The bizarre stories behind famous band names

HOW did bands like Daft Punk, the Foo Fighters, Green Day and Fall Out Boy come up with their names? Prepare yourself for some random stories.

SOME of the world’s biggest bands have some truly bizarre names — but what’s even more bizarre is how they actually came up with their monikers.

Here are some of the more random origins of well known bands names.

Foo Fighters: Dave Grohl has described it as the “stupidest f**king band name in the world,” but he’s the one who actually came up with the name.

“Around the time that I recorded the first FF tape (that became the first record), I was reading a lot of books on UFO’s,” said Grohl to Clash.

“So, since I had recorded the first record by myself, playing all the instruments, but I wanted people to think that it was a group, I figured that FOO FIGHTERS (a World War II term for UFO’s) might lead people to believe that it was more than just one guy. Silly, huh?”

Neil Finn from Crowded House.

Crowded House: The group were originally called The Mullanes ... not very catchy huh? And that’s how Capitol Records felt as well. So when they signed the band in the mid 1980s they asked them to change their name. At the time, the group were living in a tiny apartment in West Hollywood which was always ... yep, you guessed it ... crowded.

Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz are members of Fall Out Boy.

Fall Out Boy: When the band first started performing together, they didn’t have a name. So rather than brainstorm themselves, they outsourced the job to their fans.

“We were playing our first show and we asked the crowd what they thought we should call ourselves,” said Pete Wentz to MTV.

“So a kid yelled out, ‘Fallout Boy,’ and it stuck.”

Jimmy Eat World in Sydney in 2010.

Jimmy Eat World: The group owes their unique name to a fight between guitarist Tom Linton’s brothers.

“It’s a picture that my little brother drew ... probably five years ago,” explained Linton in 1999.

“My brother Jim beat up my younger brother Ed, and Jim ran into his room and locked his door, and Ed drew this picture that said ‘Jimmy Eat World’, and it was a picture of him eating the world.

“My brother Jim is kind of a big guy. A stupid name.”

Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo are Daft Punk.

Daft Punk: The duo, consisting of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, used to be in a trio called Darlin’.

Back in 1993, Darlin’ got slammed in a review in a magazine called Melody Maker, with the writer referring to their songs “daft punky thrash”.

The trio split up when Laurent Brancowitz left the group so the other two musicians decided to adopt the name Daft Punk.

Green Day’s lead singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong in Brisbane.

Green Day: Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt originally named their band Sweet Children in 1986. But they decided to change their name when they got signed to a record label in 1988 because there was another local group with a similar name.

“I wrote a song called Green Day because I was smoking a lot of dope,” said Billie Joe Armstrong to Time.

(FYI — A ‘green day’ refers to a day spent smoking marijuana).

“Our drummer put Green Day on his jacket and said, ‘Maybe we should call the band that.’ And I said, ‘That’s a good idea.’”

The Black Keys: Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney in Sydney.

The Black Keys: The duo’s band name was inspired by the ramblings of a schizophrenic artist who both of their fathers knew.

“He would call both of our home phones when we were in high school, sometimes 30 times a day, and he would leave messages,” said Patrick Carney to NPR.

“And the message would be like, ‘I need a diet coke and pipe tobacco. If you don’t bring me this I’ll be really upset.’

“And then he’d call back a second later and leave another message saying, ‘Jim Carney (his dad), you’re a black key. You’re a d-flat. You should have brought me the pipe tobacco.’

“Everyday I would get home from school ... and I would just hit play on the answering machine and it would be 50 messages of absolute insanity. So Dan (Auerbach) and I had this kind of inside joke of being called black keys.”

Danbert Nobacon (originally named Nigel Hunter) from the band Chumbawamba.

Chumbawamba: No one, apart from the band members, knows for sure why they called the band Chumbawamba. Apparently they have a competition among themselves to come up with the most outrageous explanation for the name’s origin each time they’re asked in an interview.

Past explanations have included:

• They overheard it when walking past some African buskers in Paris.

• They copied the name from the mascot of a local football team in England.

• It’s from a dream that one of the band members had where there were two toilet doors, one saying ‘Chumbas’ and the other saying ‘Wambas’, and he was unsure which one to enter.

Originally published as The bizarre stories behind famous band names