Article 3 - A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD SMELL….. LIKE AXL?

So you are forming a band. Awesome. You probably announced this to your friends, family, or your entire list of contacts on FaceSpaceBookTwitterLeeDeeDotCom. Immediately, the first thing you might get asked is "So what are you calling yourself?"

Boy that is a tough one. What to call yourself? I mean that sentence carries a lot of weight. "Myself? What do I call myself?". Phew that is hard. You need a band name that will resonate when you say it. The kind of name that will make your friend say "Wow, with a name like that I have to buy all your CDs, t-shirts, and concert tickets", right?

Bull.

Listen to me here: A great name does not make a great band. A great band makes for a great band name.

Someone is going to come into band practice and bring up the idea of naming the band. You might sit around for hours tossing out ideas. There is the strong possibility that egos will be damaged here. At least one member will prepare to announce his favorite. That member will think that the heavens will open up and angels will sing a chorus of "ahhhh" as the name spills off his lips. Instead, someone else will say, "ugh that sucks. How about....". Some bands actually break up while coming up with a name.

Why did he think that name sucked? Maybe he thinks he has a better one and expects the angels to arrive with his announcement. Maybe it does suck.

I bet someone thought "The Beatles" did not work as a name. I mean look at it. If you just landed on this planet and saw this band name, would it inspire you to run out and buy a CD? No. The band made the name great.

Now I am not suggesting every name is good and you just make it great based on the band. There are some guidelines I'd like to suggest when coming up with a band name.

1. It always helps to sound good. By that I mean the vowels and consonants have to come out sounding like something that is easy to say, that might have its own tempo or rhythm to it, and you could hear others saying on the radio, as the introduction to your band on stage (up next….) and even chanted by a crowd who can’t wait to hear you play. If it sounds good, is easy, rhythmic or fun to say, then it has a chance to be memorable.

2. Think if it will look good. On posters will your name be so long that it looks tiny when compared to others? Is that OK with you? Then consider how it might look on the spine of a CD – again, length is an issue. (Insert childish joke about length here). Death Cab For Cutie is a long band name and they make it work on posters, CDs, t-shirts. Your name does not have to be short, but you have to realize that if you want to call yourself “The Fantastic Amazing Mr. Marzapan And His Sugar Drops” that you will have some spacing issues. Among other issues.

On the other hand, don’t make the mistake of liking the name because of the logo. You might change logos many times during the length of the band, even in the first few months. A good name will just turn itself into good logos.

3. It has to be original. This is the hardest of all. I have been in so many band meetings where one person wanted the name “The Difference” because it was simple, used in everyday speech, easy to remember and spoke to the fact that we were going to be different than any other band. Besides arguments against any of these points, The Difference has been used by about 50 bands if you just took a look at MySpace. With any band name you think is cool, do an internet search. Someone may already be using it. You might think Cactus is an original name, but you’d be surprised to find out that Cactus was a supergroup of sorts back in the Led Zepplin era. Check them out – they were darn good bluesy rock.
   
   

With so many bands already in existence it seems impossible to come up with an original name. Look into yourself. If you like cars, review a book on auto history or car maintenance (Example: Chevelle). Some term may jump out at you. You have written a lyric that sounds right (Counting Crowes). What about other lyrics you love (Rolling Stones came from a Muddy Waters tune). Know somebody with an odd name? (Lynard Skynard was not an average Joe). How about combining things? Sum 41 was named because 41 is what you get when you add the band members names together – when they started the band. The Gap Band was named after the first initials of the streets on which the members grew up.

The point is that there is something original in your world that can be a band name. Take your time to find it.

4. If you have to explain it, forget it. If a name can not stand on its own without explanation, then it is now a burden to the band. Part of that is how it sounds. For example I met a guy who was calling his band Haint Blue. He was frustrated that nobody in his audience knew that Haint Blue was the color some rural people used to paint their homes in order to keep ghosts out. When asked if his songs were all about this culture or he had a fear of ghosts, he would get more flustered and explain further that he had no part of that culture but thought it was cool. Other times, because he had a southern accent, people thought he was saying “Ain’t Blue” and assume he was singing happy songs. He asked me how I can make people “get it”. I told him simply to kill the name and pick a new one. People will not be forced to get it and if he was worrying that much about the name, he was wasting time that could be lent to writing better songs (which he also sorely needed).

Of course, a name might have a cool explanation behind it and your fans may get into that. But if there comes a point when explaining the name gets in the way of listening to the music, you may want to consider a change.

Those are my big rules. But there are a whole bunch of other thoughts I have.

For instance, the band name does NOT have to explain the band. What kind of music is a U2? I have no idea. I am a huge fan of them but don’t think I have ever heard a definitive explanation of why they picked the name. And if put to the test, I could not think of what music I’d expect from a band with an alphanumeric name.

But if you want to call yourself John Spencer Blues Explosion, then you’d better not play mellow folk tunes. Or if you do play mellow folk music under that moniker, expect an uphill climb when the folk club you want to play will not book you because they don’t book loud bands.

How about naming the band as a real person’s name? I know a couple bands that named themselves after a real person who was not in the band. Now, Lynard Skynard does not even sound like a person’s name. But Ike Reilly does. Yet, in the Ike Reilly Band there is nobody named Ike Reilly (I am referring to a band in the 90s named this, not the real Ike Reilly touring today). This takes explanation – a waste of time – and annoys the band when people ask to talk to Ike. It sounded like a good idea to them at the time, but after a while the name became a burden. The band Mookie Blaylock was smart enough to change their name to Pearl Jam before they released their debut.

