Marty Casey- Rock musician,jewelry designer,Chicagoan - making a difference

Glitter is one of my favorite events in the city. Held at the Chicago Cultural Center every year, just before Christmas, it’s a showcase of original fashion creations by Chicagoans. This is where I met Marla Zegart, and in turn, Marty Casey, two Chicagoans you should know. The Silver Elements Collection, http://www.silverelementscollection.com is more than a beautiful, unique unisex collection of jewelry, as if that wouldn’t be enough. What is especially interesting about this collection is the story behind it.

You may have heard about Marty Casey through his music. He’s lead singer for the rock band, the Lovehammers, http://www.lovehammers.com.The band has been together since 1988. “I met these guys when I was in TBall and we became friends, and then, shortly thereafter, I saw that Bob had a drum set, and I had just started playing guitar, so we started this band. Now, over 20 years later, you know, it kind of never stopped growing.” Marty credits their longevity to their being like family. “Out of Chicago, born and raised here. I was in LA for awhile, in New York for awhile, in Nashville for awhile, in Mexico for awhile, but they’re here, they’re kind of the foundation, They’re two brothers; they play the base and the drums, which is important, to be that foundation in music, and they know each other so well, and are so in tune with each other, being brothers, they can hear each other think. And another friend of ours, Bill, who joined the band fifteen years ago…” Marty laughs, “the new guy, you know.” Through the signing of record deals, the band touring locally and overseas, and the fame- “just riding the wave”, as Marty calls it, the band has stayed together.

Marty describes fame as being “really potent in the beginning, but then eventually, everything becomes a little more manageable. I could just be doing music and touring, writing, writing for other people; you spend a lot of time just writing, working on the craft of songwriting.” It was one year ago, when he says that everything became a little more manageable, that Marla Zegart came up to him with the suggestion that would change the course.

"She said, ‘You have a lot of fashion, you know, wearing things onstage that are really making a statement. We should make a clothing line.’ Her background is from Spiegels. And she had a store called Eventique Ltd, and so she was very involved and very into this whole process of fashion design. I wanted to do something way more universal, and to create something that anybody could wear. No matter what age, no matter whether it’s a woman or a man. At that time, it was just one piece. And Marla and I sat down and said, ‘What are we going to do?’

She came up with some suggestions. We started with a lot of silver, a lot of black and a lot of red. That’s kind of our theme. I always wear black and red, my colors, and silver is the silver elements. I always wear a ton of bracelets, wristbands, necklaces around my neck, rings on my fingers; something to help in the creation of outfits for the stage- things to look at, things that shine when you’re jumping around, and things that will look cool in a photograph when you’re onstage; incorporating things into it that make it a potent image, a potent statement, a cool silhouette. We came to the decision we’d do a trees dog tag based on my hit song,Trees. We came up with the ‘trees’ idea and we said, ‘Well, let’s try to do something good with it.’ Not just a business- we wanted to have a cause, to do it for a reason. And we thought, well, how perfect of a tie in to do the tree dog tag piece, and you buy it, and we plant trees. So we really worked hard to get in touch with the nonprofit conservation organization, American forests http://www.americanforests.org/.

And it was so great that they were willing to work with us at the time because they didn’t know what sort of sales we would have, or if it would be worth their while. It took a lot to get in tune, and work with a charity and establish ourselves correctly. It all had to be done right so people knew where it was going, what’s happening with their money. In the beginning, It was so close knit with Marla and I, that my Mom was actually doing all of the shipping, and she enjoyed it. She’d include a note, ‘Packed by Marty’s Mom’ in with the package. It did really well. We’re seeing orders come in from everywhere. And we donated our share and planted over 1000 trees.” It’s nice to see a worldwide purchasing of the trees dog tag. And then, we thought, well, we have this bit of money on our end, let’s create more items; let’s keep the creation flowing. So we just continued; continuing to donate a portion of the money to planting trees. We’ve got scarves, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, …and we recently just came out with a picture frame. It’s brand new. A fan of ours, who runs a department at Neiman Marcus saw the frame and really liked it, so now we have more massive numbers of orders; shipping and packaging.

It’s exciting. We didn’t know we would come quite this far, this fast. One of our biggest supporters is the Art. Institute. What they love about our line is that a lot of people go in there, and in the terms of jewelry or accessories, prominent women; mostly women, buy their pieces, and this is one of the pieces, actually, the whole collection, that is purchased by both men and women. It’s nice to see that people who don’t know the artist; don’t know Marty Casey, don’t know about the music side of it, like the pieces. But it’s still a great tie in to something that I love, my prominent passion- music.

