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Easy Life Changes Name To Hard Life After Lawsuit, Hard-Fi Responds

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Easy Life is the former name of a pop band from Leicester, England. They are not the same thing as EasyJet, which is a British budget airline. They are also not the same thing as Hard-Fi, the recently-reunited rock band also from the UK. But it appears there’s been some confusion lately!

Last October, fka Easy Life said that they were facing a lawsuit from EasyGroup — the venture capital conglomerate that owns EasyJet — over their similar name. Promo materials from the band’s recent tour also featured airplane illustrations in EasyJet’s signature shade of orange with the band name in place of the company logo. EasyJet did not like that, and Easy Life did not have the funds to go to court over it. And so shortly after, Easy Life played their final show under that moniker in London. Now, they’ve put out their first single under their new band name: Hard Life. Frontman Murray Matravers told NME:

I really don’t want people to read too much into the name… I was nervous, because as a white, middle-class man, I haven’t exactly had a hard life. It needs to be appreciated in context. The first day that our manager sat us down and said, “Guys, there’s some legal action coming and you’re going to have to change your name,” everyone in the band unambiguously and straight away said, “It’s gotta be Hard Life.” That was our initial gut instinct. We were laughing about it and I don’t think any of us were taking it that seriously, but as time progressed we went through a million of other options and we always came back to Hard Life because we thought it was funny. Everyone seemed to resonate with that, and it was the most stereotypical Easy Life thing to do.

Hard Life’s “Tears” inconspicuously mentions EasyGroup owner Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, and the company’s lawyers are calling the song BBC “disparaging and defamatory.” Meanwhile Hard-Fi responded to the name change news on Twitter/X: “Er… lads….” Lucky for Matravers, he said they already got the trademark for Hard Life.