The Death Grip Clothing Story...

Death Grip Clothing is a Hard Rock/Heavy Metal lifestyle brand based out of the "Southside" of Chicago, IL. Also know as "The Underground Alternative", Death Grip Clothing is the go to clothing company for the Chicago “underground” or “hardcore” style and attitude. Before we were all of that, we started off with an idea and a dream....

I started the company in 2008 in my Uncle’s garage in Oak Forest, IL, a south suburb of Chicago. I had recently moved in with my Uncle and had no job or form of income. i had $246 dollars to my name. I had just left another small clothing company that i helped to build and new what sort of money selling clothes could bring in. Only difference was this time I didn’t have enough start up cash to have the shirts printed up. So i took the last $246 dollars to my name and spent 40 hrs the following week teaching myself to screen print.

All that was left now was a name. i never forgot a conversation i had about a year before with one of my best friends, Tom Biggs (the baddest fucking tattoo artist in Chicagoland). We were talking about cool names for a clothing company. He said, “what about Death Grip?”  I wasn’t to keen on it at first. I didn’t feel it would appeal to everyone. That would change dramatically in the next year as it would grew on me. At some point i said, “Fuck the masses. It’s a badass name.”

After all the names I came up with, I kept coming back to Death Grip. So finally i asked him, “You ever gonna do anything with that name? Can I have it?” He said, “I’m not going to do anything with it. Take it.” i added “Clothing” to the end of it and Death Grip Clothing was born.

It was right around this time that I started to date my current girlfriend and business partner, Brooke Gilmartin. If it wasn't for Brooke none of this would have been possible. We moved the operation from My Uncle’s garage to Brook’s basement. She invested a few thousand dollars into some new screen printing equipment and we began the grueling task of trying to improve our printing techniques. It took a lot of weekends and fucking up a lot of  shirts, but we finally started making some good looking shirts!!

After spending a few months learning to print the hard way and messing up Brooke’s basement a bit, it was time to move our growing operation once again to another friends, Reid Specht’s garage. it was also time for me to go back to work. I got a pretty good job working for Redbox servicing dvd vending machines. Before I started working for Redbox I was pretty broke and sleeping on a friends couch that I had been friends with since high school, Kris “Hazzy” Hazdra. We‘ve been friends for about 12 years. Him and his old man, “Richie Boy” have saved my ass more then once when I didn’t have a place to stay. A debt that I can never repay.

I was promoted at Redbox within 3 months from a merchandiser to a lead technician. This meant company phone, company car, gas card, laptop, the works. I got back on my feet pretty quick. After I was promoted Brooke and I got a place and moved in together. Once again moving our printing base of operations to our apartment (Yep...we were printing shirts out of the apartment).

At this time I was working 60 hrs a week at Redbox. So there was no time to print t-shirts. We had just booked a tattoo convention which would be our largest show to date. So it was time to find a printer. i heard a graphic designer friend of mine, Joe Quade, was working at a print shop. I got in touch with him and went over some design ideas. In probably the single smartest move i had made to date, I asked him to design a new logo for us. The Death Grip Clothing brand was officially born!

The tattoo convention was a complete success! Hazzy had helped Brooke and i prepare for the entire event. He helped set up the booth and sell shirts all weekend long. After the weekend was over, he made it clear that he wanted to be a part of this. We weren’t in any position to pay anyone to help us. So without hesitation we asked him to come in and be 1/3 owner of Death Grip Clothing in exchange for his hard work and dedication. He would also bring in an artistic expertise when it comes to screen printing from his years of being a Union Painter. Soon after, Hazzy and i left our jobs and decided to move forward and put 100% into Death Grip. We cleared out a back room in Hazzy’s house and moved our print shop once again and began to not only print for ourselves, but also print for other people.

We began to sponsor a local MMA company, Cut Throat MMA, which gave us a booth to sell at there events. Before we could blink we needed more help selling at shows and printing for other customers. A close friend of ours, Nasser “Nas” Khatib, showed interest in investing in Death Grip Clothing. We soon worked out a deal that would make Nas 1/4 owner of Death Grip Clothing and giving us the extra hand we needed. Nas not only brought to the table his expertise in accounting, but also the first band that we would endorse, Janus.  Janus had just released there first album to HUGE success and would help increase our exposer nationwide.

With all the pieces of the puzzle in place, Death Grip Clothing and our sister company Elite Pro Screen Printing have doubled in size in 2010. 90% of the clothes bought from us are designed and hand printed by one of us. We’re by no means “raking in the dough”, but we’re rich in self gratification. We all live certain lifestyles to continue to work at making our dream of running a successful clothing company and print shop a reality. We all make scarifies on a daily basis to further Death Grip Clothing and Elite Pro Screen Printing. The future is what you make of it. If you believe in something enough, anything is possible. We’re living proof...

Thanks For The Support,

Above: Death Grip Clothing Logo

Below: First two shirt designs with new logo

President

Death Grip Clothing

Death Grip Clothing Owners, Summerfest 2010, Milwaukee, WI

Left to right: Jay Jensen, Brooke Gilmartin, Nasser Kahtib, and Kris Hazdra