From Sketchbooks to Global Car Culture Johnny Jalopy Ep62

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Dub Life Diaries.

[SPEAKER_00]: The podcast where passion meets the open road.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Joe Parson, your host, and also a lifelong lover.

[SPEAKER_00]: Book a love, because this ride is just beginning.

[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is sponsored by Volk's Mania Magazine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Good times, great cars, awesome Volk's Maniacs.

[SPEAKER_00]: Visit Volk'sMania.com to learn more about this class leading VW Magazine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, welcome back to dublife diaries.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am so excited for this episode.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be a fun one.

[SPEAKER_00]: We got a masterful artist in the house.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, here we go.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are car guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then there are guys that actually see cars kind of how they are maybe even before they exist.

[SPEAKER_00]: Johnny Jelopy is one of those guys before the sparks fly before the metal gets cut before the first tack weld hits the frame well it starts with a sketch right and it's not just any sketch it's wild proportions it's it's it's monsters with horsepower it's attitude back into every body line cars that actually look like their alive which is why we hired this guy to do the artwork for the [SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever watched full custom garage and thought, how does somebody even come up with those kinds of ideas?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's Johnny.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the conceptual force behind builds that look impossible, and then somehow become drivable.

[SPEAKER_00]: Born in California, studying hot rods like some kids studied baseball cards, taught shading and perspective by his father.

[SPEAKER_00]: He even knew what composition meant.

[SPEAKER_00]: Self-taught, no art school pedigree, just obsession, which is really cool about a lot of artists, I think.

[SPEAKER_00]: From painting river rocks at flea markets to air brushing skull t-shirts, to mastering awake on pad and a photo shop in a matter of just months.

[SPEAKER_00]: To creating custom culture monsters, [SPEAKER_00]: that fabricator Ian Russel turns into actual real art real metal.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, this is so cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not just Carrard, guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is attitude on paper.

[SPEAKER_00]: Personality in steel, hot rod culture with a pulse.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for over eight years, he and his wife, Eddie B, have hosted sketchy live, which is building a tribe around imagination, ink, and horse power.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Johnny doesn't just draw cars.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, he captures their soul.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is art, this is fabrication, this is custom culture.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is Johnny Jelopy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Dub Life Diaries.

[SPEAKER_02]: I thought we would thank you having me on.

[SPEAKER_02]: Or I'd like to meet that guy.

[SPEAKER_02]: He just, I can't believe it.

[SPEAKER_00]: man.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are so welcome.

[SPEAKER_00]: I look forward to this one.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am.

[SPEAKER_00]: You and I've been trying to connect for a number of months and we finally made it happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, man, thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your time before we get into it, get into some awesome questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do want to give a shout out to some quick sponsors.

[SPEAKER_00]: You guys know, first up on the list, Volk's Mania Magazine.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like these guys are the flash, VW Magazine on the face of the planet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's the people, not just the quality of the pages.

[SPEAKER_00]: Check these guys out Volk's Mania.com.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can use Wife 10 at checkout and get 10% off of your subscription that is US subscribers only.

[SPEAKER_00]: How cool is it that I actually have to say that?

[SPEAKER_00]: That it only works in the US.

[SPEAKER_00]: because I got people from across the world trying to enter that discount code.

[SPEAKER_00]: How cool is that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's not about me though.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's about you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also, shout out the salty dove from the beach to the Bay salty dove is absolutely tearing up the west coast coastal.

[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, now all over the state, uh, VW scene.

[SPEAKER_00]: We got swag.

[SPEAKER_00]: We got events.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're doing big things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Check us out saltydub.com.

[SPEAKER_00]: Last shout out Johnny and it's back to you is to Vera, a postory of St. Pete.

[SPEAKER_00]: we're talking award winning automotive and marine uh... a poultry or we can say interiors as a whole because it doesn't just stop with the poultry this dude is a crafter his team is amazing they do some of the most badass custom work i've ever seen and they're uh... seventy three thing just one it's best in class at uh...

[SPEAKER_00]: But Jim, just this last year, and this thing is sick when I tell you the stitching on the outside of the seats are stitched in the Volkswagen logo, do who thinks about stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So absolutely cool, but that's it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm done.

[SPEAKER_00]: No more shout out.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's back to you, my brother back to you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, thanks for having me on.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, he wouldn't.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm good man.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dude for your time.

[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Man, I've been looking forward to this.

[SPEAKER_00]: My pleasure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get into it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's go back and go back and talk to me again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the first moment that you might have remembered in your life, maybe even as a child, that you were obsessed with cars, because clearly you are.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it started with from my dad, my dad.

[SPEAKER_02]: was a budding artist himself.

[SPEAKER_02]: Never had much confidence in his own art art abilities, but as a little kid, my dad was learning trying to learn how to do painting.

[SPEAKER_02]: And one morning he comes into my room and he goes, hey, what do you think of this?

[SPEAKER_02]: And it was a, it was a dragster or a funny car completely on fire.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, you know, just going down the drag strip.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember seeing that thing going, oh my God, that is so cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then, and then, you know, is that like ignited like, you could do cars and stuff on and painting.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's really, that's really the birth of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna question you know the timeframe in which I grew up and stuff, you know, the bat mobile and the monkeys mobile and, you know, Scooby-Doo and all that all that different kind of stuff was on television and it was a big, you know, the Duke's hazard, Bert, you know, the smokey in the band, everything was cars and fast cars and jumping cars [SPEAKER_02]: So that's where it all started as it just as a kid, the time frame I grew up, but it really was ignited by my dad.

[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think it was about growing up in California that may be shaped you as an artist?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I definitely, it's, it's so interesting.

[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't really start doing a lot of automotive type stuff until they left California, which is crazy.

[SPEAKER_02]: But all, the whole time growing up, you know, I was in, in the, around it a lot, my, my folks, [SPEAKER_02]: worked for like a, they didn't work for, but they, they were in the Lions Club and they would have like a charity events and stuff and there'd be cars shows that they would put on so the coolest of the cool cars would come and I'd be around them as a kid, you know, being able to see all these really cool hotrods and all the low riders, you know, grew up in Santa Maria, California, you know, big mecca of low rider scene, so, you know, growing up seeing all, you know, the amazing paint jobs and slammed, you know, and polish and everything else.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then when I finally got old enough to drive, you know, was right in the mini truck and scene was coming in.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it was like this, I really, I got lucky.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I came, came around in the sweet spot, but still really wasn't like, I could do what I'm doing now.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't until I left it, I think I just, because I had Jones towards so much, yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I got, I got to get back into, I'm Jones and I have car stuff in my life.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like you mentioned, you know, having being around a area popular like that, what it car shows kind of feel like to you as a kid where you where you like looking at all the cars dreaming about drawing or were you dreaming about owning them?

[SPEAKER_02]: It was more owning them.

[SPEAKER_02]: I remember seeing the first, one of the first, like I saw a model A and also a, you know, a lighter bomb just, you know, laying in frame.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this is back when, you know, it was hydraulics and, you know, static drop for lowering cars.

[SPEAKER_02]: But to see a car so low to the ground.

[SPEAKER_02]: I just went, man, whoever owns this has just got to be the coolest person in the world to drive a car like this.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I remember thinking to myself, one day, I'm gonna have one of those.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna, I don't know how I'm gonna do it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna have one.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's, [SPEAKER_02]: I was bitten especially by things low and you know with the whole Volkswagen thing you know nothing looks cooler and sexier than anything VW slammed at the ground.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right on dude.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel that literally that center of my chest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've been said that on previous episodes before because I feel the same way.

[SPEAKER_00]: is sexier than a slammed Volkswagen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't even care what what model it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Slam it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: You name it.

[SPEAKER_02]: You name the platform or the model.

[SPEAKER_02]: They just look so good.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and then, of course, all the other things that come along, what they can only enhance it more, but definitely, that's where the, I wanted to be, I wasn't into the stock and like muscle car stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I want, I mean, to the stuff that's slammed to the ground that has some sort of an attitude, the person that owns that wherever he's at, that guy's got to be cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that time was that maybe one of the first cars that truly kind of left an imprint on you?

[SPEAKER_02]: For sure, and I think, and I want to say it was, again, the first one I really saw that was, you know, was a hot rabbit, it was like a model A.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it was really low compared to all the other kind of mussely, you know, high boys and stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I remember seeing a model A fully fendered, and on the front of the license plate, it was the, which, you know, it's not such a cliche, bumper sticker, or I think it was a license plate that said, [SPEAKER_02]: was it to praise the Lord?

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it is cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because it was so though.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then again, it was sitting next to a full, you know, completely just amazing paint job, you know, pearls and and graphics and and and metal flake and stuff like that slammed in college.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: So there's the you know, the juxtaposed to two types of vehicles.

[SPEAKER_02]: both kind of doing the same stance on like, man, there's so much variety and those are just the cars I was trying to things that were lowered, which I guess is why, you know, when the mini truck and scene came, I was like, yeah, I got to get one and I want to put mine on totally on the ground.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so we're talking late 80s early 90s.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I got older brothers.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they were into them as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had one.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hadn't as Euzu.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was purple.

[SPEAKER_00]: My brother Josh had an Euzu.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was black.

[SPEAKER_00]: It had a top or the bed could stand up and dance and right Peyton.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had like six, 15s in the trunk or in the bed essentially.

[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, man, that was that whole scene that the hood I [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I would see in the corner, you know, as we do the crews in Santa Maria into the parking lot, there was always this group of sick, you know, the so cow bugs that just that that that style, or they were just slammed on the ground.

[SPEAKER_02]: you know, I'm Porsche Alloways, you know, super deep tent windows, and I'm going, man, even, even those are cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I always thought to myself, man, a Volkswagen would be so, so awesome.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I just, what was weird is I was like, I asked you to add in my pride, man.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: Get a thing, but not knowing that they were really affordable, even then, to get into the hobby, they seemed because of the ones I saw were so finished, I'm like, that thing is so unattainable, that thing is so custom, there's no way I could afford that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And little did I know.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was affordable, and I could, I should have got into it then because then I would have had, you know, upper, there was so many more of them than.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: And back then.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let window buses in the 80s and 90s were 1500 bucks right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we went by the way, it was a lot of money back then, but not really.

[SPEAKER_00]: I acquired my first beetle in 96 and I paid two grand for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Had 70,000 miles on it, got it from a little lady was a one-owner.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could still find deals like that in the mid 90s, you know, because they were just kind of old cars back then.

[SPEAKER_00]: They weren't really what they are now, but still always thought they were cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, back to you though, when did you realize maybe I guess at what age that you weren't really just looking at cars, you were actually studying them.

[SPEAKER_02]: all the time.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I took like art class in in junior high and my art teacher, Mr. Beatingger was an automotive artist guy.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like I remember he would be doing projects of a draw the car or a bowl of fruit and then I'd walk up to his desk asking questions and he'd be up their drawing is big, huge.

[SPEAKER_02]: uh... automotive portraits of different hot rods and customs and different stuff and it but he would do a technique called stimpling which is little teeny dots and that's how he would create the artwork that he had which i was like even that's insane but that you're doing that and it just made me go you know

[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, that's really cool how he's there's no he has no reference photos around him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe maybe a black and white shot, you know, there was no internet where he could pop it up on a screen and really look at it spinning around so you know reference photos that he had to use was all in his brain.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it was he was I was like, how do you know he's like, you got to sit there when you're in a parking lot, you go up to the car and you look and you spend time and you pay attention and I'm like, okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that really landed with me too, but then there were times where I also, this one I started getting a taste of specific things were like, why is that I don't like that car, but I do like this car it's not just paint and it's not just You know, wheel choices, it's actual lines of the car that that design is just ugly this design there's just things about it that make it so gorgeous.

