Threads On The Side: Musicians talk their clothing lines

The variables of today's music industry are not limited to touring, album sales and recording. Add clothing lines to the other opportunities some musicians develop outside of their time onstage and in the studio. Clothing lines such as Anthem Made, Vursa Limited and Aspire & Create are on the rise with band members at the forefront of design and management of these growing companies. From the stage to the drawing board, band members are bringing their ideas to life on T-shirts, beanies and more. Music fans and fellow musicians can be seen sporting the threads designed by their favorite band members. Balancing a clothing line with a hectic tour and recording schedule may seem daunting, but these four guys have figured out a way to make it work.

Brand name: Vursa Limited
Founder: Levi Benton (Miss May I)
Established: 2010
HQ: Cincinnati, OH

Why did you decide to launch a clothing line?
I was going to go to school for advertising, and I was doing a lot of art stuff. Once we got signed and everything was getting taken care of for us, I sort of got bored and wanted to start a new project. I started Vursa Limited and I did all the designs and [designed] the website; I still do all of it to this day. I just started it to keep myself busy and keep my art skills up because I started getting really lazy being in a band, just playing shows and not being creative.

What are some of your inspirations during the design process?
It's not really fashion or sleek—it's just big, bold and inspirational. It's like I'm writing lyrics on T-shirts, but not just words on a shirt. The band stuff got me really far, but the brand has gotten me farther. It's cool to see where I grew up and started and where this brand has taken me and the stuff we've been able to achieve with the brand.

Would you say you and your wife are a team on this company?
We do the shipping, all the art and all the orders. We're opening a store [on the University of Cincinnati] campus and we're planning a wedding at the moment. Everyday we're working on furniture for the store and planning guest list stuff. The store should open the first week of March if everything goes good.

How do you balance Vursa Limited with touring and recording?
Vursa Limited takes up 80 percent of my time, and the band stuff is the other 20 percent. We're working on a new record right now, so it is really hard because I'm trying to build this stuff and do all this. It’s so much more hands-on and so much more responsibility. We're trying really, really hard not to hire anyone and just keep it as much hands-on as possible. We don’t want to become the brand for money; we just like to be hands-on and be a part of it. It's our passion.

Do you think you'll be popping into the store?
Yeah, I'm actually literally a little girl about it. I'm so excited for it to be done. We didn't buy any furniture. I designed all the furniture, and I’m building all the furniture by hand. The entire store is my dream come alive. At the end of the day, Vursa Limited started because I borrowed $400 dollars from a friend; now it’s almost a half million-dollar company. The store is really going to open up the door for being a part of the community, especially being on campus. We want to have a Vursa softball team and pizza parties with customers. It's right by the biggest rock venue in Cincinnati, and we want to have artists come in and do signings. It's more of a community thing that we basically get to control.

I know you recently celebrated the three-year anniversary. How did it feel to achieve that?
It's crazy, and I never would have thought that it would have gone more than six months. I borrowed money from my friend and I was in my mom's basement in high school. It literally started from that. It's crazy to be where we're at: We didn't have anything to even start with. We just kept investing and investing in it and coming up with crazier and crazier ideas. It's cool to see where we're at on the scale of all the people that inspire us to be a brand.

What types of brands do you look up to?
I know I’m in a metal band and I have long hair and the tattoos and everything. I'm really, really into the urban culture. It just fascinates me that street wear has such a big impact for it to be started with graffiti and everything.

If you could dress any person of your choice in Vursa Limited who would it be and why?
It would probably be Justin Timberlake because he's the coolest dude ever and he's legit. I feel like if he wears anything, he actually wears it because he respects it.

What type of message do you hope fans take away from Vursa Limited?
We just want everyone to be as ambitious as possible. Because I know a lot of people have crazy ideas and are all, “There's no way I can do that.” “Stay ambitious” is our biggest slogan. We just want people to stay at it. It's really freaking awesome to get fan mail and e-mails about things people created looking up to us.

How is Vursa Limited unique from other clothing lines?
It's all hands-on and we're trying to keep it that way as much as possible. I never really want to go corporate. Every package is hand packaged with hand notes. We call ourselves the Vursa crew; it's [more] about the crew and the customers than it is about us at the end of the day. We just want people to be happy and have fun because they're making out dreams come true by supporting us. As long as we're all having a good time and we're all happy and ambitious with everything, that’s the goal at the end of the day.

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Brand name: Resist & Rebel
Featuring: Andrew Paiano (Woe, Is Me) and Tyler “Telle” Smith (The Word Alive)
Established: 2010
HQ: Los Angeles, CA / Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Why did you decide to launch a clothing line?
ANDREW PAIANO: Ever since I was 14 or 15, I was always designing for other bands. It never started [as a way] to make money; I wanted to make clothes my friends and I could wear.

What are some of your inspirations in the design process?
I just like to see what's going on because I don't have any sort of background in fashion or design. It's just always been something I’ve done on the side. I just use every aspect of art and fashion that is going on today and just try to make it work with what I’m doing.

