Dublin act Girl Band have announced that they have changed their name to Gilla Band and have apologised to anyone who may have been affected by their original "misgendered" band name.
The all-male fourpiece, who have released two acclaimed albums, 2015's Holding Hands With Jamie and 2019’s The Talkies, have also announced a series of Irish dates, including a residency in Whelan's of Dublin in January.
In a statement, the band said, "We are changing our band name. We will no longer be performing or releasing records under the name Girl Band. We apologise for choosing a misgendered name in the first place and to anyone who has been hurt or affected by it.
We are changing our band name. We are also playing some shows in Dublin in January. pic.twitter.com/PNhZ19dL2m
— Gilla Band (@girl_band) November 16, 2021
"When we were starting off it was chosen without much thought, from a place of naivety and ignorance. We had no grasp of the weight of it at the time and in the past few years have found it impossible to justify or explain this choice.
"Regardless of our intention the effect of the name has been damaging to individuals. To try and negate any unfortunate role we’ve played in propagating a culture of non-inclusivity in music or otherwise, we have decided to change it.
"Thank you to those who spoke up about it and educated us on this, either directly or indirectly. Moving forward we will be performing and releasing records under the name Gilla Band. Gilla being a given name taken from Old Irish".
Gilla Band will play a residency at Whelan's across three weekends in January 2022, where they’ll be performing new music.
Tickets will go on pre-sale to mailing list subscribers on Wednesday November 17 at 10am and will be on general sale on Thursday 18th November from 10am. They will play a sold-out New Year’s Eve show at Dolans in Limerick this December 31.
They will also be supporting IDLES on their February 2022 European Tour.
