I Am Not Shazam / Music

In general, it's not the best idea to pick a name for your band that can also be used as a single person's name, as these musicians have found out the hard way.

• Boards of Canada are from Scotland, not Canada. The name refers to documentaries made by the National Film Board Of Canada which they liked watching as kids.
• Belle and Sebastian had a tendency to be confused for a duo (it's a full band). In their early days, cellist Isobel Campbell was naturally assumed to be "Belle" while frontman Stuart Murdoch was assumed to be "Sebastian". The band was named after a French cartoon about a young boy (Sebastian) and his dog (Belle).
• Pink Floyd is the name of the band (named after bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council), not the name of any of the members of the band. At one point, they were outright asked which member "Pink" was, which led to it becoming a Running Gag among them, up to and including a line in "Have a Cigar" from Wish You Were Here where a clueless record executive asks "Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?" Possibly adding to the confusion is the fact that the central character in both the film and album The Wall goes by "Pink". As well, the end of "Young Lust" has an exchange with a telephone operator trying to place a collect call "From Mr. Floyd to Mrs. Floyd", implying that the character's name actually is Pink Floyd. It's also implied in the movie that his name is Floyd Pinkerton. Which contradicts the phone call, although it could be that Floyd Pinkerton took the stage name of Pink Floyd. The kids in his youth call him, "Pinky".
• Jethro Tull took their name from the Englishman (1674-1741) who invented the seed drill. Consequently, many people assume that the band's name refers to their frontman, Ian Anderson.
• All the members of Boney M. got asked at one time or another if they were Boney M, or Boney, or M.
• Uriah Heep took their name from the David Copperfield character.
• Franz Ferdinand named themselves after the archduke whose assassination served as a catalyst for World War I.^note Well, they say that they named themselves "Franz Ferdinand" after a racehorse named The Archduke. Either way, they're ultimately named after Franz Ferdinand of Austria. However, surprisingly few people make the assumption that it's a person rather than a band, perhaps because "Franz" sounds like an unlikely name for a Scot and the archduke was a rather famous figure.
• Country band Sawyer Brown sometimes has this problem. They took their name from the road where they originally rehearsed.
  • Similarly, Sleater-Kinney are not the surnames of the two lead singers, but the name of an arterial road in Lacey, a town adjacent to Olympia, Washington, where the band formed.
• Australian band Augie March is named after a Saul Bellow novel, The Adventures of Augie March. The lead singer is named Glen Richards. Nobody in the band is named Augie March.
• On the flip side, there are people who name themselves like bands, like Iggy Pop, Meat Loaf and The Streets. There are also artists whose names just happen to sound like band names, like Chaka Khan or Ember Swift.
  • Similarly, My Brightest Diamond is a single musician, Shara Worden, as opposed to the group that the name might imply.
  • Likewise with Iron & Wine, the stage name for singer Sam Beam.
  • Also The Mountain Goats, which had no regular members other than John Darnielle for most of its career, but now also includes bassist Peter Hughes and drummer Jon Wurster as official members.
    • John frequently parodied this at live shows coming on stage alone and introducing himself with "Hi, we're the Mountain Goats"
  • Girl Talk is just one guy.
  • Eagle-Eye Cherry is a solo performer, and that's his birth name - he's the son of jazz musician Don Cherry, who is said to have named him Eagle-Eye because he winked at his father shortly after being born.
• Nina Sky is a pair of twins (Nicole and Natalie Albino).
• People often ask members of the band Hootie & the Blowfish "Who's Hootie?" No one's Hootie, and the band is The Blowfish. Lead singer Darius Rucker is, however, remembered primarily as "Hootie" by most people.
  • The name Hootie and the Blowfish was actually taken from two of Darius' friends ("Hootie" has round eyes, while "Blowfish" would puff up his cheeks like a blowfish).
    • The moral of this story: Never name a band (even partially) after someone whose nickname sounds like it could be a collective noun.
    • For a bit over a decade, this trope was averted when Hootie & the Blowfish went on hiatus and Rucker made a name for himself as a solo Country Music artist. (The band reunited in 2019.)
    • Michael Ian Black on I Love the 90s: "You're 'Hootie'. You will always be 'Hootie'. Be careful what we wish for, 'Hootie and the Blowfish'!"
  • The same applies to Echo & the Bunnymen; no one in the band has the stage name "Echo". The entire band is Echo and the Bunnymen. At least, not any of the human members. An urban legend (which the band denies) claims that before they had a drummer, their drum machine was named "Echo."
  • In early interviews in North America, the UK band Catherine Wheel were asked, "Who's Catherine?" The band was named for the British term for a firework that spins rapidly when lit, which in turn is named for the torture device allegedly used to martyr Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
• Coconut Records sounds like a record label. In fact, it's Jason Schwartzman's solo act. That's right; it's not even a band name, it's a pseudonym.
• Five For Fighting is one person. It's a reference to hockey penalties.
• Similarly, there are only three people in Ben Folds Five. One of them, however, is actually Ben Folds. When asked why they go by the name "Ben Folds Five" when there were only three members, Folds replied "Because Ben Folds Three sounds dumb." Ben Folds has since broken up with the five, and tours with two other musicians under the name of Ben Folds.
  • Lampshaded in a making-of video for the Ben Folds Five reunion single "Do It Anyway" featuring the Fraggles — Red refers to the band as "Mr. Ben and his three, and the other two once they show up".
• Billy Talent contains no person named William Talent. They're named after a character from the Canadian This is Spın̈al Tap homage Hard Core Logo.
• In one episode of the American Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Ryan Stiles referred to Kid Rock as a band. After Drew Carey pointed out that he's "just one guy", they spent the rest of the episode joking about the mixup.
  • Other than that, this is surprisingly rare, perhaps because of how Kid Rock's first hit, "Bawitdaba", opened...
  • The band is actually the Twisted Brown Trucker band.
• Alice Cooper was both the name of the band, and the stage name of the singer. After the band broke up, lead singer Vincent Furnier/ Alice Cooper legally changed his name, thus averting this trope.
  • The band referenced Alice's name in the song "Be My Lover", however it is not the same as "By the way, which one's Pink" in "Have a Cigar" by Pink Floyd. Nobody in that band was called Pink. Vincent was and is Alice:
    She asked me why the singer's name was Alice, I said listen baby you really wouldn't understand
• A similar example: when Robin Trower left Procol Harum, he formed a new band. The band was named... Robin Trower. No real difference in practical terms, though it might be surprising to find their albums under "R" instead of "T".
  • When Procol Harum performed on a talk show, they were naturally asked which one was Procol.
• Alternately, Marilyn Manson is the name of both a band and its infinitely more well known lead singer^note The band was originally called "Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids", and was only shortened as late as their first album. (and no, not one of the albums credited to "Marilyn Manson" is a solo effort by their singer, despite the fact he's the last remaining original member of the band at this point).
  • Likewise, Sade refers both to the singer (Sade Adu) and the band of the same name that she is the singer of. Making matters worse is the fact that the rest of the band rarely shows themselves in photos and other promotional material.
• Stand-up comedian (and occasional singer) Jasper Carrott's act included a routine about his name being mistaken for a band's. "My agent got a call saying 'Do Jasper Carrott wanna play Scunthorpe Baths?' And of course, he's no fool. He said, 'Um... they might'."
• DJ Sharpnel is a pair of Japanese speedcore artists, Jea and Lemmy.
  • DJ Food is in fact a project involving several DJs; the name is meant to mean "food for DJs" (think fish food).
  • Aphex Twin is the name of one man, Richard David James. However, according to The Other Wiki, the "twin" refers to his twin brother who died at birth.
  • Similarly, M-Project is not, in fact, two people, but is just another pseudonym for DJ Chucky, although in this case it's intentional.
• Steely Dan is not a person—it is the duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker (and a bunch of guys that were gone by the third album and replaced by studio musicians). There's two stories.
• Salt-N-Pepa consisted of Cheryl "Salt" James, Sandra "Pepa" Denton... and, um, Deidra "DJ Spinderella" Roper.
• Sonia Dada ("You Don't Treat Me No Good") is an all-male band from Chicago, not a female soloist.
• Run–D.M.C. had three members, two of which were part of the group's name: Reverend Run, DMC, and Jam Master Jay. Tragically, Jay was the first to go.
• "Cascada" refers to the German eurodance band, not the singer. The singer's name is Natalie Horler, and the rest of the band consists of producers Manuel Reuter ("DJ Manian") and Yann Piefer ("Yanou").
• Even though the name Blondie was inspired by lead singer Deborah Harry's blonde hair, the name refers to the band as a whole and not to Harry specifically. Due to this, they produced T-shirts and buttons saying "Blondie is a group".
• Strangely, many people think Roxette was the stage name of the late Marie Fredriksson rather than the name of the band she was in. This is despite the fact that her partner Per Gessle sang lead on almost half the band's hits.
• Country Joe and the Fish had a member named Joe and the band was named. Later on, as the band broke up and there were only two remaining members, he became known as Country Joe McDonald and the other guy as The Fish.
• One-Hit Wonder Gerardo had to suffer the indignity of being called "Rico Suave" during his fifteen minutes of fame, which was the title of the song. The first song on his second album was named "My Name Is Not Rico".
• None of the members of The Marshall Tucker Band were named Marshall Tucker. They found the name on a key to a warehouse they had rented for a place to rehearse. The real Marshall Tucker was a blind piano tuner (died 2023).
• Only two of the original six members of The Allman Brothers Band were actual brothers named Allman, and after Duane Allman died in 1971 that left just one (the other, Gregg Allman, died in 2017).
  • On the other hand, it was an accurate name: it's the band started by the Allman Brothers.
• None of the Statler Brothers were named Statler and only two of them were actually brothers.
  • The Righteous Brothers weren't brothers, either. Their name originated from an audience member who shouted out "That was righteous, brothers!" after a performance.
• Jamiroquai is basically lead singer Jay Kay's show. It's the name of the band, not the guy in the fuzzy chapeau.
• Nobody in the band Herman's Hermits was named Herman. The guy people usually refer to as Herman is actually lead singer Peter Noone.
  • They claim to have created their name by alliteration and mis-hearing the name of the boy (Sherman) in the Peabody's Improbable History segments of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
• Mark "his name is not Sugar Ray" McGrath. He once did a commercial in which people kept mistakenly calling him by his band's name. At least he has a sense of humor about it.
• Most people thought that after making it big, former American Idol contestant Chris Daughtry had dropped his first name. He's still Chris Daughtry; his band is Daughtry. Extremely confusing because we know that it is, in fact, named for the lead singer, the natural assumption is that he's a solo artist, which he apparently isn't.
• The band Thompson Twins were often assumed to be a duo, from the name, which could cause a problem when they were booked in a venue whose stage was too small for the trio they actually were (even worse in their early days when they were a seven-piece band). In fact the band's choice of name is itself an illustration of this trope. The name comes from two characters from the Tintin books, who shouldn't really be called "The Thompson Twins". Although they look almost identical, they have different last names, "Thompson" and "Thomson" (Dupont and Dupond in the original French), and they are never said to be related in the books.
• Many people are shocked to discover that Gnarls Barkley is a duo rather than the name of a large African-American singer (that duo being singer and songwriter Cee Lo Green and producer and instrumentalist Danger Mouse). They likely assume it to be a stage name, since it's an obvious pun on NBA legend Charles Barkley.
• MF Doom seems to create this problem for himself, combining with producer Danger Mouse to become Danger Doom on the "The Mouse and the Mask" album, and forming Madvillain with a DJ named Madlib on their album "Madvillainy".
• The Japanese band angela has a name that is a common given name in many places, leading to people mistakenly believing that singer Atsuko Yamashita is named Angela.
• Daniel Amos is not the name of anyone in the band, but rather two books of the Bible.
  "People always ask," comments [Terry Scott] Taylor wryly, "which one's Dan? We took our name from the two Old Testament prophets—Ezekial and Jeremiah."
• Even though most/all members of Eisley are related, their shared last name is DuPree, not Eisley. The name is just a holdover from the band's former name, Moss Eisley, a barely disguised Star Wars reference.
• Similar to the above examples, Judas Priest is the name of the band itself, not the stage name of singer Rob Halford.
  • ...which was named after a Bob Dylan song, "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest." from John Wesley Harding.
• The indie folk/country rock act Bright Eyes is actually a trio (Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott) which is accompanied by a revolving door of backing members (including several well known indie rock musicians). It is not the stage name for lead singer/guitarist Conor Oberst. This mistake has appeared in magazines and even a sketch on Saturday Night Live. Oberst has essentially gotten tired of being called Bright Eyes in interviews.
  • To further complicate things, Oberst has both a solo career and another band, The Mystic Valley Band.
    • Both of these are more recent, and in part likely due to Oberst's frustration at being called Bright Eyes, especially given that Walcott is also a member of The Mystic Valley Band. On the other hand, the confusion is somewhat understandable given that several solo Oberst songs were released under the Bright Eyes name, most notably the single "Lua", on account of how Oberst drizzled them out over time and just put them on Bright Eyes albums (not exactly unusual, especially given that a lot of these are basically your nigh-obligatory "lead singer with acoustic guitar" tracks that pretty much every band of that sort puts out).
• Hawk Nelson is a band, not a singer.
• Played with when it comes to The Good, the Bad & the Queen. Initially, the band insisted that wasn't their name, just the title of the 2007 debut album by an unnamed supergroup consisting of Damon Albarn, Paul Simonon, Tony Allen, and Simon Tong. When their second album arrived 11 years later, it was officially credited to The Good, The Bad & The Queen, meaning they decided that would be the group's name after all.
• Nobody in the Australian pop-rock band The Veronicas has the name Veronica. The singers are twin sisters Jess and Lisa Origliasso. They were named after Winona Ryder's character in Heathers, who when asked if she's a Heather, replies, "No, I'm a Veronica."
• Chris Martin has often been referred to as "Coldplay", the name of his band.
• Up until 2011, La Roux was two people (Ben Langmaid and Elly Jackson). The name was originally inspired by Jackson's red hair, and was frequently taken to be her stage name.
• Prog rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi was not named after its founders, but after a local bakery (i.e.: Premium/best Bakery of Marconi).
• None of the members of Derek and the Dominos were named Derek.
• Marina and the Diamonds was the stage name of Marina Diamandis, before going mononymously by her first name instead. The Diamonds were not her backing band, in fact it referred to her fans.
• Owl City, A Fine Frenzy, Badly Drawn Boy and Jack's Mannequin aren't bands: they're just oddly-named solo acts.
  • It doesn't help that some of those artists are supported by backing bands, and those band members are assumed to be members of the "band".
  • Florence + the Machine, meanwhile, has the opposite problem. They were once in the "unconventionally named solo artist + backing band" camp, but its lineup has included official members aside from singer Florence Welch since their debut album. However, because the project was heavily promoted as being just Welch in its early days, they are still remembered as being such, even after a decade and four albums as a full band. The group has also always included Welch's musical partner Isabella Summers - the "Machine" in the band name - since it formed.
• Amy Lee's name isn't Evanescence. Though she is the band's lead vocalist and the last remaining original member.
• Lead singer Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood spent most of his career reminding interviewers that his name is not "Frankie" and in fact no one in the band is named Frankie. It's just the band's name.
