Evolution
All of my life I have heard that the older you get the faster time passes and I am starting to understand that more and more. 2022 will be ML Screenprinting’s 10 year anniversary and it’s hard to grasp how so much time has passed. Let’s start from the beginning.
Since I can remember, I always wanted to be in bands. In 2003 my mother got me a drum set for Christmas and it began my obsession with being in a band that would stay until this day. It’s something no matter where I’m at in life, I will always have in the back of my mind. Without being in a band I wouldn’t be who I am today. I sure as hell wouldn’t be printing shirts.
Getting merchandise as a band is a lifeline to building up the business side. To have a van, to get to shows, or to even think about touring- you have to be able to take merch serious. I feel like a lot of bands, especially younger bands, have yet to grasp that merch offsets costs to be able to keep the machine rolling that allows for a band to tour.
My first time getting merch was in 2004 when I got 1 inch buttons off of a friend in Indiana, PA. Dave Anderson played in the band Above this Fire and I remember being nervous to enquire about merch. Simply put, he was where I wanted to be. Later on we became friends, then band mates and looking back its funny to think I was nervous to talk to Dave.
Getting merch, for me, was always incredibly exciting and I remember the first time realizing that if we sold all of the buttons that we could buy double the amount the next time… if we didn’t spend the profits. It’s all about building that side of things up…
Okay, fast forward- now it’s 2011 and I have been in 6-8 bands. I have toured the East Coast and Midwest countless times. Gas prices in the previous years were at an all time high, which had me concerned that I would not be able to make my dreams of touring full time come to fruition. To combat the rising prices (which resonates today even more than then) was to start printing my own merchandise. I figured if we could print a shirt for $2, instead of getting them done for $5 a piece, that would allow me to keep going. At this time I was singing in the band Forbearance with Dave and went to Cleveland to record for the weekend. The guitarist LT, from Above this Fire, came to visit and we started talking. He works for a larger screen printing company in Cleveland and explained one of his friends made him a press he was getting rid of and it sparked my interest. LT sold me the press for $50, I took it home and had no idea what I was even looking at. Today, there is so much content out there to learn about screen printing, but at this time it was in the early days of Ryonet and Cat Spit, which are the two first YouTubers who tackled explaining the screen printing process. I binge watched both of them for years and obsessed over the whole industry. When I find something that actually holds my attention I think about it almost to a point where it’s unhealthy. It’s a slippery slope with me. Blame ADHD or my father, he is exactly the same way.
A month or so after I got the press I was still looking at it every day not understanding what to do to get started. I honestly thought I could get the inks locally. I had no reason to believe it would be so hard to print a shirt. It is both easy and incredibly hard to screen print. It sounds like a contradiction but there is really no way else to explain it. I’ve seen friends print simple designs on a kitchen table without a press that look fine. I’ve also seen huge shops with the best equipment let stuff out that, in my honest opinion, looks like junk.
Anyway, after a month I started looking around for printing equipment for sale. At this time I realized the similarities between the used screen printing market and the used music equipment market. Both are flooded with people either flipping gear, or simply dumping it for half cost or less. This is something that blends the two together for me because I have bought and sold equipment basically since I started playing music in 2003.
One day I realized I haven’t played drums in months and decided to sell my cymbals for $800. A few days after, I found someone on craigslist in Philly selling a whole screen printing kit for the same amount, so I met them halfway and got it not realizing that was the first day I started the process of working for myself. Looking back, I am shocked I got the setup to work as well as I did. I guess everyone has to start somewhere. It made me quit printing 5-6 times out of pure frustration because the equipment half worked. The ink was older, the screens needed tossed, and let’s not even get started on the press.
At this same time I asked my Grandma if I could take over my Grandpa’s garage who passed away a few years prior, not knowing that he ran extension cords instead of regular electric wire inside of the walls to the outlets. After using the equipment for 3-4 hours at a time, we started smelling a hot burning smell. That was the pleasant smell of the building getting ready to burn down. After that I moved to a different building. One that was less likely to have extension cords in the wall.
Writing this is not simple because there are so many details I could add that would make this post the size of a novel, but I wanted to focus heavily on the beginning of my story. Sometimes the hardest part about achieving any goal is getting started and for me there is nothing closer to the truth. I also have a lot of people seeing my business now who never knew how I got my start. I have an incredibly hard time concentrating but when something grabs my attention I 100% go all in. I don’t know if it’s how I’m made up mentally, but its both frustrating and a blessing. I never furthered my education after high school, but my obsession with screen printing, more than likely, had me spend more time researching than some college educations. When I would print before tours in those early years, I would obsess over the obstacles that I went through. This allowed me to problem solve and regroup before I got home and had to start the process over. If I wasn’t driving I was in the back watching screen printing videos or reading blogs.
Looking back at the past 10 years makes me realize how much I have to be grateful for. A great team who helps me navigate something that was built from nothing. My whole family who has truthfully been my backbone in all of this. It also makes me realize how many people have a dream that is completely obtainable but, are just having a hard time getting started.
Mike