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Band Names

#21
BlueAliceOasis said:
In Order of name critique:
-What kind of punk would it fit?
-Dammit, I was thinking that. I like the other one though, it sounds cool IMO, and I based it off of Street Fighter.
-I came up with it at a time when I thought band names were allowed (so to say) make no sense.
-I don't even know who Alestorm are.
-I had a feeling, ugh. Lol

Agree with the above. Those names are stupid, but fitting. Stupid names for stupid bands. People should read more.
Click to expand...

The thing about punk is the crowds can be touchy. If you end up with a straight edge audience they might think you are knocking people with disabilities. If you try for the anarchist angle you might need to qualify the name (is it a metaphor for something.) If you try to go main stream punk-light like Green Day, people might let you off with it being just silly. Its kind of an odd name that you might find yourself explaining a lot.
The name is too long, to hard to remember, and you risk getting sued if the name is trademarked. Just avoid it.
Band names should be memorable. Numbers and special characters make the name difficult.
Alestorm is a pirate themed trash metal band.
The Ocean is sort of an atmospheric, proggy, doomy, sort of band. Pretty unique.

The difficulty with band names is that there are a million bands out there. Many are already in use. Do your research before getting hooked on one.
 
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#22
The hardest part of making a band name is not making it cheesy and not being lost for words when someone asks you why you named the band what you named it. Some names are nonsense but they don't sound cheesy and the fans dig it. That's fine. I personally believe in choosing band names that have a meaning even if its just an inside joke kind of meaning. That 20 @ Stalk3r sounds like you made it when you were a kid, therefore cheesy, but hey you tried. I would highly recommend never replacing E with 3 or using smilies or Xxname herexX type stuff or anything like that, it really looks childish imo. Try not to involve trademarked names or anything from video games unless that's definitely for your target audience, you might put off the more serious older crowd. In the end you cant make everyone happy but you also don't want to pick a name that you'll regret in the future. Keep trying, your bound to come up with a good one!
 
#24
Hmm ... like Joe, not sure I've ever taken the time to do this before now. Let's see how it goes:

Past
Redline - '70s & '80's rock cover band, my first "band" in high school
Tim Johnson Band - classic rock cover band, played a few house parties with a friend's band
Kulprit - '70s & '80s rock cover & original band, the majority of my high school time
Nassty - mostly '80s rock cover band, first band out of HS to play in bars and professional clubs (lots of spandex and hair spray in this one)
Bad Apple - '80s & early '90s rock cover band
Streetwise - classic rock cover and originals band, did a bunch of fill-in gigs with this band from Indy while they were playing in the St. Louis area, simultaneous with playing in Bad Apple
Kid Curious - mostly '80s rock cover band, end of the '80s
Three Blind Mice - classic blues and blues rock trio cover band, broke up after about a year when the drummer went mental on us
Ten Tribes - '90s "modern" rock covers and original band, started by a couple of brothers who quarreled a lot
Knucklehead - mostly '80s & '90s hard rock and heavy grunge cover band, found "my sound" in this band
Those1Guys - classic and modern rock cover band; a smokin' trio that played A LOT, and was maybe the best band I've ever played in
Otto's Revenge - original punk rock, recorded with them for their second album and played a couple of shows before I could no longer stand to be in the same room with the singer
BenWahBob - "danceable" classic and modern rock cover band, was in this band for about 7 years in the mid- to late-2000s, very popular local bar band
Knucklehead 2.0 - revamp of earlier band, but I played bass and keyboards now.
Double Ds - classic rock and light country cover band, played a couple of fill-in gigs with them, named because two members names started with D
Just Mr. - classic rock cover band, played several months of fill-in gigs with this very popular local bar band when their bass player was having heart problems around 2010-2011 (he just died last week during another operation)
Poison Apple - modern chick rock and light country cover band, wife of the Just Mr. drummer put together a band that lasted all of about 3 gigs
Incognito - classic rock cover band
RED - Sammy Hagar tribute band based in St. Louis, essentially Incognito with a dedicated keyboard player covering one artist
Nine Lives - REO Speedwagon tribute band, spinoff of RED, same guys
Mean Street - Van Halen tribute band based in St. Louis, I played one gig with them in Decatur IL when their bass player was hospitalized the day before the gig
A.L.I. - classic rock cover band, name is the singer/drummer's initials; when me and the guitar player from RED played with him, we were known as "The B Team"
Rock Bottom - '80s metal cover band, played more fill-in gigs over the years with these guys than I care to admit

Present
Happy Little Trees - acoustic rock trio cover band, I play acoustic bass guitar and cello, great 3-part harmonies with these guys (and yes, named after Bob Ross)
Chickenhead - my heavy funk originals project, just me playing guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards
PJS - my progressive rock originals project, again just me writing and playing all parts
Binary Treadmill - my digital atmospheric music originals project, still all me

There have been a few others over the years with whom I've either played briefly or recorded, and simply can't remember them all.
 
