Chvrches singer Lauren Mayberry has revealed the band were targeted by a criminal who tried to extort money from them in a website scam.
The singer told how the fraudster registered websites in the Scots synth-pop group’s name and then demanded a “substantial sum” to hand them over.
The practice is known as cybersquatting and involves registering, selling or using a domain name with the intent of profiting from the goodwill of someone else’s trademark.
Lauren, 33, said the US-based scammer also asked for lifetime memberships of the American Automobile Association as part of the extortion.
However she said the band never handed over a cent and got the better of the person by registering their website in Spain.
She said: “Our manager is very smart and said we could get Chvrches.es in Spain and that, to this day, is our website. So don’t try and kid a kidder. You can’t haggle a Glaswegian, it’s not going to work.”
Speaking on the Table Manners podcast, Lauren explained how the band’s unusual spelling came about.
She added: “We found out after we had put a song on the internet that there was an American band called Churches.
“They said we could be Churches UK and we were like, ‘That spells Churches Suck’ on a poster and we don’t want to be called that.
“So then we were like, ‘Oh we will just make it Chvrches,’ and so it was.”
Chvrches are to release their fourth studio album, called Screen Violence, later this month.
