July 25, 2025 • 34 mins
What band was named as a tribute to their high school gym coach? Why did The Earwigs change their name to Alice Cooper (hint: it might have something to do with a Oujia board)? And would Chubby Checker have been as popular if he'd taken the name Chubby Chesspiece? Get ready to turn it up to eleven, because Will and Mango are exploring some of the funniest, quirkiest and greatest band names in music history.
This episode originally aired on March 7, 2018.
Photo by Matthew Cheng via Unsplash. Thanks, Matthew!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what, Mango, what's that? Will? So I know we're
both pretty good at celebrating each other's accomplishments. But I
do have to admit there's one thing you have on
your resume that I've honestly always been a little jealous of.
You have a band named after you, Mango.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I mean, that's a bit of a stretch.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I don't think it's a stretch at all, all right,
So our listeners will know. When we were in college,
Mango was playing the keyboards and a band that a
few of our closest friends had started. Well, this also
happened to be around the time we were trying to
start Mental Floss, and Mango realized there just weren't enough
hours in the day. So, fortunately for all future fans
of Mental Floss and even part time genius, Mango decided
(00:40):
to keep working on our new venture, and he dropped
out of the band. Now, this was also around the
time that the band was just starting to get a
few more gigs, and I mean some of their shows
were getting I don't know, what would you say, Mango,
like tens of people in the audience.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It was at least ten.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
It was impressive, but they needed to settle on a name,
so they decided to simultaneously honor and throw a little
bit of a friendly jab at Mango by calling the
group Minus Mango.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Well I'm not sure honor is the right term for that.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, either way, the band ran with it, and they
had a short but fun run. And I've even heard
the band inspired some songs like I think it was
meatloafs I would do anything for love and shares believe
if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, I mean, there's only one problem with that theory, Will,
And actually there's several problems with that, the main one
being that it's not true, but the other being that
both those songs came out well before the band formed.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well, I just think that's what makes it so impressive.
I mean, that is really remarkable. But anyway, we're not
here to talk about Minus Mango today. We're here to
talk about the origins of some other band names and
maybe even create a little hall of fame of great
and terrible band names. So let's get started, Hey, their
(02:11):
podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson,
and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangeshot
Ticket and on the other side of that Soundproof Glass
rocking a T shirt for his favorite mashup cover band, Mango.
I don't know if you'd heard of this one before.
I had not. It's called Beatallica. Anyway, that's our friend
and producer Tristan and McNeil, and you know, Beatles songs
(02:32):
covered in the style of Metallica. It's not something you'd
expect to work, but Tristan played me a few tracks
earlier and I've honestly got to say I really kind
of dug it.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, I mean, the way they blended Blackbird with Fade
to Black is pretty masterful. That My favorite probably is
still All you Need is Blood.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
I mean, it really says it all, don't you say.
But anyway, as funny or clever as cover band names
and song titles can be, the stories behind them are
usually not all that interesting. I mean, by definition, they're
pulled from or at least made in reference to existing
works by other artists, and all the origin stories for
the names of original bands tend to be a lot
(03:11):
more interesting. Even that's not a sure thing. I mean,
take the Beatles, for example. They've definitely earned their place
in the rock and Roll Hall of fame, But in
the band name hall of fame, I really don't think
they belong there. I mean, they took the name of
an insect and kind of turned it into this obvious
pun on musical beats, and so it doesn't tell you
anything about the group or the kind of music they play,
(03:32):
and honestly, worst of all, there's no hidden meaning or
interesting story behind it at all.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
So for today's show, we're gonna set aside the artist
and their work and really focus instead on what they
chose to call themselves. Even bad band names are on
the table, just as long as the stories behind them
are strange or interesting.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, and I thought we could do this like we
did a while back in that episode where we tried
to assemble our own version of Mount Rushmore. And of
course it was so much fun to hear from all
the listeners with ideas of what other presidents we should
include on Mount Rushmore and why. So we're kind of
doing the same thing here. We'll each pitch some of
the best band name origins that we had, you know,
come across while researching and kind of gradually fill out
(04:13):
our Hall of Fame. And you know, the one thing
we noticed while preparing for this episode is how many
band names fall into similar categories, whether that's band's name
for literary works or band's name for TV shows. So
we'll try to limit our picks to one per category
so that we end up with a pretty good mix
of origins. So, all right, Mango, I'm gonna leave it
up to you. Where do you think we should start?
Speaker 3 (04:34):
So I was thinking about this, and I think we
should start with band names inspired by history, because those were,
you know, some of the most interesting to me and
also some of the hardest to choose from. So a
few are pretty well known at this point. I mean
you think about like Franz Ferdinand, which takes its name
from the archduke whose assassination led to World War One,
Or there were lots of other ones I knew that
(04:54):
were taken from history, Like did you know that U
two was actually named after a spy plane currently You
two's were used to monitor the Soviets in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
You know, I've heard of this term before, but actually didn't.
I didn't realize that, but I guess it makes sense
though a lot of You two songs contain, you know,
references to political and historical events. And actually I was
just thinking about one the other days. Isn't Sunday Bloody
Sunday about the gorilla warfare in Northern Ireland?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
It is?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Actually have you watched that Alan Partridge episode where Steve
Coogan's like a total buffoon and he's talking about this
inspiration for the song and he's like, it's just so relatable,
like when you're in line at Tesco's and you just
think Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Maybe that actually is the origin. I'm not sure. That's
pretty good.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
But what's funny to me though, is that the band
really didn't choose you two to make any sort of
political statement, Like they went with it because it sounded
ambiguous and also I guess inclusive, like you know the
phrase you two. And also it was just more interesting
than their earlier names, like they started out as Feedback
in nineteen seventy six before switching to the Hype and
then U two within the span.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Of two years. Yeah, it's funny because I found another
band that couldn't seem to settle on a name until
they stumbled upon an historical one. So you remember Jethro Toll, right,
m hm well, they had a hit with that song
Aqualong in the early seventies, and apparently Jethro Toll was
a real person, just not a member of the band.
He was actually this English agricultural pioneer who played this
(06:24):
pretty pivotal role in bringing about the British agricultural revolution
in the early eighteenth century. And so his biggest claim
to fame was the invention of a horse drawn seed
drill to easily sew seeds in orderly rows, which really
laid the groundwork for modern agriculture.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
That's just so rock and roll, you said. The band
just happened upon that name.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, So, in the band's early days, they had this
habit of making up a new name for every single
gig because their performances were so spotty and most places
didn't book them a second time. So after about seriously
like four something name changes, the group finally hit on
this unexpected winner with their homage to an eighteenth century agronomist.
You know, that's the way it goes.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
That's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Well, but agricultural roots aside. My favorite band name with
an historical origin probably has to be Foo Fighters.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
So this is strange, right, because I consider myself something
of a history buff. I actually won mister Zippy's History
Award in tenth grade. But I have no idea what
part of history that could possibly come from, like where
the Foo Fighters, Genghis Khans, elite bodyguards or something.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Not even close. It actually comes from the tail end
of World War Two, and this is when the Allied
pilots began reporting some sightings of these mysterious German aircraft
and they really couldn't be identified, and so the pilots
took to calling these UFOs foo Fighters. And when frontman
Dave Grohl came across the nickname he was reading a
book about UFOs, he actually just decided it was perfect
(07:53):
for his new band.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
So did he ever elaborate on what made it sound
so perfect to him?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Well, girl actually cour of the entire first Food Fighters
album all by himself, but he kind of wanted everybody
to think it was the work of a proper group,
and for whatever reason, he thought a World War two
term for UFOs would lead people to assume there was
more than just one man behind this music.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
That's pretty funny reasoning.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
So you know, I read this history article of Nirvana
where the guys would always apparently remind Dave Grohl that
he wasn't in the first iteration of the band. So,
I mean, it's kind of like telling Ringo he wasn't
an original Beatle, just over and over, and I feel
awful for him, But you know why, food fighters like
he could have.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Chosen any word that was a plural noun.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Well, you know, girl apparently came to a similar conclusion
because later he said in an interview, he said, had
I actually considered this to be a career, I probably
would have called it something else because it's the stupidest
effing band name in the world.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
So I almost kind of want to add it to
our list just for that reason. But really, if we're
going to narrow it down to a single band per category,
I think we have.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
To give this to the Decembrius.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Okay, So I know their songs tend to be very
literary and sometimes recount or maybe pull from historical events.