[SPEAKER_02]: that, what is it that is making me attracted to that?

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's when I really started paying attention to it, and as I got into high school, and you start really paying attention to cars because you're now your old enough to drive.

[SPEAKER_02]: The choices I wanted to make of vehicles was like, I wanted to be cool, and it would look good, and to pay attention to things maybe other people weren't really paying attention to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now your dad was an artist.

[SPEAKER_00]: How much of what I guess crafted or shaped in you was nature versus nurture?

[SPEAKER_02]: He was definitely a person that spoke art to me and paying attention to technique and different things of how, when you're looking at things from a distance, how things in the very distant, or much blurrier, or darker, or this, or that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then when you're looking at things up close, it's this.

[SPEAKER_02]: He should be paying attention to a lot of the details of things that maybe most people wouldn't really look at.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're important, especially if you're going to draw or, you know, put them on to something to pay attention to sweat some of those details.

[SPEAKER_02]: But he also was that guy that was like, you know, but you don't want it to be a photograph either.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's got to be something to work doesn't seem like you're just making a replica of what you see.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's something with your [SPEAKER_02]: So when I started creating my own artwork, that was the thing I was chasing was like, how do I, how do I, how do I find my voice?

[SPEAKER_02]: Which was very difficult in the beginning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember maybe one of the first or most impactful, maybe art lessons that that you learned or that he gave you?

[SPEAKER_00]: I know you mentioned, you know, kind of some of the of the direction, but do you remember really like one of the most profound or impactful art lessons that you ever got from him?

[SPEAKER_02]: It was definitely when he was really trying to flush out his landscape guy.

[SPEAKER_02]: He liked painting landscapes.

[SPEAKER_02]: So he was in very, you know, we lived by the ocean and he was wanted to capture, you know, waves crashing in the different colors and light coming through the water and how different that changes versus and then how the background would be a specific way.

[SPEAKER_02]: which would bring, you know, give more life to what was in front.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he would just go over, like, you know, we'd be sitting out and you go, do you like walk outside of the house and you like, do you see the way they trees like pay attention to what's behind it, pay attention to what's behind that.

[SPEAKER_02]: So there was a lot of times where he would just stop and we we'd just talk about that kind of stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it was really cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the moments I cherish, you know, sadly my dad, sadly my dad got Alzheimer's and stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: So he struggled.

[SPEAKER_02]: That was the first thing that he found him stuff he couldn't do anymore was paint.

[SPEAKER_02]: That was the first thing was like, he didn't say there's something wrong with me.

[SPEAKER_02]: But that was what we saw him, he would go out and paint and he come in and be very frustrated where he used to go out and come in and be just like, [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that was, that was, what a great two hours that was.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_02]: The theme that he loves the most is frustrating.

[SPEAKER_02]: What's going on?

[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_02]: That was a bummer to see that happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's really how this whole giant to a lot of the thing happened is when my dad got sick and ended up passing away.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was just dabbling and doing artwork, and it wasn't until he passed, like his whole dream was he wanted people to see his art, but he didn't have enough confidence to show it.

[SPEAKER_02]: That was the strange thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: We had convinced him one time to put his art in a gallery, and he's like, no, he's going to look at it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, Dad, come on, it's good enough.

[SPEAKER_02]: People look at it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, he went in with the idea that maybe someone will buy it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So a satinous gallery for two, two months, never sold.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he destroyed him.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's like, ah, see, I told you my arts shit.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, no, it's not.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's really amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: The family loves it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We all love it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I heard a Santa because you, you know, we're related.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, Dad, it's really good.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it just defeated him.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he kept painting, but he, the idea of, [SPEAKER_02]: wanting to show his artwork anymore kind of was just squelched.

[SPEAKER_02]: So when he passed away, and I was kind of dealing with the same kind of thing, like, do I show it, do I do I share this, the things I'm doing, and then when he passed, I'm like, you know what, not only am I going to start showing my art more, but I'm going to do this as a, I'm going to make this a business thing in every single piece of artwork that I saw in my dad just so, because he's the one that got me into this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I got goose bumps from that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's awesome.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's true, it is, and that's no fool and the day my sadly I watched my dad take his last breath.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm grateful.

[SPEAKER_02]: I also were there for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_02]: But then that day, I was like, I'm doing this serious.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what it's going to take for me to do it seriously, [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to take this seriously and again, so every single time I sold a print or a seller, even today, every single time a person buys a T-shirt or a sticker or something like that, my dad, his legacy of what he taught me.

[SPEAKER_02]: people are buying his artwork.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: I love it, dude.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that just hits even 50 times harder for me for any work that you're ever going to do for us in the future.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really, I really value that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before we started recording, you had touched on that funny car painting.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to bring that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: He made a funny car painting for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just what did it mean to you at the time?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, being a little kid who's, you know, you always are trying to look up to your dad as your hero, at least my dad was my hero.

[SPEAKER_02]: And my thought was man, he could have painted anything like of a thing to learn stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: And in his thing was he liked painting at that time was really into painting in animals, e-holes and lions.

[SPEAKER_02]: He loved doing that and then he went into the whole landscape thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: So this car thing was a totally outside of his wheelhouse of what he really liked to draw or paint.

[SPEAKER_02]: But he knew I like cars because we would do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then from that time on, it was kitchen table time of sketching with him and drawing cars and doing different stuff with him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where he took the time.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, my dad, unfortunately, it always had a job where he worked tonight.

[SPEAKER_02]: So he didn't get to spend a lot of after school time doing things.

[SPEAKER_02]: So the moment that he did spend with us, he just, I felt that he just, he picked quality things.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I'm going to spend time and I'm going to give you something intentional time.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think so.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, maybe he isn't thinking about, you know, maybe that wasn't specifically his intention, but it's it's seen thought out.

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not totally.

[SPEAKER_00]: And any dad that has the same schedule as what you just described, which is usually a provider, usually some family person.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: They might feel that same way where they don't feel like they spend enough time, but through you and what stories you're connecting with now, it sounds like not only was it enough time, it was super impactful time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's awesome.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm bummed that he didn't get to see any of this stuff that happened with what I did with what he showed me, you know, he was there at the sort of the beginning when he for again in the early stages of him getting sick because we're, you know, we're all.

[SPEAKER_02]: Johnny Jeloppy really kind of started of the idea of maybe doing something kind of Johnny Jeloppyish, but not as a business is him and my parents, you know, hearing him, I think 30 years old, 35, I'm like, what do you want for Christmas and I can get my own stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: What do I need from you guys.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, just tell us and I'm like, you know what I've always wanted.

[SPEAKER_02]: I've always wanted an airbrush.

[SPEAKER_02]: I always thought those guys at the fair are awesome who paint t-shirts and I always want a t-shirt business.

[SPEAKER_02]: Man, how cool would that be and sure enough that Christmas they bought me an airbrush single airbrush.

[SPEAKER_02]: None of the equipment to do air brushing so it's frustrating because it's like none of this works.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I had, and again, right at the beginning of the internet, you know, like, and stuff, I had self-taught myself how to do that, but it was, there was the initial of like, hey, and the direction I took with that airbrush was automotive stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let me do cars.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let me do things that are automotive.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's where the monsters and all the other things started coming out of me, where it's like, this is what I want to do.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I could do it, I mean, [SPEAKER_00]: It's the creative process, and you said something there, self-taught.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does self-taught actually mean to you?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's where every you have this desire to want to do something.

[SPEAKER_02]: And everything in you is you have this passion that desire to want to learn.

[SPEAKER_02]: And every door you open, someone goes, we're not gonna show you that.

[SPEAKER_02]: You're not gonna get that from us.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we have put so much time in metastring this.

[SPEAKER_02]: The way you're gonna get us the same way we did.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're not giving enough freebies.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I are expected that part of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I also remember as the door shut going, if I ever get a chance, I'm not gonna be that person.

[SPEAKER_02]: If I get information, I'm gonna be a share of information.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because I bet you there's someone like me who really, really wants to learn and doesn't know how to go about doing it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So the self-taught is, as doors kept getting shut in my face, I'm like, well, that's not gonna stop me.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna figure this out then.

[SPEAKER_02]: If it means I've got to go through failure after failure, [SPEAKER_02]: If this is really what I'm passionate about, I'm not going to let that stop me.

[SPEAKER_02]: And in fact, it's going to drive me to do it and learn it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then you throw in people who are like those that said, I don't even think you can do it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Or, you know, this is really hard.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, now you're telling me I can't do it and I can't learn this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now the fire's even growing even further.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so that was their self taught is it's having the the passion and desire to want to learn a skill set and you won't take no for an answer.

[SPEAKER_00]: Biggest struggles in the beginning were doors closing or was it something else that stands out when I asked that question.

[SPEAKER_02]: uh, definitely doors closing and uh, access to information, okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not it is today where you could just Google, hey, how do you do this?

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was like you had to find, you had to find the thing that you wanted to do.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then you got to pray that the person that has the key to the gate.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Come on in, we'll show, we'll share this with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: So on that note and speaking of kind of, you know, a gatekeeper slash people who were maybe some of the the biggest early influencers in in your life.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I definitely, you know, looked at the, my, my big, like the heroes are like art heroes where you know, big daddy and rough, George Barris, Bill Hines, all, all these amazing custom car builders, but you know, that also kind of, there was especially big daddy and rough, there was a lot of artwork involved.

[SPEAKER_02]: At the time, I didn't know the background of that whole situation and how, you know, he wasn't just the artist, he had like a whole crew of artists [SPEAKER_02]: That would draw things and put his name on it and I thought it was him drawing anyways, but there's there's the amazing part of learning about what you're passionate about and then Is the internet kind of started I found these different automotive groups where there were automotive artists and I would ask questions and these were guys were professional automotive artists and designers.

[SPEAKER_02]: your competition, if listen, if I tell you how to do this, then you're gonna learn how to do it and then you're another guy coming after what I'm doing.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is that the group is very small and we're in control of this and we're not letting people in.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, dang, I just wanna know how to do it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not coming after your job, but then at the same time there were people like me who were seeking who a little bit more knowledge and were very forthcoming and like, hey man, I can help you out.

[SPEAKER_02]: And those are the people I'll, I'll never forget those early, amazing artists that I followed like a puppy dog and every day was asking them questions and they were kind enough to go, yeah, Johnny, here's the answer, or hey, try this, or go look here.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that made me go, if I again, if I ever am in a position to where someone comes to me and says, Johnny, how do you do this?

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna go, wanna be sure you?

[SPEAKER_02]: because what's the point of keeping it to myself?

[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't get that part, because it's not competition.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you know, I think that that is how you're wired, not necessarily how you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: being a giver, somebody that's will, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like people who are passionate and like let's just give an example a nurse, a nurse doesn't go become a nurse because they hate people, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe they become a nurse because they want to take care of people, usually they're.

[SPEAKER_00]: nurturing type soul.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you know, it's kind of what I hear when you describe that is no.

[SPEAKER_00]: You, you, you, you saw the flaw in not sharing and you're like, dude, if I ever get an opportunity to have a platform like this, I'm, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a ruffle everybody's feathers because I'm going to share it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then, and there's so much so that I was like, yeah, anybody who wants information, I'm going to give you the full vote.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to make you jump through hurdles.

[SPEAKER_02]: But at the same time, though, I'm also going to be very, if you're serious about it, come at me, if you're serious about it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let me know what this is just something you want to some hobby stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll be there, too.

