LET'S ARGUE: The Worst Band Names of All Time 

When I have a band I want to call it "Family Guy Funny Moments"

One time Hoobastank was playing some MTV award show or something. It was a really bad performance, really did not sound good. My mother walks in and asks me "what is this?" I said "Hoobastank". She paused for a moment and replied "Who be stankin'?!" I cringed, she laughed, I've thought about it forever.

The worst name has to be this obscure rap duo from L.A. called “The Nonce”. The reason it’s bad is because in the UK, the word “nonce” is slang for “peadophile”. Every 6 months, UK Twitter find out this fact and roast them.

One time, my father was at the beach. He was in a restaurant drinking something, chilling and watching the sunset. Then a band started playing, but according to my dad, they were absolutely horrible. My dad decided to name them "The Sunset Destroyer Band" because of how they ruined a nice, relaxing afternoon. I actually think that is a badass name for a musical group, somebody should take it.

I like to think that "Imagine Dragons" is meant to be read as a command

Fun fact: the "H" in Jesus H Christ stands for Hoobastank

King gizzard and the wizard lizard is literally the best band name I've ever heard. Just hearing the name makes me wanna check them out cause I instantly get the feeling that it's the type of purposely playing the goofy shit so seriously that it becomes epic shit I'm into.

Let's Argue: This was more of a "Let's Agree"

"Mommy I played a song!" "That's smashing, pumpkin" 🤔

Calling your band "Psychedelic Porn Crumpets" is just *such* a power move, though

"The Southern Hemisphere" would actually be a kickass name for an EDM group. I know this because I tried to look them up, only to find out that Fantano made them up.

Crywank sounds like an homage to Homer's grunge band Sadgasm

King Gizzard sounds like a Nintendo villain.

I think the note about 'taking yourself too seriously' is key here. Hoobastank is a band that truly thinks they're cool, so the name is dumb. The Butthole Surfers and King Gizzard are having fun, so the names are fine.

In my band(s), we aggressively pursued the dumbest names possible. We started out as Toothpaste. After a lineup change we became Star Shark and finally Devil Luggage. Have you guessed we're from the Midwest?

7:00 - "The Kansas and Boston concert in Chicago has been changed to the Chicago and Boston concert in Kansas..." Stevens & Grrdnick '79

A lot of people don't know that Hoobastank actually has a deeply personal and touching origin. If you rearrange the letters, you get "Thank a soob", with "soob" being a word I entirely made up just now.

Overhead some 40 year old that was walking around shakey knees festival and saw a digital sign showing set times. He saw “Car Seat Headrest” and said “God damn we’re running out of band names”

I’m surprised “Toad The Wet Sprocket” wasn’t mentioned. Although the interesting thing is that when you find out where their name comes from it actually makes it seem less dumb.

Let’s agree: Fantano needs to make the tweets bigger

“What does it mean to surf a butthole?” Is the best quote of 2021

Umphreys McGee has to take it for me. Absolutely amazing jam/prog band, with a terrible name they’re stuck with.

My vote goes to the Strawberry Alarm Clock. Saw them on an obscure talk show (The Woody Woodbury Show is indeed obscure.) where the gave the reason behind the name. The strawberry was to get back to nature and the alarm clock was to "wake people up to their music." Yeesh! How about Blow Me and the Hootfish? Conversely, great band names are Boink! (an all girl band) The Tragically Hip and, my favorite, The Vatican Sex Kittens. Now that's a band name.

My favorite factoid about crywank is that his mom calls them “tear jerk” to her friends

Hoobastank II: Electric Hoobaloo

Now recruiting musicians for my band Hoobastank Too.

Every time I hear the name Death Cab for Cutie I get pissed off, don't know why.

The Cherry Poppin Daddies went to my high school and when they were inducted into the high school's hall of fame the first thing they said was "we're sorry about our name"

'Portugal. The Man' definitely deserves a mention. Is the name two seperate sentences? Is this man the human embodiment of the country Portugal? If not, why is he being mentioned here? I have so many questions

this just proves that people shouldn't take band names too serious, and unique names are easier to remember. that gore grind band though, that name is way too long, they are known as that one band with a paragraph for a name lol

This is one of your best (if not the single best) videos, I rewatch it regularly. Please, make part 2!

Imagine if The Beatles were called Liverpool

Someone needs to form a band called Smashing Melons.

I actually quite like the name "The Smashing Pumpkins". Might just be me, but I'm a fan of prepending the definite article to allow the word "smashing" to be read as a verb or an adjective.

Billy Corgan at 1:22 looks like Melon from the future, who came to warn him about what he’d become but is powerless to stop it from happening

I’m naming my band “People Who Are Sort Of Existing Outside of the Context of Hoobastank”

“The Southern Hemisphere” is unironically a really cool name for a band.

