What would a heavy metal t-shirt for a twee band look like?

Cafe Society
1

My band, who play cute indie pop in a Belle-and-Sebastian-meets-Tiger-Trap kind of style, think it would be fun to have a t-shirt that, from a distance, looks like one of those 80s metal band shirts. I’m sure you’ve seen these; they’re usually black and have some totally over-the-top graphic that’s supposed to look super badass.

We’ve got a FOAF artist lined up who does deliberately ridiculous “badass” imagery: a tiger made of fire battling demons with machine guns inside a volcano, for example.

But now, after convincing my bandmates that this is a good idea, I can’t think of what the graphic should actually be. I have the Def Leppard font for our band name, but the only thing I can think of for the actual image is a unicorn riding a motorcycle.

I feel like we can do better. Any ideas? If we use yours, we’ll send you a shirt IRL when they’re done. :smiley:

2

What’s the band name? That might help.

3

Let’s see… how about

One of these with a guitar that looks like one of those Star Trek emblems. Or

A dragon sitting on top of a giant castle breathing fire while Nazis and Stormtroopers shoot at it. With a full moon in the background.

Death and the 4 Horsemen doing a Beatles impression(1950’s era).

Skeleton Army armed with guitars instead of guns, fighting Zombie Army armed with machetes.

4

This infamous Whitesnake album cover (NSFW) but using Hello Kitty.

5

Three Wolf Moon surrounded with a double rainbow and butterflies, but rendered like this.

6

Two fairies kicking a cat.

7

You need a band of unicorns slaying a giant cyclops, who is on fire & crumbling into ash, which falls like snow onto a pool fed by the tears of a beautiful nymph, who wears an ornate woven-metal emblem over her forehead, held in place by chains through her hair.

Also a frog. Somewhere. Maybe a subliminal frog.

8

According to the Discworld calendar, I was born in the Year of the Subliminal Frog.

9

We have a winner. And what is the band called?

10

Umlauts. Even if your band name/language of band name doesn’t justify them – add some umlauts anyway!

11

Something like this, maybe?

12

It reminds me back in the 80s…in the halls at high school I saw someone wearing a new tour T-shirt with epic badass artwork and graphics. Flames, devils, chrome exhaust pipes, leather and studs, this shirt incorporated everything that was cool heavy metal of the time. I had never heard of the band before and rushed out to track down a cassette tape, sure that they were the second coming of Judas Priest, Def Leppard, Van Halen, and Iron Maiden combined…

The band?

Tears for Fears

I’m still pissed about that 7 bucks I spent.

13

I really don’t see why you need us. Unicorns are metal!

14

Of course I meant Ünicörns!

15

The symbol for the so-called new zodiac sign of Ophiuchus is pretty bad-ass in that 1980s heavy metal concert t-shirt kind of way.

You also gotta’ have some Nazi font in there somewhere.

16

Oh, that’s awesome!

17

That would imply that Pterry is a Brian Bolland fan. I wonder.

18

Sorry. I made that up to amuse myself.

Though it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Terry’s daughter Rhianna was into Bolland.

19

Perhaps the Four My-Little-Ponies of the Apocalypse might work.

20

I once saw a fey indie type at a festival wearing a t-shirt from the band Art Brut which reinterpreted the iconic Metallica Master Of Puppets t-shirt as “Master Of Pop Hits” but try as I might I can’t find an image of it anywhere.