What real life bands/songs sound like Spinal Tap?

June 5, 2008 10:53 PM

What real-life bands or songs sound like Spinal Tap?

I love cheesy metal, and I want more.

Manowar is the "Tappiest" band I've found so far, but I'm sure there are others.

Please illuminate me on some other bands, and if possible specific songs that embody the Spinal Tap mystique.

posted by EKStickland to media & arts (33 comments total)

not exactly a direct answer, but here are the bands and songs that most inspired Tap, I think:

Queen's "fat bottomed girls" seems directly responsible for "Big Bottom."
Donovan's "Atlantis" is extremely "Stonehenge"-esque.

Led Zep is definitely the single band Tap was most based on. "Shark sandwich" comes from the infamous "shark incident," and the part where Nigel plays his guitar with an actual VIOLIN surely comes from Jimmy Page playing his guitar with a violin bow.

The over-the-top crotch stuffing was no doubt inspired by LZ's film "the song remains the same" and the camera angles up at Plant from below the stage. I can't prove it, but I imagine Zep's self-seriousness and all around over-the-topness in that film were the birthplace of the whole Tap concept.
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:03 PM on June 5, 2008

You also might enjoy Rush. Anyone who writes an epic song entitled "By-tor and the Snow Dog" is pretty Tapp-y.
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:05 PM on June 5, 2008

The Darkness!
posted by Addlepated at 11:17 PM on June 5, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

2nding drjimmy, definitely watch The Song Remains the Same if you haven't seen it.
posted by ludwig_van at 11:32 PM on June 5, 2008

A google search of "sounds like spinal tap" yields some interesting results.
posted by amyms at 11:32 PM on June 5, 2008

I will always laugh at Lordi from Finland. Zombies terrorizing cheerleaders! Yay! Zombies terrorize ravers! Yay! Zombies terrorize horny teens! Yay! Zombies terrorize a girl from the past! Yay! Zombies terrorize campers! Yay! Zombies terrorize a girl with a crappy doll! YAY!!!

They've got a theme, y'see.
posted by miss lynnster at 11:36 PM on June 5, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Airbourne. While the most common comparison is to AC/DC, their live show is hilarious and kept me laughing (in a good way!) throughout. Lyrics and between song banter and antics are pretty much ridiculous.
posted by jeffmik at 11:39 PM on June 5, 2008

They didn't inspire the music, but many lines in the film are directly spoofing interviews with The Band in The Last Waltz (a la the parts about coming up with the right name, the "end of the end of the end of the beginning of the beginning)" or whatever it is.
posted by raysmj at 11:58 PM on June 5, 2008

The A to Z of Spinal Tap.
posted by raysmj at 12:02 AM on June 6, 2008

I don't so much know about sounds-like, but in preparation for the film the writers went on tour with the band Saxon and based many of Taps stage gimmicks on things they had seen (like Derek Smalls playing the bass one-handed so you can point in the air with other)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:01 AM on June 6, 2008

They don't sound exactly like Saxon, but Saxon were definitely the main inspiration for Spinal Tap. Saxon are good fun to listen to, the singer has a very high pitched voice and they sing songs about ancient battles etc.
posted by fire&wings at 2:37 AM on June 6, 2008

I love how everyone sees Tap as based on a different band. My partner is convinced Tap is an amalgam of bands but is primarily based on Iron Maiden, so that might be another one to check out. Although I'm not sure that opinion is based as much on their music as on a comparison of Nigel to Bruce Dickinson personality-wise.
posted by Stacey at 4:09 AM on June 6, 2008

"Child in Time" by Deep Purple is pretty Tap.
posted by josher71 at 4:13 AM on June 6, 2008

Bad News did a similar schtick at around the same time AND their album was produced by Brian May. Suck on that, Spinal Tap.
posted by Sparx at 4:20 AM on June 6, 2008

Thor comes to mind - he's a Vancouver glamrock/metal bodybuilder who sings ridiculously cheesy metal songs, and his stage performance includes "feats of strength" like bending iron bars with his teeth.
posted by Gortuk at 4:55 AM on June 6, 2008

While the music is too wildly over-the-top to be Tap-like, the comparison between the studio sound and their live performance reminds me of Spinal Tap. The solos in live version remind me of those "shreds" videos, too...
Dragonforce - Through the Fire and Flames (Studio recording)
Dragonforce - Through the Fire and Flames (Live)
posted by MegoSteve at 5:05 AM on June 6, 2008

