30 of the Best DFW Band Names

There’s a lot of pressure involved in naming a band. The name has to be distinct and memorable while also speaking to the band's style and values. A song can be written in a day, but a band name can take ages to pin down.

Some artists in North Texas take their band-naming ethos to the next level by picking something a little more out there, a name that will stick in your brain before you've heard even one of their song,s. These bands don’t care if their names are “inappropriate” or “weird” or “impossible to Google.” All they care about is the art. The attention doesn't hurt, either.

Allison Janney

In this day and age, there’s nothing braver than being virtually un-Googleable. A search for “Allison Janney” will obviously pull up the award-winning actress. You’ll have to specify to Google that you mean “Allison Janney Fort Worth band” before anything having to do with the screamo/powerviolence outfit pops up.

There’s nothing more badass than being an enigma and having great music to better cultivate the mystique. That is par for the course for the members of this band, as guitarist Al Rios has been in other local bands such as Special Guest and TBA (which actually stands for “Too Bad, Asshole”).

The Atomic Tanlines

That is some sexy and dangerous imagery if we ever saw it. It makes us wonder how far we’d have to stand from a nuclear explosion for it to give us that summer glow rather than melting our faces. This Denton-based band combined punk, free-jazz and soul, a combination just as captivating as “atomic” and “tanlines.”

BashForTheWorld

Our recently-crowned Best Rapper is a local favorite, but he's increasingly been living up to the “for the world” part of his name. He recently conquered the country on his “From Dallas, With Love” tour and has amassed almost a million monthly listeners on Spotify.

Bedhead

This Dallas-based indie band was active 1991–98 and might have been the most ”indie” band of all time. There are countless alternative subgeneres and subcultures, but very few where seemingly effortless messy hair isn’t a timeless fashion statement.

Bukkake Moms

Here is another utterly un-Googleable name, though it’s probably safer now that most of the major porn sites have pulled out of Texas. Going off the name alone, we have to assume Bukkake Moms is the female counterpart to Gay Cum Daddies, with which it shares members: difficult to advertise on a marquee, but with a more feminine touch.

Con the Baptist

There’s a lot to unpack with this Dallas DJ’s stage name. It’s an obvious pun on the biblical figure John the Baptist, but the “con” gets us. Is it a noun that intends to call the process of baptism a con? Or is it a verb and the name is instructing us to con a member of the Baptist faith? We’re probably overthinking it and should stay focused on dancing.

Cure for Paranoia

This acclaimed local hip-hop group is doing what science won’t by taking a stand on everyday mental health issues. Sure, medicine is tackling more concrete mental illnesses like anxiety and depression, but Cure for Paranoia makes those of us who constantly feel like our friends are mad at us or spend all day fretting over whether we left the oven on feel like there may be hope.

Deathray Davies

This Dallas-based indie rock band’s name combines Ray Davies, the lead vocalist of The Kinks, and a deathray, a theoretical particle-ray weapon that frequently appears in science fiction. We’re a sucker for a good pun. Frontman John Dufilho has used similar wordplay with his solo work, most notably with the title of his 2023 album John Buffalo.

Denton Tarantinos

To your average Denton film bro, the films of Quentin Tarantino are the epitome of cool, but you can find a far less pretentious and self-indulgent brand of cool with this surf-rock quartet. Still, we cannot help but wonder whether “Denton Tarantino” is a better or worse name.

Gay Cum Daddies

This band’s name has previously had to be displayed on marquees as “GCD” given its unapologetic prurience. Members of this band have been in similarly named bands such as Bukkake Moms, but if you prefer your experimental/noise music without the naughtiness, they also play in projects such as Flesh Narc and Cig Oasis.

The Go-Go Rillas

This Irving-based band delivers on exactly what their name promises: a great mix of surf- and garage-rock performed by musicians in gorilla costumes. The anonymous band members consists of Bingo, Bango, Bongo and Fred, all with their own hilarious backstories about partying with Jane Goodall, escaping the zoo and going to space. Their website even asks users' permission to use “bananas” instead of cookies. We admire their commitment to the bit.

Homewrecker and the Bedwetters

A homewrecker we can handle. We could even tolerate a squad of bedwetters. But combine the two, and it’s just too much chaos to handle, which is exactly what this queer metalcore band is going for. This unprecedented tumult is probably why the Denton band simply goes by “homewrecker” now, and why they moved to Chicago earlier this year. Texas just couldn’t take it.

Kaiju Queers

This Denton band describes itself as “punk for strange beasts and freaks.” This obviously applies to kaijus, a Japanese colloquial term for giant monsters like Godzilla and Mothra, but also the feeling of growing up queer in an intolerant society. It really makes you think, doesn’t it? This is probably the band’s exact intention and it's obvious to everyone, but pretend we just dropped some mindblowing insight.

