Vices

I've known Dakota for years. I even played in a band with him a long time ago. He approached me about doing some designs for his bands which was called Vultures at the time. He described it as "crossover style thrash" a'la late Cro-Mags, Leeway, Violator, etc.

Well, they changed their name to Vices, but luckily I was still able to work with the "V" motif that I'd been playing around with (that I ripped from the old Venture Trucks designs anyway). It seemed like these shirts weren't going to get printed for a while and I was kinda bummed because I was REALLY attached to the reaper one. Anyway, they did get printed and I couldn't be happier with the way they look.


This one was the demo cover (I believe) and the first one I made for the band. I think Dakota was on a pretty heavy Rampage "Head's in a Vice" kick when describing this one, so that's kind of what developed from it. Plus, people being tortured always makes for good HC album or shirt designs.

For a long time I remember seeing a lot of graphics that featured characters wearing that sort of Prussian/Nazi style helmet with the one spike...and I thought it looked rad. Also, it reminds me of this one Judas Priest bootleg concert I saw where Halford rode in on a motorcycle wearing one of those and it looked so dope...so I had to utilize it. This was born to be a pocket-print (and so that's what it was used for) but I really like the pill-chomping thing...especially since I've been on Dr. Recommended candy since I was in the 5th grade. It always makes for good art on Hardcore records and shirts. Just ask Shaun Ryder.This is one of my favorite designs that I've ever done. No joke. Believe it or not, it actually started as a Free Spirit graphic. After a few back n' forths, the dudes decided that it was a little bit "darker" than where they wanted to go and so the idea was scrapped and I fruitlessly worked on a few others before they decided to use another painting instead. No hard feelings. I honestly think the record cover they chose looks great, and one of these days I'll post all of the rejected Free Spirit designs I made because I think it'll be entertaining.

Anyway, when Dakota approached me, I knew that I could make that design work for this band. I basically re-drew the whole thing, but kept the basic idea. I made the reaper look more fearsome and the guy look more depressed, but the best element of all was the giant V motif that I threw in. Anyway, I'm not trying to toot my own horn because I'm a pretty crappy illustrator. I only like about 10% of the designs I make, and I can barely navigate around any Adobe program. At heart I'm just a doodler with a scanner and on occasion it's nice to see something work out.

Check out Vices here and download the demo here.