From ABBA to ZZ Top, All the Good Band Names Are Taken
Internet Age Raises Stakes for Being First; Two Brooklyn Acts Lay Claim to Discovery
WALL STREET JOURNAL
FEBRUARY 17, 2010
By JOHN JURGENSEN
When former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones recently formed a new rock band, the music flowed easily. The struggle: inventing a name for the group.
Between takes in a recording studio, Mr. Jones brainstormed about names with his new band mates, including former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, then checked them online. Their first choice, Caligula, turned up at least seven acts named after the decadent Roman emperor, including a defunct techno outfit from Australia. Eventually the rockers decided on Them Crooked Vultures. The words held no special meaning.
"Every other name is taken," Mr. Jones explains. "Think of a great band name and Google it, and you'll find a French-Canadian jam band with a MySpace page."
The available supply of punchy one- or two-word band names is dwindling. So, many acts are resorting to the unwieldy or nonsensical.
Among more than 1,900 acts expected in March at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, are bands with the names And So I Watch You From Afar, and Everybody Was In the French Resistance...Now! The f-word is part of 100 band names in a media database maintained by Gracenote, a unit of Sony Corp. that licenses digital entertainment technology.
For the generations of musicians who have taken up guitars and drumsticks, picking a band name has been as crucial as teasing out a distinctive style—and usually the name comes first. For a lucky few, a word or phrase can become iconic. The Beatles, before they were legends, were briefly the Silver Beetles, a nod to Buddy Holly's Crickets. Jerry Garcia discovered the name Grateful Dead in a dictionary.
The last decade's digital revolution not only transformed the way people listen to music, it changed the way bands establish identities. In the past, identically named acts often carved out livings in separate regions, oblivious or indifferent to one another. Now, it takes only moments for a musician to create an online profile and upload songs, which can potentially reach listeners around the world.
Lawyers say that has raised the stakes in trademark disputes, which almost always hinge on which band first used the name commercially, and where.
"If 37 people in California logged on to your MySpace page last month, you can argue that you provide goods or services in California," even if you're a Connecticut band who hasn't released an album or toured out of state, says Atlanta lawyer Joel R. Feldman of Greenberg Traurig LLP.
There are about 1.4 million artist names, including 29 individual musicians named John Williams, in the database of Rovi Corp., which owns Web sites including AllMusic.com and licenses editorial content to Apple's iTunes and other music services.
Last year, Rovi added an average of 6,521 new names a month to its database. And the repeats are piling up. Eighteen acts, past and present, laid claim to the most common name in Rovi's files: Bliss. Next up: Mirage and One, with 15 iterations each, followed by Gemini, Legacy, Paradox and Rain.
In Nashville, country musicians Susie Brown and Danelle Leverett are about to release their debut record through Warner Brothers. About five years ago, Ms. Leverett, a guitarist, started writing songs with Ms. Brown, a fiddler. A friend suggested they call themselves the Boppers, "because we bop our heads when we play," Ms. Brown recalls, but they demurred. Lady Hawk, borrowed from an '80s fantasy film, stuck with the duo for only six months, long enough for them to purchase matching black shirts emblazoned with hawks.
By 2006, they had come up with what they thought was the perfect country-music moniker: Jane Deere. It was simple, blue-collar and a little jokey. But after their lawyer registered the name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the company behind John Deere tractors took exception. Moline, Ill.-based Deere & Co. asserted in filings that the Jane Deere trademark would cause "a likelihood of confusion" among consumers. The musicians backed down and the government officially canceled the Jane Deere trademark in January 2009.
The musicians went hunting for a name that was available, yet wouldn't alienate their existing fans. Among the candidates: the Janes, the Dear Janes, and the Dears. All taken. Finally, the group settled on the JaneDear girls, which their new lawyer, Mr. Feldman, filed with the trademark office.
Music veterans agree that for acts already gaining momentum, changing a name can be disastrous. In 1992, a newly formed band from Scotland called Captain America was endorsed and invited on tour by Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, who was at the peak of his fame. After a bidding war, Captain America was signed by Atlantic Records, just as Marvel, publisher of the Captain America comic book, sent the band a cease-and-desist order. With its first U.S. record already in the pipeline, the group rechristened itself Eugenius, a reference to leader Eugene Kelly.
"Overnight, their career deflated," says Steve Greenberg, the former Atlantic Records talent scout who landed Captain America. Mr. Greenberg blames the name drop.
"When people are given the chance to decide twice about a band, they don't always make the same decision," he says. "Fans of Captain America weren't quite so sure they were fans of Eugenius."
Mr. Kelly agrees that the "worst name ever" derailed Eugenius. "A band name should pass the taxi-driver test: You shouldn't have to tell him twice," says the Glasgow singer, who is recording a new album with his pre-Captain America band, the Vaselines. That name, he says, "sounds good and looks good," but it causes him some anxiety about the potential for another corporate dust-up.
The Internet has become a battlefield for acts squaring off over the same name. Kathleen Cholewka turned to Wikipedia to lay claim to Discovery, the name of the band she formed in her Brooklyn, N.Y., basement in 2004, she says.
Using the open-access encyclopedia, she made edits to the entry for a more prominent Discovery, formed by members of the successful rock bands Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra Riot. Ms. Cholewka wrote that her band "rightfully owns the trademark" to Discovery, based on her paid gigs in New York clubs. She also added a few jabs about her opponent's music.
Ms. Cholewka says "the name is representative of everything we've worked for," and that her campaign isn't about sour grapes. (The other Discovery, which dates to 2005 and is also from Brooklyn, released an album last July and garnered attention from critics.) Before her group performed in Manhattan last Halloween, the magazine Time Out New York included a listing for the concert, but mistakenly attributed it to the other Discovery.
With the help of a lawyer friend, Ms. Cholewka sent a cease-and-desist letter to her rivals. After some initial communication from the band's lawyer, Ms. Chowleka says, she's gotten no further response. She doesn't have the money to hire a trademark lawyer, but she says she's willing to compromise: "If you want to buy the name from me, great."
Ian Montone, who manages the other Discovery, says the band won't haggle over the name: "Bottom line, Discovery is a common word, and there are multiple bands using the name—from wedding bands in Cleveland to ourselves. We've made do with coexistence."
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