exploremusic

After 60 years of rock’n’roll, we’re definitely running into a shortage of good band names.  And now that the world is so interconnected, it’s not possible for a band in, say, Australia to have the same one as yours because, after all, who’s ever gonna know?

That’s exactly what the Ranconteurs ran into when they released their first album.  Turns out that a Ozzie group had first dibs on the name and wouldn’t give it up for what Jack White and Co. were offering.  (There’s some dispute as to the amount and if the Australian Raconteurs knew who they were negotiating with.)  Jack’s band got around the problem by christening themselves as the Sabateurs in Australia.

Other notable issues of name-squatting:

Nirvana:  Kurt’s band had no idea that there was a English group from the late 60s/early 70s that was still sort of using the name.  That problem went away after a $25,000 payment.

Oasis:  In the early 80s, there was a pseudo-folky English band featuring Mary “Those Were the Days My Friend” Hopkins and a brother of Andrew Lloyd Webber on cello.  They faded from sight after a single album in 1984.  When the Brothers Gallagher came along about ten years later, there didn’t seem to be any kind of conflict.

REM:  There were at least six other bands using the name when the Athens REM emerged.  But because no one sued, Michael’s band got to keep it.

And now a new one.  Glenn Hughes (ex-Deep Purple, ex-Black Sabbath) has a new band with guitarist Joe Bonamassa, drummer Jason Bonham and keyboardist Derek Shernian that he wanted to called Black Country.  Turns out there was already a group using that name.  So Glenn did the right thing and called up the band saying “Hey, can we have your name?”

And their response was “Sure!  Give us $500,000.”

Henceforce, the new Hughes/Bonamassa/Bonham/Shernian project will be called “Black Country Communion.”  Result?  Half a million dollars saved.

More of the backstory here.