Band names - how did you come up with yours?

[gerryc]

I used to be in a band called "The Above average weight band" because we were all fat bastards

[GarethFlatlands]

We got The Slow Blade from the book Dune. We overthought it for a long time and changed it to that, then found another band from down south with the same name but had no big plans for the band so kept it.

Thankfully I've only had a hand in naming one other band, it's easily one of the most difficult things about playing music!

[barneyg42]

We're called Asylum Affair. As the band started our singer drove past a street called Asylum Street and thought maybe Asylum would do. At the same time the guitarist was starting to having marital problems (his wife shagged his old bassist) and despite the singer and guitard not liking each other much which threatened to scupper the band before it really started she let him stay with her whilst the marriage was falling apart very quickly. Needless to say they started an affair and the band name was born. 7 years on, guitard divorced, he and singer married and they have a five year old. Band still going from strength to strength. Bit of a long convoluted story but sometimes things in life can inspire a band name!

Oh just to add.............sooooo many bloody pubs can't spell Asylum and change it Assylum!!!! After initial annoyance we now just laugh it off!

Edited April 28, 2017 by barneyg42

[mikel]

[quote name='grandad' timestamp='1493278958' post='3287024']
Unfortunately my pleas wrt band name have by and large been ignored and I've ended up playing in bands with CRAP names. The one exception is the jazz quartet I mostly play with these days, 'The Fox Hollies Set'. This name was derived from Fox Hollies Farm the family home of our female saxophonist.

I think it's important to get the right name that you all feel good about, something that connects.
[/quote]

Fantastic name, but if there had been no brass in the lineup it would have been a no no. It almost tells you what the band will sound like.

[dmccombe7]

We rehearse on a Monday night. As a new band we were playing the guitarists birthday and he needed to give the venue a band name.
6 in the band and members have changed quite a bit before i joined.

The Monday Club is what he came up with on the spot. When he told rest of us we all liked it.

Dave

[mikel]

On another note. Ha ha. Walking past a pub yesterday and the band on Tonight is called "The Elderly Brothers". Well, it made me laugh.

[AdamWoodBass]

So we thought we'd settled on something - "The Funk Chronicles" because we all thought it was kind of cool and was the name of the folder we were keeping all our recordings in. Unfortunately a Google search discovered a "Jazz, Funk, Soul and HipHop" band called "The Chronicles" which we all felt was a bit too close especially because Funk/Fusion/HipHop is the sort of thing we're also doing. Figured it wouldn't be cool to have such a closely related name when the kind of music we play is so similar.

Back to the drawing board!

[Bolo]

We started out as Cataract in the late nineties, turned out the name was taken. Then we were Terror for about three months and 9/11 happened.
Some brainstorming brought me to Necrotaph. An epitaph is about someone's greatest achievements during their life, we write about the remarkable moments when they're dead 💀😃

[radiophonic]

We are 'Foreign Accent'. 4/5 of the band are Hungarian, so they literally have foreign accents, but it's more a about putting an accent on prog-folk. I think it works pretty well for us. Previously I was in a band called Miller 56, who were named after a massively influential psychology research paper (George Miller, 1956 -The magical number seven plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity to process information). It still sounds like bar band name, despite it's origins.

[Monkey Steve]

First band I ever joined was Johnny & The Damp Proof Membrane - apparently this is something to do with the building trade, as half the band had been to a college specialising in surveying/architecture/etc.

Next band was SFB. Never got an explanation of what that was about.

A couple after that, the names of which i don't remember, before forming Exploding Monkey (my favourite band name of all that I've been in as you may be able to tell from my user name). The guitarist suggested calling ourselves "Bulldog Eating Custard" (you may need to google that joke - sometimes it's "bulldog eating mayonnaise") and I replied "you want to call us "the C#nts"? what not call ourselves "Monkey @rse W#nk Death"? meaning that we're clearly not choosing that. This became a running thread and the name we definitely weren't calling ourselves expanded on a daily basis until it became Bizarre Exploding Monkey @rse W#nk Death. Which the guitarist really liked. I still objected, but "Exploding Monkey" was very good so we settled on that.

Next up, I wanted to call a band God's B#lls, but google told us that it had been done. Many times. So how about God's C#ck? Everybody liked it except the lead guitarist (not the one from the previous band, obviously) but someone came up with the idea of Gallus Dei, which is the latin for God's Rooster...closest we could get and we know what "rooster" really means.

Spent ages trying to find a name for my last band that everybody liked. Eventually settled on Critical Mass, named after the Dark Star beer, and got as far as printing up some demo CDs with that name on it before it sank in that there are about three hundred other bands called Critical Mass so we'd carry on but keep an eye out for a better name. One night in the pub one of the guitarists is telling us a story about how when he was a teenager his quite groovy Mum came with him to see one of his favourite death metal bands (that she also liked), and ahead of the gig their enormously fat drummer was sat next to his Mum at the bar, trying to chat her up. he spots the drummer and on the one hand is thinking that he can't let the drummer get away with it - his Dad won't be pleased, and he doesn't want this disgusting looking man treating him Mum like a groupie...but on the other hand, it is the drummer from his favourite band so maybe if he sleeps with his Mum he'll get to go backstage and meet the rest of the band! We all fall about laughing, and one of us pipes up "Frank, you are the worst son on the planet" and suddenly a lightbulb goes on in our heads - we became Bad Son.

