At his last stock check, Jon Sharky had around 4,000 t-shirts in his shop.
Selling band t-shirts from across what he calls the "rock spectrum", Jon believes his shop, called Sharky's, has the widest range of licensed band shirts in the North West - and possibly the country. An extensive list of bands is represented on his shelves, including AC/DC, Aerosmith, Blink-182, The Clash, Foo Fighters and Metallica.
He is at the stage where has to turn down merchandise from bands as he simply does not have enough space in his unit, found in the Baltic Triangle's Red Brick Market, on Stanhope Street.
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Jon, 36, from Blundellsands, is currently enjoying his best year to date, thanks, in part, to a new generation of younger rock fans. Some of these fans found the genre after a Metallica song featured in Netflix show Stranger Things, which also introduced heavy metal character Eddie Munson in its latest series.
Having initially opened the shop in Grand Central on Renshaw Street in April 2016, he moved to his current venue in the Baltic around two years later. He spoke to the ECHO about what inspired him to set up his distinctive business and how rewarding he finds the work.
Jon said: " I’d worked for various other shops in Liverpool that dealt in music merchandise so I kind of knew what worked.
"One shop that I was working in, called Pump, closed down and I thought, well I know the distributors, I know what works in Liverpool, I’ll set up my own shop. It’s been six and a half years and I’d like to think that I’ve been proven right."
Jon added: "Primarily the stock is from what I call the Rock Spectrum - anything from pop rock to some of the most extreme heavy metal. It’s mainly rock that I’m into myself and I’ve always joked that if I win the lottery, I will set up a shop that can deal with every genre. For now, with my limited budget, I will deal in what I know.
"But I’m always open to other options. If enough people nag me for something, I’m not going to ignore them. That’s how I ended up with Billie Eilish shirts on my shelves."
Jon's passion for music - and rock in particular - is evident. He has his dad to thank for sparking his love for the genre.
He said: "My dad is one of those old-school Beatles fans. I grew up with pictures of The Beatles on our wall, so I started with stuff like that - as a lot of Liverpudlians do.
"But he also used to make compilation cassette tapes from his vinyl collection and would give them to me and my brother. One of those tapes had a song by Deep Purple on it and something about that song clicked and I thought ‘that’s for me’.
"That was it then. Through Deep Purple you discover things like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and I then discovered music magazines. I used to subscribe to a couple of them a week and devour them."
A virtue of stocking merchandise from bands which range from the mid-20th century to the present day is that Jon has a customer base that is diverse in age. He said that introducing younger fans to the great rock bands of the past is the most rewarding part of his work.
Jon said: " I have various regulars coming in, some older folks who remember some of these bands first time around - maybe 40 or 50 years ago - and I have new young folk discovering the rock scene all the time. I love them all!
"I opened in April 2016. Since April this year, I’ve had my best year on record. It’s very rewarding and a lot of it is new younger fans discovering rock and heavy metal.
"It can’t be overstated how important the popularity of TV shows like Stranger Things has been, which had a prominent heavy metal character and featured Metallica really prominently. I’m getting 12 or 13-year-olds, who have just discovered Metallica from Stranger Things and they ask ‘what albums should I listen to next’ or ‘what other bands should I listen to?’.
"That’s probably the most rewarding part of my job, giving recommendations to people just getting into the music. It’s wonderful.
"Then people want to start their own patch jacket - or battle jacket as we call them in the metal scene - with patches of all their favourite bands. Opposite my shop is a seamstress and she loves sewing their patches on for them. It’s great."
In order to meet burgeoning demand, Sharky's - along with the entire Red Brick Market - will be moving to a larger warehouse on Stanhope Street in the next few months. With greater shelf space, he is already planning which other bands he can add to his already vast selection.
As he looks to expand, Jon's work continues to find fulfilment in his work. He said: "It’s really rewarding. I can’t overstate how happy I am.
"I’ve worked for very big companies in the past, pharmaceutical and oil companies but working for myself is so much more rewarding, because I can make the decisions. I know what I want to stock, I know what the customers are asking for, so if it’s available, I’ll go and get it for them."
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