East of the Wall Show Off Their Most Prized Metal T-Shirts

A metalhead’s t-shirt collection contains some of their most prized possessions. Sweaty, stained and torn, our shirts are chronicles of our lives, physical markers of a past time and place that we pridefully put on our bodies every day. They have a clear pecking order: there are those shirts you wear only when all the best ones are in the laundry, there are the absolute favorites you wear once every couple of weeks, and there are all the shirts in between, each with their own clear rank. To a metalhead, T-shirts are EVERYTHING.

East of the Wall guitarists Matt Keys and Matt Lupo are the latest to share their most prized threads for our series My Metal T-Shirt Collection. East of the Wall are getting set to release their new album NP-Complete on March 29 via Translation Loss; pre-order it here. Before we let the two Matts take it away, have a listen to their latest single “Clapping on the Ones and Threes” below, or let it soothe your ears while you peruse their t-shirts for the ultimate shopping experience, minus the shopping part (although we bet if you made them an offer they’d consider it). 

Matt Keys

Arbogast

This is the artwork for their side of a split 7″ with A Fucking Elephant. That was the first slab of vinyl I ever played on, so this is one of my favorites.

Andrew WK

I got this shirt at a spoken word event he did in Baton Rouge. After the show I asked, in the most awkward and long-winded way possible, how he feels about partying. He’s for it.

Carved Up

This shirt is a great reminder that music isn’t meant to be taken too seriously. That’s especially true for metal.

Dillinger Escape Plan

A classic. This doesn’t even fit me, but I can’t let myself get rid of it.

Godspeed You Black Emperor

This was a somewhat recent acquisition from their last tour. I quit my job the morning after that show, so I love this shirt.

Hella

Okay, this is a lousy picture of the shirt… but puppy! I think this shirt came with the pre-order of their album Tripper. This band more than any other is the reason I play complicated stupid music.

Hivesmasher

Sick grindcore band that covers the Foo Fighters.

Neurosis

This is from their show at Warsaw in Brooklyn a few years ago. That was also my first time seeing Sumac, which was lovely.

ZVI

A whale skeleton was the perfect image to represent this album. Spooky bummer tunes that make you stay in bed and question your sanity.

Matt Lupo

When I was asked if I’d like to share my metal t-shirt collection I responded, “Does a bear shirt in the woods?” Well, it turns out that, after moving two years ago, I have no idea where the majority of my old shirts are. So I don’t have much to share today. Among the shirts I’m missing are the following highlights:

• Burnt by the Sun: self-titled EP (with “You Will Move”) from 2001
• Meshuggah: True Human Design EP. Purchased at their incredible Coney Island High show in… 1998? They played with Candiria and Dillinger. Ridiculous.
• About five Tool shirts from the Opiate/Undertow/Aenima era.
• An awesome ISIS shirt that lead to the following exchange between myself and a TSA agent at Newark Airport in 2005 while I was en route to Japan:

[TSA] Heyyyy you work for them?
[Me] …Work for who?
[TSA] I.S.I.S. Industries. I know that company!
[Me] No it’s like a doom band. What does the company make or do?
[TSA] I don’t know I just like the name.

It was sorta weird! Needless to say things would have gone somewhat different if I walked up to TSA with that shirt on today.

Here is the only old one I can find: Failure’s Fantastic Planet. Are they metal? No. But are they heavy? YES. Fantastic Planet still contains some of the catchiest sludge ever recorded. I saw them at the Birch Hill (R.I.P.) in 1996 or ’97. I can’t remember if they opened for Local H or the other way around. But regardless… I didn’t see Local H.

And here’s a newer one. Artificial Brain are one of my favorite bands from the last five years or so. My buddy Bart (Brett Bamberger of Revocation, ex-East of the Wall) gave me a sneak peak before it was released and I was blown away. This shirt was purchased at Saint Vitus probably two or three years ago when Artificial Brain played with Revocation. I bought another one when they played with Dysrhythmia (another band whose shirt I lost) and Zvi (I still have the shirt, but Matt snapped his first) at the Acheron (R.I.P.) maybe two years ago. It’s a standout for me as Dysrhythmia played entirely new songs from their not-yet-released Veil of Control. I didn’t know a single song and it still managed to be incredible. Maybe it was their record release show? MAYBE?! We will never know… no, wait, I just asked Zvi and he said it wasn’t.

East of the Wall will release their new album NP-Complete on March 29 via Translation Loss; pre-order it here.