Bad Lieutenant Stuck With Their Band Name

Posted on Oct 23rd 2009 3:30PM by Benjy Eisen
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Motley Crue's initial name was Christmas and Radiohead narrowly escaped being called On a Friday, but Bernard Sumner doesn't get to do a do-over with his newest band, Bad Lieutenant. As a key member of New Order and Joy Division, Sumner knows a thing or two about band names that stick. But in the case of Bad Lieutenant, the name stuck before he decided to stick with it.

As you may have guessed, Sumner did indeed christen the band after the classic 1992 movie starring Harvey Keitel. He was at Johnny Marr's house when he first caught the film during a work break in the former Smiths guitarist's home studio. Sumner sat down for a scene and became engrossed. "I've got a bit of a black sense of humor and a bit of a dry sense of humor, and to me it was over the f---ing top in the same way perhaps that a Tarantino film is over the top," Sumner tells Spinner. "Perhaps the humor in a Tarantino film is intentional, but the humor didn't come from the film the Bad Lieutenant -- it came from me."

As New Order was unravelling in 2007 and Sumner formed a new band from its ashes, he began using Bad Lieutenant at first only as a working title. But when Sumner heard of a brand new 'Bad Lieutenant' in the works -- a loose remake of the original starring Nicolas Cage -- he became weary.

By then it was too late. Drummer Stephen Morris, who has been with him since Joy Division, spelled it out for him. "He said, 'Well, you haven't been looking on the Internet. You're called Bad Lieutenant.'" recalls Sumner. "'It got out on the Internet and everyone, all the fans, are calling it Bad Lieutenant.' So he said, 'I think you better stay with that because it's out there.'"

Bad Lieutenant won't actually be officially "out there" until November when their debut, 'Never Cry Another Tear,' gets released, but the album is already available for download through Amazon. So get used to it, kids -- because this is the new, new order.