Me and my mom were listening to a bunch of Now That's What I Call Musics for a personal ranking project and we discussed the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, and in the end we decided that it's mainly based on the time period they were trying to emulate musically. It's a product of its time, or rather, a product of the time it WANTS to be. People were way more blasé about stuff like that in the swing era.

I remember getting the Cherry Poppin Daddies CD solely for Zoot Suit Riot (ah the days before downloading….) My mom saw the cover and flipped out. “WHAT KIND OF FILTH ARE YOU LISTENING TO?!?!?!” I then had to explain (bullshit) that I didn’t know what the name meant, but it was just harmless swing like the grandparents would listen to. Played her the aforementioned song snd she calmed down, but I’ll never forget that initial reaction 😄😄😄

how arctic monkeys managed to escape this video is insane to me

I could see Anthony's soul leaving his body when he realized he was gonna have to explain what a limp biscuit was

I once told my Dad that I'd bought tickets to see Black Breath, Discharge and Wormrot (not all on the same bill, sadly) and his reply was that they all sounded like medical symptoms I should get checked out.

Smashing Pumpkins is a great name! Specially if english is not your first language, in spanish it sound super cool and the translation is something like "Calabazas aplastadas" or the more floklore way "majando ayotes" which sounds pretty hilarious

If you think it's tough to justify Hoobastank, think how it is to be a lifelong, passionate fan of Queensryche. I love that band beyond most emotions I feel, but for fuck's sake, even when I was a kid it put me off. I know the backstory of why they chose it, (pressure to drop their previous name that was owned by a European band, and literally only a couple of days, {or hours according to some retellings} to come up with a name), and that they named it after a song Queen of Reich, where she's the bad guy at least. But holy shit, why would you want anything associated with yourself to come along with the word 'Reich', even if misspelled? There lyrics and interviews certainly don't point to any sympathies that way, but they really shoulda reconsidered in my opinion.

"Why would the drummer be Hootie?" *Mick Fleetwood has entered the chat*

In defense of Chicago, they were originally called "The Chicago Transit Authority", which is a baller ass name, but after the actual transit authority threatened to sue they had to change the band name.

7:44 For some reason whenever I hear the name of a band named after a city or geographic location I just immediately think of Jazz or blues, or just some genre generally involving saxophones and other brass instruments. I don't know why but it feels like a lot of city-named bands are jazz or blues or just generally old music

Yeah I think crywank is very fitting, and I adore his music. "Notches" is really beautiful, and "Song for a Guilty Sadist" is a surprisingly good song to have slow, emotional sex to

Brb, off to start a band called "Hoobastank 2" just for Anthony.

"It really does roll off the tongue like... vomit" is definitely a phrase I will be using regularly from now on. Thank you, Mr. Fanta

I read in a weird middle school boy prankster book at a common thing to do around Halloween was to smash pumpkins and this activity is where the band got their name. I will try to find that book the next time I go to my parents house but I think it's lost to history.

The Butthole Surfers chose their name intentionally, apparently to ward off certain kinds of people. If you’re one of those people who judge a band solely on their name before ever hearing the music, they don’t want you listening, hence the incredibly off putting name. I think it’s also to scare away money-focused labels, since no money man would be willing to sign a band called Butthole Surfers, meaning any labels that approached them would be interested because of the music rather than for profit

i respect the name Hoobastank because they went to a random band name generator, it gave them "Hoobastank", and they went "yeah ok." and stuck with it for like TWENTY YEARS.

I’m pretty sure most people listened to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard BECAUSE of their name. I certainly did

I would name a industrial metal band "Deep Stahl" which just means "theft" in German (normally written "Diebstahl"). But you know it's very deep steel.

There is/was a band from Ireland called 'Ham Sandwich'. I've never been the slightest bit curious to check them out. Just heard their name thrown around a lot on radio about a decade or so ago.

Homer and Billy meeting each other on The Simpsons: “Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins” “Homer Simpson, smiling politely.”

The Southern Hemisphere sounds like a great name for a band TBH

1:55 depends on the album if it has a 'the', early on they didn't, look at the album covers for Gish and Siamese Dream, then later on Zeitgeist doesn't.

“We Butter the Bread with Butter” and “Chunk? No captain chunk!” I would be completely embarrassed to say that I was a fan of theirs to someone else

"King Gizzard and the Lizard wizard" is godlike band name

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is the perfect name for that band. Its tongue in cheek, its fantasy, it establishes the Gizzverse, its everything that that band is.

The autotune version of "The Reason" absolutely killed me 😆

I was trying to think of the most "pompous" band, as in the one that encompasses the biggest area/volume, all I could think of is Earth which is a really cool post-rock/drone band, but then again they could be refering to, you know, just "dirt". There's this band called Everything Everything which encompass well, everything, and they do it twice as well. So I would nominate them for most pompous.