Yet many projects are named after the singer. That makes sense especially if the singer is the songwriter, the main thing that people think about as the identifiable piece of the band, and that person is in fact the leader.

However, drama can ensue. I know a guy whose band is just his name. The drummer came to him and said he wanted the band name to change because “It would be cooler for me to tell people I am part of the Five Fingers than it is to say I play drums for Matt Reilly”. Yes, it would be cooler for him to say that. But Matt immediately asked this drummer exactly what he had done for the band other than play drums? Had he put up posters, booked a show, manned the merchandise booth at the shows, written a song, called the record label, put up his money for the recordings, owned the PA system or provided a rehearsal space? No? OK then until the rest of the band collaborates on the progress of the business, he was still going to have to tell girls he plays drums for Matt Reilly. Otherwise Matt or someone like him will just name them Joe Davis and the Waste Band.

Anyone that names a band after themselves ought to be prepared to be the leader of the band. He is the only one that can not be fired, by default. So the onus is on him. The other members might feel a bit like hired guns in this instance. And that is simply part of being in a band named after a member. You might say there is ego involved. Or you might say that the person is really putting himself out there and risking his good name on a band. But there is no denying that when a band takes on a member’s name, that band has a different personality dynamic than when the members hide their names behind a group name. Who will anyone want to interview? Who will the girls want to meet? Who is seen as the sole creative driver? The guy with the name on the poster.

I will say my favorite person name was Declan MacManus. But the owner of Stiff Records thought that would not go over too well in the U.S. So he changed the name to Elvis Costello. Legally, not just for stage. (Side note: I liked the music of Elvis Costello a lot, but the name Declan even more. So that is what I named my son. I hope he gets a record deal.)

There is a whole category of theme names. These are the band names in which the members take on the personality of the band name. The Ramones each took Ramone as their surname. Bone Thugs and Harmony each have stage names that relate to the band name (Lazy Bone, Bizzy Bone). This is hard to pull off, but sometimes extending the name in this way can help it last.

In the same context, some band names define the personality of the band and work especially well if the band continues a themes through their show. One small time band is called Hostile Omish. They dress like the Amish, have a couple of members who churn butter and do other chores rather angrily on stage, while playing revved up metal. It may not work for you, but it has worked for them. This leads to a whole other chapter on performance, but for now let me just say any band that can take their name and have it as part of their show is thinking bigger than most bands. And I will tend to at least give them a shot if they have that kind of humor, vision, or single-minded approach to their band. I might not listen a second time, but they got me for one listen.

There are topical band names that will get you recognition right away, but then fade over time. For example, Monica’s Blue Dress had relevance at the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency, but felt they had to chance their name to George’s Bush later. In other words, be careful about being too topical or cute.

I am a big fan of names that make you laugh or take notice. I will check out a band if I think their name is clever. Though a clever name does not guarantee success. One of my favorite such names is the Jehova Waitresses. Great name, but you never heard of them.

I have one good band name story about the Jehova Waitresses. It seems they were playing a tour in the Southeast U.S when they came to North Carolina. While on stage and ready to play, a local radio DJ came up to have a little contest. The winner would get the brand new, hot off the presses debut CD from a local band called Hootie and The Blowfish. The drummer for the Jehova Waitresses may not have known his mic was on when he said “Well, that’s the dumbest band name I’ve ever heard”. The room immediately fell into an awkward silence. Oopsie.

The moral of this story is that Hootie and The Blowfish made the name great because they sold 11 million of those debut CDs. Johova Waitresses, not that many. Hootie and the Blowfish met the criteria I laid out earlier: it is memorable, you can chant “Hoo-tee” at their shows, is original, and they made it look fine on printed material. But most of all, they believed in the name, never let it get in the way, and became a huge band.

To finish off, I’d like to add in some more personal rules of band names:

1. Do not add a letter to make yourself different. There can be no successor to Ratt.
2. If you’re going to give yourself a childish name (“Meat Missile” anyone?) be prepared to grow up someday. It can feel like a bad tattoo later.
3. Speaking of that, please do not tattoo your band name onto your body.
4. Umlauts should be banned from use as band names. Motley Crue used theirs wrong (in Germany, the umlauts were spoken right and the kids chanted “Mutley Cruh”.) Regardless, if you use an umlaut in your band name, I will probably never listen to you.
5. This falls under I Can’t Believe I Have to Mention This, But……unless you have a member who is already a star in their own rite and well known far beyond the town you are playing, do not have “Band Name, featuring ______”.
   
   
   

So far, everything I have mentioned is geared toward original bands. If you are in a cover band and your covers are of one artist, then of course use one of the original artists song names, album titles, or lyric. Mini Kiss is a band of short people playing Kiss coves. AC/Dixie is a group that remakes AC/DC songs with a southern accent. If you are tackling a theme, then relate to the theme. M80s and is a good one for an 80’s band. Disco Inferno for a disco band, etc.

Please, send me your crazy band names. I keep a running list. So far, my favorite stupid immature creative one is G Spot Run. I’d like to get yours and you can let me know if you want them shared with the world or are saving them for future use. Be sure to check out a later section on protecting your band name from being used by anyone else.