To give an insight on how a band may value merchandise in terms of promotion and creativity, Red Terror, made up of vocalist Joey Reeves, guitarist Jed Downey, bassist Siri Crawford and drummer Connor Godfrey, have given us their opinions of what place merchandise holds in their hierarchy, and their outlook of others.
What variety of merch do you have?
We have t-shirts, patches and EP`s. The T shirt is definitely the go to, I don’t like the way that you have to treat your art as more for marketing a clothing brand to get by than actually being able to survive off of music, but a good design really helps as a conversation starter which helps find more fans.
Do you think a t-shirt is the go-to merch to have?
Yes, we do believe a t-shirt is the go to piece of merch because it’s a staple and effective way of showing people youth musical allegiances. We used to sell a lot of patches but it’s a really niche thing unless you’re a punk or metalhead sewing it onto your jacket.
Who designs your merch?
So far, our merch has been DIY. I think Joey came up with the idea but we all painted the shirts ourselves. I’d like to try having someone else do a design for us at some point to see how we’re interpreted outside of the bands but having someone in the band do it is easier for communication about ideas.
When you set up your merch table at gigs, do you put in any thought to it?
Not overly so, but some bands do. We set up at the beginning of the night and just lay out the shirts and CDs. It probably helps to be creative and eye-catching than just being a table but we haven’t thought of any good ways to go about it yet.
What do you charge for your merch?
We do £5 for a t-shirt, £3 for an EP, and 50p or £1 for a patch depending on the size. It was originally £7 for a shirt but we dropped it due to the quality of the shirt and how unsuccessful we were at selling it, so we reckon it’s worth good quality merch. We always do stickers for free though.
Do you think merch is becoming more overpriced?
Yes, we do think merch is overpriced because as much as we would love to rep certain bands their merch is a bit too much for us. For smaller touring bands we haven’t noticed a rise but for larger ones it’s frustrating to see merch that expensive. It’s unfortunate that due to the artist getting a higher cut on merch than music or anything else that it has to be expensive for them to make a profit, but I guess in order to solve that record companies and promoters need to pay the artists more or the artists go DIY.
What is the best piece of merch you have seen recently?
The best piece…is an engraved drinking horn for a band whose name we can’t remember. Also, when we went on tour we played a couple of dates with a skate punk band called Krang and all the artwork was incredible with good slogans too.
(Photography by me)
Find them here: https://www.facebook.com/RedTerrorUK/
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