You’ve just decided to create a performing group with your friends. This time you mean it. No more fooling around with weekend bands. You’ve got some money saved and you’re going for the gold. You and the band sit around for hours, brainstorming what you think are cool names for your new group, but hundreds of name suggestions later, the band can’t agree on one name that does the job. What do you do now?
I’ve been there! Eight bands into my music career, I hit a snag. Really cool names used to just roll off my tongue like butter – Belles of Boston, Rude Girls, Chanterelle, Groovemama. But on reflection, while some were perfect, not all of those names were as useful to the group as they could have been. My newest band presented more challenges than in the past. We are cross-cultural, bilingual and border crossings are involved since band members live in two countries, which means government gatekeepers will look at the name and make judgements based on that. This band is a long-distance relationship and we work hard to keep it going. Everyone has to love the name and be enthusiastic about it.
After hundreds of name possibilities were brought up, I began to see a bigger picture. We needed answers to some questions about our group before we could choose a good name.
The most important point to remember is this: If you are serious about your music career, you are naming not just a performing group, but a business. You want to make a living from it, right? Well, that’s considered a business. First you need a good brand, and then you have to sell yourself like crazy. Welcome to the real world of being a working musician!
Questions to ask everyone in the band . . .
We did this much more informally, but I invite you to print these questions out and see what your band members say in answer. What you choose to call yourself is likely to arise out of the answers to these questions.
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1. Who are we, both individually and as a group? And why are we doing this together?
2. What do we do? Is there ONE WORD that can describe us? What is it?
3. Why are we special? How is this band different from all other bands?
4. What are our goals? How would each member finish these sentences: “In two years, my band will be ______.” and “In five years, my band will be _________.” ?
5. How does our music make us feel when we play?
6. What do others think and feel about our music?
7. Do we have a greater goal or message to our music? What is it?
What your name should do for you . . .
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1. Make you likeable. Of course, edgier bands will have edgier names. The idea is to use a name that your audience identifies strongly and positively with you.
2. Be descriptive. A band or album name both tells a story and says who you are. “Old Guys With Guitars” could be accurate, but the story is short and uninteresting. “Old and In the Way,” however, was a fabulous album title for instrumentalists and singers Dave Grisman, Jerry Garcia and Peter Rowan.
3. Be free of negative or embarrassing alternate meanings or connotations. Watch out for homonyms (sound-alikes) and close spellings that have negative meanings. If your grandmother or girlfriend’s mother is coming to your shows, that could factor into the decision. You might feel like rocking out as “Limbs of Satan,” but end up settling for “Pajama Slave Dancers” (actual band name, and the one I’d nominate for best band name ever!).
4. Translate well into other languages if necessary. My bands sing in Irish, French and English, so names have to reflect that diversity. One spectacularly bad brand name was given by Chevrolet in the 1960s to its Nova model of compact car. When marketed in Spanish-speaking countries, the model sold poorly at first. Why? “No va” in Spanish means “doesn’t go!”
5. Be available for your band to use, and this includes a domain-name search. If you can’t buy the domain, don’t use that band name. And don’t ever call yourself by a name that confuses you with well-known people in your music genre. That just makes you look like a wannabe. For instance, if you’re an Irish-American folk group, you wouldn’t call yourself “Solace” because there’s already a well-respected group in that genre called “Solas”.
6. Imply a very good time for listeners of your music – “Freefall” instead of “The Death Squad” (unless you’re a death metal band, of course!). Look at other effective names in your genre. What makes them good, and memorable? Go for that element without copying their name.
7. Be strong enough to carry the group through at least a five year career, sadly, much longer than most bands last. The closer the name is to the heart of your music, the more mileage it will give the band.
Test out your possible name . . .
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1. Ask close friends and musical colleagues what they think of the name. Pay attention to what they say. These are the people most likely to tell you the truth. You can also brainstorm with them over name ideas. Sometimes a fresh look at a problem can solve it!
2. In addition to a domain-name search, do a Google and Wikipedia search for the name you choose. You might also check to see whether close spellings take you to sketchy sites (Rude Girls was a band before the internet existed. Think about that). If you’re a Christian rock band and your name can accidentally divert folks to the dark side online, you might want to choose another name.
3. Write a press release for the top two name choices that talks about why you chose the name. It will help you clarify your thinking about the name to write about why you chose it. Pay attention to things that come up in multiple band-members’ narratives – that’ll give you your ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
4. Try playing with design ideas based on the name. Sometimes this is the tie-breaker when a great design idea makes one name stand out as a choice.
5. Give it a three-day waiting period. If after three days, all band members still agree, you’ve got your name.
Things I learned from doing it wrong . . .
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1. Your name brands you like a tattoo. Make sure you like the brand, that it really speaks for you. It’s a marriage and divorce is expensive and time-wasting.
2. Be careful with negative words in your name, cute or wise-ass as they may be. That too can brand you in ways you didn’t foresee.
3. Don’t be too exclusive with your name. You don’t want to limit yourself from growing into new music. “North American Fiddlers” is much more limiting than “Fiddler’s Fancy”.
4. Make sure the name isn’t a registered trademark. This one’s common sense.
The best name, in my opinion, is one that is unique, that describes you in a deep and meaningful way, is easy to say and remember and that you as a band member are happy to carry as a badge of identity.
By the way, “The Beatles” is already taken!
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P.S. We called the band “Panache Quartet” – we are four fiddlers, and the name works since the word is used in both languages, leaving us with myriad musical possibilities!
© 2014 Donna Hébert. All rights reserved.