Iconic emo pioneers Jimmy Eat World have taken to Twitter to give new bands a lesson in choosing a suitable band name, while discussing the regrettable history of their own name.

When it comes to band names, the best ones are often those which are memorable, meaningful, look good on a shirt, and can be shortened with ease. Don’t want to talk about System Of A Down, Rage Against The Machine, or Panic! At The Disco? Simple, just call them System, Rage, or Panic.

Likewise, want to refer to Queens Of The Stone Age or Electric Light Orchestra? Just call them QOTSA or ELO. However, when it comes to Jimmy Eat World, well, things are a little bit more prickly.

Taking to Twitter recently, the Arizona rockers recently shared how they got stuck with their band name, and warned new groups from making rash decisions that they could come to regret.

“Advice for new bands: When coming up with a band name, make sure it’s acronym displayed really large on your artwork or t shirts won’t be complicating matters. You’re welcome,” wrote drummer Zach Lind, referencing the fact that the band’s name is often initialised as the somewhat awkward and problematic, ‘JEW’.

“A little history on how we came up with the band name,” Lind continued. “We were rehearsing in my garage and [Singer] Jim [Adkins] told us we got asked to play a party in the storage room of Name Brand Exchange in Mesa on Southern and Val Vista in Feb of 94.”

“So we took a break from the garage and huddled around our kitchen island and decided to play the show but at that time, we hadn’t yet sorted out a name so we needed to figure that out ASAP.”

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“Tom [Linton, guitarist] and Rick [Burch, bassist] (who wasn’t in the band quite yet) played in a band together that would change their name for every show. [I] would go to a lot of those shows and I was there when they called themselves ‘Jimmy Eat World’ and it stuck with me.”

“So I’m not sure who threw that name out but it was brought up and we discussed it for less than 5 min, no shit, we decided to call ourselves Jimmy Eat World so we could play this dumb ass party. My memory was that it was a Valentines Day Party but not sure.”

“So moral of the story: even seemingly small and insignificant decisions can be much bigger than you could imagine. Slow down sometimes and make sure it’s right,” he wrote. “And I’m not saying our name is not ‘right’ but when we have to design Merch or artwork I often wish we would have deliberated a bit more.”

While the apocryphal story about the origin of band’s name refers to a drawing made by frontman Jim Adkins’ brother, the band’s eyebrow-raising acronym has often been a point of ridicule for some fans. However, it appears that the band have indeed found a way to laugh at themselves after all these years.

On a related note, Jimmy Eat World recently noted that German-Russian producer Zedd might need a hand with picking his own song titles after it was pointed out that the producer has two songs which share titles with Jimmy Eat World songs.

Needless to say, if you just follow Jimmy Eat World’s advice from this week, you’ll soon have attended a masterclass of sorts on the subjects of picking both band names and song titles. Priceless advice.

Check out Jimmy Eat World’s ‘Sweetness’:

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