Welcome to the weekly SPIN.com feature “Name That Band!” inwhich we get the inside stories behind the mysterious monikers of some ofour favorite artists. (See past episodes of Name That Band! here.)
This week: Singer Matt Mihana of up-and-coming Miami, Florida, screamo act I Set My Friends On Fire explains the genesis of the band’s name. Currently signed to stalwart indie label Epitaph, Set begins a spring tour on March 7.
Why I Set My Friends On Fire: “The name is based on lyrics from a song by one of our old bands called We Are The Cavalry,” says singer Matt Mihana. “The song was ‘My Maserati Goes 185’ and the lines were, ‘The altitude is higher / We have something to set on fire / Your face / In flames.’ We thought it would be cool to keep the spirit from the old band and put it into our new band. It’s funny, a lot of people have been associating the band’s name with smoking marijuana because ‘friends’ is a synonym for buds. They think it’s an in-joke about smoking weed, which is not what we were thinking at all. Now that I’ve mastered the art of pottery I’m okay with people thinking that, but the lyrics were originally inspired by, basically, wanting to, yeah, set someone on fire. [Laughs] Metaphorically! For whatever reason always liked those lines.”
Previously Rejected Names: “We were definitely thinking about band names for a solid day before we agreed on Set. They were all pretty crappy, I guess. Set had a little flare to it – no pun intended.”
Best Band Names Ever: “There was this band I really used to like called Me and Him Call It Us — I thought that was a cool band name. There was another band called I Got Shot In The Face. I like that. It catches your attention immediately.”
Worst Band Names Ever: “I Set My Friends On Fire is pretty bad! There’s actually a band called Aiden that has a song called ‘I Set My Friends On Fire’, which we had no idea about when we named the band. I’m pretty pissed about that. That band sucks.”
