Speaker 1: What's up? This is a Steven Oriole check me out
Speaker 1: on the Bootleg Cab podcast.
Speaker 2: Yo, Bootleg Cab podcast. The legend is here that Steven
Speaker 2: Oriole is in the building. Ladies and gentlemen, I would
Speaker 2: like to say I'm a fan. I've been a big
Speaker 2: fan of your work for a very long time. We
Speaker 2: have had mutual friends for years and years and years
Speaker 2: and somehow I've met you like in passing at random things,
Speaker 2: but like never really like had like the fool like hey,
Speaker 2: how you doing. Yeah, but uh, it's good to finally
Speaker 2: be able to, you know, meet you and have you
Speaker 2: on the show man. You're a legend. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: was so happy a few years ago when the La
Speaker 2: Originals documentary came out because there was so much about
Speaker 2: you and cartoons story that like I kind of knew,
Speaker 2: like I kind of I knew you had like gotten
Speaker 2: your start with like Cypersille and those guys, but I
Speaker 2: wasn't like fully aware you kind of fell into like
Speaker 2: the photography thing, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like a like you didn't do it on purpose.
Speaker 2: It was like they need they needed someone to take pictures.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I can kind of break down, like because your original
Speaker 2: role with Cypress was something else, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I met Mugs in eighty nine and then through
Speaker 1: the clubs and all that, I used to work at
Speaker 1: the door and at nighttime and I did construction during
Speaker 1: the day. And then around ninety two he was like, hey,
Speaker 1: I got this job that I want to you know,
Speaker 1: I think you're perfect for. And I was all psyched up,
Speaker 1: you know, because I've been kicking with Cypress from eighty
Speaker 1: nine ninety ninety one, and then you know, here comes
Speaker 1: ninety two. I like, all right, cool, you know I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be rolling with it. He was, but it's with
Speaker 1: these other guys, a new group I'm starting. I was like, oh, fuck, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll give it a shot. Anyways, I'll listen,
Speaker 1: you know, hear it out and there was a house
Speaker 1: of pain shots ever last year, and he goes, uh,
Speaker 1: you know ever last I go, oh, hell yeah, because
Speaker 1: you know, from working the doors. He used to always
Speaker 1: come with a rhyme, synd a kid and iced tea
Speaker 1: and all those guys. So it's you know, the job
Speaker 1: is called road manage or tour managing, and at that
Speaker 1: point in their career there was nothing. There was just
Speaker 1: like a demo tape and the album.
Speaker 2: Yet it was just it was just a demo.
Speaker 1: I'm sure. Yeah, it was just like it was just
Speaker 1: just getting pressed. And we're gonna go do a press
Speaker 1: run in a van with different label reps, and we
Speaker 1: go around to college radio and do in stores and
Speaker 1: record stores and it's different, you know, the people different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people don't even know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Like a serious bunch of guys in a van going
Speaker 2: across the country shaking hands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shame, same sharing rooms, you know, going into record
Speaker 1: stores and and they and they play your song and
Speaker 1: you have to like perform it there, but like maybe
Speaker 1: ten people in the store.
Speaker 2: You know. The record store meet and greets are such
Speaker 2: a just a I'm yeah, because you'd be able to
Speaker 2: see your like the underground rap group that nobody really
Speaker 2: knew about in your hometown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they might.
Speaker 2: Pop up at like a Zero Records or Tower Records,
Speaker 2: and you'd be like, maybe there's twenty other people there
Speaker 2: to meet them, but you get to meet them, you know,
Speaker 2: get an album sign, get a poster sign, get one
Speaker 2: of those black and white pictures signed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so you would be lucky if it was
Speaker 1: the Tower records. Most of the time. It was like
Speaker 1: a little strip mall record pop spot. Yeah, and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh man, you know, like but you had to do it.
Speaker 1: That was part of the That was part of the deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if you did that, that store might give
Speaker 2: you better real estate with where they put your album right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they might put you right front center or so
Speaker 1: when everybody walks in, you're the first record they see,
Speaker 1: or you know, they might suggest your records. Oh you're
Speaker 1: like this, well you check out check opinion.
Speaker 2: That used to be a thing. You would actually trust
Speaker 2: the employees at the record store, yeah, to recommend shit.
Speaker 1: And they knew their ship too. It's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did.
Speaker 1: Like you could go in there and go, you know
Speaker 1: that song like you might get this is They're like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, let's jump around ye you know, and then
Speaker 1: you're like, damn, how do they know like lyrics from
Speaker 1: every song to where they could just direct you to
Speaker 1: the record.
Speaker 2: Super lost art form being like a like a record
Speaker 2: store employee.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was that was the ship. So that's basically
Speaker 1: what it was was taking them to the insource, taking
Speaker 1: them to you know, radio shows, making sure they catch
Speaker 1: their flights and they're be on time for you know, interviews,
Speaker 1: and then it was if they have to perform, you know,
Speaker 1: help them out with all that. So I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: no problem. The thing was, it was like the only
Speaker 1: catching it all is there's no pay, but you do
Speaker 1: get your travel, taking care of your hotels, and you
Speaker 1: get this thing called per deems, which is thirty five
Speaker 1: bucks a day for food. So if you save that up,
Speaker 1: you get two ten a week and then you're living
Speaker 1: you know, you're living on their yeah, but you have
Speaker 1: all your bills back home, so it's like you still
Speaker 1: have your rent and all your shit to do back home.
Speaker 1: So luckily write it. The beginning of that jump Around
Speaker 1: took off and we started, you know, really kicking in.
Speaker 1: I think at the end of the summer, the band
Speaker 1: was making like a GS show and just to play
Speaker 1: jump Around and the intro is like a seven minute
Speaker 1: DAT tape. And so for every thousand they would get,
Speaker 1: they'd give me a hundred, So it's like three hundred,
Speaker 1: three hundred, three hundred for the three guys, one for me.
Speaker 1: So sometimes we do two three shows a day, so
Speaker 1: that I'm getting you know, two hundred, three hundred bucks a.
Speaker 2: Day plus, right, yeah, so it was cool.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, this is great. I might never
Speaker 1: have to go back to construction or working in the
Speaker 1: door with a bunch of drunk dayheads. You know, they're
Speaker 1: all on the guest list, so it's cool. I was like,
Speaker 1: fuck y, I like this shit. And then we were traveling.
Speaker 2: And meeting see the country to meet people, going to.
Speaker 1: All the the the record when they call them the
Speaker 1: back in the day Jack the Rapper.
Speaker 2: All the conventions, music conventions. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So now you're seeing everybody that you ever listened to
Speaker 1: all in one place, and everybody's like going to these
Speaker 1: little showcases. And I was like, you know, I was
Speaker 1: like I found the.
Speaker 2: Junta just the fact to get paid to do that,
Speaker 2: And like, I don't I feel like that level of
Speaker 2: I think that people who want to get into the
Speaker 2: music industry these days aren't impressed. Like like when I
Speaker 2: was growing up, I worked for free at the radio
Speaker 2: station for two years because I just wanted to be there,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Like I was like, how
Speaker 2: can I figure out a way to just pay my
Speaker 2: bills through hip hop?
Speaker 1: This is all I want?
Speaker 2: That saw all I love, you know, so I would
Speaker 2: have been happy just you know, with ten percent of
Speaker 2: the success I've had in my life, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So it's.
Speaker 2: Like like you said, like, Yo, you can leave a
Speaker 2: regular job, see the country, meet some of the people
Speaker 2: you are fans of, and like do something cool and
Speaker 2: and not have to worry about all the normal bullshit.
Speaker 1: So and then every night you're listening to dope music
Speaker 1: for sure, and then every day you're in the behind
Speaker 1: the scenes of the guys, some of the guys that
Speaker 1: are making the hottest music out there, Cypress Funk, Dubious,
Speaker 1: House of Pain, like our crew was fucking stead right then,
Speaker 1: you know. So from there it went to, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we did a tour of the Beastie Boys and we
Speaker 1: got kicked off because we're a little too rowdy for them.
Speaker 1: And wait, wait, you.
Speaker 2: Guys got kicked off tour with the Beastie Boys. Yeah wow,
Speaker 2: is there an incident?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, it was a little incident and we got
Speaker 1: kicked off. And then the kar Lewis was our booking agent,
Speaker 1: who's still doing her thing. You've heard that, you know,
Speaker 1: on the songs. So I always used to love to
Speaker 1: say that, you know, like who you know, who do
Speaker 1: you guys do shows. I'd say, Karen Lewis is our
Speaker 1: booking agent, you know from from The Pain and Full
Speaker 1: And then she was like, that's kind of like a
Speaker 1: blessing in the skies because now I can book you
Speaker 1: guys one off shows and you guys can do your
Speaker 1: own thing because the song is blowing up. So we
Speaker 1: started doing our own thing. And then we went into
Speaker 1: the Sol Assassin tour in ninety three and that was
Speaker 1: a funk dubious house of pain Cypress Hill, and opening
Speaker 1: up before them was The Hooligans.
Speaker 2: Which is Alchemists and Scottie Khan.
Speaker 1: So that whole tour was off the chain, like crazy.
Speaker 1: Everything that could happen happened and it was one of
Speaker 1: the best experiences of all of our lives for sure.
Speaker 1: And then just.
Speaker 2: Real quick, what was it like being around Alchemists as
Speaker 2: a kid, Because obviously for people wh don't know Scotty
Speaker 2: Khan is, you've seen him in tons of Hawaii I point.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's in a ton of movies. He's a
Speaker 2: legendary actor. His dad's obviously resting peace of his dad.
Speaker 2: He's a legend as well. But Alchemist as a kid,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the most prolific, just minds, musical minds.
Speaker 2: We've ever seen one of the goats when it comes
Speaker 2: to production. What was that like having them on tour?
Speaker 2: It had to be kind of like a rowdy tour.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was definitely rowdy. It was off the chain.
Speaker 2: And they were young, right because they were fifteen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they were kids, So like what was that?
