Band Names

[ LiB ]

After great songs, your group name is your #2 asset. Here we will learn how to pick a good name. How to stand out as a band. How to see if the name 's already being used. How to make sure no one else uses it.

There are two schools of thought on band names. One says, "The name doesn't matter; it's all about the music." The other says, "The name is very important. It should say something about you because it's often the first (or last) thing people will know you by."

I'm kind of a subscriber to the third school. I believe a band name is important, but not as important as the songs. I feel people will forgive a dumb name more than crappy songs. If you have great songs, the name is less important. But it still matters.

Basically, you want a catchy name that isn't a joke (if you want to be taken seriously) and people will be happy to say, "I like _________ a lot." One test is to picture someone saying to their friend, "Check out this new band _______" and see if it rings true to you. Also picture it on a T-shirt.

Naming a band is one of the most fun parts of being in a band. Most bands start out with a long list that they have a lot of fun coming up with. Then they go through that and winnow it down to a short list of five or so that they could seriously be attached to for a few years . Then they usually take a vote and do a certain amount of focus group testing on their friends .

Naming the band is often done before all the songs are written or the lineup is even solidified. I think this is putting the cat before the mouse, but do what you want.

I put this part later in the book. It was originally earlier, but I wanted to stress that the music is way more important than the name.

The most important thing is that your band name be original. If there are two bands with the same name, it's gonna be a problem. And this gets tough, because there are so many bands out there now. Plus there have been so many bands in the past, and you can't use any of their names either.

When checking out potential names to see if they're being used, I would first recommend looking on MP3.com. Pretty much every band in the world is on this site. Type www.mp3.com/(band name) into your browser and see if something comes up. By this, I mean, if you want to call your band " devil kitty," type www.mp3.com/devilkitty. (Of course, this name is already taken by me. And I had it years before the all-girl band in Japan started to put out records under that name. But I don't really care, because I am not doing anything with it currently, and they're cute.) Or just go to the main page of www.mp3.com and type in the band name you want to use. If it doesn't come up, there's a good chance it's available. I would also run a search on Google, with the term both in quotes and not. Then check at www.netsol.com and see if the domain name is available. If your name passes all these tests, it's probably available. You also might check with some vinyl nerd at an indie record store, one of those people who prides himself on knowing about every band that has ever existed, no matter how obscure.

Any name that is one word, especially a common noun, is probably taken: Pavement, Bottlecap, Shellac, Television, Flour, Flower, and so forth. Same thing with any common phrase, movie title, or book title. (Literary band names are usually pretty dumb; they end up over-intellectualizing something that isn't intellectual by nature.) I was pretty surprised in 1986 when my band Bomb started that the name was not taken. (Of course, a few people, a hip-hop band and a solo drummer , stole it later. But we came up with it.) I would also tend to avoid the punk rock clich of an adjective-noun band name. Most of them are pretty dumb, though there are some pretty cool exceptions, like Angelic Upstarts, Reagan Youth, and Naked Raygun. There were a lot of bands who used Reagan in their name when that guy was president. It kinda limited their viability to last past his presidency. Though Naked Raygun did invent and contribute the "Oh, oh oh oh" backup vocal that was stolen by everyone from Perry Farrell to Pennywise. Naked Raygun, unlike a lot of punk bands, could also write a hell of a catchy tune.

You want to stand out. A name can help. Then we come up against the "Should we go with a vulgar name?" conundrum . I always thought the name Butthole Surfers was pretty dumb, even though I loved that band from the first time I saw them (opening for Dead Kennedys in Washington, D.C., in 1983). I also think that by the time they were writing songs like "Pepper," they had outlived that name but were still stuck with it. They had lost some members , too. They obviously did not subscribe to the Dischord Records ethic of "Make up a new band name, write new songs, and start over when someone leaves the band." But I don't either. Unless it's the singer. The only band that was strong enough to keep the name with different singers was Black Flag. Rollins wasn't even their first singer .

I don't even think that Butthole Surfers is a vulgar name. I've heard far more offensive. But when they used to tour in a van in the early 80s, they were usually listed in ads in most local papers as the B_______ Surfers, or the B-Hole Surfers. I remember their singer, Gibby Haynes said, "Jeez, I don't know why everyone's so uptight. Even my 84-year-old grandma can say 'Butthole Surfers' out loud with no problem."

Basically, what I'm getting at is if you pick a badass name, you're gonna have to deal with the baggage that comes with a badass name. And also, a name that sounds clever at first is gonna sound pretty unclever with time.

