Just when we thought metal fashion faux pas couldn’t get any worse this year than Varg Vikernes playing a bizarre game of living Stratego in his backyard, here comes the New York Times with an article entitled “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Metal Model” to prove us all wrong.
Seems Moscot, a New York-based eyewear manufacturer, needed subjects for a spring ad campaign its creator describes as “never ‘too cool for school,’ never too witty” (!) and managed to get members of Testament, Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage, Acrassicauda, Anthrax and — yeah, of course — James Durbin axe-slinger Zakk Wylde to mug for the camera in $250 glasses. (What part of the company’s $750,000 per year marketing budget this represents remains a tantalizing mystery…)
“The jest in asking heavy metal musicians — clad in colorful garb, resplendent in copious facial hair and flashing hand signs — to don metal eyeglasses is, of course, meant to draw attention to the campaign,” the Times explains. “To give the ads the proper setting, they were photographed in a heavy metal bar in Williamsburg named Duff’s Brooklyn.”
As priceless as that description is, the reporter’s chat with Matt Heafy of Trivium, who at long last finally gives us a look into his more sensitive, John Lennon-esque offstage persona — seen here in hair and makeup — delivers even more giggles:
Mr. Heafy, a guitar player and singer who is 26, describes his philosophy this way: “Be who you are is always what I think.” He says he will “stick to contacts mostly” when he is out in public, but “offstage I look the way I am, glasses, short hair.”
The experience of appearing in the campaign was “awesome,” says Mr. Heafy, who lives in Orlando, Fla., because, for one thing, he had “never been to Brooklyn.” He jumped at the opportunity to see “the legendary metal bar Duff’s,” he adds, “and meet the Moscot family.” And as a “major food freak, I’ve always known Brooklyn is the epicenter for some of the major food in the United States,” says Mr. Heafy, who writes a food blog, Kiichi Chaos, which refers to his middle name, Kiichi. (And “Chaos” is certainly a good word for a blog by a heavy metal musician, yes?) Mr. Heafy says he was also able to visit “a gourmet greasy spoon diner” in Williamsburg, known as Diner, which he had seen on an episode of “No Reservations” with Anthony Bourdain on Travel Channel…
…Appearing in the ad “was cool, it was very natural,” Mr. Heafy says, adding: “I brought several outfits. I felt I was overly prepared. They said, ‘Wear what you’re wearing right now.’ I wish we could have hung out longer.”
That’s right! Work it son!
Readers can check out the entire runway show here, but first an explanation of the post title via Portlandia (Skip to 3:49, all hail Brownstein):
They help you bring out your wild side.
