Oli Brown’s Black Feather Jewellery

British guitarist Oli Brown of RavenEye and The Dead Collective has a new venture – Black Feather Jewellery, and Neil Jones caught up with him to find out more…

Neil: So I shall hit record. And here we go. This is Neil Jones here for TotalRock catching up with our good friend, Mr. Oli Brown. How are you, sir?

Oli: Hello. Yeah, I’m good. Thanks, mate. How are you doing?

Neil: I’m very well, thanks. Now, listen, we last saw you in the flesh was down at Maid of Stone. But for once, you weren’t on stage. You were actually behind a stool. And it’s something that you and touched on in the last interview that we actually did. You are, of course, as much as you are a musician, you are also a jewellery maker under the name of Black Feather jewellery. And it was amazing because you and I had talked about it previously, but I’d never actually seen the jewellery. And now that I have and our viewers can check it out on our website as well, some amazing intricate pieces there. How did it all start? When was the moment when you thought I might just have a go with this?

Oli: When I was in, when I was I was actually just before lockdown. I had moved into my friend’s spare room and I didn’t have any money. And I was like, I need to do something else. As much as I love music, it’s not really got any money at this point. So it was only really meant to kind of just be something on the side to kind of see if it would work for me. And it just kind of it kind of took off online and I recognized that I could do a lot more with the designs and started pushing it and just seeing what else I could put together. And it’s just been kind of a bit of a whirlwind with the company. It’s been amazing, really, and a lifesaver. It’s, you know, afforded us to make better decisions for the music as well.

Neil: And does it start with the designs? Do you start like a tattooist does? Do you start with paper and pen, for example.

Oli: With Photoshop? Yeah. I can’t draw for the life of me, but I’m really handy with Photoshop. So I start with Photoshop and then I transfer it into making a 3D render of the image. And then that’s how I start. Then we get the wax moulds printed. So that’s how we get like all the detail in the pieces. So it’s been a bit of a learning process because it wasn’t really meant to go as far as this. So it’s been wicked. And now we’re designing pieces for bands and I’ve got I can’t say what they are, but we’ve got some major collabs with huge bands that we’re doing jewellery for now as well.

Neil: Amazing. What I love about it as well is because you are a musician. I mean, you, you know, we’ve talked about the various bands you’ve been in. It’s currently Oli Brown and the Dead Collective. You’ve toured and played with so many artists. You know, you are going to design jewellery that a rock star wants to wear because you’re a rock star yourself. I know it’s a bit of a kind of contentious word, rock star, you know, define rock star. But you know what I mean. You know, the sort of thing that’s going to look good on stage. Are you are you, in a sense, designing for someone like yourself, your own target market?

Oli: 100%. To the point I’m kind of convincing myself to get my ears pierced and a few more piercings now so I can wear some of the pieces. But like, yeah, I think I’ve got a particular thing in mind that I want to see, like I used to. I grow up, grew up obsessed with The Great Frog and Crazy Pig in London. And I just it just kind of thought, actually, there’s something else I can do that they don’t think either of them are really doing in terms of detail and stuff. So I’m like, I’m just trying to find my little spot in the market that I can sit in and say like, we’re working on contacts. We had a huge collaboration with Bloodstock Festival and did a jewellery line for them and which has been just hectic. We did a huge demon skull as well as some smaller pieces, and it’s been, you know, that’s opened up a lot of doors for us. I mean, last year we did a collaboration with Papa John’s Pizza and made a pendant for them, which was surreal. When they contacted me, I thought the email was fake, but we ended up doing a design for them and it became an international campaign for them and which is just ridiculous.

Neil: I mean, something like Bloodstock is a is a great one, isn’t it? I saw some amazing jewellery at Hellfest this year, for example. Very, very coolly made. Once you get something like Bloodstock as well I mean, that has access to tens of thousands of fans, doesn’t it, who will see that get into it, wonder where it came from and then visit your shop I guess.

Oli: Yeah. I mean, because of the Bloodstock collaboration, we managed to get a ring on quite a few of the headliners to Jesse from Killswitch Engage is wearing one of our bracelets and the Bloodstock ring. But we had KK form KKs but also Judas Priest. And he was wearing the rings. We even got Dave Mustaine to wear a ring, which was like and a photo with him with it on, which is just like ridiculous.

Neil: Hope you gave him the invoice afterwards.

Oli:  Yeah.

Neil: Although it is kind of, it’s, it’s a kind of advertising that money can’t buy when someone like Dave Mustaine is, you know, particularly with a photography pit full of like, photographers taking his picture, wearing your jewellery in the shot. Guess, isn’t it?