[SPEAKER_02]: But if you're serious about doing, trying to do it is either a furtherance of a hobby, a side hustle, maybe a starting up a business or something like that, I may not be the expert in it, but I'll give you all the information I have up to this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a story to share with you just this past year.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a six year old who is a fantastic artist.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has taken some art classes.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, every Wednesday night, the reason why I can't do things on Wednesday night is because I take him to art class.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, learning to paint and shade and all this cool stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's got some apps on the iPad where he's learning about shading and [SPEAKER_00]: at six, bro, he's talented.

[SPEAKER_00]: So just this last year, just a few months ago, and a couple of the VW shows I went to one specifically up in the Sanford.

[SPEAKER_00]: How about 200, maybe 250 cars, my buddy Jason Davis puts that show together, I brought August, which is my son's name.

[SPEAKER_00]: And August likes to take his sketching, you know, a book, and he likes to go sit down in front of his favorite cars.

[SPEAKER_00]: He picks him up.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves Volkswagen's.

[SPEAKER_00]: He'll sit down in front of his favorite Volkswagen's and he'll draw them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then after he draws them and colors them in, he goes up and he hands them to the owner and he says, Give me money.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I was, you never, you never want to mess up an artist, you know, flow like that and or do things to detour their creativity, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm like, look, I'm a stand with them and I'm going to let a mask for the money and I, you know, I don't, I don't care.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're either going to say no.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to say, hey, that's cute.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Making like $35, you know, for a six year old is like a million dollar [SPEAKER_00]: uh... so he collects this money and he's so excited and motivated to be you know this artist and draw cars because it's his favorite thing to do back to my podcast tent and we sit down and i'm like i'm so proud of you buddy break that money out let's count it again he goes uh... i dropped it

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that's the story, but man, he's the cool kid.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure if you ever come to one of the shows, you'll meet him and you've got to be awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, have a cool conversation.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Enough of me back to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's touch on this because I think this is pretty cool because it's also your inspiration.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why were cartoon cars so I guess powerful to you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because there's no rules.

[SPEAKER_02]: that's what's really drawn me to doing cars, cartoon type stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: When I got into drawing out of a stuff and doing people's portraits of people's cars, immediately I was like, if I cartoon them they'll be different and they'll be a nod to, you know, my hero's at around those guys, you know, at Newton, all those dudes.

[SPEAKER_02]: But then I started really realizing the whole reason why they got into what they were doing, there were no rules.

[SPEAKER_02]: The car could be skewed, the wheels could be turned, you know, the engine could be bigger than it really is.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's no, you don't have to make a specific driver drive a car, you can have monsters, fish, turtles, just drive a conqueror.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, okay, point even bring up, you know, but you can put it, you can make it an airplane, you can make it a boat.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's no, there's just no rules to any of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then when you really start thinking about color and lines, different, as long as it gives a representation of where somebody can look at it and go, oh, okay, that's a, you know, that's a V, a 66 VW bug that's full-fendered.

[SPEAKER_02]: I see that, but there's all this other stuff going on.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the part I really loved about it was there was just there was no rules and it led to freedom to express my own voice versus if I do a portrait of a vehicle which I've seen lots and there are some amazing Oh, I wish I had some of their talent to be able to draw a car so accurate that it looks like a photograph [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I mean, but it's for me, it's seem again, for me, there's some stailness to it because it's like, well, you could just take a photo or I could just look at it and I could see the same thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're with what I'm doing and others that like me.

[SPEAKER_02]: mine, mine looks different than the other guys, even if it's the same car, you could take 10 custom culture artists and say, drop, you know, 32 Ford and they're all going to draw the totally different.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so maybe two might be very close because you can see where their reference are their influences, right, the same influence, but yet there's still a different voice between the two of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man, that that's awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's my favorite.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's so cool to even think, you know, about the possibilities, I guess, you know, that's where my, I'm not really an artist, but, you know, I just, I imagine the possibilities and, you know, I watch my son evolve and do the things that he does and I'm like, [SPEAKER_00]: How do you even like see that type of stuff yet, you know, at six?

[SPEAKER_00]: It'd be seven in July, but how do you even get there, you know, it's like, It's just so cool, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love the artistic mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so when did maybe in your own vehicles?

[SPEAKER_00]: When did you start kind of stepping out of what would be considered the norm in your own cars?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was definitely, I don't want mine to look like anybody else's, you know, I wanted to be where there's it's a statement piece and I think anybody that gets into doing, you know, they get into the automotive hobby, you can tell the people that are like, hey, I don't mind buying off the show room and I may be a chain, I put a stripe on it, you know, they're like, I don't want it to be too changey because I don't want, you know, I still wanted, but you can see the people that go listen.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to make this thing where you go, man, okay, who did that or why did you do this or what was the decisions made?

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there are those people that throw the parts counter at it, you know, but then there's one thing you can see and you can go, there's thought behind choices, even with [SPEAKER_02]: You know, off the shelf accessories down to custom stuff like you talk about the the guy with the stitching of the the seats to sweat that detail so much to go, hey, there may be another VW that's like mine and it may have the same color interior, but does it have the VW stitching and the pulse treatment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Alan's an artist, bro, you have some friends.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And to sweat to look at that small detail of an upholstered seat and go, here's where it's going to put me different than another bug or machine.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was sick too, man.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's those, but then then you get the wacky people like me that go, OK, how do I take that?

[SPEAKER_02]: And then maybe even [SPEAKER_02]: make a few people mad or irritated that I did this and go, what was he thinking?

[SPEAKER_02]: And then they go, oh, that's what he was thinking.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's actually kind of cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: I never thought we're doing that or I didn't have the courage to make a choice like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So on that note, did people kind of understand your style or early on or was it more of, you know, [SPEAKER_02]: really what happened with my style in the beginning was was first and foremost.

[SPEAKER_02]: I got told because when I came into the custom culture time that I came in, digital art was just starting.

[SPEAKER_02]: There wasn't many guys dabbling in digital.

[SPEAKER_02]: So when I came in all the old guard, all the traditionalist of automotive and custom culture artwork, we're like, we don't do that here.

[SPEAKER_02]: You either ink and pen and paint and do that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, okay, that's fine.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now I'm really gonna do it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm gonna post and I'm gonna post.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it became like, I was obsessed with like, I'm gonna master this thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: because this is where it's all going.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's no denying that technology is what we continually move along with technology.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I was against, but at the same time, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna learn your income and stuff too.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm gonna figure out how to master that as well so that I become now multifaceted and you'll be singular faceted.

[SPEAKER_02]: And now that you thought I was this competition, now I'm really gonna be your competition.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because I can do what you do, [SPEAKER_02]: And then while I'm doing that, let me go see what other types of art I can learn, ink, oil, acrylic, airbrush, um, enamels, pinstriping, I'm going to, I may not be good at them, it's some or great at them, but I have dabbled in each and every one of them and still learning how to master them.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because that's my goal as I want to be when you look at Johnny's list of tools and arsenal of weapons.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm multifaceted where you, somebody else, they, well, I can draw a pencil.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's great.

[SPEAKER_02]: Cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: Can you do this?

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you can't.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's do bad.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so that was it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then what had what started the best, the most victorious part of it was years later, some of the older guys were coming.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he Johnny, I really, I'm trying to figure this digital thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: Can you give me a hand?

[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_02]: It would be my honor to help you because I was like, yeah, the ones that we're talking talking shit to me before.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now we're going to me for some help.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going to do that with [SPEAKER_02]: with I'm going to kill him with.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you got your chance.

[SPEAKER_00]: You said it in the beginning, if I ever get the opportunity and then the opportunity presented itself and good stuff, man.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it folded, and it still came back because then the door started opening where there was more chances of where I could ask questions and people were a little more forthcoming.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's an artist that I absolutely, he was untouchable.

[SPEAKER_02]: uh, for the longest time, we're at asking questions and he would just not pay much attention.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then some day, somehow some day, I had message about a question and he goes, yeah, Johnny, you do this and I'm like, something happened.

[SPEAKER_02]: with me in him that I don't know either I earned enough credit where he was like that guy's taken the serious and I'm gonna help him now.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what happened but I was like, this is really amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: I can't believe this guy's talking to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: So anyways, I'm not gonna name names but it was an artist that I followed and it was like, God, this kind of amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he finally, you know, kind of helped me out on a few things which was really awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think the difference is between copying inspiration and developing your own voice as an artist?

[SPEAKER_02]: Your own voice is definitely like I've got there's a group of [SPEAKER_02]: I've got hate to use the word fans.

[SPEAKER_02]: I've got guys that I know that follow my artwork and I've seen their progression where I'm like, well, I can see who your inspiration is.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a lot of like my stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: It first I was like, this is, oh, are they trying to copy me?

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I was like, no, I can see whether they're just trying to work through their voice because I did the same thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, [SPEAKER_02]: And then beginning trying to be very much at Newton and Ed Roth and the guys that work for for for off and And then it was just like I got I can't I got to find my voice.

[SPEAKER_02]: So the voice your own voice is the most important thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: But they're in the beginning as long as you give credit where credit is due, my opinion, if you say, hey, listen, I was inspired by this.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm working on my trying to get my voice and you put it out there, I think that is where, okay, you're good, but if you're, hey, look at this cool new art I did and you're like, dude, you just, that's a, that's a rip off of somebody else that's when I have a little bit of a problem with that part, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you draw a car, I'll be, what's your first look in that?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, do you notice, stance, do you notice lines, do you notice personality?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like what, what are you looking at?

[SPEAKER_02]: I look at it all to be honest.

[SPEAKER_02]: My wife gets annoyed, but anytime we go to any, like we'll be in a parking lot and we'll be just going in to your groceries and I'll stop.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, what are you doing?

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, hold on a second.

[SPEAKER_02]: Cause I'm like, just taking mental photos.

[SPEAKER_00]: So crazy man.

[SPEAKER_02]: The Dodge Charger, the way the rear portion that comes.

[SPEAKER_02]: Or I'll have a conversation with her.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like we on our podcast, we've been talking about I'm so sick and tired.

[SPEAKER_02]: I made it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I can never go anywhere.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, can can we in the automotive industry enough with the SUV?

[SPEAKER_02]: You're telling me they're with all the amount of designers that are out there and nobody can do a two door car anymore.

[SPEAKER_02]: No.

[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody can make a really great looking vehicle.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're just going to keep doing boxes and towsters driving around everywhere.

[SPEAKER_02]: We'll be like, that's the best we can do or you're going to specific cars and like who?

[SPEAKER_02]: What were for instance, the new Corvette, the newest body cell from front to just to the back, amazing in design.

[SPEAKER_02]: But you flip that thing and you look at it from the rear of that car.

[SPEAKER_02]: What happened?

[SPEAKER_02]: If I want a Camaro, I would have just bought a Camaro.

[SPEAKER_02]: He just took the back of a Camaro and stuck it on a quart of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, that really, for the amount of money that was in that car and the amount of design work that took to make a mid-engine, the vehicle the way it is.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then we just stop right at the rear quarter panels and on to the end and go, do nothing else.

[SPEAKER_02]: We just go, ass lap a Camaro on it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And those guys get paid how much money?

[SPEAKER_02]: I would have been, yeah, if I was in that GM office, I'd have been listened to designers, we can do better than this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Have you seen the back of it?

[SPEAKER_02]: You don't own a Corvette, do you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, I don't.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I know exactly what you're talking about.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's that boxy with two with four circles just to make it onto the Corvette, which I get.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: I get the retro ideas of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: OK, that's true.

