Coffin Case

Article by Jonathan Williams      March 2008, Showcase

W hen most people are shopping for coffins, it’s for a lost loved one’s final sleep. But when it comes to rockers looking for a stylish way to store their instruments, Coffin Case provides them with a ghastly fashionable alternative to the typical guitar case. Creator Jonny Coffin, a guitarist himself for a band called The Death Riders with Rob Zombie/Ozzy Osbourne bassist Blasko, started making coffin-shaped cases in 1990 out of a personal need rather than a desire to start a trend. But when he started catching the attention of both high-end clients as well as friends from the underground L.A. scene, he knew he had created a monster. “I needed a guitar case for myself and basically came up with a coffin-shaped case,” he says. “Every time I went to gig with it or do studio work, people asked me, ‘Where’d you get that thing?’ After I heard it about 300 times, I looked at the case and said, ‘I should turn this into a business’ and applied for the patents and trademarks in ’96.” Employing his background in carpentry and silver casting, Coffin has gone on to produce

cases for the likes of Keith Richards, Johnny Depp, Johnny Cash, Nine Inch Nails, Avenged Sevenfold and Alice Cooper. “I spent two nights in the studio with Keith Richards [and] that was like a starting point of, ‘Wow, I’m onto something here,’” he recalls. “I walked in with two of my cases and Keith said, ‘Do you have one big enough to put Mick [Jagger] in?’ He loved the stuff, he spent about 20 minutes looking at the cases and he looked at me and said, ‘You know we’re all vampires, right?’”

These days, Coffin Case works with more than 5,000 bands worldwide. And with the coffin shape remaining the company’s cornerstone, Coffin Case now produces other music accessories such as bass cases, drumstick bags and distortion pedals used by guitarists like Rob Zombie’s John 5, Billy Idol’s Steve Stevens and Doyle of the Misfits and Danzig. And whether it’s coffin-shaped skateboards or purses, it’s all promoted with the help of the Coffin Girls, a group of metal maidens and pinup models such as horror show “spooksmodel” Mora DeVoura and performance artist Masuimi Max, who has her own limited edition clothing line available exclusively through Coffin Case.

Aside from Max’s clothing line, Coffin Case also has a variety of T-shirts, tank tops and hoodies for guys and girls, including Dimebag Hardware, an officially licensed line of “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott shirts. “I put a lot into it and I was in the trenches for a few years and my vision has always been a bigger vision for the company,” says Coffin. “I’ve always seen it as a bigger thing. People still walk into our 10,000-square-foot offices and warehouses and say, ‘Wow, did you ever imagine it would be this big.’ I’ve always seen it beyond this, so I’m like, ‘Yeah.’”

 

coffincase.com

jonathan (at) gothicbeauty (dot) com