This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website

Flags used by Musicians

Last modified: 2008-07-05 by marc pasquin
Keywords: music | outkast | pink floyd | prince | type o negative | xzibit | blue oyster cult | marylin manson |
Links: FOTW homepage | search | disclaimer and copyright | write us | mirrors



Please note that some of the flags in this sections are used in various ways (live concerts, music videos, paraphernalias, etc...) and while they might be meant to represent fictional entities, they are nonetheless not considered to be part of the fictional flags section unless they have also been used in a work of fiction (book, game, etc...).

Blue Oyster Cult

In an old issue of the magazine "Creem" was a feature on the Heavy Metal band Blue Oyster Cult. It had a photograph of the band performing live with a large Nazi-style banner or backdrop behind the band. It had a red field and white disc, but had in place of the swastika the symbol of the Blue Oyster Cult which is something like this: ż with a vertical line above the dot and a horizontal line on either side of the dot.

As at least one member of the band is Jewish, IIRC, they were almost certainly not making any nod to a band crypto-fascism. Rather, the band emerged in the wake of the so-called "Summer of Love" and their dark and brooding style was in direct opposition to the hippie notions of love and peace of that time.

You can see the flag here
For a closer look at the symbol, look here

John Evosevic , 18 october 2002


Their symbol was supposedly the Greek symbol of chaos and had nothing to do with neo-fascism or Nazis.  I have been a Blue Oyster Cult fan since 1971 and all of us have known this since then.
Greg Biggs , 18 october 2002


Disturbed

[pseudo-nazi flag]
by Eugene Ipavec , 2 september 2006

This is a flag that appears in an animated music video by the group Disturbed for their cover of the song "Land of Confusion," originally by Genesis. Detail of screengrab here.

The video shows the masked allegorical figure of Anarchy leading a mob into battle against the forces of the repressive, warmongering world order, represented by caricatures of the leaders of the great powers and presided over by a similarly allegorical Corruption. (I seem to recall that the original 1980s Genesis music video did something similar with foam puppets of Reagan, Thatcher and Mitterand.)

The flag of the world order appears several times - flying in front of the UN, in particular - and is a rather unimaginative Nazi knockoff with an oddly angular "$" sign in place of the swastika.
Eugene Ipavec , 2 september 2006


Marylin Manson

Marilyn Manson used a huge altered American flag in his concerts a few years ago. It featured his "shock symbol", a downward-pointing lightning-bolt arrow in a circle, in place of the 50 stars in the blue field. As far as an image is concerned, I can only point you to the website of one of his T-shirt makers
Sean Wilkinson , 14 April 2003


I think he has also used this symbol on long vertically hanging flag- like drapings on his concerts. These were black with the symbol in red and white, IIRC, and reminded me slightly of the German flag of 1935-1945.
Elias Granqvist , 15 April 2003


Outkast

A flag appears in the music video Prototype, that sort of tells a love story between an alien and a earth woman. The flag is white with a very small black 8-pointed star in the middle, which also appears in the clothes (some kind of uniform) of the aliens. So it's meant to be the flag of the aliens, I guess.
Jorge Candeias, 4 january 2006


The group also used a black and white US flag pictured on their album covers and used as a stage backdrop. There were two types of this flag. There was one where the stars were upright and one where they were upside down.
Zachary Harden, 4 january 2006


What was meant with this design? Anything to do with Marilyn Manson who used/uses a similarly described variation of the US flag? What was the exact change? Blue and red as black?, or blue as white with black stars?, and/or black and white stripes but starting (and ending) with a white stripe?
António Martins-Tuválkin, 7 january 2006


Pink

In the music video for the song "Trouble", performed by American singer Pink, there is a red flag with three black six pointed stars in the centre, in the order one above two. Obviously it is a flag for the people Pink fight in the video, because at the end she rips the flag down.
Elias Granqvist, 1 january 2004


Pink Floyd

[flag from
contributed by Alan Jenney, taken from a commercial site.

In the film "Pink Floyd; The Wall", there is a quasi-Nazi flag displayed that has been adopted by several Neo-Nazi groups in the USA. I recall the flag having a pair of claw hammers with handles over allping to form an X, and the head of the hammers facing the left, superimposed against a ring with gear teeth on the outside. The background had two bars, white (top) and red (bottom). Use of this flag has inspired a movement known as "hammerskins". Ironically, the film was meant as an attack ON fascism! Go figure!
Steven F. Scharff, 10 february 2001


The only graphic I have seen of this flag is from some original artwork. The hammers are shown as almost photographic, the flag is shown as a 1:1 scale, pretty much as described in the posting but half grey and half red. This grey colour may just be to give it a slightly older or oppressive look.