[SPEAKER_00]: No matter a fact, to come to think of it now, I got to tell you, I was at a red light the other day.

[SPEAKER_00]: My son, my six year old, he sees him and he says, Oh, Corvette, you know, because it looks like a, you know, to a six year old.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I remember sitting at the red light and I'm looking at it and I'm I'm literally going like, what's the big deal?

[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_00]: What's the big deal?

[SPEAKER_00]: And when you were just said that, I connected with my thought of looking at the rear end and the box and I'm just like, I mean, not for that much money, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just can't see.

[SPEAKER_02]: I had never seen one in person when they felt that first body cell came out that first new mid-engine and I was on the freeway 75 and one was coming up behind me and I'm like, man, that thing looks mean, oh, it's really low to the they did, oh, okay, and it went by me and it, you know, gotten front of me and I went, oh.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's absolutely cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so then I caught back up to it and I looked at it again and I'm looking at, I'm like, man, I write where you can see the body seam where that rear end piece, because everything's plastic now, not fiber less anymore, whatever it's made out of.

[SPEAKER_02]: But where the rear body seam is, I'm like, that's literally the Camaro rear end.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you do with a little bit of a little bit of tweaking, but it was like, was it a time crunch, [SPEAKER_02]: And I've given him how many models we've had, I mean, how many versions have we had since that first initial change and it still hasn't changed.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, we still haven't no one has called anybody out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, the plastic bumper thing, I had to get used to that myself in GM Carthrel.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's in all cars now, but I had a suburban back in like, I don't know, 0809, you know, think newer body style wasn't metal bumpers.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know that in Colorado where I was at at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is probably 2010, actually, where I was at, you know, in Colorado, it gets cold, very cold in the winters.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember being in this suburban and kind of having some fun in the snow and getting it slung out and, you know, [SPEAKER_00]: You know, being a little wild and having fun with the four by four on the snow, and then I remember slamming into the first thing I ran into and the bumper literally cracked like it was glass, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Shhh, and it shattered everywhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, what?

[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't, you didn't, you didn't dent?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I heard like what the fuck is that you should adequately know airbags when off because that's the next you know, but that's Thankfully that didn't happen, but yeah, no, no, but that's that's good.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is how my brain works like for instance, if you look at a lot of the new BMW and Mercedes [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, is the guys that are drawn, they look like a Kia, like they used to have really swoopy European styling.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right, and like the last one I just saw was in Mercedes, Ford over Mercedes, and it was a box.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, what happened?

[SPEAKER_00]: Domler Chrysler is what happened.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, I know.

[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see the other way around.

[SPEAKER_02]: We were supposed to take the influences from them.

[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, that's how my brain works.

[SPEAKER_02]: I look at those things.

[SPEAKER_02]: And those are the things that I just really can on.

[SPEAKER_02]: And as others are like, oh my God, so beautiful, I'm not really.

[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you, how do you see attitude in a vehicle?

[SPEAKER_02]: It will stances the first, okay?

[SPEAKER_02]: Stances the first where there's attitude.

[SPEAKER_02]: Cause I mean, you can take, listen, you get that you get, you can take almost anything and put the correct wheels, wheel tire package on it and the correct stance and that car will have attitude.

[SPEAKER_02]: For sure, you get that wrong and there's a lot of people to do sadly.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's how, again, my brain works.

[SPEAKER_02]: know it happens and you did go you were almost there yeah like I'm in I'm on this thing this ranting thing right now that I'm going through in my in my automotive design brain I'm so over big tires and wheels I'm so over like like everything is being done right now every project that's going to seem up every build that's being done everybody's doing the same exact things what happened to [SPEAKER_02]: individuality, voice, stance, all that stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: What happened to it?

[SPEAKER_02]: No, we're just going to put 26 inch wheels and really rubber band tires.

[SPEAKER_02]: And well, everybody's going to do it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to do it on everything.

[SPEAKER_02]: See rubber band tires, 22 inch wheels.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, folks talking about 22 inch, we're going to do.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, is the new new Corvette.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, let's throw some 26 inch wheels on it with rubber band.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's all the same shit.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm over it.

[SPEAKER_02]: See how I'm saying, I will, and that'll piss people off, and I'm sorry.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, anybody have to use that running that.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't think, I don't think it will.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's probably a lot of guys that are also over it, because there's a lot of guys that, that kind of even question, why would you put 18-inch Porsche wheels on a beetle?

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, they question the the the the move because you do you have to go really small with the tire you might even have to get fiberglass fenders that even extend a little bit or you're not fit them right so people question that a lot.

[SPEAKER_00]: personally.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think they look good.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think anything past 18.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't give it to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think past 18 you're starting to push a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think bus.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think a bus looks good with large wheels.

[SPEAKER_00]: I agree.

[SPEAKER_00]: I add all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Matter of fact, let's get even go a little a little smaller.

[SPEAKER_00]: 14 15 inch rim, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of my favorite wheels is that it's just being remade now by BBT is the MP Sprint Star.

[SPEAKER_00]: the original chrome with the black powder coat just in my opinion, one of the sexiest wheels on a Volkswagen ever, ever.

[SPEAKER_00]: 15 inch, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, five inches wide, like you know, enough of all that tire on the road, you know, I get it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do for a lot of the the guys that are into that, you know, and I'm come from low rider culture, but true low rider, low rider culture, [SPEAKER_00]: is 13 inch, baby, hundreds of Dayton's.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's real.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's going real small and why that.

[SPEAKER_02]: That way you could do static or hydrochloric if you need to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you can hold all kinds of ways and bounce them and you have enough tire to get away with it and yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: The whole purpose is when you were when you were parked or where they were rolling, there was enough wheel tuck.

[SPEAKER_02]: But, though, that still had attitude and stance as it's rolling, too, where that's the thing like everybody's, you know, and I get the whole, even the whole thing of trying to just even everybody laying frame on every single thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: Nothing, nothing sexier to me than old sixties bug where, you know, you know, you've got the narrow beam, the wheels are tucked in super nicer, the fenders just are just like waterfalls over the top of the wheels and they just tucked in so good.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's just nothing with a maybe a little bit of a rake just a little teeny because again, California, so the little slow so cow vibe do it, but even if it's even if it's it's a level to dance is to have a little bit of that wheel tuck and you got to have a lip on the rim.

[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a little bit of something show and just nothing sexier than that to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm with you.

[SPEAKER_02]: But you can transform that look into again, you could take 80s, C 10, throw a 15.

[SPEAKER_02]: Even as you said, 17 inch wheel with a piece of not a huge lip, a little bit of a lip, tucked the wheel, you don't do money modifications to the frame or it'll still drop.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it'll still look sexy as I'll get out.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm with you and I agree with my wife.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's so tired of us on our podcast me talking about wheels and tires and stance and so she's like, can we get to move on to something else and like I can tell us fix this is that is my conversation man on wheels tires and stance in fact.

[SPEAKER_00]: And always because, you know, hey, man, I'm a car guy, so I, you know, I'm always looking for opportunities, you know, I'm going to find somebody that's given away something somewhere, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's by look hard enough, I promise you I will.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so your process for art, emotional or technical.

[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, both.

[SPEAKER_02]: Definitely, definitely the emotional, like my head's got to be in the red spot.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's, I've got to, it's got to, when I look at whatever I'm done with, I, I have to have good feeling about it, but there has to be some technical stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: But here's the thing with, as you know, because you, you know, you're familiar with a little bit of my art.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like my voice is, I call it, it's a detail without detail.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of things that aren't super flushed out in the major amounts of detail in a lot of the art that I do because my voice is where I put stuff down and I'm hoping your brain puts things into it as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: So you're not only looking at what I'm trying to say, the story I'm trying to tell, but you're also feeling in a lot of the lines that maybe I didn't put in there [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not trying to be as detailed about stuff as possible.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what art does.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's detailed with our details, Ben, my jam.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in the technical aspect, you use the projector for some of your art, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Back in the day when I was learning airbrush and stuff or if I was doing murals, a projector was the big thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, now with digital stuff, you can, you can, mean even in tattoo, you could do a light box where you're taking images off of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: But a lot of, a lot of times, I'll pre sketch something or, or maybe project something and then I'm immediately going, okay, how can I, how can I manipulate this in a different way so that it doesn't look [SPEAKER_00]: I went to I went to high school with the Vitali brothers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joey was the youngest brother and then there's two older brothers.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are massive mural artists all over St. Pete Vitali Bros. is like there.

[SPEAKER_00]: and some of their stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Super sick.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just next level, you know, massive sides of buildings type artists, but here was the point because we're on technology is recently one of the brothers had moved out to like Austin, Texas, and he was showing on video how he can put on a VR headset.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.

[SPEAKER_00]: And stare at the wall and see where he's supposed to walk over and go fill in his lines to start his his painting.

[SPEAKER_00]: Holy shit when you talk progression and art like what I've never in my life on my bro and you're sharing that to like what that's just next level man.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, not the days of like you got away till it's dark or you go into a closet.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I remember in the early stages of airbrushing because I wanted to, you know, get like lettering and specific things very, very crisp and clean, where I have to go into my closet, shut the doors, hit a projector, you know, and it'd be in there, you know, with a thing behind you and trying not to, you know, draw your own shadow and get in the light.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, as you get into, you know, now we have, you know, digital, affordable, desktop, you know, plotters and cutters where you can, you know, you can make stencils and things that you need to help you with, you know, putting things on on materials and utilizing painting stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then as we get into digital now, yeah, that VR, I don't, it's amazing to me a lot of the graffiti artists and muralists that are utilizing that stuff versus the old technique of having to, you know, put different little checkmarks and stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, they take a photo of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then superimpose their design over the top and then try to connect lines.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, the VR thing is amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't got to experience it yet, but I can only imagine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sick.

[SPEAKER_00]: Second, and again, I'm not an artist.

[SPEAKER_00]: So to be able to watch how that evolved in somebody that's already a fantastic mural artist.

[SPEAKER_00]: What?

[SPEAKER_00]: Very well known across the country, [SPEAKER_00]: You know, something that would, in a sense, kind of make the job a lot easier in my opinion, and lean into it instead of being like, no, fuck that.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll do it the old way.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm sure there's I'm sure there's plenty of artists in that realm of art that are going, I'm not touching that VR stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, right, which was cool because I, I'm all right with that, that's yeah, sure, but I like better that that the Vitali brothers are that they were willing to.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, such a cool tool.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it still still takes their talent to lay, you know, it may be putting an image up ahead of their them.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they can see what they're doing, but it still takes, it still takes once it's all laid out and I know that you it's they probably only use it for layout, which is just to get.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's basically what they show in their videos is they look at it on the wall and it's like the corners of letters or the corners of some shapes and it's like the things that I would never see because I'm not an artist.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's those lines that they see that have to go in those certain places that like you just said then the the the glasses come off and now they got to go stand on their ladders and fill all that shit and that's where the real You know artists and experience I'm sure really lies.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, those guys I I that's another one of those in my arsenal of tools is one that I want to learn how to do is graffiti mirror with spray can [SPEAKER_02]: with a rattle can, but never actually done much artwork with it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the thing also the next level of what I'm trying to do.

[SPEAKER_02]: I have always done things small projects.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm now trying to go into making bigger art.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's an interesting transition of like expanding and making things bigger.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've been watching some of your socials, um, even recently and I love the, the reveal.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love the reveal are doing that as a total.