Speaker 1: He was like my little nephews, you know, like I
Speaker 1: had to look out for them and and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of they were already doing their thing. You know,
Speaker 1: they're already partying and hanging out with girls and stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's always like there was no uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you have to hide her with the kids over here,
Speaker 1: and let's go smoke weed over here or whatever, or
Speaker 1: you know, don't let no girls around them there yet
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 2: They were already doing their thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was that was way past that point. So
Speaker 1: now its just showing them how to do it the
Speaker 1: right way, you know, Like I kind of had to
Speaker 1: just take Alchemists under my wing. And then he started
Speaker 1: coming on tour with us after the Hooligans, and he
Speaker 1: was like our he was rolling with us. He would
Speaker 1: help Mugs with the production stuff and he'd help me
Speaker 1: on the tour stuff, and we had little like side
Speaker 1: hustles that we'd do on the road and just me
Speaker 1: and Al you know, we asked the guys, hey, is
Speaker 1: it cool if we do this this? And you yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead and get your money, do your thing. And
Speaker 1: I mean, would I ever think like, oh, Alchemist is
Speaker 1: gonna be one of the great greatest producers of all times? Right?
Speaker 1: Probably not? You know, just saw he was a youngster,
Speaker 1: little kid, you know, but he was He wanted to
Speaker 1: learn so bad, and he was so on it, and
Speaker 1: he was like on point, even like helping me. He
Speaker 1: was like right there like hey, oh can you do this?
Speaker 1: Can you do that? He did everything right. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like nowadays there's you know, there's a new generations and
Speaker 1: they fuck up and they're like, oh, my bad, Oh
Speaker 1: I did I just fucked this whole thing up? Bad,
Speaker 1: my bad? That That wasn't no accountability, Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: give a fuck. Yeah, but Al there was no my bad.
Speaker 1: He was on it, you know, so you could tell
Speaker 1: he was gonna do something, you know, big, But you know,
Speaker 1: you never would know. You never know of anybody's career,
Speaker 1: like they're going to be a Grammy nominated or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know. But to see that, it's just such a
Speaker 1: like proud moment, you know for us older guys that
Speaker 1: were around him when he was a youngster. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: so leg you know in uh in a good way,
Speaker 1: in a good way because now that word is that
Speaker 1: word Jesus.
Speaker 2: Uh So, so that tour happens, the soul assassine war happens.
Speaker 2: How do you kind of walk me through how you
Speaker 2: end up taking pictures?
Speaker 1: Well, I was all so. I bought a sixty four
Speaker 1: I Paula in nineteen eighty nine, and I had it
Speaker 1: as like an every day you know, was every day ride,
Speaker 1: yeah bucket you know, kind of had like rest spots
Speaker 1: and stuff, and had these like rusted out like mag
Speaker 1: rims and I just put sounds in it. Spent like
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred bucks on the car. I probably spent another
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred on just the sounds. And I'll just roll
Speaker 1: that car around and just you know, be smashing in it.
Speaker 1: And then I had a little work truck that I
Speaker 1: bought for two hundred bucks. Somebody told me like, hey,
Speaker 1: I got this truck. I want to get rid of it.
Speaker 1: It's making this weird noise. The guy didn't know shit
Speaker 1: about cars, and oh yeah, I'll take it off your hands,
Speaker 1: you know, And I took it to my homie. He
Speaker 1: did like a major tune up on it, another two
Speaker 1: hundred bucks and it worked perfect for ten years. Crazy,
Speaker 1: So I use that as my work truck and then
Speaker 1: I put the Impaula away my homeie DC Donnie Charles,
Speaker 1: he passed away in ninety four. He helped me strip
Speaker 1: down the Impala and put it all into the right
Speaker 1: shops and then I just used my work truck for
Speaker 1: construction every day. But he was a He was a
Speaker 1: manager of w C in the med Circle back then,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know that was cool et Crazy Tunes.
Speaker 1: C's brother rest in peace. And then uh, another guy,
Speaker 1: I think his name was Jim, but there was four
Speaker 1: of them, and Donnie Charles was the manager of them.
Speaker 1: He had a thing called Hoodrat Records and a car
Speaker 1: club called Hoodrat Car Club. And then so he helped
Speaker 1: me take my car apart. And so from building the
Speaker 1: Lowrider and joining a car club in East LA and touring.
Speaker 1: My pops was like, hey man, you're doing a lot
Speaker 1: of cool shit. You should take photos. But at that
Speaker 1: time you know, cameras are like this big.
Speaker 2: They're big, you know, big, clunky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yet to learn shit, you know, you couldn't just
Speaker 1: like cheat and look, you know, get it to the
Speaker 1: perfect place where sure digital screen is like perfect photo.
Speaker 1: Then you go, okay, it's perfect click. You know, you
Speaker 1: just had to go with your instincts.
Speaker 2: You had to develop a whole role of film and
Speaker 2: hope three or four were great, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you got one, you were happy, because what
Speaker 1: can you do with thirty six good pictures of one
Speaker 1: role in the film of one ship? You know. So most
Speaker 1: people would always say full time photographers if you get
Speaker 1: one shot per role, like you're winning. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: my pops put me onto taking photos. So I would
Speaker 1: do that on my spare time from tour managing. And
Speaker 1: I never really thought of you know, I didn't really
Speaker 1: like the camera because I thought paparazzis or tourists carry
Speaker 1: cameras around, you know, it looks kind of weird, right,
Speaker 1: So I would always keep it kind of like to
Speaker 1: the side, and then if I saw something cool or
Speaker 1: if the homies were there, I would be like, hey,
Speaker 1: let me get a flick, you know, and I would shoot.
Speaker 1: I start off shooting all my homies from my car
Speaker 1: club and that that world, and then shooting us probably
Speaker 1: on the the Sol Assassin tour. I started taking a
Speaker 1: couple of flicks here and there.
Speaker 2: Right just for you, yeah, just for me, And then.
Speaker 1: The homies would see the pictures, like we'd all kind
Speaker 1: of compare our pictures after and be like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: let me see what you got. Let me see what
Speaker 1: you got. And I would always notice that my pictures
Speaker 1: were a little bit different than theirs. I would see
Speaker 1: theirs and be like, oh, man, like like, we're right
Speaker 1: next to each other. How did he get that picture?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. But I didn't want to say nothing. I
Speaker 1: don't want to hurt nobody's feelings or whatever. So I
Speaker 1: just kept doing it little by little, and then as
Speaker 1: more people would see it, they were like, hey, this
Speaker 1: is this is pretty good. And the lady at the
Speaker 1: photo lab, she she dealt with all pros. She was like, hey,
Speaker 1: can I blow some pictures up and put them in
Speaker 1: the in the lobby of the photo lab. And I
Speaker 1: had noticed that she had done that with all the
Speaker 1: pros before, and she did it, and she sold eight
Speaker 1: out of eleven of the photos. And she goes, you
Speaker 1: know what, I've never sold that many photos here in
Speaker 1: the lobby of the photo lab even of the big guys.
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, cool, Like I didn't know
Speaker 1: what that meant. You know, she was telling me you're
Speaker 1: onto something, you know, stick with it. So I did
Speaker 1: a little bit, a little bit more, a little bit more,
Speaker 1: and then I found the Because I was a tour manager,
Speaker 1: I was the one dealing with all the magazines, the
Speaker 1: record labels and everybody that was coming through photographers, you.
Speaker 2: Know, the line of defense between the gatekeeper.
Speaker 1: Yes, so I would set up the interviews, like the
Speaker 1: record label would send me a fax. I don't know
Speaker 1: if people know what that is.
Speaker 2: Frequently like frequently asked question FAQ or no facts? Is
Speaker 2: a fact like a fax machine? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So you get this like prehistoric paper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'd come through like this machine with the phone
Speaker 2: and it was kind of like an email before an email.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get a fact, yeah, the paper email.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly what it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's on a crazy ass paper, Like I
Speaker 1: have some of the factes from back then.
Speaker 2: They do so crazy how they come into.
Speaker 1: Yeah, with the noises and ship on the machine. So
Speaker 1: I'd get a fax and it say four interviews an
Speaker 1: hour an hour long, so you schedule a time with
Speaker 1: the guys when they want to do it, So give
Speaker 1: each person fifteen minutes. So I do the sound check,
Speaker 1: then we do press for an hour, then we'd do dinner,
Speaker 1: and then we do the show and then we leave.
Speaker 1: So the for the four interviews it's fifteen minutes. So
Speaker 1: I had to, you know, be like, Okay, cool, we're done.
Speaker 1: Next you know, I'm bringing the next interview, right. But
Speaker 1: I would feel bad for the photographer because the interviewer
Speaker 1: would take up ten minutes, you know, talking to these guys,
Speaker 1: which isn't that much time if you think about it,
Speaker 1: but everybody knew the deal, so it's like, you know
Speaker 1: you're going to get this amount of time the photographer,
Speaker 1: and I always see the photographer struggling, like where am
Speaker 1: I going to shoot this classic picture of these four
Speaker 1: guys at the hottest rappers in the world and we're
Speaker 1: backstage at a concert for a four page article. And
Speaker 1: I would see them going like, fuck man, poor guys,
Speaker 1: you know. But then I was I started feeling bad
Speaker 1: and be like, hey, if you guys need any photos
Speaker 1: of the guys backstage or on stage during the show.
