The 80 Best (& Worst) Band Names Up For Grabs
During my college days, me and a few housemates formed a crappy little band. We didn’t do much more than set up a room in the basement and jam a few times. Our singer blew, but we had a drummer with a drum kit (that’s crucial), me on keyboards (lame I know), and a damn good guitarist. He was actually probably the only seriously talented one of the bunch. But the hardest part of the band was and always will be, coming up with the name. After long debate, we ended up calling ourselves “Popes Named Leo.” Odd name I know. How’d we pick it? Easy. It was a category on Jeopardy that night and just seemed to fit.
So for all you would-be bands out there (and with the success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band these days, there’s way too many of you), here’s my contribution to the party: a big honkin’ list of the best (and probably worst) unused band names ripe for the picking.
- Free Beer
- Your Mom
- Cytherea
- Swamp Ass
- The Dutch Ovens
- Diggin’ For Gold
- The Gooch
- Skinner
- No Roger, No Rerun, No Rent
- Corn in the Bowl
- Monkey Tail
- Egg
- Courting Diane
- Cereal Killers
- Kaboom
- Extra Life
- Bargain Bin
- Dharma & The Initiatives
- Starbuck
- Flagg
- LOL
- Catheter
- Steampunk
- Fluffer
- Kraken
- The Chopper Bunch
- Azrael
- Stinkeye
- Cooter
- Simply Dead
- Lag
- The Blue Squishees
- Butter Face
- Unibrow
- TPS
- Wild Stallions!
- Shoguns of Harlem
- Frag
- Retina
- Rover
- TK-421
- Y
- Eternia
- Calvinball
- UUDDLRLRBA
- Bandopedia
- ARGH
- Guts
- Rainbow Blight
- iBand
- Midget Mayhem
- The Shivs
- WTF
- FTW
- Ghost of Elvis
- DNS
- Skidmark
- Dirty Laundry
- Cobrala
- I Sore
- The Hornswagglers
- Subzero
- Duff
- Whiplash
- Fungus
- Power Up
- Riddle Me This
- Chocky Starfish
- Skin Flute
- Greyskull
- Struth
- Runny Eggs
- Midgets Sans Pants
- Showers of Gold
- 1.21 Gigawatts
- Tripod
- Stink Palm
- Towing the Camel
- Aluminum Foiled
- The Pity Fools
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Comments
LOL, Swamp Ass, and The Pity Fools are probably my favorites. If talent weren’t an issue, I’d totally start my own band, course my Bro-in-law and I have had our name picked out for a long time, SUCK!
I’m going to rock out on the triangle, and he’s going to rip up the harp. Sounds awesome I know.
@ Tish: You posted at 1:57 am! Do you ever sleep girl?
Ha ha ha ha ha….that’s hilarious…but seriously I’m forming a band called Fluffer right now…and of course I’m going to be the lead singer. ROFL!!!!
Tish - Don’t know if you get the ’80s reference to that one, but if not (and for you folks playing at home), it’s from an episode of “What’s Happening?” one of my favoritest worst sitcoms ever. 
CG - Yeah, anything related to Mr. T has to be great right? And SUCK is awesome! Cause if you guys really are bad, everyone’s just gonna be shouting your band name!
Jason - Nice one. I’d follow that overlord anywhere. Except I’d probably get lost.
Christy - Glad you liked it. And, uh, you do know what a fluffer is don’t you?!? ‘Cause, uh, you may not want to take lead on that band…
Liza - Oh, I’m sure half of these are taken by some college bands somewhere. But why is that sad? Heh.
Brian - Must. Not. Comment….
Lis - Well it’d be a nice change to be IN a catheter, rather than the other way around.
Are you playing with your blog?! For a second, this blog looked completely different and I was confused.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!! Drink more alcohol!!! (And yes, I was toying with a new template, but didn’t like it, so you’re stuck with this one. For now.)
Classic…every last one of them. My personal favs are: Skidmark, Fungus, and that great bluegrass band, Corn in the Bowl!
The weirdest REAL band name I ever saw was in Lexington, Kentucky, USA in the early 80s. The band was playing at the LMNOP bar and the band name was the Savage Ashtrays.
BTW, shout out to my son’s band, Discovery of a Life Long Error (on YouTube and MySpace).
Jim - Thanks very much. Savage Ashtrays, huh? Not bad. And I so am going to go check out your son’s band now and come back to either praise or heckle you…
… I’m back. Wow. They’re such a poppy, melodic and soothing feel. Just like Enya! Heh. I’m a big metal fan, Jim, but not a big speed/thrash metal fan. Which one of the group is your son by the way?
[...] 2. Link us to one post from your blog that best defines who you are. Not as easy as it sounds, since half my posts are usually just short write-ups about fun things I’ve found online, or Top 10 type of lists. So no one post really “defines me” I guess, but the one that most just gets my style and humor across is probably: The 80 Best (& Worst) Band Names Up for Grabs. [...]
greyskull is actually taken by a band from tacoma, i think. i saw them in like 05. and swamp ass is genius, by the way.
I know for a fact that at least three of these bands exist, and this is solely out of my limited social/musical sphere…
- Tripod (An actually quite popular Australian joke band)
- Free Beer (Had a friend in this band; seriously, they had a full house at every single of their gigs (2 in total) thanks the genius marketing of the name…)
- LOL (Some strange indie-fun band that played a few times at one of my locals)
They obviously haven’t read your list.
Names I though of. I used Emergency Poncho before but one of the rest and I really like the rest:
-Face for Radio
-Emergency Pocho
-Ellen’s Degenerates
-The Fisteasios (Family Guy Reference)
-Addiction Affliction
-Silent Treatment
-Skinny Benny and the Anorexics
-{Insert Band Name Here}
-And Now Presenting
-We Suck
Kiley - Hah. I think you just did. Go for it.
Dean - Damn. I’ll have to catch Greyskull sometime! I can only picture how cool their concert shirts must be!
Tim - I know Free Beer has to be taken, but wasn’t sure of the others. Thanks for the heads up.
Mr. Dover - Nice additions. I like Ellen’s Degenerates and the Emergency Poncho is pure gold!
*LOL* Andrew, you come up with the weirdest things!
I think my favorite is No Roger, No Rerun, No Rent. For some reason, that one just cracks me up! And of course, it wouldn’t be you if you hadn’t put a couple of midget names in there. Though I must admit that Midgets Sans Pants is going to give me nightmares tonight.
Darn you!