Dark humor sickos from vegan straight edge Satan powerviolence band ACxDC have decided to change their name. Now called ACxDCx, the Southern California mob will be continuing into the rest of the year with more impressive, grindcore’ish assaults and probably dozens of new merch items, which they are hated* for all around the world.
The band commented:
Yo…were playing with 7 Seconds Thursday! New band name too. Not sure if we pronounce the x’s. Were just adding letters now.
Why hated*? Read this cool feature and simply google it if you’re hungry for more.
Today, a big part of what makes the group who they are is their merch. They’ve sold everything from a ski mask with the medieval symbol for Lucifer to baby bibs and prayer candles. The band’s most controversial item? iPhone cases. “We made 12 and sold them at cost,” Amalfitano says. “People were pissed.” (Apparently iPhones aren’t punk.)
Amalfitano conceptualizes and commissions the merch himself; he prefers gear that’s useful to both straight-edge and non–straight-edge kids alike. “We make cozies, because you can use those for beer and soda. I wouldn’t make an ashtray, but I’d make an incense burner that could double as an ashtray.” He gets all of ACxDC’s merch from a screen-printing company, Grimoire Printing in San Fernando, which he owns with his brother-in-law and where he works full-time.
ACxDC’s goods for sale are part of the reason Internet detractors groups complain that the band is all style and no substance. Ill-informed haters speculate that they’re getting rich off merch, but all of the group members still work day jobs. In fact, they run a brisk merch business in part so that they don’t have to get corporate sponsorship, like so many other groups these days.
“DIY is why a lot of people get into punk,” Amalfitano says.
In any case, they certainly don’t mind the misconceptions. “Punk-rock bands are supposed to piss normal people off,” Felix says. “If you’re a punk band pissing off punks, you’re doing something right.” / LA Weekly
Top photo by xmdmx.
