Bad Otis Link Part 4: The Man Behind The Man

Interview with Greg Link aka Bad Otis Link continued from part 3.

What’s the deal with your name?

My real name is Greg Link, most bands and people that knew me prior to ’82 call me Greg Link. For a very long time, Anthony Kiedus thought we were two different people. I didn’t realize that until one night at a party he asked me if I could have Otis do a design (the Orca). I just busted up and told him I was Otis. He couldn’t believe it. He thought Otis was some mysterious artist that I had hidden away. He thought Greg Link was the t-shirt guy and Otis was the artist. I wonder how many people really thought that, or still do. I have no name preference really.

The Bad Otis nickname was kind of a joke. When I was learning to play sax with my band, around 1980 (“The Panty Shields”), I sucked pretty bad. There was an old blues player that one of the guys knew named Otis Badd. He started calling me that and one of the others jokingly started calling me Bad Otis. It just stuck and I kind of liked it. So people just started calling me Otis and I just went with it.

• Check out part 5 of the epic Otis interview.