Naming your metal band is much harder than naming, say, your newborn son. Far more is at stake. Your band’s reputation for terror, innovation, and general badassness depends on the avoidance of names like Hoobastank or Colon on the Cob.
Other genres have it easy by comparison. Ska? Just slip “ska” in the name somewhere and then break up. Emo? Create a sentence: The Cheese Is Old and Moldy.
But metal? Shit, dawg: Get ready to hunker down in your practice space for a week straight, armed with your Nile CD collection, fistfuls of controlled substances, and, oh yes, a thesaurus. Even names that sound good at first — the Bay’s own As She Burns, for example — will implode when you realize that one can access your Web site by typing AssHeBurns.com.
So take the advice of successful Bay Area metal acts who were badass enough to adeptly name themselves, yet kind enough to participate in this, the official East Bay Express Metal-Band Naming Seminar — conducted by e-mail, of course, since these people could probably kill me, or at least might feel compelled to try. When your band is named Hacksaw to the Throat, after all, you give that impression. You’re supposed to.
Band Name/Homebase
Something Must Die (East Bay)
Death by Death (San Francisco)
Children of Umlaut (East/South Bay)
All Shall Perish (Oakland)
Suffocate the Creep (Fairfield)
Watch Them Die (Oakland)
Scorched-Earth Policy (Oakland)
Mucus Membrane (Sacramento)
Hacksaw to the Throat (Oakland)
How did you get your name? Who initially suggested it?
SMD: Our old bassist Dan Cicero came up with the name. He wanted something that sounded “heavy” without being called “Dead Carcassectomy” or something like that.
COU: Guitarists John-Jury Luis and Michael Loperena came up with the name after hanging out with a co-worker who is fluent in German — he just kept saying, “Dude — name your band UMLAUT!”
ASP: I actually suggested it after a lot of long nights thinking and going over our lyrics while looking at various news sites. Haha, a lot of fucked-up shit was going on in the world.
StC: The bassist and guitarist first suggested “Creep,” but I [the drummer] thought it would sound better with “Suffocate” in front so we wouldn’t get confused with Creed whenever you hear the name.
WTD: Singer suggested it. We were looking for a name that was dark, depressing, aggressive, and maybe even violent. We thought that one of the worst things in life is losing a friend or family member, but even worse is having to WATCH THEM DIE.
MM: Suggested by the band’s original singer, Vinnie Matthews, now of Dying Fetus. Vinnie and I both thought this was an original name for the band back in ’96, when every grindcore and death metal band’s name ended in “tion.” It’s easy to remember but not totally cliché or cheesy.
HttT: Justin was sitting at Ben’s kitchen table while still deep in his obsession with grueling death metal bands such as Mortician, and Justin thought that “Hacksaw to the Throat” suitably represented the full extent of torture and mayhem that he thought should be present in the music.
Did you know immediately that you’d found the perfect band name, or did it take a while for you to warm up to it?
SMD: I hated the name, but it works. People tend to remember it.
COU: Once the name was said out loud, everyone around us busted out laughing. We rolled on the floor for a solid ten minutes just thinking about it. Getting a reaction — good or bad — gets you noticed.
StC: It definitely took a while for the whole band to get used to the name, ’cause not many band names have three words. So yeah, it sounded weird at first. Didn’t think we were going to keep it, but then it just started growing on us, and everyone told us that it’s unique.
HttT: Initially, Ben was very hesitant because he didn’t want to be considered just a “joke death metal band.” Justin was so insistent that he threatened to quit the band and start a side project, just to utilize the brutal name, which from the very beginning he realized was a stroke of genius. Ben didn’t ever consciously accept the band name, and then reluctantly decided that the name of the band really isn’t too important (which you have proven wrong because you are willing to write an article about it).
What other band names did you consider? How close was the final decision? Are there band members who still dissent?
DXD: “The Unpassionate” was our first, but crappy, choice. We were actually the Unpassionate for about a week.
COU: Oh man, we came up with the cheesiest names. We sifted through the thesaurus for weeks looking up words like “power” and “intensity.” Interforce was one suggestion, and so was Force of Rage … has anyone seen my snakeskin Spandex and Aqua Net?
StC: It took about one year to finally decide on a good one. First it was Falling Up, Drain Bamage, Stone Conscience, etc. But I don’t know, I guess those ones just didn’t stand out enough. No one doesn’t like the name — we all take pride in it and the meaning behind it.
WTD: The list is way too long to give, and besides, if we wrote all of them here, we would be giving up all the ideas we had. I think that is part of the process, research!
MM: That was the first and only suggestion. I’ve come up with tons of great band names since then, but I may want to use them someday, so they’re locked away in a top-secret vault!
HttT: Justin wanted to have a martial arts theme to the band and name it the Ninja Warlords. However, Ben strongly dissented from this notion by pummeling him in the face. We considered some names that were simultaneously dark and poetic, such as the Greek word “Erebus” which means “pathway descending into hell,” but then determined, “Fuck it, let’s go all-out brutality.”
How much thought did you put into the name? Was there a specific idea or concept or attitude you were hoping to convey?
SMD: We wanted to name to sound as heavy as we were, so that was the only criteria. Make it sound HEAVY.
DXD: It just came to me. I was walking really early in the morning and was spacing out. In my head, I was making up some stupid English comedy. There were two old English gentlemen in a castle sitting next to a fireplace on a late night. They were smoking Sherlock Holmes pipes and wearing robes and slippers. One of them said (in a snobby English accent), “How did he die?” And the other said, “It was Death. Death by Death.” Suddenly I awoke out of my early morning stupor and knew the band name.
COU: There were a lot of metal bands in the ’80s who used umlauts in their band name for no apparent reason: Motörhead, Mötley Crüe, Queensryche, etc. We grew up listening to these guys, so Children of Umlaut makes perfect sense to us. Our fans also figured out that an umlaut signifies a transformation of sound — whenever you see an umlaut in a word, it identifies a fluctuation on how that word is pronounced. Our fans are much deeper than we are.
ASP: I know I put weeks into the name … it was like the culmination of weeks of effort, lyric writing, and my general sentiments as to the plight of humanity in a few respects. We live in fucked-up times, and this name reflects the attitudes of a few people living in this world of horror.
StC: I was sitting in my English class drawing on my folder like everyone does, and I was writing “Creep” on it, trying to, you know, maybe draw a logo. And I saw on my folder that “Suffocate” was written on a different area of my folder, so I put them together, and boom.
S-EP: According to Webster’s, a scorched-earth policy is the act of a retreating army destroying anything that may be of use to the army they are retreating from, i.e. railroad tracks, food supplies, communication apparatus, etc. I suppose at the beginning I had this idea that we were going to destroy people’s preconceived notions about what metal is and remove boundaries that exist within the genre or some such pretentious BS like that. Nowadays I’m like, “Yeah, whatever, we’re a metal band that strives to write good songs and make good records, nothing more, nothing less.”
MM: I’ve come up with one because so many people have asked. You may have noticed that the spelling is not exactly right, typically the lining of your nostrils is spelled mucous membrane and the snot that comes out of your nose is spelled mucus. So I came up with the concept that Mucus Membrane is actually a substance made from mucus that traps an unsuspecting victim (sort of like a spider web), like the Death Metal antihero when he spews this vile substance from his nose during a mosh pit. If we really wanted to take things to the extreme we could spray a green mucus-like substance from the stage onto the crowd during live performances, Ã la GWAR.
Do you think it’s harder to name hard rock/metal bands than other types of groups, just due to the extra obligation to sound “badass”?
SMD: Not at all. Sounding badass is cool, but ultimately I hope it’s the music that the five of us create that represents us rather than a name.
DXD: I think it’s hard to name any band, regardless of the genre.
COU: Totally. You don’t see many metal bands coming up with names like ‘NSync or Kajagoogoo.
ASP: It might be a little harder if you’re trying to sound “badass” — I mean, there are so many metal bands that have tried to use any type of gory term in their name, like there are five different Disgorge bands from all around the world. In metal and hardcore there is a lot of tough-guy attitudes and people with dark/pained feelings that result in band names with a theme of anger/pain/death.
StC: It is hard to name a metal band, ’cause most bands already have the word BLOOD or KILL or any name that represents badassness, but other than that everyone searches for the perfect name, or just something that they all have in common.
S-EP: Not really. I think the hardest part of naming any band is finding something that’s not totally cliché and making it your own. When I think about names like Sleep, Melvins, or Nile, for instance, they don’t immediately conjure up visions of bludgeoning riffs and spastic drumming. But after you listen to the music and then go back and think about the name again, you go, “Yeah, that’s pretty cool.” At the same time, I’d never name a metal band “Butterscotch Pony” or something.
MM: It’s harder to come up with something original-sounding that’s easy to remember ’cause there are so many metal bands out there, but on the whole it’s easy to just pick a “badass” band name … all you need is a thesaurus!
HttT: I think it’s easier to name metal bands, because most of the time you don’t have to take things so seriously. Fuck Dave Matthews Band.
What’s your favorite band name of those already taken, the one you wish you’d thought of?
SMD: My favorite name at the moment is the Darkness. It’s totally cliché and ridiculous, but the band rules so much they make the name sound totally kickass.
