We spoke to the artists with the worst names in dance music

I didn’t pick my name, my parents did and it’s not like they called me something memorable like Nina Kraviz, Sven Väth or Seth Troxler. This is the quandary that faces the musically-inclined Anne Taylors and John Smiths of the world. I mean, there’s a reason Norman Cook goes by the name Fatboy Slim. An artist moniker needs to be memorable, timeless, relevant and above all else, able to elevate said individual above the mundane. But sometimes people take it a little too far.

This flyer is our Rosebud, if you will. The reason I have fallen down a perpetual wormhole of bizarre DJ names. It was found in Bristol, a supernatural place where DJs like Superior Cornrows, Spongebob Squarewave and Daddy Long Legs run free and thrive. But the one that really caught my attention is right at the bottom, squished away in a corner as if in total opposition to its very essence. Maximum Bellend.

We give plenty of coverage to artists with normal names at Mixmag (and probably some silly ones in retrospect). We’ve even looked into how dance music’s biggest DJs got their name, but what about the artists whose titles are so crazy that they're reduced to a joke?

Do they make their own music? Do they simply live on Bristol club night flyers? It turns out that Maximum Bellend was just the tip of a DJ name iceberg that turned into a stream leading to a giant ocean of bad puns and visceral word play.

Hardcore, crossbreed, hard d‘n’b, breakcore and hardcore techno selector CUN7 has shared a bill with Maximum Bellend at the BangFace weekender, which is kind of like a convention for people who hold signs that say ‘rave our souls’ without any hit of irony. Yes, it’s meant to read "cunt" but as Ellis (his real name) tells me, it’s a good way of getting through those pesky "offence filters".

"Typically I pronounce it as 'cun seven', especially on a Sunday, but I am not averse to being referred to as cunt, which is often the case when I am booked or when referred to in spoken form by others."

Somebody once asked him to change it to CUN8 on a flyer (which doesn't really have the same ring) and when he goes b2b with his friend Skanky Hoe, they operate as Skanky CUN7. Apparently no one has ever been offended by that.

DJ Skull Vomit is also a part of the breakcore scene. It's a strand of music that marries screaming death metal vocals with the stampeding kicks of gabba and includes DJs such as Passenger Of Shit, Goreshit, Shitwife, DJ Rainbow Ejaculation, Ladyscraper, Gut Plumber and DJ Dog Dick. But where CUN7’s SoundCloud contains his own aggressive but not shocking productions, DJ Skull Vomit’s music is like listening to copulating foxes while suffering from an aneurysm. Not that his 4000 followers on SoundCloud seem to care. He's not some no-name toiling away in his parents' basement. Yes, it’s an admittedly niche scene, but then so was house music once. The only thing I didn’t get was why not produce under his real name and really own that sound?

"Tony Welter doesn't exactly ring out as an unforgettable DJ name. I did however use my last name to my advantage when making an EP titled 'Welter Skelter'. I kinda recreated the Tate murder, but used Skrillex, Deadmau5, Pauly D and Steve Aoki. I know, pretty offensive, but nothing rhymes with Welter."

During our conversation, DJ Skull Vomit also name-checked an artist I had already heard of before. Shitmat always sounded like an urban myth but Henry Collins is not only a real person, but he's undeniable proof that a bad name isn’t always a hindrance. Having got his start on Planet Mu, he's also created aliases like Andrew Lloyd Webber's Retard Crack Dealer, DJ Ham And Cheese Sandwich, Armand Van Hard-On, DJ Dogshit and DJ Pillbong, which he somehow thought was worse a name than Shitmat.

“It has been an issue, funnily enough with Slipmatt who took offence when we played on the same bill together and made the promoter move me to the bottom of the line-up on the poster and put me in small text. He also wasn't happy I sampled him, calling it 'a travesty',” he said.

