Origin of The Name
The band was named after the orc Shagrat from The Lord of the Rings and was a contraction of 'Shagrat The Vagrant', the name under which Steve Took had been credited on Mick Farren's album Mona – The Carnivorous Circus. Larry Wallis offers an alternative explanation. "'Steve Took' was Steve Took's real name as far as we were concerned, so he decided to take on another persona, 'Shagrat' who was the guy with the slanty eyes, pointed beard and the suede shoes."
Interviewed in 1972, Took himself offered yet another explanation: "I am gutter Rock, I'm a schneide. That's why I had Shagrat - it was a rat trip. Rats turn over at an amazing pace and they have a lot of kids. Not only do they eat the poison but they thrive on it and get bigger and they can still slip under doorways. It's the ecology trip. Do you know how many rats were killed in New York last year? 'Cos I don't! Hah! I can't remember my figures."
Read more about this topic: Shagrat (band)
Famous quotes containing the words origin of and/or origin:
“Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a byroad
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other.”
—Neal Cassady (1926–1968)