BAND NAMES.....

Hey there guys… have been cut away from the virtual world for quite some time now…have been quite busy, running around for classes that were hitherto non existant…and have now started in full swing…. N then the stupid class tests which account for 2.5 marks outta 100.… *yeah …how does ANYONE beat that???* occasional orkutting from the college lab helped a bit…but anyway… here is the post I have been promising my friends for a long time.
Some time back, I was goin through my song list and realized what some of the bands out there have some really great *and some really weird* names. I decided to do a lil bit of research to find out what their names mean and here is all the trivia I could find… in alphabetical order…
Its quite long…so skip everyone else n go to ur fav bands,… and if u happen to have any trivia …. Do write in…. enjoi….

ABBA - *”Dancing Queen” is one of my all time fav…*Abba is "father" in Hebrew but the band claims that to be unintentional - rather it is an acronym for the first names of the band members: Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid (Frida).

AC/DC - It is said that one of the band member saw the words written on a sewing machine and thought it had something to do with power. (It does mean "alternating current / direct current".) The band used it not realizing it was also slang for a bisexual- the band claims NOT to be bisexual.

AEROSMITH : Drummer, Joey Kramer used to write "aerosmith" on his high school notebooks because he thought it sounded cool. When he proposed the name to the group, the rest of them said "What? Like that book they make you read in high school?" (the 1925 book, 'Arrowsmith' by Sinclair Lewis) Kramer responded "No. A-e-r-o smith..."
Now since I listen to a lot of their songs… here’s more trivia….
* It took the entire band 17 years to get clean and sober of drugs and alcohol. They accomplished this feat during the recording of 1987's Permanent Vacation album. The band gathered in 1970. Tom Hamilton was officially the last member to get sober.
*What Steven wants on his tombstone… Here Lies Tyler, The demon of screaming, who never woke up from the dream he was dreaming, untill one day he drank some magic potion, now all that's left is some sweet emotion
*The most unusual place Steven has had sex is in a confessional booth *wtf?*
*The first song Aerosmith wrote was Movin' Out
*Steven's real last name is Tallarico
*If Steven could no longer be a musician, he would want to be either a gigolo, a gourmet chef or a park ranger.
*Steven was 15 when he lost his virginity... to a hooker, none the less.
*Evidentially, Steven always insists his hotel room has nine pillows.

BACKSTREET BOYS - The Backstreet Market was a store in Florida where the guys used to hang out. *don’t scoff…even you listened to them in school…*

THE BEATLES - original member Stuart Sutcliffe came up with THE BEETLES , as a play on Buddy Holly's group THE CRICKETS who they loved. They were using the name THE QUARRYMEN and sometimes THE SILVER BEETLES - later it became THE BEATLES emphasizing the BEAT aspect of music (and poetry?). John Lennon is generally credited with combining Beetles and Beat to come up with THE BEATLES spelling.

BEE GEES - the 60's soft-rockers now best known for disco. Some say the BG comes from "Brothers Gibb" since they were brothers named Gibb... however an article on the group suggests that they used the names of 2 friends that helped them get started: Bill Goode and a DJ named Bill Gates...

BLINK 182 - Blink 182 supposedly has NO meaning at all but the band fosters stories on origins. They used to be just "Blink" but was threatened by a lawsuit from a little known Irish band with the same name, so they added the 182 which is the number of times the f-word was said in one of the members favorite movies. *hahaha….*

U2 - Three possibilities: 1) A type of spy plane used by the United States in the 1960's -
made famous when Gary Powers' U2 plane was shot down over Russia and he was taken as a prisoner during the Cold War. 2) U2 as in "you too" referring to the audience and its role in the musical experience 3) a U2 is an unemployment form in Ireland (see UB40)
BONO - U2's lead singer, Paul Hewson was inspired by a hearing aid store in Dublin, Ireland called 'Bono Vox'.

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

BOB DYLAN - His real name is Robert Zimmerman - he liked the poet Dylan Thomas.

