ABBA
An acronym
for the first names of the band members: Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Anderson and Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad.
AC/DC
A band member saw AC/DC on a
sewing machine. It stood for 'Alternating Current / Direct Current'. The band
didn't realize it was also slang for bi-sexual, which caused a few
misunderstandings in their early days.
Aerosmith
Taken from the 1925 book,
'Arrowsmith' by Sinclair
Lewis.
Alice in
Chains
A funny rumor is that
they were named after a lost episode from The Brady Bunch series!
Anthrax
Scott Ian got the name "anthrax" from his biology class in high
school. He thought it was a cool name. Although they got a
lot of backlash during the anthrax attacks of late
2001.
Beatles
Original
bassist Stuart Sutcliffe came up with the Beetles in 1960, which was a play on
Buddy Holly's Crickets. John Lennon is generally credited with combining Beetles
and Beat to come up with the Beatles spelling.
Black
Sabbath
Named after a 1963 horror movie
starring Boris Karloff.
Blue Oyster
Cult
A combination of a recipe that the
band's manager read in a book and the band's fascination with the
occult.
The
Byrds
A band called the Beefeaters was
having Thanksgiving dinner when they tried coming up with a new name. Singer,
Gene Clark offered "The Birdsies." Nobody liked that
name and producer Jim Dickson said, "How about the Birds"? "Birds" was slang in
England for girls and the band didn't
want to be called "the Girls". Guitarist, Roger McGuinn came up with the B-Y-R-D-S spelling, and it
stuck.
The
Cranberries
Originally called Cranberries Saw Us
(a joke on Cranberries SAUCE)
they changed it to the shorter form later.
Creed
Creed is from the former bassist,
Brain Mashall, and he was in a group before CREED and
it was named Madox's Creed and they were playing
around with the word creed and their names. They finally settled on just Creed. Alternate theory: They got their name from a book
by Steven King titled "
Pet Cemetery".
Creed was the family's last name.
Creedance
Clearwater Revival
Originally called The Golliwogs,
unconfirmed reports say the band took their new name from Norvel Creedence, a friend of band
leader John Fogerty. John's favorite beer was called
Clearwater ,
which, after it disappeared from the market for a time, was re-introduced by
another brewery. The result: Creedence Clearwater
Revival.
Deep
Purple
Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's
grandmother liked the Bing Crosby song "Deep Purple".
Def Leppard
Inspired by a drawing
Joe Elliot made of a leopard with no ears, a 'Deaf Leopard'.
John Denver
John Henry Deutschendorf adopted the stage surname "
Denver " in tribute to the
Rocky
Mountain area he so
cherished.
Dire
Straits
Their name describes the financial
situation they were in when forming the band. They had to hire instruments for their
first show, they were in such a bad financial
situation.
Doors
From a
William Blake quote 'If the doors of perception were to be cleansed, every thing
would appear to man as it is, infinite'. The Doors were originally called the
Psychedelic Rangers.
Genesis
The first
book in the Bible. The name was part of their first album title 'From Genesis to
Revelation', which was suggested by their original manager, Jonathan
King.
Grateful
Dead
Refers to a series of Old English folk tales with the same
basic theme. A traveler enters a village and finds the villagers desecrating, or
refusing to bury the body of a dead man because he died owing creditors' money.
The traveler pays the dead man's debts and sees to a decent burial. Later in his
travels, the man is saved by a mysterious event, which is credited to the dead
man's grateful spirit. Hence, the Grateful Dead. The band was originally the
Warlocks, and picked Grateful Dead out of a dictionary after realizing there was
another band called the Warlocks.
Green
Day
1) It may have come from the sci-fi movie
Soylent Green when they said "Tuesday is soylent green day." Soylent green was
a food produced by a corporation to feed the way overpopulated masses; turns out
they were also making it from the
masses! 2) Another
story is that when they dropped out of school to be musicians, their principal
said "It'll be a green day in hell before you make anything of yourselves". 3) Some say that in drug
slang - if you smoked pot and goofed off all day, it was a "Green
Day."
Guns 'n
Roses
Originally two bands L.A. GUNNS and
HOLLYWOOD ROSES.
Hollywood Roses was headed by Axl Rose, Tracii. Guns headed the other band which
also featured Slash. The two frequented clubs and played there and were friends.
They were often ridiculed for the name as a logo with gun & roses signifies
homosexuality.
Incubus
One day the guy's were thinking of
names and Mike was
reading a book that mentioned an Incubus and the band liked it. Later they read
a dictionary and found out it means an Evil male spirit that violates sleeping
women. An Incubus
was supposedly some mythological creature that would come into villages at night
and impregnate the women without anybody knowing.
Iron
Maiden
Named after a medieval torture
device. It was a box big enough to admit a man, with folding-doors which were
studded with sharp iron spikes. When the doors were closed, these spikes were
forced into the body of the victim, who was left there to die in horrible
torture. They actually showcased a cartoon
depicting the torture device as the cover photo of one of their albums: The X
Factor.
Jethro
Tull
Named after a British farmer from
the 1800's who invented the precursor to the modern plow.
Judas
Priest
Taken from the Bob Dylan tune "The
ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest".
Kiss
According to
Paul Stanley, Kiss was a momentary inspiration that sounded dangerous and sexy
at the same time. Band members deny the rumor that the name stands for 'Knights
In Satan's Service'.
Led
Zeppelin
The Yardbirds were just
wrapping up their final
US tour before splitting up.
