Music

The Dismemberment Plan reveal decision behind band name

by Ciaran Thompson

Starting in late January, The Dismemberman Plan will be playing shows in the United States in celebration of the reissue of their 1999 album Emergency & I, which will be released January 11 on vinyl via Barsuk Records. The tour will kick off with a performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on January 20th.

Most of the shows are already sold out, adding a bit of hype to the reformed Washington, D.C. based band and recently singer-guitarist Travis Morrison revealed to Spin the band’s decision process when they selected their name in the early ’90s.

“The [1993] movie Groundhog Day was out when we were just starting to play together,” Morrison said. “Like most young bands we had about 75,000 possible names written on a piece of paper, but I remember going to see that movie in Williamsburg, Virginia, and there’s a part where an insurance salesman is talking to Bill Murray’s character and mentions the death and dismemberment plan.

“I walked out of the theater after the movie was over and asked the friends I was with if they thought the Dismemberment Plan was a good name for a band. They were like, ‘No!’ Then later I asked the other guys in the band and they were like, ‘No!’ But I ended up making an executive decision — I just liked the name so much. A funny addition to that is after we recorded our first record, [Fugazi’s] Ian MacKaye said we should change our name. He was a Negative Nelly. I want the world to know that.”

Morrison also spoke about some of the potential names the band was playing with. “We had a bunch of names that were pejorative terms for white people. There was Cracker, which we couldn’t use because David Lowery from Camper Van Beethoven named his band that first. We also had Whitey. I guess I have a lot of racial anger! But I also remember that we were thinking of calling the band Number One Cool Guy.”

We’re quite relieved they stuck with the Dismemberment Plan. Check out their official website for tour dates.