Definitely seconding 'The Darkness'. Come on - "A One-Way Ticket to Hell and Back"?
posted by Weighted Companion Cube at 5:11 AM on June 6, 2008

I've always thought of them as a cross between Magma and Fu Manchu.
posted by jessamyn at 5:27 AM on June 6, 2008

Hawkwind

A quick story: a friend of mine and I back in our college days were out and about in New Orleans one night and went to some random bar. The bar began to fill with many hippyish folk who were apparently fans of the band who would be playing later. As we'd gotten in early and were continuing to order food and drink, we were never checked for tickets, never told to leave as the bar filled with ticket holders. The crowd became more and more leather-clad until it looked as if we were in some sort of odd cross between a rennaisance faire, a dead show, and a biker convention. Then the band came on, Hawkwind. We'd never heard of them, but several of the women were attractive. We feigned interest in order to pick up girls but it became apparent very quickly that we were out of our depth, these fans were serious, almost cult like. The music was very anthem rock, though the venue was rather small and we suddenly and immediately both felt that we were part of the sequel to Spinal Tap. oddly, we were not.

The next morning, in our hungover haze, we both asked each other if what we'd seen was real. It was.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:56 AM on June 6, 2008

PS: I've actually paid hard earned money to see Jethro Tull and Deep Purple, yet Hawkwind struck me as oddly Tappish, so that should tell you something, if not something about my occasional lack of taste in music.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:58 AM on June 6, 2008

The umlaut, the muttonchops, the black leather-Motorhead, with a strong Derek/Lemmy connection. The sound is there, too.
posted by TedW at 6:19 AM on June 6, 2008

I actually wrote a book on THIS IS SPINAL TAP. This doesn't grant me ultimate authority, of course, but I did turn up a few items in my research. There's a small section on this topic in the book.

Uriah Heep was a band cited often, as was Status Quo. Not so much for their sound, necessarily, as for their longevity and general mediocrity. Hawkwind is another clear influence, as was Saxon, and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in general. (Great site, that.)

The great, great joke about Spinal Tap is that, no matter what form of music they tried, they were steadfastly average or subpar. Since the history of Tap is the history of British rock (from skiffle to pop to psych to metal to prog, which incidentally was a not-uncommon evolutionary path for bands to take), if you can find the most resolutely average-to-below-average bands of any genre, they were filtered into the Tap equation in some way.
posted by Dr. Wu at 6:26 AM on June 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Some friends of mine are in The Assrockers.

They are very cool and I think it may fit your bill. Heck, they are playing a concert tonight.
posted by battlecj at 6:53 AM on June 6, 2008

seconding The Darkness, and I think you should also check out The Electric Six
posted by mcstayinskool at 7:18 AM on June 6, 2008

Check out Slade and Sweet.
posted by mistsandrain at 7:26 AM on June 6, 2008

@Pollomocho

You are very fortunate to have found yourself at a Hawkwind show...

Check out "Hurry on Sundown" -considered a precursor to space rock.
posted by mistsandrain at 7:29 AM on June 6, 2008

Great question. This is a derail, but I must link to my favorite Wikipedia page of all time. I had forgotten that there's an umlaut over the "n" in "Spinal".
posted by lukemeister at 7:46 AM on June 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

miss lynnster,

It was great when Lordi won the Eurovision Song Contest and the band was hailed as having more credibility than previous winners.
posted by lukemeister at 7:49 AM on June 6, 2008

I know, that killed me.

I can't believe NOBODY has mentioned David Coverdale and Whitesnake. WTF?
posted by miss lynnster at 7:54 AM on June 6, 2008

miss lynnster,

Good point :-)
Getting back to Spinal Tap, I hope that one day we can all get together in a bar, belting out "Folks lend a hand in a hell hole..."
posted by lukemeister at 8:09 AM on June 6, 2008

Come on, people.

BLACK SABBATH.
posted by CharlieChu at 1:05 PM on June 6, 2008

Chosen for cheesy video goodness. Some might fit what you want. Enjoy this trip to the mid-eighties.

Grim Reaper, See You in Hell.

Grim Reaper, Rock You to Hell.

WASP, Fuck Like a Beast.

Manowar, Pleasure Slave.

Manowar, Loki God of Fire.

Queensryche, Queen of the Reiche.

Dio, Last in Line.

Black Sabbath, Trashed. (Non-Ozzy, Non-Dio, Ian Gillian vocals)
posted by zerobyproxy at 7:00 PM on June 6, 2008

Is Ian Gillian the most Tap singer of all time? Yes.
posted by josher71 at 5:33 AM on July 3, 2008