With the sad passing of Neil Peart, eyes have been back on Rush. The Holy Trinity started out back in 1965 with original drummer John Rutsey and guitarist Alex Lifeson. They added one bassist, then traded him in for an upgrade with Geddy Lee, and christened themselves…The Projection. Not bad, but it wasn’t Rush.
While working together to build their music, this famous group met with John Rutsey’s brother, Bill, joined them for a brainstorming session to come up with a better name. It was Bill who suggested the name Rush. Rush it was, and music fans have been thanking the man for more than fifty years.
Foster the People
This name is unique, even among band names. The original name for this outfit was Foster & The People – Mark Foster is the band's front-man and creative force. However, when they started playing at clubs and other gigs, the fans who were dancing to the music kept mishearing the name, thinking that they were called “Foster the People.”
Foster later spoke to USA Today and said that since they performed for charity organizations in the beginning, the changed name just clicked. While the new name might be a bit strange syntax-wise, it still led to plenty of great music.
The 1975
Were all the band members born in the year? Maybe just one? Didn't something important to them happen then? No, no, and no, as it turns out. The 1975 singer Matt Healy got the name of his band from a scribble in a book of beat poetry he's acquired from an artist.
The back page of the book has some rough messages and it was literally dated "1st June, The 1975", as he told Fame Magazine. The use of the word “The” before the year stuck out to Healy, and the band he began later got the name thanks to the dark and depressing messages.
The Killers
This group from Las Vegas loved them some New Order. When it came to coming up with a name for their own group, they went to their inspirations to come up with something flashy.
The New Order video for their 2001 single “Crystal” featured a fake band called “The Killers,” and so Brandon Flowers, Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer, and Ronnie Vannucci Jr. grabbed the name as their own. It's evocative and has a good punch, which is what you want to get people from reading the name to listening to the music. And it certainly worked – The Killers are considered one of the biggest rock bands of the twenty-first century.
Wild Beasts
Wild Beasts used to have a much more intense name: Fauve, which is French for "wild beast", based on the early twentieth-century modern art movement Fauvism, led by French artist Henri Matisse. Fauvism excelled at painterly qualities and strong color instead of the representational or realist values retained by Impressionism.
While Wild Beasts can't exactly portray themselves as painters with their rock music, they still built a solid art-rock following. And though the band has been disbanded since 2018, there's always a chance another acclaimed album will make it through. Several of the members have gone on to create solo projects.