The band, also known briefly as Reloaded, didn’t decide on a name until the last possible moment: in fact, their songs in The Hulk and The Italian Job are credited to “Scott Weiland, Slash, Duff McKagan, Matt Sorum and Dave Kushner.” Which is a bit of a mouthful for a DJ back-announcing a single. “Coming up with a name was an eventuality we were dreading,” McKagan told me. “We were like, we have to come up with a fuckin’ name.” After seeing a movie financed by Revolution Studios, Slash suggested Revolver, and the band liked it because of the Beatles reference. “But I did a Google search on a Revolver and there was like a thousand bands, so that was impossible,” McKagan said. They started toying with different versions, and Weiland came up with Black Velvet Revolver, which was deemed too close in cadence to Stone Temple Pilots. Truncated, however, it made everyone happy. McKagan swore that nobody involved with the band realized there was a firearm overlap in the names of Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver–until it was too late.

(Excerpted from the 2006 book Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton’s Little John?: Music’s Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed, published by Three Rivers Press, written by Gavin Edwards.)