Speaker 1: I have photos, and most of them would look at
Speaker 1: me like, yeah, fucking sure, you look out of here,
Speaker 1: you know, Roady or whatever the fuck you are. So
Speaker 1: then I had these little little books with my photos
Speaker 1: and I'm They're like, you take these, and I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why I'm telling you. If you want to use
Speaker 1: my pictures, here check them out. So then they started
Speaker 1: paying me to use my photos. Magazines yeah, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, we'll give you two fifty five hundred bucks,
Speaker 1: you know, a thousand and fifteen hundred to use the photos,
Speaker 1: depending on the magazine and how big they would put
Speaker 1: it in there. So I was like, fuck, I could
Speaker 1: do this. This is pretty cool. This is better than
Speaker 1: the other shit we were doing, you know, the moving
Speaker 1: little things of weed or whatever. You know, Like, this
Speaker 1: is cool. So I started getting a little bit more
Speaker 1: serious into that, and I was taking more pictures of
Speaker 1: my homies at the Lowrider shit, more pictures of the
Speaker 1: touring stuff. And then I learned the language with the magazines,
Speaker 1: and then I started learning about the videos and got
Speaker 1: into doing videos, and it took off, you know, slowly,
Speaker 1: because I wasn't pushing it because I had a job,
Speaker 1: because you were doing the other shit. Yeah, but in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, those guys are tired of touring.
Speaker 1: They're like, hey, we want to take a little break.
Speaker 1: Is that cool? I'm like, yeah, you know, you guys
Speaker 1: are the you're the boss, you know, like whatever you
Speaker 1: want to do. But they were getting money from music.
Speaker 1: But if you're not touring and you're you're not tour crew,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, you're out. So they're like you're good. Go yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm good. You know, like what can I do? So
Speaker 1: I just said fuck it, I'm going all in with
Speaker 1: the photos and directing, and uh it worked out. I
Speaker 1: never had to go back out on tour again.
Speaker 2: What was uh one of your early videos that kind
Speaker 2: of that you were able to direct it because because
Speaker 2: uh directing a video back then again, Yeah, things are
Speaker 2: different now you can get it. I mean anybody you
Speaker 2: can make it. You could literally shoot a video with
Speaker 2: iPhone and it looked decent. You know, back then there
Speaker 2: was so much more that you would put into it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, twenty thousand dollars video budget was nothing.
Speaker 2: That was like disrespectful video.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Fact, they're like disrespecting you giving you twenty grand
Speaker 1: to shoot a video.
Speaker 2: So what were some of your early videos that you
Speaker 2: were able to initially kind of be behind the lens and.
Speaker 1: The I mean I did videos for Mugs and Bee,
Speaker 1: their side projects, and then I would say the one
Speaker 1: that I did well for sen it was called Ssex ten.
Speaker 1: It was a majority black and white video. Back then,
Speaker 1: all the videos were shot on film. It was a
Speaker 1: whole process. And I showed that Ssex ten video to
Speaker 1: Dennis from Interscope, who works with eminem, and he was like,
Speaker 1: I got a D twelve video for you, and I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, cool, And so I remember getting all
Speaker 1: excited because it was going to be fifty two thousand
Speaker 1: dollars video budget, you know, right, and it's for eminem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I was like, let's do that, you know.
Speaker 1: So I went to Detroit and shot, Uh it's called
Speaker 1: all Ship on you. I remember that song. And because
Speaker 1: they could never play it on the radio or well,
Speaker 1: they could never play it on the.
Speaker 2: Screen or bet or any Yeah, they had a cuss word.
Speaker 2: And back then there's no YouTube really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, so it wasn't like yeah, if you weren't
Speaker 1: on MTV or the.
Speaker 2: Box or whatever it was, even the Box back. I
Speaker 2: think by that by that time, it was BT and
Speaker 2: MTV by that time. Manh, I think the box is done.
Speaker 1: So if you weren't on there, you you're asked.
Speaker 2: You might end up on a DVD.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the cussing DVDs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So. But what I noticed was anytime there would be
Speaker 1: a news story about eminem, they would use the footage
Speaker 1: for my video because it was not seen right, and
Speaker 1: it was cool. It was black and white, it had
Speaker 1: him performing. So I would say that one probably hit
Speaker 1: the biggest right then. And also Doctor Greenam did did
Speaker 1: a pretty big And the challenge with that one was
Speaker 1: here's a song all about weed, but you can't show
Speaker 1: weed or show that there's anything that has to do
Speaker 1: weed related. So I made up this like Mad Scientists.
Speaker 2: Remember that video as a kid.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So it's like I made up this mad
Speaker 1: Scientist idea. Uh. And it was based off of this
Speaker 1: old school movie. I can't remember the the name of
Speaker 1: the movie. There's a lot of you know, touring.
Speaker 2: And now it's that Mad Scientists is all over dispensary.
Speaker 1: Merch, weed bags, everything. So that video took off from
Speaker 1: me and that that uh sent me into another strategy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I started. Uh, I met up with a
Speaker 1: really good homie my name Skinhead Rob.
Speaker 2: Shots to Skinhead Rob. I loved him and Travis Barker
Speaker 2: and the homie from the rantid that what was the
Speaker 2: name of that side for the Transplants. That first Transplants
Speaker 2: album was fucking raw.
Speaker 1: So he brought me in on that and I did
Speaker 1: the press photos and that fucking album was so good.
Speaker 1: We ended up doing the whole album packaging because we
Speaker 1: had like a little art department.
Speaker 2: Great job, and.
Speaker 1: Ended up doing two videos for them with the bo Tribe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember, yo, Fuck, dude, I got is that
Speaker 2: I gotta I haven't listening to that album in probably
Speaker 2: fifteen years.
Speaker 1: I gotta find it on Spotify.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because there was some ship on that album.
Speaker 1: So then Rob brought me in to that, and then
Speaker 1: he brought me into Blink and then did you.
Speaker 2: Do expensive Taste stuff too with him and Paul?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was an Expensive Taste with Skinhead Robin Paul
Speaker 2: Wall that was Travis and Travis.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Fuck, that's a whole era of ship that I just
Speaker 2: forgot about. Yeah, and I was a fan of that's crazy.
Speaker 1: Rob's been in like four or five bands, and I
Speaker 1: did all the photos for all the bands.
Speaker 2: What was the band it was? Was it just the Travis.
Speaker 2: Wasn't there a Travis Yellowl album that that was a group?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What was the name of that group? Fuck? I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was a group.
Speaker 2: But I just it was one project. I did thee
Speaker 2: with half of the faces. Damn, that's crazy. Shout to
Speaker 2: Travis man, he's a real one.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So you were able to do some Blink stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I did. My biggest video to date was one
Speaker 1: called Down and I look at That was off the
Speaker 1: self title. Yeah. Yeah, we did all the artwork for that,
Speaker 1: did the merch and we did the video. I did
Speaker 1: uh six videos off of that album, but one was
Speaker 1: uh well, actually I did seven I think one was
Speaker 1: Down And then I did five videos that were on
Speaker 1: a CD ROM only.
Speaker 2: So it was like the deluxe album you bought.
Speaker 1: Right, you get the plug in the computer and you
Speaker 1: can play it as a DVD two and then I
Speaker 1: did not Now at the end of that that tour
Speaker 1: that we were doing.
Speaker 2: That was a great album. Down's a great record.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the but the cool thing was with those guys.
Speaker 1: They were just like, do whatever the fuck you want
Speaker 1: to do, like I wanna trust you, and like for down,
Speaker 1: I just had this idea that I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I was like making a little movie, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I had that little thing going on. Then I had
Speaker 1: the performance going on, and this one girl, like you know,
Speaker 1: the net bangers and stuff. They go, what does this
Speaker 1: have to do with the song? What the songs about?
Speaker 1: And I was like, Oh, what a bitch, you know,
Speaker 1: like fucking bitch talking shit about me? And then uh
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, yeah, what what does it
Speaker 1: have to do with the song? Like this has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the song or anything. But I remember
Speaker 1: that the reason that it was like that was because
Speaker 1: they just said, do whatever you want. And I made
Speaker 1: up this little story that I wanted to make. This
Speaker 1: basically as a guy who he's on like parole or
Speaker 1: probation or whatever, and the cops come to this party
Speaker 1: and he was like fuck that, I'm not supposed to
Speaker 1: be here. I'm out of here. He jumps the wall,
Speaker 1: hops in his ride and takes off and gets into
Speaker 1: a police chase.
Speaker 2: And so that story is happening while it's going back
Speaker 2: and forth to performance shots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it has nothing to do with the song, but
Speaker 1: to me, he's down.
Speaker 2: He's down, that's all.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, motherfucker's down right here. So he makes
Speaker 1: it and he gets away, which never happens never, So
Speaker 1: I was like, I want to do that. So I
Speaker 1: did that, and that led to a film agent name
Speaker 1: Chris Smith. He was at this agency called Paradigm. He
Speaker 1: was like, hey, you need to do movies. And I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, all right, cool, you know, like another
Speaker 1: Hollywood thing, like somebody telling me you should do that,
Speaker 1: an how about let's do this or that, so it's
Speaker 1: just another thing. I was like, yeah, yeah, okay. But
Speaker 1: he kept on me and finally I gave in. I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, fuck it, so I go, what
Speaker 1: do you want to do? And then he just started
Speaker 1: introducing me to all these movie companies and I ad
Speaker 1: met Brian Grazer through an art show that we did
Speaker 1: at uh this Nike house in Venice Beach. It was there.
Speaker 1: It was called the Blue House Nike about it, but
Speaker 1: it was the original house where Jim Morrison lived on
Speaker 1: the boardwalk. So I was like, man, this is cool,
Speaker 1: Like we're doing an art show in Jim Morrison's house
Speaker 1: and we used to listen to the Doors and our
Speaker 1: Low Riders all the time, like our Low Writer Club.
Speaker 1: It was the thing that was that we're known for
Speaker 1: was when we pull into a car show, we're listening
Speaker 1: to led Zeppelin, the Doors or Jimmy Hendricks that classic
Speaker 1: rock just blasting out of a car that's two inches
Speaker 1: off the ground going five miles an hour. It's crazy,
Speaker 1: you know, Black Sabbath, like you put on like war
Speaker 1: Pigs or something.
Speaker 2: Because you would think, like, you know, the typical low
Speaker 2: rider club was probably bumping like Zapp and Roger and.
Speaker 1: Yeah like some old y you know, some Marvin game
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 2: Or you're placing and grew up and war Dog.