BON JOVI - from the New Jersey bandleader Jon Bon Jovi, whose real name is John Bongiovi, Jr. *I thought bon jovi was jus one guy. didn’t know it classified as a band*

CHUMBAWAMBA - In a band member's dream, he didn't know which door to use in a public toilet because the signs said "Chumba" and "Wamba" instead of "Men" and "Women" *I definitely DO NOT believe this ridiculous story…*

COLDPLAY : Chris Martin and his mates, originally called Starfish, were friends with a band called Coldplay. When that band gave up the name, Starfish asked if they could use it. The original Coldplay took the name from a book of poetry. *imagine the divine hits being from a band called STARFISH…Ewwwww*
Trivia :
The song "Clocks", which is from the album "A Rush of Blood to the Head". Despite the title, this song only contains the word "Clocks" once!
'Speed of Sound' was actually Coldplay's highest charting single ever on the US charts.

COUNTING CROWS - Comes from old English nursery rhyme which had to do with predicting the future from the numbers of birds seen. Originally the rhyme was about magpies, but as people came over to America, crows were used instead. one of the versions of the rhyme goes "one for sorrow, two for joy, three for girls, four for boys, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told..." Adam Duritz liked the rhyme...

THE CRANBERRIES -With original lead singer Niol Quinn the band was called “ The Cranberry Saw Us” ( a joke on Cranberries SAUCE) they changed it to the shorter form later. When Dolores O'Riordan replaced him, she had the name shortened to "The Cranberry" and the band's demo tapes were labeled "The Cranberry's". The first one was returned addressed to "The Cranberries" and they decided to keep the name

CREED - This popular Florida band was named after former bassist Brian Marshall's earlier band Mattox Creed.

DEF LEPPARD - Joe Elliot, lead singer, wanted to use the idea provided by the band Led Zeppelin's logo and made a drawing of something that looked like a deaf leopard…. So there it was … a brand new band name…def leppard. *thank god they dropped the “e”*

DEEP PURPLE - Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's grandmother liked the Bing Crosby song "Deep Purple".

DIRE STRAITS -Their name describes the financial situation they were in when forming the band. *unbelievable …. But true… haha*

THE DOORS - Jim Morrison read poet William Blake who said "if the doors of perception are cleansed, everything would appear to man as it truly is, infinite. "He was also influenced by author Aldous Huxley who referred to the same line when he titled his book on drug experimentation The Doors of Perception. "There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors"

DURAN DURAN - named after a character in the Jane Fonda movie Barbarella.

