No Music On A Dead Planet Climate Support T-Shirt

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I’m no expert on this stuff, but obviously Fay and Nigel know an awful lot about it. But on a personal level, I’m a father and I have two daughters. Before having kids I was probably oblivious to a lot and I didn’t think about much that went on, drifting through life like a typical 20-something-year-old. But having my children made me view the world differently – as cheesy as that sounds. When they asked me to do the work on this, I thought, ‘Finally, I can work on something that contributes to something that matters.’ Music Declares Emergency founder Fay Milton of Savages in a new No Music On A Dead Planet t-shirt. Credit: Press

It was the afternoon of the BRIT Awards, I was recording a podcast with him expecting to hear about what outrageous suit he’d be wearing to the ceremony in London that evening. Instead, conversation turned to the existential danger posed by the climate and ecological emergency. It was exactly the type of conversation – a mix of desperate frustration and stubborn optimism – I’ve had with numerous musicians recently. Summing things up, Simon said: “Things have changed, and we need to wake up… We need to do so much more. Me and my band need to figure out ways so that we’re not contributing anything to that.”Not even NFTs (non-fungible tokens) escape this debate. These pieces of one-of-a-kind digital content – everyone from Slipknot to Mike Shinoda to Poppy have got in on the act – also have a negative impact on the environment. The cryptocurrencies used to buy and sell them create planet-heating emissions – one piece of analysis, reported by The Verge, estimated the average NFT has a carbon footprint equivalent to a month’s worth of electricity usage for a standard person in the EU. READ MORE: Savages’ drummer and Music Declares Emergency co-founder Fay Milton on climate change: “Music needs to get real”

Then I got to work with Metallica on posters and T-shirts, which has been a real honour. In 2019 I was on the guestlist when they played Manchester and it was surreal to see my artwork on their shirts behind on the merch stand. My wife was like, ‘Oh, my god, look there’s a person wearing one of your shirts! And there’s another one! And another!’ It all culminated in that really, because they’re one of my favourite bands and they’re the band that really got me into metal.” Peter Saville has redesigned his iconic artwork for Joy Division‘s ‘Unknown Pleasures’ for a new t-shirt to raise funds for Music Declares Emergency’s No Music On A Dead Planet.Recycled’ vinyl is available quite commonly – it’s the offcuts from the process of making LPs,” explains Nigel Adams from independent label Full Time Hobby. “It isn’t massively more expensive and is cheaper than some of the colour variants – plus, you can get random colour-ways.” For more information on the Music Declares Emergency Turn Up The Volume campaign and this week’s events visit here. They have to act responsibly and the more pressure we can put on them to do that, the better. We need a safer, fairer, greener world.” Ultimately, Milton said that her dream was for “the music industry as a whole to really take a moment to take on board the real world situation that we’re in”.

These last couple of years, I’m getting to do these really cool jobs. ‘We saw your work on a Metallica T-shirt’ and things go from there. So the work I do with bands gets seen by other industries. ‘The art director of the game is a massive Metallica fan and he wonders if you’d design a skateboard’. They find me online and ask me things like that and, my long-winded answer, is that I love it all the same. If it’s a fun project, then I’m up for it.” The music industry might just be one corner of the gigantic super-structure that is the climate crisis, but it has huge influence to inspire the action that’s needed. So don’t be disheartened. Complain, shout, protest. You can do your bit, but also don’t let our leaders and big business owners get away with not doing what’s required. It’s your future in their hands. We all want to still be enjoying our favourite bands in decades to come. There’s no music on a dead planet, after all. Most importantly, she urged all festival-goers staying for the full weekend to take their tents and camping equipment home with them. In terms of speaking out on climate issues, the Number One prize has to go to Billie Eilish because she just continues to champion the cause and that’s what it takes to get the message across,” said Milton. “If you really want to change something, you have to keep going at it. I fully respect Billie for what she and her family have been doing. It’s not a fad for her.With regards to education, I went to art college in Birmingham and I gave up. I’m not sure that’s the best bit of advice, but I gave up because a job as a graphic designer came up and I wanted to learn from that and make money. There was never a hard and fast rule, or a grand plan. It was because I was into stuff. I felt that I was willing to learn and I figured that if I was into what I was doing, things would go somewhere and that’s what’s happened.” Yeah. I started there around 2004 and I worked there for about nine years whilst playing in bands. I was commuting from Birmingham to Oxford every day and then playing gigs at night, and not really sleeping. This was when I was a lot younger and I still had energy! I was always into the metal scene and I wanted to tap into that still by doing gig posters. Then I left 2000 AD and started working in video games. I did bits of concept art for video games while continuing with my own art. Every artist’s goal is to be able to do what they want to do. Now I’ve got to a point where I am able to do that.