We’ve had a lot of discussion about band names on the site lately, so I figured now would be the time to set forth a codified version of my views on the matter of band naming. It’s a little thing I like to call “Sam Eddington”s Band Naming Manifesto.
Superlative band names are hard to come by; that’s why they’re superlative. On the other hand, it’s not that difficult to come up with a band name that will be quite reasonable, and will not bring shame upon you and your descendants forever. Heeding the following ten easy rules will go a long way toward helping you to avoid the embarrassment, ostracism, and facial scarring that comes with giving your band a name that will haunt you for the rest of your life, and quite possibly after your death too.
- Make sure your name hasn’t already been taken. This seems obvious, but Nirvana ended up paying out a hefty chunk of cash because they didn’t pay attention to this one. You should also be aware of current bands that have names unfortunately similar to yours — there’s no point in getting caught up in a Verve/Verve Pipe game of chicken. It’ll only confuse people who come to your shows, the ones who start yelling for you to play “The Freshmen” when you’re halfway through “Bittersweet Symphony.” And you don’t want those people at your show anyway.
- Jokes aren’t funny if you have to explain them, and the effectiveness of a band name depends to a large degree on a similar principle. Certainly there’s no shame in having your band name be a reference to something, but it has to be a name that doesn’t make you sound like a drooling idiot to someone who doesn’t get the reference. If every time you tell someone your band name, you’re greeted with a blank look and immediately have to explain that it’s a line from an obscure TV show/your ex-girlfriend’s favorite catchphrase/the title of an essay by Proust, you really ought to change it. Otherwise, you could spend the best years of your life playing bass in Behold the Arctopus.
- If there’s a number in your name, stated or implied, it should represent the number of people in your band. It was kind of clever when the Thompson Twins did otherwise, twenty-five years ago. It was a lot less clever by the time Ben Folds Five rolled around.
- Unless you are ? and the Mysterians, your band name should not have punctuation in it. Doing so just makes you look irritating (Panic! at the Disco), pretentious (Adult.), clueless (!!!), or, more likely, all of the above. As a corollary, it’s not okay to get around this rule by picking a name that obviously needs punctuation and then just leaving the punctuation out. I like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah as much as the next indie snob, but that doesn’t change the fact that they have an astonishingly lame name.
- With all due respect to our own Bryson, don’t use a name that looks like a person’s name. It confuses record store clerks, but more importantly, it confuses people who are trying to buy your album and don’t know whether to look under the first name or the last name. Plus, it’ll just come back to haunt you later. You think Ian Anderson doesn’t wish he hadn’t wasted the last forty years of his life telling people that his name isn’t Jethro Tull? (Though it could be worse. He could be Annemie Coenen, and spend every interview telling people that a) Ian Van Dahl is the name of the band, not her name, and b) yes, she knows that Ian is a boy’s name anyway.)
- No metanames. No Use For a Name isn’t clever, it’s smug. There’s a difference.
- Your band name should be capitalized in the normal manner for English proper nouns. Using all lowercase letters makes you look precious, and while that might not bother you if you’re cub or that dog., it’s still not a good idea. Using some other unorthodox combination of capitals just makes people want to smack you. It’s the reason I’ve never been able to take fIREHOSE seriously.
- Think very, very hard before you put more than four words in your name. I speak here as someone who played in a band called That Fish Is Almost Human, so this is not an arena I approach with clean hands. Nonetheless, it’s a proven fact that the pretentiousness of a band name is directly proportional to the number of words in it. At the extreme, it’s the difference between, say, The Clash and Ronnie Neuhauser’s Congregation Against Styrocultural Brain Damage. But even on a smaller scale, how many band names with more than four words can you think of that couldn’t be shortened? There might be some, but I bet it’s not many. Be warned.
- Don’t put obscenities in your name. This is the 21st century, and no one’s going to be shocked anyway.
- Do not, under any circumstances, use the word “cute” or any variation thereof in your name. Even if you’re a fifteen-year-old girl forming her first cuddlecore band, you can do better than that. Death Cab for Cutie and Cute Is What We Aim For have already not only beaten that horse to death, but sent it to the glue factory. Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.
7 Comments »
brilliant.
you know what i am sick of? band names that incorporate animals. and that even goes for the mountain goats, although it doesn’t affect my love for their music.
out of curiousity, what bands do you think have totally awesome names?
really good post, sam.
Sweet, my band’s in the clear.
I currently play guitar/write for a band called “Dead People Aren’t Planets” and, yet, I entirely agree with this post.
I have never been able to take fIREHOUSE seriously either.
Really enjoyed the article Sam. You are quite witty. Are you sure you’r a poet?
Neenie
Matthew Pate - can you tell me why your band and mine are on each other’s similar artists on Last FM??? I do like your band.
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Comment by arnoldjackson — August 16, 2006 @ 10:41 am
For the record, our own Bryson wholeheartedly agrees with #5. Inside jokes turn into blank stares when you actually try to market the music. Great post.