 All right, here we are, another episode of Let There Be Talk and a great guest today. I know if you listened to my show last week, I got into talking about Lenny Kravitz, which, you know, drove me down the rabbit hole of my memory and reminded me of a long lost friend who was the king of the leather. And he is here to get today. I fucking found him, the power of the internet. Introduce yourself, my man. What's up, Deans, Jordan here. What's up, bro? Good to see you. Ha, ha, ha, dude. I haven't seen you. How long has it been since I've seen you? Oh, man. 10 years? Yeah, 10? No, longer. I've been doing comedy for a long time. I've been doing comedy for a long time. I've been in Miami now for six years and I haven't seen you here. So, New York days, man. We're going way back in time, bro. Way back in time. From the lost art years, man. The lost art years, man. That's right. 20 years. 20 years I did that in New York, you know? 20 years. Yeah. Man, I don't really remember how we met, but I do know it was around between 02 and 06 when I was working for the Stones. I know that. Yeah, around that time is probably when you started collecting, bro. You had an amazing lost art collection. Oh, my God. I did. I sold it all because I lost weight. It didn't fit anymore. And now I need it, man. Too late, bro. Let's get into it. Let's get into it. So you did custom leathers for 20 years in New York City and it was in the frame of, say, North Beach Leathers, East West Musical Company, that kind of stuff. How did you get started and what was your obvious influences were those but how did that all happen? Were you a rock roller and you're looking for leather? No, it's actually really funny, man. All those incredible companies that you just mentioned, I didn't know anything. I didn't know anything about them when I started doing my leather work. I never heard of that whole West Coast handmade leather scene that wasn't at all what I was never introduced to that. I started making, I grew up more in the woods around horses, a lot of like leather saddles, harnesses, the tack wear for horses, leather boots, leather jackets, but not that traditional handmade thing that you're referencing. Once I started my leather work by making stuff for myself, I made myself a bag. That was my first thing I ever made. I was like, I need a leather bag, I'm gonna make it. After I did that, and I got the ball started to roll a little bit, the words started getting out there. That's when I got introduced to Anna Suey, who's like quite an established designer in the fashion world. And she's the one who actually started showing me from her own personal archive of stuff, these incredible like handmade pants from like North Beach Leather, all those, the guys that you just talked about. That was my first introduction to even seeing their work. And I remember like so clearly the first day she pulled out this pair of like North Beach Leather pants from like genuinely real North Beach pants. They were like, you know, in her archive from the 70s and it blew my mind, man. I was like, this is just a whole other universe that just has been like thrown into my, that just became open to my mind, you know? And then, you know, over the 20 years, we did everything from jackets to pants to guitars to motorcycles, but it was really in my early beginning of already doing leather is when I started learning about those guys who'd been doing it years, you know, 20 years before me. What year were we talking about? When I started Lost Art was 1997. That was when I first made my first leather bag. You're going back to the time of like the late 60s, the 70s when these guys were doing like a lot of handmade stuff at West. And also, I think some stuff was coming up from Mexico where these guys were doing a lot of hand traditional work, you know, but then more what I was influenced by was going way back to like the American Indians, man. They're the ones who for me were the first ones who started really doing this incredible works of art with leather and hands and combining different materials like feathers, crystal stone, you know, like fringe. All this goes back to the American Indians. They could take credit for it, man. No one that's come after them could really take credit for like fringe, you know? Right. They were first. You know, we're talking about if people are wondering what type of style we're talking about. If you really look in the late 60s, early 70s, people like Keith Richards, Creedence Clearwater. And also if you watch the movie Almost Famous, they're using North Beach Leather in there. And it's the leather pants that like you would see G&R where we're laced up in the front and then it had whipstitch kind of down the side. Very, very cool and an obvious nod to who it was. You would know right away, oh, that's North Beach, you know? Yeah, they're signature, man. Yeah. And then there was that guy in the 90s in Hollywood that had the black hair. And you know, what was his name? He dressed like a rock star in the two-step Henry Duarte. There it is, bam, Duarte. I ran into him a couple of years ago at some art show and he's downtown still. But there was