Type Private Genre Clothing, lifestyle | Industry Apparel/Retail Founded 1997 | |
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Headquarters Carlsbad, California, United States | ||
Metal Mulisha is an American lifestyle clothing brand that was created in 1997 by Brian Deegan and Larry Linkogle. Metal Mulisha Inc. products are sold at various retail stores and company owned stores. It also offers Metal Mulisha energy drinks under the same brand in a joint venture with Rockstar. The company currently employs about 450 people. The Metal Mulisha Monster Jam Monster Truck was debuted in 2012 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, TX.
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Clothing
Metal Mulisha T-shirts were fashionable among youth in the 2000s. The shirts often feature existential slogans or quotes that tout the virtues of extreme sports.
In 2010, the Murrieta Valley Unified School District banned Metal Mulisha clothing at its schools, due to graphics resembling Nazi symbols and iconography. Some graphics appearing on Metal Mulisha's clothing line include a skull wearing a helmet resembling one worn by German soldiers in World War II, while on the company’s logo, the “S” in “Mulisha” is represented graphically by a lightning bolt that resembles the double lighting bolts insignia of the Nazi major paramilitary organization Schutzstaffel, or SS.
Rabbi Barry Ulrych, of the B’nai Chaim of Murrieta synagogue, regarding the images appearing on Metal Mulisha products, stated “People say it’s just a fashion — it’s more than that — it’s an identity...These symbols are not as neutral as one might think. Symbols can hurt, and some symbols are intimidating...With this symbolism, they are glorifying the Nazi past. You can’t go through life being ignorant of symbols.”
In a letter, the company countered with the statement “Metal Mulish founders and riders are devout Christians, espousing those values prized in the religious community." Still, Metal Mulisha T-shirts maintain some popularity in the 2010s. One of their more popular T-shirts contain the slogan "Ass, Cash, or Grass...Nobody Rides For Free".