Someone who amazingly hasn't had any issues with his name is DJ Shag Girls, another BangFace weekender alumni who manages to delicately blend appropriation and misogyny in one moniker. Luckily he doesn't care about who he pisses off.

"I started out DJing ghettotech and booty music. That sort of music has a lot of pretty sexist lyrics which my girlfriend at the time didn’t really appreciate," he told me. "When I was starting to upload mixes I needed a name and she sarcastically suggested DJ Shag Girls. [It] stuck straight away, mainly because I knew it would wind her up."

So it was all a joke was it? Haha, music is funny.

But as he soon found out, the joke ran dry and so did the tunes and mixes on his SoundCloud. He didn’t seem too fazed though, all that mattered is he got some gigs from it.

"Nowadays I suppose the only reason I keep it is because that's what my online presence is known as and I can't really be arsed starting from scratch again. Also looking like you're taking yourself too seriously or seriously at all is pretty lame."

I had spent the last four hours listening to donk remixes of the song from Pulp Fiction, Slayer’s ‘Angel Of Death’ overlayed with a dancehall MC and a myriad of tunes regurgitating distorted kick drums and broken beats at over 200bpm. I want to say I had achieved a state of Zen but instead I was gauging whether a regular office stapler would have the strength to staple my ear folds shut. Then Elias Cole aka E-Coli sent me a link to two radio DJs discussing whether he was a real DJ. They were sure he wasn’t. As I listened to the audio, I couldn't help but feel a pang of regret. Was I just perpetuating the cycle of bad names for a bit of fame? Was I implicit in this musical circus freak show? I asked E-Coli what it felt like for someone to laugh at the name he'd chosen to represent himself musically.

"I don't mind them openly laughing at it. I don't play the kind of music that would normally be on Radio 1 so it’s probably the closest I will get to Scott Mills chatting about me on daytime radio!”

That kind of music is Tekno, from the Balkans specifically. I once met a guy at Glastonbury who said he played minimal techno. I thought, "Oh cool I guess I could be down for that if I get into the right frame of mind". Then I asked: "Do you like Ricardo Villalobos?" and he said, "Who? No, I play techno with a K. Like, tekno'". He also juggled, wore a vest and smoked rollies without a filter.

I was kind of getting to the end of my tether with this assignment but I knew there was one key ingredient missing from this shit sandwich. I needed to speak to Maximum Bellend. He was my white whale and I was Captain Ahab adrift in a sea of dead SoundCloud links. And then...

I fired up Facebook messenger and prepared for the interview of my life.

I'll start by asking where did you get the name Maximum Bellend?

My friend emailed me with an email that was meant to have an attachment but forgot to attach the attachment. Then he sent the email with the attachment and said "sorry! I'm a maximum bellend". Bit of an odd story but I liked the sound of it and had to put together a funny show set and it was formed using that name

Why did you have to make it a funny DJ name?

The event I was going to play at was very non-serious with comedy style music acts so it had to fit in with those lines

Is that how you consider yourself? More of a comedy act than DJ?

Not really. It's more of a funny DJ set.

I've heard your sets and I think you know how to get the party started. Do you find the name overshadows the music though?

Yeah at times I've wanted to do something more serious and it's hard to do that without creating a new alias.

Do you DJ under other aliases?

I did a few times under the name funsby.

Has your name been a hindrance to your DJ career?

And that was it. The lingering stare of the 'seen' tick openly mocking me. Reminding me of what could have been. A portal to a world where I finally came to the end of this wacky ride.

All I'm really left with is so many more questions and a lack of closure rivalling that of Rachel and Ross' relationship in season two. Except I didn't have the opportunity to call and tell him (Maximum Bellend not Ross) I had closure because I had no dates coming up or could afford a champagne bucket to chuck my phone into. And no one has answer machines anymore.

What do the people with the worst DJ names in dance music sound like? They sound like they don't give a fuck.

Louis Anderson-Rich is Mixmag's Digital Intern. He is slowly picking up the pieces from this adventure on Twitter