12 Well-Known Bands With Weird Stories Behind Their Names

Ever since the Dave Matthews Band set the standard for band names, every musical group that came before and after has been scrambling to come up with origin stories for their names as bizarre as DMB's.

These are those stories.

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The NAME CHUMBAWAM CAME FROM A DREAM. aalu In an early interview, band member Danbert Nobacon explained the origin of the post-punk group's name: He h

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THE BACKSTREET Boys ARE NAMED AFTER A FLEA MARKET. e Fca. Malket The best-selling boy band in history decided to name themselves after the Backstreet

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PEARL JAM KEEPS CHANGING ITS BAND NAME ORIGIN STORY. Homemade JAM The boys in Pearl Jam have a bunch of conflicting explanations of their band name. I

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SAVAGE GARDEN IS NAMED AFTER A LINE IN A VAMPIRE NOVEL. In the Anne Rice novel The Vampire Lestat, which was just one in a series of 1990s novels that

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THE BLACK KEYS ARE NAMED AFTER SCHIZOPHRENIC RAMBLINGS. The band name came from a series of answering machine messages that went, This is Alfred McMo

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RUMOR HAS IT. KISS STANDS FOR 'KNIGHTS IN SATAN'S SERVICE. IT DOESNT. Back in 1973, band co-founders Paul Stanley and Peter Criss were driving in New

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ACE OF BASE MEANS 'MASTERS OF THE BASEMENT. 0 The I Saw The Sign group made their music in the basement of an auto repair shop. It was a shithole

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DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS IS NAMED AFTER DRUGS. SKE E19 The band, which you might remember from the song Come On Eileen, took its name from Dexedrine,

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ALICE In CHAINS IS NAMED AFTER A HEAVY METAL DRAG BAND. The band's name was originally spelled Alice N' Chainz. Lead singer Layne Staley explained the

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MOTORHEAD oO MEANS SPEED FREAKA o Motorhead's founder, Lemmy, said that his aim was for the group to be the dirtiest rock 'n' roll band in the world.

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THE RAMONES LIFTED PAUL McCARTNEY's ALIAS. At the height of The Beatles' fame, Paul McCartney used to check into hotels under the name Paul Ramon in o

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FOGHAT IS A NONSENSE WORD FROM A SCRABBLE GAME FA O G2 H A T 2 4 1 The Slow Ride band got its name from a Scrabble game that drummer Dave Peverett w