Starting Your Career As A Musician

(Frankie) #1

  • Grateful Dead–The name Grateful Dead was chosen from a dictionary. According to
    Phil Lesh, in his biography, "... Jerry Garcia picked up an old Britannica World Language
    Dictionary...[and]...In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the
    Grateful Dead?'" The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, show-
    ing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial."

  • Green Day—"green day" is a slang term for spending a day smoking marijuana. Billie
    Joe Armstrong wrote a song called "Green Day" about his first experience with the drug,
    and it soon replaced "Sweet Children" as the band's name.

  • Iron Maiden—Steve Harris named the band after the iron maiden torture device as
    shown in the film, The Man in the Iron Mask.

  • Jefferson Airplane–According to Jorma Kaukonen, the name was coined by a friend as
    a satire of blues pseudonyms such as "Blind Lemon" Jefferson.

  • Jethro Tull–Having trouble getting repeat bookings, the band took to changing their
    name frequently to continue playing the London club circuit. Band names were often sup-
    plied by their booking agents' staff, one of whom, a history enthusiast, eventually chris-
    tened them "Jethro Tull" after the 18th-century agriculturist. The name stuck because they
    were using it the first time a club manager liked their show enough to invite them to re-
    turn.

  • Linkin Park–Their name came from the lead singer, Chester Bennington, because they
    had to change their name due to copyright issues, and he drove past Lincoln Park on the
    way home from band practice. However, the domain "lincolnpark.com" was more than
    they could afford, so they changed the spelling to Linkin park. It has also been suggested

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