DXD: Slayer is a really good one. I sort of wish we’d thought of Hatebreed or Terror first.
COU: Kajagoogoo.
ASP: I don’t think I have a favorite band name. You realize that a name seriously doesn’t mean a thing in the end — if your music rocks, people will take notice. I mean, there is a thrash metal band out now called Dew Scented?!? At this point, with so many bands having similar names, it’s like who the fuck cares? It’s just a name. I always thought some good names were At the Gates, Blood Has Been Shed, GWAR, Opeth.
WTD: It’s hard to say just one band — there are so many cool band names out there. Bathory, Sodum, and High on Fire, to name a few.
S-EP: Touched by a Janitor. I still laugh out loud every time I see that name in the paper. That’s great. Backhoe Butchery is good too.
HttT: Mississippi Anal Rodriguez, Voracious Consumption of Post-Ejaculatory Anal Discharge, Ninja Warlords, Lumpy Stapley and the Guys who Stabbed Him, Kazakhstanian Narcotics from Hell with a Vengeance.
Is it awkward discussing your band name with, say, your grandmother?
SMD: Yeah. However, any band name is going to sound cheesy to them. It’s funny because every time I say the name to someone I meet for the first time, I have to repeat it because it hits them so hard. But they NEVER forget it if I see them again.
DXD: Yes it is. When I told my parents, I had a weird feeling of embarrassment.
COU: The most common question we encounter is, “What’s an umlaut?” Our next T-shirt design will have Webster’s definition printed on the back.
ASP: No. I have no problem saying our band name or explaining what it’s all about. I mean, it’s almost a truism. But when you tell someone you just met your band name is “All Shall Perish” — like, say, when you’re trying to rent an apartment — they do look at you kind of weird. But with a minute of explanation I can make sense of it usually.
WTD: Surprisingly no. Family (including Grandma) is very supportive of the band name. I must say it is a little weird hearing your grandma say, “My grandson is in a rock band called Watch Them Die.” At a funeral last year an aunt of mine asked me. Having to say “Watch Them Die” at this particular time was a little strange, but hey, just being there was a little strange.
HttT: Considering the fact that we brutally murdered our collective grandmothers who were whores anyway, we don’t give a fuck.
Any advice for unnamed metal bands? Any common misconceptions or mistakes?
SMD: Stop using three-word names. Don’t use the words die, skies, autumn, or anything already done a million times. Also, don’t break up.
ASP: Use the Internet!!! You can check to see if your band name idea is already taken. I see so many new bands with the exact same name as someone else — check things like Hxcmp3.com or even a straight-up Google search for your name. You can always try to be original and make up a word.
STC: Try not to make it sound so hardcore, like they will jump off the stage and kick your ass ’cause they’re so damn hardcore and cool, ’cause everyone is trying to sound badass these days. I mean, why not name a metal band Pink Fluffy Bunny Rabbit? At least that’s different from the popular metal names that promote savageness. And no one would ever guess that you were metal, so when you play, it would shock the audience that your name is Pink Fluffy Bunny Rabbit yet you’re playing heavy metal.
WTD: Pretend you’re a kid going to a metal show and say, “Is anybody going to see _________ this weekend?” If it sounds cool and the majority likes it, go for it.
S-EP: Personally, I don’t like phonetic spelling and intentional misspelling, like replacing the letter “i” with “y” and stuff like that. But, that’s just me. Also, any name can look evil on paper if the logo is illegible enough.
MM: Don’t worry about the name until you have some killer music written … the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter how cool your name is if your music sucks! Similarly, if your music kicks ass I wouldn’t care if your band name was Madonna’s Little Bitch. I’d still buy the CD and proudly crank up it up whenever I had the chance!
HttT: Don’t try to make a cliché poetic hardcore screamo name like Poison the Well or anything involving the following words: ashes, beneath, fallen, autumn, bled, bleeding, darkened, black. If you take this path, you are clearly unoriginal and nothing you will do in your life will have any meaning whatsoever.
Shall we self-promote while we’re at it?
SMD: Playing Saturday night at Danville Grange Hall. SomethingMustDie.net
DXD: DeathxDeath.com, but sadly, Death by Death has broken up, ignoring Something Must Die’s advice.
COU: ChildrenofUmlaut.com
ASP: New CD Hate. Malice. Revenge. out now. AllShallPerish.com
STC: Actually right now we are looking for a dedicated and experienced bassist and singer, ’cause as our music matures some of the members aren’t.
WTD: New self-titled CD out now. WatchThemDie.com
S-EP: Scorched-EarthPolicy.com
MM: Blast7.com
HttT: Debut CD Tear My Eyes Out available now. HacksawtotheThroat.com
