Justin Tranter: My name is Justin Tranter. I’m lead singer of Semi Precious Weapons, and I have a jewelry line called Fetty of Brooklyn. It’s fucked up and pretty together.  

Chief Magazine: You sing in a rock band and make jewelry.  Which is your main passion?

Justin Tranter: The music is definitely the main passion. The jewelry started out actually as being merchandise and for the first Semi Precious Weapons show ever, which was like a year and a half ago. We didn’t have a CD yet and I kinda had t-shirts, but I’d worked in jewelry stores before, so I knew where to go to find stuff to make good necklaces. And the band logos, like the gun and the heart, I knew where to find the gun and the heart charms. So I just did that and they started selling like crazy and people loved it, and I ended up selling it to Urban Outfitters like two months later, and they bought huge amounts of it and now it’s at Hot Topic...

I had a company called Fetty that would put on events and stuff, so it just kinda said Fetty Presents Precious Weapons Jewelry inspired by NYC garage band Semi Precious Weapons. Then my mother, who’s an engagement ring designer, helped me make the first designs like in real metals and in stones and everything. And all the precious materials, like fourteen carat gold and diamond versions, I sold to Barney’s, so it’s been at Barney’s for a while. And now the line at Barney’s ... kind of exists on its own outside of the band, but obviously the cross-promotion helps and everything.  We turned down like two major label deals at this point, and we were still able to make a huge production record with Tony Visconti all from money I made on the jewelry. So I got to become my own label because I accidentally became a jewelry designer.

Which came about because you didn’t have a record to sell at the shows. That’s pretty wild. So how does that work with Urban Outfitters and Hot Topic? Did they come across your stuff at the show, did you contact them?

I track them down.  I have gotten such a good response from it all.  I sold it first to a few small boutiques in New York. Actually, my friendTommy’s business partner was working at a store in the East Village. So I went and sold it there, and the day I dropped it off he sold four or five necklaces, and I was like, “there’s definitely something here.” That’s when I started to approach Urban Outfitters. They were the first. And then Hot Topic and then Barney’s.

And Barney’s came because you approached them as well?

Exactly. Tracked ‘em down.

You said your mom was an engagement ring designer?

Yeah. She started making jewelry when I was ten and kinda had a small line that her and her friend tried to sell at trade shows, and it never went well, but she made beautiful, beautiful really expensive engagement rings, and then kinda got known for that and just does it basically based on referral. She only does like ten to fifteen rings a year, but when they’re massive diamonds it ends up being a good time.

I guess she was obviously very pleased when you were like, “Mom, can you help me?”

Oh, she was thrilled. Especially because then, when it ended up in Barney’s, she helped me make up the first samples and within three weeks I had an order placed at Barney’s.  She was so excited because she’s been doing this now for fifteen years, so to finally see something that she worked on in stores and in magazines, she was pretty psyched.

So it’s been about just a year and a half now?

A year and a half. It all just blew up. The Barney’s stuff is getting bigger and bigger and the Hot Topic and Urban Outfitters is slowing down a bit, but that’s fine. Hopefully when the record comes out it’ll pick up. But it blew up really huge at first, and now I’ve kind of found a good spot where I can manage all of it.   There was a while there I couldn’t do anything. We still played shows but we were playing a show a month and that was it because I was sitting here making jewelry every day.

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And you were making each piece by hand?

Yeah. Some of the pieces I would buy, like I would buy this piece, but we would nail a hole through it and get it plated. [shows jewelry] This is what ended up at Hot Topic. Those are the new Zodiac that are going to Barney’s. Those are all real diamonds in there.

Do you place these?

I do not set them. I have them set. I don’t trust myself to set diamonds. But this is all the stuff. Ten thousand of these went to Hot Topic.  Obviously I didn’t make this, so I designed it and had that piece made and it gets shipped to me, but I still punch the holes in the card, put the chain on the card, and put the piece on the chain. There were still like six people here working for three weeks putting those together.

So it seems that these days success is dependent on cross-promotion.

Well, records just don’t sell. We actually made the official decision a few weeks ago to not even sell the record. The record will be given out for free.

Always, everywhere?

Maybe not always, but definitely for the first six months. Digitally, we’re trying to get it on iTunes as a free download. It’s already set to be on iTunes to be for sale but we’re trying to get them to do it for free.  It’ll hopefully be at Urban Outfitters and Hot Topic for free with the purchase of a necklace, and we’ll give it out at shows for free as long as you buy something else. We’re gonna have cheap stuff that costs like five bucks, and you can buy that and still get the record for free, just ‘cause music doesn’t sell. If huge corporations can’t get people to actually pay for a CD, who the hell do I think I am to try and get people to pay for it?

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