Your Favorite Band Names

A few weeks ago we posted about a website that takes all the soul-searching out of finding a name for your garage rock trio, easy listening group, or death metal band, and we got a healthy crop of clever responses from Sparklers throwing out their own favorite (or least favorite) suggestions. Enjoy:

band name: Yesterday’s Bread (suggested by: little_acorns)

Yesterday’s Bread is the kind of band name you’d never expect to see on an arena marquee, partly because the mental image it calls up is so literal, simple, and possibly stale. Still, Yesterday’s Bread is the sort of anti-image name that’s worked so well for bands like Arctic Monkeys—just make sure to distance yourself from 70s smooth rockers Bread (“Who draws the crowds? Who plays so loud? Baby, it’s the guitar man…”).

Vampire Voices (vampirechick314)

“Vampire Voices” is way better than “Vampire Weekend” (who sound so little like their title suggests that they probably got theirs from bandnamemaker.com too). Also, if you could cozy up to “Twilight” without getting sued you could tap into a huge army of vampire-crazed superfans.

Hello Emergency (TyUeda)

This is such a great 2000s indie-pop band name that I can already picture college students bouncing around to it during a dorm party. Of Montreal has been holding a space for an opening band on their next tour for exactly this reason.

Date, Time and Position (Dr_Ummer35)

In the late 70s and early 80s there were lots of awesome bands with dry, reserved names like Wire, A Certain Ratio, and Public Image Ltd, some of whom still exist. Date, Time and Position sounds pleasantly like the Wire song “Map Ref. 41°N 93°W.”

JL Chamberlain Didn’t Need a Razor Blade to be Famous (And Nor Do You) (ainekatt)

Like …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, JLCDNARBTBF(ANDY) is the kind of arduously, unreasonably long band name that first makes people laugh and then makes them say, “I’m intrigued by this absurdly complicated band name. I think I’ll buy this album.”

Throbbing Mountain, Pulsing Forest, Lush Meadow, Dreary Trees, Deep Forest (FloppyFlopperson)

If Throbbing Mountain, Pulsing Forest, Lush Meadow, Dreary Trees, Deep Forest and JL Chamberlain Didn’t Need a Razor Blade to be Famous (And Nor Do You) hooked up for a world tour, three things would happen. One: Fans would die trying to call them back onto the stage for an encore. Two: The world would end. Three: Newspapers would get really frustrated trying to print out their concert listings.

Casual Garden Party (dorado_t)

Casual Garden Party would actually be a much more appropriate name for Vampire Weekend.

10 Ways to Train Your Tiger (mmkay12)

This would also be a great title for a first single, ala Paul Simon: “Throw him a fish, Mitch. Shoot it with a stun gun, son.”

Thanks to everyone for their awesome suggestions (even if we didn’t have time to include them all here)! Share your new favorites or what band-related topics you’d like to see us cover in the future.