Having made its mark on the fashion industry by appropriating the branding which has encroached so deeply (and without consent) into our shared cultural consciousness, Sports Banger revels in taking back agency. Jonny tells BUILDHOLLYWOOD, “I see bootlegging as people reclaiming the logos that have been shoved in their faces.”

The roots of Sports Banger lay in the dance scene, where Jonny hosted raves and on radio station Rinse FM. “Everything I do comes from the sounds,” he explains. And music has remained pivotal. He tells us, “With our fashion shows the music is equally as important as the clothes.” The Colchester born artist was also inspired by his teen years helping print t-shirts for local football teams and knocking about at markets, in sports shops and record stores, and sharing music with friends. Sports Banger is the culmination of this self-confessed raver’s rich cultural heritage along with the community and family in which he was raised. He tells us, “I’m a product of my environment and so is my work.”

As one of the UK’s most active underground artists leading the culture sector’s philanthropy, his background in music and his work in the community are inextricably linked. “If you can throw a rave you can organise a food bank,” he claims. Sports Banger’s now-iconic ‘NHS Nike’ t-shirt – brazenly appropriating Nike’s ubiquitous logo – was re-released in 2020 amid the Covid-19 lockdown. This seminal garment seems to embody the brand’s irreverent sense of humour, community-minded sensibility, and steal-from-the-rich attitude. With all profits going to a vital programme to feed healthcare workers and low-income families, demand for the t-shirts was huge and images of the design went viral online, despite legal threats from the government.

Since making his first t-shirt back in 2013 (baring the slogan ‘Free Tulisa’ in support of the N-Dubz singer being hounded by the British tabloid press), Jonny’s vision and his practice as an artist have gathered huge, rapid momentum. The new Maison de Bang Bang studio is not simply a fashion label, it’s evolved into a record label, publishing house, and artist’s studio with an “insane” sound system. Jonny admits, ”We’ve accidentally built a nightclub.”

In March 2020, they invited children across the country to deface the official letter sent from Boris Johnson to households across the UK. Conceived as a way of allowing kids to express their feelings about lockdown and to encourage a healthy disrespect for the powers that be, the project evolved into an exhibition when Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremey Deller offered to help put the letters on display. Accordingly, <em>’The Covid Letters: A Vital Update </em>opened at London Foundling Museum later that year. “It was amazing all the kids seeing their own work hanging,” Jonny recalls. “I’ve never experienced an atmosphere like it in a gallery or museum. Strangers were talking to each other like the smoking area at a rave and the place was full of hope, good energy, and laughs.”

Over the years, Sports Banger has taken their own guerilla approach to promotion. “I’ve had quite a few billboards before but I nicked them all and made the adverts my own for the cost of £10 at the printers and a bit of paste,” he tells us. Now, in collaboration with BUILDHOLLYWOOD as part of the Your Space Or Mine project, Sports Banger will appear with total legitimacy on multiple billboards in cities across the UK. The striking compositions of imagery and text are a celebration of their new studio, Maison de Bang Bang, as well as a tribute to art, music, and fashion on our streets as we come out of lockdown. Jonny says, “I hope the billboards make people smile or piss people off. All the emotions.”

In the wake of these exciting new developments in the Sports Banger story, we spoke to Jonny Banger about what inspires him to keep creating, community-building, and the allure of bootlegging culture. Read the full interview here.