Metal Babies – Metal wear for your little demon

The early days
He has a wonderful wife and two lovely children, and considers himself one of the luckiest guys on earth, as he actually get paid to design shirts, which he loves doing. Mark DeVito grew up the Bay Area (Oakland, San Francisco) thrash scene in the early 80s, and was friends with most of the local bands. He was a failed musician (took two lessons from local guitar God Joe Satriani, who told him he was better off learning something else – laughs!), so he focused on drawing.
Mark: ‘I wound up drawing the logos of my favourite bands on the back of my army jacket, which turned into a full-time gig for all my friend’s jackets.’ Then Mark started getting asked to design show flyers, coming up with logos and even started painting backdrops for the shows.

Passionated by T-shirts
He would go to all the major shows, like Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Slayer, Metallica, AC/DC, Scorpions, Van Halen, Aerosmith, and would stand in front of the merchandise booth for ages, studying each shirt.
Mark: ‘I had limited funds, so I had to pick the best shirt every time, as I always wanted to have at least one shirt from every show I went to. I’ve been to hundreds and hundreds of shows, starting back in 1979, and after all those I bought, the ones I’ve designed, and swag from friend’s bands….I probably have close to 500 or so concert shirts.’ Some are extremely rare (‘I have ones that I’ve done for Metallica that were very limited pressings’), some just have extreme sentimental value. ‘I’m a total shirt whore, swag makes my world go around. My wife, however would prefer that I collected stamps as we live in a small house with two kids. Haha!’

His first logo design
His first logo job was for Ruffians [a local power metal band – ed.] designing their logo, flyers, shirts, backdrops, etc….that was back in 1982/83. ‘Shortly after that I worked for Laaz Rockit and Legacy (now Testament), making backdrops and flyers.I think they already had their own shirts done, and Ruffians and Laaz’ band members worked in screen printing, so it wasn’t altogether necessary. I got my first full-time job back in 1993, designing shirts for Aerosmith, Megadeth and Whitney Houston (of all things!) for their fan clubs. Prior to that, my main freelance job was designing for Metallica. Plus I painted backdrops for bands like Primus, Paris and a few others.’

Other bands he worked for.
Back in the 80’s, Mark was pretty good friends with Laaz Rockit, Ruffians, Exodus, Legacy and a myriad of other local bands….he says that it ‘kinda took off from there’. He had met the Anthrax guys at the end of the 80s and did some goofy one-off shirts for them. Then he got to design some shirts for Metallica back in ’88 and have worked for them for about 20 years. He worked for tons of bands, from Aerosmith, Megadeth, Anthrax, George Clinton, Green Day, Rolling Stones, Hilary Duff, Eagles, Sammy Hagar, Slipknot, Ramones, Clash, Sex Pistols, Paris (hip-hop) to, just recently, Motörhead, which was a dream come true! Mark: ‘They asked me to design their new album cover [Motorizer –ed.] and then he designed, from strict direction from Lemmy, all their tour merch for the US and Europe. It’s the highest honour I can think of.’

Metallica
What about Metallica? Mark: ‘Actually, I started working with them back in 1988, so it’s been about 20 years now. I had been hanging at smaller metal shows since about 1982 or so, and I met Metallica at some of the Exodus after parties at Hell House, and then at some of the Metalli-mansion parties in El Cerrito. I think I met James at Baloff’s birthday party at Bay’s house first, then I got to know Lars around ‘88 or so. Anyway, I was working at a Tower Records store, made a billboard to advertise the upcoming Metallica Damaged Justice tour shows and took a photo of the design to the show with me. Fred Cotton, a friend of mine was also befriended with the band. He was in the Spastic Children band with Hetfield and Kirk (and Cliff before that). Fred saw me in the halls at the show, and I asked him to take the photo back to have it signed. He came out and told me that after seeing the photo of the design, they all wanted to meet me. I went back and hang out with them the rest of the night. Later Lars asked me if he could have the billboard for the new house he had bought in Berkeley. I said sure. The design was the Capn’s of Krunch.’