And I do remember a little bit about the Decembers
from a Russian history class I took years and years ago.
But I think I need a little bit of a refresher.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Right, So the historical Decembris, whose spelling actually is different
from the month in the band because it doesn't actually
have a third e in it. They were this group
of Russian revolutionaries who led almost a failed uprising in
the December of eighteen twenty five, and so the group
was composed mostly of these young Russian officers and also
members of the upper classes who they wanted to reform
(09:42):
the autocratic government into more of a liberal system. And
they actually took advantage of the chaos surrounding the death
of one tzar and the sension of another to stage rebellion.
But because it had been so poorly organized, their revolution
was quickly put to an end, and their hope of
overturning an oppressive system has really only lived on. With
martyred December is now serving almost as a source of
(10:02):
inspiration for new generations of Russian rebels.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So is that actually where the band name comes from.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yeah, so that's the thing it does, and it doesn't. So,
according to the band's frontman, Colin Molloy, the name's partly
derived from the Russian freedom fighters and partly from the
month of December itself.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I mean, it feels like you might be cheating a
little on this one, Mango. It's only a half reference
to history, So why do you feel like it deserves
a spot on our list because.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
This is the only historical band name we've mentioned where
the reference wasn't chosen at random. So with the December
is there's actually this real thematic connection between the band's
name and its music. And as Colin molloy puts it, quote,
I like to think that the drama behind the month
of December, there's a group of people who that is
their month and they're sort of stuck in this month,
(10:48):
And I think that sort of speaks to the songs
and the characters and the songs sort of marginalized, sort
of on the outskirts, all living in the coldest month.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Well that is pretty interesting, But actually, didn't you say
the real Decembers were from the nobility. It kind of
doesn't sound like they were marginalized people living on the
outskirts as he was describing.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, so they were definitely a minority in terms of
openly opposing the system that ruled them. And once their
rebellion was sort of stifled, the Decembrists became well and
truly marginalized. Most of the surviving members were sent off
to remote work camps in Siberia, where their descendants still
eke out a living even though they brought education and
culture with them to that land.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Well all right, well it's not the cheeriest historical connection,
but but you're right, it certainly seems like one of
the deepest. And because of that, I agree, and I'll
give it to you. The Decembrists deserved the first spot
in our band name Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Ding ding Dings, So they probably don't know it, but
that's a huge honor. And since it took us a
while to decide on that first entry, I actually have
a category that we can probably knock out pretty fast,
and that's best band named acronym that isn't actually an acronym.
And remember ARIM is disqualified from this one because it
really is an acronym and it stands for rabbit eye movement.
(12:01):
Apparently Michael Stipe just cribbed it from the dictionary after
pointing to the word at random.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, probably the laziest way to come up with a
band name, but you do hear that happening a lot, right, Well,
I guess my pick for this one would be kiss.
I would think, you know, everybody's heard the rumors that
the name secretly stands for something sinister. I remember hearing
as a kid that it stood for things like kids
in Satan's service. But you know, according to Jane Simmons,
the name doesn't stand for anything and was simply just this,
(12:27):
like this idle suggestion from one band member to another.
And it was it was Paul Stanley that came up
with this, And he's actually gone on record that he
chose the name Kiss because it quote just sounded dangerous
and sexy at the same time.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I mean, I guess you can't argue with the results,
or I guess you can actually, but.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm sure some people found them sexy and others dangerous.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I think my sister would be included in that category.
I know I've told you this before, but my sister
is a few years older than I am, so when
I was little, I would sneak into her room and
to her music. But i'd also, of course go through
all of her stuff. And one of the things I
remember finding was this shoe box, and it was full
of these Kiss trading.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Cards, kiss ianthing.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
It's hilarious to look at it. I really wish she
still had.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
These and that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
But you know, for my money, the best faw acronym
band name is still wasp Oh.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I remember them. So they were a heavy metal band
and back in it was this seven. I guess this
was the eighties, right, And I can't believe that's not
actually an acronyman. They even put a period between each
of the letters.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
I know, I mean, I guess it's from the era
where you'd put gratuitous like umlots and nonsense and names
like wing dings and whatever. But supposedly it was just
because not many other bands had done it at that time,
and they hoped it would make them stand out and
get people curious about the band. But just like Kiss,
rumors swirled that the acronyms did for all sorts of
naughty stuff, like we are sexual perverts, we are Satan's preachers,
(13:54):
we all smoke pot. But my favorite red herring of
that lot is an answer that one of the band
members gave when he was doing an interview, and he said,
you know, they asked what does was stand for?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
He said, we ain't sure, pal.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Oh, I like that. There's some pretty good ones there,
all right, So the periods were just a marketing technique.
But what about the name itself, I mean, does it
stand for anything or like, why WASP?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
I guess one of the band members saw wasp one
night and thought it might make for a cool band name.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
All right, Well, I guess you kind of stacked the
deck with this category, but I'm still gonna give you
this one as well for WASP, so we will add
them to the list here.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Which is awesome because I'm two for two and I
don't think you have any points on the board.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Right No, but don't don't get too cocky. We've still
got a bunch of origins to get to and I
really doubt you're gonna be able top this next one.
But before I hit you with it, let's take a
quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're
(15:01):
talking about the weird stories behind famous band names, all right, mango.
So now our Hall of Fame needs to be the
best story for a band name taken from a TV
show or movie. It can be either one, and I
actually think I've got the perfect contender. Now. At first
I thought about fallout Boy, you know, because I'm always
thinking about Fallout Boy, or maybe not, but you know,
(15:21):
They've been this nameless band until they pulled the audience
at their second show and someone in the crowd shouted
out the name of Radioactive Man's superhero sidekick from The Simpsons,
and it actually just sort of stuck.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
That's amazing, that's where it comes from.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yeah, it's a pretty good story. So but actually then
I thought I'd go with something a little more obscure,
and that's what led me to the Bloodhound Gang. Do
you remember the Bloodhound Gang?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yeah? I mean I wish I didn't, because they had
that annoying song bad Touch, and the video of it
was just them in monkey costumes running around town and
I guess doing weird, dirty things to everyone inside.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I don't know. It was just art mango. I don't
know why you don't want to remember that. Well, there
is something interesting I found out about that when you
talk about them running around doing weird and dirty things
to everything in the video, And honestly, that's that the
Bloodhound Gang was actually a lot more wholesome than you
might think, or or at least their name was. And
that's because the band took it from this recurring sketch
that was on the old three to one Contact show
(16:18):
the Way from PBS in the eighties. I know you
were a big fan as a kid, definitely. Well, the
sketch was all about this group of dorky kids called
the Bloodhound Gang, and so they'd get together and try
to solve these crimes using math puzzles, and that's where
they got the name.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
That's pretty funny that, you know, such a raunchy bend
would take their name from kids program. But uh, you know,
even though three two one Contact Magazine was actually a
huge influence on me in mental fluss. Seriously, I'm I'm
still not sure I want those guys in our Hall
of fame.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Oh wow, I guess that video did a number on you.
