Born From One Story. Open To Yours.
Our Story
JT began with Jake's memory and artwork created by Tyler. Its meaning belongs to anyone who has been changed by real hardship and made the choice to keep moving.
JT Wear & Co. is a locally owned small business based in Billerica, Massachusetts.
The Story Behind JT
It Began With One Loss. It Was Never Meant To End There.
JT stands for Jake and Tyler. Jake's name comes first because the brand carries his memory. Tyler created the original Somewhere in Between Heaven and Hell artwork after losing Jake, giving a feeling that ordinary words could not hold a form. That origin will always matter, but JT is not meant to be a brand about one person. It is for people who have been changed by real hardship, know what it took to keep going, and refuse to wear someone else's story as a costume.
01
Where JT Began
Jake and Tyler were cousins, but they grew up as brothers. Jake used to sleep on a blow-up mattress in Tyler's bedroom at their home in Billerica. They shared the ordinary days, late nights, laughter, and childhood memories that build a bond deeper than a family title can explain.
Jake was the closest person in Tyler's life. JT carries both names because the brand could not exist honestly without carrying Jake forward. The story begins with their brotherhood, but it does not ask anyone else to pretend that story is theirs.
02
Jake Lived What He Loved
Jake grew up around motorcycles. His grandmother, Kathleen, rode on the back of Harley-Davidsons, and those bikes were part of the world he knew from childhood. His Great Uncle Bill spent a lifetime collecting rare Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and Jake grew up beside him watching that world take shape.
Jake's father, Todd, also rode throughout his life and was always wrenching on something in the backyard, whether it was his own Harley or his car. He was a hands-on person who worked for what he had and understood how things came apart and went back together. That is where Jake and Tyler learned to be hands-on too.
Jake helped Todd install carpet to earn his first dirt bike, a green Kawasaki KX60 with a torn seat. Later, he worked beside his father installing carpet again and earned a blue Yamaha PW80. Jake and Tyler rode that bike together around the neighborhood, building the early memories that connected motorcycles, hard work, and brotherhood.
Jake eventually progressed to the Harley-Davidson Dynas he loved most. He was not only a rider. He tore apart his bike, rebuilt its engine and transmission, and had the entire motorcycle painted illusion purple. Doing wheelies was his true passion, where focus, freedom, confidence, and his love of riding came together.
03
JT WEARCO: JTstuntz
Long before JT Wear & Co., people knew Jake as JTstuntz. If Jake was on a bike, there was a good chance somebody nearby already had their phone out recording. He had that kind of presence. People knew him for the riding, the tricks, the wheelies, and for doing things on a bike that made people stop what they were doing just to watch.
Jake wanted one of those videos to really take off. He talked about the clips, the tricks he wanted to land, and how one of them was eventually going to go viral. But for the people who knew him, it was never just about a video. This was genuinely who he was.
One trick captured Jake perfectly: riding a wheelie while reaching his hand all the way down and scraping it across the pavement. Bike balanced, front wheel in the air, pavement flying underneath him, and Jake making something ridiculous look completely natural.
A normal wheelie was nothing to him. Jake could wheelie for miles. He would ride with his boys for hours, and half the time, if you called him, you already knew what he was doing before he answered: "BIKES!"
That was Jake. Riding with the boys. Working on a bike. Talking about a bike. Trying another stunt. Chasing another clip. JTstuntz was not a character Jake created for the internet. It was Jake being Jake.
The JT Wear & Co. name carries that spirit with it: the freedom, recklessness, brotherhood, confidence, stories, miles of wheelies, phones coming out when he rode by, and that unmistakable voice yelling, "BIKES!" The videos may have been what Jake wanted people everywhere to see. Now the name gives people something bigger to remember.
04
The Place Between Darkness And Light
Jake fell while doing a wheelie and suffered a critical injury to the back of his head. At the hospital, the medical team took extraordinary measures to save him, including opening his chest and manually pumping his heart. He could not be saved. He died doing something he loved, but that truth did not make losing him easier.
Jake's death divided life into before and after. For a long time, the world felt empty and stripped of purpose. That experience became the first meaning of Somewhere in Between Heaven and Hell: not two distant destinations, but two ways the same world can look when grief changes everything inside you.
The way forward did not arrive all at once. It came through living another day, trying to make the next one better than the last, and slowly stacking those days. Pain does not disappear because someone chooses to be positive. Perception does not rewrite what happened. But what we keep looking for can shape whether we see only an empty world or begin to recognize love, loyalty, possibility, and a reason to move again.
That is the choice inside the artwork. It is not a command to stop hurting. It is the next honest choice: get up, ask for help, make something, remember who you are, and pull yourself toward a life that still belongs to you.
05
Created By Tyler
There was no collection, audience, or launch plan at the beginning. Tyler created the first Somewhere in Between Heaven and Hell design for himself because ordinary words were not enough for what he was carrying.
Putting that feeling into an image gave it somewhere to exist outside of him. The artwork was not created to chase a streetwear trend. It was created to tell the truth about being caught between darkness and light while still choosing to move. Tyler's signature remains on every piece as the mark of where the artwork began, not as a demand that the brand remain centered on him.
06
What The Image Carries
The rose represents love, memory, and the beauty that can survive loss. The thorns represent pain and the marks meaningful things leave behind. Darkness gives the image its weight. Light gives it direction. Heaven and hell are emotional places a person can move between in the same life, the same week, or the same day.
The artwork holds both sides at once. It does not erase what happened, romanticize suffering, or pretend every wound becomes beautiful. It recognizes that a person can carry pain without allowing pain to become their entire identity.
07
Bigger Than One Kind Of Hardship
This meaning is not limited to losing someone. It can belong to the person rebuilding after trauma, illness, addiction, betrayal, violence, failure, or a chapter that forced them to become someone new. The details do not have to match. What matters is knowing the difference between an ordinary bad day and an experience that truly changed the shape of your life.
Pain is not a competition, and no one has to compare scars or disclose private history to earn another person's approval. The shirt is not a medal awarded by JT. Its meaning lives in the honesty of the person wearing it.
08
This Is Not A Poor-Me Shirt
The In Between Tee is not a cry for sympathy, borrowed toughness, or a performance of damage. It does not ask the world to feel sorry for the person wearing it. It tells the truth: something happened, it changed you, and you are still responsible for what you choose to do next.
Getting up does not mean the grief was fake, the trauma was small, or you never need rest or help. It means refusing to build a permanent home in defeat. On the days the bed feels heavier than the world, put your feet on the floor, stand up, and take the next step. Then take another. Keep going.
If you wear it, wear it because you recognize that weight. Not with arrogance. Not as a threat. Wear it with the quiet certainty of someone who knows what they have survived, knows who they are, and does not need to prove either one to a stranger.
09
Wear Your Own Truth
The story begins with Jake. The artwork was created by Tyler. What the shirt carries forward is larger than either name: the reality that people can move through darkness without pretending it never existed.
Wear it to train, work, ride, reset, or move through an ordinary day. You do not have to tell everyone what happened to you. You only have to be honest with yourself about what the piece means.
Know what you carry. Own who you are. You are still here.