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#25
Drummer wanted to name the band 'Shark Photo' if we couldn't come up with something better (which isn't that hard to do :laugh:.) Proud to say it was I that came up with StarMeetsSea, which has a bit of a situational meaning to us, as well as conjures up an image similar to the music we make ... dark, beautiful, and vast
 
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#26
BlueAliceOasis said:
Tried to find a thread like this, but didn't, so here goes...

For you guys that have played in band s(most of you I would assume), what were the names of your bands? Did your band even have a name or were you guys just the bar band for the night? What motivated these names, what were their sources, etc.

Is genre a factor when it comes to names? Because I've contemplated this and I have a few ideas for names based on genre:


Punk- Children With Scoliosis
Technical Death Metal- Heaven, Hell and Akuma In Between (or Akuma In Between for short), All Of Creation
Alternative Metal- 20 @ Stalk3R (or just 20 At Stalker)
Jazz/R&B-Blue Circle
Prog Metal- BlueAliceOasis or Planetary Coffin
Thrash/Groove Metal- Ale-X
Hard/Prog Rock- Ocean

Just a few I came up with, just was wondering about the rest of you guys.
:bassist::D
Click to expand...


Current gigs. Blues Rock project. "Orbital Decay" This was mostly due to location. We work in / around the NASA and surrounding areas of Houston...
Sub work / prior gig for "Contraaddiction"
Prior Gig Country / Metal band (Sort of Kid Rock ish but less hip hop...) "Powerstud"
Prior Gig. Punk band, "Freedom Gestapo"

Yes Genre has a lot to do with band naming. I seriously doubt you'd go very far with a Jazz trio named "Iron Death Monkey".
 
#27
PaulJSmith said:
Hmm ... like Joe, not sure I've ever taken the time to do this before now. Let's see how it goes:

Past
Redline - '70s & '80's rock cover band, my first "band" in high school
Tim Johnson Band - classic rock cover band, played a few house parties with a friend's band
Kulprit - '70s & '80s rock cover & original band, the majority of my high school time
Nassty - mostly '80s rock cover band, first band out of HS to play in bars and professional clubs (lots of spandex and hair spray in this one)
Bad Apple - '80s & early '90s rock cover band
Streetwise - classic rock cover and originals band, did a bunch of fill-in gigs with this band from Indy while they were playing in the St. Louis area, simultaneous with playing in Bad Apple
Kid Curious - mostly '80s rock cover band, end of the '80s
Three Blind Mice - classic blues and blues rock trio cover band, broke up after about a year when the drummer went mental on us
Ten Tribes - '90s "modern" rock covers and original band, started by a couple of brothers who quarreled a lot
Knucklehead - mostly '80s & '90s hard rock and heavy grunge cover band, found "my sound" in this band
Those1Guys - classic and modern rock cover band; a smokin' trio that played A LOT, and was maybe the best band I've ever played in
Otto's Revenge - original punk rock, recorded with them for their second album and played a couple of shows before I could no longer stand to be in the same room with the singer
BenWahBob - "danceable" classic and modern rock cover band, was in this band for about 7 years in the mid- to late-2000s, very popular local bar band
Knucklehead 2.0 - revamp of earlier band, but I played bass and keyboards now.
Double Ds - classic rock and light country cover band, played a couple of fill-in gigs with them, named because two members names started with D
Just Mr. - classic rock cover band, played several months of fill-in gigs with this very popular local bar band when their bass player was having heart problems around 2010-2011 (he just died last week during another operation)
Poison Apple - modern chick rock and light country cover band, wife of the Just Mr. drummer put together a band that lasted all of about 3 gigs
Incognito - classic rock cover band
RED - Sammy Hagar tribute band based in St. Louis, essentially Incognito with a dedicated keyboard player covering one artist
Nine Lives - REO Speedwagon tribute band, spinoff of RED, same guys
Mean Street - Van Halen tribute band based in St. Louis, I played one gig with them in Decatur IL when their bass player was hospitalized the day before the gig
A.L.I. - classic rock cover band, name is the singer/drummer's initials; when me and the guitar player from RED played with him, we were known as "The B Team"
Rock Bottom - '80s metal cover band, played more fill-in gigs over the years with these guys than I care to admit

Present
Happy Little Trees - acoustic rock trio cover band, I play acoustic bass guitar and cello, great 3-part harmonies with these guys (and yes, named after Bob Ross)
Chickenhead - my heavy funk originals project, just me playing guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards
PJS - my progressive rock originals project, again just me writing and playing all parts
Binary Treadmill - my digital atmospheric music originals project, still all me

There have been a few others over the years with whom I've either played briefly or recorded, and simply can't remember them all.
Click to expand...
I did read Sammy Hagar tribute in there, didn't I? Like... I didn't imagine that, right?
 
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#28
Going back to 1983 to present - with the exception of the first four, these were regularly gigging bands. The first four played school coffee houses and the odd private party at best.

