Rock And Metal Musicians Who Use Stage Names
Photo: ceedub13 / flickr / CC-BY 2.0

Rock And Metal Musicians Who Use Stage Names

Celebrity Lists
Updated September 4, 2020 75.8K views52 items
Voting Rules
Hard rock and loud alternative rock (and sometimes punk) singers with stage names are also included here

These metal singers knew that it's tough to break into the music business, but that a good stage name might give you a leg up in a sea of boring Bruces, James, and Roberts.

A number of people on this list changed their names to make them catchier or easier to remember. "John Francis Bongiovi, Jr." or "Ronald James Padavona" both take up a lot more space on an album cover than "Jon Bon Jovi" or "Ronnie James Dio." From black metal and thrash to power metal, these stage names are memorable - and the singers who chose them knew they would be.

This list of famous stage names includes metal singers who go by nicknames and famous people who have changed their names. It does not, however, include singers who use their married surnames professionally, had their names legally changed as children, or celebrities with obviously theatrical stage names. We all can guess King Diamond wasn't born with the first name King.

But not every metal singer chose a stage name that stands out. You may have guessed that Lemmy Kilmister used a stage name, but it's the "Lemmy" part he wasn't born with, not the "Kilmister." Which of these metal singers have the most surprising birth names?

Ranked by
  • Alex Lifeson - born Alexandar Zivojinovich

    Alex Lifeson - born Alexandar Zivojinovich

    Heavy metal, Progressive rock, Hard rock
    • Albums: Victor
    Alexandar Zivojinovich, (born 27 August 1953), better known by his stage name Alex Lifeson, is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the guitarist of the progressive rock band Rush. In 1968, Lifeson co-founded the band that would become Rush, with drummer John Rutsey and bassist and singer Jeff Jones. Jones was replaced by Geddy Lee a month later, and Rutsey was replaced by Neil Peart in 1974. With Rush, Lifeson plays electric and acoustic guitars, as well as other string instruments such as mandola, mandolin, and bouzouki. He also performs backing vocals in live performances, and occasionally plays keyboards and bass pedal synthesizers. Like the other members of Rush, Lifeson performs real-time on-stage triggering of sampled instruments, concurrently with his guitar playing.The bulk of Lifeson's work in music has been with Rush, although Lifeson has contributed to a body of work outside the band as well. Aside from music, Lifeson is part-owner of The Orbit Room, a bar and restaurant in Toronto, a painter and a licensed aircraft pilot. Along with his bandmates Geddy Lee and Neil Peart, Lifeson was made an Officer of the Order of Canada on 9 May 1996. The trio was the first rock band to be so honoured, as a group. In 2013, he was inducted with Rush into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Lifeson was ranked 98th on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, and third (after Eddie Van Halen and Brian May) in a Guitar World readers poll also listing the 100 greatest guitarists.
  • Alice Cooper - born Vincent Damon Furnier

    Alice Cooper - born Vincent Damon Furnier

    Glam metal, Experimental rock, Shock rock
    • Albums: Welcome to My Nightmare, Hey Stoopid, Brutal Planet, Trash, Constrictor
    Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier; February 4, 1948) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spans over 50 years. With his distinctive raspy voice and a stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, deadly snakes, baby dolls, and dueling swords, Cooper is considered by music journalists and peers alike to be "The Godfather of Shock Rock". He has drawn equally from horror films, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a macabre and theatrical brand of rock designed to shock people.Originating in Phoenix, Arizona, in the late 1960s after he moved from Detroit, Michigan, "Alice Cooper" was originally a band consisting of Furnier on vocals and harmonica, Glen Buxton on lead guitar, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and Neal Smith on drums. The original Alice Cooper band released its first album in 1969. They broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit song "I'm Eighteen" from their third studio album Love It to Death. The band reached their commercial peak in 1973 with their sixth studio album Billion Dollar Babies. In 2011, the original Alice Cooper band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.Furnier adopted the band's name as his own name in the 1970s and began a solo career with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare. Expanding from his Detroit rock roots, Cooper has experimented with a number of musical styles, including art rock, hard rock, heavy metal, new wave, glam metal, and industrial rock. Cooper is known for his sociable and witty personality offstage, with The Rolling Stone Album Guide calling him the world's most "beloved heavy metal entertainer". He is credited with helping to shape the sound and look of heavy metal, and has been described as the artist who "first introduced horror imagery to rock and roll, and whose stagecraft and showmanship have permanently transformed the genre". Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity, a restaurateur, and, since 2004, a popular radio DJ with his classic rock show Nights with Alice Cooper.
  • Amy Lee - born Amy Lynn Hartzler

