Allen Martindale still remembers the first time he entered The Heavy Metal Shop. He was just a teenager who had recently moved to Utah, depressed, and alone because he didn’t fit into what he saw as a religious environment.

His favorite punk band, The Vandals, was coming to town and he went to the shop to buy a single ticket.

“I didn’t have anybody that liked the music,” Martindale recalls.

There, he struck up a conversation with the shop’s owner, Kevin Kirk. They talked about bands they both loved, like the one on Martindale’s shirt.

From that one interaction, Martindale felt a sense of community. Now, he and producer Brannon Richardson are trying to capture that essence in a new documentary, “Peddlin’ Evil.”

“It was just such a good experience that I just kept coming back. It made me feel so good. I can’t even put it into words. It was such an important moment for me and where I am now,” Martindale said.

Kirk and his late wife Angie opened The Heavy Metal Shop in 1987. The shop has moved throughout the Salt Lake Valley over the years. Martindale first visited when it was in Sugar House. Its current location is on 900 South in Salt Lake City.

For Martindale, experiencing the counterculture community the Kirks fostered changed his Utah experience.

“It wasn’t until I found the music scene here — punk and heavy metal especially — that I finally [felt] like I had a family, like I had a home,” he said.

Richardson moved to Utah when he was 9, but knew nothing about The Heavy Metal Shop before he started working on this project.

But the shop’s iconic logo was something that caught his eye.

“So I’m curious, as a documentary producer, why has this little tiny shop in Salt Lake City, Utah, had its logo [with] some of the most iconic bands, Alice Cooper, all of these people,” Richardson said.

Kirk said the idea of someone making a documentary about him and his shop is “flattering” and he loves hearing stories like Martindale’s.

“It’s very, very cool and I feel the connection with them as well,” Kirk said. “It’s a very good feeling. I feel like James Brown.”

Martindale and Richardson’s documentary is still in production. Last week, they released a teaser trailer. Ultimately, he hopes to release the documentary sometime next year to help celebrate the shop’s 40th anniversary.

But they still have the majority of filming work left — and the all-local crew needs funds to pull off Martindale’s vision.

Martindale and Richardson are launching a crowdfunding effort in a few weeks ahead of a benefit concert at The Urban Lounge on Oct. 3 with local bands.

Martindale hopes the final product “showcases The Heavy Metal Shop as what I view it as.”

“A banner for people like us who may not be conservative, who may not be religious, a banner for us to kind of just rally around,” he said. “It’s a tribe.”