Brudenell Social Club in Leeds launches t-shirts to support local music artists during coronavirus pandemic

The venue has played host to secret gigs by the likes of the Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand, and has been coined a ‘special place’ by Jonny Marr.

The quirky t-shirts will help fans show their support even though they get down to the 107-year-old club to watch their favourite bands.

The designs, which all incorporate ‘stay at home’ and ‘social distancing’ messaging, have been created by four Leeds artists, who all have connections to the venue, or to the local art and music scene.

Proceeds from the sales of the t-shirts - which is a collaboration with fellow Leeds print company, Awesome Merchandise - will go straight to the designers themselves.

James Lyall, managing director at Awesome Merchandise, said: “We have worked with the Brudenell for 10 years running their online merch store, as well as printing and making all their merch. It’s an institution, with a huge loyal fan-base who will be gutted to be missing out on events at the venue, so we were really excited to be involved in keeping people’s spirits up and giving them the opportunity to show their support. The t-shirts have gone down an absolute storm so far, we’ve sold over 1,000 tees in the first 12 hours.”

Nathan Clark, from the club, said: “This is the first ever time in our 107-year history that we’ve had a prolonged closure of more than a day. Even during WW2, we remained open to the community. After sitting for a while thinking about how we could send a positive message out, we came up with that fun little pun, the Brudenell Social Distancing Club. It’s really important that we continue to support the local community in a time like this, and spread a positive message.”

To buy, visit https://bit.ly/3eBXJXr.