They can make people laugh, cry, smile, and even vomit up their lunch. Band t-shirts have become a staple of heavy metal culture since day one, and its a trend that has only gained strength over the years. Whether you intend to offend or just plain support your favorite band, the standard metal t-shirt is some what of a uniform for all metal heads. Here are just a couple of shirts that I can easily call my favorites.

Cradle of Filth

Vestal Masturbation

This is the one that turned all the heads, and caused parents eyeballs to pop out of their skull. COF is known for their ingenious, humorous, and downright demented merchandise, but this one takes the cake.

Faith No More

Happy Birthday

Lots of bands try to make a statement by using lines from a song on their merchandise, but here we have a much more direct approach thanks to the sadistic sarcasm of Faith No More.

Mastodon

Rasputin

Type O Negative has another great shirt bearing the bearded bastard, but this one is just wicked creatively captivating. Especially how the design incorporates the band name into the beard.

Danzig

White Skull

Long before the internet exposed his unique behavior, you couldn’t travel far in the metal world without seeing this black and white shirt plastered everywhere.

Type O Negative

Just Say Yes

Its a shame that so many of Type O Negative’s shirts have become lost relics. Much like the band and the music, they all depicted a glorious sense of insulting sarcasm. Thankfully this one is still around to promote their message of self contamination.

Pantera

Rattlesnake Skull

As far as Im concerned you would be very hard pressed to find a bad Pantera shirt. They all feature a slaughtering amount of sex, skulls, snakes, and shredding to satisfy all of your sadistic cravings.

Alice In Chains

Check My Brain

It always puts a smile on my face to see an Alice In Chains shirt these days. Not only because its a great band, but it reminds me of a time when heavy music was in its glory days. Thankfully the newer incantation of this band has continued to do a stellar job at keeping the legacy in tact for future generations.

Guns N Roses

Pistol Logo

I’ll admit its somewhat annoying seeing these shirts in “high end” fashion stores used to dress up a vintage hipster before a night of cappuccino and irony. However, its always a solid reminder that this band did in fact exist at one point. Something that seems to be harder and harder to believe the more we see and hear of whatever it is you call that thing on stage with Axl Rose these days.

Dream Theater

Scenes From A Memory

Shirts also have the ability to help us communicate with each other. Case in point, this Dream Theater shirt tells me that the person wearing would provide adequate conversation being as how this is one of my favorite albums of all time.