Bands, brands and Ozzy Osbourne: Dan Jacobs and Mike Stricklin on their remarkable range of Pluginz

Fantastic to meet you both, thanks for joining me. I’ll start by saying that we set this up to talk about the launch of your Ozzy Osborne range… But we’re now – sadly – talking in the wake of his passing.
Dan Jacobs: Yes. It’s great to meet you, too – and we appreciate that. It was very sad to hear the news yesterday…

Yes. My sincere condolences to you, to his family and to his fans. I imagine it’s quite a shock because he only did his last show – what? Three weeks ago?
Dan: 17 days, yes. I heard it was the same for Lemmy from Motörhead – he died 17 days after his last show… One of those strange coincidences.

That is a strange coincidence… I think, then, we should start with a tribute. What makes Ozzy Osbourne a legend?
Dan: Oh, man! Just pioneering the whole Black Sabbath thing makes him a legend… Being the creator of heavy metal – at least as far as people hearing it goes, and deciding that this is a new style of music; something different – something that needs its own name.

Black Sabbath created the genre…
Dan: That alone is just massive! Then everything he’s done off the back of that… All the musicians he played with – from Randy Rhoads and Zakk Wylde to Brad Gillis. So many incredible people in his orbit. Every decade of his existence set another precedent because this dude had so many different sides to him and so much talent. On top of that, he was a one-of-a-kind character; an aspect that makes him much more interesting and unforgettable… From his TV shows to those wild onstage performances – he’s a legend on so many levels.

Much softer offstage than on, of course!
Dan: Ha! Yes, a great family man off stage and a really kind person.

Mike, have you anything to add to that?
Mike Stricklin: You know, I think Dan covered it… But if I were to add anything else, I think Ozzy became a legend because of all the folklore behind him. Back in the day – when there was no internet or anything – you’d just hear rumours of him biting the head off a bat or a dove… Because of that persona, and the folklore that grew out of that, he’s an undeniably huge character in culture. And it also happens that Black Sabbath was one of the first bands I got into…

When would this have been, Mike?
Mike: I was really into guitar in high school; I used to be obsessed with Randy Rhoads. I remember getting bootleg VHS tapes of Black Sabbath shows in 1981, ’82… Something like that. But I’ve always been such a huge fan of Ozzy and everything he’s done.

Not surprising, then, that you just launched your Ozzy Osbourne Jack Rack Collection at Pluginz. I’ll put a picture in here to make things crystal clear, but – for the uninitiated – what are Pluginz?
Mike: Pluginz is a music, lifestyle, brand best known for our Jack rep: a wall-mounted key holder, crafted using authentic amp hardware. So you have four inputs that take real guitar plugs, which are your key chains… You plug up to four sets of keys into this unit on your wall. The first licensed one we did was with Marshall Amps. To this day, it just keeps going viral! Then we moved onto the Fender model…

Oh, wow! These look amazing!
Mike: Thanks, Deej! A lot of doors opened up as a result of working with Fender and getting into Guitar Center. Now we’ve started doing custom collaborations with bands as well. Earlier this year, we launched a customisable model of the Jack Rack, which has a magnetic face, so your décor just pops on and off. That means you can now buy one Jack Rack, then choose band keychains and different grills.

I love it! And there’s no limit to this… You could do a Jack Black Jack Rack, in theory! Ha! Of which, what licenses do you hold?
Mike: In the amp and guitar world, we have Vevor, Marshall, PRS, Gibson, EVH, Mesa Boogie and Ampeg. We have a few more in the works that we’re talking with… Creem is another notable name we’ve been lucky to work with on the pop-culture side of things.

In the band world, we have Ozzy Osbourne, Lamb of God, Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, Ghost, Ice Nine Kills, Dimebag Darrell, the late Cliff Burton of Metallica… And we’re about to start collaborating with Cannibal Corpse, Oasis, Ministry and a whole bunch of others. We have a huge roster on the way.

And I can tell from the look on your face that you’re excited about what’s to come! How did this idea come about, Mike?
Mike: Initially, I just made a guitar plug-keychain for myself. Then I started doing them for other people, and just getting a local engraver to put the band logos on them before I added a loop and a key ring. After that, I wanted a place to actually plug it in.

Oh! The jack came before the rack? So to speak…
Mike: Yes, I hadn’t thought about a rack unit initially. But I basically made a long metal strip, put four holes in it, added inputs in there and mounted it to my wall. From there, I thought it’d be cool if it looked like a guitar amp. So I just got a huge block of metal, took it to someone with a CNC machine to cut out the right shape… Then I put a sticker on it to make it look like a guitar amp. After I posted that on Reddit, it went super viral! Everyone seemed to want one… So I made a Kickstarter.

