Column - Why can novels never get band names right (with Frank Turner)? - News

Column - Why can novels never get band names right (with Frank Turner)?

Band names are notoriously hard to come up with, but novelists seem particularly unable to insert good made-up ones into their books. From the dismally-titled Walnut Surprise in Freedom by Jonathan Franzen all the way to Harry Potter's Weird Sisters, band names in novels never quite sit right.

One man who can empathize with difficulties of creating a good band name though is singer-songwriter Frank Turner. "I used to be in a band called Million Dead. It was named after a Refused lyric so underground scene points and kudos all round, but everyone just thought we were a death metal band or something," he explains. With Turner also being partial to a good read, we asked him to judge the rock'n'roll efforts of some of the world's leading authors.

Frozen Gold in Iain Banks' Espedair Street
Based loosely on Fleetwood Mac, main character Dan Weir plays bass in this band - but struggles to deal with pressures of fame and success
"Frozen Gold sounds like a pub metal band, if you ask me. I reckon they're guys who are into Scorpion and Judas Priest, playing in the corner of their local pub - and they're not allowed to do their heavier stuff, it has to be the poppier numbers. That's what Frozen Gold says to me. There's something about the word frozen that makes me think of being trapped under ice, and it can only be written in jagged metal letters. It's irredeemably metal. Get a new band name, definitely."

The Weird Sisters in JK Rowling's Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire
Popular amongst the Hogwarts students for hit songs such as Do The Hippogriff, Magic Works and This Is The Night
"You know what? I can see the Weird Sisters as being a Hoxton DJ troupe, a sort of Peaches kind of thing. Two girls playing synths, kind of edgy, just playing Blondie B-sides. I can see it from that angle. I can't see it being the name of a world-conquering band, you know, in lights at Wembley before U2 come on. Maybe it was the name that Shakespeare's Sister tried and ditched. I think it's not too bad, as they go."

Blenheim Blasterin Ben Elton's Chart Throb
The 70s rock group of singer Beryl Blenheim in Elton's novel - before she had a sex change and became a reality TV star
"There's a palace outside Oxford called Blenheim, which I'm guessing is what that reference is to. It's strange, palaces don't really make me think of blasting. It makes me think of Sundays out and the National Trust. I think they need to go either more blasting with it - maybe Blaster Bazooka - or go down the National Trust route with it and called it Bourbon Blenheim. It has a slightly Adam And The Ants thing to it, but I'm not all that keen on it I'm afraid."

Palehorse in Alan Moore's Watchmen
Heavy rock band fronted by lead singer Red D'eath, with legions of fans called Knot Tops
"Funnily enough, the drummer who used to play in Million Dead now plays in a band called Palehorse, so that name gets one million points for excellence out of ten from me. It is a good name for a band. It is taken by friends of mine so it's obviously brilliant."

Walnut Surprise in Jonathan Franzen's Freedom
Indie rock band led by Richard Katz, the love interest of one of the main characters, Patty Berglund. Their album Nameless Lake is an alt hit in the novel
"Walnut Surprise sounds like a bad idea for an ice cream flavor. It makes me think of Coming To America where they have that band Sexual Chocolate. It's just dire. I don't see what walnuts or surprises have to do with rock 'n' roll, you know? Mr Franzen may be a genius of post-modern American writing but I'm not sure he should be coming up with band names. It sounds a bit like they're trying to be The Cure, early 80s goth-pop sort of thing. I'm really not sure Robert Smith and co would have gone on to reach the heights they did if they were called Walnut Surprise."

Sex Bob-omb in Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim
The graphic novel series' cartoon hero plays bass in this noisy geek rock band
"Sex Bob-omb sounds like Tom Jones with a stutter, which isn't very nice. I think bands with sex in the title are generally a risky proposition. Let's put it that way. I think again both halves of that band name aren't doing it for me. I'd drop the sex bit and I'd definitely at least use real words. The bob-omb thing is a bit childish, and children aren't what really you'd want to associate sex with."

Ormus Cama in Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Based on John Lennon and Elvis Presley, the character in the novel once had a career as a rock star with his own band
"I'm generally quite intellectually intimidated by Salman Rushdie, so I feel pretty uncomfortable picking holes in his artistic output. That said, Ormus Cama makes me think of Kula Shaker. It reminds me of one of those slightly mystic sounding bands who whack some eastern stuff into their name to make themselves sound more interesting - The Beatles didn't need that because they just wrote great songs. It's hard to say because it's usually white middle class boys doing that thing. If they're an Indian act, that's forgivable, but not if it's a couple of white middle class boys from Hounslow."

Heaven Seventeen in Anthony Burgess' Clockwork Orange
As the events of the book unfold, Heaven Seventeen at number four in the charts with a song called Inside
"Heaven Seventeen were of course a real band, and they were pretty good. Good band name. Clockwork Orange is a great place to take a band name from, it's a modern classic and doesn't have that clunkiness to a lot of these ones. Even before the fact there's a real band called them, this is a great name. Thumbs up."

Oily Moily in Stephen Fry's Making History
This band are a favourite of the main character in Fry's time-travelling novel
"Yeah, I don't get that at all. Coming up with a band name is actually one of the hardest things in the world to do, to come up with a good one. Musicians spend hours and hours of their life, agonizing over what to call their band. But there's no excusing this disaster of a name. I have a great respect for Mr Fry but that's just... weird."

Barry Jive And The Uptown Five in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity
Previously called Sonic Death Monkey, Barry Jive and the Uptown Five is the band of protagonist Rob's best friend
"Barry Jive and the Uptown Five gets points for rhyming. Nick Hornby probably knows more than anyone the minefield that is finding a decent band name. But at the same time this kind of makes me think of the B-52s and Huey Lewis and the News, you know, that kind of relentlessly upbeat white clean 80s pop. I can imagine them playing in a band in the lower east side circa 1983 in a bar to people with big shoulder pads and cocaine problems, maybe the guy from American Psycho shuffling around with a knife behind his back."