Editing Hootie & the Blowfish (section)

===Early years===
[[Darius Rucker]] and [[Mark Bryan]] met in [[Columbia, South Carolina]], in the mid-1980s when they were both freshmen at the [[University of South Carolina]].<ref name="RollingStone2005">Bashe, P. R., & George-Warren, H., ''The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll'' (Third ed.). New York, Fireside, 2005, p. 443</ref> Bryan, a guitar player, heard Rucker singing in the showers of the dorm they shared and was impressed by his vocal ability. The pair began playing [[cover version|cover]] tunes as the Wolf Brothers.

Eventually, they collaborated with bassist Dean Felber, a former high school bandmate of Bryan's, and Brantley Smith, a drummer. In 1986, they adopted the name Hootie & the Blowfish, a conjunction of the nicknames of two of their college friends.<ref name="hoot_Hoot">{{Cite web |title=Hootie & the Blowfish |url=http://www.hootie.com/about/ |access-date=January 1, 2015 |website=hootie.com |quote=The unlikely moniker was borrowed from the nicknames of two college friends.}}</ref> The band is routinely featured in articles and polls about badly-named bands.<ref>{{Cite web |date=13 January 2012 |title=The Worst Band Names Ever - NME |url=https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-worst-band-names-ever-780296 |website=Nme.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Gelfand |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GC_HDgAAQBAJ&q=hootie+&pg=PT92 |title=Strategies for Success: Self-Promotion Secrets for Musicians |date=15 March 2010 |publisher=Schirmer Trade Books |isbn=9780857121974 |via=Google Books}}</ref> Rucker is often mistakenly labeled as being the "Hootie" in the band's name.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rock On The Net: Hootie & The Blowfish / Darius Rucker |url=http://www.rockonthenet.com/artists-h/hootieandtheblowfish_main.htm |access-date=December 8, 2019 |website=Rockonthenet.com}}</ref> Smith left the group after finishing college to pursue music ministry, but he has made scattered guest appearances with the band (he played cello on their ''[[MTV Unplugged]]'' performance in 1996 and played drums at Gruene Hall in [[Gruene, Texas]], on June 27, 2008). Smith was replaced full time in 1989 by Jim "Soni" Sonefeld. The band's lineup has remained the same ever since.

The band independently released two cassette demo [[Extended play|EP]]s in 1991 and 1992.{{citation needed|date=May 2019}} In 1993, they pressed 50,000 copies of a self-released EP, ''[[Kootchypop]]''. They were signed to [[Atlantic Records]] in August 1993 after being discovered by Atlantic [[Artists and repertoire|A&R]] representative [[Tim Sommer]], a former music journalist and member of the art rock band [[Hugo Largo]].<ref name="sommer">{{Cite web |last=Sommer |first=Tim |date=14 July 2016 |title=My Life in the Bush of Hootie: How I Signed the Biggest Band of 1995 |url=http://observer.com/2016/07/my-life-in-the-bush-of-hootie-how-i-signed-the-biggest-band-of-1995/ |access-date=16 July 2016 |website=Observer}}</ref> Sommer recalled that other record labels were uninterested in signing Hootie & The Blowfish because their sound was radically different from the [[grunge]] music that was popular at the time.<ref name="sommer" />