There’s a saying about not having a second chance to make a good first impression. It’s true, and we judge people like mad.

We’ve all heard arguments about why we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but when judging people, I generally disagree. I think about the first day of school and how everybody dresses up but tries make it look like they’re not. We all give not so subtle signs about what kind of person we are by the way we dress and wear our hair and makeup, all that stuff. We are inviting people to judge us.

I rarely wear my old heavy metal t-shirts any more for exactly this reason. I am smarter and more experienced than most of my classmates, and have no intention of letting my teachers judge me to be a dumbass by walking in to class on the first (or any!) day wearing some stupid Slayer t-shirt with blood and a pentagram and swords and junk all over it. Instead, I tend to wear blue jeans or black Dickies, and a plain, solid colored t-shirt with Converse All Stars.

But you know, I’d like to wear a band shirt sometimes. The problem is that as we metal fans ¹ grow up a little, we want less gaudy and silly shirts to wear. Also, as we metal fans get older, we get better jobs, better taste, and have more money. This is a demographic bands need to be looking at and designing for.

See the shirt to the right? I wouldn’t be caught dead in this shirt, not today. Not as a husband and father. Not as a serious student. Not during an interview with a teacher for an upcoming article. No way. And it seems that all the shirts you can buy for bands look just like this one. Want a Motörhead shirt? It’s gonna look like that. Megadeth? Like that. Slayer? Like that, but worse.

I like these bands, and sometimes want to represent, but I want to do it my way. With a shirt I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen in on the front page of a newspaper.

Here’s some better ideas:

Amazing. Black shirts, gray graphics. Small symbol on the front, smallish ² logo on back. Low-contrast colors mean no juvenile attention-grabbing garbage. No blood, no explosions. A simple statement: I am a fan of this band and of good design.

We’re just getting older.    ■

1. The bands are getting older, too. The guys in Judas Priest are looking real old. ↩
2. Well, I assume the logo on the back is small. It’s really hard to tell on a computer screen. I really need to mock one of these up before they go to print. Assuming they ever go to print. ↩

2 Responses to “Band Shirts for Grown-Ups”

1. Christopher says:

   12 August, 2009 at 1:22 pm

   How do comments look?
2. Wife says:

   14 August, 2009 at 11:20 am

   I want to print a whole bunch of these in girl tees- that way I can support the ones the bands that I like without having to wear the ugly shirts that are sold at the concerts. Great idea. Let’s go into business.