Rapeman was formed in 1987 when drummer Rey Washam and bassist
David Wm. Sims relocated to Chicago from Texas after the breakup of their band
Scratch Acid. Steve Albini had just ended his group
Big Black,
Name The name Rapeman was taken from the
Japanese manga series
The Rapeman. Albini discovered the manga through a friend who ran an import business, and found its combination of
rape fantasies and the
superhero genre "simultaneously utterly repellent and fascinating". He described it as "the product of decades of repression and misogyny being expressed through a different cultural tradition". He named the band in a deliberate attempt to repel audiences and do the "opposite" of bands that were desperate to appear on
MTV. Rapeman's name drew criticism and protests at several gigs. In a 2020 interview on the ''Conan Neutron's Protonic Reversal
podcast, Albini called it a "flippant choice" that was unconscionable and indefensible. He likened it to getting a bad tattoo. In a 2021 interview with MEL Magazine'', Albini said he had been ignorant of women's issues and had falsely assumed that many social problems, such as misogyny and homophobia, were already solved. ==Discography==