On Good Friday, April 3, Forrest Frank and Noah Hayden selected the winner of their new band naming contest, saying, “Welcome to Party Wave!”
They selected Party Wave, replacing the band’s previous name, Dawn Patrol, a name that caused their newly created and growing Instagram account, which had reached 27,000 followers, to be deleted due to copyright issues.
In March, Frank explained that the band’s music distributor gave them the “green light” to move forward with using the name Dawn Patrol. But after the band’s first single, “SOS,” went viral, he attempted to check Dawn Patrol’s Instagram page only to discover it had been deactivated.
Management assured Frank that there was nothing to worry about because there are many artists with the name Dawn Patrol, and they planned to use $10,000 to legally obtain use of the name.
Frank had other plans and decided to ask fans to help come up with the band’s new name in exchange for the $10,000.
“This whole project is to serve the Lord and help bring people together in community. So I actually think that this could be a moment where God is wanting to extend that—this is like an extension of that seed,” he said. “So rather than fight it and go the legal route and stuff like that, I think the best thing to do would be just to change our name.”
The Winner of the Contest Pays It Forward
The winner of the contest, a family that travels the world and shares about it on an Instagram page called thebucketlistfamily, asked Frank and Hayden to pay the money forward to the next person in line.
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The next person in line was a married couple that is expecting their first child and moving into a new home. But instead of keeping the money, the couple decided to donate the $10,000 to a foundation in Guatemala that helps rescue kids from child trafficking. That donation has now grown to $30,000.
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“We then selected the name that sounded so cool to us, because as surfers all the time in the water, we’ll hear someone shout out, ‘party wave,’” Hayden said. “Basically just means, don’t take the wave for yourself, let’s all go and enjoy [the wave].”
