W
e don’t wanna just throw the
axe at the board. We wanna
throw through the board.
Whatever it takes.”
Anthony Taylor, the bearded and tattooed
co-owner of Axe Ventura, Ann Arbor’s
newest and only axe throwing venue, is
giving me a pep talk. My friend Emily and
I have been chucking axes at the wall for
the past 15 minutes, and I can’t land a stick
(Emily, for the record, stuck her second
throw).
I assume position: toes on the line, axe in
front, left hand over right. I raise the weapon
above my head, arching it backward until
the butt of the blade kisses my spine, and
try to think the sort of thoughts that might
send my axe not at but through a solid wall
of wood. I take a step and release, hoping I’m
right.
The axe hits the bullseye, but with the
wrong end — the flat one — which I didn’t
know was possible. It clatters to the floor,
where I retrieve it timidly.
Anthony indicates for me to try again
by pointing to a blue line on the floor with
his right crutch. He recently tore his ACL
and meniscus playing flag football. When
I walked in half-an-hour earlier, he was
throwing on crutches, single-handedly.
“Okay, good. Again.”
T
he evolution of axe throwing from
a noun-verb pair to a continental
pastime spans back to Toronto,
2006. According to an interview with Red
Bull’s lifestyle magazine, Matt Wilson was
“crushing beers at (his) friend’s cottage …
kind of bored,” when someone pulled out
a hatchet and taught him how to throw it.
Wilson “just thought it was a lot of fun”
and started a backyard axe throwing league
among his buddies to keep the vibe alive.
Sprinkled with a little entrepreneurial fervor,
Wilson’s hobby leveled up to the Backyard
Axe Throwing League, otherwise known
as BATL, Canada’s premier axe throwing
franchise and a founding member of
the International Axe Throwing Federation.
Wilson himself never replied to my emails
or LinkedIn DMs — perhaps he was too busy
drumming for his basement rock band.
The most unprecedented element of
Wilson’s story, though, is in its wake.
Over the past decade, axe throwing has
swept through the urban continent like a
recreational contagion. Canadian chains
like BATL and Bad Axe brought the pastime
to the U.S. around the mid-to-late-2010s,
spurring the rise of rivaling domestic
franchises like Urban Axes as well as local
independent ranges.
Axe throwing venues tend to aggregate
and thrive in the usual suspects — New
York, Chicago, Denver, Atlanta — as well as
any municipality that mildly gentrifies in
the Midwest or mid-Atlantic. This includes
Louisville, the inspiration for Ann Arbor’s
own Axe Ventura. Shannon Kozyra, Axe
Ventura’s co-owner and former high school
classmate of Anthony’s, managed to give me
the origin story over the fond din of clanging
and banging that characterizes her new
venue.
“We went to Louisville last New Year’s,
and this one guy we talked to was like,
‘There’s this new axe throwing venue,’ and
you have to understand this, he...”
She paused to point accusingly at Anthony.
They
were
wearing
identical
t-shirts
emblazoned with the title “AXE MASTER.”
“... is good at anything you put in front
of him. … So, in my mind’s eye I was like,
‘Great, another thing I’m gonna lose at, just
gotta have a good attitude about it.’ … But
we go and do this, and I stick my first one,
and I was like,” she stepped back, her mouth
making an ecstatic “O.”
I turned to Anthony.
“Did you stick your first one?”
“I did not.”
“In fact, I beat him, the first time we ever
played,” Shannon continued, adjusting her
blond curls under a Nike ball cap. “But it’s
kind of like one of those beginner’s luck
things, because I haven’t since.”
The two were hooked and began bouncing
ideas around for Axe Ventura on the drive
back from Kentucky.
“Because we loved it, we looked into
doing it here and noticed that the closest
place was Novi and we’re like, ‘That
won’t do.’ So, then we just spent the next
11 months making it happen,” Anthony
explained.
Making it happen turned out to be quite
the feat. Axe Ventura took over the lease
of Gold Bond Cleaners, a family-owned
dry cleaner that operated on Maynard
between Frank’s Restaurant and Madras
Masala for 40 years. Anthony, Shannon
and co-owner Connor Duggan “Shark-
Tank-pitched” the owners for the rights
to the space then labored for months to
get it up to code. They had to figure out
the whole process, “from commercial real
estate to business to funding.” It took a bit
longer than expected because Anthony
and Connor are students at the University
of Michigan.
“Wait, what? You guys are undergrads?”
I interrupted. “How do you have time for
this?”
“Right,” Anthony replied, deadpan.
They’re military veterans, too. Anthony,
who studies kinesiology and was in the
Coast Guard, and Connor, who studies
economics and was in the Air Force, would
attend classes Monday to Friday then put in
40 hours each weekend building the place:
the bathrooms, the throwing stalls, the
soundproofing panels spray-painted with
their custom logo and Instagram handle (@
Axe.Ventura).
“Yeah, it’s not for the faint of heart,”
Shannon added, regarding the process.
But the effort is evident. The likes of
332 Maynard have been transformed into
full post-industrial chic: corrugated sheet
metal lines the throwing stalls, massive
LED lights hang from the ceiling by wires
and minimalist metal stools wait by bars
constructed of unfinished wood (liquor
license ETA: three weeks). When we walked
in on Saturday afternoon, “Loser” by Beck
was blaring from a Bluetooth speaker zip-
tied to a galvanized chain-link fence. The
only trace of the dry cleaner remaining
is an unfathomably heavy, authentically
industrial safe behind the front counter,
now used to store axes.
So far, the space has mostly attracted
clientele of similar chic — think bachelorette
parties, corporate events and team-building
forays. But they’re working on student
outreach.
“We might run a student league, give
students a chance to come in here for a
different rate,” said Shannon. Renting a stall
for an hour currently runs at $35 a person.
“I want to start an axe throwing club at
the University,” added Connor. “I think it
would be cool … to get people into it younger,
because I feel like the demographic right
now is, like, 30 and up.”
I asked Connor why he thought that was.
“Because they have time, you know.”
He explained. “They have time, they have
money. They have time for hobbies. We don’t
have time for hobbies.”
I
eventually got my stick. You have to
realize, a first stick in the axe throwing
world is like a first communion, a first
menstrual period. It’s an initiation rite. I
could hear it in my audio recording — an
unceremonious thud recontextualized by
immediate whooping and hollering. I think
someone clapped me on the back.
“You see how that felt. Now you
understand,” Anthony told me. “The first
time I stuck one, I was like — ” he clenched
his fists and mouthed “FUCK YEAH.”
This euphoric first stick phenomenon
seems to be the lifeblood of the axe throwing
industry. It’s a hot, instant nostalgia that,
once tasted, keeps the interest — and its
capital — flowing through business doors.
“The biggest thing I hear people saying is,
‘I can see it as a novelty, do it once, just to
see what it was like, then I come and do it,
and I just want to do it all the time.’ They
just want to come back and do it again, do
it again and do it again. It’s just that much
fun,” Anthony told me.
You may recognize this as the logic of
a gateway drug. And there’s certainly an
abstract element of addiction going on here,
a hyper-focused and wholly competitive
striving for exactness in repetition, again,
again, again, goddammit.
But I don’t think I have it. Maybe it’s
because I was technically on assignment,
or because my friends were watching me
flounder, or because I was dead sober, but
I didn’t share Anthony’s “FUCK YEAH.” I
looked at my axe, wedged in the second or
third ring from the target’s center, and felt
blank relief.
That being said, I’m also not the type
of person who would return from the Air
Force and decide that the thing to do is to
plan, build and operate an independent
axe throwing venue while simultaneously
pursuing an economics degree and prepping
for both the civil service exam and the LSAT
(Connor, you inhuman beast, I salute you).
There’s a certain sort of extreme that this
activity self-selects for, it seems, and to get
down to the bottom of it, I decided to start
at the top.
S
am Carter is the current IATF axe
throwing world champion.
“I was an arborist before doing
all this, and my girlfriend saw (a venue) was
opening up in Charlotte, where I was living
at the time, so I was instantly like, ‘Well,
hell yeah, let’s do that,’” Carter said in a
recent Facebook phone call with The Daily.
After returning to the Charlotte venue two
to three times a week, Carter responded to
a hiring notice and began working for the
franchise. This was in 2017. Today, Carter
is the general manager at their Winston-
Salem location.
“Wait … so you’re telling me that in two
years you became the world champion?” I
interrupted.
Sam paused.
“Yeah … I mean, it’s just for fun, I
mean, it sounds like a lot, but it’s not. I
mean, it’s axe throwing. It’s just, like, a
bar sport,” he replied in staccato, slightly
flustered. The status of axe throwing as a
sport is an evolving story, but ESPN3 did
broadcast the 2019 championships live.
Official recognition as the best in the
world is exceptional, whether it’s for
checkers, steeplechase, quiz bowl or axe
throwing. It implies years of diligence, a
childhood prodigy story or some ungodly
combination of the two. Sam Carter, on
the other hand, good-naturedly rolled
into a “hell yeah” and casually popped
out number one. I was drawing another
blank, feeling on the outside of some
larger understanding, not unlike the
experience of my bathetic first stick.
I asked Carter what had hooked him
about it in the first place.
“I don’t know, it’s just fun to throw a sharp
object,” he said. “You get to do it all the time,
and people let you do it. ‘Cause when I was
a kid, I used to go steal my dad’s axe and
throw it at a tree and then put it back after
two throws because I thought I was gonna
break it. Now I do it for a living.”
When you stick the word “venue” on it,
axe throwing becomes more than the simple
indulgence of a primal thrill. It’s suddenly
organized, perhaps professional. Instead of
throwing at a tree for the hell of it, you’re
aiming at a target. The thing you snuck out
to do as a child is sanctioned with the three
concentric circles of a bullseye. You’ve paid
to do it. As Sam said to me, “people let you
do it.”
The space to openly engage with taboo is a
heady permission, but is it enough to spawn
a world championship trajectory? It seemed
too simple to me. But fascination with the
forbidden appears to be an affecting entry
point to the sport for world champions
and weekend enthusiasts alike. An activity
that requires you to sign a waiver is kind
of sexy. University seniors Ryley Verde and
AJ Arons frequently go axe throwing as a
partners’ activity and talked to me about
their comparable affinity for the sport over
coffee last week.
“It’s so satisfying when you split a board
and then you have to literally replace the
board because you destroyed it,” said Ryley.
Both she and AJ have split multiple boards
in their throwing careers.
“Have you ever used an axe for anything
besides axe throwing?” I asked.
Ryley thought for a moment.
“Like camping axes, but not like for
splitting wood. Other than that, I don’t
really have a use for an axe in my daily life.”
“I think that’s part of the fun, though,”
AJ added, “because it is a weapon. It’s not
just throwing something and hitting it well.
Tennis is great, hitting overhead is fun, but
you’re throwing a weapon at something, and
that is so satisfying.”
My ears perked at AJ’s response. They
used the word “weapon” with the same
mysticism as “first stick.”
T
here is a place where you are
permitted to use weapons without
the pretense of a bullseye. It’s
called the rage room, and its history as a pay-
to-participate pastime runs near-parallel to
that of axe throwing: The first rage room
opened in Japan in 2008 before spreading
to Europe and the United States with gusto,
becoming a burgeoning urban industry and
cultural fad.
But its premise is even more basic. There
is a wall of weapons and a room of junk.
Upon payment, the application of the former
to the latter is sanctioned. Be free.
Since everybody else in this story seems
to have touched the sublime via recreational
destruction, I decided the rage room was
worth a shot. The “first stick” exactness
game was a bust, but maybe I’m just more
into the weapon side of things. I’ve always
been a theory girl.
So last Saturday, my boyfriend Jacob,
roommate Sophie and hungover-friend-
in-the-kitchen Gibby all piled into a sedan
and drove 20 minutes north to Destruction
Depot in Whitmore Lake, one of the three
rage rooms in the state of Michigan. It was
one of those cold, drizzly afternoons where
the sun sets at 4 p.m. When we pulled
into the parking lot, Jacob pointed out a
correctional facility across the street.
The imagery was grim indeed, but it
brightened substantially with the warm
welcome and stylish shoes of Rachel
Crawford, former school counselor and
current co-owner of Destruction Depot
alongside her husband, Matt.
“This business is my husband’s baby,”
Rachel told us on a tour of the Depot. Her
t-shirt, along with a variety of signage and
merchandise
throughout
the
business,
proudly displayed their slogan: “ALL
ABOARD THE RAGE TRAIN.”
“He’s an army veteran, he was blowing
stuff up for a living when he was with the
army and thought he wanted to have a place
to go to where he could destroy things when
he got out.”
The four of us nodded. We could picture
it.
“So, when we went on our first date, six
years ago … he talked about building a rage
room, and I was like, ‘well, that’s crazy, but
okay,’ so here we are.”
Destruction Depot is fitted with three
rage rooms — two doubles and one party-
sized — built by Matt, Rachel and her father
in 2018. Clients pay $20 per person for
room access and safety equipment, without
a time cap. They are then escorted to the
“inventory
room,”
where
“breakables”
— random electronics, collectibles and
glassware of varying size, design and quality
— are hand-selected, labeled and priced by
Rachel herself. She sources them from a
local e-waste company and then, weeks later
returns their destroyed debris.
“This is my creative outlet,” Rachel told us
while we perused her wares, which included
a large milk crate of wine bottles labeled
“Mommy is ‘TIRED.’” Clients may purchase
as many of the Depot’s “breakables” as they
wish and/or bring up to three of their own,
free of charge. While every client has their
own personal taste, Rachel told us that
overhead projectors, guitars and printers
tend to get snatched from the inventory
room as soon as they arrive.
“And obviously glass, people love glass,”
Rachel added. “Mugs are my personal
favorite, so I put some of those in your room,
too.” We thanked her.
Destruction Depot attracts a similar group
clientele as Axe Ventura — birthday parties,
corporate events and student groups, for the
most part — although Rachel found herself
surprised by the demographics of her
individual clients.
“I thought that we’d have a bunch of angry
men in here a lot of the time, and it is not …
we are primarily women. Women are by far
our number one customers,” she told us.
Destruction Depot is also happy to
arrange custom room setups if clients have
something special in mind.
“We had a woman who wanted to surprise
her husband, an accountant, at the end of
tax season. She wanted his room set up like
an office, so we sourced a desk, a computer
and all of that kind of stuff. At the end of tax
season, he came in and went crazy and loved
it.”
The four of us, seniors about to graduate
and enter the workforce, moved our winces
into smiles. In an attempt to either change
the subject or make a connection between
motivations, Jacob asked her if people
ever get political in the rage room. Rachel
laughed.
“Elissa Slotkin is our congresswoman,
when she was getting elected a year or two
ago some of her campaign workers would
come in, and they …”
She paused to laugh again.
“They would just, like, scream.”
Wednesday, January 22, 2020 // The Statement
4B
5B
Wednesday, January 22, 2020 // The Statement
BY VERITY STURM,
STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT
Why
destruction
is the new
American
pastime
See DESTRUCTION, Page 6B