grit of a 1970s American rock band, Crowe cowrote the songs with his then-wife Nancy Wilson (Heart) and Peter Frampton and recruited Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready to handle the guitar.

5. The Wonders, That Thing You Do

When a movie is about (and named after) a fictional one-hit-wonder in the 1960s, the pressure’s on for the songwriter. Such was the case for Adam Schlesinger when working on Tom Hanks’s 1996 filmThat Thing You Do. The song did its job, becoming an Oscar nominee in the process, and was the start of an incredibly fruitful career writing for film and TV for Schlesinger (including for the next entry on this list). He experienced his own one-hit-wonder a few years later in 2003 with his band Fountains of Wayne on the song “Stacy’s Mom.” The film’s soundtrack was certified in the US with a score composed by Berklee alum Howard Shore ’69 ’08H, who would later score Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings andThe Hobbit trilogies.

6. The Blues Brothers,The Blues Brothers

Similar to Spinal Tap, the Blues Brothers have led a long career well outside the confines the 1976 Saturday Night Live sketch where they were first created by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. Before landing on their signature suit-and-shades look, the original sketch had them dressed as bees and serving as the backing band for a young Howard Shore, who was just a few years out of Berklee. The brothers—“Joliet Jake” and Elwood Blues—soon became a household name after their debut feature film in 1980. While John Belushi passed away in 1982, the legacy has continued with his brother Jim filling in on performances and a 2000 sequel. The heart of the project has always been a deep love of the blues and soul music, and as such, has featured a long list of top-notch players over the years, including former Booker T. & the M.G.’s guitarist Steve “the Colonel” Cropper and bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn as well as a horn section from the Saturday Night Live Band.

7. Sex Bob-Omb / Clash at Demonhead / Crash & the Boys, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series Scott Pilgrim is a love story—romantic, sure, but it’s also a love letter to Toronto and scrappy garage bands. So when Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) set out to adapt the series into a film, he knew he couldn’t fake the music, even if the music was fake. He didn’t disappoint. The soundtrack is an indie rock dream set, with Beck writing the music for Pilgrim’s band Sex Bob-Omb, and Toronto mainstays Metric and Broken Social Scene handling the tunes for rival bands Clash at Demonhead and Crash & the Boys, respectively.

Watch every musical performance featured in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: 

8. Dethklok, Metalocalypse

A kind of Spinal Tap for the 21st century, Metalocalypse is an animated series chronicling the face-melting world of death metal band Dethklok. Unlike Tap, Dethklok are so absurdly famous in their world that they basically control governments and economies (even if mostly through their oblivious ineptitude). The music is no afterthought here, which makes sense when you learn that the show’s creator, Brendon Small ’97, studied guitar at Berklee under Jon Finn and Tomo Fujita. Dethklok has released four albums, headlined tours with popular metal bands such as Mastodon, Converge, and Lamb of God, and Small has three signature model guitars to his name, including the Gibson Thunderhorse and Snow Falcon Flying V. (Bonus: You can hear Small's first experiments shredding in cartoon form through Scäb, the teen metal band featured in the Adult Swim classic Home Movies.)

9. Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes, Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope

John Williams’s compositional work for Star Wars stands as one of the greatest film scores in cinematic history—but his musical contribution for the intergalactic epic doesn’t end there. He also wrote the unforgettable tunes heard in the cantina scene in Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope, where a swinging cosmic jazz band plays at a Mos Eisley bar while Luke Skywalker first meets Han Solo. While most people know the alien musicians as just the Cantina Band, the real heads know them as Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes. Ever the world-building completist, director George Lucas never missed a chance to build lore, even for characters who never speak. Beyond a whole backstory that is never mentioned in the film, Lucas had very clear ideas on what the Nodes should sound like. As Williams tells it, he was charged with creating a 1930s swing sound, but played as if Benny Goodman had been discovered by aliens in the distant future.

10. Josie & the Pussycats, Josie & the Pussycats

The elder stateswomen on this list, Josie & the Pussycats first appeared as a comic book series within the Archie universe in 1963, transcended to a Hanna-Barbera cartoon in 1970, and reemerged for a feature film adaptation in 2001 that became a cult classic. A real-life band was put together for the animated series, and included Motown session singer Patrice Holloway, who performed with icons such as Diana Ross, Tina Turner, and Joe Cocker. The movie version featured hooky, pop-punk songs written by Kay Hanley (Letters to Cleo), Babyface, Adam Duritz (Counting Crows), and Adam Schlesinger, a few years out from his That Thing You Do success.

11. Powerline, A Goofy Movie

Disney’s 1995 animated feature A Goofy Movie was by all accounts a financial and critical failure upon its release. And yet, through home media and eventually the internet, the film became a cult classic. When Disney held its D23 Expo in 2015, the Goofy Movie reunion panel was the most popular event that year and included a three-minute standing ovation. The film’s climactic and most memorable scene involves the main characters crashing a sold-out concert for pop star Powerline, sparking a viral dance to the original song “I 2 I.” The powerhouse voice elevating Powerline to icon status was provided by a young Tevin Campbell, an R&B singer who, by 1995, had already earned Grammy nominations and collaborated with Quincy Jones '51 '83H, Babyface, and Prince.

Watch Tevin Campbell perform "I 2 I" at Disney's 2015 A Goofy Movie reunion: