Mental Floss

The Quick 10: 10 Awesome Tribute Band Names

By Stacy Conradt

facebooktwitterreddit

I'm going to see a Beatles tribute band tonight. I know; it will never come close to the real thing, but it's probably as close as I'm going to get. Sadly, with such a huge catalog of song titles to create an awesome, punny band name from, this band is simply called "The Fab Four." But there are plenty of other sweet tribute band names out there - here are a few of them.

1. Pete Loaf. I heard Meat Loaf sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at a Phillies game a few years ago, and I contend that Pete Loaf actually sounds better than Meat Loaf does right now. Also, his name is awesome. "Hey guys, I'm going to see Pete Loaf tonight." "Meat Loaf? Sweet, I loved Bat Out of Hell." "No, Pete Loaf. No relation."

2. The Smiths Indeed. A Smiths cover band, of course.

3. Nearvana.

4. Gabba. I admit it - I didn't so much choose this one for the weird name as I did for the weird premise: ABBA songs, Ramones-style. Here they are doing "Mamma Mia."

5. Beatallica. In a similar vein, Beatallica does Beatles songs Metallica-style. Here's "All You Need is Blood." Does it make me a bad Beatles fan that I kind of like it?

6. No. I'll let you guess in the comments what band this group is paying tribute to. I question the need for a tribute band for these guys, but maybe they're just not my thing...

7. We Got the Meat. Yeah... it's the GoGos, but male.

8. Coverboy (Loverboy). Another one I wonder about the demand for...

9. Alanish. A great name from a band that does Alanis Morissette covers. Although if you tell people you're going to see Alanish, they might think you really paid the money to go see Alanis but have recently developed a lisp.

10. Austrian Death Machine. Kind of like Gabba, this one was picked more for the entire idea of the band. They sing in the distinctive style of Arnold Schwarzenegger and take their songs from The Governator's movie one-liners. My favorite? "It's Not a Tumor" from the band's first album Total Brutal.

Know any other great tribute band names? Or do you have one you're holding back for the day you form a tribute band? Let us know in the comments.