15 Bizarre Early Names Of Famous Bands

Picking a band name is like picking… actually, we’re not sure what to compare it to. A band name is really its own thing, so much more so than a song or a book title, a pen or stage name, or, uh, something else where you have to name something? A band name has got to sound really cool and be very recognizable. More importantly, it has to be unique, and to hit all those points requires a moment of serendipity or a large amount of natural inventiveness. And you know what they say (whoever “they” is): necessity is the mother of invention. In the case of these particular bands’ names, necessity was also accompanied by lawsuits, antisemitism, and a club owner who refused to put “The Sex Maggots” on a show poster. One the one hand, we understand his hesitancy – that name is nasty. On the other, the kind of music expected from band named “The Sex Maggots” is substantially different from that expected from one called “The Goo Goo Dolls.”