Question Of The Week: Bros By Any Other Name
Oh hello there, MetalSucks reader! How’s your Friday? Are u high at the beach? Bummed and buried under snow? Not totally sure? lol That’s cool, the important thing is your eyeballs are reading these words! And soon your fingers will type your own in reply to today’s MS Question Of The Week! It’s about great bands who have made at least one ungreat decision! Hurrah!
Fearless. Controversial. Half-baked. We give it to you straight every Friday afternoon. Straight to the detriment of your credibility! Here’s this week’s question:
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Inspired by our examination of an awesome band with an indefensible band name, we asked our staff the following question:
Of all the great bands u jam, which has a band name that most baffles, embarrasses, and/or stresses u out?
Read the MS Staff’s totally embarrassing answers then shame yourself below!
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DAVE MUSTEIN
Grimaces are unavoidable when discussing Anaal Nathrakh. Do you go straight for “Anal?” Do you try to disguise it as “A-NAHL,” only to have your friends reply with, “…Anal?” Or do you spell it instead, hoping the ambiguity will do something for you? There’s no good way out.
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ABYSMAL SHAWN
Once I wore a Whitechapel shirt to class (wait, it gets even more embarrassing). It was the one with their logo printed up one sleeve, across the chest, and down the other sleeve — a design that serves to lop off the ends of the band name. Anyway, this ridiculously stereotypical computer science nerd stops me in the hall and says something like “Woah, badass ‘Hi-tech’ shirt man!” Get it? But seriously, fuck you if you thought this story was funny.
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LEYLA FORD
Uh, like a third of the bands that I listen to? But the most recent “What is wrong with you?” I got came from my sister on Tuesday when I made her listen to California by Mr. Bungle. But come on now, that’s a good album! Guess some people just aren’t as pretentious — er, avant garde as I am.
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GRIM KIM
Satanic Warmaster, because, I mean, really? That‘s the name you went with, pudgy non-threatening blond Finnish dude who wears leather trousers? Satan isn’t real and Bolt Thrower is the only band that can make the word “warmaster” (which isn’t really a word, it’s some kind of nerd game) sound cool.
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ANSO DF
Me and my brahs love hilarious band names — and our beloved hair metal genre is a goldmine! Most superduds belong to yuck bands and are easy to kinda laugh off, like u would pat the head of a trifling drunk college girl. But like a few others, Lillian Axe is different cuz I worship their flawless second album, yet their lacy, unsexy, indecipherable band name deserves a karate-chop to the nutz. Like, who’s Lillian? Why does her axe represent a band’s entire vibe? Who could trust the jamz of five guys which such misguided aesthetic judgement? Who could trust a dude (me) who swears they’re awesome? What was the band’s second choice, Dorothy Quarterstaff?
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KELLHAMMER
I don’t know, maybe I’m jaded when it comes to strange band names. Non-metalhead friends and family all expect me to name bands with either offensive monikers or ones they can’t pronounce. Or maybe I just tend to steer clear of bands with names like Iwrestledabearonce or Destiny Potato, or Marshmallows Are Delicious or Lampshade Catastrophe. I made up those last two but you get the idea.
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SATAN ROSENBLOOM
I wouldn’t call them “great,” but the band whose name most recently struck me as woefully unaware is Hatriot, the new thrash band featuring original Exodus and Testament vocalist Steve Souza. I get what they’re going for — Hate + Patriot. But without an “e” in there, the name sounds more like Hat + Riot. Like if all the milliners of the world started a violent protest. Totally metal.
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SAMMY O’HAGAR
This weekend, over many good beers, I tried selling some brahs on Lightning Swords Of Death. And those brahs looked wary. It’s not that they aren’t as into good metal as they are into good beer; it’s merely that the band’s name screams high school starter metal band. Then when I explained that LSOD is sort of black metal but heavier, they still weren’t buying it. (My iPod’s been on the fritz for weeks, so I couldn’t bust it out like a sword in the stone to prove them wrong.) Even when I claimed, “They’re like a darker, weirder, angrier Immortal,” that description remained linked to the name “Lightning Swords of Death.” Of course this conversation happened after three Russian Imperial Stouts, so I may have been less than coherent. Oh well. Their loss.
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Hat Riot lol great thinking, geniuses :) Okay studz and babez of MetalSucksLand, your turn! What awesome band that u love has a “woefully unaware” name that u loathe? Don’t say Trivium that’s an awesome name! It’s means “a trio of ums”!