My friends wanted to listen to the band simply because they thought the name "king gizzard and the lizard wizard" was cool.. I'd also put it in a best band names video

If I remember correctly, Billy Corgan did say that "smashing" is indeed supposed to be what you described as "the British way."

I quite love the name the smashing pumpkins, I think it is fun and shows a bit of the band's personality. It's unique and although I hated it at first I would kill to be able to name my band that

2:17 I always imagined it as giant pumpkins destroying a city, like "Attack of the 50-Foot Pumpkins!"

"The Music", "The Band" and "The The" are all impossible to search online. Also, "The The" must really fuck with some algorithms that try to ignore the word "The" at the front of artist names when organizing your collection by name.

For me, it gotta be the bunch of uninspired interchangeable garage rock band names: The Kinks, The Kicks, The Kooks, The Knack, The Kills, The Killers, The Hives, The Vines and so on...

Amazed to see no love for Toad the Wet Sprocket, a name literally from a Monty Python skit.

The sense I get from "The Smashing Pumpkins" is that it designates a group of people that like smashing pumpkins. Halloween hooligans. I know it uses a verbal phrase as a noun, but that could be stretched to a group that is centered around their mutual affinity for smashing pumpkins.

Car Seat Headrest is the only artist whose name I have ever mentioned to my dad which got him to say, "That's dumber than anything I would have been capable of coming up with." which you should know is withering criticism.

Hootiestank and the Limp BizDaddies. The supergroup we need and deserve.

"Slapthony Face" had to check this wasn't released after Willy Smith at the Oscars

My big one is 'Viagra Boys'. Caveworld is one of my favourite albums and I wanted to go and see them like a few months ago. Unfortunately, because of the name, my parents rejected the idea almost instantly

The Smashing Pumpkins were actually called Smashing Pumpkins during Gish and Siamese Dream era however changed it during Mellon Collie...not sure if it made them sound more important? Hmmm.

I mean, Japan has some terribly hilarious band names: Bump of Chicken. Greeeen. Glay. Happy End. Maximum the Hormone. And my personal favourite because I can't say it without laughing, Mr.Children. I am not making any of these up, these are all real.

"Hoobastank and The Cherry Poppin' Daddies" now thats the perfect name for a band

I love the name King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard is hilarious, kind of fitting considering how colorful and everchanging they are

“Godsmack” sounds like a 14 year old atheist trying to be edgy. The name was stolen too.

"Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins" "Homer Simpson, Smiling Politely"

Been thinking about the pumpkin thing for a solid 20 years. Thank you.

When I was in Graduate School I lived in a house filled with many people from many different backgrounds. We had a page on the refrigerator where any of us who thought of an imaginary terrible band name was written down. Damn we had some doozies.

One of my high school teacher's metal core band was called "Breakdowns at Tiffany's" and Fantano actually commented on one of their music videos years ago making fun of their absolute garbage name so I was half-heartedly hoping he'd mention them😂

On a note about King Gizzard take. LOTS of stoner metal/space metal bands have strange names like that. Like the legendary "The Kings of Frog Island"

Echo and The Bunnymen is one of my faves since learning Echo was the name of their drum machine.

The worst name is by far Chumbawamba and their only known song is named "Tubthumping" so what the hell they don"t name the song "I get knocked down" lol

three soundcloud rappers and four lofi indie folk bands on bandcamp just renamed themselves hoobastank 2. thanks tony

Melon looks like the lost younger brother of Billy Corgan when he talks about ThE SmAsHiNg pUmPkInS

Billy said “Smashing” meant in the English sense. So, yes. Also the double meaning of literally smashing pumpkins, a la teenage rebellion.

Moistened Disciples and Garbage both come to mind for me. The latter just for what it stands for, the former just for being really weird Edit: I thought of one more: the Naked Brothers band. Not technically a real band (old tv show) but still

I once saw a local band called Screaming Monkey Boner. They were actually good heavy rock with industrial mixed in. The lead singer played a Keytar and the drummer had an digital set. I think they've changed names or broke up since then.

"There's a lot of people in that place, especially if it's a city" wow, Anthony spitting facts

Bro, I just subbed to your channel, and you had something in that bass groove. Tone was good too

The Hootie & The Blowfish thing was literally the subject of a very funny Key & Peele subject.

I was having a rather rad conversation about music with some coworkers when i asked if anyone had heard of the Viagra Boys and the mood all changed. I was chewed up, spit out and booed off stage. Long story medium - no one had heard of them.

I once read in a kid's book that Limp Bizkit got their name because Fred Durst had a dog called Bizkit who limped a lot. *They were trying to protect us.*

8:25 Holy shit, Anthony finally talking about PPC

On bands named after geographic locations, Asia got it's name for a very practical reason. Geffen records was brand new. A d the band learned that the accounts payable office of Geffen paid bands in alphabetical order. They wanted to be sure to be paid