«
»
Editorials

THE RETURN OF THE WHITE T-SHIRT TO METAL

 Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 1:00pm by

Black t-shirts are as metal as it gets. Since the dawn of time*, metalheads have been donning black concert tees as a uniform; all other clothing, hair styling and accessorizing is pretty much secondary and unimportant as long as you’ve got a black t-shirt on. MetalGF constantly makes fun of my stacks of black t-shirts**; other than my gray Mastodon tee and a white Tool shirt, my entire shirt wardrobe is pretty much black. But you know what? I’m getting damn sick of it. It’s time to bring some color back to the metal palette and there’s no color better or more metal than… WHITE.

Yeah, you heard me, WHITE. Think about it. Black is fucking played, dude. Everyone from emos to goths wears black t-shirts. It’s almost become a joke. If metal is all about rebelling against the norm, how come we all wear the same damned thing? How about a white Slayer tee? Or a white Iron Maiden hoodie with a giant screen of Eddie emblazened across the front? That screams “bad ass” to me. Maybe I should contact Kosher Klothing about doing a limited run to see how it goes.

It’s time to put those black tees back in the closet and go get some sexy, clean, WHITE band t-shirts. Be the first on your block to sport this hot new fashion!

-VN

*Seriously, even cave men wore that shit.
**The picture above is not actually my closet. I don’t hang t-shirts.

Tags: , , ,
  • John

    Not only that but when you do outside shows, its hotter outside when wearing a black shirt…wearing a white shirt instead fixes this problem allowing you to stay cooler in the pit.

  • DLT

    Note to bands:

    White shirts are cheaper to make.

  • http://theycontrol.us ricemine

    yes but the black tshirt goes nicely with my black tattoos and … *ahem*…pink pants. sukkit.

  • Damotello

    Good call, generally speaking if I’m getting a band t-shirt and a have a choice of colour I generally go for brighter ones. Nothing against black t-shirts, I have my fair share, I just find brighter ones stand out more and are more comfortable in the sun.

  • banter

    Phhh… my yellow Municipal Waste shirt destroys all.

  • http://COFFINCASE.COM FATMARK

    LOOKS LIKE MY CLOSET BUT I THINK I HAVE A LOT MORE BLACK TEE ‘S!!!

  • http://plabebob.blogspot.com Plabebob

    Me & my mate accidentally both wore orange t shirts to see ministry & it made it so much easier to find each other in the pit… if you get everyone to wear different coloured stuff how will we ever find each other again.

  • http://noyokono.blogspot.com noyokono

    White gets dirty/bloody/vomity too easily to survive most metal gigs worth mentioning. Also, white inconveniently highlights the manboobage prevalent in this community of dateless wonders.

    Can deodorant be the new black? People STINK at metal shows.

  • Andypants!!

    This is a retarded idea

  • Danny

    The racial segway jokes are running rampant in my head. “I’m getting damn sick of it. It’s time to bring some color back to the metal palette and there’s no color better or more metal than… WHITE.”

  • http://www.kindamuzik.net Martijn

    Typical metalhead beer gut white t-shirt = optically even bigger metalhead beer gut.

  • matt

    @noyokono: this

  • http://www.roxwel.com Pick-Axe Bobby

    A lot of metal bands have begun selling non-black t-shirts lately, and I am often obliged to go for them. Black is classic, but I like just a little variety.

  • Matt

    so basically you want to look like Andrew W.K.

  • Brett

    A few years ago I stopped buying black band shirts. If you want me to pay for some of your band’s merch, consider investing in some color.

  • canea

    @noyokono

    you’re right. more bathing please everyone.

  • fantasyh

    I do agree, I’d love to have some white metal t-shirts. The only non-black one that I have is a green (In Flames) Episode 666 one.

  • PD

    I’ve been trying to get more colors in. I’ve got a few brown shirts, a couple red ones, and my beloved green Municipal Waste one. Only one After the Burial is white.

  • http://www.reigninblog.de Razze

    I’m already wearing mostly my white/gray shirts like my suicide silence (white) and my shai hulud (gray). the poor thing was, my susi shirt got dirty at wacken (i think it was sand) and it took me serval attempts to get the dirt out of there

  • http://www.reigninblog.de Razze

    and my blue horse the band shirt, will be easy to spot everywhere even on a wacken dvd

  • M. Meyer

    PD: I have that green Municipal Waste shirt, but its logo is fading like a motherfucker. Is yours?

  • Revrant

    Translation from Baaese “We’ll be less sheep than those sheep, fuck those sheep, we’ll be white sheep, those black sheep are played”

    Yeah, I’ll keep wearing whatever color jeans and whatever color shirt I happen to have, and I have quite a few, though I’ll keep to my exception of not being a banner ad and refusing to wear anyone’s marketing on my body.