The (light-duty) claw hammers have red painted handles with a black rubber grip covering the lower half. There is a black band on the top of the handle where it joins the hammer head.

In the promotional video to the single "Another Brick in the Wall", in the film "The Wall" and at concerts, these crossed hammers are shown in animation like the marching legs of soldiers in a parade. "The Wall", these hammers and anti-facist sentiment played a large part in Pink Floyd's works.

I have seen the toothed wheel mentioned as part of this image at some other time, presumably to give it a "hammer and sickle" look, but not in connection with The Floyd.
Alan Jenney, 1 July 2002


Site picture incorrect, flag pictured here
Rick Prohaska, 30 March 2008


Prince

[prince's flag]
by Jorge Candeias

From 1993.06.07 to 2000, US music perfomer Prince Rogers Nelson (born 1958), used as his career name an unpronounceable symbol, replacing the former denomination "The Artist" (a.k.a. "The Artist, formerly known as Prince"), which itself replaced the original name "Prince". This artist is now Prince again.

Following a hazy recollection of this symbol on flags in a Prince clip, I used the symbol I found here and put it in yellow on a purple background. This is how I seem to recall having seen this symbol used in flags, though I might be (quite) away from the truth. For what is worth, the color purple is widely used in the layout of the "artist's"website.
Anto'nio Martins-Tuva'lkin , 27 july 2002


Well, my not so fuzzy recollection of this video (a music clip produced as if it was a live concert, or a real live concert, I don't really remember) tells me that the symbol was golden on a white flag, waved proudly by TAFKAP (The Artist Formerly Known As Prince). The symbol itself was reflecting light as if it was made of little pieces of glass, I suppose to give the idea of gold.
Jorge Candeias , 29 july 2002


Rage Against the Machine

The music band Rage Against The Machine uses a flag (image taken from here) based on that of the United States) during almost every concert as can be seen here (image taken from musicfanclubs.org). The sentence on top of the upside-dwon flag reads : "something doesn't smell good"
Esteban Rivera, 27 june 2005


Type O Negative

[Vinland flag]
by Jitse Verwer

The flag for Vinnland, or more precisely "the people's technocratic republic of Vinnland" appears on the back of the three latest albums of the Goth-Rockgroup Type O Negative as well on numerous t-shirts. The flag is supposed to symbolize the republic of Vinnland situated in north America. Vinnland and it's flag are the brain child of the hulking blackhaired frontman of the band Type O Negative: Peter Steele. Steele incorporated his idea's of paganism, left/right wing political flirtations and his own heritage (his mother was part Icelandic) into a concept of a repubic named after the first name the Vikings gave to north America: Vinland. The Vikings landed in New Foundland around 1000 a.d. and built a colony there.Steele takes this idea and tries to imagine what America would be like if the Vikings had actualy stayed, and built a civilisation there. Based on that he designed a new flag in a scandinavian cross patern and gives it his favorite colours: green, black and white (which coincedently remind me of the german war cross). The concept of the people's technocratic republic only apears once in the songtitle "The glorious liberation of the people's tecnocratic republic of Vinnland by the combined forces of the united territories of Europa". In one of his interviews Steele says that he thinks the world would be better off if it were governed by scientists, hence technocratic. for more information see here
Jitse Verwer, 8 december 2000

It is a historical fact, that vikings really got to what now is called Newfoundland, and probably to Labrador and perhaps even more to the south of the North American coast too. However, they did not call that land "Vinnland" but Vinland. It is thought that the name came from the presence of currants ("vinbär" in modern Swedish), not of a supposed presence of vine or grapes.
Elias Granqvist , 9 december 2000


Xzibit

[xzibit flag]
by Zachary Harden

This flag is from a rap artist named Xzibit. He used this flag in his video "X", and it has a gaunt X on a yellow background. Four of these were seen, all on cars owned by Xzibit.
Zachary Harden , 9 february 2001


Fotw.net is sponsored by mrflag.com. web design & ecommerce by Wired Media.