Speaker 1: Yeah, war Pigs were just like damn, just like everybody's
Speaker 1: just like looking, what the fuck is that? It sounds
Speaker 1: like evil, you know, and then you just see the
Speaker 1: car just creeping and it's like, yeah, it's a great feeling.
Speaker 1: But we did that that show. We met Brian Grays there.
Speaker 2: Probably, Like Brian Grays are a great Instagram follow if
Speaker 2: anybody doesn't follow him.
Speaker 1: He's funny, Yeah, he's hilarious and uh, you know Ron Howard,
Speaker 1: which was cool, Like we got to meet Richie Richie
Speaker 1: Cunningham from Happy Days and at that time, who wasn't
Speaker 1: a fan of Richie Cunningham. If you grew up in
Speaker 1: my era and you didn't watch Happy Days, there's something
Speaker 1: wrong with you.
Speaker 2: For sure, I watched it. I didn't grow up in
Speaker 2: your era, but I saw the reruns my dad.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So to be able to like work with Richie Cunningham, like,
Speaker 1: come on, man, for sure you made it, you know.
Speaker 1: So I got to meet those guys and they ended
Speaker 1: up we had a documentary we were trying to put
Speaker 1: out called Ink, and they're like, we love the documentary,
Speaker 1: but we don't want to do it. We want to
Speaker 1: do a movie. So we're like, okay, cool. So they
Speaker 1: go for seven years, you we're gonna sign this deal
Speaker 1: with you, a three movie deal. So for these next
Speaker 1: seven years, we want to do three movies. With the
Speaker 1: first one, it was like seven years of rewrites on
Speaker 1: the script. It was like one rewrite a year for
Speaker 1: seven years. So by the seven years is over, we
Speaker 1: still didn't have a movie. They're like, hey, thank you man,
Speaker 1: the deal's gone. That was still get paid, no, because
Speaker 1: you don't get paid to the until you do the movie.
Speaker 2: I'm not hip to the film game. Like you know
Speaker 2: in hip hop, they're giving advance right, you know.
Speaker 1: So he gave us like a thirty grand advanced for
Speaker 1: seven years, you know. Yeah, yeah, divide that up and
Speaker 1: the Yeah, the writer got paid every every time he
Speaker 1: turned in the script. So there were seven of those
Speaker 1: he made, you know, his money. And then at the time,
Speaker 1: the people universally they didn't understand like Chicano culture, low
Speaker 1: Ride or anything. They're like, we don't know, we don't
Speaker 1: know how to do it, but we don't we don't
Speaker 1: get it. So that deal went away, and Brian kept
Speaker 1: pushing that he wanted to do the low Writer culture.
Speaker 1: So we're like, well that's cool, you know. He was like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, the deal's over. You know, sorry about that, guys,
Speaker 1: but I still want to do a movie with you guys,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna take control of it and try and
Speaker 1: push this other direction and let's see what's see what happens.
Speaker 1: So we ended up going from a twenty five million
Speaker 1: dollar movie to a five million dollar movie, and uh,
Speaker 1: Bloomhouse put it out and it's called Little Writers, and
Speaker 1: it went to the theaters and did you know did
Speaker 1: this little thing in there?
Speaker 2: And for people don't know Bloomhouse is known for They're
Speaker 2: probably known for the horror movies, right right, they got
Speaker 2: huge horror.
Speaker 1: Franchises, the biggest probably.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. Do you feel like, you know, I
Speaker 2: feel like the wave and hip hop is turning and
Speaker 2: I feel like, you know, when I was growing up
Speaker 2: outside of Cypress Hill and you know a few others,
Speaker 2: but I grew up in Phoenix, so Chicano rap was
Speaker 2: really big, right, So like Little Rob and like mster
Speaker 2: Caponi and EMC Magic and then be Rioters and all
Speaker 2: those guys, and it was very if you weren't like
Speaker 2: Cypress Hill, everybody could enjoy were they just happened to
Speaker 2: be Latino, right. But then there was that way where
Speaker 2: it was almost like if you weren't really connected to
Speaker 2: the Chicano culture, didn't understand it, you might not appreciate
Speaker 2: the music like the people who did appreciate the music.
Speaker 2: Right now, I feel like, man, there's this this Mexican
Speaker 2: wave in hip hop specifically, is it is rivaling anything
Speaker 2: we've ever seen? You know, there's a guy like that
Speaker 2: Mexican ot who's going crazy. Uh the La in San
Speaker 2: Diego scene of Mexican rappers are just killing it like
Speaker 2: it's it feels like all of the major labels are
Speaker 2: now trying to sign Mexican talent, which I've never seen.
Speaker 2: I've never seen it because I'll hear people like a
Speaker 2: lot of my homies, like there's have you heard a
Speaker 2: group called Coyote two Brothers. They're amazing. They put a
Speaker 2: record out with Shaq not too long ago, but like
Speaker 2: everyone's trying to sign him, you know, and any of
Speaker 2: my Mexican rapper homies everyone's trying to sign like it's crazy,
Speaker 2: like and I feel like like your movie might have
Speaker 2: been like before, it's time.
Speaker 1: We're all we've been before. It's time with everything we've
Speaker 1: done for sure, And uh, you know even with the clothing.
Speaker 1: We had Joker clothing back in ninety five, but me
Speaker 1: and Big Lucky we had a store on Melros called
Speaker 1: super Max. Then we is that way?
Speaker 2: Is that the same? It's Big that's not Big Lucky
Speaker 2: works the cookies it yep. Oh, that's my guy, man,
Speaker 2: that's my guys. He's the coolest motherfucker ben Yep, he's
Speaker 2: such a.
Speaker 1: Cool dude, I'm going to meet him right now. He's
Speaker 1: so cool. Man right after this, Yeah, shout out to him.
Speaker 2: Bro, he's killing it.
Speaker 1: Man. We're getting the you know, more movie stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta go on his podcast. We keep talking
Speaker 2: about I gotta, I gotta make it over there man,
Speaker 2: that guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be. Everything's about to turn right now.
Speaker 1: Everything's about for you know, bigger and better things. So
Speaker 1: where were we We're.
Speaker 2: Talking about that? So the movie got made by Bluemouse little.
Speaker 1: Right, and then I got my footage back from the
Speaker 1: Ink documentary and we met a guy named Sebastian Ortega.
Speaker 1: He came here to work with these He came here
Speaker 1: from Argentina to work with these other Argentinas. And his
Speaker 1: thing was, I'll work with you, but I want to
Speaker 1: meet Stellan a cartoon. So I went to meet him
Speaker 1: and he was like, I want to do I want
Speaker 1: to do the Ink documentary. What's up with that? And
Speaker 1: I go, that's funny you ask, because I just got
Speaker 1: the footage back. It had been ten years locked up
Speaker 1: you know, a shelf. So I just got the footage
Speaker 1: back and he goes, can we do it? I go, well,
Speaker 1: you know it sounds good, you know, but what are
Speaker 1: we talking about here? He goes, well, let me fly
Speaker 1: you to Argentina and show you my facility and see
Speaker 1: what you think. And he's like, you know, I'm the
Speaker 1: perfect guy to do this with. And I'm like looking
Speaker 1: at him, like, okay, he's covered in tattoos from the
Speaker 1: neck down. He's wearing Chucks Dicky's T shirt from Argentina,
Speaker 1: from Argentina, and he goes, check this out. He shows
Speaker 1: me on his phone he has two low writers. He's
Speaker 1: the only guy in Argentina with with a lowrider and
Speaker 1: he has two of them. So I'm looking at it.
Speaker 1: He's going, yeah, I'm the you know, I'm probably the
Speaker 1: perfect guy to do this with them. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you are. You know. In my head, I'm thinking like
Speaker 1: out of.
Speaker 2: Everybody, obviously understand the culture.
Speaker 1: Yeah you get it. Yeah, And he goes, you know,
Speaker 1: I got into this business because of watching you guys.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh man, that's cool. You know
Speaker 1: you guys inspired me. Shoots me a first class ticket
Speaker 1: fly down to Argentina, picks me up. He goes, We're
Speaker 1: gonna go to my facility, and I'm thinking, like, you know,
Speaker 1: Our office was crazy. We had like twenty Low Riders
Speaker 1: in there. There was three warehouses down to.
Speaker 2: Downtown in the Young Club.
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, we had our offices in
Speaker 1: there at Tattoo.
Speaker 2: Is this this was in skid rowdy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, say studios. We called it solo assassine Studios. And
Speaker 1: then so I get there and I see this huge studio,
Speaker 1: like a film production studio, not like a studio, like
Speaker 1: this is.
Speaker 2: Like shoot everything in there, like some ship you drive
Speaker 2: by in Burbank.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Burbank or Paramount or Sonya. I was like, what
Speaker 1: the fuck? And he goes, what do you think, man,
Speaker 1: And as we're walking through that, mister Taka, do you
Speaker 1: want to coffee? Mister take did you need to? You know,
Speaker 1: like they're just like loving him, and he's he's the
Speaker 1: main guy there, the owner of it all. And I
Speaker 1: was like, man. And then he takes me to his
Speaker 1: pad and out in the country in Argentina where he
Speaker 1: has his lolos and we go cruising the Lowriders. I
Speaker 1: was like, man, this is fucking said fuck, like, this
Speaker 1: is a no brainer. We're doing this ship. So he
Speaker 1: has like the number one show in in Argentina on
Speaker 1: Netflix and we do like a little cut and show
Speaker 1: them and they like it. And then he's they gave
Speaker 1: us more money because he put in a pretty good
Speaker 1: chunk and they liked it so much. They're like, they
Speaker 1: showed Netflix. I guess it's like Latino Netflix.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean if you go, depending on where you
Speaker 2: are in the world, if you turn Netflix on, sh
Speaker 2: it's different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, way different. So this is like Argentina Netflix. They
Speaker 1: showed it to the main headquarters over here and they're like,
Speaker 1: let's go. So they gave us the rest of the
Speaker 1: money to finish it, and then it was we changed
Speaker 1: the name to.
