Most bands here have simple English names, such as Couch, or Cock Rasher, or Spiky Brats. A few are less obvious, such as Rux or CST, and some make very little sense, like BB Lucky Town or Suck Stuff. All of these have phonetic Korean versions of their name for easy pronunciation. And then there are the ones with unique Korean names.

The following bands don’t have much in common, but you might notice that most skinhead bands have Korean names. Likely each of them use Korean for a different reason.

Also note that I don’t actually speak Korean particularly well, so it’s a miracle I could figure these out.

공격대
Attacking Forces
After a particular night of heavy drinking, I found scrawled on a piece of paper in my pocket, “yeong soon, kong kyuk tae.” After consulting a Korean friend, we figured I’d met a girl who went to Konkuk University. I shook my head and wondered what my faulty memory had stolen from me. Much to my surprise, it was the lead singer of Attacking Forces. 공격하다 (kong kyuk ha da) is the verb “to attack.” The ever-useful syllable 대 (dae), which we see most often standing for big (대학교 means “big school” or university), in this case stands for “forces.”

몸을말려
Nonstop Body

This one’s so odd I’m just gonna let the band explain it.

“The name has two meanings. The first meaning is when the body dries and becomes thing under the sun. And it is originally meant for whoever tries to stop us.

In the end, we wrote the name in English, and it can be said that the second reason we are called ourselves Nonstop Body in English."

Yeah. Any questions? I couldn't have put it better myself.

명령27호
Assignment 27
It’s the title of some North Korean action movie. It had something to do with the glory of North Korea, of course. They used to have the movie poster up on their website.

배다른 형제
Half Brother
You commonly see the English version of the name, even on their album cover, simply because the Korean name is on the shocking side.

While most of us foreigners are used to unconventional families and step-siblings, to suggest in Korean that two brothers have different mothers implies infidelity.

The verb 배다르다 (bae da ru da) means “to be born of a different mother.” See how many words it takes to explain that in English.

분노폭발
Unleashed Anger
분노 (boon no) means anger, fury, rage. 분노의 포도 (boon no ui podo) is the Korean title for Grapes of Wrath. When I saw that, I busted a gut. 분노하다 (boon no ha da) is the verb for “to be angry.”

불가사리
Pulgasari is a movie produced by Kim Jong-Il of North Korea. To make it, he kidnapped disgraced director Shin Sang-ok from South Korea, brainwashed him for years, and then offered him a king’s salary to do a monster movie. The end product is basically a Godzilla movie that was made to show the world the strength of North Korean cinema. By all accounts, it sucked worse than Battlefield Earth.

삼층 (교육대)
Samchung

If you don’t speak any Korean at all, this name hardly looks more threatening than Samsung. A quick translation with no historical background would get you “Third Floor,” which is hardly a fitting name for this band. It refers to a supposed “re-education center” that was used by the South Korean government in the ‘80s to imprison the under-educated, along with the over-educated, suspected Communists, suspected criminals, and any other undesireable citizens they could get their hands on. Although it’s not apparent at first, this is probably the scene’s most badass name, and if you brandish it in public you’ll get some pretty interesting reactions.

지랄탄99
Jiraltan99

For some reason no translations have ever sticked with this broken-up skinhead band.

지랄 (Jiral) means “mad” or “insane,” so 지랄탄 translates to “mad bullet.” It’s a bad direct translation of the Korean nickname for gas grenades used by the government on many occasions against protestors.

혈맹
Blood Pledge
This name was a little tough to translate, and many versions were used, such as Blood Oath and Blood Crew, before settling on Blood Pledge. Another appropriate name would be Blood Pact.

혈 (hyul) of course means blood, and 맹 (Maeng) is short for 맹세하다 (maeng sae ha da), which means “to swear/ vow/ take an oath.” So basically this name means a pact signed in blood.

Stop giving your bands English names! Do it up in Korean!