• Bon Jovi is a band, Jon Bon Jovi is the lead singer of that band, who has also released solo material. A lot of people refer to Jon as just 'Bon Jovi'. In 1986 they had a big hit with a song called "You Give Love a Bad Name", which is often referred to as "Shot Through the Heart" (the first line of the song/chorus, the title is the third). Interestingly, on their first album there IS a song called "Shot Through the Heart".
  • Even better when you consider that "Jon Bon Jovi" is actually his stage name — his original name is John Bongiovi. The band was named after a deliberate misspelling of his name, at which point he began to spell it that way too. No clues as to why he's publicly Jon instead of John, except perhaps it looks good next to the Bon bit.
  • Fun fact: Bon Jovi's opening act during the band's Lost Highway tour was Daughtry. See the above example.
• Cary Brothers is not a group of multiple brothers of the surname "Cary", but just one guy called "Cary Brothers". The mistake is spread further among people by some sources accidentally referring to him as "The Cary Brothers".
• There is nobody named Bettie in the band Bettie Serveert. It's a Dutch phrase meaning "Bettie serves". The lead singer is Carol van Dyk, who has said that she's been called Bettie more times than she can remember.
• Alice Deejay was a trio, and the lead singer's name was Judy.
• Ayla was a trance project of DJ Tandu (Ingo Kunzi), who sometimes collaborated with DJ Taucher (Ralph Armand Beck), he named it after a Turkish woman he met while recording the first song of the project, which he also named after her. The vocalist on "Atlantis" and behind the spoken-word title drops on several songs is uncredited, but theorized to be the project's namesake herself.
• The now-defunct group Ian Van Dahl was composed of Annemie Coenen(who now sings as Annagrace), Christophe Chantzis, and Erik Vanspauwen. Their first album was titled ACE.
• There is a parody of this trope in Date Night, where Tina Fey's character recognises Will I Am in a fancy restaraunt and identifies him as "the guy from Fergie."
• Guns N' Roses is a rare aversion to this, in a sense; the band was named after Tracii Guns (of the LA Guns, born Tracii Ulrich), and Axl Rose. Of course, Axl Rose is the face of the band, but the only other member most people would be able to name is Slash. Guns, on the other hand, left the band before they released their first album.
• Gloryhammer: The signature weapon of Angus McFife is called the Hammer of Glory... or sometimes the Astral Hammer or the Holy Flaming Hammer of Unholy Cosmic Frost.... but not the Gloryhammer.
• "More Than I Can Bear" wasn't sung by Matt Bianco, but by Mark Reilly. "Half A Minute" was certainly not sung by Matt Bianco either, but by Baśia Trzetrzelewska. Matt Bianco is a band and named after a fictional spy whom the band has made up.
• The Doobie Brothers are neither siblings, nor does anyone in the band have the last name Doobie.
  • "Doobie", in fact, is not the name of a person, but 1970s slang for a marijuana joint. Unlike, for example, the Bacon Brothers, who actually have guys named "Bacon" and whose food preferences are undetermined.
• The band Fountains of Wayne (famous for "Stacy's Mom") was named after a lawn decoration store. No one in the band is named Wayne.
  • The store itself, sadly now closed, was named for the town of Wayne, New Jersey, where it was located. The town was named after American Revolutionary War general "Mad" Anthony Wayne (who is the namesake for a lot of towns around the US, as well as Batman's last name!).
• Subverted by Breaking Benjamin, as the lead singer actually is named Benjamin.
• Zombie Nation's "Kernkraft 400" combines this with Refrain from Assuming. Since the lyrics consist entirely of the words "Zombie, zombie, zombie, zombie nation," most listeners assume that this is the title of the the song and that Kernkraft 400 is the artist.
• Keane (originally "Cherry Keane") does not derive its band name from any of its members, but from a family friend of lead singer Tom Chaplin who left them money in her will.
• Gogol Bordello is the name of the band, not the frontman. His name is Eugene Hütz.
• One-Hit Wonder Danny Wilson ("Mary's Prayer") is actually three Scotsmen. Their name came from a 1952 Frank Sinatra movie.
• Richmond Fontaine is an alt-country band. They are named after an American expat who had helped bassist Dave Harding when his car was stuck in the desert.
• Jeff Beck was in The Jeff Beck Group, but since he wasn't the lead singer, people would tend to assume Rod Stewart (not yet as famous in his own right as he later became) was named Jeff Beck. And, as often as not, come up to him after shows and say "Hey Jeff, what's the name of your guitar player? He's really good."
• The wizard rock band, Oliver Boyd & The Remembralls, does not contain anyone named Oliver Boyd. In fact, the only member is called Christian Caldeira.
• Since the whole Rickrolling fad came about, plenty of people who were not around for Rick Astley and his reign on the music charts have a strong tendency to call the song "Rick Roll" instead of "Never Gonna Give You Up". Moreover, Astley has sometimes been called Rick Roll by this same age group.
• While the drummer of Buffalo Tom's name is Tom, the name is really a reference to him and he is not supposed to "be" Buffalo Tom. The name is a reference to Buffalo Springfield just replacing Springfield with the drummer's first name as a joke.
