Michael Rosen/Fusion
After hearing from countless Vietnamese Americans about how much the name “Viet Cong” upset them personally, the Canadian band who chose that name on a whim is changing it. To what? They’re not sure yet. They just know it’s not worth the heartache and troubles they’ve had to go through to keep it.
The Viet Cong band will change their name but haven’t picked one out yet.
(Photo: https://www.facebook.com/VietCongtheband)
The Canadian group (formed in 2012) has endured years of scrutiny for their name – one promoter in March canceled a show. On Saturday, the band announced in a Facebook post that they’d be changing their name.
According to the statement, Viet Cong – after “having lots of valuable conversations with the members of the Vietnamese community about the name” – chose to announce that they’d be changing their name.
Their announcement continued: “There are many individuals more eloquent than us who have recently had a lot to say about the topic of the name and our appropriation of the name Viet Cong. For more insights into the arguments we encourage you to read some of these. We are a band who want to make music and play our music for our fans. We are not here to cause pain or remind people of atrocities of the past.”
At this point, they don’t know what they’re changing it to yet, but said they’ve been planning on changing the name for the last few months.