How do you balance Resist & Rebel with your touring and recording schedule?
It never really does conflict, to be honest. The fact is that we have deadlines in our calendars and know when we have a line to promote.

Why did you choose to work with Tyler “Telle” Smith?
It's actually a funny story. I only knew Telle about two months when the brand started. I told Telle I had a brand starting and asked if he would be interested. It was a shot in the dark–we weren't close at all. From there, we became best friends. It took us about six to seven months to create Resist, the image we wanted, the name and branding. It was definitely just random, to be honest.

If you could dress any person of your choice in Resist & Rebel who would it be and why?
Just to create controversy, it would probably have to be Barack Obama. I'm not even American, but just because he's the President. I would give him our anonymous shirt that has a rendition of the V For Vendetta mask.

What type of message do you hope fans take away from the clothing line?
We started it with the [goal] in mind of knowing we would want kids to resist against what they thought were the cool trendy clothes that the media were portraying. Nowadays, you've got celebrities wearing really high-end brands that not a lot of kids can afford. The whole message me and Telle wanted to create was that we're going to try to create the same kind of looks and styles that high-end fashion is bringing to the table, but do it for a way more affordable cost.

What do you think makes Resist & Rebel different from other clothing lines today?
We don't really try to follow trends. Telle and me just make things that we want to wear. I don't have any shirts in our catalog that I wouldn't want to wear.

Any memorable experiences with fans that wear your line?
When we released the first line, we didn’t know how well we did because of the way we have our store set up. We couldn’t find out for the first few weeks. Telle and me were both on tour and he sent me pictures of one of the kids at his show wearing stuff. I was just like, “Wow maybe it is actually doing well.” It was never something we wanted to do to create a buck or to get popular. It was something we both wanted to do because it's a passion of ours. It was just cool to see that reaction right away, knowing it was just the beginning for us.

Brand name: Diamond Cut Straight Edge
Featuring: Vincent Bennett (The Acacia Strain)
Established: 2005
HQ: Albany, NY / Hadley, MA

Why did you decide to launch the clothing line?
I started it with my friend Tyler Scheinost in 2005. He used to do merch and tour manage my band. It’s one of those things where you just want to tour with your friends, so you give your friends jobs when you can. We were just bored and came up with Diamond Cut. We did it mostly because we’re straightedge and we're proud of being straightedge—as most straightedge kids are. We noticed there weren’t a lot of really good straightedge shirts. You don’t want to wear a shirt you don’t like, so we started to make shirts for ourselves. People started asking us where we got the shirts, and it just took off from there.

What’s the story behind the name Diamond Cut?
Diamonds are the hardest material on Earth and it's a metaphor for a true straightedge person. Unbreakable edge.

What are some of your inspirations in the design process?
There's a lot of history behind straightedge, and I like to include that. I take ideas from older band's lyrics or mural designs, and I twist them around and make them ours. I try to keep it new while reaching for inspiration from the past, too. I try and pay tribute to the people who did it before me.

What's your favorite item to design?
We just did a snapback hat not too long ago and it came out really good. It took almost a year to get it done. It’s a snapback hat with a camo brim and has gold stitching. It was really cool to be able to be that hands-on with the product and have it be that high quality.

How do you balance Diamond Cut with touring and recording?
It's all pretty much connected. It's not like I have to balance it because touring helps me. I literally get to go around the world and not only play music for people, but I can talk about whatever I want. Having a partner in Tyler is definitely helpful because I don’t have to worry about 100 percent of it; he takes on 50 percent of the weight. He takes the weight of it when I can’t and its really helpful.

What are some challenges you have with Diamond Cut?
We try and do new designs every month or every couple months to keep people interested. Coming up with designs month after month after month is kind of taxing sometimes. Sometimes Tyler and me just have to sit down and brainstorm an entire year's worth of designs so we don’t run out of stuff. Also, keeping a straightedge clothing company is hard because not everyone is straightedge forever. I can't just sell shirts to everybody. I can only sell shirts to a small minority of people and that's people who are straightedge. At the same time it's kind of cool, because I know that people are buying these shirts because they mean something to them and not just because they think it looks cool.

If you could dress any person of your choice in Diamond Cut who would it be and why?
CM Punk [the WWE wrestler]. If I could see him walk out during a match wearing Diamond Cut, I would probably lose my mind. I know he’s straightedge and he loves straightedge. So, I would either love to dress him or do a collaboration with him. I think that would be awesome, and that’s the one guy that I need on my side.

What type of message do you hope fans are taking away from Diamond Cut?
I want to promote the straightedge lifestyle. I know it's not for everybody. People have told me that they've discovered straightedge through me and through Diamond Cut. I think that’s amazing. Straightedge is not a lifestyle for everybody. The people who find straightedge and commit to straightedge, they’re not better than everybody, but they found a path that works for them. A lot of people like myself have straightedge to strengthen them and make them free from any kind of distractions alcohol or drugs might pose on them. That’s the main message: You don’t have to drink or do drugs to have a good time. A lot of people are still close-minded about the idea of straightedge and think were all nerds. I’d like to dismiss that.