19 Unthreatening Bands With Threatening Band Names

The art of choosing a band name is arbitrary and mysterious to those of us not actually in a band. But when you start poring over the various existing monikers, you start to see themes; no longer are they random assemblages of words. For instance, we recently examined the spate of unpreppy bands with very preppy band names.

Well, another recent pattern has emerged: decidedly nonviolent, non-scary bands with names evoking bloodshed, slaughter and monsters. Perhaps they conceived of such names to teach us all an overt you-can't-judge-a-book-by-its-cover lesson. Or maybe they just wanted to to trick members of the coveted death-metal demographic into checking out their Myspace page. Ha ha, just kidding. No one uses Myspace anymore.

1. Surfer Blood (We're assuming the blood is from a shark attack, right? If it's just from rocks, please disregard.)

2. Vampire Weekend (We know vampires have ditched their capes for modern things such as Cajun accents and smoky eyes, but we're pretty sure cardigans and boat shoes haven't infiltrated the neo-vampire subculture yet.)

3. The Kills

4. The Killers (Homicide = sinister. Brandon Flowers = harmless.)

5. Cults (If this band were actually a cult, it would probably just involve rompers and vinyl records. Wait a minute, that sounds a lot like the Manson Family.)

6. Destroyer

7. The Rapture (The four horsemen don't listen to disco-inflected rock. They listen to Bieber.)

8. Arcade Fire (Pac-Man burning alive? That's some dark s***.)

9. The Civil Wars (One civil war--singular--is bad enough.)

10. Warpaint

11. Das Racist (For an actually sinister rap group with a sinister name, see: Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All.)

12. A Place to Bury Strangers (A Place to Bury Casual Acquaintances just doesn't have the same ring to it.)

13. The Airborne Toxic Event

14. Wild Beasts

15. Grizzly Bear

16. Deerhunter (Doesn't get much more evil than killing Bambi.)

17. Wolf People (But those "Teen Wolf" people are really dreamy.)

18. Wolf Parade ("Aw, look at those wolves doing high kicks on that parade float, how cute!" ...is EXACTLY the point at which they strike.)

19. The Dead Weather (see also: The Airborne Toxic Event)

Photos: Getty Images

Tags A Place To Bury Strangers, Arcade Fire, Cults, Das Racist, Deerhunter, Destroyer, Grizzly Bear, Music, Odd Future, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, Surfer Blood, Teen Wolf, The Airborne Toxic Event, The Civil Wards, The Dead Weather, The Killers, The Kills, The Rapture, Vampire Weekend, Warpaint, Wild Beasts, Wolf Parade, Wolf People