This I did not know! Successful on Kickstarter, presumably?
Mike: Yeah, that raised enough money for me to make a plastic-injected Jack Rack locally and fill all those orders. When I posted on Reddit again, it went to number one on the home page – the very top of Reddit… And then it just snowballed, even more from there. It was doing like, $10,000 a day in sales –
just like that.

And where was this, Mike? You had a little workshop?
Mike: Just out of my house! So that’s when I got in touch with Dan… I knew he had a little office and some warehouse space, so we brought a team in there. We were building these things by hand, just trying to keep up with demand. Shortly after, we were able to get the Marshall license.

And that’s when things just went completely out of control?! Ha!
Mike: Ha! Yes! We started getting retail interest… Then we had to look into factories – offloading the manufacturing, basically – because it was way too much to handle on our own by then.

Extraordinary. I love how it just built and built and built. Dan, I’m curious: why did you let yourself get roped into it? What did you do wrong?
Dan: Ha! I come from a music background; I play guitar in a band called Atreyu. I’ve been doing it for 26 years, so I’ve been in and around the music industry for a long time. As a result, I’ve worked with a lot of different bands and brands and toured a lot…

With whom, by way of example?
Dan: I toured with Ozzy, actually, and Black Sabbath – even with the original lineup back in 2004. Off the back of that, my brother and I have a merchandising company which gives us a lot of experience in making products and doing different things in the music lifestyle space… So the combination of me having relationships with music bands and brands made teaming up with Mike feel like a good partnership – because I knew I could help on that side.

Perfect match! So what’s your background, Mike? What were you doing before this?
Mike: For me, I was always somewhat in the music industry. Not to Dan’s degree, but I’ve always been a huge music fan. I love playing guitar, recording music. And I used to be in a band, but nothing big. Then I used to work for Carvin Guitars, which turned into Kiesel Guitars. So I’ve just always been in the music industry – and I figured that if I’m not going to be a rock star, at least I can still work with them.

I said earlier that almost all music brands could work as a license here… So what makes a license right for you?
Mike: We’re primarily in the rock-and-roll metal scene… That’s what we know best. I feel our products are more attractive to bands that play through guitar amps. We do like working with bands that we either know directly, or that we know are going to support the product because we’re appreciate the ability to collaborate with them on marketing, from social shares to email newsletters. That familiarity is always a huge plus for us.

Would you ever consider other genres, do you think?
Mike: I think we can live in the rock and metal space for a long time, but it’d be cool to do a country version! Maybe partnering with Jelly Roll. He’s in the middle there between rock and country. Post Malone, too. Of course, there’re a lot of opportunities to work with other genres Beyond rock, metal and country as well.

And is there a dream license that you would think, ‘Oh, I’d love to get hold of them…’
Mike: Probably Metallica or Creed…

Dan: I was going to say Creed. Metallica, Creed and Billy Ocean. Those would be the top three.

Billy Ocean?!
Dan: No, not really! Ha! But I’m a big admirer of Caribbean Queen!

So Metallica and Creed – what needs to happen? How do we ensnare them?
Mike: In a way, we’re close because we’re working with the Cliff Burton estate – we have a Cliff Burton Jack Rack that dropped earlier this summer. As you probably know, he was Metallica’s bass player when they first started and until his untimely death in 1986. So we may have a way in there. Given that we have three of the ‘big four’ between Snthrax, Slayer, and Megadeth, we see this coming together in the future.

Well, I imagine they’re avidly reading my interviews… Let’s see what happens! What’s next for you guys?
Dan: As well as launching new licenses, we’re expanding into more retail. That’s a huge goal of ours. Guitar Center is one of our biggest clients, but we’re working to expand more globally into other marketplaces and other retail stores. We’re going to try for some big-box retailers like the Targets and Walmarts and all those. Now that we have a bigger product offering, that’s on the top of our to do list.

And to wrap this up, what’s one question I could’ve asked you but I didn’t?
Mike: Oh! I think you asked all the main questions. I guess if there’s one more thing I would mention it’s to say that Pluginz has so much to offer on top of the Jack Rack and guitar-plug key chains. We also make all the merchandise for Fender when it comes to Guitar Center – think apparel, headwear, wall clocks, barstools, guitar-pick coasters… We’re inventing products all day long. The Jack Rack is what we’re most known for, but we have other really cool items out there. You can find them on our website…

Let’s end on the website address, then! Let’s give it a good old plug!
Mike: It’s thejackrack.com.

Beautiful. And Dan, anything from you to wrap things up?
Dan: No, that pretty much does it all! We might have a news story soon about a collaboration that’s coming up… That’s in relation to a major tour, and a VIP-merchandise tie-in. But we can send you a news release about that because I don’t know if they’ve announced it yet!

Perfect! Well, this has been fabulous! Thanks for making time; I really enjoyed that.