• No one in Rainer Maria was named Rainer or Maria. The name came from the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and was chosen as it was unisex sounding.
• Cheap Girls are all male. The name simply to refers to the premise of "easy to get" girls, not any member of the band, hence referring to them as "The Cheap Girls" is not a good idea around a fan.
• Steven Tyler's name is not Aerosmith. Aerosmith is the band, Steven Tyler is the singer. This is mostly a problem in people who only knows Steven for his work on American Idol and not with the band. It's usually a very bad idea to refer to Steven as "Aerosmith" in front of fans of the band.
• There is no Eli Young in the Eli Young Band. There are, however, a Mike Eli and a James Young. (Jon Jones and Chris Thompson are the others.) The name stems from the fact that Eli and Young used to be just a duo, and added the other two members later on.
• Now that country trio Lady Antebellum is having crossover success, the misconception that there's a brunette singer named "Lady Antebellum" backed by a couple of dudes is spreading rapidly. Her name is actually Hillary Scott. The band have now officially changed their name to Lady A, as the previous name carried some negative historical connotations.
• At the height of their fame it was common to hear people call the two "vocalists" from Milli Vanilli "Milli" and "Vanilli", even though Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan had received plenty of individual publicity. Some of it was tongue-in-cheek but there seemed to be a lot of people who thought those were their names.
  • Probably contributing to this was an In Living Color! sketch skewering the duo in which Damon and Keenen Ivory Wayans called themselves "Milli" and "Vanilli".
• No one in Harvey Danger is named Harvey Danger: they got their name from a piece of graffiti that they just thought sounded cool.
• Mark Norman is a trio of Dutch trance musicians: Marcel Woods, Norm Faleng, and Menno de Jong, all of whom also produce solo.
• No one in Funker Vogt is named Vogt, although the band was named after a friend, Stephan Vogt, who was a radio operator (Funker).
• The drum & bass act Dom & Roland doesn't have a member named Roland. It's actually a solo project by a guy called Dom, and "Roland" refers to the brand of sampler he uses (Roland S760).
• Travis Porter is a Hip-Hop band with three members, none of whom are named Travis Porter.
• Asobi Seksu is the name of the band. The leader singer and keyboardist's name is Yuki Chikudate.
• The late Captain Jack was named Francisco Gutierrez, or Frankie G.
• John Fahey's first album was titled Blind Joe Death, and many fans thought this was the guitarist's name.
• Vladislav Delay is one of several solo projects of the Finnish electronic musician Sasu Ripatti (aka Luomo, Sistol, Uusitalo, etc.); it is not his name.
• Don't go calling Jennifer Parkin by Ayria.
• Bon Iver is a band, not the name of the lead singer. That's Justin Vernon. This confusion is probably because Vernon recorded most of his debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago by himself and thus people assumed that Bon Iver was a stage name.
• Miike Snow is a Swedish band. Also the name came from someone they knew named "Mike Snow" and replacing it with the "Miike" from Takashi Miike. But it's still pronounced like "Mike" (at least, according to the band)
• Not an example of a band, but rather a character from the Rock Opera, Tommy (and a very common one even among hardcore fans): according to the musical version's scripts and Pete Townshend, the character who sings "Pinball Wizard" is, in fact, not called Pinball Wizard, but rather the Local Lad. If you pay attention to the lyrics, the person being described as the Pinball Wizard is clearly Tommy himself. The Movie just adds to the confusion by also having some people think he's Elton John.
  • Similarly, the name of the prostitute character is not "The Acid Queen" like the title of her song, but The Gypsy (as shown in the lyric sheet of the original album).
• In an episode of Mad TV, the Insane Clown Posse get this treatment from a character played by Alex Borstein when she greets the two. Played for Laughs. She refers to Violent J as "Mr. Insane" and Shaggy 2 Dope as "Mr. Clown Posse".
• Helalyn Flowers is not the band's singer's name, that's Noemi Aurora.
• Australian singer Paul Kelly's former backing band, the Coloured Girls, were neither "coloured" nor girls - they were named for a line from Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side. (They were later renamed the Messengers when they first toured the US.)
• Japanese band "Judy and Mary" did not have anyone with either of those names in it. The only female member was lead singer Yuki Isoya, who goes by the stage name "YUKI" (in all-caps).
• Averted by Van Halen. Based on all these examples, it is no small miracle that everyone knows that not only is David Lee Roth the band's lead singer, but that "Van Halen" is the guitarist and drummer's last name.
• After Hanoi Rocks broke up for the last time, Michael Monroe formed his own band... called Michael Monroe.
• 90's R&B Boy Band Dru Hill. Many people thought lead singer Sisqo was "Dru", but the Baltimore-based band is named after Druid Hill Park, which sounds like "Dru' Hill" in the local accent.
• There is nobody named James in the band James unless you count bass player Jim Glennie. The lead singer is Tim Booth. During early gigs the band played on this by billing themselves as "James (not a poet)" at concerts. Booth would open the set by reading poetry. The announcement of James' performance at the 2013 V Festival was met with many people asking "Who is this James bloke?"
• Neil Perry is not the name of anyone in the band, it's a character from Dead Poets Society.
• Ann Berretta is not anyone's name. It's a band named after a term for a certain type of gun.
• No one in The Lawrence Arms is named Lawrence. It's the name of an apartment complex the band used to live in.
• Karmin was a duo. The vocalist's name is Amy.
• Sort of subverted with Reverend Horton Heat. Though it started as a trio, it eventually became just the stage name of band leader Jim Heath, the only founding member to remain in the band, and the band eventually became just Heath plus a revolving door of supporting members.
• Foxy Shazam is a band, and the lead singer's name is Eric Nally.
• House duo Michael Mind adjusted its name to Michael Mind Project after a few years for this reason.
• Pretty Ricky was a rap group (they have since broken up) in which none of the members were named Ricky.
• Tony! Toni! Toné! is a R&B/New Jack Swing group which during its heyday was made up of Dwayne Wiggins, his brother Raphael Saadiq and their cousin Timothy Christian Riley.
• Fort Minor is the name of Mike Shinoda's hip-hop based side project, not an actual stage name. He himself has always been referred to as Mike Shinoda, or sometimes M. Shinoda.
• Much like the Jeff Beck Group, the Kenny Wayne Shepherd in the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band is the blonde blues-style shredding guitarist and not the Tall, Dark, and Handsome baritone singer. Only in this case the singer has yet to achieve a successful solo career to clear up the confusion.
• Danish band Michael Learns To Rock has been asked countless times regarding which member is the titular Michael by numerous reporters. The closest they have to the name is Mikkel Lentz (the Danish locale pronunciation of Michael), and even then he isn't the lead singer of the band. According to The Other Wiki, Word of God is that the band leader, Jascha Richter, picked up the phrase from an English textbook partially because it reminded him of Michael Jackson.
• Deltron 3030 is a collaborative project between rapper Del tha Funkee Homosapien, producer Dan the Automator, and DJ Kid Koala. People tend to assume that "Deltron 3030" is just another stage name for the former.
  • Although "Deltron" is an alter ego for Del, it's still off as it's "Deltron Zero", not "Deltron 3030".
• Mungo Jerry is actually four people, not just guitarist and singer Ray Dorset (although Dorset is the only person who's been in the band from the start.) In fact, none of the many members is named Jerry - they're named after a character from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (with a slightly different spelling).
• Manfred Mann is the keyboardist of the two bands he's been in, not the singer. The band Manfred Mann had two singers while Manfred Mann's Earth Band had seven.
• Similarly, Paul Revere of Paul Revere and the Raiders was the keyboardist and never the singer. And "Paul Revere" were his given names; his real last name was Dick. Mark Lindsay was the lead vocalist during the band's commercial heyday.
• The lead singer of the Spencer Davis Group was a pre-fame Steve Winwood; Davis was the guitarist. Davis was the only member who was interested in doing interviews and the other members decided that the best way to divert press attention to Davis was to name the band after him.
• Dave Clark was actually the drummer of the Dave Clark Five, not the band's singer; the singer's name was Mike Smith.
• Papa Roach is a rock band, not the stage name of lead singer Jacoby Shaddix.
• The One-Hit Wonder duo David and Jonathan had neither a David nor a Jonathan. It actually consisted of two guys named Roger, songwriters Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway.
• The main character of the story-related songs on the Genesis album Duke is actually named Albert, but you wouldn't know that from looking at song titles like "Duke's Travels" and "Duke's End".
  • Similarly, "Sussudio" isn't the name of the girl in the popular Phil Collins song, it's just a fun nonsense word the singer invented while writing it.
• Davy Jones and the Lower Third never had that Davy Jones among its members. That's why the band became "David Bowie and the Lower Third".
  • Likewise, Garfunkel and Oates is not a collaboration between Art Garfunkel (from Simon & Garfunkel) and John Oates (from Daryl Hall & John Oates). It's a female comedy folk duo (Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci) named after those artists.
• French-Israeli folk duo Lilly Wood & the Prick; the vocalist is not named Lilly Wood, it's Nili Hadida.
• AlunaGeorge is a duo, being a portmanteau of vocalist Aluna Francis and instrumentalist George Reid. It is not the name of the former.
• No-one in the Scottish alternative rock band Travis is named "Travis" and the vocalist is named Fran Healy.
  • Another Scottish alternative rock example: Biffy Clyro. No-one in the band is named Biffy, and the band members can't even remember how they came up with their name, having admitted to making up stories whenever asked about the name's origin.
• The yacht rock band Pablo Cruise is a band and not a particular person. It was meant to invoke a down-to-earth person (Pablo) who could have fun (Cruise).
• Early-'70s Canadian band Edward Bear took their name from A. A. Milne's original moniker for what eventually became Winnie the Pooh.
• GaMetal is the name of a musical project made by a man with the stage name and YouTube account name Jonny Atma. The man is not named GaMetal, and the project is not named Jonny Atma. The fact that Jonny had to change his stage name at one point doesn't make this any less confusing.
• Azari & III were a strange example. The group features Vocal Tag Team of two people, making it easy to assume that's who they were, however neither were actually named "Azari" or "III". On the other hand, they were in the band — they were the producers.