[SPEAKER_02]: Are you really it's it's I did it I did it because I you know on Instagram and an artist who are doing the whole you know 47 inch you know painting and they're flipping it around and they're so serious Oh, you got these little ones and you watch me and they're little teeny ones and my face I'm like in this cool [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, shit bro.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought you were selling the art.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like yeah, listen.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's helped.

[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, my daughter was like, Dan, I love that you're doing your kind of making not making fun of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: That you're not taking it serious.

[SPEAKER_02]: It kind of makes where you want to watch it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like great.

[SPEAKER_00]: I swear to God, it's hard to talk to.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like still having a blast with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm locked in.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've been looking.

[SPEAKER_00]: Checking out.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's so fun.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a it's it's been fun doing some of that stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: Do I don't take much things too serious as you can tell?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about paint on river rocks because that's I was sure even something I can connect with because you see that sometime, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like recently I'll tell you this story.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was at Disney and I'm I walked over to the trashcan the throw something away And I just look over to the right and I'm like oh shit.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a painted rock over there on the yeah I end up picking up the rock and it's got you know a hashtag on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I go hashtag and go find this Facebook page with like [SPEAKER_00]: two million people on it and these are rocks all over the country i'm like man this is cool so i end up taking a picture of it while it's in my hand that's cool i post it to facebook and you know uh i think a few people from you know that that land had commented on it and it's interesting to hear [SPEAKER_00]: from how far in the depths of Canada that that that rock made it to Disney in freaking Orlando.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when I saw that in your backstory, I'm like man, I'm putting this question in there because I want to hear about river rocks like where where the the artist stimulation or the [SPEAKER_02]: My ex-wife and I were trying to do a weekend project, like something fun just to do as a couple of things.

[SPEAKER_02]: And my mom had this craft book that she got at some, she probably got it at a garage sale for like two sands or something.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we were flipping through this book and it was all these rocks painted with acrylic paint.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, well, that's kind of neat.

[SPEAKER_02]: I wonder if I could do find some rocks that we're like in a shape of like squares and I could do like garages.

[SPEAKER_02]: I could draw a car around a rack and some tires and different stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so where we lived in Santa Maria, there's the Santa Maria River bed, and we took a little drive out there to the Santa Maria River bed got out and there was thousands of rocks and different shapes all free.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we took a, you know, milk crate out there and just loaded up all these interesting shapes of rocks and brought them home.

[SPEAKER_02]: And just as a goof, we went to the craft store and bought some paint and sat down at a table and started painting them.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so we were looking at some of them there like, oh, these are pretty cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think we set some out in front of our house and one of our neighbors was like, oh, that's really neat.

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you sell those?

[SPEAKER_02]: And we're like, sell them?

[SPEAKER_02]: Sell them.

[SPEAKER_02]: We did like 50 of them and took them to the SWAT meet.

[SPEAKER_02]: and sold like 45 of them and made like 300 bucks or some shit and we're like oh, painting our river rocks.

[SPEAKER_02]: So.

[SPEAKER_02]: The big one was I found this rock that looked like a locomotive and I painted it to look like a, you know, one of the Santa Fe locomotives and I took it back to the swap me and just as a goof, I put like $250 and a guy came up and paid $250 for a rock and I was like, [SPEAKER_02]: We could do this as a business.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, as it goes, then it's like you got to clear rocks and then you got to come back and I guess it for hours and paint rocks, it was fun, but then it became, it became a chore and then we were out of the river rock business pretty quick.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I still have in my studio.

[SPEAKER_02]: I still have one of my river rocks that I painted like a Ford gas station.

[SPEAKER_02]: Still have it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that time, just because it was fun.

[SPEAKER_02]: But we sold.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's somewhere in California that there's a bunch of our river rocks.

[SPEAKER_00]: Did you sign them?

[SPEAKER_02]: I think I did.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I probably signed them as John back then.

[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have any fancy name.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was just John.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was pretty funny.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it was a good time.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was a fun little hobby.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it was the, it was the continuing thing of like entrepreneurial things of like, I could do side hustles and make extra money and artwork was a fun way to do it.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it was still, I wasn't, I still wasn't taking any of the art like doing an art thing as a business.

[SPEAKER_02]: Seriously, I was still like, it's just a hobby.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, not like it is now.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's, I'm sure this will be a little bit of a fast forward in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: But let's touch on overhauling for a second because most of us, uh, that listen to this podcast are going to know what overhauling is and who chipfus is.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what was it about chips renderings that kind of flip the switch for you as an artist?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it was the watching go from zero on the page, maybe a reference in front of them to go from nothing on a page to a loose sketch to a more defined sketch to a full flushed out sketch.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then watching make customization changes before even touching any pieces of steel.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, man, that's really cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: Get the idea and flush out the idea before you [SPEAKER_02]: And then just some of his design choices and, you know, because Fuso is kind of really kind of a head of his time and then he kind of got stuck in a mansion.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he's now Fuso does what Fuso does.

[SPEAKER_02]: But...

[SPEAKER_00]: That was kind of cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: Fusses, what Fuss does?

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what Fusses, what Fusses did, yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And which is there's another where he, you know, you can look at a thing and go, that's a chip-puss design or paint job or a concept, that's totally Fuss deal.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, whether people like him or don't like him because there's a lot of people that don't like what he does and there's some design things he's, [SPEAKER_02]: that, you know, that I have a flavor and a voice of my own, and I loved before that I now go, I would have done something a little different, but I still just appreciate what he does and how he does it and just that whole design to concept to reality thing was like, man, that's so cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe one day that'll happen.

[SPEAKER_02]: I could do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe one day, [SPEAKER_02]: That far-fetched stream would come to reality maybe one day, you know, but that that's for the pros that will never happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: In your earlier year, somebody gave you a wake on pad, whack on pad, how do I say yeah, whack him, whack him, whack him, whack him, I'd.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I think everybody says it differently.

[SPEAKER_00]: So listeners might not know what that is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you do two things for me?

[SPEAKER_00]: One describe what it is and then describe what it unlocked for you as an artist?

[SPEAKER_02]: So in the beginnings of drawing digitally using a computer to draw, there was no way to directly draw into a computer.

[SPEAKER_02]: You had to have some sort of device that would translate [SPEAKER_02]: are you moving a pen or a stylus around to create a drawing on a computer?

[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, this is the early stages of digital art.

[SPEAKER_02]: A friend of mine had bought one for some, and I think it was, it wasn't even to draw.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was just sign stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: You could do a digital signature.

[SPEAKER_02]: So this is all predating the digital signatures that we have today.

[SPEAKER_02]: This was where you would actually take some physical pin and it would, but it would look like you drew it on the computer.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so we had this thing laying around and said, I got this thing that, I think people used the draw.

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you want it?

[SPEAKER_02]: So I took, I mean, it literally is a square pad, the drawing surface was like four by six, maybe, or five by seven.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, so it's literally a signature.

[SPEAKER_02]: Correct.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then you would, and then on the screen, whatever programming you were using, and I learned in Photoshop, this is the early stages of Photoshop, where it was moving the cursor on, with the black color on white, a white surface, and it would mimic what you drew.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I would have to look above, and I'd be drawing here.

[SPEAKER_02]: So in the early stages of trying to learn how to use this thing, because it came with no instructions, this is early internet.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it wasn't like I could, how do you use a white copy?

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody that I worked with or other than the person that gave it to me, knew anything about it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, [SPEAKER_02]: The first thing I tried was I had done a little drawing on a four by six thing, and I tried to trace it my drawing on the four by six thing and that didn't work didn't translate.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, okay, what if I, what if I, okay, me, I take a picture of my drawing and I put it in the Photoshop and then I had my Photoshop picture.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a looks like a photo of my drawing and then I could trace that drawing with the with the wire compound, but then it was learned how to look up.

[SPEAKER_02]: not at my hand.

[SPEAKER_02]: I hand coordination so weird.

[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, like the years just to learn, it took probably a good two, two, three months of just trying to understand that and then that turned into actually learning to draw physically using the pad itself looking up to the point then my the art progressed and I was able to utilize it to do other stuff with it and then I started [SPEAKER_02]: where it was, you know, painting and shading and different textures and different things because I started learning little things about just by accident.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that does this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, holy cow, I could do this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of trial and error.

[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_02]: Then I started, you know, creating artwork.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it all came and this is the craziest thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I got this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Why I come to have from a friend.

[SPEAKER_02]: uh... the girl that is now it be now my wife who i was just dating just started dating her uh... i went to her house and she had an old busted laptop no screen just the keyboard part that this while compad would plug into and but she had an old crappy monitor that was laying around in her oshes because you could use this and she made a little drawing space for me

[SPEAKER_02]: And she gave me this little computer station to learn how to draw at her house.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're just dating.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, she really breathed me in on that.

[SPEAKER_02]: She had a space for me anyway.

[SPEAKER_02]: So she made this all available and I just taught myself how to use it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then it led to, you know, a drew a couple of pieces.

[SPEAKER_02]: We figured out how to print it on paper, little eight by tens.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we went to a car show and she's like you should bring your art one day and just take it to a car show and see what happens.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like no one's going to want to look at this garbage and she's like just just put it in a folder.

[SPEAKER_02]: Next time we go next Saturday, I think it was a Friday or Saturday night thing we would go to just put your book on the hood of your car and let people look at it like I don't know about all that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I did and next thing I know some guy goes, hey, can you draw my car?

[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, sure, I could draw your car.

[SPEAKER_02]: I had no idea how to draw his car.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I taught myself how to draw the guy's car and he paid me money.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, this, don't need to let these go.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we're doing it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now we're doing it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're moving.

[SPEAKER_02]: The promise I made my dad, it's happening.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, man, happening now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I thought yourself photo shop as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the self talk stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's just I think it's so cool to have that level of commitment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because any of that stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about personalities for a second.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a very.

[SPEAKER_00]: fast-paced type guy I've worked in sales my whole life my wife and I on a real estate company I'm the mouth she's the brains you know when I think about software programs and that kind of stuff I'm like [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, fuck no, I'll pay somebody to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't have that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when I read your back story and I'm like, Danny, self taught this, I thought I'm like, fuck, his personality is just so different than mine, from the perspective of, I just don't see myself having the patience to lock in like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I just really, I commend you for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But let's talk about digital for a second.

[SPEAKER_00]: What a digital give you as far as advantages.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, there's so many advantages to digital artwork and it's why the industry is so changed to where digital is is the leader now versus a lot of hand done because it's so much more cost effective.

[SPEAKER_02]: So this was the argument I would have for with the old timers that with the gatekeepers it was like listen you've got to go spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on materials every single time you use your pencil every time you use a marker every time you do a thing you're it those aren't limitless there those have limits eventually it's going to run out of whatever that is you're going to run a lead ink you're going to go by more paper you're you're you're limited to the size paper that you're trying on.

[SPEAKER_02]: digitally I could make it as big or as small as I want.

[SPEAKER_02]: I can make it as many textures and colors as I want.

[SPEAKER_02]: I am limitless as paper or the surfaces to draw on.

[SPEAKER_02]: I have limitless paint.

[SPEAKER_02]: I have limitless ink.

[SPEAKER_02]: I have limitless graphite.

[SPEAKER_02]: I have limit.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's all limitless.

[SPEAKER_02]: I could mess up and erase it and start over you mess up and erase it and you're like, oh no, I got so far.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_02]: Now their their thing was we have it you're using the computer to cheat and I'm like and that's the thing for me.

[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't till I really learned how to do stuff that I found ways that you could take some shortcuts.