But all right, I do agree with you. No Bloodhound
Gang allowed, So we got to come up with another one.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So what sort of slammed on entry do you have
for TVA movies?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, that would be a little band I like to
call exclamation Point, exclamation Point, exclamation point, or as fans
have wisely decided to call them, Chickchick Chick. Yeah, of course.
So they're this post punk funk group out of Sacramento,
and they actually took their unusual name from the nineteen
eighty South African comedy The Gods Must Be Crazy. You
(17:20):
remember this movie, right.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
So for listeners who haven't seen it, it's about this
remote African tribe that lives in peace until they find
a coke bottle that falls out of an airplane and
they all start fighting over it. And you know, it's
a funny movie. But I have tomit. I don't know
what it has to do with those three exclamation points.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Well, in the movie, the Bushman Shoshin language was subtitled
as a series of exclamation points, and the band liked
this idea of using that to refer to a different
kind of sound, you know, one that's hard to categorize,
And I guess that's how they viewed their own music now,
because the bush language sometimes sounds a lot like clicking sounds.
I guess you know, the most common pronunciation is chickchick, chick.
(18:00):
But according to the band, the intention was for people
to use any three repetitive sounds and they could just
choose them, so you could call the band bam bam
bam or pow pow pow, and you know, you technically
still be talking about the same band. I can give
you other examples example, that's.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Right, all right, Well, I think you sold me on
Chick Chick Chick, and that's gonna get my vote. But
I have a feeling this next category is going to
be a bit more hotly contested, and it's the best
band name for somebody who isn't in the band.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Oh yeah, there's a bunch of good examples for this vote. Actually.
For instance, you you know Alice Cooper, right, mm hmm. Well,
the band was originally called the Earwigs, but after playing
around with a Wuiji board, it put him in touch
with a ghost name Alice Cooper, so they decided to
switch to that instead.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So I love that Wuiji board story.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
But you know what's weird is that I didn't even
know Alice Cooper was a band, Like I thought it
was just the one guy.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well not at first. There was the guy that ended
up taking the name, and it was the front man.
His real name was Vincent Fernier. But after he split
off from the band, he went solo and he actually
ended up just taking the name Alice with him.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Well, I mean that is pretty cool, but you know,
I prefer bands named after real people, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
And that's why my pick for this category is Pink Floyd.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
No way is that they have a real person.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, it's actually the name of two real people.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
So you know, one of the band's founding members, the
legendary said Barrett came up with idea for combining the
names of two of his favorite blues musicians, and that's
Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Oh wow, I had no idea about that, all right,
but that does mean if I'm not mistaken that Anderson
Council would still be on the table then.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Right, definitely.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
So for any nameless bands out there, here's the answer
you've been looking for, all right, Well, I have.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
To give it to you. Pink Floyd is a two
for with that double homage, and that is tough to beat.
But I have one I've been saving, and I think
I want to give the edge to, you know, to
my Alabama brothers Leonard SKINNERD.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I mean, aren't they from Florida?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Details details name.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
I mean in terms of fake sounding names like Leonard SKINNERD, Like,
no real name has that many?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Wise?
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Right, how many times I've written it? I don't know
how many times I've actually written it, but I never
can seem to get it right. But you might have
a point, because you know, while the band did take
their name in honor of their real life gem teacher
and basketball coach, they also tweaked it a little to
sound a little bit more interesting. So the real guy's
name was Leonard Skinner, and after the band made him
(20:26):
their namesake, Skinner reconnected with his old pupils and actually
even m seed one of their shows. But really, though,
the band might have been better off just sticking with
Leonard Skinner, because you know, their name was just so
hard to remember how to spell, and the misspelled version
they went on was just so phonetically confusing that even
their self titled debut album, it had this little pronunciation. Guy,
(20:47):
I don't know if you've seen this before, but on
the cover of the album to help people know how
to pronounce it, you know, just to be safe.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
That's ridiculous. Okay, so I guess you're two for two.
I'm gonna give that one to you.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
But this next category I think is all mine because
I found the all time best band name inspired by
another artist, and it belongs to none other than the
man who taught the world to do the twist, mister
Chubby Checker.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Oh wow, So who inspired Chubby Checker's name.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
So apparently it's a riff on the name of fellow
musician and near contemporary Fats Domino. Yeah, but the first
person to ever call Ernest Evans by the name Chubby
Checker was actually Dick Clark's wife, and they met when
Chubby appeared on Dick Clark's American Bandstand in nineteen sixty
and during the recording, Chubby launched into this impression of
Fats Domino, And afterwards he told missus Clark that his
(21:34):
friends actually called him Chubby, and she smiled and said
as in Checker, and he just kind of liked it
so much that he used it as a stage name
from then on.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
You know, this is one of those that, in hindsight
you think that Fats Domino and Chubby Checker, it seems obvious,
but I actually had never made that connection before. All right,
so I will concede this when Chubby Checker should have
a spot in the band Name Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Well, I'm glad you're on board, because I really like
that one, and it just kind of lines up perfectly
with an article I read about the science of choosing
the perfect band name.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Oh, I definitely want to hear more about this, but
first let's take a quick break, all right, mango, So
it's time to spill it. What is the secret to
coming up with a truly top shelf band name?
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Well, if we've shown anything today, it's that memorable band
names come from all different places.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Some are homages to real life events and people. Others
are nonsense words or appealing phrases crib for media or
other musicians. And some names come in sudden flashes of inspiration.
I mean, others just seem to be whatever a drummer
happened to be looking at at the time. And there's
really no one fixed approach that works. But there actually
do seem to be some linguistic patterns that crop up
(22:54):
among the best band names.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
All right, So what do you mean by patterns?
Speaker 3 (22:58):
So, just on a basic level, most compelling band names
have something unusual about them. So you know, you think
about like the Grateful Dead or the Flaming Lips, and
those are just these unexpected word combinations that you find
together and when you hear them, they kind of grab
your attention. But there's also this other factor that's more
cultural than linguistic, and what's that. So this might sound
(23:19):
a little strange, but it comes down to the way
people connect words and names that belong to a certain category. So,
for example, like think about something the naming patterns for cars, right,
two big ones that might come up are fast moving animals.
You've got things like the Jaguar, the Mustang, even the viper,
And also astronomical figures, so like turists or mercury, nova, Saturn, Subaru. Like,
(23:42):
at this point, we're kind of so used to these
recurring patterns and carnons that any words that fit into
that genre like that rings true to us.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Is a good name for a car?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
That's yeah, that's true definitely, But so are you're saying
that the same kind of thing happens with band names.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Totally, But this isn't something I recognized on my own.
It's actually the theory of this linguist named Chilu. And
one important thing she points out in her research is
that these cultural associations that we create for categories of
names are always changing over time. So here's actually a
quote from her article in Jay Store where she lays
out some of these generational patterns of music, she writes.
(24:19):
Quote short names beginning with the and a common noun
is an obvious pattern from the mid twentieth century. We've
got the beetles, the monkeys, the animals, the Kanks, and
that scene a revival in recent times. The heavy metal
genre is one of the classes with more obvious linguistic patterns,
usually involving death, so Megadeth's Layer, of course, and other
(24:39):
perils such as dangerous animals, white snake weapons, guns n' roses,
iron Maiden, or sometimes drugs and unhealthy substances poison.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
All Right, so I guess it does make sense. Like
when you were talking about Chubby Checker before, it lines
up pretty well with this idea of these these naming patterns. Obviously,
in this case, it was picking a name that wasn't
too far off from somebody else's, you know, Fats Domino
in this case. And so he kind of found that
ultimate shortcut to making a recognizable band name.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Right, And I mean that seems to be like the
cardinal rule of rock and roll, where the music's always derivative, right,
Like it's always pulling from the blues. So why shouldn't
been naming conventions be derivative? As well just copy the
other guys.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, it's a good point and it does seem to
work all right. Well, I wanted to come back to
some of these other names, but I'm not sure if
you experienced this, but in doing the research, there were
definitely a ton of fun band name origins that they
kind of don't fit into a particular category. I feel
like we should take a little bit of time to
just throw out a few wildcard entries for our band
name Hall of Fame. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
It's perfect.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
So I've actually been dying to talk about Dexy's Midnight Runners,
and I don't think there's any other way I could
work them in.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, it sounds like kind of a tough sell, So
I have to admit, who are they exactly?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
So you might remember them as the British band they
gave us the eighties hit song come On Eileen.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
No, I definitely don't remember them as that. I mean,
of course I remember the song that I couldn't have
told you who sung it.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Well, either way, their naming situation is basically the exact
opposite of what happened with the Bloodhound Gangs. So instead
of being like a raunchy band with an innocent name.
