A Distinctive Voice, guitar that blows your mind instead of melting your brain, the fusion of different genres like soul,blues,prog,rock, the use of a tambourine (for that 60's Cream feel), the use of an organ (for a 70's Deep Purple feel) and drums that make you move instead of overpowering you with intensity, creative effects that make you think "How did they think of that?", lyrics that confuse the mind with profound and strange lyrics (think pink floyd and talking heads), don't focus on love and breakup songs (because no matter how much they connect with people, the do become repetitive and lose their meaning), and finally a name that sticks out; a noun, not a phrase like: "Haste the day" or "the Devil wears prada" or "they might be giants", names that start with "the" or other nouns have proven successful: "The Who", "The Doors","The Byrds", "Eagles", "Foreigner", "The Allman Brothers Band", "THE BAND!", "Jonathan Tyler & The Northern Lights :-)" My Two Cents