Royal Bliss’ relationship with Huge Brands goes back more than 20 years, to a time when both organizations looked very different.

Taylor remembers Huge Brands founder Jeremy Conder operating what was then Spilt Ink out of a tiny space at Salt Lake City’s Kilby Court.

“You’d have to lift the box up over the printing press to get out of the front door,” Taylor recalls.

A lot has changed since then.

Royal Bliss grew from a local band into a touring act with fans across the country. Spilt Ink grew into Huge Brands. And along the way, the relationship evolved from printing shirts into something far more comprehensive.

“Jeremy’s obviously grown, and we’ve obviously grown,” Taylor says. “And here we are together 20-something years later.”

As Royal Bliss began asking for more, Huge Brands grew alongside them. Could they store inventory? Could they ship orders? Could they build an online store?

The answer, again and again, was: let’s figure it out.

“We’ve broken ground with what him and his company are capable of doing,” Taylor says. “It just has grown immensely.”

One of Royal Bliss’ biggest opportunities grew from an incredibly simple phrase:

I Was Drunk.

The band trademarked the phrase and turned it into a shirt featuring “I Was Drunk” across the front and Royal Bliss branding on the back.

The simplicity is exactly what gives it potential.

Taylor sees an opportunity for the product to exist beyond a traditional band merch table, whether that means retail stores, tourist destinations, bars, or other locations where the phrase can take on a life of its own.

“We need to tap into some resources that they might have that we may not,” Taylor says of working with the Huge Brands team to expand the idea.

For Royal Bliss, that’s the next evolution of merchandise: not simply selling something with the band’s logo on it, but creating products capable of standing on their own.

Today, merchandise is deeply integrated into the economics of Royal Bliss.

At some shows, Taylor says the band can make more money selling merchandise than it earns from playing the show itself.

“Our trailer has more merch boxes than it does musical equipment,” he says. “I’m selling and making more money at the merch table than I am at this show.”

But Royal Bliss doesn’t simply treat that revenue as money to divide up at the end of the night.

Merch operates as its own business.

Revenue from merchandise goes into a dedicated account that funds future merchandise. Music revenue similarly helps fund future recording, while show revenue helps keep the band on the road.

The result is a self-sustaining system in which each part of the Royal Bliss business helps fund what comes next.

As Taylor puts it, the old joke about buying a band’s shirt to put gas in the tank isn’t really a joke.

“It’s kind of the truth.”

After more than 20 years of working together, the Royal Bliss and Huge Brands partnership isn’t built around simply placing another T-shirt order.

It’s built around trying things.

What if the band sells this?

What if Huge stores and ships that?

What if a product moves beyond the merch table and into
retail?

What if an idea nobody has tried before actually works?

That willingness to experiment has helped Royal Bliss build a merchandise program capable of generating revenue on the road, supporting the band when touring stopped, connecting with fans online, and helping fund whatever comes next.

And Taylor’s advice for bands just beginning to think seriously about merchandise is appropriately straightforward:

“Start simple. Start with what you can afford.”

Then learn who your fans are, learn what they actually buy, and grow from there.

For Royal Bliss, that process has been going for more than two decades.

They’re still experimenting.

And Huge Brands is still there to help figure out what comes next.