Think hard enough, and you’ll come up with the reasoning behind this name. This punk-rock trio gave their genre a dose of new life even in the new millennium when their brand of music was starting to falter.
The band’s front-man, Billie Joe Armstrong, revealed the simple truth of the name when he appeared on “Real Time with Bill Maher” more than ten years ago. Maher asked Armstrong about the urban myth that the name comes from… let’s call them green cigarettes. Armstrong immediately replied that it does.
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead mixed psychedelic rock, folk, jazz, country, and even gospel, making a sound that remains unique even to this day. For information about the name, fans – known as “Deadheads” – can turn to biographer Blair Jackson, who wrote "Grateful Dead: The Music Never Stopped". It says that lead guitarist Jerry Garcia discovered the name by accident.
He was at bassist Phil Lesh's house once and opened the dictionary. Flipping through it, he found by happenstance the juxtaposed words “grateful dead.” Jerry described it like this: “Everything else went blank, diffuse, just sort of oozed away, and there was GRATEFUL DEAD in big, black letters edged all around in gold.” Sounds magical.
Weezer
Their singles “Island in the Sun” and “Beverly Hills” are lauded by the listening public. However, not much this somehow-famous band has produced really sticks around. Still, they're more than a two-hit wonder. Comprising of Rivers Cuomo, Patrick Wilson, Brian Bell, and Scott Shriner, they've been active since 1992.
The origin of the simple name comes from Cuomo's father, who gave him the nickname “Weezer” as a child. When his parents got divorced, Cuomo's father would write letters to him, opening each one with “To Weezer.” Rivers grew so attached to the name that he attached it to his band, which soon shot to almost-stardom.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Anthony Kiedis, “Flea” (real name Michael Peter Balzary), Hillel Slovak, and Jack Irons are four groovy friends from Fairfax High in California. When they came together to make high-energy music, they named themselves Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem. Now there's a name that will strike a chord.
However, it was a bit too complicated for their tastes, and so later re-branded to Red Hot Chili Peppers. Kiedis said that this name came from the inspiration he and his friends took from American blues and jazz bands, such as Louis Armstrong's quintet, The Hot Five.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Be honest: you thought that Lynyrd Skynyrd was a one-man band with a goofy name. Not so – it's actually composed of seven members, which allows them to bury the listener in layered guitar sounds that have become their trademark.
None of the members have names that include either Lynyrd or Skynyrd. In fact, the name of the band came from an antagonist in their history. Members Gary Rossington and Johnny Van Zant went to high school together, and they had a gym teacher who sent both of them to the principal's office for the crime of having long hair. That teacher's name? Leonard Skinner. The man is now kind of immortalized thanks to this legendary band.