Just joined a new band called Big Twin. Apparently it's something to do with motorbikes. Not my choice.

[Low End Bee]

It's a tricky thing coming up with a name that fits the band and is memorable.

The Jetsonics came about as I was throwing a list of noise and speed words together and I liked the sound of it.
It's also the name of a brand of lightbar on the top of US cop cars I found out later.

The current band is called Extender after the name of the compilation of Jetsonics EP's. I like it as it sounds a bit rude and it's not genre specific.

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Low End Bee' timestamp='1493387710' post='3288000']
The Jetsonics came about as I was throwing a list of noise and speed words together and I liked the sound of it.
It's also the name of a brand of lightbar on the top of US cop cars I found out later.
[/quote]

It's also the name of a Burns guitar designed by Claudio Pagelli.

[Telebass]

The Rock n Roll Outlaws is named after the track by Rose Tattoo, Rock n Roll Outlaw.
Good theme tune to have!

[uk_lefty]

My first band was named Guantanamo after the detainment camp. Having that band name got us our first gig and was easy to remember seeing as the word was on the news and in the papers daily.
I was in a band called "not the hoople" a while later. In our town it was all tribute bands with really bad pun names or a really lame attempt like "not queen" or something equally awful so we had the name just to take the p and we did have one person turn up expecting a Mott tribute band. He left perplexed but hopefully not too disappointed.

[el borracho]

[quote name='ahpook' timestamp='1493296930' post='3287236']
Avoid choosing anything you'll have to spell to anyone as odds-on you'll end up trying to explain the spelling during a loud gig.

[/quote]

You mean something like The Beatles!! Wonder how many times they had to spell it in the early years.

[ahpook]

[quote name='el borracho' timestamp='1493404605' post='3288167']
You mean something like The Beatles!! Wonder how many times they had to spell it in the early years.
[/quote]

[Shawman]

My first band was a punk band which got called Footlong Schlong for obvious reasons...we just wanted it quoted in the high school talent show list.

They didn't put us on it.

[ivansc]

Blotto. Pub band.

Years later there was a slightly more well known Blotto in the US.

Same with my earlier band in the early seventies, Chameleon.

My current drummer wins the prize though - Iron Maiden.
If you look on THE Iron Maiden site you will see a link to a charity LP by The Bolton Iron Maiden.
Bruce & Co contacted Paul (my drummer) and this was a "negotiated settlement" for the use of the name, apparently.
Happily the charity record raises around 20k a year for (among others) Cancer Research UK.

[AdamWoodBass]

[quote name='ivansc' timestamp='1493621846' post='3289402']
My current drummer wins the prize though - Iron Maiden.
If you look on THE Iron Maiden site you will see a link to a charity LP by The Bolton Iron Maiden.
Bruce & Co contacted Paul (my drummer) and this was a "negotiated settlement" for the use of the name, apparently.
Happily the charity record raises around 20k a year for (among others) Cancer Research UK.
[/quote]

That's so cool! Good on Bruce and Co for linking to it as well.

[Iain]

Definitely overthink the whole thing.

Of the 3 current bands...

Trackside started off as a jam session in a local studio, were asked to play a gig at very short notice so ended up giving the pub the name of where we all met and it stuck.

Half-Life started off with the guitarist many years ago and is a bit of a Trigger's Broom band - he's the only original member left. Name used to be Spydabyte which the rest of the band all hated bar the guitarist. As the core of the band is now well established we renamed so we all had some ownership and it felt a little less 6th Form...

Acoustic Covers band... very unoriginal set list that gets the wine bars of south Manchester jumping... Tried to get something working around being a Trio and Acoustic but they were all trying too hard so we ended up with "Cover Story".

[Paul S]

Bizarrely I have come up with the names of all the bands I have been in. Some current, some lasted longer than others. Usually it has been after a brain storming with Mrs S.

Old bands - 'May Contain Nuts' always got people's attention. After a couple of personnel changes we became '5 Shades Of Grey'.
Classic rock covers band 'Xerocks' which some people got, many didn't.

Current bands - Illegal Tender.
A different classic rock covers band started as The Wayward Sons but we never got around to playing the Kansas track as we have now morphed into a Bon Jovi tribute called 'Just Jovi'.

[Graham]

Naked Bass got their name from their first gig (under a different name) where the original bassist dissapeared offstage mid-song with his wireless unit, still playing, and returned dis-robed.

I've never felt the need to follow his example.

[Rich]

Some acquaintances of mine used to have a band called Psychodelia Smith

[Hobbayne]

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1493287577' post='3287129']
We're called the Wirebirds as half the band is from St Helena, and guess what the national bird of that island is??
[/quote]

Friend of mine saw your band the other night and said they were excellent.

[FinnDave]

[quote name='Hobbayne' timestamp='1493634955' post='3289531']
Friend of mine saw your band the other night and said they were excellent.
[/quote]

Thank you (and your friend!). Where did they see us?