[SPEAKER_02]: But from the beginning, it was like literally just doing the same exact family we're doing just in a digital way, but that was that was the beauty of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I could take my little [SPEAKER_02]: eight by ten thing I had, and I could take it to Staples and make it three times as big, which meant I could charge three times as much or whatever.

[SPEAKER_02]: Don't say them, where they were like, like the artists that I knew that were hand drawing were, they were like, all their, all the things that they sold were eight by ten, and I'm like, minor 17, my 11.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm giving them more a larger piece to put in their garage or wherever, but I'm not charging them anymore because it doesn't cost me as much to make it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that was the other thing I did to is like, I was like, I'm not only going to do this digital stuff and create automotive art, but I'm going to do it for the everyday guy.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not the guy that collects $2,000 art pieces, but the guy that would go, I'll pay 25 bucks to put that my garage and if it sits someone's garage, [SPEAKER_02]: And not in their house or their man cave or whatever, but it's in their garage where they spend time building on cars and they're working on stuff, and I'm up in a little teeny corner with my little drawing in their garage, holy cow, I'm in the best place I could be, that was my dream if I could just, yeah, awesome, yeah, what do you think about johnny jelopy rendering makes it unmistakable.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, again, I think it's the voice that I have.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully, you can see the style of the detail without detail that it doesn't look like other people's stuff, regardless of what medium I'm doing, whether it's digital or acrylic or ink and pen, you can see that it's mine.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that was a thing I used to do too, as I was posting things on the internet and I started [SPEAKER_02]: And I would scroll through all my favorite artists and I would just scroll looking at all the different automotive art, praying I'd see one of my pieces, but also praying I could tell my piece from their piece.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I go, oh, there I am.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't look anything like anybody else's.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's awesome.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: So more I can kind of keep myself not looking like others, but, you know, nods to all my [SPEAKER_00]: It's so different to me and it's so appreciate that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's so safe, sir.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like we couldn't wait to see what your, you know, your rendering was gonna be for the peer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, anybody listening, I've had a ton of VW shows from all over the country with hundreds, if not thousands of cars that go to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: You guys that are listening, get in touch with this guy and have him do your artwork, please, because you will not be disappointed.

[SPEAKER_00]: So back to the story, [SPEAKER_00]: me and Alan were like to check the email today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Did he get it back yet?

[SPEAKER_00]: We're like not yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're like shit, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows going to come over soon.

[SPEAKER_00]: We were so excited to see the first rendering.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we saw it, we were both like, oh my god.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like we didn't even want to have to respond and say, you know, change this or change that we didn't it was so good and so spot on for the what we were looking to capture for the peer and then you're like, oh, well, I even did one better for I made you a sticker, too, and it was the side shot of like the.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate the opportunity to do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And again, that was, you know, when you guys contacted me, I mean, man, something local in my area where I don't, you know, not a lot of people know, because I don't.

[SPEAKER_02]: I love to go to the shows and be it shows and I've in a lot of times I don't bring like I think my wife and you why aren't we bringing stuff and then there's times like, well, I don't want to bring things because then I'm not going to be able to just be at the show and be a car guy, you know, because I want to do that too.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of where I'm, you know, I haven't shared enough of my stuff locally, to where I think, you know, people know my art locally.

[SPEAKER_02]: So my goal is in this, this year and last year, I've been trying to do more stuff, but, you know, just when you think you got goals of things, then other things come in and then you, of course, that's the rail and you're off doing other stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, such as life, hopefully you'll do the the peer, you know, artwork for next January for 27.

[SPEAKER_00]: And hopefully you come and you set up.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would love to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would get a vendor boot and set up and let everybody understand and recognize who you are and how awesome you are working.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, again, I can't think you guys enough for giving me the opportunity to get an opportunity to do that because what a cool show would be a part of that is that's the [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how VK that's how VW community roles, but you know that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know you do.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why we why we got in touch with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to touch on your buddy for a second.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ian Russell.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's maybe talk to me just a little bit about the relationships.

[SPEAKER_00]: How it evolved.

[SPEAKER_00]: How you met like, I think his social media following is pretty vast.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, his YouTube channel and his all social media is a pretty pretty giant.

[SPEAKER_02]: That guy's been the, he's been a people's a car guys guy for a long, long time.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was a fan of Ian back in the my space days.

[SPEAKER_02]: I found his DVD's automotive building before I got my first hot rod.

[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to start customizing, I got one of his things and was watching it and I'm like, oh my god, this guy makes it look so easy and he's using limited tools that I haven't my own garage and he's just making cool stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: Man, if he could do that, I could do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, it was like, I'll do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I got it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Me being me, I got to pick this guy's brain and ask him questions and see if he'll help me.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, of course, I got nowhere.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I was a fan of his and for the longest time and was you know doing my art and creating artwork and stuff like that and one day I follow him on social media.

[SPEAKER_02]: My email about inbox on Facebook just lit up with people that follow him was following my art and then like you're not going to leave this man, but in resell just posted a picture of one of your drawings and alluded to like he's going to build it and I'm like shut up.

[SPEAKER_02]: And there, you know, so I was like, okay, well, let me go to his page and sure enough, there's a photograph of mine, which was a black and white drawing that I was on the internet.

[SPEAKER_02]: And apparently one of his clients that he had that lived in Canada ran across that same drawing and contacted Ian and said, Hey, man, I'd love to build something like this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_02]: So he was like, yeah, let's do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: We'll do it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We'll do it on my show on the TV show, which was full customer rush.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't, I didn't know specifically he had a show.

[SPEAKER_02]: I just knew from him from the DVDs.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I was like, holy cow, I wonder if this real will 10 minutes later my inbox lights up and it's the in-resell messaging me.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, Johnny, I don't know if you know who I am.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't know who you are.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I have this show, it's called full custom garage where I build cars and things for TV and I have a client who showed me when you're your drawings and we are kicking around the idea of maybe building something like you're drawing would you be okay with that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm and I immediately responded with absolutely would be that would be amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And also, too, if there was any way that could be a part of it, just keep that in mind, I'd push a broom, I'll do whatever.

[SPEAKER_02]: He said, yay, yay, well, what the details, I just wanted to make sure it was good so we can move forward because we didn't want to steal your art and just make something without contacting you.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, well, that already liked this guy because he was doing it the right way.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: a week or two goes by another message from him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hey man, we're gonna do it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna start working on it.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is what we're starting with.

[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think?

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, he sends me photos of this.

[SPEAKER_02]: This derelict, you know, bay window bus, a mini bus where it had been cut and chopped is like almost like a clown car.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they window and, you know, it's, my drawing is this split window, single cab, us that's been kind of shortened into like a T bucket's length, sitting on a T bucket chassis, because I was like, how do I get the VW guys in the hot rug guys together?

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll do this.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is my idea hot rod VW, but not like anybody's ever done.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so that thing floated around the internet for years.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so next thing I know, man, every couple of weeks he was contacting me of like, hey, this is I'm going to the metal supply store.

[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think of this?

[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, I just built the frame.

[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think of this?

[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, this is where the body is at.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where you think, like I'm like in myths in the creative of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, I can't believe this is happening.

[SPEAKER_02]: Then it comes down to the time of where they're about ready to close the finish the show.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, he's kept me abreast of everything he's done to it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting photos [SPEAKER_02]: And then I get the invite.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, man, you know, I don't know where you live.

[SPEAKER_02]: Would you be interested in coming to L.A. and be a part of the TV show and see your car?

[SPEAKER_02]: Or see the car.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, yeah, how do I do it?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, at the time the TV show itself was a very low, low budget thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I paid for my own flight at a Florida, to California, stayed in some weird hotel in Pomona, [SPEAKER_02]: found where his shop was in the middle of, you know, nowhere kind of in the midst of Pomona and the city and all the stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, from California, but I'm like, this is not a good area.

[SPEAKER_02]: Here's a big experience of living in California.

[SPEAKER_02]: We drive by this on the 101.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't stop here.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, anyways.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, we're in the midst of the nitty gritty of the city, and it was so awesome.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I pull up in my rental car, the producer comes outside.

[SPEAKER_02]: voice inside the shop.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they're trying to get the car to start and it won't start.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that was a whole idea is I'm going to walk in.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is the car starting.

[SPEAKER_02]: I still haven't met any of them.

[SPEAKER_02]: They put microphone on me.

[SPEAKER_02]: I walk in and then of course the rest is filmed on the show.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I was like, here I am standing in front of what was in my brain is sitting in front of me in real life.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I could touch it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I can look at it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I can feel it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, I can not believe this is happening to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: So you talk about the chip food thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: To have that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Come full circle like a dream to be able to do that and it's actually happening.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't believe it's happening.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's a rare thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: I still know.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't take any of that stuff for granted because I know it's still such a rare thing that happened to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I only happen once, but he's him and I ended up doing five different cars.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you back story, you had talked about Johnny five.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's the name of it, which was really cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we're sitting at dinner after the first day filming of me walking in and seeing it for the first time.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I'm with Mark Hayward, who is the owner of the car had Ian's client and his wife, Ian had decided to stay Ian's not a very social person, but he decided to stay back.

[SPEAKER_02]: So him and me and Mark, his wife went to dinner.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, yeah, we're thinking to name in the car, Johnny five.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, why?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's got a number five on the side and it's your design.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we want to name it after you.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, really?

[SPEAKER_02]: You can name it anything.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now we're going to name it the Johnny five.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, okay, sure.

[SPEAKER_02]: You okay with that?

[SPEAKER_02]: And like, yeah, that'd be great.

[SPEAKER_02]: So then the next day we go, we film the thing, we film it, we take it to a park, we film all the cool stuff happening and Ian gets on the gas and throws the things sideways and we break through or he breaks the rear end in it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we push the rest of it for the filming of the show, we put it out loaded up on the trailer the next day we get up Mark puts it in a trailer and it heads to Canada.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the last time it's ever been seen.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no, no, sorry.

[SPEAKER_02]: We took it to Pomona the next day to the Pomona swap me.

[SPEAKER_02]: Have you ever been to that I have not giant swap me in Pomona like huge cards like miles and miles it's at the Pomona drags drag strip.

[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a car show and then there's a swap me all going on at the same time.

[SPEAKER_02]: You, any, you could build a Volkswagen from the ground up every part of a Volkswagen's are there, but it's every kind of car, low riders, muscle cars, folks wagons are swap meeting, then there's a whole sick ass car show on the other side of the big giant parking lot sick.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've heard of it, actually, the public.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we decide we're going to take the, we're going to take Johnny five, and we're going to set in the midst of that and we're going to fill everybody coming and see what they think of it and the reaction is like.

[SPEAKER_02]: I've never seen anything like this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my God, so amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: I couldn't believe it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like dream come true, like all this full circle stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then of course I went into a trailer and went to Canada.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that Pomona swat me was the last time that cars have ever been seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wild.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's crazy.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if we're going to chance, I'm going to get that car back.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, I'm going to get it back.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you think monsters and cars go together so well?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, because it's again, there's no rules, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: So a monster would, if you're a monster and I drive in some lame, you know, off the showroom floor car, your car is going to be crazy and full of fire and noisy and loud.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, whatever it is, I think that's why I think it really is why it goes together.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's this add-a-control thing in an add-a-control thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: They do perfectly go together.

[SPEAKER_02]: Perfect cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's touch on your sketchy life for a sec.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you and your wife.

[SPEAKER_00]: nickname IDB have been hosting this sketchy life for what eight, eight years, eight years.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, how did it start?

[SPEAKER_00]: How did it happen?

[SPEAKER_02]: So the whole idea of that was when I was going out to film the TV show full custom garage.