Lardi B

This project from Jenn Whitlock originally centered on body-positive parodies of Cardi B songs such as "Bodak Jello" (a play on "Bodak Yellow") and "They Like That I'm Fat" (based on "I Like It"). Her work has received hundreds of millions of views online and has even earned recognition from Cardi herself. Whitlock is now using her newfound platform to push her original work.

The Marked Men

The Marked Men is an objectively cool name with a dangerous quality. We're including this longstanding Denton-based punk band for another reason, though: Their frontman is named Mark Ryan. Get it? Mark? Liked Marked Men? We have no idea if this was intentional, but it delights us all the same.

Meat Loaf

The late Dallas-born rocker Meat Loaf, whose real name was Michael Lee Aday, was a theatrical performer known for albums such as the Bat Out of Hell trilogy and appearances in films The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Fight Club and Spice World. It’s ironic but also appropriately weird that his name was derived from such a basic dish.

Nervous Curtains

The name of this Dallas alternative rock band raises a lot of questions. What do the curtains have to fear? What do they know that we don’t? Should we be nervous as well? Someone needs to check in on those curtains.

The Norah Jonestown Massacre

This name has two different puns going for it and is an adventure to read. While bands like The Brian Jonestown Massacre have similarly alluded to the Jonestown mass suicide and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, The Norah Jonestown Mascara quite obviously involves local artist and the Univeristy of North Texas’s favorite recruitment tool Norah Jones. And of course, mascara. Need we say more?

Nip Slip

This Denton-based art rock band describes itself as “your mom’s favorite local Denton band.” We only need one word, however, to describe its name: Nice.

Penny Bored

We're clearly suckers for a good pun. It's fitting that this pop-punk project, led by Faith Alesia, has a name that combines penny boards (those miniature skateboards your freshman-year crush was into) and boredom (the ennui experienced by all pop-punk artists that comes with being trapped in This Town).

Razorbumps

This band had quite a 2018–19, between touring with Turnstile and playing Coachella. But somewhere along the way, they went from having a drummer to having a drum machine a la Big Black. And now they seem to be dormant. That’s a shame, too, because they were ahead of the curve with the genre we now know as “eggpunk,” and their name is fantastic. Is it about cocaine, or is it about shaving? Maybe both? That’s the mystery, although the answer is probably cocaine.

Roach Noises

Say what you will about cockroaches, but they mercifully don't make much noise. Roach Noises may be roach-accurate in terms of the antenna headbands they wear during live performances, but their feral, dynamic live performances are too loud to have anything in common with their namesake. In the band's case, that's a good thing. The bugs can stay quiet, though.

Rosegarden Funeral Party

Is there a band in existence whose name invokes gothic imagery more than this one? If there is, it's not in Dallas. This Leah Lane-fronted scene staple is always bringing the drama in their music and imagery so it’s only fitting that their name match. (What’s more goth than being a partial reference to a Bauhaus song? The answer: being a partial reference to a Bauhaus song, and turning a solemn occasion into a party.)

She-Dick

This Dallas electro-pop band was fronted by a drag trio and claimed to be “female detectives by day and pop stars by night.” If the name and their raunchy subject matter don’t reel you in, that lore will do the trick. Unfortunately, the mystery of why this sick band is no longer active has yet to be solved.

Thyroids

Much is said of body parts like hearts, minds, eyes and reproductive apparatuses in song lyrics. Dallas punk band Thyroids is flipping the script by paying homage to that gland in your throat that regulates growth and metabolism. We salute them for it.

Tonya and the Hardings

This Denton band named themselves after the notorious former figure skater and convicted conspirator because they are apparently “a pretty little band that will smash your kneecaps.” A bloody ice skate is even incorporated into the band’s logo. That wasn’t actually the weapon used to attack Nancy Kerrigan, but we like it anyway.

Tripping Daisy

The psychedelic pop band led by Tim DeLaughter (who also founded the The Polyphonic Spree) has a name that perfectly captures the vibe of both their music and and videos, such as “I Got a Girl.” Spacy. Mind-bending. A little disorienting. There’s probably a more fitting word, but we can’t remember it right now.

Venadryl

The Quenlan-based death metal band’s name sounds like benadryl, a medicine that treats pain and itching but sometimes causes nausea and drowsiness. The last thing Vendryl will do, however, is make you sick or put you to sleep. Perhaps that’s why they changed a letter to differentiate themselves.

Velvet Love Box

This Dallas band claims to have taken their name from “a TV covered in fur.” We tried to find the TV they were talking about, but no dice. No matter, though. They’ve been around since 1997, so it makes sense for the title to solely belong to them at this point.

MC 900 Ft. Jesus

Son of God? More like the son of Godzilla. The Dallas-based musician and rapper, whose real name is Mark Griffin, derives his moniker from an Oral Roberts sermon where the televangelist claimed that Jesus Christ, who is apparently 900 feet tall, came to him in a vision and told him to build a hospital on the campus of Oral Roberts University. We imagine that many who have been wasted on vacation in Brazil have had a similar interaction with that Christ the Redeemer statue.