Speaker 2: La Originals, which came out fire.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So such a great fucking you guys killed that ship, dude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was proud of that one. And then then
Speaker 1: the pandemic came. We were supposed to go to south
Speaker 1: By Southwest Film Festival. We're the headliners, the main pick there.
Speaker 1: A week before they canceled it for the pandemic and
Speaker 1: the COVID you know, so everybody's like, hey, Holmes, what
Speaker 1: did I do? We had like thirty homies going with us,
Speaker 1: what do I do? You know? I got my fucking
Speaker 1: plane ticket, the hotel, Airbnb, like, how am I gonna
Speaker 1: get that going, homie?
Speaker 2: I don't know, like go out there and hang out.
Speaker 1: What do I look like? You know, like fights were
Speaker 1: canceled everything, so, you know, the airlines, everybody gave their.
Speaker 2: Everybody everybody was getting refunds during that time. But it
Speaker 2: was kind of you know, scary, like yeah, for sure,
Speaker 2: it was unknown.
Speaker 1: We never yeah, there's that pandemic, then you don't know
Speaker 1: if you canna get your money back, and just looked
Speaker 1: like luckily that that week, everybody is locked down, They're
Speaker 1: in home and they.
Speaker 2: Just I remember I was, I was supposed to south
Speaker 2: By that year. Yeah, I was like, well, I guess
Speaker 2: that ain't happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody turned the channel on and there.
Speaker 2: Everybody was just at home watching fucking the news, fucking
Speaker 2: scared to go to the grocery store. I remember I was.
Speaker 2: I had to go to seven eleven. I put gloves
Speaker 2: on and ship. I was like, oh man, I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe you really need this.
Speaker 1: Shit was crazy.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, and it's funny like now that we like
Speaker 2: look back and like realize, like we probably overreacted, you know, like.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well was fucking we didn't know.
Speaker 2: We didn't know. We didn't know. It was the first
Speaker 2: time it ever happened. Yeah, was safe and sorry. Hey,
Speaker 2: I want to ask you, you know, for people who
Speaker 2: don't know, when you land in LA and you go
Speaker 2: to the airport, in the gift shops, one of the
Speaker 2: most ripped off. I know that in the gift shops.
Speaker 1: The LA is officially yours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but in general, your iconic image of those tattooed hands,
Speaker 2: it's probably the most pirated, ripped off and hip hopcal.
Speaker 1: Ever, and it's the most tattooed.
Speaker 2: And it's the most tattooed. But when I tell you, man,
Speaker 2: I see that ship everywhere. Yeah, and it it's crazy, right,
Speaker 2: So it's like for you, it's like, uh, the double
Speaker 2: edged sword. Can you tell me the story behind that
Speaker 2: specific photo.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was in downtown and I was doing a
Speaker 1: little photo shoot that I was doing for my clothes,
Speaker 1: and I was shooting a woman, you know, game member,
Speaker 1: and she was throwing up her neighborhood and I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: can you throw up something you know, more universal, so
Speaker 1: that like, you know, we didn't want to be branded
Speaker 1: to just one neighborhood. And the picture come out, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it says the name of the brand. But the photo,
Speaker 1: you know, she's throwing up her hood. It could be
Speaker 1: any hood, you know, but with that letter, you know.
Speaker 1: So I was like, let's let's do something more universal,
Speaker 1: you know, let's let's throw up to LA. And she
Speaker 1: did it, and I was like, usually back then, I
Speaker 1: didn't really know anything about photography. That's nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: you know. I'm telling you. I got my camera like
Speaker 1: a year before probably, so I'm just shooting like from Afar,
Speaker 1: you know, like maybe ten feet so you could see
Speaker 1: the whole building and everything. And I wasn't really into
Speaker 1: shooting details. But for this one time, like two shots,
Speaker 1: I went in and I just shot the fingers, you know,
Speaker 1: just the hands. And I didn't really put it out
Speaker 1: there like that for a little while, maybe a couple
Speaker 1: of years, because I was more into the whole environment,
Speaker 1: like the whole photo. So when people would ask me
Speaker 1: for I would do an interview or whatever, they would say,
Speaker 1: can you send us ten of your best photos that
Speaker 1: you like the most, And I I was noticing that
Speaker 1: I was shooting just wide full frame shots like a
Speaker 1: girl with a house or a guy with a house
Speaker 1: with a low rin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of your photos are like storytelling for real.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I wanted to change it up, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to show some detail shots, like just the rim
Speaker 1: or just the fingers or just the face, you know.
Speaker 1: And I started sending that around and seeing the reaction
Speaker 1: that it was getting, I was like, fuck, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: send it again, you know. And I just kept sending
Speaker 1: that on everyone. I would change maybe the other nine
Speaker 1: photos out of the ten they wanted. I would change
Speaker 1: those other ones, but I always send the Ellie fingers
Speaker 1: and people would always print that one, you know. They'd say, like,
Speaker 1: send ten and we'll pick four or five or whatever.
Speaker 2: That would be the one that always want to print.
Speaker 1: Yeah, either was the main part of the story with
Speaker 1: my you know Ellie photographer. You know, boom, there's that photo.
Speaker 1: Then the interview or they wanted for the cover or whatever,
Speaker 1: and uh, I noticed that shit was just the one.
Speaker 1: So I just kept putting it out there here and
Speaker 1: there for thirty years, been putting it out there.
Speaker 2: You kind of said it's like a gift in a curse, right,
Speaker 2: because it is such an iconic photo. But it's also,
Speaker 2: like you said, I mean, like if you walk through
Speaker 2: Santi alley. Yeah, you're gonna probably see your ship, oh
Speaker 2: for sure, everywhere. Then it's everywhere you see your ship.
Speaker 2: You're like, that's my ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But you also if you go to Lax, there's the
Speaker 2: official ship, right, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's what I'm trying to do, is get the
Speaker 1: official ship out there enough to where people don't have
Speaker 1: to buy the bootlet ship. Right, scumbags down there, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: fake shit, no disrespect to the name boutlet, but no,
Speaker 1: it's all good, you know, the bog shit. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: those guys. You know, it's like that's my that's my ship.
Speaker 1: You know, like I've been promoting that that photo that
Speaker 1: I took for thirty years, and you just fucking go
Speaker 1: and make a shirt of it, you know, and cash
Speaker 1: in on my hard work. You know. It's a fuck
Speaker 1: up feelings.
Speaker 2: It sucks too, because I do feel like that's kind
Speaker 2: of the plight of photographers is some how, you know,
Speaker 2: you've obviously been able to break through and be one
Speaker 2: of the goats, but like somehow photographers man, and even
Speaker 2: videographers and graphic designers. I feel like those three, but
Speaker 2: photographers more over than anybody somehow, always man just don't
Speaker 2: get the appreciation because I feel like people who don't know,
Speaker 2: they don't really understand, like the work right the like
Speaker 2: like you said you were you were on tour with people,
Speaker 2: and you guys might have been standing right next to
Speaker 2: each other and you would see their photos and you'd
Speaker 2: be like, how the fuck did you get that? And
Speaker 2: I got mine and we were standing in interest from
Speaker 2: each other. This is not like you know, there's just
Speaker 2: so much that goes into it, and like, you know,
Speaker 2: no one thinks about the photographer when they print printed
Speaker 2: a picture. I mean that happened with Cameron. Cameron was
Speaker 2: selling merch of the picture of him on the phone
Speaker 2: wearing all pink and didn't credit the photographer, and the
Speaker 2: photographer suited him in one. Yeah you know, and it's
Speaker 2: like you got to understand, like that's art or art,
Speaker 2: you're the artist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like you're taking one of their songs to
Speaker 1: get paid. Oh they get hot, Yeah, it's gonna get hot. Motherfuck.
Speaker 1: You can't use my song, don't use my photo. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that simple. But everything's just so twisted now, it's like
Speaker 1: so crazy, like that whole thing, you know, But.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure that that photo has been such
Speaker 2: a blessing for you.
Speaker 1: Yes, well yeah, because every time they use it without asking.
Speaker 2: It's ceasing. You must have a great fucking lawyer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the season assist doesn't. Isn't that great because you're
Speaker 1: just telling people to stop doing what you've already been doing. Laws.
Speaker 1: The better one is like at the end of they
Speaker 1: made all that money and then you're like, hey.
Speaker 2: Did any of the big because I always see like Fashion,
Speaker 2: Novachine some of these like uh bigger companies that are
Speaker 2: like manufacturing in China. Did they ever steal your ship?
Speaker 1: Yeah? They got to pay too, so they don't get
Speaker 1: so you sue them. They get they got to cut
Speaker 1: it check, you know, so.
Speaker 2: Who who took who? Who was one of the bigger brands.
Speaker 1: They don't let me say it.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, you know that's part of it. But but
Speaker 2: they had to cut motherfuckers had to cut a check.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got my residuals or what do they call
Speaker 1: the music industry.
Speaker 2: And residuals you're oh, you're royalties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had to get my royalties.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 1: We're on a hip hop shows. Yeah, of course I
Speaker 1: had to get my royalties.
Speaker 2: That's dope, man, I think it's just so cool every
Speaker 2: time I'm a lax and I see your ship and
Speaker 2: the Mahmi Franco does your merch. Yeah in Burbank. So
Speaker 2: I'll be I'll be at the factory and I'll see
Speaker 2: all your ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So my boy Mike Missix, who is next door
Speaker 1: to him, Barbara know him. No, he was next door
Speaker 1: to the building next door.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay, got you, got you, got you.
Speaker 1: He took me over there. Mike Missics was one of
Speaker 1: my old oldest friends in like Hollywood. He was one
Speaker 1: of the first guy to do raves and he dj'
Speaker 1: and he did the clubs, and he was one of
Speaker 1: the guys that I used to work the door with
Speaker 1: door for and then he got me into DJing and stuff.
