Early Nu Shooz band poster circa 1982
HOW DID WE GET THE BAND NAME?
OK…Once and for all, we come to Perennial Interview question #3.
(Question #1 is: What’s “I Can’t Wait” about?
Answer: “It’s about six minutes and twenty-nine seconds. That’s the long version.”
Question #2: What’s it like to be in a Famous Band with your spouse?
Answer: “Well, we got to see each other a lot!”)
Back to Question #3.
We started rehearsals for what became Nu Shooz in May 1979. Our drummer, Randy Givens, was the son of a music store owner. He could play something credible on almost any instrument and was particularly resourceful at getting gigs. Before we learned our first song, he’d already gotten us a gig at Col. Summers Park, half a block down the street.
The gig was a month away.
We needed a name.
Something to put on a poster.
Somebody (not me) said, “Let’s call it ‘The John Smith Group’.” That was the kind of thing jazzers did in the late 70s.
“Hell no!”
I forget what other names we came up with. I think one of them was ‘Hide the Silverware,’ which I kinda liked.
John Smith & Larry Haggin
Larry Haggin and I, former members of the late great Latin band Felicidades, had decided to put a new thing together. We were standing by the kitchen stove at “Twenty-One-Twelve,” the house where we had band practice. On the wall behind the stove was ‘Contact Paper.’ Does anybody remember that stuff? It came in wood grain and bunny rabbits and a thousand other prints.
This one was printed to look like a page from an 1890’s newspaper, what they used to call ‘fish wrap.’
And on the page was an ad for lace-up shoes.
Larry and I looked over at the same time and said, “We could be The Shoes!”
“Yeah…that’s stupid enough.”
This was the era of Band Names with Dumb Nouns; The Cars, The Police, Doctor and the Medics.
“Yeah…The Shoes.”
photo by Valerie Day
OK. Fast-forward two weeks. We’re in a Record Store. (Remember those?) And we find a record by a band called SHOES. Just SHOES. Personally, I thought the omission of the ‘the’ a little pretentious.
Anyway, the search for a band name began all over again.
Then, Jim Hogan, our bass player and arguably the best-looking member of the group, says, “Why don’t you call it New Shoes?”
“Hey!”
“Not bad!”
The original concept for the band was a mash-up of the Temptations and late-period Isley Bros.; four-part soul harmonies and Psychedelic Jazz guitar solos. There were two good singers in our four-piece band and two bad ones. I was definitely in Column B. We won’t say who the other one was.
Since the concept was a vocal group, I decided to be clever and spell the name New Shoo’s, you know, ‘Shoo’ like a backup vocal syllable. “Shoo-bop-shoo-BAM!”
Poster art by John R. Smith
But Americans, as a people not the best of readers, read it as Shoosss. So that lasted for one poster.
Jim Hogan to the rescue again.
“You should spell it N-U-S-H-O-O-Z.
The ‘Z’ makes it more ROCK!”
For 30 years I didn’t like our band name very much. It sounded frumpy and old to me. I wanted something edgy and dangerous like METALLICA or MEGADETH. Then in the roaring 2010s, we went out on the 80’s tour, and I realized that it was perfect. Like the ’80s, it was bright and bouncy and all about dance music.
We’ve answered this question so many times that our stock answer to the Perennial Interview Question #3 is: