Artist, musician, record label founder and owner of Minneapolis' Grumpy's Bar, started Amphetamine Reptile Records (AmRep),  in the early 1980s. Amrep originally run out of a hand grenade crate kept under Tom's Marine Corps bunk, was conceived as a way for Tom to release records by his band Halo Of Flies. The label quickly became his full-time job and thrived into the 90s, releasing music by the Melvins, Helmet, Cows, Boss Hog and many others.

It was also in the 90s when Tom fashioned his own popular line of Zippo lighters, festooned with artwork by Frank Kozik, Shag, Shepard Fairey, R. Crumb and Coop. Soon after that, Tom began to explore linoleum cut printing, which was paired with the records he was putting out. The combination of the music and the prints transformed the records into a high energy bombastic art object.