Q Where do pop groups and rock bands get their names

A. All kinds of places, from the simple to the obscure. Maybe something a band member saw just walking down the street. Perhaps it's something read in a book, or seen in a film, something someone said, something from a song.

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Q. So give me some examples taken from books.

A. The list is long and varied, and the type of band is as long and varied as well.� The Velvet Underground for example, is taken from a book one of the members found lying in the street. It was about sex in America, not surprisingly. Progressive jazz rockers Soft Machine and resurrected sophisticates Steely Dan both got their names from William Burroughs' novels. Savage Garden found their name as a phrase in Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire, and at the opposite extreme, source wise at least, Veruca Salt are named after a character in the children's classic Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

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Q. OK, what about films

A. Again, a varied list of musical types from the influence of the silver screen. Sixties perennials The Searchers share their name with a John Wayne western. A more recent western starring Jeff Bridges in 1972 inspired Paul Rogers when looking for a handle for his post-Free project�- and Bad Company became a rock band as well as a film title. Horror films seem to have had an influence on pop and rock stars as well. White Zombie, The Mindbenders and Black Sabbath all found their names in various�horror flicks. George C Scott's cult classic They Might Be Giants found a wider audience, thanks to living on as a group name. Of course, everyone knows enduring Brummie futurists Duran Duran found their name in the bad guy in Barbarella.

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Q. There has to be other areas of experience that turn up a name or two �

A. Naturally, being musicians, the odd smattering of drug reference and culture comes into the picture in varying degrees. Most people are aware that The Doors took their name from Aldous Huxley's famous drug chronicles The Doors Of Perception, but rather less obvious is a band called Blue Cheer who are named after a brand of detergent, or a nickname for a high quality hallucinogenic, depending which version you want to believe, or where you are and who you are talking to! A 'motorhead' is someone who is a frequent and heavy user of amphetamine sulphate (speed) and a 'doobie' as in the Brothers of that name is a slang expression for a joint, or 'reefer' as it was more quaintly known in the San Francisco of the time.

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Q. Do bands ever use the influence of their own idols in their names

A. Certainly they do. Simple Minds made no secret of their admiration for David Bowie carrying over into their name, taken from a line in Bowie's The Jean Genie. Goth godfathers The Sisters Of Mercy borrowed their moniker from the Leonard Cohen song of the same name, and Urge Overkill name-checked a long forgotten title from seventies funk emperors Parliament.

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Q. Are bands always looking in these extravagant places to find their names to take them into immortality

A. Not at all. The Gallagher brothers didn't have to look to far to find a catchy handle for their new outfit�- there's an Oasis cab company, a chain of women's clothing stores, and an Indian restaurant, all in Manchester city centre, and no doubt passed by them every day when they were young and unknown. A Leeds furniture shop where Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn attended university inspired them to remember the household emporium, which boasted that you could buy 'Everything But The Girl' who served you. Birmingham reggae stars- in-waiting the Campbell Brothers saw their fair share of Government forms, - the ubiquitous UB40 played its part in their lives before they left unemployment behind forever. Strangely, the Irish version of the same form is known as a U2�- spooky that!

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Q. Has anyone capitalised on other people's lack of faith in their vision for the future

A. Absolutely. Most famously, Jimmy Page's plans for his new band after the demise of The Yardbirds was seriously dissed by The Who's Keith Moon who reckoned the combo would float like 'a lead zeppelin', although Jimmy was happy to drop one vowel and prove his friend very very wrong indeed. A certain high school Principle advising the latest crop of dead-beats that it would a 'green day in hell before they made anything of themselves' was forced to re-evaluate his opinions when they went on to take the Green Day section of his statement and use it to label one of the most successful American bands of the last twenty years.

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Q. So that's the way bands get their names then

A. Not quite�- some are just plain posers, Bauhaus who took their name from a German school of design and architecture were even out-posed by American art rockers Devo who reckoned that 'devolution' was the opposite of 'evolution' and that's where the planet was headed. Better stick with the simpler pleasures in life�- seeing a racehorse in the paper named Faith No More is as far as some people need to look.

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By Andy Hughes