Speaker 1: So we'd go to DJ like fraternity parties and weddings
Speaker 1: and King Sinas and bar Mitzvahs and all that. So
Speaker 1: he was like big in the LA scene back in
Speaker 1: the days with like delicious vinyls and all that. Like
Speaker 1: he was around the times of all that and one
Speaker 1: of the bigger DJs of all those parties.
Speaker 2: You you do a lot like like you know when
Speaker 2: when you do street photography, like you've done. It could
Speaker 2: probably result in you being in some dangerous situations. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you've done a lot of dope ship with gang members
Speaker 2: and skid Row. Like I want you to kind of
Speaker 2: like what's like one of the more sketchy situations you
Speaker 2: found yourself in.
Speaker 1: Just rolling around skid Row. Sometimes there's and this is
Speaker 1: like old school skied rook Row is what.
Speaker 2: I don't know which one's.
Speaker 1: Worse now for sure A thousand times where do you drive.
Speaker 2: Through skid Row. There's just fires in the middle of
Speaker 2: the street.
Speaker 1: And ship and that's nothing. They all got guns, you know,
Speaker 1: like there's foods down there with guns, Like I don't
Speaker 1: know how they get them because they can't bare to
Speaker 1: afford the next fucking.
Speaker 2: Because I remember from the La Originals documentary, like you
Speaker 2: have like a pre you have good like you guys
Speaker 2: were there, so you had good relationships with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're we're cool with all them down there,
Speaker 1: you know, like we've we become you know, you have
Speaker 1: to adapt to where you are, you know, so if
Speaker 1: you're moving into back then it was a skid row.
Speaker 1: Where we were was an extension of skid Row. Right
Speaker 1: now it's called the Artists district. They put everybody more
Speaker 1: in a compact area. But back then, you know, they
Speaker 1: were they'd break into our cars like every day, and
Speaker 1: and sometimes we'd catch them and and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: explain to them, this isn't the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: and uh they got yeah, yeah, they got the message.
Speaker 1: And then uh, we made friends with some of the
Speaker 1: ones who we see every day.
Speaker 2: Look out for our ship, yeah yeah, and we'll look
Speaker 2: out for you.
Speaker 1: So we'd give him like clothes, food, break him up
Speaker 1: at money here, and then yeah, and so then uh,
Speaker 1: we became really tight with a guy named Pepper. They
Speaker 1: he called himself the Mayor's skid Row. He was like
Speaker 1: one of the only white guys down there. And he
Speaker 1: told me that he got his name Pepper from he
Speaker 1: got jumped and that he got a hold of some
Speaker 1: pepper spray and went back and you know, gave him
Speaker 1: a little issue of the pepper spray when they were
Speaker 1: sleeping in tents and stuff. So that's he got his nickname.
Speaker 1: But uh, he was cool as fuck. You know, he'd
Speaker 1: always look out for us, and and he had the
Speaker 1: respect of all the guys down there, so he would
Speaker 1: just be like, hey, these are the homies. You know,
Speaker 1: if you guys want break in the cars, just don't
Speaker 1: break into these ones. Yeah, And everybody from then on
Speaker 1: everything went cool and smooth, and so we'd hire him
Speaker 1: for like, if we'd have an event, we would hire him,
Speaker 1: and a couple other guys would just be like, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys be over here on the outskirts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, make sure none of the bullshit gets over.
Speaker 1: Here, right right, And they would and they're so cool
Speaker 1: and like and they would tell those guys like, hey,
Speaker 1: these guys are the homies. So at eleven o'clock when
Speaker 1: it ends, you guys can come back and we would
Speaker 1: give them, you know, all the.
Speaker 2: Food, yeah, whatever leftover, and catering whatever, yeah, come through.
Speaker 1: It, drinks whatever. So we just would look out for
Speaker 1: them like that. And then we started doing little things like,
Speaker 1: you know, we'd go buy like a couple hundred hamburgers,
Speaker 1: you know from McDonald's or Farmer Brothers down there, take
Speaker 1: a couple one hundred burritos, right, and then we just
Speaker 1: started getting into that whole thing of giving back to
Speaker 1: the community. This back then the right right right right,
Speaker 1: and that felt good, felt great to like you're in
Speaker 1: somewhere and you see the struggle every day.
Speaker 2: You're a part of the community to in the middle
Speaker 2: of it, you know, you have no choice.
Speaker 1: So it's a good feeling for us to give back,
Speaker 1: you know, on a on a regular basis, not on
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving or Christmas, just which everybody does, you know, Like
Speaker 1: you go down there on skid Row, now there's like
Speaker 1: fifty vans people giving out food to where the guys
Speaker 1: are rolling around with like four to go trays full
Speaker 1: of food, and it's like, what are they going to
Speaker 1: do with that? They don't have a refrigerator.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of that's going bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to going bad in two days. The
Speaker 1: rats are gonna get it. So we would do it
Speaker 1: on all the off days, you know, like on a
Speaker 1: normal days it's Monday. Yeah, it's Monday. It's freezing, you know.
Speaker 2: And this is pre fetanyl obviously, this is.
Speaker 1: This is pre everything everything twenty years ago, thirty years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we got into that whole thing and you know
Speaker 1: taking uh we we used to take our low writers
Speaker 1: down there and take like two cars of lowriders and
Speaker 1: two cars of the food and stuff just to try
Speaker 1: and give them like a you know, make them feel good.
Speaker 2: Right, cool.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody, every one of them had an uncle
Speaker 1: or their dad or whatever had a low writer, you know,
Speaker 1: back in the days. So they're like, oh, yeah, my dad,
Speaker 1: just that one of these bah you chop it up,
Speaker 1: and you know they uplift their spirit over there. I
Speaker 1: mean you're down there every day, you're.
Speaker 2: You could get psyched out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the rest, the yeah, the negativity and just
Speaker 1: a dark you know, being in the dark place all
Speaker 1: the time twenty four to seven can be you know,
Speaker 1: good for you know, it's it's like the perfect remedy
Speaker 1: for mental health.
Speaker 2: I got more questions, but I have to take a piss,
Speaker 2: So let's take a quick pick.
Speaker 1: Go piss break, all right, put that one up.
Speaker 2: We're back.
Speaker 1: Sorry, you can see it. You can see all the
Speaker 1: way over here.
Speaker 2: Just a white It's good. We're back, all right. So
Speaker 2: we were talking about you on skid Row. I was
Speaker 2: curious because sometimes as an interviewer, there will be stuff
Speaker 2: that gets talked about on my ship that I'll know
Speaker 2: I won't put out because were there ever any photos
Speaker 2: that you got any flack for releasing, or any backlash
Speaker 2: or just with the politics.
Speaker 1: You know, you never know, no one girl, tried to
Speaker 1: come at me for a photo that was in the
Speaker 1: the thing because she says like deflammation her or whatever,
Speaker 1: Like come on, man, I looked at her her Instagram
Speaker 1: or Facebook.
Speaker 2: Sweetheart, your Instagram's worse than this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this photo is like blessing you, you know, and
Speaker 1: you're you're it's twenty years old, so you look a
Speaker 1: little bit better than that. So come on, man, like,
Speaker 1: just take take take that one. You know you got.
Speaker 1: You got a good photo of me when you were
Speaker 1: in your prime for free, and now you're right now
Speaker 1: you're not in your prime. You're far from it, and
Speaker 1: you're I don't know what the fuck you think I'm
Speaker 1: ruining about your image, Like look at your page right
Speaker 1: right right for y'alls about it, you know, like the
Speaker 1: rest everybody loves all the photos I've done on them
Speaker 1: rather family members.
Speaker 2: I can say. When you meet a guy like Baldacci,
Speaker 2: that guy's like made for your camera, right like you
Speaker 2: guys for people don't know about Dacci's a rapper. He's
Speaker 2: a uh really nice guy. Sweet dude. I've had him
Speaker 2: on the I mean he's not a sweet guy. He's
Speaker 2: a nice guy. Yeah, it's definitely not sweet. Serious guy,
Speaker 2: but very talented dude, very nice guy. He's a rapper
Speaker 2: from LA but he's also his instagram is the face
Speaker 2: of LA because his entire faces.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So when you meet a guy like that or you're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we gotta we gotta take some pics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so sometimes you know, sometimes you can see how
Speaker 1: they are and there might be on a sick one,
Speaker 1: you know, so you're like, yeah, I'm cool, you know,
Speaker 1: like you don't want this dude calling you every day
Speaker 1: or like you know photos. Yeah. Well then once it's
Speaker 1: a food like the so what's up with the next thing?
Speaker 1: And you know, like on you you know, so you
Speaker 1: meet somebody like Baldacci was like he's you know, all
Speaker 1: covered in tattoos and everything, but he's all about the business.
Speaker 2: He's a very very just buttoned up dude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like super respectful. He was raised the right way
Speaker 1: by you know, the right people in that world. And
Speaker 1: he's a stand up guy you know, all the way around.
Speaker 1: So when you meet guys like that, you're like, this
Speaker 1: is this is cool? You know.
Speaker 2: You're obviously, Uh, there's the the exhibit that's is the
Speaker 2: hip Hop's Infinity, yeah, which is mass Appeals putting on
Speaker 2: how what how much of your work is on display there?
Speaker 1: Me and me and mass Appell go back to.
Speaker 2: The magazine before now his own mass Appeal. It was
Speaker 2: a it was like almost like an underground magazine that
Speaker 2: like certain little record stores would have. Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: dope photos, high quality, high integrity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a badass that magazine.
Speaker 2: Even the paper was like different, the cover was like
Speaker 2: a different times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was high end, like you said, you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like these cheap magazines. It was dope. And
Speaker 1: then uh, I had a a section there called Rides
Speaker 1: and Rims. It was a two page section. We'd feature
Speaker 1: cars in there, the car culture, because they they didn't
Speaker 1: want it to be too much East Coast, so they
Speaker 1: wanted to spread it out, you know, throughout the States
Speaker 1: and La New York, the Bay. You know.
