The Whore Moans ::: photo by Abbey Simmons
Tomorrow night at Columbia City Theater marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new one for the Whore Moans. The band will be taking the stage for the final time under their perfect punk rock pun name and playing the songs that made them one of Seattle’s favorite rock banks for the final time, before being reborn as the Hounds of the Wild Hunt.
Changing their well-known, eye-brow raising name has been a difficult and unpopular decision for the band. Internally, the decision caused the Whore Moans’ biggest blow-up in its five year history, threatening the friendships that bind the band, and for a day, they even broke-up. Externally, fans and internet trolls alike have loudly questioned the bands decision to change their name, labeling them “sell-outs” and punk turncoats.
There is no doubt that with the decision to change their name, the Whore Moans/Hounds of the Wild Hunt are facing an uphill battle that they are bringing upon themselves. It is a fact the band is keenly aware of. Sitting on their back porch after band practice this week, bassist Ryan stopped the conversation silent by saying, “Let it be known this is a scary decision.” His band mates nodded in agreement and took deep swigs off their dwindling beers. With the weight of the five years they’ve dedicated to and succeeded with a name that has felt at times as much as blockade as an entry point for the band, leaving the Whore Moans behind wasn’t a sudden or easy decision. In fact, the band almost changed their name before their first LP was released.
As a long time fan and supporter of the band, I wanted to hear from the Whore Moans in their own words their reasons for changing the name, why they chose The Hounds of the Wild Hunt as their new moniker and what we can expect from the final Whore Moans show. Here’s what they had to say.
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So, why change the name?
Jonny: “We’d all been frustrated by the name, for various reasons, save Jason, for years. The main reason is once we had some respect for what we played and it was more than a joke, it was more than about me wearing short shorts and a sweat band and talking about punching God in the face, it was hard to be known by that pun, that joke.”
Ryan: “The more our lives revolved around it, the name spoke less to what we were doing. We were playing these new songs and it seemed absurd that these things we had poured our hearts and souls into …. it almost seemed funny that the title of those things, that were so real and serious and important to us, were being presented under the title, The Whore Moans. It felt like I was wearing a clown hat.”
Jonny: “And to then be constantly matched with other bands, no matter where we played and no matter what they sounded like, who had joke names: Butt Problems, Rape Door, Penetrator, Loaded Revulvas, Ugly Fat Kids …”
Ryan: “If a town had a band with a really funny, shitty, usually sexist name — we would be paired with them — no matter their music had anything to do with our music, just because of the name Whore Moans.”
Nikki: “It was a good name. It was good to us. It got us a lot of attention. It was part of the reason Rolling Stone paid any attention to us, they led their review with something about the name. But it came with a lot of baggage, not only for people who wouldn’t listen to you because of the name, but those who would had expectation about what a band called the Whore Moans were going to sound like.
We started to ask, what if we didn’t have this name? Would we still be being paired with bands called Rape Door or Butt Problems? I didn’t want to have to explain or justify it any more.”
Jason: “On tour we had to prove our talent night after night. And night after night we did and people would tell us they liked us in-spite of our name. It was fun proving people wrong.”
Nikki: “It was fun, but we’ve done it.”
Jonny: “Over and over and over again.”
Ryan: “Plus … every drunk guy, in every town we’ve ever played: ‘Hey, how do you make a whore moan?’”
Nikki: “That is our personal ‘Free Bird.’”
Jonny: “We know every punch line to that joke. Never hearing that joke again would be reason enough to change our name.”
The entire band nods their head in agreement.
To read the rest of the interview …
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