The Dexi's Midnight Runners were I guess, like a squeaky
clean band with a highly suspect name.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That sounds pretty funny, but I think you're gonna have
to walk me through because I honestly have no clue
what a Dexi's Midnight Runner is.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Okay, So the band openly admitted that the Dexi's part
of their name comes from a you know, a stimulant
called dexa Dream and this was popular among soul music
fans in Northern England during the seventies, and the Midnight
Runners part that refers to the users who used the
drug as a way to dance all night long.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Oh wow, so so, but you said these guys were
like a squeaky.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Clean band totally.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
So they were completely sober and they didn't even have
alcohol at any of the shows.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Oh wow, that's pretty bizarre. But that's great, all right. Well,
I think my wild card pick is an oldie but
a goodie, and that would be the one and only
led Zeppelin. You can kind of think of this as
the Yankee Doodle Award for our Hall of Fame because,
just like in that song, the name led Zeppelin has
its origins in something that was originally intended as an insult.
So the story goes that The Who's Keith Moon was
(27:10):
actually invited to drum for this new London band, but
ended up being so unimpressed with the other members and
he mockingly predicted that they would quote go down like
a lead balloon. So then John Entwhistle basis for The Who,
went even further than that, and he remarked that the
new band would be such a colossal failure that it
would be more like a led Zeppelin.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Which is pretty harsh but also kind of clever.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah, it was, but maybe as clever as that. When
the insult made its way back to Jimmy Page and
his manager, they actually thought it was so funny that
they decided to make it the official band name, though
only after dropping the A from lead, and the whole
reason was to, you know, to keep Americans from mispronouncing
it as lead Zeppelin.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
So I don't know what I should be impressed by
how much they cared about preserving like that lead balloon joke.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
At all costs.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
I guess insulted by how little they thought of American intelligence.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I don't know. I sort of think it was a
smart call. I mean, you remember the pronunciation guide I
mentioned about Leonard Skinner, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Of course, And I guess I understand that desire to
make sure your name comes across as intended, because the
name a band goes with can have this major impact
on a musician's career, didnerring everything from their radio exposure
to merchandise design to you know, what kind of people
will actually listen to the songs. And even after the
music stops and the spotlight shifts to someone else, a
(28:32):
good name can still keep a band afloat in the
cultural site, guys, so long as there's an interesting story
about where it came from.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh yeah, I mean I think you're absolutely right. I
was actually this close to talk about Hoody and the
Blowfish today and Mango. It's twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Well, you haven't missed your opportunity yet.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
It's time for the fact off and there's still a
few empty spots left to talk about band names.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
All right, Well, dust off your Blowfish, Hoody, you're coming in.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
So I'm going to start us off.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
And I love it when bands named themselves after songs
from other bands, as somewhat of a tribute, and that's
actually how Radiohead got their name. When they first formed
in the mid eighties, they were known as on a Friday,
which was the day that they got together to practice.
But then five or six years later, when they signed
with EMI, they actually changed their name to Radiohead as
a tribute to the Talking Heads and their nineteen eighty
six song Radiohead.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
You know, something similar actually happened with the Rolling Stones.
So Jagger and Richards first formed the band back in
the early sixties, and at that point they were called
the Blue Boys. But the story goes that during an
interview with this jazz focused newspaper, guitarist Brian Jones spotted
this Muddy Waters record. It was just sitting there on
the floor where he was doing the interview, and it
(29:47):
made him think about that song Rolling Stone from the
same album, and that's where they got the name.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
That's really cool.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
So, you know, having played in a band in high
school or several bands in high school, I love stories
of groups that you know, met hiss kids and kept
performing together. And another one of those was a group
that came together in the nineties out of Cleveland. They
were just in junior high school when they started rapping together,
and one day Anthony Crazy Bone Henderson had this minor
crash on his moped, and in somewhat of an act
(30:15):
of solidarity, the group all spored bandages and they started
calling themselves the band Aid Boys, And while that name
didn't stick, we now know them as Bone Thugs and Harmony.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
You know, I also think it's fun when bands don't
seem to actually remember their origin, or at least there
are competing stories for origins. And one of these where
I saw so many different stories on this was Pearl Jam,
and so I won't share all of them. But there
have been some claims that the band name was inspired
by Eddie Vedder's great grandmother Pearl, who apparently made this
famous peote jam. I don't know if this is true enough.
(30:46):
And I thought that was pretty funny, and then it
ranges to the much less interesting. You know, one of
them that they just liked the word pearl and then
they added jam to it because that's what a group
of musicians do. So I think I'm gonna stick with
the great grandmother story. It just seems so much more
fun to believe.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, I like that a lot.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Well, I know, we're not really focusing on cover bands,
but there's one that's kind of a cover band but
also kind of a weirdly inspired band called Austrian Death Machine,
and apparently they sing entirely in the style of Arnold Schwarzenegger,
and all their songs are from some of his famous
one liners. So you know, like it's not a tumor,
which you can actually find on the band's first album,
(31:22):
Total Brutal, which is right, that's actually the first album's name.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Oh, just the first album. Wow, this band is something else.
I would imagine that's one of those shows that you're like,
this is gonna be so hilarious, and for the first
five minutes it's so hilarious, and then it's just torture
from that point on. All right, Mango, I don't want
to disappoint anybody, because we promised to include Hoody and
the Blowfish, and I'm here to deliver. I'm not sure
that we actually did promise, but we said Hoody and
(31:47):
the Blowfish.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
We promised, we did.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
We promised Hoody. But you know, I think most people
assume that the frontman Darius Rucker was Hoody and that
his supporting band members were the Blowfish. But it actually
turns out that he's kind of both, or at least
both names came from people that Darius went to school with.
So one was this kid they called Hoodie because I
guess he kind of looked like an owl. And there
(32:10):
was a separate classmate that had these puffed up cheeks
and was nicknamed Blowfish. So I'm not sure why they
decided to combine these two, and I kind of want
to see pictures of these guys. It just would make
for an interesting story. But it seemed to work. And
I've actually got an equally important fact because just recently
a friend reminded me that in our high school yearbook
(32:32):
there was a photo of me playing basketball in a game,
and for some reason, when I was dribbling, I would
do this thing where I'd blow out my cheeks like
a blowfish, you know, kind of like Jordan's tongue, but
much less cool and much less effective.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Of course, when you weren't dunking.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
When I wasn't dunking, that's what I was doing. And anyway,
I was doing that in this photo, and the capture
under it said Willie and the Blowfish. So how about
that Mango? Pretty good.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Well, I feel like you deserved today's trophy just based
on that story alone.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Thank you very much, and thank you guys for listening.
I know we must have left out so many great
origin stories of band names, so please let us hear
those from. You can always email us part Time Genius
at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can also call us on
our twenty four to seven fact hotline one eight four
four pt Genius, or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.
But thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening.
(33:37):
Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works
and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do
the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Christa McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing. Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing.
Gabe Lozier is our lead researcher, with support from the
Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
And Eve Jeff Go gets the show to your ears.
Good job, Eves.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe.
And if you really, really like what you've heard. Maybe
you could leave a good review for us.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Do we do we forget Jason?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Jason who
Guess what, Mango, what's that? Will? So I know we're
both pretty good at celebrating each other's accomplishments. But I
do have to admit there's one thing you have on
your resume that I've honestly always been a little jealous of.
You have a band named after you, Mango.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I mean, that's a bit of a stretch.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I don't think it's a stretch at all, all right,
So our listeners will know. When we were in college,
Mango was playing the keyboards and a band that a
few of our closest friends had started. Well, this also
happened to be around the time we were trying to
start Mental Floss, and Mango realized there just weren't enough
hours in the day. So, fortunately for all future fans
of Mental Floss and even part time genius, Mango decided
(00:40):
to keep working on our new venture, and he dropped
out of the band. Now, this was also around the
time that the band was just starting to get a
few more gigs, and I mean some of their shows
were getting I don't know, what would you say, Mango,
like tens of people in the audience.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It was at least ten.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
It was impressive, but they needed to settle on a name,
so they decided to simultaneously honor and throw a little
bit of a friendly jab at Mango by calling the
group Minus Mango.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Well I'm not sure honor is the right term for that.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, either way, the band ran with it, and they
had a short but fun run. And I've even heard
the band inspired some songs like I think it was
meatloafs I would do anything for love and shares believe
if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, I mean, there's only one problem with that theory, Will,
And actually there's several problems with that, the main one
being that it's not true, but the other being that
both those songs came out well before the band formed.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well, I just think that's what makes it so impressive.
I mean, that is really remarkable. But anyway, we're not
here to talk about Minus Mango today. We're here to
talk about the origins of some other band names and
maybe even create a little hall of fame of great
and terrible band names. So let's get started, Hey, their
(02:11):
podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson,
and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangeshot
Ticket and on the other side of that Soundproof Glass
rocking a T shirt for his favorite mashup cover band, Mango.
I don't know if you'd heard of this one before.
I had not. It's called Beatallica. Anyway, that's our friend
and producer Tristan and McNeil, and you know, Beatles songs
(02:32):
covered in the style of Metallica. It's not something you'd
expect to work, but Tristan played me a few tracks
earlier and I've honestly got to say I really kind
of dug it.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, I mean, the way they blended Blackbird with Fade
to Black is pretty masterful. That My favorite probably is
still All you Need is Blood.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
I mean, it really says it all, don't you say.
But anyway, as funny or clever as cover band names
and song titles can be, the stories behind them are
usually not all that interesting. I mean, by definition, they're
pulled from or at least made in reference to existing
works by other artists, and all the origin stories for
the names of original bands tend to be a lot
(03:11):
more interesting. Even that's not a sure thing. I mean,
take the Beatles, for example. They've definitely earned their place
in the rock and Roll Hall of fame, But in
the band name hall of fame, I really don't think
they belong there. I mean, they took the name of
an insect and kind of turned it into this obvious
pun on musical beats, and so it doesn't tell you
anything about the group or the kind of music they play,
(03:32):
and honestly, worst of all, there's no hidden meaning or
interesting story behind it at all.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
So for today's show, we're gonna set aside the artist
and their work and really focus instead on what they
chose to call themselves. Even bad band names are on
the table, just as long as the stories behind them
are strange or interesting.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, and I thought we could do this like we
did a while back in that episode where we tried
to assemble our own version of Mount Rushmore. And of
course it was so much fun to hear from all
the listeners with ideas of what other presidents we should
include on Mount Rushmore and why. So we're kind of
doing the same thing here. We'll each pitch some of
the best band name origins that we had, you know,
come across while researching and kind of gradually fill out
(04:13):
our Hall of Fame. And you know, the one thing
we noticed while preparing for this episode is how many
band names fall into similar categories, whether that's band's name
for literary works or band's name for TV shows. So
we'll try to limit our picks to one per category
so that we end up with a pretty good mix
of origins. So, all right, Mango, I'm gonna leave it
up to you. Where do you think we should start?
Speaker 3 (04:34):
So I was thinking about this, and I think we
should start with band names inspired by history, because those were,
you know, some of the most interesting to me and
also some of the hardest to choose from. So a
few are pretty well known at this point. I mean
you think about like Franz Ferdinand, which takes its name
from the archduke whose assassination led to World War One,
Or there were lots of other ones I knew that
(04:54):
were taken from history, Like did you know that U
two was actually named after a spy plane currently You
two's were used to monitor the Soviets in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
You know, I've heard of this term before, but actually didn't.
I didn't realize that, but I guess it makes sense
though a lot of You two songs contain, you know,
references to political and historical events. And actually I was
just thinking about one the other days. Isn't Sunday Bloody
Sunday about the gorilla warfare in Northern Ireland?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
It is?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Actually have you watched that Alan Partridge episode where Steve
Coogan's like a total buffoon and he's talking about this
inspiration for the song and he's like, it's just so relatable,
like when you're in line at Tesco's and you just
think Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Maybe that actually is the origin. I'm not sure. That's
pretty good.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
But what's funny to me though, is that the band
really didn't choose you two to make any sort of
political statement, Like they went with it because it sounded
ambiguous and also I guess inclusive, like you know the
phrase you two. And also it was just more interesting
than their earlier names, like they started out as Feedback
in nineteen seventy six before switching to the Hype and
then U two within the span.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Of two years. Yeah, it's funny because I found another
band that couldn't seem to settle on a name until
they stumbled upon an historical one. So you remember Jethro Toll, right,
m hm well, they had a hit with that song
Aqualong in the early seventies, and apparently Jethro Toll was
a real person, just not a member of the band.
He was actually this English agricultural pioneer who played this
(06:24):
pretty pivotal role in bringing about the British agricultural revolution
in the early eighteenth century. And so his biggest claim
to fame was the invention of a horse drawn seed
drill to easily sew seeds in orderly rows, which really
laid the groundwork for modern agriculture.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
That's just so rock and roll, you said. The band
just happened upon that name.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, So, in the band's early days, they had this
habit of making up a new name for every single
gig because their performances were so spotty and most places
didn't book them a second time. So after about seriously
like four something name changes, the group finally hit on
this unexpected winner with their homage to an eighteenth century agronomist.
You know, that's the way it goes.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
That's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Well, but agricultural roots aside. My favorite band name with
an historical origin probably has to be Foo Fighters.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
So this is strange, right, because I consider myself something
of a history buff. I actually won mister Zippy's History
Award in tenth grade. But I have no idea what
part of history that could possibly come from, like where
the Foo Fighters, Genghis Khans, elite bodyguards or something.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Not even close. It actually comes from the tail end
of World War Two, and this is when the Allied
pilots began reporting some sightings of these mysterious German aircraft
and they really couldn't be identified, and so the pilots
took to calling these UFOs foo Fighters. And when frontman
Dave Grohl came across the nickname he was reading a
book about UFOs, he actually just decided it was perfect
(07:53):
for his new band.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
So did he ever elaborate on what made it sound
so perfect to him?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Well, girl actually cour of the entire first Food Fighters
album all by himself, but he kind of wanted everybody
to think it was the work of a proper group,
and for whatever reason, he thought a World War two
term for UFOs would lead people to assume there was
more than just one man behind this music.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
That's pretty funny reasoning.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
So you know, I read this history article of Nirvana
where the guys would always apparently remind Dave Grohl that
he wasn't in the first iteration of the band. So,
I mean, it's kind of like telling Ringo he wasn't
an original Beatle, just over and over, and I feel
awful for him, But you know why, food fighters like
he could have.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Chosen any word that was a plural noun.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Well, you know, girl apparently came to a similar conclusion
because later he said in an interview, he said, had
I actually considered this to be a career, I probably
would have called it something else because it's the stupidest
effing band name in the world.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
So I almost kind of want to add it to
our list just for that reason. But really, if we're
going to narrow it down to a single band per category,
I think we have.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
To give this to the Decembrius.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Okay, So I know their songs tend to be very
literary and sometimes recount or maybe pull from historical events.
