The Battle Vest Project

When I was a young Metalhead, I had the 'advantage' that every Summer we'd be cruising across the continent with Dad and we'd usually stop in to some pretty major cities along our travels to Victoria, British Columbia.
The advantage was, my Brother Gordy and I got access to all these incredible head shops (big stores that sell all kinds of 'Heavy Metal' & 'Punk' merchandise: Shirts, Jackets, hats, toques, buttons, pins, patches, spikes, wristbands, flags,, lava lamps and on and on).
I had the 'Metallica - Metal Up Your Ass' T shirt with the glow in the dark guy frying in the electric chair on the back! My jean jacket had a 'Iron Maiden - Powerslave' big back patch on it. I had this wicked 'Jump in the Fire' demon metal pin.. I HAD a really frikin' awesome skull ring.. Which I lost the year after I moved back here... I had all the good shit!

Nowadays, I got WAY too many shirts.. Long sleeve T's... Ugh so much 'stuff'.. But most of it's pretty 'Metal'.

I'd been wanting to do a Metal 'Battle Vest' for quite a while now. When I was at CHSR I had begun to get in some patches, The guys in Neighbourhood Watch threw some swag at me when I went out on their reunion tour and their kick ass patch was in there.. and I had begun to collect Metal patches but I was missing the main component... A denim jacket or vest to sew them on to...

You see, as a 'Metalhead' the 'Battle Vest' is a very cool component to our attire.. It's a further statement, that you're looking at a 'Metalhead'.
Usually adorned with patches by your favorite bands, this shows strangers that come upon you, what you're into. And that can make or break a potential relationship, especially if your 'Battle Vest' is covered with 'Winger'/'Poison' and 'Mötley Crüe' junk....

YOu might fight a total 'Blackened Metal' friend by noting the patches on his /her Battle Vest,.. Or maybe they are all Hardcore and Punk patches.. Punk Rockers also do the 'Battle vest' thang...

Here's an example of a great 'Battle Vest':

Not my 'Battle Vest'

So this past week I got myself a denim vest, I've ordered a large back patch for the.... back.. That's generally the main.. item.. On the center of the back, usually you'll find one large back patch, it's the 'big one'.. It generally is maybe your favorite band or the first patch you got, but almost, almost every 'Battle Vest' will have that one big patch on the back and then the rest of the jacket is made up of small and various sized patches.

So, here's the beginning of mine. I was going to wait until I got the big back patch, but I thought, 'Nah, I can start on the front!'

So that's where it'll all begin!

The beginning of my 'Battle Vest'

This is the last time you'll see the vest until it's 'complete', that is, it has enough patches on it, that's it worthy for public consumption... Really, I'd look even dorkier than I do if I went out with just these patches on it!

I am goin to document the making of the jacket on video and it'll be a 'how I made out'/'How to' video...And it'll be available.. much later on.. Though I plan to try and get this suckah up and running in a few months.

Stay tuned!