Using Band Names in a Song

No, I don't think so. David Bowie's had a few songs with other bands/people in them, or the title of. Of course that was before the great American cheap petty lawsuit revolution. Now-a-days who knows.

Then of course there's always slander. But if you say something you can prove to be true, I don't think that's an issue. Then again, you get into any lawsuit with someone who's some-odd million dollars richer and you'll probably both loose, and be completely destroyed in the process.

Really, there's no better time for Fear and Loathing then now.

Cheers :)

Better safe then sorry. I had the word 'slander' at the tip of my tongue and with lawyers sue happy these days I had to ask.

Using Metallica in a song, if I were to write it could be music suicide and I had to know.

Normally, "slander" is a spoken (verbal) denigration of someone or something, whereas "libel" is a written missive with the same intent.
If you used the name of a band in a PUBLISHED song....unless you were theoretically trying to bring the name of a band into "disrepute", or "subjecting them to ridicule" it would be unlikely you would be sued for libel....if you performed such a song in public, and it was UNPUBLISHED, it would be doubtful that the "named-band's" attorneys would ever hear about it.
But...in the United States of Litigation, the likelihood of a suit would be based neither on slander nor on libel, it would be based on "copyright infringement"... :( most bands copyright their names, and usually a logo, as separate trademarks.
Yeah, they might sue....unless they feel that mention of them in your song will further (or revive) their careers....then again ...their manager and attorney might even think that the act of SUING someone might revive their careers....you know that adage : "There's no such thing as bad publicity!" :wink:

You could write, using recorded delivery (so that the letter has to be signed for), to their management agency and say that you wish to use the name of the band in a song and that the song will not be in any way derogatory of the name. Unless you here any thing contrary, within the next 14 days, you will assume that they are in agreement.
That way (if they don't reply within the time frame) they can't come after you - they gave implict permission. It might not sit too well with some judges, but you did give them the opportunity to refuse permission (and all for the cost of a stamp, too).

no, you can use other band names in songs. you're protected under the first amendment. rappers do it all the time.

you might get shot at, though.

that's right, rappers always say things like, "I slapped 50 Cent cuz he took my ho"

Using Metallica in a song, if I were to write it could be music suicide and I had to know.
Mystery sells. It's also a much more powerful message if you write a song so that everyone knows exactly who you're talking about without actually naming them, IMHO. You get people saying "I heard that this song was about XYZ band" and being interested in whether it actually is or not, rather than just hearing it and thinking "yeah, another XYZ-bashing song.". They'll listen to the lyrics closely to try and find more clues and/or confirmation.

Some nice narrative along the lines of "used to be good, but then got lazy and started churning out the same soul-less, commercial sell-out rubbish, coincidentally right about the time filesharing was big. Sales plummetted because people could hear how bad it was before they parted company with the cash, rather than buy it first and then sit in their room swearing at the CD. But hey, who cares about details, there's a big target that's already drawn a knee-jerk perception from the naive general public, let's just sue our way out of not being able to cut it any more.". Guess who? :)

....or then again, you could just add a dislaimer to your album cover :mrgreen:

There is a band called Tuff and they did a song called American Hair Band. They mention alot of bands from the late 80s/90s... Even mention several song names and to go a step further they even took riffs from various songs and pieced them into their song.

So if Tuff can do it, so can you ;)

Are you old enough to remember the band Reunion? They were a one-hit wonder with the tune "Life is a Rock"... basically a laundry list of band names.

So no, I don't think it's a problem.

I believe you can use anyones name in your song. As long as it is only your own opinion. Of course, I'm not a lawyer or anything, so this is just my opinoin. But musicians do it all the time. And it's not always flattering to who they are singing about so I can't imagine that they always have permission.