And I do remember a little bit about the Decembers
from a Russian history class I took years and years ago.
But I think I need a little bit of a refresher.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Right, So the historical Decembris, whose spelling actually is different
from the month in the band because it doesn't actually
have a third e in it. They were this group
of Russian revolutionaries who led almost a failed uprising in
the December of eighteen twenty five, and so the group
was composed mostly of these young Russian officers and also
members of the upper classes who they wanted to reform
(09:42):
the autocratic government into more of a liberal system. And
they actually took advantage of the chaos surrounding the death
of one tzar and the sension of another to stage rebellion.
But because it had been so poorly organized, their revolution
was quickly put to an end, and their hope of
overturning an oppressive system has really only lived on. With
martyred December is now serving almost as a source of
(10:02):
inspiration for new generations of Russian rebels.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So is that actually where the band name comes from.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yeah, so that's the thing it does, and it doesn't. So,
according to the band's frontman, Colin Molloy, the name's partly
derived from the Russian freedom fighters and partly from the
month of December itself.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I mean, it feels like you might be cheating a
little on this one, Mango. It's only a half reference
to history, So why do you feel like it deserves
a spot on our list because.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
This is the only historical band name we've mentioned where
the reference wasn't chosen at random. So with the December
is there's actually this real thematic connection between the band's
name and its music. And as Colin molloy puts it, quote,
I like to think that the drama behind the month
of December, there's a group of people who that is
their month and they're sort of stuck in this month,
(10:48):
And I think that sort of speaks to the songs
and the characters and the songs sort of marginalized, sort
of on the outskirts, all living in the coldest month.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Well that is pretty interesting, But actually, didn't you say
the real Decembers were from the nobility. It kind of
doesn't sound like they were marginalized people living on the
outskirts as he was describing.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, so they were definitely a minority in terms of
openly opposing the system that ruled them. And once their
rebellion was sort of stifled, the Decembrists became well and
truly marginalized. Most of the surviving members were sent off
to remote work camps in Siberia, where their descendants still
eke out a living even though they brought education and
culture with them to that land.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Well all right, well it's not the cheeriest historical connection,
but but you're right, it certainly seems like one of
the deepest. And because of that, I agree, and I'll
give it to you. The Decembrists deserved the first spot
in our band name Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Ding ding Dings, So they probably don't know it, but
that's a huge honor. And since it took us a
while to decide on that first entry, I actually have
a category that we can probably knock out pretty fast,
and that's best band named acronym that isn't actually an acronym.
And remember ARIM is disqualified from this one because it
really is an acronym and it stands for rabbit eye movement.
(12:01):
Apparently Michael Stipe just cribbed it from the dictionary after
pointing to the word at random.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, probably the laziest way to come up with a
band name, but you do hear that happening a lot, right, Well,
I guess my pick for this one would be kiss.
I would think, you know, everybody's heard the rumors that
the name secretly stands for something sinister. I remember hearing
as a kid that it stood for things like kids
in Satan's service. But you know, according to Jane Simmons,
the name doesn't stand for anything and was simply just this,
(12:27):
like this idle suggestion from one band member to another.
And it was it was Paul Stanley that came up
with this, And he's actually gone on record that he
chose the name Kiss because it quote just sounded dangerous
and sexy at the same time.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I mean, I guess you can't argue with the results,
or I guess you can actually, but.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm sure some people found them sexy and others dangerous.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I think my sister would be included in that category.
I know I've told you this before, but my sister
is a few years older than I am, so when
I was little, I would sneak into her room and
to her music. But i'd also, of course go through
all of her stuff. And one of the things I
remember finding was this shoe box, and it was full
of these Kiss trading.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Cards, kiss ianthing.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
It's hilarious to look at it. I really wish she
still had.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
These and that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
But you know, for my money, the best faw acronym
band name is still wasp Oh.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I remember them. So they were a heavy metal band
and back in it was this seven. I guess this
was the eighties, right, And I can't believe that's not
actually an acronyman. They even put a period between each
of the letters.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
I know, I mean, I guess it's from the era
where you'd put gratuitous like umlots and nonsense and names
like wing dings and whatever. But supposedly it was just
because not many other bands had done it at that time,
and they hoped it would make them stand out and
get people curious about the band. But just like Kiss,
rumors swirled that the acronyms did for all sorts of
naughty stuff, like we are sexual perverts, we are Satan's preachers,
(13:54):
we all smoke pot. But my favorite red herring of
that lot is an answer that one of the band
members gave when he was doing an interview, and he said,
you know, they asked what does was stand for?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
He said, we ain't sure, pal.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Oh, I like that. There's some pretty good ones there,
all right, So the periods were just a marketing technique.
But what about the name itself, I mean, does it
stand for anything or like, why WASP?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
I guess one of the band members saw wasp one
night and thought it might make for a cool band name.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
All right, Well, I guess you kind of stacked the
deck with this category, but I'm still gonna give you
this one as well for WASP, so we will add
them to the list here.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Which is awesome because I'm two for two and I
don't think you have any points on the board.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Right No, but don't don't get too cocky. We've still
got a bunch of origins to get to and I
really doubt you're gonna be able top this next one.
But before I hit you with it, let's take a
quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're
(15:01):
talking about the weird stories behind famous band names, all right, mango.
So now our Hall of Fame needs to be the
best story for a band name taken from a TV
show or movie. It can be either one, and I
actually think I've got the perfect contender. Now. At first
I thought about fallout Boy, you know, because I'm always
thinking about Fallout Boy, or maybe not, but you know,
(15:21):
They've been this nameless band until they pulled the audience
at their second show and someone in the crowd shouted
out the name of Radioactive Man's superhero sidekick from The Simpsons,
and it actually just sort of stuck.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
That's amazing, that's where it comes from.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yeah, it's a pretty good story. So but actually then
I thought I'd go with something a little more obscure,
and that's what led me to the Bloodhound Gang. Do
you remember the Bloodhound Gang?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yeah? I mean I wish I didn't, because they had
that annoying song bad Touch, and the video of it
was just them in monkey costumes running around town and
I guess doing weird, dirty things to everyone inside.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I don't know. It was just art mango. I don't
know why you don't want to remember that. Well, there
is something interesting I found out about that when you
talk about them running around doing weird and dirty things
to everything in the video, And honestly, that's that the
Bloodhound Gang was actually a lot more wholesome than you
might think, or or at least their name was. And
that's because the band took it from this recurring sketch
that was on the old three to one Contact show
(16:18):
the Way from PBS in the eighties. I know you
were a big fan as a kid, definitely. Well, the
sketch was all about this group of dorky kids called
the Bloodhound Gang, and so they'd get together and try
to solve these crimes using math puzzles, and that's where
they got the name.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
That's pretty funny that, you know, such a raunchy bend
would take their name from kids program. But uh, you know,
even though three two one Contact Magazine was actually a
huge influence on me in mental fluss. Seriously, I'm I'm
still not sure I want those guys in our Hall
of fame.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Oh wow, I guess that video did a number on you.
But all right, I do agree with you. No Bloodhound
Gang allowed, So we got to come up with another one.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So what sort of slammed on entry do you have
for TVA movies?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, that would be a little band I like to
call exclamation Point, exclamation Point, exclamation point, or as fans
have wisely decided to call them, Chickchick Chick. Yeah, of course.
