Ben Harper : "The Innocent Criminals is the name of my band. Innocent Criminal is the name of my publishing society."

"In the United States, you are presumed innocent before being declared guilty but generally, if you are Black, you are not necessarily guilty but you are certainly an innocent criminal — you are suspect."

"The Innocent Criminals is not a provocative band who says 'Fuck the police'. We haven't this approach. We prefer to say as in Like A King : Like the days strung up from the tree. The L.A.P.D..."

Juan Nelson : "Ben came up with this name. I identify with it because being black in America and where I'm from a lot of times the local authorities would almost look at you as guilty before you've even... ya know what I'm sayin' ? I mean, I hate to say it's true but it's true. So, we have this attitude where... your a criminal but you're innocent ya know ? It wasn't me, I'm tellin' ya (laughs). So that's how that came about ya know... I think it's a pretty unique name... kinda dig it." — source : transcript by Gavin Conaty - www.benharper.net