On No Tags 25, we meet Jonny Banger: T-shirt hustler,
avant-bootlegger, visionary rabble-rouser, DJ battle champ and
bossman of the anarchic anti-fashion brand Sports
Banger.
From a certain angle, it can seem like the clothes are the main
event at Sports Banger, from the original Free Tulisa tee and
bootlegged NHS logos to wearable inflatables and a Chanel toilet
seat headpiece. Naturally, Jonny has been asked a lot of
questions in previous interviews about his designs and his
philosophical take on bootlegs and infringement. But there’s
another side to the Banger story that hasn’t been excavated:
obviously, the music.
Flipping through Sports Banger: Lifestyles of the Poor, Rich and
Famous, the book that charts the first decade of the project, you
can find musical references on almost every page: pilfered record
label logos, Skepta in a postie’s hi-viz jacket, descriptions of
his studio’s fine-tuned sound systems, playlists of tunes that
inspired the Sports Banger runway shows, and even allusions to
Jonny’s previous life in the UK rap scene.
We invited Jonny to go deep into the musical side of his story,
from tape packs to free parties to the “shit mix jar” that
collected fines in the first Sports Banger studio. He told us
about his teenage years as a scratch DJ, his previous life as a
club booker on Brick Lane, his ravey links with Swamp 81, School
Records, Shangri-La and his own Heras label, and how he finally
fell in love with free parties. And, most exciting for our
resident KLF dweeb, he gave us a hint of what to expect from
Sports Banger’s forthcoming collaboration with K2 on the People’s
Pyramid.
It’s been a wild ride, and he’s got the stories to prove it.
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