Music is part of it- music that I haven’t released before, and that is only being released through the Silver Elements Collection. It’s not released with Lovehammers – it’s just released through silver elements because we completely want that tie. Trees- stars- We have a song I wrote called I see stars. So we’re going to utilize the new songs, and I think the song Crime of Fashion would work well with the line. It’s really aggressive, and really an edgy tune.I have a whole huge cache of songs I never know what to do with- you just continue writing. I never thought that just over a year ago, that I’d really be getting to design some pieces that – we just hoped to blow people’s minds- to keep it simple- to create some very unique pieces. Marla’s the genius. She is truly, to be completely honest with you, the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. She is the one with so much expertise, who has completely taken it to the pinnacle. I’m actively with her a number of times a week creating pieces, and going back and forth, and choosing colors and choosing designs and coming up with designs, and designing pieces, but she is truly the wizard behind this operation. I wish that I could say that I was, but I’m not. She’s the genius. I’m another hard worker behind it. I don’t know anything about jewelry, just I like the way that it looks. When we get together, we put everything down- our thoughts, once in awhile having a picture that you like- I like this color spectrum, in a scarf or in a leather piece. I like the look of that piece. So we take all of these ideas, and sometimes they cross over, and her idea and mine make one.

There’s no deadline for us. This is our thing; something in your life that you just get to jump outside the bounds, and not have to deal with everybody else’s indecision, or what’s being expected of you, except to just keep being bold. And it’s fun tying it all in; doing photo sessions to showcase the pieces, and having fun with that too. And then, creating the website, and being able to showcase what we do. Hearing people’s comments about the line too, from all over the world, what they think of the pieces. It really makes me happy that it is doing so well. It’s a great thing to have happening in your life when you’re not looking at how much product do we sell; it’s more like, well, we planted this many trees. It’s not built on just numbers or money; that’s the nice thing about donating a portion of it to charity. We’ve not taken one penny from this. We’ve put all of it forward.”

“And it’s thanks to the fans.” Marty talks about the fans a lot; sharing stories with me about how they contribute ideas to the product line and are always there with their support. “Because they’re a part of it. The fans are such a big part of the music, the line; that’s the understanding, just from years of performing, how important the fans are. The same thing with the line; they’re the ones promoting it- and it’s exciting that they just want to be a part of it, and we want them to be.”

Marty makes sure that his fans are a big part of what he’s doing. “In music, when you’re running your own label, you get so much more out of it. You can still do this thing, you don’t quite have the machine behind you, but you can get really really creative people that can do a lot of the same things, but definitely on an independent level. I’m not talking MTV videos, but we’re talking an amazing video by some fans from Monkey Wrench Productions, where we got to do an avatar video; we get to be animated for Guns. The business is all built on friendships.

Nobody’s living like kings, but everybody’s, you know, still living the dream. We’re a very long standing band for what we do. A lot of bands of this kind would have burned out a long time ago. Of all the greatness, and of all the great things we’ve gotten to do, we’ve been very lucky, to have the opportunity that we have. We’ve also dealt with a lot of heartache, a lot of rejection. But I think the only reason we’ve been together so long, is it’s very family. I think that has a lot to do with why we’re successful. And you know, we’re not this unbelievably huge band touring arenas and stadiums, but we get to go around the world doing what we love to do and having a couple hundred people show up is pretty cool. Here in Chicago, a couple thousand, and that’s exciting; not on the level where we would love to get to, but it’s at a level that allows us to continue to do it. Be successful with it, earn a living doing it. The minute I stop, I’m going to get real old, real fast.”

“The new single is doing really well- it’s called Guns. “The official release date is February 4th, but it’s already doing well, and it’s rising up the charts, For me, it’s exciting, watching the song move up on the charts. That’s an exciting time for the band as well. We just booked Jamacia. With the single coming out, there will be a lot of touring, a lot of pushing, the song and the product, and that’s a part of the game. The creativity and the work- and we’re all hard working Chicagoans, we know how to do it. We’ve got a lot of great opportunities.”

The Silver Elements Collection Trunk Show will be on Saturday, February 13th from 12 noon – 2 PM, at the Zebra Lounge, 1220 North State Parkway. “The Lovehammer shows are really crazy and meeting the fans afterwards is a fun part of what we get to do, and being with the fans. So, we do trunk shows the weekend of. It’s a great way to tie it all in because that’s when all the fans are in town; we have a lot of fans who fly in.”

The Lovehammers will be playing at the House of Blues on Saturday, February 13th at 7 PM, 329 North Dearborn. “We’re anticipating a sold out show. We’re very excited about that. And the Loop, 97.9 FM radio station announced that they’re going to be a part of the show; put their name on the show and record it. That’s a great station for us. And for this appearance, we put out the word to all of these young bands, asking for submissions. We had all these young bands, just like when we started in high school, submit their music to us. And we’re having three of them open up for us. They’re going to play one of their own tunes, and they’re going to play a Lovehammer’s song as well so the fans can recognize something that they’re doing. That’s really exciting to see, that they’re all excited to do it and then, they’ll get videos of them doing their song; exactly, everything that we wish would have happened when we were in high school, just starting out- this big gig at the house of blues. A sold out show. I mean, that’s pretty exciting. It’s fun to bring it in, I mean, look at the energy that will be coming from them jamming out for, probably, their first time playing in front of a crowd. Hopefully, they’ll have a great time, and remember that first gig, the really big one. Maybe in fifteen years, we’ll be opening for them.”

To buy tickets: http://www.houseofblues.com/tickets/eventdetail.php?eventid=61111