Behind the Merch: John Hoffman of Weekend Nachos
Trendy and fashionable
Weekend Nachos played their final show in January 2017, but just last week, the band launched a new webstore. I caught up with singer John Hoffman to learn more, and to discuss the deep archive of stellar Nachos merch and design.
Hi, John. Why launch a webstore now? Is Weekend Nachos reuniting?
Haha, nope, not reuniting. This all started when we found out that numerous sites all across the internet were bootlegging Nachos merch, a lot of them inventing their own designs that we never even made before, and making money off selling them. We had an “official” merch store post-breakup, but it wasn’t really attracting much attention or keeping up with available stock, so people started buying from all these bootleggers. We figured if people still want our shit, then that money should go to us. We like money just as much as anybody – if we earned the credibility that is ultimately selling this merch, then we should receive those benefits as well.
I feel like it would be hard to make a convincing WN bootleg. You had some really grim and negative designs, but you also had playful, funny designs. And they all seemed to fit under the same umbrella. Did you come up with the graphics/ideas? How did you approach it?
The ideas were mostly mine, but a few of the more ridiculous ones were a group effort. I just always wanted our merch to represent a few different sides of the band. Some of our ideas were very dark and hateful, but we also didn’t take most things all that serious, so I figured why not have some funny shit too. With Weekend Nachos, you always knew you could get one or the other, and that’s what kept it fun. I think my favorite goofy design we did was the picture of me on it that just said “Barack Obama” under it.
I had the Punish and Destroy tour shirt with your dad on the front. It's kind of an unnerving shirt unless you know the identity of the guy, and then it's funny. I always loved that.
When you started making graphics for the band—that first logo, the demo and Torture covers, the “Defeat the Christian Right” shirt—who or what were your influences? Had you done art for your older bands, or was this new to you?
It was definitely new to me. I remember getting an outdated copy of Photoshop from a friend – I actually still use it on my old laptop when I need to make a layout. It’s VERY outdated, but yeah, I just started designing our shirts and albums. The designs were so crappy that they were awesome. I know it sounds vague, but that’s the only way I can describe it. The Weekend Nachos logo was originally drawn in MS Paint, and it looked pretty bad. I specifically remember thinking, “how can I make this look even more crappy so it’s hilarious,” so I blew it up real big and it was all pixelated and looked like a Nintendo graphic, which I actually thought was cool, but it looked so fucking shitty. I think when it came to Weekend Nachos, almost everything we did had this blissfully careless vibe to it. It took us way further than you’d ever imagine it would.
As the band grew, did you find yourself working with graphic designers/art directors? Your Relapse packaging is very well done. The Apology booklet, to me, is as good as it gets. Super professionally executed but still true to the band’s early chaotic, DIY spirit.
Yes and no. I’ve always designed everything Weekend Nachos has ever done, including all of the LP layouts. The Apology booklet was super time consuming and fun to execute! But Relapse was very helpful with the CD layouts. What I’d do is email their design guy all of the artwork I made for the LP version, and he would put together a CD layout from that. So with Relapse it was a joint effort. But all the LP layouts you see in the Deep Six vinyl were done independently by me.
Switching gears, it’s no secret that 2020 is a shitshow. Through the end of July, WN is donating all proceeds from merch sales to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and My Block, My Hood, My City. Say more about that.
So originally, we wanted to do this store for two reasons – 1: because of the bootlegged merch like I mentioned before, and 2: because if people want to buy our shit, well, none of us are exactly living it up these days, we could use that fuckin’ money! Then after George Floyd was murdered, a lot of America, including us, finally “woke up” to what has been going on since centuries ago and a lot of protests started happening, lots of awareness spread, and lots of donations to the cause. Our perspective on “needing that money” changed overnight, basically. Sure, we could still use that money because none of us are rich, but to pass up an opportunity to use our platform to do as much as we can to support change right now, as well as influence others to do the same, well, we just can’t pass it up, that’s the point. That money is now going to charities relevant to Black Lives Matter because we believe that’s where the money should go.
It seems like every WN release has a handful of overtly "political" songs to balance the misanthropic and self-loathing material – "Equal Rights," "Klan Scouts," "Dog Shit Slave," etc.. You've also got songs that call out people who use politics to climb the social ladder or advance some sort of agenda – "Suburban Voice," "Black Earth," "Apolitical," etc.. And one of your most direct songs about destroying the American political system is called "Fake Political Song."
Can you talk about your relationship to politics and "political" music? How do all of these things–raising money for a cause, selling goofy t-shirts, singing about "worldwide destruction"–coexist? I could see it challenging some fans of the band.
That’s a very good question. The truth is, I didn’t have a specific agenda for WN. So you’re absolutely correct when you acknowledge we had all kinds of different topics in our songs. Some of them were political, some were socially conscious, honestly some were straight up goofy – “Snowball Fight,” “Toothpaste,” “Freddy Krueger” to name a few. We all have a bunch of different sides to our personality and, I think, a plethora of things to say. We don’t choose to say all of those things we think and feel but with Weekend Nachos, I basically did. There was never any motivation to be strictly political, or hateful, or goofy, or even ignorant at times. I just wanted to be raw and unhinged. Even when you read the lyrics to “Toothpaste,” there’s just no holding back. I will admit, I think our “political” songs are the weakest, lyrically. We didn’t take our message seriously enough to pull those off, in my opinion. But a healthy balance is achieved in a song like “Black Earth,” which is not political, it’s just about killing members of Greenpeace for annoying me on my way to work.
Let’s turn to more important things. What current band has the best merch? And what defunct band has the best merch?
Man, I’ll be honest, I hate merch! I don’t ever praise a band for their merch. I think I always felt merch was just another way to 1: sell shit on tour in order to keep us afloat, and 2: joke around. That’s why we never took it super seriously, but to be honest, I don’t care about merch at all! I do really like my Gauze shirts though, I have a few of them.
So what’s next for you and everybody else in Weekend Nachos? Catch me up to speed.
Hmm well, after Nachos broke up I was still drumming for Spine and also doing Ledge – both of which are no longer active. I’m working on recording a new doom/sludge project at home in basement, and also doing vocals in a new band called SAWBLADE – Japanese hardcore influenced punk like Bastard and Death Side. As for the others, Drew and Andy still play in Like Rats, and I honestly haven’t kept track of whatever else they’re doing, you’d probably have to ask them! Weekend Nachos will likely never play again but at the same time, crazier things have happened. For example, Donald Trump became our president.
Photo by Peter Nelson
Great interview