On Friday,
Bruno Mars
and
Anderson. Paak
released “Leave the Door Open,” their first release as the duo
Silk Sonic
. Speaking to
Apple Music’s
Zane Lowe
, the duo described how they struggled to come up with a name for their new project — and some of their ideas were super-lame.
“We had a bunch of different names:
Robocop Funk
,
The Conquistadors
…” laughed Anderson.
“We had some Spanish ones that didn’t really work out,” Bruno admitted.
”
Atlantic Stars
,” Anderson added. “We were almost about to go public with that one!”
Bruno laughed, “Yeah…and then our lawyers called and said there’s a group called
Atlantic Starr
already!”
Finally, Bruno and Anderson turned to their collaborator on the project, legendary funk musician
Bootsy Collins
, and asked
him
to name them, because he had a successful track record: It seems he came up with
Babyface
‘s famous nickname.
“He’s got a way with names,” Bruno explained. So what did he and Anderson think when Bootsy came up with “Silk Sonic?”
“Done deal!” laughed Bruno. “He could have said whatever, it would’ve been whatever he wanted! It’s better than Atlantic Stars!”
“Yeah, like
The Lava Lamps
,” laughed Anderson. “We were gonna go with a lot of different things.”
When Lowe noted that The Lava Lamps sounds like a “late ’60s West Coast surf band,” Anderson admitted, “I loved it! My team loved it!”
As for why Bruno is getting involved in a duo project after so many years as a solo artist, he told Lowe, “I still got more to prove. I still think I could write a better song. I still think that me and Andy together are going to elevate to a different level. And we’re going to be the best versions of us.”
By Andrea Dresdale
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