In the beginning, we called it American Dead. [Bandmate] Steven [Drozd] and I were sort of blatantly — to ourselves, not in the songs — going to talk about our brothers who were dead, and our mothers who were dead. As [the album] got closer to coming out, Katy, my wife, and Scott, our manager, were like, “why you got to be such a bummer?"I was like, "It’s not a bummer, it’s a cool title.” And a split second [later] I agreed with them. I said, “I honestly didn’t really even think about it. Change it to American Head?” Now it’s all good, because to a lot of people, when they say head, it’s like a head shop or a druggie youth person; they used to be called heads.
– Wayne Coyne, EW