Speaker 2: It was a very East Coast republication for sure.
Speaker 1: You So we ended up uh having those two pages
Speaker 1: in there, and ended up doing other features for them.
Speaker 1: I shot a cover of Eminem and rock Him for them,
Speaker 1: and uh, a couple of you know, different spreads, you know,
Speaker 1: mixed throughout the years that I worked with them, And
Speaker 1: then it came to I did a documentary like some
Speaker 1: consulting on the LA Riots with them, and uh. The
Speaker 1: next documentary I did with them was called Insane in
Speaker 1: the Brain is a documentary about Cypress Hill. That's time, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was like, you know, I think couple years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that was like another perfect movie for me to
Speaker 1: follow up with LA Originals. And the next thing was
Speaker 1: this art show and they they've been doing it around
Speaker 1: the world and other places, but this is the first
Speaker 1: time that's had this much of my work in it.
Speaker 1: I have my own room towards the back, and it
Speaker 1: said they asked me to put my elements of what
Speaker 1: hip hop means to me. So I did one wall
Speaker 1: of memorabilia that I have of me and Cypress Hill,
Speaker 1: like the jerseys and the clothes we used to take
Speaker 1: and the Golden Platinum records and the dat tapes from
Speaker 1: the shows and different things like that, and then I
Speaker 1: did a wall of Nipsey Hustle. My friend Downtown Daniel
Speaker 1: did a mural Never nineteen fifty nine. He also did
Speaker 1: a mural of Nipsey, but the one of Downtown Daniel
Speaker 1: has the actual reference picture that he would look at
Speaker 1: and test the colors on that and then he do
Speaker 1: the mural on the wall downtown off Fourth and Alameda.
Speaker 1: So I have the original photo, the reference picture, and
Speaker 1: then I have a photo of him doing it, and
Speaker 1: then I have his first painting that he's ever done
Speaker 1: for like galleries, and that's it's all the same image
Speaker 1: of Nipsy. And then I have my bike in there,
Speaker 1: and another wall I have low writing, like memorabilia from
Speaker 1: all the years I've been low writing, and the other
Speaker 1: wall is like a gangster wall because to me was
Speaker 1: sets La hip Hop aside from other cities is low writing.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of always a lot of lowriders in
Speaker 1: our videos and our imagery, and there's the gangster element.
Speaker 1: The gang culture is starting with n w A. You know.
Speaker 1: So on that while I have letters and envelopes and handkerchiefs,
Speaker 1: they call them panos that my homiees Big Lucky and
Speaker 1: Lepki would send me, so you can see all that
Speaker 1: prison artwork. Then I have the original tattoo that a
Speaker 1: machine that I made for cartoon. He tattooed me the
Speaker 1: very first cartoon cartoon tats in a box with some
Speaker 1: top ware cups that were sent to me from prison.
Speaker 1: And then on the side of that, there's a whole
Speaker 1: wall of Teenagel magazines, which was the old gangster magazine
Speaker 1: that you could pretty much only find in La or
Speaker 1: the Bay. Wow, and uh, it's it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's instinct now or what do they call it? Circulation?
Speaker 1: And then a teen Agel died some years back. So
Speaker 1: but I have a show coming up with teen Angel
Speaker 1: and Beyond the Streets in June, So that's gonna be
Speaker 1: a what.
Speaker 2: Was like for you? Like, uh, you know, it was
Speaker 2: nit I mean, obviously Nipsey was from a different generation
Speaker 2: than you in terms of just like his come up,
Speaker 2: but you know his impact was so crazy. How did
Speaker 2: he kind of like like what was your uh what
Speaker 2: was it about Nipsey that you respected, enjoyed?
Speaker 1: You know, just how he carried himself. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: he was real respectful, real calm and like mellow and smooth.
Speaker 1: But you could tell he was with the business, you know,
Speaker 1: like at any moment or something, you know, when when sideways,
Speaker 1: you know, he would he would get your back or
Speaker 1: he wouldn't let it happen. You know.
Speaker 2: So you also have like a high he had to
Speaker 2: have a high respect for photographers because His manager was
Speaker 2: j Yeah, who is also a dope photographer and a
Speaker 2: dope logo guy created the all money in logo and
Speaker 2: the logo so he I feel like Nipsey had like
Speaker 2: a real high regard for dope photography.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did.
Speaker 2: Those.
Speaker 1: The photos that I did for him was for an
Speaker 1: old magazine called Ryan Magazine, La hip Hop magazine, And
Speaker 1: at that time I had the kind of relationship with
Speaker 1: magazines where they would say, what do you want to
Speaker 1: do and I would say, you know, I want to
Speaker 1: do a story on this guy, this guy, this guy,
Speaker 1: and they didn't even know who they were, but I would.
Speaker 2: Still they would trust you to curate.
Speaker 1: So at that time, Jay Rock's album had come out,
Speaker 1: Nipsey's album hadn't come out, and who else was there.
Speaker 1: I shot some early pictures of Kendrick because he was
Speaker 1: with Jay Rock when I did his photos, and there
Speaker 1: was one more guy that I was I was always
Speaker 1: pushing to magazines that the news I just wanted to
Speaker 1: show like that here comes a new wave of LA guys.
Speaker 1: And I didn't only have connections here in LA, but
Speaker 1: I had or New York in the States. I had
Speaker 1: foreign connections like in Germany, hip hop's huge over there Australia,
Speaker 1: just different places where I had a relationship with the
Speaker 1: magazine that I could do stories on these guys and
Speaker 1: send it over to them and it would come out
Speaker 1: and you know, a lot of that would help the
Speaker 1: artists out.
Speaker 2: For sure, to get expanded to a new place here.
Speaker 1: So there was a a lot of that happening back then.
Speaker 1: I got to shoot and Nipsee a couple of times
Speaker 1: for a couple of different things before he had ever
Speaker 1: come out with a record on a label. And then
Speaker 1: I think that that deal that we're going to do
Speaker 1: made it to where he was like, I'm not even
Speaker 1: gonna do stuff with a label no more. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just go independent.
Speaker 2: Yeah left epic. Yeah, Nip was like a one of
Speaker 2: one man.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So but I had a big plan friend that
Speaker 1: we were going to do. At that time, one of
Speaker 1: my best friends, Casey from Known Gallery, had a gallery.
Speaker 1: I was already doing stuff with Nick Diamond. So my
Speaker 1: my idea was, let's do your like an album cover
Speaker 1: photo shoot and then we do an art exhibit at
Speaker 1: the at the gallery on Fairfax, and then we do
Speaker 1: a clothing capsule released with Diamond and that would be
Speaker 1: the listening party for the album. Is the album would
Speaker 1: be paying in the gallery where all the folos from
Speaker 1: the whole Day in the Life of Nipsey would be
Speaker 1: on display and then the clothing capsule people could go
Speaker 1: in and buy merch and the album would be playing
Speaker 1: in there. And that wasn't thought of back then. You know,
Speaker 1: there's two thousand and eight, I think crazy.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: You know, then the deal didn't go with the label,
Speaker 1: and then he went on and just started putting stuff
Speaker 1: out on his own, so we never got to do that, you.
Speaker 2: Know, or you know, obviously that first Print show mixtape
Speaker 2: and which he yeah, kind of set up a blueprint
Speaker 2: that a lot of artists have been following since.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: So shout out to nip you when you have a
Speaker 2: mutual friend our boy Ritchie and he was telling me
Speaker 2: that you do the cold plunge and you do the
Speaker 2: you do the cold hot therapy. Yes can you?
Speaker 1: Uh? I?
Speaker 2: Because for people who don't know the benefits of that,
Speaker 2: why do you do it?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What are the benefits? What's you know? And is that
Speaker 2: something you do every day every day?
Speaker 1: And it's we have a couple, I have a couple
Speaker 1: of guys come over. Who got me into the sun
Speaker 1: and coldpluch thing is a friend of mine named Marlin.
Speaker 1: He used to have a brand called Sneak Tip.
Speaker 2: I remember Sneak Tip. I used to have some of
Speaker 2: their T shirts.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And another good friend of mine Pat from RVCA,
Speaker 1: which was Rucaye and Pat would take me out to
Speaker 1: Hawaii during the Pipeline Masters every winter for thirteen years
Speaker 1: to shoot all his the people that he sponsored. It'd
Speaker 1: be like twenty of the top world fighters, twenty of
Speaker 1: the top world surfers, skaters and street artists. He'd fly
Speaker 1: them all out there, rent a few houses, put everybody up,
Speaker 1: and you and I would just take picts of the
Speaker 1: team fire. And it's during the Pipeline Masters, which is
Speaker 1: one of the biggest surfing competitions in the world, the best,
Speaker 1: the coolest, funnest and uh, I was just documenting all
Speaker 1: that for a book. And you know, I wasn't really
Speaker 1: into health or working out. I was eating like what
Speaker 1: people say, eating good, but really eating like shit, you know,
Speaker 1: just a lot of and a lot of it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like two sixty five, you know, just getting fat
Speaker 1: and out of shape. And it wasn't feeling good, you know.
Speaker 1: But everybody's telling you, Oh, you're eating good, you're living
Speaker 1: that good life. But it's like, really, you're not.
Speaker 2: You're You're even worse.
Speaker 1: You can't breathe because you fucking eat so much. You
Speaker 1: need a wheelchair to fucking take you out of the restaurant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the food is good, that's why you're eating so much much,
Speaker 1: but it's not good for you. So once once a year,
Speaker 1: I'd go out to the North Shore with pat in
Speaker 1: them and we'd work out every day and do the
Speaker 1: sauna and a cold plunch. And I just got to
Speaker 1: the point where I was like, man, this is a ship,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I want to do this back home.
Speaker 1: So I bought me a little sauna off of the website.
Speaker 1: They shifted to my house. My boy, he hooked it up.
Speaker 1: He built like the patio, put the sauna on there.
