Translator (band)

Translator is an American rock band from San Francisco that had success during the 1980s. The group created a sound that spanned updated British Merseybeat and stripped-down punk-like rock to psychedelia. Inspired by the Beatles, Cream and 1960s California folk rock bands such as the Byrds, their guitar-based music had wide exposure during the early 1980s on non-commercial campus radio and new wave music stations. The group's stripped-down music and sometimes ironic and unsettling existentialist lyrics sound today like they may have been a precursor to alternative rock.