• The fact that the lead vocalist Yui usually gets more screen time and wears much more attention-grabbing outfits than the other band members led many people to think her name is Yousei Teikoku.
• Marian Hill are a duo consisting of Jeremy Lloyd and Samantha Gongol - They named themselves as a Shout-Out to The Music Man (combining the names of protagonists Marian Paroo and Harold Hill).
• Greta Van Fleet is a rock band consisting of four men, not a female solo performer. They named themselves after Gretna Van Fleet, an older resident of their home town their drummer's grandfather would cut wood for; They just needed a band name at the last minute and thought hers sounded cool. Because she was once a drummer for a polka band, Gretna would occasionally get calls asking if she had started playing music again when Greta Van Fleet were on festival bills in the area.
• This used to apply to Nena: Everyone believed that "Nena" is the singer's name. Eventually, the singer gave up, adopted the name, and the whole group became Nena & Band.
  • Similarly, April Wine sounds like the name of a female solo artist, but is actually an all-male hard rock band. ^note Avril Lavigne literally translates to April Vineyard, and that could confuse things.
• Wilson Phillips and Climie Fisher are made up of group members' family names, in case you expected anything different.
• The lead singer of The J. Geils Band was Peter Wolf, with J. Geils being the band's leader and guitarist. Interestingly, Geils quit his own band in 2012 following a dispute... and they kept touring without him up through his 2017 death. When he died, there were more than a few news outlets that incorrectly referred to Geils as the singer of the band.
• An inversion of the usual with The Weeknd, in his early years many people thought that was the title for a band. The Weeknd is a solo artist whose birth name is Abel Tesfaye.
• Tommy Tutone, the One-Hit Wonder act behind the 1980s Power Pop classic "867-5309 (Jenny)" is a band, not a solo artist. This wasn't helped by the fact that their lead singer was named Tommy Heath and he is now the only original member left in the lineup.
• Japanese rock band Kishida Kyoudan & The Akeboshi Rockets is the common subject of it on the west. A lot of people think that Kishida Kyoudan is the name of the vocalist. Her name is Ichigo and Kishida is actually the name of the groups bassist and founder. Even one popular YouTube channel made this mistake during their review.
• Simon Dawes were a group, not a solo artist, and no one named Simon Dawes was in the band. They got their name from the middle names of two of the founding members, Blake Simon Mills and Taylor Dawes Goldsmith. Eventually, Mills left the band and his middle name was removed from their name, leaving them simply Dawes.
• One of Jens Lekman's earliest recorded songs was "Rocky Dennis' Farewell Song To The Blind Girl", which was inspired by Mask and its portrayal of the true story of Rocky Dennis. The song picked up some airplay despite not being commercially released yet, but DJs apparently weren't familiar with the subject matter and announced the song as though Rocky Dennis was the name of its performer. Jens later released the EP Rocky Dennis in Heaven featuring the aforementioned song and two more songs inspired by Rocky, but he pointedly titled the last track "Jens Lekman's Farewell Song to Rocky Dennis" and spoke of Rocky in the third person in its lyrics. Even so, some remained under the impression that Rocky Dennis was an early Stage Name for Jens.
• Paramore is a band, not the stage name of lead singer Hayley Williams.
• HOLYCHILD is a two-person band conisiting of singer Liz Nistico and instrumentalist Louie Diller, but some people think it is the stage name of Liz.
• Vocaloid refers to the synthesizing software, not any one character. For those who are aware of that, "Vocaloid" is sometimes confused for a title those characters can hold. Hatsune Miku in particular is sometimes mistaken for the Vocaloid, or part of a band called Vocaloid. Fandom generally accepts them as being called a Vocaloid — as in, a character created for the software, not a Ridiculously Human Robot by that branding.
• Hypnosis Mic is the Compelling Voice weapon the in-universe rap groups use, not the names of the groups themselves. The groups are respectively Buster Bros!!!, Mad Trigger Crew, Matenrou, and Fling Posse, and the leaders of each one used to be part of a group called The Dirty Dawg.
• There's no "Evan", nor anyone with the surname "Evans", in Evans Blue. The band is named after a dye injected into the bloodstream in order to test blood volume.
• SHAED is a band. It is not the stage name of lead singer Chelsea Lee.
• Many of Mr. Oizo's album covers and music videos center around a puppet character named Flat Eric, which leads some people to believe that the puppet is meant to represent Oizo himself and address him as such.
• Invoked by Solomon Grey, a duo comprising Tom Kingston and Joe Wilson. They chose a "solo" name deliberately to mess with people.
• Utah Saints are from Leeds, England, not Utah.
• Similarly, The Hoosiers are from Reading, England, not Indiana. However, two of the founding members, Irwin Sparkes and Alan "Alphonso" Sharland, did attend the University of Indianapolis, and wrote many of the tracks for the band's first album while in Indy.
• Synthwave act Sally Shapiro is actually a duo consisting of the female vocalist, whose real name is unknown but is commonly known as Sally Shapiro herself, and producer Johan Agebjörn.
• Larkin Poe is a band, and the two sisters at its core are named Rebecca and Megan Lovell. They're named after a distant ancestor of theirs who was also related to Edgar Allan Poe.