Guitarist Jimmy Page was determined to keep the act going, renaming a new
line-up The New Yardbirds. Keith Moon of The Who is
rumored to have said "...it'll probably go over like a led zeppelin", thus
inspiring the final name change. The 'Led' spelling was to make sure people
pronounced the name right.
Lynyrd
Skynyrd
Named after
Robert
E. Lee
High school gym coach,
Leonard Skinner, who punished founding members Gary Rossington and Bob Burns several times for breaking the
school's strict dress code, which did not allow boys to have long hair touching
the collar or sideburns below the ears. Earlier band names were 'Noble Five' and
'One Percent'.
Marilyn
Manson
All the members of the band have
their stage names taken from one serial killer one movie
queen.
Marilyn Manson = Marilyn Monroe
(something short of an on screen goddess) + Charles Manson (hippie who along
with his 'friends' carried out a number of infamous murders - of well known
personalities. I think Roman Polinski was also on their
list)
Meatloaf
The man with
one of the most colorful stage names in show business was born Marvin Lee Aday. Over the years, he has given several different stories
on how he got his nickname. The most common one is that he stepped on the foot
of his high school football coach, who, instead of cursing, shouted 'Meat
Loaf!'.Metallica
Drummer, Lars Ulrich was
helping a friend think of a name for a metal fan magazine. The publication chose
'Metal Mania' and Lars kept Metallica, which was one of the
suggestions.
Megadeth
Dave Mustane was inspired by a government pamphlet he saw after
leaving METALLICA. A Megadeath is a military term for
one million dead (making World War II an 80 Megadeath)
Motley
Crue
The band took their name after a
friend remarked, "What a motley looking crew."
Motorhead
Lemmy Kilmeister originally wanted to name his band "Bastard" but
was advised against it, so he named it after the song he wrote for his old band
Hawkwind. "Motorhead" was
70's American slang for someone on speed.
Oasis
The band saw a poster advertising in
lead singer Liam Gallagher's room about the Inspiral
Carpets playing at a club called "The Oasis". The band also learned that the Beatles
played their and chose that name.
They were originally called "Rain".
Pearl
Jam
1. According to lead
singer, Eddie Vedder, "The name is in reference to the
pearl itself... and the natural process from which a pearl comes from.
Basically, taking excrement or waste and turning it into something beautiful."
2. Eddie's grandma supposedly made
a peyote (hallucinogenic drug) jelly/jam, which as kids they called pearl
jam.
3. "Pearl Jam" comes
from NBA player Mookie Blaylock -- it's his
nickname.
Band members Stone
Gossard and Jeff Ament were huge fans of Blaylock, loved his peculiar name and
wished to just call their band "Mookie Blaylock" but
Blaylock protested, so they used his nickname "Pearl Jam"
instead.Pink
Floyd
This British band used various names, including "The Meggadeaths", "the T-Set" and "the Screaming Abdabs", before settling on "The Pink Floyd Sound", inspired
by American blues artists, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The name was later
shortened to just Pink Floyd.
Queen
Freddie
Mercury liked the name for the transvestite connotation and the glamorous image
of Queens in
royalty.
RadioHead
Named after a Talking
Heads' song called "Radio Head."
Rammstein
1. German for 'battering ram',
translates literally as "Ramming Stone".
R.E.M
'Rapid Eye
Movement' is a state of sleep.
Rolling
Stones
From the Muddy Waters song "Rolling
Stone". The name was suggested by guitarist, Brian Jones.
Rush
They were rushing to think up a
name before their first gig, and John Rustey's older
brother yelled, "Why don't you call your band
Rush?".
Skid
Row
Slang for a rundown
inner city neighborhoods where alcoholics, junkies, street people can afford to
live.
Sepultura
The Brazilian
death/heavy metal band Sepultura name is the Portugese/Spanish word for a grave or burial
tomb.
SoundGarden
A garden of kinetic
sculptures that makes music when wind blows through them.
STYX
After the
mythical river, Styx , that people crossed over
to go into Hell.
U2
Although the
U2 is a type of spy plane that was used by the United States, Bono explained
that U2 grew out of thoughts of interactivity with the audience.... as in 'you
too.'
UB40
Code
number of a form people in
Britain have to fill out to receive
public assistance or welfare. Known in the
UK as a
signing-off form when you get a
job. Hence the title of
their first album Signing
Off.
Uriah Heep
After using several names
during their developing years, manager Gerry Bron
suggested "Uriah Heep", based on the 'horrible little
character from Charles Dickens' novel, "David
Copperfield".
Van
Halen
After Alex and Eddie
Van Halen - suggested by David Lee Roth as being
better than their original name "Mammoth." They might have been
called 'Daddy Longlegs' if
Gene Simmons of KISS had gotten his way - he partially financed and produced one
of their original demo records and suggested names and
artwork.
Velvet
Underground
The name of an S&M magazine that
a band member found on a sidewalk in
New York .
White
Snake
From a white albino ball python
snake owned by David Coverdale while in DEEP
PURPLE.
White
Zombie
An old horror "B"
movie.
WHO
While taking
suggestions for a new name, someone noticed that the band members were already
so hard of hearing that they kept saying, "The
who?"
YES
While the
group members searched for an appropriate name, guitarist Peter Banks suggested
they called the group Yes, a very short and positive word. The others agreed
that the name was not meant to be permanent, but just a temporary
solution.
3 Doors
Down
the name came from when one day the
band was walking down a street and this door had a piece on wood across the door
that said "doors down" and the time there was 3 in the band so they called there
band 3 Doors down.