So they're this post punk funk group out of Sacramento,
and they actually took their unusual name from the nineteen
eighty South African comedy The Gods Must Be Crazy. You
(17:20):
remember this movie, right.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
So for listeners who haven't seen it, it's about this
remote African tribe that lives in peace until they find
a coke bottle that falls out of an airplane and
they all start fighting over it. And you know, it's
a funny movie. But I have tomit. I don't know
what it has to do with those three exclamation points.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Well, in the movie, the Bushman Shoshin language was subtitled
as a series of exclamation points, and the band liked
this idea of using that to refer to a different
kind of sound, you know, one that's hard to categorize,
And I guess that's how they viewed their own music now,
because the bush language sometimes sounds a lot like clicking sounds.
I guess you know, the most common pronunciation is chickchick, chick.
(18:00):
But according to the band, the intention was for people
to use any three repetitive sounds and they could just
choose them, so you could call the band bam bam
bam or pow pow pow, and you know, you technically
still be talking about the same band. I can give
you other examples example, that's.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Right, all right, Well, I think you sold me on
Chick Chick Chick, and that's gonna get my vote. But
I have a feeling this next category is going to
be a bit more hotly contested, and it's the best
band name for somebody who isn't in the band.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Oh yeah, there's a bunch of good examples for this vote. Actually.
For instance, you you know Alice Cooper, right, mm hmm. Well,
the band was originally called the Earwigs, but after playing
around with a Wuiji board, it put him in touch
with a ghost name Alice Cooper, so they decided to
switch to that instead.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So I love that Wuiji board story.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
But you know what's weird is that I didn't even
know Alice Cooper was a band, Like I thought it
was just the one guy.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well not at first. There was the guy that ended
up taking the name, and it was the front man.
His real name was Vincent Fernier. But after he split
off from the band, he went solo and he actually
ended up just taking the name Alice with him.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Well, I mean that is pretty cool, but you know,
I prefer bands named after real people, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
And that's why my pick for this category is Pink Floyd.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
No way is that they have a real person.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, it's actually the name of two real people.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
So you know, one of the band's founding members, the
legendary said Barrett came up with idea for combining the
names of two of his favorite blues musicians, and that's
Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Oh wow, I had no idea about that, all right,
but that does mean if I'm not mistaken that Anderson
Council would still be on the table then.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Right, definitely.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
So for any nameless bands out there, here's the answer
you've been looking for, all right, Well, I have.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
To give it to you. Pink Floyd is a two
for with that double homage, and that is tough to beat.
But I have one I've been saving, and I think
I want to give the edge to, you know, to
my Alabama brothers Leonard SKINNERD.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I mean, aren't they from Florida?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Details details name.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
I mean in terms of fake sounding names like Leonard SKINNERD, Like,
no real name has that many?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Wise?
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Right, how many times I've written it? I don't know
how many times I've actually written it, but I never
can seem to get it right. But you might have
a point, because you know, while the band did take
their name in honor of their real life gem teacher
and basketball coach, they also tweaked it a little to
sound a little bit more interesting. So the real guy's
name was Leonard Skinner, and after the band made him
(20:26):
their namesake, Skinner reconnected with his old pupils and actually
even m seed one of their shows. But really, though,
the band might have been better off just sticking with
Leonard Skinner, because you know, their name was just so
hard to remember how to spell, and the misspelled version
they went on was just so phonetically confusing that even
their self titled debut album, it had this little pronunciation. Guy,
(20:47):
I don't know if you've seen this before, but on
the cover of the album to help people know how
to pronounce it, you know, just to be safe.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
That's ridiculous. Okay, so I guess you're two for two.
I'm gonna give that one to you.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
But this next category I think is all mine because
I found the all time best band name inspired by
another artist, and it belongs to none other than the
man who taught the world to do the twist, mister
Chubby Checker.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Oh wow, So who inspired Chubby Checker's name.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
So apparently it's a riff on the name of fellow
musician and near contemporary Fats Domino. Yeah, but the first
person to ever call Ernest Evans by the name Chubby
Checker was actually Dick Clark's wife, and they met when
Chubby appeared on Dick Clark's American Bandstand in nineteen sixty
and during the recording, Chubby launched into this impression of
Fats Domino, And afterwards he told missus Clark that his
(21:34):
friends actually called him Chubby, and she smiled and said
as in Checker, and he just kind of liked it
so much that he used it as a stage name
from then on.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
You know, this is one of those that, in hindsight
you think that Fats Domino and Chubby Checker, it seems obvious,
but I actually had never made that connection before. All right,
so I will concede this when Chubby Checker should have
a spot in the band Name Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Well, I'm glad you're on board, because I really like
that one, and it just kind of lines up perfectly
with an article I read about the science of choosing
the perfect band name.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Oh, I definitely want to hear more about this, but
first let's take a quick break, all right, mango, So
it's time to spill it. What is the secret to
coming up with a truly top shelf band name?
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Well, if we've shown anything today, it's that memorable band
names come from all different places.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Some are homages to real life events and people. Others
are nonsense words or appealing phrases crib for media or
other musicians. And some names come in sudden flashes of inspiration.
I mean, others just seem to be whatever a drummer
happened to be looking at at the time. And there's
really no one fixed approach that works. But there actually
do seem to be some linguistic patterns that crop up
(22:54):
among the best band names.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
All right, So what do you mean by patterns?
Speaker 3 (22:58):
So, just on a basic level, most compelling band names
have something unusual about them. So you know, you think
about like the Grateful Dead or the Flaming Lips, and
those are just these unexpected word combinations that you find
together and when you hear them, they kind of grab
your attention. But there's also this other factor that's more
cultural than linguistic, and what's that. So this might sound
(23:19):
a little strange, but it comes down to the way
people connect words and names that belong to a certain category. So,
for example, like think about something the naming patterns for cars, right,
two big ones that might come up are fast moving animals.
You've got things like the Jaguar, the Mustang, even the viper,
And also astronomical figures, so like turists or mercury, nova, Saturn, Subaru. Like,
(23:42):
at this point, we're kind of so used to these
recurring patterns and carnons that any words that fit into
that genre like that rings true to us.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Is a good name for a car?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
That's yeah, that's true definitely, But so are you're saying
that the same kind of thing happens with band names.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Totally, But this isn't something I recognized on my own.
It's actually the theory of this linguist named Chilu. And
one important thing she points out in her research is
that these cultural associations that we create for categories of
names are always changing over time. So here's actually a
quote from her article in Jay Store where she lays
out some of these generational patterns of music, she writes.
(24:19):
Quote short names beginning with the and a common noun
is an obvious pattern from the mid twentieth century. We've
got the beetles, the monkeys, the animals, the Kanks, and
that scene a revival in recent times. The heavy metal
genre is one of the classes with more obvious linguistic patterns,
usually involving death, so Megadeth's Layer, of course, and other
(24:39):
perils such as dangerous animals, white snake weapons, guns n' roses,
iron Maiden, or sometimes drugs and unhealthy substances poison.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
All Right, so I guess it does make sense. Like
when you were talking about Chubby Checker before, it lines
up pretty well with this idea of these these naming patterns. Obviously,
in this case, it was picking a name that wasn't
too far off from somebody else's, you know, Fats Domino
in this case. And so he kind of found that
ultimate shortcut to making a recognizable band name.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Right, And I mean that seems to be like the
cardinal rule of rock and roll, where the music's always derivative, right,
Like it's always pulling from the blues. So why shouldn't
been naming conventions be derivative? As well just copy the
other guys.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, it's a good point and it does seem to
work all right. Well, I wanted to come back to
some of these other names, but I'm not sure if
you experienced this, but in doing the research, there were
definitely a ton of fun band name origins that they
kind of don't fit into a particular category. I feel
like we should take a little bit of time to
just throw out a few wildcard entries for our band
name Hall of Fame. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
It's perfect.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
So I've actually been dying to talk about Dexy's Midnight Runners,
and I don't think there's any other way I could
work them in.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, it sounds like kind of a tough sell, So
I have to admit, who are they exactly?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
So you might remember them as the British band they
gave us the eighties hit song come On Eileen.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
No, I definitely don't remember them as that. I mean,
of course I remember the song that I couldn't have
told you who sung it.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Well, either way, their naming situation is basically the exact
opposite of what happened with the Bloodhound Gangs. So instead
of being like a raunchy band with an innocent name.
