How Cut Worms Got His Name (and Other Revelations)

metroweekly.com:

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” says Max Clarke about how he devised the name Cut Worms, the moniker under which he records and performs music.“There’s a section where Blake has this tongue-in-cheek thing called ‘The Proverbs of Hell,'” the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter continues. “And Blake lists — I don’t know how many — like a hundred proverbs that he made up that are speaking to the morality of what at that time was seen as kind of evil.

One of the proverbs was, ‘The cut worm forgives the plow,’ which I took to mean that when you’re moving forward and creating something, and trying to get things to grow, things get destroyed and new life comes out of that.“And also, there’s the idea of a worm getting cut in half and becoming two,” he adds. “But then also just the fact that it was a worm, this lowly kind of disgusting thing that most people think of as being just gross and in the dirt, but actually enriches the soil.

They’re squirming around down there making everything above better.“But also, it is a worm and it’s insignificant and you could step on it.

That’s probably the most extensive answer I’ve ever given to that question.”Critics sometimes judge the name harshly, Clarke notes. “I’m constantly seeing little blurbs with people qualifying the music, saying things like ‘band name aside,’ or calling it a stupid band name.