The Who II- Who tribute band (we did four songs total) 1983 (drums)
Indigo Quartz - classic rock and hard rock covers 1983/84 (drums)
Whirlwind - classic roots rock (Stones, CCR, etc) 1984/85 (drums/guitar)
Duran Duran Duran - more of the same 1985/86 (guitar)
Serious Business - more of the same with some top 40 1985/86 (guitar)
<8 year gap, but did sound and subbed for "The Suicide Kings" on occaison - also played in military, police and civilian pipe bands
Thumpthing - '90s grunge covers and originals - 1992-93 (bass)
<6 year gap> ...were quite a few one-offs, shortlived, non gigging or temp sub bands in that time frame - also played in military, police and civilian pipe bands
PUSH - (like RUSH but without the "tail") - '60s british and memphis R&B 1999-2009 (bass then guitar)
LBB - eponymous "band" name; original roots rock - 2007-2009 (bass)
George Stryker and the Bandits (rockabilly/roots covers) - 2009 (bass)
Rusty - classic rock covers - 2009-2010 (guitar)
The Fuzz -> Replay -> Joe Bones -> The Derringers (classic, southern rock, outlaw country, boogie blues) 2009 - present (bass)
Baksheesh Boys (rock covers in Afghanistan) 2011 (bass)
Buckledown - country covers - 2015 (bass)
Freight and Cargo - old timey country covers - 2014-present (pedal steel)
 
#32
Lets see...

I played only in original bands for maybe the first 10 years!!

In high school my first band was death metal "Immense Decay" (from slayer lyrics), and not soon after hooked up with a guitarist and drummer a grade younger than me for a more progressive thrash sound! At first i named the group "Paroxysm" but found a few others with that name so me and the drummer came up with "Deretla"(altered backwards), i still think its a cool name!!;)

After i graduated i played with some older guys in a thrash band named "God Awful"(they were called "Disturbed" in the 80's way before the Chicago group).... That was my 1st "pro" band as we played the best venues in the area!!

Not soon after i started playing in a band called "Vulnerata"(Latin for wounded flesh) in addition to Deretla.

Around 2004 I played in a King Diamond tribute band called "Kid Diamond" and not soon after i started doing cover bands to make some money!!

The first 2 were variety bands "Under the Covers"(i think a cool name!!;)), then "Shelby's Voyage"(after drummer BL Shelby). Then a country band "Stowaway"for about a year before i got in another variety band "Little Willy and the Twerps"(after the singer Bill, a short guy LOL!!)for about 2 1/2 years, it was a fun gig... wedding receptions, outdoor festivals, bar gigs, corporate, etc...about the time I joined this group I briefly played in a thrash band called "A Brutal Confession", wish I would've recorded with them!!

Then i needed more money so i got in a Journey/REO/Styx tribute called "Arch Allies"(named after a tour they all did), beat paying gig up to that point but BL/guitarist was unbearable so i got in my current gig of the last 6 years playing bass for the Army!!

Of course this has gotten old for me as well, alot of the time i play "auxiliary percussion" instead of bass(cymbals, bass drum, etc) so I'm definitely getting out in late 2017! Now i truly miss playing original music and just want a regular job, so thats the plan for now!!:)
 
#35
DirtDog said:
You were in Tokyo Rose?!?! Was Lance still with the band at the time? I went to high school with him.
Click to expand...

Different band. A duo in 1984, over a year before Idle Eyes released the song. We were really quite popular in the pub circuit and played 6 night a week. Idle Eyes is from Vancouver as well and it wouldn't surprise me if he got the idea for the song from seeing our name on the pub signs downtown.
 
#36
Joe Nerve said:
I did read Sammy Hagar tribute in there, didn't I? Like... I didn't imagine that, right?
Click to expand...
Nope, you read it right. I've outed myself here once before, so there's less shame today than you might imagine.
Tribute bands are all the rage around the STL area these days. We held out as long as we could, until we realized the same band playing to 20 people for $400 a gig could play pretty much the same music to 800 people for $2400 a gig ... it was a no-brainer.
A year-and-a-half after I left, they are still playing to big crowds. Sammy is huge (or is that YUUGE) in St. Louis. Always has been.
 
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#38
Current (and first and only band I've played in) is called DNR. We cover 60s & 70s rock, mostly. When we were thinking about a name, one of the guys suggested "Dusty Not Rusty." I hated that, but proposed DNR as an alternative and it's stuck. Everyone thinks it stands for Do Not Resuscitate, but we always say "it stands for whatever you want." There are plenty of DNRs around (though not in our neck of the woods). Mostly bands made up of doctors, lol.

This thread reminds me of one on the old Bass Player forum (may it rest in peace) about band names--it had about 10,000 posts over a lot of years with thousands and thousands of suggested band names.

A good band name is like pornography (to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart)--hard to define but you know it when you see it.
 
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