THE EAGLES - originally called TEEN KING AND THE EMERGENCIES , they liked the American sound of Eagles and the way it was aligned with THE BYRDS who had a great influence on them. *omg… imagine “Hotel California being sung by TEEN KING AND THE EMERGENCIES… omg”* and while we are on the subject of Hotel California…. Heres what I came up with :
On November 25, 2007 Henley appeared on the TV news show 60 Minutes, where he was told, "everyone wants to know what this song means." Henley replied: "I know, it's so boring. It's a song about the dark underbelly of the American Dream, and about excess in America which was something we knew about." Don Henley: "We were all middle-class kids from the Midwest. Hotel California was our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles.
à "Colitas," in the line "Warm smell of colitas," is often interpreted as a flower or a sexual reference. It is a Spanish word translated to Henley by the Eagles Mexican-American road manager meaning "Little Buds," and is a reference to marijuana.
à The line "They stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast" is a reference to Steely Dan. The bands shared the same manager and had a friendly rivalry. The year before, Steely Dan included the line "Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening" on their song "Everything You Did."
à An alternative interpretation of the meaning of the lyrics is that the song is a description of the journey from Need to Love and Marriage to Divorce and ultimately to the impossibility of regaining the life and happiness of the pre-divorce state.Initially the traveler is feeling the need of a relationship ("My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim, I had to stop for the night"). The traveler meets his love and gets married ("There she stood in the doorway. I heard the mission bell"). A marriage commitment opens up the possibility of happiness but also the traveler is aware and vulnerable to the possibility of intense unhappiness ("And I was thinking to myself, this could be heaven or this could be hell") Unfortunately the marriage dissolves and his love becomes obsessed with money ("Her mind is Tiffany-twisted") where Tiffany" refers to the very expensive jewelry store, Tiffany & Co. With the divorce there is the division of property - she got the Mercedes Benz. After the breakup when he sees her with any guys she reassures him that the pretty, pretty boys" are just friends." In this new world of being single the other singles he meets do their dance in the courtyard" of life. They generally fall into two groups: There are those who can't stop talking about their Ex ("Some dance to remember") and there are those who don't what to say anything at all about their past marriage ("some dance to forget").Now in this world of being divorced he longs to return the pre-divorced state of happiness ("So I called up the captain, please bring me my wine"), but he finds that his happiness is now irrevocably in the past ("We haven't had that spirit here since 1969"). Deep into the post-divorce single's scene with "mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice" he is reminded that "we are all just prisoners here, of our own device." He and others want this divorce nightmare to be over, yet - "they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast." Now frustrated, he panics and is "running for the door. I had to find the passage back to the place I was before" But he is brought up short when the night man informs him that "You can checkout any time you like (commit suicide), but you can never leave" (become pre-divorced).There are two choruses in the song and each mention the "Hotel California." Around the time the song was written, California was experiencing the highest divorce rate in the nation. Each chorus has lines that remember his past marriage ("Such a lovely place") and his past lover ("Such a lovely face"). The first chorus indicates that there can always be more divorces ("Plenty of room at the Hotel California, any time of year, you can find it here"). The second chorus points out that as a part of divorce you will always "bring your alibis."
*good interpretation (or misinterpretation)*

ELTON JOHN - Real name: Reginald Dwight. Created from two other British musicians: Elton Dean and Long John Baldry.

EMINEM - from his real name Marshall Mathers he took M&M and rewrote it phonetically as Eminem. *no matter wht they say… I love the guy…*

FOO FIGHTERS - a term used by World War II pilots to describe strange flying fireballs they sometimes saw.

GOO GOO DOLLS - Originally, the band was called "The Sex Maggots". *try to imagine…* When a club owner in the band's hometown of Buffalo, New York balked at putting the band on stage with that name, and the local newspapers wouldn’t print their name, they were pressed to find a new one just minutes before they were set to perform. Flipping through a True Detective magazine, the band members spotted an ad for a goo goo doll, and they thought it would be funny and ironic for a trash-punk-rock band to have that name. And so it stuck.
*this ones my fav story… I mean imagine the writers of my fav song Iris being called sex maggots…ewwww*

GREEN DAY - A 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". Some say that in drug slang - if you smoked pot and goofed off all day, it was a "Green Day."
Green day was earlier called Sweet Children.
Billie Joe wrote his first song when he was five called Looking for Love. The first song he wrote that was recorded was Why Do You Want Him at age twelve.
Billie Joe and Mike formed their band Sweet Children when they were in fifth grade
In the second grade two girls beat up Billie Joe so that he would date them. This might have led to the song, Pulling Teeth.
Mike once kicked his teacher when he was in kindergarten because she told him to do something he didn't want to do.
Mike, Tre, and Billie have an 'EBPM' tattoo which stands for East Bay Punk Mafia.

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.
About “November Rain” :
November Rain" has been called an epic rock ballad, in the tradition of "Stairway to Heaven" or "Hotel California". Officially, it is eight minutes and 57 seconds long. Many radio stations shorten it down to about six minutes.
"November Rain" also holds the record for the longest guitar solo in a Top 10 hit. Slash's axe work on this song was ranked number 6 in "Guitar World"'s "100 Greatest Guitar Solos
The platinum hit “November rain” was written by front man Axl Rose and the video features his wedding. Which was annulled a year later.
There's a neat bit of irony in the music video: there is a gun store (called Guns) next to a florist's shop (called Roses).
“Sweet Child of Mine”
The music video for "Sweet Child O' Mine" is set in an abandoned theatre and shows the band rehearsing for a show. A few of the band members' girlfriends were featured in the video as well as stage crew members. The video was pretty successful on MTV and greatly contributed to the mainstream success of not only the band, but the song as well.

