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We asked Matt Sweeney—singer-guitarist for The Hard Quartet and a devoted runner—to lace up a pair of TheROCKER, Satisfy’s first-ever footwear release. Here’s what he thinks of ‘em. —Yang-Yi Goh, senior style editor |
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Satisfy’s Rocker-Inspired Running Shoes, Reviewed by an Actual Rock Star |
About seven years ago, I left a kinda bitchy comment on an Instagram post by the Parisian running label Satisfy about their use of a graphic from the ’80s black metal band Venom. The brand’s founder, Brice Partouche, responded by sending me a care package of gear: a pair of running shorts, a few shirts, and a sweatshirt. Almost instantly, the stuff won me over.
As a running freak who hits the pavement almost every day, I was stunned by the quality of the garments—all built from custom high-tech fabrics that were freakishly featherweight and damn near indestructible (I still run in that OG gear all these years later). And as a professional rock ‘n’ roll musician who plays guitar and sings in The Hard Quartet, I was tickled by Satisfy’s designs and graphics, which had a perverse and loving sense of humor about the nature of rock/punk/metal “culture” and its ongoing commodification. It’s been no surprise to me that, over the past few years, Satisfy has grown from a niche concern to a booming business, beloved by fashion kids, gnarly running junkies, and hardcore music obsessives alike.
Back in June, while I was touring in Europe with The Hard Quartet, Partouche sent me an early pair of Satisfy’s latest creation: the brand’s first-ever running shoe, dubbed TheROCKER. (The shoes were a thank-you gift for getting Partouche on the guest list for Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival—where, I might add, our band destroyed minds and crushed hearts.) For the rest of the monthlong tour—in which my only opportunities to get gross and sweaty were on stage every night—the unwieldy box, which looked like it should hold a remote control car, sat in our sprinter van taunting me.
Ever since I got home to New York in July, I’ve been running in TheROCKER six days a week. I started running in my early 40s for mental health reasons. That was a minute ago. At this point, I run for about 4.5 miles daily, without timing myself or listening to anything. I run pretty slow—never feels slow to me, but man I’m slow. No marathons or anything, just running steadily, which has changed my life for the better from the first sad, stumbling day.
Engineering a radical new running shoe from scratch—especially when you’re not an established sportswear giant like Nike or Adidas—is a fiendishly hard thing to do. Satisfy, however, managed to pull it off: From the jump, TheROCKER felt different from any other running shoes I’ve ever rocked.
Click here to read the full review. |
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