10 Bands Who Had Terrible Names Before They Were Successful
4. The Goo Goo Dolls
The Goo Goo Dolls are best-known for heartfelt, poignant ballad Iris, but would that song have the same effect and success if it were by a band called 'Sex Maggot'?
The group do come from punk origins and have a song called Sex Maggot, having been forced to change their moniker from that when a club owner refused to promote them under the name.
While it's hard to come across any evidence of the band's previous moniker aside from decade-old interviews - many of which proclaim the name would have been The Sex Maggots - some old material has found its way onto YouTube, including original versions of the songs Sex Maggot and Humble Me.
A name change came after the band flicked through a copy of True Detective magazine and saw an advertisement for a Goo Goo Doll. Still, bassist and vocalist Robby Takac wasn't sold on the new name either, as he stated in an interview back in 1999.
"The first name was bad, so we moved on to another bad name, got 15,000 fans, and were afraid to change it … At the time, we thought [the name] was just really inappropriate for what we were doing in that post-punk era that we were sort of wallowing around in.”
Ironically, one of the band's breakthrough singles was actually called 'Name', with with guitarist and vocalist John Rzeznic later saying in 2022 that he doesn't actually recall how they came up with the 'Goo Goo Dolls' and regrets the current iteration.