The Origins of Six Rock Band Names

This took a lot more research than I thought it would.  I've always wondered how a band decides what to call themselves.  If I had a band, I think I would go the R.E.M route.





1. Led Zeppelin

Before Led Zeppelin, there was The Yardbirds. The band included three of the greatest guitarists in history at one point or another: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. By 1968, the band had pretty much fallen apart. One day, Page was talking to Keith Moon and John Entwistle (the drummer and bassist of The Who, respectively) about possibly forming a super group made up of Moon, Entwistle, Beck, and himself, and calling themselves The New Yardbirds. Moon (or possibly Entwistle, accounts vary) said something along the lines of , “That would
 go down like a lead zeppelin.” Later on, the Yardbirds had officially broken up, but they still had concert dates in Scandinavia, so Page, a bass player named John Paul Jones, a
 singer named Robert Plant, and a drummer named John Bonham got together and played under the Yardbirds name. When they got back from the tour, they needed a new name, so they used “Led Zeppelin”. The band deliberately dropped the “a”, because they thought Americans weren’t smart enough to pronounce it “led” instead of “leed”.

2. Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd used to be named the Tea Set. I don’t know why that’s funny, but it kind of is. Anyway, back in the mid-sixties, the band was at a gig when they found out that there was another band on the list named the Tea Set. Their leader Syd Barret came up with a name off the top of his head - The Pink Floyd Sound, named after two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. They bounced back and forth between the two names for a while, but eventually settled on The Pink Floyd Sound. They dropped the “Sound” and the “the” fairly quickly.

3. The Beatles

I’ll keep this one short, ‘cause I think most people know this one. They were originally The Quarrymen, but John Lennon’s friend Stuart Sutcliffe suggested the name The Beetles, as a tribute to Buddy Holly (whose band was called The Crickets). They changed the beginning to bea-, because, really, who doesn’t love a good pun?

4. Lynyrd Skynyrd

Back in 1970, the band The Noble Five needed a name change. They chose Leonard Skinnerd, named after a gym teacher at Robert E. Lee High School. Leonard Skinner was notorious for enforcing the school’s policy that boys couldn’t have long hair (wonderfully ironic). They changed the spelling before their first album. Later on, they became closer with Leonard. He even introduced them at a concert.


　

5. The Rolling Stones


We owe this one to Muddy Waters. When Brian Jones (original founder of the band) called in to a newspaper to place an advertisement, he was asked what the name of the band was. There was a Muddy Waters LP laying on the floor, and one of the songs was titled “Rollin’ Stone”. The Rolling Stones aren’t the only thing this song has inspired. It also brought about Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile”.


 
 
6. R.E.M.

R.E.M. may not exactly fit in with the rest of the bands on this list, but I just like the way they picked their band name so much that I put them on here anyway. Back in 1980, the guys in the band were trying to find a name for themselves, and they came up with truly terrible ideas, such as “Cans of Piss”. It was at a party in a church that Michael Stipe, the band’s lead singer, opened a dictionary to a random page and found the word R.E.M. By the way R.E.M. (in every context but this one) stands for Rapid Eye Movement, which means when you enter deep sleep, your eyes start moving around under your eyelids.



All pictures from Wikipedia.