[SPEAKER_02]: After that Johnny five episode the very next car we build is the the space junkie, which is this bubble top crazy car and Ian says, hey, I want you to do some pre sketches of this idea and this is true in the summer between Johnny five and this car, he sends me a picture of a quarter panel off of like a 65 Ford wagon station wagon quarter pan rear quarter panel.

[SPEAKER_02]: a bubble that he had blown for another project.

[SPEAKER_02]: The chassis from the old John or the old space junkie and said, hey, I want to do something weird.

[SPEAKER_02]: Come up with some ideas.

[SPEAKER_02]: Here's your uses inspiration.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want to use these pieces.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I did like four four concept drawings of these bubble top cars, which is always, they're my favorite.

[SPEAKER_02]: I love it with a big daddy Roth.

[SPEAKER_02]: Come on, have any bubble top cars?

[SPEAKER_02]: The beatnik band is my most favorite car that he built.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a bubble top car.

[SPEAKER_02]: So here I'm going to get a chance to design a bubble top car from the original Batmobile bubble tops.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_02]: The future, I think originally kind of was, and then Baris split the two canopies to make kind of like front and rear.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think the the future that it took its idea from was a full bubble.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: Baris did some bubble stuff too.

[SPEAKER_02]: That was the thing, you know, Starbird, big into the bubbles.

[SPEAKER_02]: All those showcars of that 50s, late 50s, early 60s, [SPEAKER_02]: So to get to do one of those was dream second dream come true.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to get to design a bubble top.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I threw some sketches at him.

[SPEAKER_02]: So when I go to the show, now they want to fill me drawing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, how much time do you have?

[SPEAKER_02]: Because it usually takes me a couple of hours to do a drawing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they're like, we don't have two hours to watch to see her and just fill me draw drawing.

[SPEAKER_02]: I guess.

[SPEAKER_02]: So there was the pressure of drawing on camera.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my goodness.

[SPEAKER_02]: Then there was the pressure of drawing four times as fast as I normally would draw and then for it to still come out like where I was like proud of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So does it change trying to time trying to draw in front of.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it was very, it was very hard.

[SPEAKER_00]: Does it affect data flow for, does it change the flow for an artist?

[SPEAKER_02]: Or sure, because the pressure's on.

[SPEAKER_02]: Tams.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it would be draw.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, hey, can you, look at the lights where can we stop?

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to move the camera.

[SPEAKER_02]: Can we get it from this angle?

[SPEAKER_02]: Can you can draw that again?

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, OK.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I did a couple sketches.

[SPEAKER_02]: Luckily, they were OK enough.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm still blunt that they weren't as good as I really wanted them to be because then I went back, stayed at all night and I had another opportunity in the in the show where I brought updated photos or pictures because I told you and I'm like, I'm not happy with these drawings.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'd like a little bit of time because I think I think I can come up with better ideas.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, they're probably so we did that and luckily that all worked, but they wanted to have me drawing on camera.

[SPEAKER_02]: So sketchy live came from that, which was I was learning to have to draw on the fly fast.

[SPEAKER_02]: So what better way to do that, which was, I'm trying to create content for YouTube, which is let me draw, fill myself drawing, people will watch it, they'll think that's cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I tried to do that, and then I can work on speed as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: But then I hit a, I hit a roadblock [SPEAKER_02]: As I was drawing asking questions and I couldn't read and draw answer questions it was hard so one night I said hey to my wife can you do me a favor to read the comments for me while I'm drawing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And first time she did it it was a little little sketchy.

[SPEAKER_02]: We called it monster Mondays is where it started.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was monster Mondays with giant gelabi.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she was just a voice reading the reading the comments.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, then she being who she is her personality, started kicking in, and then it became this thing where we came about talking about the drawing, and then we talked about movies, and we talked about music, we talked about her day, and we came this whole other thing while I would draw something.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it went from an hour and a half show to where I was getting stuff done in an hour from start to finish.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so it just, it progressively got me faster to where the next time I got asked, which was the following car we did, I got asked to draw on camera.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was in much better comfortable spot, even though I still very nervous and it was still a lot of pressure.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it was a little easier.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's where it started.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was a way to get faster on camera.

[SPEAKER_02]: But then it turned to this whole other thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's so cool how stuck involved from pressure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, right, which we can make the comment, you know, diamonds evolve from pressure.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they can create something good.

[SPEAKER_00]: But on the topic of social media, you know, you mentioned YouTube and, you know, obviously you're on Instagram and stuff like that now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Social media has in your opinion helped or hurt car culture.

[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, I think it's definitely helped it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We are the reach for automotive fans to be able to to be, you know, the fact that I could look at people in Japan and see the things they're working on and projects they're working on people from the UK can contact me, you know, I'm amazed even on our live sketching show.

[SPEAKER_02]: I've had people from Brazil and Germany and Russia pop on the thing and in comment and say hello and all this and I'm like, oh my goodness.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's the crazy thing ever man had my bad thought back in that day of where he just had his little painting in the in the local gallery were seven people 10 people maybe saw it in my reach is global to oh my goodness, look at what look it from what he again my promise I made is he's being seen globally now.

[SPEAKER_02]: The TV show helped because of course it got started getting shown in different countries and that was the fun part.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would have fans from those countries send me video tape on their phones.

[SPEAKER_02]: The show being in their language and I get to hear myself speak Portuguese and German.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that part was fun, but just the global reach is just amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I think it's done amazing things for the culture.

[SPEAKER_02]: And again, I think America still needs to remember that, you know, everybody else wants to so bad to be what we have.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think sometimes we take it too much for granted to have all the freedoms and the things that we have to do what we do.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's just why you know, like, maybe local shows don't get as many people as they should or different shows don't get as many people as they should.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where if this was in another country, there's hundreds and hundreds, because they're like, this is our only chance to get to this type of stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So so I can talk on that because just this last year never in my life that I ever think that you know, I would ever be outside of my own neighborhood.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it shouldn't be told.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I started this podcast because I felt like everywhere I went, somebody had a Volkswagen story.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as a hobbyist and a Volkswagen enthusiast got my first one in high school, always been a fan, always had them throughout my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: uh... how cool would it be to talk to the people in the culture and interview them and and talk to them about you know the first folks wagon they owned or those same folks wagon stories i hear when i pull into the gas station in the guy says oh man you got a little one man i had that you know same car in nineteen sixty whatever kissed my first girl in that car and you know just whatever the stories right

[SPEAKER_00]: My point is, never did I think that that would turn into something that would have hundreds of thousands of downloads, millions of views on social media, and then be downloaded in 70.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm up to like 77 or 79 countries.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what dude?

[SPEAKER_00]: Never.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm like, never, [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, but that's that's the power of the Volkswagen community, you know, for sure.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it is, how, how, which is what, which when I first, you know, I'd always, like I told you in the cruise in the days of the mini truck and days, I always saw the folks who I can guys and gals.

[SPEAKER_02]: and thought to myself, man, it's just so different, so cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: It always seemed so unattainable.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then the first time I went to an actual just a VW show, I don't know how I remember how we, I think, I heard there was a show going on and I decided to take my artwork there once.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we didn't do great, which was fine.

[SPEAKER_02]: But what we did do is we met a different type of people.

[SPEAKER_02]: because we were coming from where it was hotrods and stuff and it was a little little more closed off.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was a little bit, yeah, it's gotten better.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the VW people immediately were like, hey, how are you?

[SPEAKER_02]: What's going on?

[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, come over here?

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you want a hot dog?

[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, we got a soda.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you need a beer, you know, they were so much like, hey, come over check it out.

[SPEAKER_02]: So willing to talk to people and everybody talks to each other.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you got your different groups that kind of come in together and clubs and different stuff, but everybody's kind of just psyched to be together and share conversations and ideas and parts of, you know, and help and stuff, that's the part I was like, man, I really, this is the people I want to get, I want to be get closer to being around more of and that's when, you know, my wife and I was like, we got to get a bug.

[SPEAKER_02]: So then the quest started, we got to find ourselves a VW, we got to get one.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, we eventually did.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, the rest is it's true.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would all have it so funny.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you probably own several over time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what do you own now?

[SPEAKER_02]: To be honest, this is the one bug that I have currently is the, well, I take that back.

[SPEAKER_02]: We bought a project bug, intern first, it was a Baja bug that I was going to turn into a Volkswagen, because I love just the, it was a guy in my neighborhood that had one running around and I'd see it every single day.

[SPEAKER_02]: I go, that thing is the coolest thing, because it's not a regular bug and it's not, it's like a hot rod, but it's not, yeah, home yet.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I found them fall that guy home one day and I'm like, man, I just love your love your vehicle.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's so cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, oh, I like your old car because I was traveling around 51 Chevy at the time.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought I was like, that thing is so cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, yeah, well, you know, I have a Baja bug.

[SPEAKER_02]: You could probably turn into one of these.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm like, really, how much?

[SPEAKER_02]: And it was so cheap.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I was like, I bought it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I bought it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, yeah, if you need any help, this is the cool thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you have people, if you need help on your projects, let me know, I'll go to the slot me.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's with you.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll tell you what you need.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll give you the list, dada dada.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we started doing that and I started acquiring parts and then eventually, you know, it was time to have a motor and this guy had motors galore.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I went to his house to get a motor for this project and he's like, you know what, why don't you just buy the one that you followed me?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's been sitting for about three years now.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because why don't you just buy that one?

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, really?

[SPEAKER_02]: You should buy that one.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I can't afford that one.

[SPEAKER_02]: That thing is so [SPEAKER_02]: and he made an offer of a price that I was like really super cheap.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like he, I think he's super friend, VW friend gifted it, kind of ish to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we took a home, it wasn't running.

[SPEAKER_02]: I got run within a weekend, which was I was like, I love these things.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're so easy to work on.

[SPEAKER_02]: not knowing yet because against my first bug, how it that easy to work on is going to also you're going to work out a lot.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then it's so we did it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We drove around and we got to go to our first meet with people and it was so cool and it was awesome and then [SPEAKER_02]: As it goes, then your bug starts giving you troubles and you can't figure out what's wrong with it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And next thing you know, I show after show after show you're missing because yours is broke down and you're trying to figure it out and you're chasing one problem for three years and you can't figure out why it isn't.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you're too proud to ask anybody because you don't want them to know you don't know anything about VW's, but you have one.

[SPEAKER_02]: Why do you have one if you don't know anything about it?

[SPEAKER_02]: But anyways, we finally got to run in and stuff around.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I thought for, and then we sold that other project and this one's been the one we've had for the longest time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Volta.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you got a Volta?

[SPEAKER_02]: that we drove around for longest time and then two summers ago, Johnny decided, I'm tired of sitting on the bench, I'm going to build myself a custom too.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I took my perfectly good Volkswagen, and I cut the back end off of it off, and I turned it into a pickup truck.

[SPEAKER_02]: Didn't know how to weld, didn't know how to do anything, and I taught myself, I started July 5th, and my goal was to make it to that bug jam, November, and I got it to [SPEAKER_00]: Heck yeah, dude.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you're was that two years ago.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, two years or maybe it was three years ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sweet.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Got it there.

[SPEAKER_00]: You still got it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: How about one thing that you still want to master.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sounds like you master everything that you put your mind to, but I definitely metal fabrication.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want to, I want to master that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want to, I want to become better at it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because I'm, I'm dangerous enough to get myself into trouble with it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm super, super learning how to control metal and form metal and do the things.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'd like to really learn that skill, say a lot more, and become a much more proficient welder in the fabricator.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you said the word better to me, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Better is probably different for me than it is for you because you just see the world different as an artist.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does better mean to you?

