Howlin' Wolf
The Wolf was a barrel-chested six-footer who prowled the stages of '50s Chicago – in the words of biographer Mark Hoffman – like a “feral beast”.
Admittedly, though, that image was compromised somewhat by the revelation that Chester Arthur Burnett got his nom de plume after being terrified by bedtime stories about a wolf that gobbled up naughty children. Aw, diddums.
Captain Sensible
Raymond Ian Burns was an ordinary boy-next- door – until he adopted milk bottle sunglasses, a crimson beret and a comedy pseudo-hero alias.
“I have to admit that Captain Sensible is a fairly daft name,” reflects the Damned guitarist. “But it has opened certain doors for me over the years.”
Mick Mars
Previously, Bob Deal had touted his services in the LA classifieds as Zorky Charlemagne (“extraterrestrial guitarist available for any other aliens that want to conquer the earth...”).
Hooking up with Mötley Crüe in 1981, he reinvented himself as Mick Mars (although Tommy Lee bestowed a less flattering nickname on him – Cousin Itt).
Head and Munky
Korn’s James Shaffer’s ability to splay his toes saw him christened Munky, while fellow axeman Brian Welch’s outsized cranium earned his own bonce- based sobriquet.
“Guys said my head looked like it was too big for my body,” the guitarist explained, “and so they started calling me Head.”
Slash
Before the release of his autobiography, speculation over the origins of Saul Hudson’s stage name was rife.
Did ‘Slash’ refer to a taste for horror films, a fetish for punctuation marks – or a weak bladder? As it turns out, it was coined by the dad of a childhood friend: “He says it was because I was always in a hurry, hustling whatever it was I was hustling. He just started calling me Slash...”
