A Band Named Who?

What’s in a name? Well, it all depends on a number of variables. For instance, what it’s the name of or for.  If it’s your band’s for example (as if that was leading anywhere else), it can be pretty important. But what do you do if you want to or have to change it? Depending on the stage in your career, the consequences can get a little dicey but it often turns out okay.

When Radiohead signed their first contract, the label made them changetheir name from ‘On a Friday’ because it was terrible. Sometimes the change is necessitated by a change in style. The Avett brothers (from the pop-bluegrass band of the same name) changed their name from Nemo when they traded in their pop-punk power chords for banjos. Emerging Brooklyn indie-rockers and Pitchfork.com darlings DIIV changed their name from the phonetic spelling (DIVE) when they became aware of an archaic European avant-garde artist of the same name, whom they developed a great deal of respect for. It isn’t entirely clear that they had to in this case, but 50,000 Facebook fans later, it seems to have worked out. Then you have more whimsical stories, like that of 70s underground folk favorites the Holy Modal Rounders who used a different name every time they performed until someone they didn’t know referred to them as such, so they kept it.

But not all name changes work out as well as these. Many bands have to tack their country’s initials onto the end because they come across competition on the other side of the Atlantic (usually a USA/UK problem), and these tend to lose ground pretty fast. Bob Pollard of Guided by Voices has released albums under at least twenty different names over the years because he was recording five or six (or more) a year and didn’t think fans could keep up (and most couldn’t), but didn’t feel the financial hit until he dropped the flagship moniker after two decades and changed it to Boston Spaceships for reasons no one seems to understand. He wound up having to go back to the old name so he wouldn’t have to quit drinking.

The bottom-line that it’s a common problem that can turn out a number of different ways. The best advice is to Google your name before it’s too late. If it’s already too late, read the follow article to before/while you decide what you’re going to do about it.    

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