Oli: It’s pretty. I mean, it’s awesome. I mean, for us right now, like this kind of credibility is given as a huge step up. So now we’re actually doing pieces for bands in particular, which is a real, you know, big milestone for us because I’ve got so many ideas. And at this point, instead of spending money on advertising through other platforms, actually working with bands, because I think right now there’s other ways bands can monetize things. It’s not just CDs, and it’s nice as a musician to be aware of this and be able to help offer something that bands wouldn’t do. Like, you know, usually when you’re ordering t shirts, you have to pay for the whole quantity up front and it’s expensive where because of what the joy is provided with me, I’m offering something with bands where there isn’t an upfront fee and that we figure out a way of working it out so that they don’t have to spend a huge amount of money. But I know that the sales will come through because people want to support bands. So I’m trying to offer just unique things that help bands on the road as well as well as the bigger ones. But the more, you know, the more grassroots bands. I want to do those kind of pieces because I can. And it’s it’s made a huge difference for my touring as well. Like we did a tour with the answer in March and I made more money from my jewellery sales than the CDs because there’s just bigger margins in it.

Neil: Wow, That is incredible. And you know, we’ve talked about the fact that, you know, we saw you at Maid of Stone Festival, for example. There are instances, correct me if I’m wrong here, where you’re booked as an artist and as a kind of person with a merch store that is like a brutal double duty, isn’t it? What’s what’s it like on those days and how many times has that happened?

Oli: Thankfully, it’s only happened so far once, but I plan next year is to do a lot more. But at that point we’ll have we’ve had a member of staff actually for Bloodstock and we’ll have someone in because I did it once, but I had a piece of paper strapped to my chest saying Can’t talk on vocal rest and for the show because I’ll blow my voice out. I get way too carried away talking. And it’s my partner. She’s like, my partner stuck it on me. She was like, there’s no way that you’re having people talk to you, but it’s nice to be able to to do it. It’s been a huge life changer for me and it has granted me a lot of musical freedom to make better choices for myself.

Neil: It’s also nice to see an artist like yourself so accessible. I mean, for some people they can only meet you if they go to a signing for example. But actually you’re happy just to talk as Oli the musician, as you are, as Oli the jeweller at the store, I guess.

Oli:  Yeah. Yeah. It’s working. It’s nice because you get to catch up with friends as well, but also don’t tend to hang around at festivals when we’re playing slots because we usually we’re getting back. We’ve got other things to do. So to actually just be in a festival vibe and, you know, hang out some of them, it’s dog friendly as well. So we take our staffy with us and he hangs out with us and, you know, adds the, you know, the extra buy something from his appeal, having a cute dog in the store.

Neil: Well, listen, final question for you. You talked about wanting to do more collabs with bands. Who’s the dream? Who’s the dream ticket? Is it a Metallica? Is it a Maiden? Who would be the ones?

Oli: Definitely Metallica. Definitely Metallica. I’m working on a few sketches right now to try and make a pitch, but yeah, definitely Metallica.

Neil: Fingers crossed, Sky’s the limit. Well, listen, do you think that there will come a point where the jewellery will eclipse your kind of your personal time, as it were, in terms of that balance between being a musician and being a jeweller? If it’s so successful, would you sort of let it creep up in terms of the amount of time it occupies?

Oli: I think currently that’s what it is at the moment, which is why my partner Hannah is beginning to take over the fundamentals of the business now because I love the jewellery and it’s and it has been amazing. But, you know, I’m a guitarist and I’m a singer and a musician, so we’re working on that transition where because it’s going a bit above me and beyond me. We’re working on bringing in someone else and my partner to start taking care of the company so I can spread my wings a bit more with the music and focus a bit more on that again.

Neil: What a nice problem to have there.

Oli:  Yeah, yeah. It’s a relief, mate. Honestly, after having no money for so long, it’s a relief.

Neil: Well, listen, more power to you, Elbow. We wish you every success. It’s Black  Feather. Where can people go? Is it just blackfeather.com?

Oli: BlackFeatherdesign.co.uk. It’s available all on there.

Neil: And I’ve seen some of the stuff held them in my hand. It’s amazing quality stuff as well. We urge you to go and have a look at it. Listen, good luck with that Metallica pitch. That would be the dream ticket. If you land that one, we’ll have a beer at some point to celebrate it. We’ll toast Lars and James if that happens. But for now, Oli, listen. We’ll catch up with you soon on the road, I’m sure either at a festival stall or on stage. But thanks for chatting to us here on TotalRock.

Oli:  Thank you so much.

View the interview here: