SLAMXHYPE Interviews CVLT Nation

With the latest collection from CVLT Nation releasing in time for winter, I thought it would be a good idea to sit down and talk with husband and wife team Sean Reveron and Meghan MacRae. Based in Los Angeles, the pair have been able to inject their passion in music with their own unique vision and eye for clothing.

James Oliver / Please describe yourself,,,

Meghan MacRae / We are a husband and wife team, Sean Reveron and Meghan MacRae, based in Santa Monica, CA. CVLT Nation is our part-web magazine, part-clothing brand Internet baby. We have spent the last year and a half blogging about everything underground metal and punk, and have become one of the best spots to find new dark and disturbing music and art. We have contributors from all over the world who let us in on what is happening in their countries and cities, and have really helped the blog have an international feel. CVLT Nation clothing is all hand-illustrated by rad artists from around the world, and we wholesale it as well as sell it in our own webstore. We also recently launched a record store on the site, specializing in collectable vinyl and cassettes. We have helped connect communities of like-minded individuals all over the globe to support and share each others’ creations. Our life is awesome.

JO / Can you tell me a bit about your journey to this point of your life?

Sean Reveron / It’s been a long one. We have basically worked together since we met, and have focused on clothing for the most part. I was with RockersNYC for years and brought Meghan on board in 2006. In 2009, we started God’s Prey, a kind of weirdo/dark/psychedelic fashion brand. In 2010, we found out Meghan was pregnant with our daughter Sinead, so we decided to start a project that would allow us to work from home with our baby, and CVLT Nation was born. We were kind of uninspired by the direction streetwear took after the economic collapse, and not really feeling the fashion scene, but whenever we found ourselves at a metal show or festival, we had an amazing time, and realized that we had to make our brand an extension of something we were already passionate about – metal and punk rock. I blogged for Rockers for years, so I knew I wanted to have a blog aspect to the brand, and I have a long history in underground music. It turned out there was a niche to be filled.

JO / Where do you source inspiration from on a daily basis and how has this changed over the years?

SR / Music has always been a huge source of inspiration for me. When I was younger, that meant trolling your local record store, collecting flyers, going to shows and basically word-of-mouth. Today, of course, I have the Internet, which makes it a lot easier to find new music.

MM / I have always had an appreciation for weird and dark imagery and art; it’s something that has fascinated me since I was a kid. Honestly, as much as I hate them, social media sites like Facebook and Tumblr are endless wellsprings of artists. We have linked ourselves together in a way that makes it so easy to discover new people, and I really like featuring artists who haven’t had much, if anything, published yet.

JO / You are heavily linked to the music scene, can you talk about this and what music means to you?

SR / I feel like my life can be mapped out in music, and I have a deep appreciation for almost all forms of music. Name almost any genre and I can tell you the bands I love from it. I was heavily into the SoCal punk/hardcore/metal scenes in the early 80s, dancehall in Jamaica in the late 80s, hip hop in the Bay Area in the 90s, I moved to Britain in the late 90s and made music there, moved to Seattle in the early 2000′s and got into early indie rock. Since punk rock and metal were my first true loves, I have kept them close my whole life, and I have always tried to incorporate them as influences in my clothing brands and in the music I’ve made. With CVLT Nation I feel like I am back home.

JO / Can you please talk about the concept of CVLT NATION?

MM / When we went to the first Power of the Riff in 2010, we had just gotten back from Agenda and were feeling like we didn’t have much in common with the people we met there. Suddenly, we were surrounded by awesome weirdos and positive energy, and we felt like this was where we were supposed to be. So we combined our love for the music and art with what we knew about making clothes and blogging and came up with CVLT Nation. We had already collaborated with the punk/crust artist Doomsday Graphics on a couple of tees for Rockers, and we really enjoyed working with an illustrator who could bring our graphics to life, so we decided to find other artists to work with. We decided to make the brand as much about the art as it was about the clothing, so our clothing became kind of curated collections of artwork. The blog was intended as a place for people to check out the inspiration behind the clothing and the artists who were drawing for us, but we got so much support from artists and bands right off the bat that it’s become something much bigger than we intended. Now we have a place where people really appreciate the music we showcase and the weird shit we’re into, and it’s fucking amazing.

JO / How does the brand represent your own aesthetic and taste?

MM / We love band tees. This is our way of paying homage to that classic and enduring clothing item.

JO / What does the future hold for CVLT NATION?

SR / We have way too many ideas! We just launched our record store, and it’s working out really well for us, so we’re going to grow that. We’re working towards putting on events, art shows and expanding our web content into video and documentaries.

JO / What artists out there are really impressing you at the moment?

MM / Well, we have to give a shout out to the artists that we’ve collaborated with in our collections: Natvres Mortes Illvstration, Rainbath Visual, Viral Graphics, Halseycaust, CHVE of the Church of Ra, Alexander Brown, Cub of the Woods, Daniel Desecrator, Toshihiro Egawa and Elias Tormentor, and of course the photographers we’ve worked with so far, Samantha Marble and Alan Hunter. We have more designs in the works with Maxime Taccardi and Lele Saveri. Otherwise, we are always featuring new art that we find, so you’d have to check out the blog, there’s too many to name.

JO / How has the Internet helped shape your approach as you know today?

SR / Well, it’s made it possible for us to reach people all over the world and feature their work and expand their fan base. Also, it’s given us the priceless opportunity to raise our daughter while we work. I can’t imagine doing this without the Internet.

JO / Finally words to live by…

Prepare for revolution.