Regular jobs
Mark worked for four merchandise companies since he started in this business as an independent, and also for skateboard companies and fanclubs for over 25 years now. Currently he started to work for a great independent merchandise company, Tinman Merchandising. They mainly do the t-shirts for Queensrÿche, Metallica’s fan club. He just designed the tourline for Danzig.

About Metal Babies.
Mark: ‘My wife and I were expecting our first child, and we saw all the pastel crap that was available. So, we started wondering why there was little to no cool, black, onesies that reflected OUR taste in music. It’s one thing to play Black Sabbath for your child in utero, but it’s another to be able to have them wear something cool from day one. Babies can only make out three colours when they are born, at best. They respond to black, white and red. Sounds pretty heavy metal to me, haha! I decided to buy a couple of black onesies I had found online on the srceenpress at work, I was working at a merch company back then, and ran off a couple just for our newborn son. After a couple of weeks of having everyone at the park and friends ask us if we had some more, I started it up as a business. Lars and James from Metallica had their first children, so I came up with a few “baby laminates” for the kids, as I knew they would probably go out on tour, and really just for laughs….they loved the idea, then they launched THEIR line….it’s all over the place now.’

Interest in Babies Metal Wear
They started out by emailing a few websites, like HeavyMetalParkingLot.com and they linked them right away!
Mark: ‘They were the first. Since then, we toured the Ozzfest twice, were in Classic Rock, Kerrang!, Playboy, Revolver, Better Homes, on local TV, in local papers, even in Canada …’ Metal Babies has clients from all over the world now and is big in Finland and Germany.

Famous clients
Mark: ‘We had a few, plus we’ve been part of different events which featured our line, so we’ve had a varied clientele for a while now. Mostly, I try and just swag out new parents, ‘cause most of these folks are my friends first. I sent packages to Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante, members of the Hells Angels, Holly Robinson Peete, and we have many more that order from us directly.’

The designs
Mark only makes his own designs and that’s probably the reason why he only has the amount he has…He comes up with a few here and there, changes up the line a bit here and there, but it’s really all his [he doensn’t sound like he has a big ego –ed.], but he really can’t afford to hire anyone else to do the designs!

Growing-up kids
Most of his designs go up to ten years of age. Mark has talked with some people about starting an (*ahem*) “grown-ups” line and is planning on doing that as a side project very soon.

Best selling and most favourite design
Mark: ‘The Mommy’s Little Metalhead is hands down, and the biggest seller we ever had. Before that it was Future Headbanger and the Daddy’s Little Headbanger is third place for all time highest seller.’ His most favourite design (‘it really rocks’) is Motorbaby.

Creating new designs
When Mark started Metal Babies, he came up with most of his designs at night, strictly working from sleep deprivation because his newborn son’s sleeping habits. So he was pretty prolific at the beginning. Mark had been doing parody designs for Metallica, Aerosmith, Maiden and for lots of bands for a while by then, so he was already somewhat versed in that vein of design….so it was easier. Nowadays, Mark takes his time, because he really has to try and top some of the classics …’It only gets harder’.

Friends
Mark grew up with the Exodus, Death Angel and Testament guys, and had been designing for them well before Metal Babies. He had been going to Dio shows and brought his hand-painted banners to him to sign for years. He came to one of the shows and showed him some of his ideas, and he and Wendy (‘his wife and manager – and by the way – two of the very nicest people you would ever have the pleasure of meeting and hanging with’), were very receptive to the idea. He also designed a few things for Twisted Sister prior to Metal Babies. ‘After starting that business, they continued to ask for designs from time to time.’ They’re great folks, all of them….I consider all of them as friends, as well.’

Favourite artist/band to create a design with?
Mark: ‘I’d love to work with AC/DC. I really think that they are the originals for me, hands down my favourite all time band. THAT would be a huge honour and thrill for me. And Lemmy has been an honour to the highest degree, so I can still die a happy man. Then you have the Michael Schenkers, the UFOs…..I would love the opportunity to work for them all.’

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