Band Name Thievery/Duplication

I just saw on the Hurting Words section someone had reviewed some album by the FALSE "Slaughter". It has always riled me that there is/was a REAL MeTal band called Slaughter that released material before the yelping puppy-boy hairspray band. Now, I know that Marky's last name is purported to be Slaughter, but if that was YOUR last name, and you were going to form a band anywhere near the MeTal genre, wouldn't you sort've guess that there was already a band called that and make sure you weren't stepping on their toes? And ya know what? If Marky actually listened to MeTal, he'd already KNOW about the Real Slaughter! I often chuckle to myself thinking about some poser blindly ordering the REAL Slaughter's classic album "Strappado" thinking it is going to be some glam-hairspray along the lines of "Up All Night".....and being horrified to learn that he has actually bought a METAL album by mistake!!!! Now, I don't know about the origin or etymology of the name Shining, but there are 2 bands in Norway called that...........one some peace'n love hippie jam band, and the other, well, let's just say couldn't be more opposite(fans of Black MeTal should know about this one!); I imagine the same above mentioned scenario for this one, with perhaps even more amusing effects! Does anyone remember there was a band from Texas named Slayer, at the exact same time as the existing Slayer was starting out? And how about Gene Simmons making Crown of Thorns (Sweden) change their name because he had some pre-fab band named that(actually, I think the pre-fab band predated the Swedes, but I'm not sure). And then, not even because it was another band name, the internet giant rhapsody making the Italian band Rhapsody change their name, just because it was interfering with goobers' searching for their site? I think Wrathchild America actually chose to change their name to that after they learned there was a UK band already recording under the name Wrathchild (which was an honourable thing to do; and speaking of their honourable intentions, when they changed musical direction, they changed their name again. MANY MORE bands should have that consideration for their fans....but don't.) Anyone else have any interesting name thievery/duplication stories?

WARRIOR...'nuff said.

The Angels from Australia were victimized here in the US by name duplication. Prior to the release of the US version of Face To Face, The Angels were threatened with copyright infringement by the glam band Angel (nevermind that The Angels had been using the name in Oz for years). MCA chickened out and changed the name to Angel City. They released two albums in the US using that moniker then for some reason the name was changed to the even more unwieldy Angels From Angel City for Beyond Salvation. While all three US releases got some airplay on rock radio, the constant name changing doomed them and they never really enjoyed the success in the US that they have in Australia.

OVERKILL and Overkill L.A.

And for the record I was very pissed off when I bought Stick It To Ya, thinking it WAS by the original slaughter

ha....

The REAL Slaughter? Pffft! That's a joke. The Canadian Slaughter released ONE full-length album on some obscure label. Do you honestly think that in 1988 when Mark Slaughter formed Slaughter that he knew about some ridiculously obscure Canadian band that had only released demos at that point? Of course not!

If a band wants no other band using their name, they should pay for those rights, which the Canadian Slaughter clearly didn't do. So the REAL Slaughter is actually the hard rock Slaughter.

Not only did Mephisto (UK) use another band's name, they also used their logo.

EDIT: Oh, and let us not forget Iron Maiden.

iron maiden also,hahahaha.....

HamburgerBoy wrote:

Not only did Mephisto (UK) use another band's name, they also used their logo.

EDIT: Oh, and let us not forget Iron Maiden.

hahaha, you're refereing to the german masters! great teutonic steele....

What about Incubus? There are several bands by that anme.

DISGORGE!!!!

Required Fields wrote:

What about Incubus? There are several bands by that anme.

hahaha, same case like wolf....uk, japanese masters, hellenes, swedish etc etc

there are a shitload of Ultimatum's & Darkness's too.

Locky wrote:

there are a shitload of Ultimatum's & Darkness's too.

ha, the original are the mexican ones...with lady tits....

There were also German bands called "Poison" (death metal) and "Warrant" (speed metal) in the early 80s that both predated the glam-poof US bands of the same name.

Oh, and let's not forget the two Wrathchilds... UK and America!!

if i start with lord(s), megaton(s), killer(s) etc i won't finish...

ha, 2 german overdose and the brazilian....

kraken(colombia-the first is a pure monster of steel), kraken(canada, what can i say for this monster of steele), kraken(nwobhm, boring as usual).....

what can i say about these masters....both from cali in the dark ages....

Poison, Warrant, Slaughter - And amazingly all the bands that came after the original ones sucked to the sky

At least two thrashing Darkness (one from Germany + 1 from South America), now there's The Darkness

Few years ago we had a band called Memento Mori here in Slovenia (some wannabe prog metal/rock).

SABBAT (UK - great) vs SABBAT (JAP - never heard)
MASTER (USA - one of my favorite DM bands) vs MASTER (RUS - another cool band)
EPIDEMIC (USA) vs EPIDEMI (GR) both somewhat OK

I bet there are two Paradoxx, Krystal Synn and Lethyl Synn bands too

Oh, and about two years ago some guys around here formed a glam band
Cyclone - although they knew of the Belgian band!!! Someone mentione
that they should put an "umlaut" over 'y' like Queensryche have, so
they kind of changed their name and add it over 'o' ...

thorr's hammer & thor's hammer (close enough)

So what I see here is folks trying to impress others with something they know. Unless you asked a person in a band if they were familar with another band of the same name, you are pretty much speculating about what they do or do not have existing knowledge of. I was in a band called Assassin in the late 70's and I didn't moan and groan about later bands having the same name and I can speculate that a band called themselves prior to us. I bet nobody in any band mentioned above in all the posts really care about another band having had the same name as them. Unless of course they owned the name and have a legal precident to say anything about it. What's next folks ? moaning and groaning about song title duplication, or perhaps "this band dressed like this first" and "played this brand of instrument that was painted like that first"
Regardless of whoever used a band name first and the style they played...if nobody liked it and they went into oblivion...what is the point.

Laterz

Eyesore wrote:

The REAL Slaughter? Pffft! That's a joke. The Canadian Slaughter released ONE full-length album on some obscure label. Do you honestly think that in 1988 when Mark Slaughter formed Slaughter that he knew about some ridiculously obscure Canadian band that had only released demos at that point? Of course not!

If a band wants no other band using their name, they should pay for those rights, which the Canadian Slaughter clearly didn't do. So the REAL Slaughter is actually the hard rock Slaughter.

they were both real & i liked them both.