In the words of my good friend Wenz: Must Everything Have a Title?

I want to have a band when I’m older. Everybody knows that. I’d say I’m well on my way to having one too, with my skills on the keyboard and my natural attraction to other people who play music. I have everything planned out: what the bus will look like, what cities we’ll go to, the onstage intro, everything. But one thing I don’t have, arguably the most important thing of all, is my band’s name.

I’ve played around with lots of names, but none of them seem to stick. I get tired of one, and move on to another. I think one is not right for the style of music I’m playing at the time, so I change it to something else. I just can’t decide on a permanent name. And it’s not like you can just change the name once you’re band is up and running. The name you pick is the one you’ll have forever. It’s like picking a second name for yourself.

The first long term name I had was “Counterfeit Humans”, but I thought after a while that this name was not cool. It was supposed to be a reference to that verse in Genesis that says we are all made in God’s image, so we’re sort of like counterfeits. I don’t know, I thought it was cool back then I guess.

The second name that I had for a while was “Repeat”. This name came from me panicking one night because I had disqualified “Counterfeit Humans” as an eligible band name, and therefore didn’t even have a temporary name to call my band. (Notice, I’m panicking over a band that doesn’t exist beyond the walls of my house, and consists of only one band member . . . me.) My mom and I were reading off random words we found around the house for my band name like “Toaster” and “August” and so forth. Then I saw the word “Repeat” on my mom’s stereo and I knew that would have to be it.

I recently started writing a lot of music again, and “Repeat” doesn’t do it for me anymore. I like the band name “Mild Narcotic Effect” because it’s awesome for one, and also because it can be abbreviated to MNE. Plus it can be a good band name if I decide to change my sound from electronic, like I’m doing now, to rock, like I eventually want to do. This name came out of a podcast I listen to where the hosts were joking around about how this would be a good band name. And I was like, “Well, why shouldn’t it be, darn it!” and I made it my own band name, for now at least. The meaning behind it doesn’t have to be anything if I don’t want it to be, but for the sake of the press, I better come up with a meaning and soon.