Horn and Downes first met in the mid 1970s, at auditions for Tina Charles' backing band, and worked with her producer, Biddu, whose backing tracks had inspired their early work. Trevor Horn said that the group was originally planned to be named "The Bugs": "The Bugs were studio insects—imaginary creatures who lived in recording studios creating havoc. Then somebody said as a joke that The Bugs would never be as big as The Beatles. So we changed it to The Buggles."