The Manhead Story

A conversation with Chris Cornell

Music Merchandise Monthly: Let’s start at the beginning. How did music first enter your life?

CC: Music was always around in my house. My parents were heavily into it, and I started playing the drums when I was about ten. Eventually, I switched to guitar so I could play in a band with my friends. My first two concerts were The Cars and Foreigner, but the real spark came from the local scene around the Jersey Shore.

I spent a lot of time at places like the Fastlane, The Stone Pony, and The Saint in Asbury Park. Once I turned seventeen and could drive, my friends and I were heading to City Gardens in Trenton, the Court Tavern and Melody Bar in New Brunswick, and Maxwells in Hoboken.

In the mid-90s, I was playing locally in my band Kid With Man Head. Through that band, I built a network of friends and started loosely printing merch for other New Jersey bands. As we started thinking about touring nationally, I realized merch could be a way to make that possible. It meant I didn’t have to quit a full-time job just to go on the road.

MMM: When did that turn into a real business?

CC: I officially started Resolve in 1995. At first, it was all local bands—Bigwig, Shades Apart, Youth Ahead, Billionaire. I even did a couple of print runs for Skid Row. It wasn’t really a company yet, just friends from the scene who trusted me to make shirts.

That changed in 1996 when I met Michele Ceazan, who was managing Bad Religion. Suddenly, I was doing all of their design and manufacturing, and not long after, I was out on the road as their tour merch person. I worked U.S. and Canada tours, South America—everything.

In the fall of 1997, I collaborated with Shepard Fairey on a poster for a run of Bad Religion shows in New York City. Around that time, Greg Graffin handed me his brand-new Sony Mavica digital camera—the one that used floppy disks—and told me to take photos of the band. Most people in the crowd had never seen a digital camera before. Fans would stop me just to look at it. Greg Hetson would also hand me stacks of backstage passes to give away at the merch table.

At the same time, I had a makeshift warehouse set up in my mom’s garage to fulfill e-commerce orders. Running a webstore in 1997 wasn’t easy, but we figured it out.

MMM: How did The Strokes enter the picture?

CC: By 1999, Resolve was growing. Around then, Ryan Gentles—who was booking bands at the Mercury Lounge—called me and said he was thinking about managing a band that needed merch. That band was The Strokes.

My friend Jason Petrisko designed their first logo, which we printed on a black T-shirt in January of 2000. We only made 100 of them, and I still have one from that original run. From there, we created the baseball jerseys, the “Modern Age” shirt on navy, “Take It or Leave It” on yellow, “Alone Together” on off-white, the “Barely Legal” tank, and the red logo tee.

As the band started gaining momentum internationally, I flew to Australia to work with a merch partner there, then headed to the UK to do the same. Around the same time, Kid With Man Head was winding down, and Resolve was just ramping up.

MMM: You eventually joined Blue Grape. Why?

CC: Blue Grape was owned by Roadrunner Records, and Felix Sebacious was president at the time. I don’t remember if Felix, Wayne Clarke, or Patrick Mahoney reached out first, but the conversations centered around The Strokes and Bad Religion and Blue Grape’s desire to expand beyond metal.

They offered me a role where I’d be signing artists, running the tour department, and helping grow their retail and licensing business. After 9/11, I moved to New York and joined as Director of Touring and A&R. During that time, I signed Fall Out Boy, The All-American Rejects, Something Corporate, Unwritten Law, The Juliana Theory, Chevelle, American Hi-Fi, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Trustkill and Ferret Records, and The White Stripes. It was the first time I really saw what a fully built merch operation looked like at scale.

MMM: When did Manhead really begin?

CC: February 2007 was the turning point. Jonathan from Crush introduced me to Bret Disend, who had just started managing Boys Like Girls. We worked out a merch deal right there in his living room.

We outgrew the cubicles fast and moved into a full floor—5,000 square feet, six people, a ping-pong table, and my yellow lab, Cali. We even subleased space to Decaydance Records at the other end of the office. For the first time, it felt like a real company.

For the first time, it felt like a real company. Chris Cornell

MMM: And where does that leave you now?

CC: In 2024, I hired Steve Mitzel as CEO and moved into the role of Chairman and Founder.

It’s been nearly thirty years since I first printed shirts for my friends’ bands in New Jersey. From my mom’s garage to a Chelsea apartment to offices in New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, and London, the mission hasn’t changed.

It’s still about helping artists connect with fans in a genuine way—and I still get the same feeling seeing someone wear a shirt we made years later as I did back in Asbury Park.

Chris Cornell