• Lukas Graham ("7 Years") is a band from Denmark, not a singer. The lead singer's given name is Lukas, but his actual surname is Forchhammer.
• Jim Adkins sings lead for Jimmy Eat World, but he's not the "Jimmy" referenced by the band's name. That's actually the brother of guitarist Tom Linton. Jim Linton was the victim of an unflattering drawing made by their other brother in retaliation for losing a fight.
• Templeton Pek are a trio, none of whom are named Templeton Pek - the name is a deliberately misspelled Shout-Out to a character from The A-Team, Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck.
• This interview with Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo on Australian TV kicks off with the interviewer introducing him as "River Weezer".^note Or "RIVAH WEEZAH" if you'd prefer. Needless to say, it's undergone Memetic Mutation within the band's fanbase.
• Canadian band Max Webster also fits this trope. No one in the band is named Max Webster. Singer/guitarist Kim Mitchell explains the name this way:
  Max Webster's name came from Mike Tilka, the bass player. He was in a band called Family At Mac's, and they did a song called 'Webster'. We were looking for a Jethro Tull type name... a real human name but nobody in the band with that name.
• In 2003 the hip hop duo OutKast released the hit album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, which led some people to believe that "Speakerboxxx" and "The Love Below" are their stage names. Their actual stage names are André 3000 and Big Boi.
• The Latvian-Canadian indie-pop group Austra takes its name from the middle name of frontwoman Katie Stelmanis, who like Nena, also uses it as her stage name.
• Mrs. GREEN APPLE is not a female solo artist. It's a band, and the lead singer is male.
• Barenaked Ladies are all men. They came up with their name when they signed up for a music competition and realised they had to pick a name right then and there, so they panicked and chose that name.
• Nine Inch Nails finally averted this after three decades of playing it straight - for those 30 years, it was a "band" consisting of one man, singer-songwriter Trent Reznor. In late 2016, Atticus Ross, a long-time collaborator, was finally officially inducted into the band, and there have been other members coming and going over the years. However, even before Atticus was inducted, people would often mistakenly refer to Nine Inch Nails as "they" as if it was the name of a group, rather than what at the time was essentially a solo act.
• There was an indie band named Joan of Arc. They were named after the famous historical figure, and there was never anyone in the band named Joan - the lead singer was a man named Tim Kinsella. Also, their album Live in Chicago, 1999 is not a live album - it's just a reference to the band having lived in Chicago in the year 1999. The "live" in the album's title rhymes with "give", not "five".
• No one in The Pogues was or is named Pogue. The name comes from the Irish phrase "póg mo thóin", meaning "kiss my ass", and the band originally named themselves Pogue Mahone, an Anglicisation of this phrase. The lead singer is Shane MacGowan.
• The band Scissor Sisters is mostly made up of men, with the sole female member being female vocalist Ana Matronic. None of them are related, either. The name comes from the lesbian sex act tribadism, or "scissoring".
• Maroon 5 is a band, not the stage name of singer Adam Levine.
  • Subverted in a sense in that this has apparently come to be of the band in the 2010s since Levine gets all the public attention thanks to his stint as a judge on The Voice and his bandmates have been in lurking in the background to the point where the public has forgotten that there are other members.
  • This was even lampshaded by Bart Baker in his parody of "Animals" where the entire second half revolves around the rest of the band ranting about this.
• It's not unheard of for people to refer to the members of Daft Punk individually as "Daft" and "Punk". Their names are Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, and the robots' names are TB3 and GM08. The name Daft Punk came from a negative review of their old indie band, Darlin'.
• Mazzy Star is a band, not the stage name of vocalist Hope Sandoval. She wasn't even in the band's original lineup, although the band only adopted the name "Mazzy Star"^note They were previously known as Opal. once she joined.
• Suddenly, Tammy! sounds like the name of a stage musical about a girl named Tammy, but there was no Tammy in it. It was a trio led by singer/songwriter/pianist Beth Sorrentino.
• Dookey Mackey is the name given to high-pitched stock vocals dubbed "Gentlemen's Pitched Vocals", and is often assumed to be the singing of Sirko Falke, when he was actually the songwriter and the real singer was German independent singer, Adrian Winkler.
  • To add to it, due to these vocals' usage in the music of Jakarta which were "One Desire" and "Superstar", many assume this was where these vocals originated from and YouTube re-uploaders sometimes mislabel any songs using them as Jakarta songs, and this is often poked fun at.
• Nobody in Harley Poe is named that, the lead singer is Joe Whiteford.
• Rolo Tomassi is not the name of nor a stage name for vocalist Eva Korman, nor the name of anyone else in the band. The name is a slightly misspelled version of "Rollo Tomasi", a pseudonym used an unknown assailant in the film L.A. Confidential, which a character then uses as a term to describe any unknown suspect escaping justice.
• Winona Fighter is a band, not a stage name for frontwoman Coco Kinnon.
• Daisy Chainsaw is yet another example of a band where people mistake the name as a stage name for the frontwoman. Her name is Katie Jane Garside.
• The Who's "Baba O'Riley" isn't called Teenage Wasteland. The song is named for guitarist Pete Townsend's inspirations at the time of the recording, "Mama Baba" and "Terry O'Riley".

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