KISS - According to Paul Stanley, Kiss just sounded dangerous (kiss of death) and sexy at the same time. Kiss denies the rumors that the name stands for "Kids In Service of Satan" or the saying "Keep It Simple Stupid."

LED ZEPPELIN - Jimmy Page was drinking with Moon and Entwhistle, who were bitching about their band mates Daltrey and Townshend. They joked about the two of them starting a band with Jimmy, and one of them said "Yeah, that will go over like a lead balloon". When Jimmy formed his own band, he remembered this and thought "Lead Zeppelin" would be good, both from that conversation and the heavy/light contradiction similar to the band named IRON BUTTERFLY. They decided to drop the "a" so Americans wouldn't mispronounce it.

LINKIN PARK : Earlier known as Xero, then changed it to Hybrid Theory, and then finally Linkin Park, to pay homage to Lincoln park , SF.

LIMP BIZKIT - Got the idea from Fred Durst's dog Biscuit who has a limp.

LL COOL J - for "Ladies Love Cool James".

LOS LOBOS - Spanish for "The Wolves"

LYNYRD SKYNYRD - Named after Leonard Skinner, an annoying gym teacher/coach some of the members had in high school. Leonard is said to have moved on to sell real estate in Jacksonville, Florida. *don’t know thm much…. Just the song “sweet home alabama”…*

MAROON 5 : Adam Levine, Jesse Carmichael, Mickey Madden and Ryan Dusick were friends since Junior High School and decided to form a band. known as Kara’s Flowers. but with a new drummer and a new sound, they changed their name to Maroon 5. They refuse to say what it means though…

MATCHBOX TWENTY :Paul Doucette came up with the name. The band came up with the name Matchbox Twenty when Paul was a waiter in a diner and saw a guy with a number 20 softball shirt. It was covered with patches and the only word they could read was matchbox. Paul thought it would be a good name for a clothes line - Rob hated it! Rob wanted to name the band “Larry” cuz he thought ppl saying “Hey Larry‘s playing” sounded cool. *they sure don’t have brains… but wtf…they make cool music…*

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)

METALLICA - Lars Ulrich was helping a friend think of a name for a metal fanzine. The choices were Metal Mania and Metallica. Metal Mania was chosen for the magazine & he used Metallica for his band.

NIRVANA - As Kurt Cobain said (yes, this is a quote): "Nirvana means complete and total bliss. That is what punk rock means to me." Nirvana had many punk influences that were very evident in their music. Nirvana is a state of nothingness, complete contentment, not needing or wanting anything, no emotions.

'NSYNC- Justin's mother came up with the name. N is the last letter in Justin, S is the last letter in Chris, Y is the last letter in Joey. N is actually from James Lance Bass because Chris gave him the nickname 'Lansten'. Since Lance doesn't end with a N, they used his nick name, Lansten. C is from J.C. That's how they came up with 'NSYNC. The whole thing is, of course, a play on In Sync - a term which comes from the movie industry - meaning when the picture & soundtrack are properly aligned or synchronized.

NO DOUBT - a favorite phrase of John Spence, it became the name of the band prior to his suicide.

OASIS - local British origins: a Manchester cab company, a chain of women's clothing stores,
a local Indian restaurant and more likely a local club that The Beatles played in during their early years (the band are avowed Beatles fans)

