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