NOAH Church knew it was time to change dave's name when the mother of one of his guitar students congratulated him on selling out the Enmore Theatre.
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Of course that Dave (with a capital D) was English rapper David Orobosa Omoregie, whose debut album Psychodrama topped the British charts in March and has since claimed the prestigious Mercury Prize.
The rapper Dave's performance at Splendour In The Grass had also led to confusion from some media outlets and made it increasingly difficult to find music from Newcastle band dave (lower case d) on streaming services.
So on Friday when Church (guitar/vocals) and his bandmates Gabriel Argiris (drums) and Max Tuckerman (bass) release their single Ultrahard, it'll be the first track to carry their new name "dave the band".
"We'd be tossing it up basically since January," Church said. "We thought about having something different completely or still having something with dave in the title, but we ended up going with dave the band because we didn't want it to feel like we'd changed our name.
"We thought that still kept the essence in the best way we could. We deliberated on it for months and months."
Ultrahard is the first taste off dave the band's forthcoming debut album Slob Stories, which was recorded by famed Nirvana producer Steve Albini last year in Chicago.
French company Believe Digital will distribute Ultrahard and Slob Stories and also encouraged the name change.
Ultrahard has been the opening song in dave the band's set for a while and Church said Albini was able to bottle the track's live energy perfectly.
"His whole approach is not doing too much other than capturing the vibe of the band in their natural state, which is what we wanted," he said.
"We just went in there and played it and straight away it sounded right. It sounded like us in the room. As soon as he miked up the drums it had that Albini sound."
A second, and even third single, are expected early next year before Slob Stories is released in mid-2020.
On Sunday dave the band will launch Ultrahard at the Lass O'Gowrie Hotel before shows in Melbourne, Sydney and Wollongong throughout December.
While Sunday's show is free, the band will be collecting donations for the NSW Rural Fire Service.