    Amy Lee - born Amy Lynn Hartzler

    Alternative rock, Alternative metal
    • Albums: Aftermath
    Amy Lynn Hartzler (née Lee; born December 13, 1981), known professionally as Amy Lee, is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. She is the co-founder and lead vocalist of the rock band Evanescence. Along with her contributions with the band, Lee has also participated on other musical projects including Walt Disney Records' Nightmare Revisited and Muppets: The Green Album. She has performed collaborations with artists such as Korn, Seether, and David Hodges. Lee composed the soundtrack to the films War Story (2014) and Indigo Grey: The Passage (2015) with cellist Dave Eggar, and the song "Speak to Me" for the film Voice from the Stone (2017). She possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range.Lee received the Songwriter Icon Award from the National Music Publishers Association in 2008. In 2012, she won Best Vocalist at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards and was also named Rock Goddess of the Year at the Loudwire Music Awards. She was awarded Best Film Score by the Moondance International Film Festival for Indigo Grey: The Passage in 2015. Lee is also the American chairperson for the international epilepsy awareness foundation Out of the Shadows.
  • Axl Rose - born William Bruce Rose, Jr.
    W. Axl Rose (born February 6, 1962) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and musician. He is the lead vocalist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, and has also been the band's sole constant member since its inception in 1985. In addition to Guns N' Roses, he also toured with Australian rock band AC/DC in 2016 during the final 2 legs of their Rock or Bust World Tour when Brian Johnson took a break due to hearing problems. Rose has been named one of the greatest singers of all time by various media outlets, including Rolling Stone and NME.Born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana, Rose moved in the early 1980s to Los Angeles, where he became active in the local hard rock scene and joined several bands, including Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns. In 1985, he co-founded Guns N' Roses, with whom he had great success and recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their first album, Appetite for Destruction (1987), has sold in excess of 30 million copies worldwide, and is the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. with 18 million units sold. Its full-length follow-ups, the twin albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II (1991), were also widely successful; they respectively debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and have sold a combined 35 million copies worldwide.After 1994, following the conclusion of their two-and-a-half-year Use Your Illusion Tour, Rose disappeared from public life for several years, while the band disintegrated due to personal and musical differences. As its sole remaining original member, he was able to continue working under the Guns N' Roses banner because he had legally obtained the band name. In 2001, he resurfaced with a new line-up of Guns N' Roses at Rock in Rio 3, and subsequently played periodic concert tours to promote the long-delayed Chinese Democracy (2008), which undersold the music industry's commercial expectations despite positive reviews upon its release. In 2012, Rose was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Guns N' Roses, though he declined to attend the event and requested exclusion from the Hall. In 2016, the same year as he toured with AC/DC, Rose partially reunited the "classic" lineup of Guns N' Roses and has since toured the world as part of the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.
  • Bret Michaels - born Bret Michael Sychak

    Bret Michaels - born Bret Michael Sychak

    Glam metal, Rock music, Country rock
    • Albums: Songs of Life, Freedom of Sound, Jammin' with Friends, A Letter From Death Row, Show Me Your Hits! A Salute to Poison
    Bret Michael Sychak (born March 15, 1963), professionally known as Bret Michaels, is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He gained fame as the lead singer of the glam metal band Poison who have sold over 40 million records worldwide and 15 million records in the United States alone. The band has also charted 10 singles to the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, including six Top 10 singles and a number-one single, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn".Besides his career as lead singer, he has several solo albums to his credit, including the soundtrack album to the movie A Letter from Death Row in which Michaels starred, wrote and directed in 1998, and a Poison-style rock album, Songs of Life, in 2003. Michaels has appeared in several movies and TV shows, including as a judge on the talent show Nashville Star which led to his country influenced rock album Freedom of Sound in 2005. He starred in the hit VH1 reality show Rock of Love with Bret Michaels and its sequels, which inspired his successful solo album Rock My World. He was also the winning contestant on NBC's reality show Celebrity Apprentice 3 and also featured in his own reality docu-series Bret Michaels: Life As I Know It, which inspired his highest charting album as a solo artist, Custom Built, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Hard Rock list. He is also known for hosting on the Travel Channel. In 2006, Hit Parader ranked Michaels at #40 on their list of greatest Heavy metal singers of all-time.
  • Bon Scott - born Ronald Belford Scott

    Bon Scott - born Ronald Belford Scott

    Blues-rock, Rock music, Heavy metal
    • Albums: The Early Years 1967-1972, With the Spektors and the Valentines, Round and Round: The Forgotten Years, Round and Round and Round, Seasons of Change Raven/RCA 1971-72 (disc 2)
    Ronald Belford "Bon" Scott (9 July 1946 – 19 February 1980) was an Australian singer, songwriter and instrumentalist, best known for being the lead vocalist and lyricist of the Australian hard rock band AC/DC from 1974 until his death in 1980.Scott was born in Forfar, Scotland, and spent his early years in Kirriemuir. He moved to Australia with his family in 1952 at the age of six, living in Melbourne for four years before settling in Fremantle, Western Australia. Scott formed his first band, The Spektors, in 1964 and became the band's drummer and occasional lead vocalist. He performed in several other bands including The Valentines and Fraternity before replacing Dave Evans as the lead singer of AC/DC in 1974.AC/DC's popularity grew throughout the 1970s, initially in Australia, and then internationally. Their 1979 album Highway to Hell reached the top 20 in the United States, and the band seemed on the verge of a commercial breakthrough. However, on 19 February 1980, Scott died after a night out in London. AC/DC briefly considered disbanding, but the group recruited vocalist Brian Johnson of the British glam rock band Geordie. AC/DC's subsequent album, Back in Black, was released only five months later, and was a tribute to Scotts’ death. It went on to become the third best-selling album in history.In the July 2004 issue of Classic Rock, Scott was rated as number one in a list of the "100 Greatest Frontmen of All Time". Hit Parader ranked Scott as fifth on their 2006 list of the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Vocalists of all time.