The Dexi's Midnight Runners were I guess, like a squeaky
clean band with a highly suspect name.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That sounds pretty funny, but I think you're gonna have
to walk me through because I honestly have no clue
what a Dexi's Midnight Runner is.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Okay, So the band openly admitted that the Dexi's part
of their name comes from a you know, a stimulant
called dexa Dream and this was popular among soul music
fans in Northern England during the seventies, and the Midnight
Runners part that refers to the users who used the
drug as a way to dance all night long.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Oh wow, so so, but you said these guys were
like a squeaky.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Clean band totally.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
So they were completely sober and they didn't even have
alcohol at any of the shows.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Oh wow, that's pretty bizarre. But that's great, all right. Well,
I think my wild card pick is an oldie but
a goodie, and that would be the one and only
led Zeppelin. You can kind of think of this as
the Yankee Doodle Award for our Hall of Fame because,
just like in that song, the name led Zeppelin has
its origins in something that was originally intended as an insult.
So the story goes that The Who's Keith Moon was
(27:10):
actually invited to drum for this new London band, but
ended up being so unimpressed with the other members and
he mockingly predicted that they would quote go down like
a lead balloon. So then John Entwhistle basis for The Who,
went even further than that, and he remarked that the
new band would be such a colossal failure that it
would be more like a led Zeppelin.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Which is pretty harsh but also kind of clever.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah, it was, but maybe as clever as that. When
the insult made its way back to Jimmy Page and
his manager, they actually thought it was so funny that
they decided to make it the official band name, though
only after dropping the A from lead, and the whole
reason was to, you know, to keep Americans from mispronouncing
it as lead Zeppelin.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
So I don't know what I should be impressed by
how much they cared about preserving like that lead balloon joke.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
At all costs.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
I guess insulted by how little they thought of American intelligence.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I don't know. I sort of think it was a
smart call. I mean, you remember the pronunciation guide I
mentioned about Leonard Skinner, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Of course, And I guess I understand that desire to
make sure your name comes across as intended, because the
name a band goes with can have this major impact
on a musician's career, didnerring everything from their radio exposure
to merchandise design to you know, what kind of people
will actually listen to the songs. And even after the
music stops and the spotlight shifts to someone else, a
(28:32):
good name can still keep a band afloat in the
cultural site, guys, so long as there's an interesting story
about where it came from.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh yeah, I mean I think you're absolutely right. I
was actually this close to talk about Hoody and the
Blowfish today and Mango. It's twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Well, you haven't missed your opportunity yet.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
It's time for the fact off and there's still a
few empty spots left to talk about band names.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
All right, Well, dust off your Blowfish, Hoody, you're coming in.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
So I'm going to start us off.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
And I love it when bands named themselves after songs
from other bands, as somewhat of a tribute, and that's
actually how Radiohead got their name. When they first formed
in the mid eighties, they were known as on a Friday,
which was the day that they got together to practice.
But then five or six years later, when they signed
with EMI, they actually changed their name to Radiohead as
a tribute to the Talking Heads and their nineteen eighty
six song Radiohead.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
You know, something similar actually happened with the Rolling Stones.
So Jagger and Richards first formed the band back in
the early sixties, and at that point they were called
the Blue Boys. But the story goes that during an
interview with this jazz focused newspaper, guitarist Brian Jones spotted
this Muddy Waters record. It was just sitting there on
the floor where he was doing the interview, and it
(29:47):
made him think about that song Rolling Stone from the
same album, and that's where they got the name.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
That's really cool.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
So, you know, having played in a band in high
school or several bands in high school, I love stories
of groups that you know, met hiss kids and kept
performing together. And another one of those was a group
that came together in the nineties out of Cleveland. They
were just in junior high school when they started rapping together,
and one day Anthony Crazy Bone Henderson had this minor
crash on his moped, and in somewhat of an act
(30:15):
of solidarity, the group all spored bandages and they started
calling themselves the band Aid Boys, And while that name
didn't stick, we now know them as Bone Thugs and Harmony.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
You know, I also think it's fun when bands don't
seem to actually remember their origin, or at least there
are competing stories for origins. And one of these where
I saw so many different stories on this was Pearl Jam,
and so I won't share all of them. But there
have been some claims that the band name was inspired
by Eddie Vedder's great grandmother Pearl, who apparently made this
famous peote jam. I don't know if this is true enough.
(30:46):
And I thought that was pretty funny, and then it
ranges to the much less interesting. You know, one of
them that they just liked the word pearl and then
they added jam to it because that's what a group
of musicians do. So I think I'm gonna stick with
the great grandmother story. It just seems so much more
fun to believe.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, I like that a lot.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Well, I know, we're not really focusing on cover bands,
but there's one that's kind of a cover band but
also kind of a weirdly inspired band called Austrian Death Machine,
and apparently they sing entirely in the style of Arnold Schwarzenegger,
and all their songs are from some of his famous
one liners. So you know, like it's not a tumor,
which you can actually find on the band's first album,
(31:22):
Total Brutal, which is right, that's actually the first album's name.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Oh, just the first album. Wow, this band is something else.
I would imagine that's one of those shows that you're like,
this is gonna be so hilarious, and for the first
five minutes it's so hilarious, and then it's just torture
from that point on. All right, Mango, I don't want
to disappoint anybody, because we promised to include Hoody and
the Blowfish, and I'm here to deliver. I'm not sure
that we actually did promise, but we said Hoody and
(31:47):
the Blowfish.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
We promised, we did.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
We promised Hoody. But you know, I think most people
assume that the frontman Darius Rucker was Hoody and that
his supporting band members were the Blowfish. But it actually
turns out that he's kind of both, or at least
both names came from people that Darius went to school with.
So one was this kid they called Hoodie because I
guess he kind of looked like an owl. And there
(32:10):
was a separate classmate that had these puffed up cheeks
and was nicknamed Blowfish. So I'm not sure why they
decided to combine these two, and I kind of want
to see pictures of these guys. It just would make
for an interesting story. But it seemed to work. And
I've actually got an equally important fact because just recently
a friend reminded me that in our high school yearbook
(32:32):
there was a photo of me playing basketball in a game,
and for some reason, when I was dribbling, I would
do this thing where I'd blow out my cheeks like
a blowfish, you know, kind of like Jordan's tongue, but
much less cool and much less effective.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Of course, when you weren't dunking.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
When I wasn't dunking, that's what I was doing. And anyway,
I was doing that in this photo, and the capture
under it said Willie and the Blowfish. So how about
that Mango? Pretty good.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Well, I feel like you deserved today's trophy just based
on that story alone.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Thank you very much, and thank you guys for listening.
I know we must have left out so many great
origin stories of band names, so please let us hear
those from. You can always email us part Time Genius
at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can also call us on
our twenty four to seven fact hotline one eight four
four pt Genius, or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.
But thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening.
(33:37):
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Speaker 2 (33:45):
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Speaker 1 (33:47):
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Speaker 1 (34:01):
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