In the late ‘70s, in the wake of the tremendous blockbuster success of Star Wars, a whole slew of Star Wars-themed records got released, proving intellectual property wasn’t quite as big of a deal back then as it is now, and that you could sell anything with the words “star” and “wars” on it.
 

 
Meco’s Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk, a hit album (and the first record I ever bought), is the most well-known of the bunch and actually went to number thirteen on the US pop chart. But there were others: notably, the singing debut of Jon Bon Jovi (credited as “John Bongiovi”, his birth name) on the track “R2-D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas” from the Christmas In The Stars album. There was also a Star Wars themed album by electronic music pioneer Patrick Gleeson, and an ultra-shitty smooth-jazz record called Empire Jazz which actually featured respected fusion performers Ron Carter and Bob James. The shittiest knock-off/cash-in Star Wars related album is something called Living In These Star Warz by Dan Whitley and the Rebel Force Band. How bad is it? Almost as bad as the prequels? We dare you to make it all the way through in one sitting. Feel free to post your “give up” time in the comments.
 

 
The Rebel Force Band plays a variety of styles on Living in these Star Warz, ranging from R&B to disco-funk to rock—all in a very bland, MOR “sounds like a network TV show soundtrack” sort of way. There’s some possible intended humor to the whole affair, and indeed “Chewie the Rookie Wookie” (sic) got some airplay on Dr. Demento back in the day. The fact that these songs could loosely qualify as “parody” probably saved the creators from Fox’ lawyers.

In an interview on podbay.fm, Dan Whitley, the man behind the Rebel Force Band tells the story of how Living in These Star Warz came to be. Whitley was running a recording studio in 1977, when he was approached by a dentist with a song idea about a newly-released sci-fi picture. Whitley had never seen the movie, but decided to check it out when the dentist offered to pay $1000 for him to produce the song. Sometime shortly thereafter, Whitley was talking to a friend, Michael Purdy, about the track. Purdy was looking to produce an album as a “tax shelter,” according to Whitley, and suggested they do an entire record of Star Wars-themed songs. The idea of producing an album as a “tax shelter,” sounds suspiciously similar to the “tax scam labels” of 1976-78.

There’s a great interview with Aaron Milenski on shit-fi.com that explains the 1976-78 “tax scam label” phenomenon. According to Milenski:

In 1976, some record label executives discovered that it was possible to create an entire label as a subsidiary to the major label, and to write it off as a huge tax loss to help the “real” label remain profitable. The idea was that a large number of albums (for instance, Tiger Lily and Guinness released almost 100 records each in just under two years) would be on the new label, and the entire batch (ie, every copy of all of the records) would be listed as unsold. They would probably list something like 10,000 copies pressed of each record, even though it’s possible that they pressed up only a few hundred or so. The ones they pressed were never even attempted to be sold; they were sent as promos and dumped into warehouses with cutouts.

Apparently whatever loophole they discovered was closed by 1978 or so, as every one of these labels existed only in the years 1976–1978.

Whitley was running a booking service at the time and was auditioning young bands and musicians for gigs. He had come up with a list of potential song titles and threw them out to the young musicians. Some of those musicians came back with songs, and those songs ended up being the Living in These Star Warz album. A voiceover artist was hired to do the Chewbacca and Darth Vader sounds. When asked if any of it was cleared with Lucasfilm, Whitley’s response was “we didn’t even think about it.”

As “tax shelter” albums tend to go, Living in these Star Warz was a huge flop. As such, not a lot of copies are floating around, and today original vinyl copies fetch big money online among Star Wars (and terrible music) collectors.
 

“Chewie the Rookie Wookie” (sic) was released as a single and got some airplay on the Dr. Demento show.
 
Living in these Star Warz includes:

“Living in these Star Wars”
“Don’t Fall in Love with an Android”
“Leia”
“Chewie the Rookie Wookie”
“Respirator for Darth Vader”
“Spaced Out”
“May the Force Be with You”
“The Ballad of Obi Wan (OB-1)”
“You’ll Be a Warrior”
“Living in these Star Wars (Disco)”

Presented below is the entire album, if you dare to test your courage.

Good luck, and may the force be with you.
 

 
And this is how you’ll probably feel after your close encounter with the Rebel Force Band: