Easy Life band renamed after EasyGroup legal row

 
The band formerly known as Easy Life have changed their name to Hard Life, after a threat of legal action by the brand owners of airline EasyJet.
Last year, the indie band said EasyGroup was suing them because their name was too similar.

"We felt angry and powerless," frontman Murray Matravers told BBC News. "But if our name affects them that much, I'll walk away from it - because it's not worth it.”

EasyGroup has said it would have been "unfair" to let the band use the Easy brand name without royalty payments.
The Leicester band announced their new name - and a new single, Tears - on Tuesday evening.
The band, which Matravers formed in 2017, has five members.

They found themselves locked in a battle with EasyGroup last year, after the company said the band had promoted their Life's a Beach tour, in 2021 and 2022, with a poster showing a plane in the style of EasyJet's orange livery but substituting the airline's name for their own.

In its claim, lodged with the High Court, EasyGroup also said the band had produced T-shirts bearing their name in the company's branded style and their website infringed its trademark with its similarity to EasyJet branding.

EasyGroup said other companies paid to use its brand name.
"We cannot allow others to simply use it free, gratis and for nothing," a spokesperson said at the time.
"That would be unfair.”

In October, the band said they were going to stop using the name Easy Life, following the legal threat.
And they played their final show under their old name at KoKo, in London, on 13 October.
In an exclusive interview, Matravers told BBC News the row was "the weirdest, most surreal thing" that had happened to him.
"I mean, it's absolutely nuts," he said.

"We didn't get into music to fight huge corporations in legal battles, obviously."
The band said they could not afford to take the matter to court - but now, he was "over it".
"The name doesn't change anything - it doesn't change who I am as an artist," Matravers said.
"We made our peace with it."

And when it came to deciding a new name, there had been no question what to choose.
"All of us, unanimously in the group, turned around and said, 'It's got to be Hard Life, surely,'" Matravers said.
The band did brainstorm other names but kept returning to Hard Life.