Bands with heavy sci-fi influence

[Den82]

Misfits

Manilla Road (?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxVK6...678CAEA2BCB94C

[Hector]

RUSH!

I know...I was shocked it took this long for someone to post that one...lol.

RUSH is probably the number one nerd band in the world...and I'm proud to be a huge fan of them...lol.

[StrangeVisitor]

Here's one that hasn't been mentioned:

Billy Thorpe - Children of the Sun

edit: A couple other sci-fi creds by Billy that I was unaware of, from Wikipedia "Thorpe also worked as a producer and composed music scores for TV series including, War of the Worlds, Star Trek: The Next Generation, ....and Hard Time on Planet Earth"

[Tothiro]

Oh yeah Bowie fer sure - there are newer (relatively) bands like Kula Shaker (who had a sci-fi meets JC Superstar kind of vibe, particularly on Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts) and Spacehog (Mungo City is a Flash Gordon song)

Also the Protomen, who take their name from the Mega-Man video games. In fact there's an awful lot of Nerdcore that's either sci-fi based or sci-fi with zombies. Meekakitty is not my thing, but popular with the younger set that likes Star Trek and Harry Potter songs on Youtube. It seems to be a thing.
See also The North Atlantic's - Scientist Girl

Did anyone mention The Who? Essentially the entire Who's Next album was pulled together from bits of a post-Tommy rock opera concept album which predicted artificial reality and was basically The Matrix (Won't Get Fooled Again, Teenage Wasteland, etc), but the band was falling apart by then and the record company needed to put something out.

Queensryche Operation Mindcrime might also fit the bill.

[SeattleEd]

Surprised no one mentioned Duran Duran. Heavily SciFi from the get go with Planet Earth to Electric Barbarella. Japan also did some SciFi themed tunes.
Cornelius and PuffyAmiYumi from japan.

[ShadowAvenger]

I would put Helloween's Keeper of the Seven Keys albums on the list.

[Bruce Banner]

And on the more extreme side, bands like Nocturnus, Morbid Angel, Sirius, Bal-Sagoth and Keep Of Kalessin are sci-fi influenced death and black metal bands.

[Rusty Brookes]

Buffalo - semi famous hard rock band here in Australia in the early 70s. Had a song called Dune Messiah.

Black Sabbath - Iron Man surely counts?

Dead Meadow - lots of Tolkien/Lovecraft influence and had monsters from the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Fiend Folio on one of their album covers. OK - that's fantasy but thought I'd add them anyway.

Lobby Lloyd - Oz guitar legend - formed Australia's first proto punk band the Coloured Balls and produced some of the greatest rock albums here. Also released a full SciFi concept album in 1975: Beyond Morgia: The Labyrinths of Klimster.

[Den82]

Cannot believe nobody mentioned a really obvious one...

BLUE OYSTER CULT.

[emeraldknight47]

Cannot believe nobody mentioned a really obvious one...

BLUE OYSTER CULT.

"Ohhhhhhhhh---Godzilla!!!"

[Rusty Brookes]

Cannot believe nobody mentioned a really obvious one...

BLUE OYSTER CULT.

I feel pretty stupid forgetting them given they're my all time favourite band.