[SPEAKER_00]: What does better work?

[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, where I can, where I can, um, I mean, so I took this, this Volkswagen project in, in a short period of time, went from not knowing how to do it, teaching myself how to weld correctly and control metal and, and bend and do all this stuff, uh, to where it's still running around.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not hasn't fallen apart in the, in the last, I guess three years now, it's been since I finished the project.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, did things I, you shouldn't do for your very first project, like learning how to weld, you should never do a chop top at the same time.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you should never, if you're going to do your first chop top, it should never be a very extreme chop.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I did all that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I shouldn't have done that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I did it and I accomplished it and it looks pretty darn good.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm pretty happy with how it flows and I got the approval of my buddy E and looked at it and when dude you got all the lines right it's all, you know, and I'm like, well, if I could just get my welds so what better just my welds to look look better to be better quality to look where I'm not ashamed to like, like in my wealth.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, like some of them were really good, but then that, you know, because some of them really also not great, I also then kind of started making on purpose crappy welds, so everything looked like it's supposed to be kind of rough.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I've got a small background in the HVAC.

[SPEAKER_00]: I spent about maybe three years in the field as a technician before I moved into the sales side of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I naturally learned brazing with with with copper line says.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I never got to the point where I felt confident enough to say to somebody.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man, those, those are mine.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's my right there.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I always just hide me like, you know, uh, it's not leaking.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everything's working.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, it's not leaky.

[SPEAKER_00]: How would I go?

[SPEAKER_00]: As long as it holds pressure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whoa, we're good.

[SPEAKER_02]: But no, no, no, no.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so which is my whole goal was I want, if I can get it back on the road and I can drive it around and at least it lasts for a year before baby well to start breaking or cracking or whatever, that would be an accomplishment.

[SPEAKER_02]: And now it's been and I've driven around and been pretty rough on it and everything is held together.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I did something for heights, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: What do you want your art to say 50 years from now?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's Johnny Jelapia.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Just like when you look at the rat, thank you, go big daddy at Roth.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's I want to where you see it and you go Johnny Jelapia.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's like the whole purpose of my, you know, my, my brand, my logo.

[SPEAKER_02]: That was one of the first real, real art pieces that I was like, if I'm going to make a logo, I got to make sure that it hasn't makes a statement to where even if I took the words, John, Jalabi out, you'd go, oh, that's John Jalabi's logo.

[SPEAKER_02]: To the point, I've had actual guys that, I'm like, I'm the first guy that ever flipped a gram on a hat.

[SPEAKER_02]: But if I had another guy who now made their logos like mine, and I'm like, okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: a couple of them said, he cool with this.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, hey, that's fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's flattering.

[SPEAKER_02]: They'll just think it's mine.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the end of the day, that's got a feel like.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: The hope is that you like I said, you could take the worst drawings a lot of the out there.

[SPEAKER_02]: You could just see the hat classes.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you would go, oh, John's a lot of his logo.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know that guy is, you know, that's that's the hope.

[SPEAKER_02]: So what you're saying.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I got some rapid fire questions for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are questions that demand a fast response, but if a story comes of it, amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm out here to cut you off.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's dive in.

[SPEAKER_00]: You ready for me.

[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: First question favorite VW body style or body line of all time.

[SPEAKER_02]: So hard, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely good.

[SPEAKER_02]: I love the gear.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's so many customization possibilities in the gear that haven't been done yet.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the thing, something about that square thing, all the really hard, is of it that is so not, the normal VW is why I like it, because it's so not, it is, but it's not the VW.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I mean, you see a thing in your VW, but not like all the other rounded off, everything else.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: pencil or tablet.

[SPEAKER_02]: How will be tablet?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh man, that's cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, how about this one?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oil or acrylic acrylic monster or clean build monster of course.

[SPEAKER_00]: Favorite era of the W's.

[SPEAKER_02]: This was a rapid fire, no more over thinking about it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I love that 80s, from 80s to the early 90s, West Coast East Coast, both design.

[SPEAKER_02]: Are you talking about the years of, yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, 60s.

[SPEAKER_00]: 60s, yeah, sweet, beautiful, beautiful years.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody ever asks me because I'm always the one asking, but my favorite by far is 60s until I get to the bus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody loves the split window bus for some reason.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why I'm a bigger fan of Bay window bus.

[SPEAKER_00]: So 68 to what 79 ish, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's my favorite bus.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just like that kind of bubbly windshield.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just like, you know, they call the Bay window, the Cadillac of buses.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have an own one.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I've come pretty close a couple times.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did have a split, a 67.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that's that'd be my DNA.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would probably [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I can, I can, I understand your, for me, I look at it and go, it's, it's the one where it's, it's the, it's the misunderstood one, but when you see one done right, oh, man, oh, they're so sad.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're so good.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a classic Volkswagen to, to me, another one, another question.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe one artist that you feel everybody should study.

[SPEAKER_02]: Ed Newton.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ed Newton.

[SPEAKER_02]: He was a very, if you know it, like so if you know big daddy Ed Roth's or Ed Roth studios, the artist, the majority of the most popular or the most iconic drawings that came out of that studio or or done by a Newton, his line work is how he would get shading in just ink.

[SPEAKER_02]: is amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then how it set up for all these amazing t-shirts that became these iconic t-shirts that we know of, of hot rods and monsters and stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: He was the guy, him and, and of course Robert Williams too, um, was, you know, like the godfather or low brow was, you know, Robert Williams.

[SPEAKER_02]: So one of those two artists for sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you could design, [SPEAKER_00]: You've obviously got some experience here of design and some badass cars, but if you could design one VW, no budget at all, no budget limit.

[SPEAKER_00]: What are you building?

[SPEAKER_02]: Again, I go back to the gear, I think the gear's got it's such an interesting, it's already got so many cool lines to it already that I've seen in my brain, where you could take it get that's another beautiful car that you could take to the custom side of like hot rods and costumes and it would fit right in there with some some different silence taking taking some of those, you know, [SPEAKER_02]: definite like Watson Bill Hines influenced barris type choices into a gear.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it would look sick.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like I see the whole recorder panel is extended out.

[SPEAKER_02]: The hood line drop down, the roof line drop down.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I've got a 71 and it's beautiful.

[SPEAKER_00]: My wife and I found it in [SPEAKER_00]: Pennsylvania.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we went up to this barn to pick it up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was a one owner 46,000 original miles.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I got it when the market was still pretty strong.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it was it was decently priced right 12 and some change somewhere around there, but.

[SPEAKER_00]: beautiful car.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's at the auto clutch.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, that's very, very fun, easy car to drive.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's my wife's favorite Volkswagen.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's all air-cooled cars.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's her favorite car.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I've got one.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a Irish green and it's so pretty.

[SPEAKER_02]: Even just the stock lines.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's, you know, you're again, you get the stands right on that car.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's hard to touch it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so, so a gear.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: 10-year-old Johnny, what's he say about your life in accomplishments?

[SPEAKER_00]: He'd be shocked.

[SPEAKER_02]: He was like, there's no way that stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've done all that stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've talked to that guy.

[SPEAKER_02]: You met that person.

[SPEAKER_02]: You went there?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there are so, there are so many things that I've got to do in a short period of time, which feels like it's been a long time, but yeah, that people that I've got to talk to, people that I've met, and people that have said they know of me, I'm like, no way.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that part's pretty, just ten-year-old Johnny be like, I can't write.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, uh, I love it though because that's what dreams are made of right there.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm going to be the dreams come true.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, hell yeah, I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So one word that describes your art, just one word.

[SPEAKER_00]: sketchy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Cool, cool man.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, one word that describes the Volkswagen community.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, non-judged, that's two words, open, open, amen, easy, good way of saying non-judgmental, because I knew that's where you were headed, but awesome, open, open, and you're right, because it doesn't matter what the car looks like, yeah, let's bring it to the show because [SPEAKER_00]: Right, and that's the real victory, right, yeah, no, but you got it here.

[SPEAKER_02]: It did catch on fire, so you grow it and you get you and you and you and if you're lucky it'll start up when you get ready to leave.

[SPEAKER_00]: best mix of people in a community, all the mode of community that I've I've ever been around because you've got brain surgeons doctors and lawyers all the way down to the gas station attending who put his own motor and five hours ago before he came to the show.

[SPEAKER_00]: and it's just yeah man.

[SPEAKER_00]: So open open very well said.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've taken quite a bit of your time this evening.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I've been a pleasure, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're welcome.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really respect that, but where can people find you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because [SPEAKER_00]: these guys that I've had on the podcast and the past that run these shows these big giant Volkswagen shows all over the country they better reach out to you because I want to Johnny Jelopy art on some of their uh some of their promotions but where can people find you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Give me give me maybe an email your Instagram.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where can people find you?

[SPEAKER_02]: Easiest places to find me is johnjolabia.com.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the easiest place.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a context spot there.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can watch all the old sketchy live episodes.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can get merch.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can you can you can talk to us.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can chat with us.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a beautiful thing about myself and my wife is we are open.

[SPEAKER_02]: We are available.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm very, very social.

[SPEAKER_02]: I love talking to people.

[SPEAKER_02]: Love getting to know new people.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, uh, joinslabby.com.

[SPEAKER_02]: Facebook is the same thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: John Jolabby at Facebook.

[SPEAKER_02]: John Jolabby at Instagram.

[SPEAKER_02]: John Jolabby at YouTube.

[SPEAKER_02]: And of course, uh, my emails.

[SPEAKER_02]: John Jolabby LLC at gmail.com.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Johnny's JOH and NY Jolabby JOR.

[SPEAKER_00]: J-A-L-A-L-O-P-Y, just in case.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want anybody to miss it.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Final message to the kids sitting at the car show right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Studying the body lines like you once did.

[SPEAKER_00]: Final message to them.

[SPEAKER_02]: Stick, stick to it and just keep, keep looking at all the details of stuff and paying attention to it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because there's a story behind all this decisions that were made and it's what makes that car so much what it is, and then go and figure out how to change it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love it, Duke.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: Good stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, buddy.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I will also talk to the gentleman standing next to that kid seeing him looking at that car and say, fill that kid in as much information as the knowledge that you have about our culture, about your car, about what's going on, because that is the only way this hobby, this culture of automotive, VW hot rods, all of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: If we don't get [SPEAKER_02]: younger folks like you're like your son there.

[SPEAKER_02]: Amherst in the culture, we're gonna lose it.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's on my podcast, that's what I talk a ton about, which is if we're gonna keep this thing going and not allow it to die, we gotta get new people in here.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the only way to get new people in there is when you're at a car show in a little kids to stand next to your car, you go, you wanna get in it?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: Take those, don't touch me, science, chuck them.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's just paint.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's just shiny.

[SPEAKER_02]: You'll free to get your car scratched, leave it at home.

[SPEAKER_02]: Perhaps some of us will open car doors and get these kids in the cars and let them experience what it feels like to be in these machines that we love so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: absolutely awesome man awesome and that's a wrap for this episode of dub life diaries thanks for riding along with us and diving into these incredible stories of the people in the dub that drive their dreams if you love today's episode don't forget to subscribe or hit that follow button so you never miss an adventure [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a story to tell, or know somebody else who's living the dub life?

[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Reach out to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can find us on all socials and dub life diaries.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or shoot me an email.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not hard to find.

[SPEAKER_00]: Double life diaries at gmail.com.

[SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, keep the engine tummen and the wheels turning and always follow the road that inspires you.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is Joe Person.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm signing off.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll catch you on the next ride.

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Original notes