What's in a Name?
John Lennon was inspired by Buddy Holly and the Crickets so much that he mimicked the bug theme and called their band, “The Beatles.” Fall out Boy got their name from a minor character in The Simpsons and Foo Fighters based their name off of WWII aircraft pilots who reported UFOs and were known as “foo fighters.”
Coming up with a band name can be problematic, yet inspiration can come from the most unlikely sources. When we went through a short list of band names, Drew and I ultimately landed on Powder for Angelina. We figured that the name would (hopefully) stick with people, and we also knew it would ignite curiosity as to what on earth that means.
Coworkers guessed it had something to do with cocaine or makeup powder. There were the more obvious speculations that it had something to do with Angelina Jolie. There’s even a white make up powder “fiasco” that pops up when you google “powder Angelina” that involves Angelina Jolie back in 2014. For her sake and ours, we hope that story eventually falls down the Google search results.
We wanted a name that carried its weight both in history and empowerment. We are enamored with our city, Austin, so we knew almost immediately we wanted to draw inspiration from our hometown. In downtown Austin on Congress Ave, you’ll see a statue of a woman lighting a cannon that is aimed across the street. This is where our story begins.
Angelina Eberly is known as “The Woman Who Saved Austin.” For those of you who did not grow up in Texas, during Angelina’s time it was the Republic of Texas and Sam Houston was the President. Sam was insisting the state documents and government archives be moved to Houston. I mean, if I was President I’d probably want the city named after to me to be the capital too, but we can’t always get what we want. By moving all artifacts over to the city of Houston, this would lead Sam one step closer to his goal.
Angelina was the owner of the inn, Eberly House. She was not a fan of the idea losing Austin as the capital, as I’m sure it would have been bad for business. Sam Houston was a frequent guest at her inn and she discovered his plans to move all the archives. I like to imagine him boasting and discussing his plot right in front of Angelina because who, in their right mind would stop the President? Especially a local female inn keeper. She held no threat to him or his master plan.
Per Sam’s orders, a group of Texas Rangers snuck into Austin in the middle of the night and started hauling the archives into wagons but alas! Not for long. Our girl Angelina alerted everyone in town by firing a six pound cannon and blowing a hole through the General Land Office where they were sneaking off with the archives. Because of her warning shot, Austin citizens awoke and managed to stop the Texas Rangers from making it back to Houston. They returned all the documents safely back to Austin and four years later, Austin officially became the Capital of Texas. Austin will forever be grateful for her warning shot.
Thus the name “Powder for Angelina.” We wanted to incorporate the David and Goliath story arch that was close to home. We view the music industry as Sam Houston: big, powerful, intimidating and difficult to change its tune (literally). While we are at the beginning stages and a nobody just like Angelina. Most days we feel insignificant and small with our music but that doesn’t mean we can’t make a name for ourselves. No matter your role, status, sex, you can do great things.
Please feel free to follow our journey and our hopes that we can find our role in the music business and make a name for ourselves even though most people will believe, we simply don’t belong and are no match against the president.
Photo credit: Twinty Photography