  • vitruvianApe

    you know what else pisses me off, the fact that skulls and crazy lettering and all the other cool design shit that used to make metal metal and everyone else look at us weird is now the “kewl in thing”. Like all this horrible Ed hardy or Affliction shit that kinda rips off metal and tattoo culture but costs 200 bucks and is marketed and worn by douche-culture nation wide.
    Quit making the rest of us look like posers by default, now i gotta go wear tommy hilfiger to be different. There it is. . . Tommy hilfiger is the new black

  • http://noyokono.blogspot.com noyokono

    I heart Ed Hardy clothing. And Smet too. I want to be Bret Michaels.

  • retrograde

    My white Melvins t-shirt with a huge red fire-breathing dinosaur skeleton almost sticks out too much. It still rules though

  • http://www.hibernum.net hibernum

    Kids…just give it up and get a closet full of dress shirts. You’ll have to do it sooner or later.

  • Ryd1ZZ

    I just got a white BDM shirt at summer slaughter. I’ve been seeing a lot more white and other colors recently. Which is a good thing.

  • chris

    variety is a great idea. the thing i hate though is win your at a show and someone in the band is wearing another bands shirt and its a badass one but you cant ever find it to buy yourself.

  • Pluto

    Fuck the trendy fools who wear black etc. and make us look trendy by default.
    I still stick out like a drunk headbanger when I am surrounded by “cool” kids at the mall, because real metal fans are Real. and when the new lame trend is custard colored pants dyed in the vomit of Britney Spears, they’ll move on to that and we’ll still be waving the black flag of metal proudly.

    wait… I don’t go to the mall….umm… my gf makes me… shit that’s not a very good recovery.

  • amonamarthislove

    while we’re at it and we want to be creative why not pink slayer shirts? even as a chick its still a disturbing thought. white and etc colors are only workable for gwar shirts – and thats only for the sole purpose of having them covered in blood.

    and anyways i love the irony way too much of the “we’re non confirmists! look at us! we wear the same tshirts, are overly judgmental in our music and wave our hands in the air at the same time like a hypnotized mob”. don’t take that irony away from metal. its too much fun lol.

  • laz

    i had a white slayer t-shirt a long time ago. south of heaven it was. nice t. no idea what happened to it.

  • http://www.last.fm/user/digitalvomiting/ Sinisa Dukaric

    Well, it seems a bit of a trend to go with different colors, and although I really like everything black, I kinda dig some cool T-shirts in other colors.

    For egg. “Dub Trio” featured crazy white t-shirts at their recent European tour, and they we’re sellin’ like butter …

    I also dig my dark-violet “Chang Ffos” t-shirt, and gray “IGut” shirt as well :)

  • TedTedPoleyPoley

    ha, i actually had a white Maiden shirt back in 90-91. i got it at one of those places where you pick the design and they press iron it on any shirt you want. i got the Seventh Son of the Seventh Son designs (different ones) front AND back on white, it was sweet :-D

  • Cisco

    I pretty much just wear suit and ties during the week. I get the weekends to wear what I want and they’re usually white band T’s. They’ve been around forever just not in abundance like the black T’s.

  • Reverend

    Fuck that. I’m wearing black ’till the day I die.

  • http://bitpom.com Travis Conquest

    I wil continue to wear whatever I feel like. That just happens to be a leather, a shirt, pants and boots. What color shirt you ask? Who gives a fuck.

  • NeverStopThis

    Ive toned down my band shirt wearing recently because of that. I started buying non band tee’s because I’m sick of wearing black shirts. I’ve got a green Acacia Strain shirt and a blue mudvayne shirt. thats it for the colored band shirts…

  • http://crustcake.com crustcake gerf

    Black shirts hide ketchup and coffee stains and the fact that you haven’t washed them in months better than white ones. I’ll stick with black.

  • John

    I always look for non-black shirts when I’m looking for band shirts but I rarely find them. I have a the Haunted shirt that’s dark gray and that’s about as far as I’ve been able to get from black. I’d wear a white t-shirt from one of my favorite bands any day.

  • Tejas

    Bloodbath wear white!! Live at Wacken!
    I’ve never worn black since.

  • Mori

    The most true wear is a white t-shirt!

  • Casey

    Great Idea. Cause in summer I can’t go out or go for a skate wearing a black t shirt. It burns!
    Here’s a cool white tee i might buy
    http://www.nightshaderecords.co.nz/uploads/369_black_frank.jpg

  • http://www.dirtyteeshirts.net dirty tee shirts

    Great blog ! many thank.

  • stu

    you bring up a good point… I don’t know if you guys remember, but back in the day…say 25 years ago alot of metal band tees were in white, and something else that has to be mentioned is how cool the band baseball tees were (black with white sleeves or vice versa ) usually i would just cut the sleeves…but their still was color in there and the silk screens I find were alot nicer, thicker and shinier and when they faded they gave a really cool effect.

    Look up old pics of “The Big 4″ you’ll notice that there was more color in metal than you would think…

  • Valentin

    I just got my new WHITE SLAYER T SHIRT, I got sick of wearing black clothes so I decide to buy a white one, the big four used to wear a color t shirts damn its metal its freedom, but what is freedom if you’r pushed to wear black clothes to be metal, it is gone thats stupid.