Alabama, Boston, Chicago, Kansas—so many bands are named after the places that raised them and nurtured them into the musicians they were meant to be. It’s natural to want to pay homage to those beginnings, but what about the bands named after places they’ve never called home sweet home?
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From Beirut to Berlin, here are 6 bands named after places they aren’t from.
1. Beirut
While named after Lebanon’s capital city, Beirut came to be in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the mastermind behind the indie-folk project Zach Condon lived.
“One of the reasons I named the band after that city was the fact that it’s seen a lot of conflict,” Condon once told New York Magazine. “It’s not a political position. I worried about that from the beginning. But it was such a catchy name. I mean, if things go down that are truly horrible, I’ll change it. But not now. It’s still a good analogy for my music. I haven’t been to Beirut, but I imagine it as this chic urban city surrounded by the ancient Muslim world. The place where things collide.”
2. Texas
The alt-rock band Texas is not from the Lonestar State. Rather, the group hails from Glasgow, Scotland. They were inspired to take the name of the U.S. state thanks to a 1984 film, titled Paris, Texas.
3. Nazareth
The rock group Nazareth is another Scottish band that took on the name of a place with which they have no ties. Nazareth, however, was not named for the biblical city in Israel. They instead took their name from The Band’s signature tune “The Weight,” the first line of which cites Nazareth, Pennsylvania. I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin’ about half past dead…
4. Baton Rouge
The hair metal band Baton Rouge is from Louisiana, but not from the state’s capital city from which the group takes its name. Baton Rouge actually formed in Pearl River, Louisiana, a small town just outside of New Orleans, nearly 100 miles from the band’s namesake.
5. Japan
The new wave band Japan was not in fact Japanese. The London-formed group reportedly chose the name on a whim and had intended to change it later, but it stuck.
6. Berlin
Inspired by the electronic music wave coming out of Europe at the time, Berlin was named for the German city. The ’80s synth-pop group of “Take My Breath Away” fame, however, formed in Southern California.
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