NOTE

This book is all educational/ speculative only. Nothing here constitutes legal advice. The guy who wrote this book is not a lawyer. He is a high school dropout. He may be right, and probably is, but we'd be remiss to not tell you to consult with an attorney. Even though they'll probably, by definition, try to take all your money if they can.

Avoid naming your band after trademarked products or famous movies. That's just asking for trouble. And the attention that comes with the trouble will not, despite what you think, help you. It will not be "free publicity." It will be legal fees you cannot afford.

So, after you've come up with a truly original name you can all live with, you should protect it. The first thing I would do is get the domain name and develop a Web site. Then I would offer something for sale on the Web site that has the band name on it. If you don't have a tape yet, at least a T-shirt. Because by selling over the Internet, you are "engaging in interstate commerce," which is one of the indicators used to define the date of something first being trademarked. And once you're offering tapes or CDs for sale, have a little available for download. For some reason, this "enticement" helps establish the music recording's class of trademark.

I would put a little trademark symbol next to the band name. Do not use the R in a circle, ; this is reserved for a registered trademark. More on this later. Put the date you started selling on the Web site and print the page out. You may need this later to help establish "first use in commerce." You might think that's not very airtight; anyone can put any date on a Web site and lie, but all Web sites are actually cached daily by all the major search engines, as well as by the government, and this can be used to prove what was up there on a certain date. Your printed copy of the Web page is just to include in the trademark application.

You can do this through a lawyer, but I personally don't. I save lawyers for stuff I absolutely cannot do myself . So, if you actually want to pursue a solid trademark, go to www.uspto.gov and run a search for the name. Click on Trademarks in the left column, then go to the first choice on the next page. (It says "TESS," which stands for Trademark Electronic Search System. ^[1.] ) Then go to New User Form Search (Basic) and enter your band name. If nothing comes up, you can go ahead and apply to register it. It will cost $335 on your credit card to start, and a year later, if approved, will cost another hundred to finalize. If you get turned down and cannot successfully appeal it (usually because someone else has a solid prior claim to the name), you do not get the $335 back.

^[1.] This is not the first time I've seen a database named after a woman . Gotta love them nurds.

The cost of trademarking your band name is a good reason to make sure you do your Web search first. You don't want to waste $335 on something that isn't going to work out.

And keep in mind that just because a name does not show up in TESS does not mean it is not in the process of being trademarked by someone else. It can take a month or more to show up there after someone begins the process. This is another reason to come up with absolutely unique names.

You will usually get turned down the first time, usually about eight months after you apply. That's when you'll send in your printed Web site and any new merchandise you havewhen they ask for more proof. Only after you get the paperwork back from the trademark office saying that it is a registered trademark (this takes about a year) can you use the little symbol.

Note that you cannot "park" a trademark the way you can "park" a domain name. You have to actually be selling or in the process of getting ready to use it to sell something. But you don't have to be selling on a big scale.

Note that it's $335 per class . Eventually, if you're planning on making money on your band, you will want to register it in at least two classes, Class 9 (sound recordings featuring music) and Class 25 (clothing, namely T-shirts, sport shirts, sweat shirts, hats and shorts). But for now, if you can't afford both, one is a good start. My trademark lawyer friend that used to play in my band tells me that it's far better to have a registered trademark in one class than none.

I have my band name, Kittyfeet, trademarked, (go ahead and run the search) but in a different class (042; software). This is from a previous business venture that did not make much money. I use it only occasionally nowadays for that venture. So the name is still active. One of these days I'll get around to registering it in the other two classes. "So many gerbils, so little time."

The test of a trademark in court is often simply, "Who has more money for lawyers?" But basically, it's also, "Can someone be confused ?" Which brings up an interesting fact. You can't play music under the name of a famous musician, even if it's your real name. If your name is David Bowie, you're gonna have to find a variation on that. Sorry, but that's the way it is. I use my middle initial, W, and sometimes middle name, Wareham, because Michael Dean is such a common name.

When I was touring, there were three guys with the same name in the same scene: me, the bass player from Corrosion of Conformity, and the drummer in Gang Green. There's a singer named Dean Wareham, but I ain't him. There are no other humans on this planet named Michael Wareham Dean, according to my Web searches.

Once you get approved by the trademark office, you pay them another 100 bucks, then you can add the R in a circle, , after your name or logo.

Get a good name that you can live with and that says something about your band. Make sure it's unique and all yours and protect it. A little bit of attention to these details now will save a lot of hassle later.

[ LiB ]