RKL (Rich Kids On LSD)

I was 17 when I first heard RKL. The Mystic stuff. My buddy Avery Holmes played them for me. You could tell they were a cut above a lot of the hardcore punk coming out of California at the time. Also, the name. Rich Kids on LSD. If that didn’t pique your interest, what would?

When Rock n Roll Nightmare came out, it became apparent that they’d taken things, not just to another level, but to the exosphere. My bandmate Trevor Lanigan and I sat around with friends listening to that record over and over for months. Our band My Name was supposed to play with them in 1987 in Bremerton, WA, but a snowstorm wrecked it. We’d have to wait until the early 90s to catch RKL at the Off Ramp in Seattle. Well worth the wait: they absolutely destroyed. Later, Trevor and I met Chris Rest and Dave Raun when our band Wretch Like Me toured with Lagwagon in 1999. I didn’t meet Joe and Barry until many years after that, and I never had the chance to meet Bomer or Jason (which sucks.)

If you’d told me in the 80s that I’d end up singing for this band, I would have laughed (and kept laughing), but that’s exactly what happened in 2025, almost 40 years after I heard them for the first time. I really wish Trevor was still around to see it, because he would have been so stoked; but Avery’s seen us four times since I joined, which is quite a full-circle moment.

Playing in this band demands re-experiencing the visceral joy and rage I first felt when listening to hardcore punk as a teenager. Turns out the fire still burns hot, and humanity continues to be a disaster. So there’s still ample raison d’être for hardcore.

The art elements for this shirt consist of a hand-drawn logo and a variation of the artwork I did for the cover of All Washed Up But Still Stinkin’: The Lost 90s Demos—the 10” vinyl LP put out by The Punk Rock Museum. It’s one of the few (only?) RKL shirt designs not to feature Dan Sites’s Beanie Boy—an iconic character, if ever there was one—but it’s got its own vibe going on. Namely, hallucinogenic. Why is everything melting, man? I don’t know—probably cuz the world’s on fire? And we’re doomed? But don’t let that wipe the grin off your face. Keep it. -Abe Brennan/ RKL

LIMITED TO 300. Printed on American Apparel 1301 Tees.