In 2020 I did a interview with Pull The Plug Patches, that blog crashed and I was able to get some material back and am posting it up here. Pull The Plug Patches is based in Australia and make some amazing patches as well as pins from some totally EPIC metal bands! They started small and are now one of the main sources to outfit your battle vests, backpacks and whatever else you want to dress up.
The age old question – will the merchandise outlast the music?
No, it is the music that matters most. Merchandise is just a way to connect with the music. Patches in particular give fans something to hold on to in an age when most people are listening to music digitally. In some ways the patch has replaced the CD in terms of the physical connection that fans have to the music. But that’s not what stands the test of time. When I think about the music that was part of my growing up it brings back the memories and feelings of living in that time. An album cover can do that to an extent, but it is the music itself that brings the memories flooding back. It’s like a portal to the past in that way. Merchandise is a reminder in a visual sense, but it can never replace or stand in for the actual music.
What made you want to do patches? I know you also do enamel pins also. Do you have any other plans for shirts / other apparel?
I started making patches because I couldn’t find patches for the bands I wanted represented on my vest. For those that I could find, I wasn’t impressed with the quality. So it was really born out of my own desire to have an awesome vest of my own and just not being satisfied with what the market had to offer. I also didn’t like the idea of all the bootlegs that are out there. Musicians pour their blood, sweat, and tears into creating a form of art that has been the soundtrack to my life, and the least I could do was try to give something back, so I wanted to make sure all my stuff was approved by the bands. It’s been a really great process of getting to connect with people whose music has meant so much to me over the course of my life, and it’s something I can feel good about because I’m not ripping them off by making bootlegs. Pins are quite new for us, and something we wanted to try out. They are part of a complete battle vest, so it made sense, but they are secondary to our patches. We have made a few shirts to date, all longsleeves. Mostly these are just promotional for our label, or oriented towards helping out a particular cause. It’s fun to do longsleeves and I love coming up with the concepts, so we definitely have plans for more. Whether or not that expands into band shirts as well remains to be seen. I’d love to be able to do that, but shipping from Australia is a bit of a killer. The reason it works for patches is because we can send them letter mail, which is much more reasonable in terms of cost. It’s hard to pass a shirt off as a letter though!
How do you pick the bands you work with? Did you ever have a band that didn’t want to produce patches?
I choose the bands on the basis of the music I love. Again, we started from a point of just wanting to make stuff I was really into and couldn’t find a patch for. Now we get a lot of bands approaching us about making patches for them and I’m happy to do so if I like your band, but I have to be able to connect with the music on some level. As for bands telling us “no”, yeah unfortunately it happens all the time. I prefer that to bands who simply ignore me. I don’t really understand why some bands even have social media accounts if they don’t want to connect with their fans. To me nothing is more rude than seeing a message and blatantly ignoring it. And then ignoring the follow up, and the follow up after that. So when a band says no, for whatever reason, I can appreciate that more than just silence. In terms of why they would decline making patches with us, I don’t really understand that either. The bottom line is we could be out there making bootleg patches like everyone else and there is not much anyone could realistically do about it, but we choose not to. We want to cut bands into what we are doing, and truth be told most of the profits go to the bands anyway. We also always seek final approval on any design we make, and it’s great promotion for the bands as we have a different audience than most labels so it’s really a win-win situation for all involved. I can’t even count the number of times people have written to me saying they discovered a band because of our patches. It’s just one more medium to get your name and music out there, so I’m a bit mystified when we are refused. Maybe now that we are working with Slayer and Iron Maiden some bands will reevaluate their decisions, but who knows. I have no real insight into their decision making processes. If they tell us “no” I pout for a minute and then move on. Lots of other bands are happy to work with us, and that’s what drives us forward. We want to work with artists that are as passionate about battle vest culture as we are.
Do you think it is important to keep the patch runs limited? Do you ever do a limited version with another version?
Yeah, I think our model is what makes us unique. We’re not doing thousands of copies of the same thing. The limited nature of our patches makes them collectors items and highly sought after. Obviously some things sell out faster than others, but that’s just how it is. Some fans complain when things go too fast, and we understand the frustration, but we’re not a mass manufacturer. We like to keep things a bit “boutique” if you will. That’s not to say we won’t make a different design for an album we have done before, but that all depends on the willingness of the band. We’re open to that, but we like the idea of modifying the design in some way to keep the mystique and buzz around our patches going strong. If it just becomes a factory model of pumping out as much of something as possible that kind of takes the fun out of it.
Who comes up with the artwork? Is it a collaboration or does the band tell you what they are looking for?
I usually come up with the initial rough concept, which I send on to Karoly-Robert, our main designer, and sometimes Chalo, the other designer on our team. Chalo does our videos and handles our Instagram stories, so that keeps him quite busy, but sometimes he likes to do patch designs too. Anyway, I am terrible at photoshop but I think I have an eye for what makes a good patch. So I come up with a rough sketch of sorts and then it’s usually Karoly-Robert who will translate my idea into a finished design. He always adds his own style and touch to whatever I give him, which works as a great partnership because he always comes up with something amazing and improves upon my initial idea. He’s got a real talent for translating the ideas into a workable patch and I’m super happy he’s part of Pull The Plug Patches because I think it’s fair to say he’s the best patch designer in the business. Occasionally a band will say exactly what they want, but usually I ask them to trust us to come up with an idea first. If they hate it, they hate it and we try something else, but usually they are pretty happy with what we propose. It never works as well when a band demands a particular shape or concept though because how we work is we try to make the shape of the patch work with the logo and artwork. Happy for the input of course, but we’ve made so many patches now that we have a pretty good sense of what’s going to work and what won’t.
What patch are you most proud of? Did anyone patch design come out way better then you expected?
Choosing a single patch is hard. We’ve done so many that I really love the design and final product. I think our Total Fucking Destruction patch came out awesome. Our Carcass backpatch for “Necroticism” turned out incredible. One of the first patches we did was Asphyx “Last One On Earth” and it turned out amazing. Morgoth “Cursed” is another favorite design that turned out super well. I really love the two patches we did for Hail Of Bullets too. We did a bullet shape and a Nakajima Ki-84 shape, which is a Japanese WWII kamikaze airplane, both of which I think are pretty unique and I’ve never seen anything quite like them anywhere else. They obviously reflect the name of the band and the thematic of their lyrics.
I think of patches almost like a history tool for the bands and artwork they produced – what band are you most proud of for leaving a patch legacy with you?
I think it’s pretty awesome to be able to make official patches for Slayer and Iron Maiden, but those are perhaps the obvious choices. I think what I’m most proud of is shining a light on some of the forgotten Old School Death Metal bands from the early 1990s that a lot of younger fans might not have ever heard of otherwise. So bands like Jumpin’ Jesus, Sorrow, Unbounded Terror, Funebre, Carbonized, Excruciate, Afflicted, and Torchure.
Any last thoughts / comments?
Thanks for the interest in Pull The Plug Patches, and stay tuned we have tons of surprises coming in 2021!