Speaker 1: Then we built like a little roof over it because
Speaker 1: we want to mess it up. And we got a little,
Speaker 1: you know, cool little thing there, got a bunch of weights,
Speaker 1: started inviting some homies over and we made it a thing.
Speaker 1: And now you know, we do it every day, and
Speaker 1: I feel bad when I don't do it. I feel like, man,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel guilty, like like I fucked up
Speaker 1: that day.
Speaker 2: How how long did I mean, you probably never get
Speaker 2: used to the cold plunch thing, but how long did
Speaker 2: it take you to be able to tolerate it.
Speaker 1: The first time? I had to? Because I see, like.
Speaker 2: Because for people who don't know, when you when you
Speaker 2: immerse your body in that cold water going to shock,
Speaker 2: it almost feels like your heart might jump out of
Speaker 2: your chest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it still feels like that, but you know what's coming,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, but imagine twenty like all tatted up,
Speaker 1: ripped UFC fighters and world class.
Speaker 2: They're all doing it.
Speaker 1: They're all doing it, and you're there, so you got
Speaker 1: to everybody thinks like, oh, you're the cool guy from LA,
Speaker 1: like you're not a pussy right, No, hell no, right,
Speaker 1: go go ahead and get in that fucking bucket full
Speaker 1: of ice. Then you like.
Speaker 2: When you get in, man, that shit hits you like
Speaker 2: a ton of bricks. Yeah, you're it's it's but it's
Speaker 2: also like it's like a shot of dopamine. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: almost like better than any cup of coffee. Yeah, for sure,
Speaker 2: better than.
Speaker 1: It feels incredible when you do it.
Speaker 2: When you get out. Yeah, it's just it's rough. It
Speaker 2: is rough. It's not easy. It is rough, like you like,
Speaker 2: you know, but it's it's so it's like a drug almost.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I do it every day. I've been taking a
Speaker 1: hot because I have the shower outside. I haven't taking
Speaker 1: a hot shower in my house for a few years
Speaker 1: ever since I started doing it.
Speaker 2: So I just wake up in the morning, hit the
Speaker 2: cold shower.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love it. It's like a way to wake up.
Speaker 1: And you know, you don't die doing it.
Speaker 2: It's not but you get out of that shower and
Speaker 2: you feel alive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you feel live.
Speaker 2: You take that hot shower in the morning. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it doesn't it makes you almost want to go.
Speaker 1: Back to bed. Yeah, you're just sitting in there.
Speaker 2: You're sitting there like like you know, I put some
Speaker 2: water in my eyes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like all that. I just get in there like well,
Speaker 1: you know, like you're just taking Yeah, you just starting
Speaker 1: the day, man, you know for sure. But it's a
Speaker 1: great feeling, man, So you do it every day every day? Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 2: How long you sit in the sauna.
Speaker 1: At least fifteen minutes up to twenty minutes depending on it.
Speaker 1: If I have to go do something, and if people
Speaker 1: come late and you're waiting for them, and you.
Speaker 2: Know how many folks do it with you every day.
Speaker 1: We have There's enough room in there for six people,
Speaker 1: but we've had up to ten, and you just rotate
Speaker 1: people like, you know, these guys go in, these guys
Speaker 1: go on the ice, these guys you know, well, these
Speaker 1: guys are in the ice, these guys are in the sauna,
Speaker 1: these guys are working out, hitting the weights.
Speaker 2: Is there anything obviously you said Joker brand is barely
Speaker 2: just getting you guys are obviously still very much a
Speaker 2: Joker brand. I don't think a lot of people knew
Speaker 2: you were behind Joke Brand. I didn't know that until
Speaker 2: I watched the I feel like I found that out
Speaker 2: in the last few years. Yeah, because you'll see Joker
Speaker 2: Brand everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I be Real Ship Me and be Real started. Okay,
Speaker 1: we got it.
Speaker 2: I remember the like ads in the Source and ship
Speaker 2: double XL back in the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was me shooting be Real. So it was
Speaker 1: a cartoon and Sucker Mike and these two friends back
Speaker 1: then they were in our car club together and they
Speaker 1: ended up doing Sucker Brand clothing, but as an offshoot
Speaker 1: they did Joker, and it went to a couple of
Speaker 1: trade shows at the Magic a couple of magic shows.
Speaker 1: Magic was cracking, right, So they ended up not wanting
Speaker 1: to do it no more. So they had all this inventory.
Speaker 1: I was coming out of this clothing brand. I had
Speaker 1: Not Guilty with Lucky and Everlast, and this lady shut
Speaker 1: us down because she had a worldwide trademark. We didn't
Speaker 1: know we got it incorporated. We thought like, oh, we
Speaker 1: got we owned the LLC. Yeah, we own everything that
Speaker 1: says not guilty. But like, we didn't go to school, nothing,
Speaker 1: We didn't know anything about business. Got this not Guilty
Speaker 1: incorporating and this lady goes, well, that's great, I have
Speaker 1: the not Guilty trademark worldwide. Get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 1: So that was over. And then these guys had all
Speaker 1: this inventory, and b ro was like, we should do something.
Speaker 1: I go, well, let's go get that inventory. It's already there.
Speaker 1: So we went and bought the inventory off of them
Speaker 1: and all the artwork and started just taking it on
Speaker 1: tour with us everywhere we went. And then every time
Speaker 1: I'd do a photo shoot, I'd bring a box like
Speaker 1: to a mob Deeper my fabulous or whoever and be like, hey, Holmianes,
Speaker 1: you know, thank you for you know, having me do
Speaker 1: this shoot with you guys for this magazine or whatever.
Speaker 1: Here's a box of our gear. And they'd be like, oh, fuck,
Speaker 1: can we wear We're like hell yeah, Like you don't
Speaker 1: have to wear it for this, I'm not bringing it.
Speaker 1: Like hey, here's my shirt. Put it. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like you could wear it later on when you get
Speaker 1: back to New York or whatever, but just as a
Speaker 1: respect thing, they wear it in the shoot and come
Speaker 1: out in the magazine and we're all over the place.
Speaker 1: And so that just like grew up organically.
Speaker 2: Any projects coming for you and that that you got
Speaker 2: coming out working on, I'm sure you're always working on something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm working on a documentary with the Bua tribe
Speaker 1: because I feel like, you know, that story needs to
Speaker 1: be told. It's a la story, and I agree, if
Speaker 1: you know, you know, and if you don't, you should.
Speaker 1: So I'm working with Gotti and Cobra, the remaining brothers.
Speaker 1: Uh that's Godfather rid Mosco rests in peace. Big story
Speaker 1: to tell, man, and it needs to be you know,
Speaker 1: like those dudes, you know, we're there from the beginning
Speaker 1: of LA hip hop.
Speaker 2: And like I just feel like that area, like the
Speaker 2: Carson area of LA. I don't think people fully understand,
Speaker 2: you know, like the Pacific Islander or the Samoan or
Speaker 2: the oos like culture that comes out of there, and
Speaker 2: how it also can be wrapped into like the street
Speaker 2: side of things as well. It's just like, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's just it's crazy because if it's it's
Speaker 2: almost like a tribe is out right now active like
Speaker 2: they were in the nineties and ship like with the
Speaker 2: with the allure of gang culture nowadays on the internet.
Speaker 2: It's so fucking crazy. I don't get it. But it's like,
Speaker 2: it's dope that you're doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then the Cobra's son, D Boy, he's wrapping down.
Speaker 1: He's bad, He's sick with it.
Speaker 2: That's dope. So that's oh ship, So that's that's gonna
Speaker 2: be dope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's bad. I have a home for that project,
Speaker 1: not yet, we're just getting interviews together. I went with
Speaker 1: D Boy to UH New Zealand. They did a tribute
Speaker 1: to the tribe out there at this festival. He performed
Speaker 1: and then they a bunch of the older guys from
Speaker 1: that didn't music with them came out and did like
Speaker 1: a tribute show to them. So that was like some
Speaker 1: you know, cool footage that you just can't get for
Speaker 1: any other group, right, you.
Speaker 2: Know, that's dope, that's super dope.
Speaker 1: I got the Joker and the Steven Orioles and Zoomies. Now,
Speaker 1: so where you know.
Speaker 2: Go support a Zoomies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you trying to have it somewhere where you know
Speaker 1: the regular folks can get it.
Speaker 2: Have you guys done a collab of cookies yet?
Speaker 1: I did you? Yeah? Steven oriol Yeah, I did a
Speaker 1: That was one of the things that kept me going
Speaker 1: in the in the COVID because I did a couple
Speaker 1: of collabs like Food's Gone Wild, Cookies, Trollo, Fit Coeper
Speaker 1: and Born and Raised, and those things are what kept
Speaker 1: me going during the COVID because I couldn't go outside
Speaker 1: to shoot nobody because when I shoot people, I'm like
Speaker 1: very close within ten feet. So my whole job got
Speaker 1: shut down also, you know, along with everybody else's. But
Speaker 1: those collaborations kept me afloat that Stipe man.
Speaker 2: So, uh, go support if you're in Zoomies, yeah, if
Speaker 2: you uh? If you uh, what's the official website that
Speaker 2: people can just go.
Speaker 1: To purchase Mistellanil dot l A or Joker brand dot com.
Speaker 2: So go support, go check out the exhibit.
Speaker 1: It's in l A.
Speaker 2: I think until March.
Speaker 1: You know, they extended it. They did, Yeah, because it's
Speaker 1: been doing great. Kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been telling Alan show, I'm gonna take my kids.
Speaker 1: To go check it out.
Speaker 2: Oh it's cool, man, I've seen photos. It's it's because
Speaker 2: it's been at least a month and a half or so,
Speaker 2: it's been there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been there for a while. So go check
Speaker 2: it out. Go check out your you got a whole
Speaker 2: area of it. Go follow this guy.
Speaker 1: You're a legend. Man.
Speaker 2: Thank you for seeing what you got up your sleeve. Next.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's coming there.
Speaker 2: It is, man, that's appreciate you, brother.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you guys.
Speaker 2: Boom