PEARL JAM - Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were members of pioneering grunge band Green River during the mid-1980s. Green River toured and recorded to moderate success but disbanded in 1987. In late 1987, Gossard and Ament began playing with Malfunkshun (another band) vocalist Andrew Wood, eventually organizing the band Mother Love Bone. In 1988 and 1989, the band recorded and toured to increasing interest and their debut album, Apple, was released in July 1990, four months after Wood died of a heroin overdose.
Ament and Gossard were devastated by the death of Wood and the resulting demise of Mother Love Bone. Gossard spent his time afterwards writing material that was harder-edged than what he had been doing previously. After a few months, Gossard started practicing with fellow Seattle guitarist Mike McCready, whose band Shadow had broken up; McCready in turn encouraged Gossard to reconnect with Ament. After practicing for a while, the trio sent out a five-song demo tape in order to find a singer and a drummer. They gave former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons the demo to see if he would be interested in joining the band and to distribute the demo to anyone he felt might fit the lead vocal position. Irons passed on the invitation but gave the demo to his basketball buddy, San Diego singer Eddie Vedder. Vedder was the lead vocalist for a San Diego band, Bad Radio, and worked part time at a gas station. He listened to the tape shortly before going surfing, where lyrics came to him. There he recorded the vocals to three of the songs ("Alive", "Once", and "Footsteps") in what Vedder would later describe as a "mini-opera" he entitled "Mamasan". He sent the tape with his vocals back to the three Seattle musicians, who were so impressed that they had Vedder fly to Seattle. Within a week, Vedder had joined the band. With the addition of Dave Krusen on drums, the band took the name Mookie Blaylock, in reference to the then-active All-Star basketball player. However, concerns about trademark issues necessitated a name change; the band's name became "Pearl Jam". In an early promotional interview, Vedder said that the name "Pearl Jam" was a reference to his great-grandmother Pearl, who was married to a Native American and had a special recipe for peyote-laced (hallucinogenic… like LSD, Cocaine etc..) jam. In a 2006 Rolling Stone cover story however, Vedder admitted that this story was "total bullshit" (even though he indeed had a great-grandma named Pearl). Ament came up with "pearl", and that the band later settled on "Pearl Jam" after “Jamming” which meant stretching up songs as improvisations of 15-20 minutes in length.

PINK FLOYD - taken from the names of two Georgia bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd
Council - from the early days when the band saw itself as a blues band.

THE REPLACEMENTS - Legend has it that they were given a gig after another band failed to show - when asked who they were they replied "We're the Replacements".

THE ROLLING STONES - from the Howlin' Wolf blues song "Rolling Stone" - Keith Richards was a fan of the version recorded by Muddy Waters.

SAVAGE GARDEN - Darren is a huge fan of Anne Rice's vampire novels and that is where the name of the band came . Anne Rice is known mostly for the Vampire Chronicles but writes other things that have to do with ancient history, folk-lore, mythology and dark, DARK mysteries. "Savage Garden" shows up in the second book called "The Vampire Lestat", where the vampire Lestat and others of his kind describe the world as a savage garden. Darren and Daniel both agreed to this name because it has a deeper meaning behind it

STEELY DAN - taken from William Burrough's book Naked Lunch. In it Steely Dan is the nickname given to a giant steam-powered dildo (see cover photo on their first album) *can anything get weirder than this???*

SWITCHFOOT : An American alternative rock band from San Diego, California. The band's members are Jon Foreman (vocals, guitar), Tim Foreman (bass guitar, backing vocals), Chad Butler (drums, percussion), Jerome Fontamillas (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), and Drew Shirley (guitar).
Switchfoot first gained mainstream recognition after the inclusion of four of their songs in the 2002 movie A Walk to Remember. This recognition led to their major label debut, The Beautiful Letdown, which was released in 2003. It went on to sell over 2.6 million copies and produced the band's best-known singles, "Meant to Live" and "Dare You to Move".
According to Jon Foreman, the name "Switchfoot" is a surfing term. "We all love to surf and have been surfing all our lives so to us, the name made sense. To switch your feet means to take a new stance facing the opposite direction. It's about change and movement, a different way of approaching life and music".

TRAIN : Rob thought of it: In an interview with Echo & the Bunnymen, they said there was nothing left in the US that was romantic. Rob disagreed and thought that the most romantic thing about the US was the train.

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 - 60's experimental band associated with pop artist Andy Warhol, they took their name from a paperback book they found on the street - the book was about sex in America.