guys like you, Duarte, and the guy that's still doing North Beach now, he's out in Joshua Tree. All these guys, you know, that were making cool shit. But to me, your stuff was another level. You didn't use any machines. It was all done by whipstitch and put together. There was no sewing involved, right? No, completely. I mean, for the most part, we worked entirely by hand. Yeah, that did separate us to some degree because most people did hybrids of like some machine work and then with some handwork. We were strictly handwork because for me it was more about creating an original piece of artwork like that. For me, each thing we did was a piece of art. And so I never really thought about the like, oh, we need to make more quicker, which is where you get into machine work, you know? For me, it was artwork. Now, when I stumble onto you, I'm still not quite sure, but I remember I told Jacob Dylan about it. We go, oh my God, we gotta get a couple of these jackets. You've got a few people to get on. Yeah, so I remember coming to this loft in New York. I don't remember what neighborhood, but it was incredible where you lived and made these jackets and pants and everything. Where was that? I was in West Chelsea, 29th Street between 10th and 11th Avenue. Yeah, an incredible space, bro. Oh my God. Now, how did you find that? And what was the price of that place? Because it had to be back then, right? Man, that was back in the day in New York City when you could still find that type of stuff, man. Like, that building doesn't even exist anymore, bro. Like the whole building's been demolished. And that was like one of the most incredible loft spaces in New York, you know, like it was insane. Those places don't exist, man. It was back in the day. You could find stuff like that. No one wanted to live over in the West Chelsea. Bunch of like crackheads and hookers and transvestites and stuff. Now, it's a completely different world. No one could even imagine what it was before that, man, you know? Your loft is exactly like a dream I always had. It was like something you see in a movie. You go, we're going down to see Jordan. And then you go up this fucking freight elevator and it opens it up and it's your goddamn house. You got fucking couches. You got leather being made, maybe a fucking motorcycle in the corner. That kind of thing is just, like you said, it doesn't exist anymore, but it was just such a fucking vibe as soon as it opened up. And I really remember I was in London with the Stones and it was Fashion Week in New York and you had a giant party and I flew in for it. I'll never forget it. I split from London to go to your Fashion Week party and it was like straight up an Andy Warhol movie, man. Every rock and roll and New York freak was there and we were all celebrating our fucking freakness, you know? Yeah, man, that's awesome, man. I love to hear that when I get memory flashes when people talk to me about stuff like that, you know? That's awesome story. It was, it was a very special time, man. It was a very special time in the history of my life and in the period of New York City, you know? There were more freaks back then. There were more creative people. There were more people like yourself willing to get their hands into the creative people, you know? Times have changed, man. And New York, New York, that vibe doesn't exist anymore, man. It's been priced out, you know? Yeah, yeah. Let's get into a little bit of your story. So you make yourself a bag, right? I was talking to people about, I go, oh man, he had these fucking killer bags and you know, when you live in New York, you need a man bag. I don't care if you're insecure, like, look at this guy with a man bag, whatever. It fucking rains there all the time. You need, you know, your computer, your notebooks like me with jokes, any kind of thing. Now it's overpriced fucking, you know? Louis Vuitton shoulder bags that are made in fucking in a sweatshop or whatever and people pay fucking eight grand for them. But back then, you had a bag, are you walking around New York and somebody sees you and goes, can you make me a bag? How does it start to fucking snowball? I made the first bag for myself. Back then, I was doing a bit of modeling in the fashion industry. So back then, before there were like iPads, people walked around with like a proper portfolio of your pictures and shit, you know? So I needed a bag for my portfolio. That was the design of why I made my first bag in that rectangular shape with that thick strap because it's like all I really wanted was something to carry my shit in, my portfolio, a couple of my things and have like a nice comfortable strap that's not like cutting into my, to me, you know? After I made that, a couple of my buddies who were also in the industry asked me to make them a bag. It just started up and I kept making bags and then this one model girl, her name was Michelle Hicks, quite a well-known model during that time got one of my bags and showed it to Anna Suey. Then asked to like meet with me and it was through the next few years where she would commission me to do pieces for her collections every season. And she had the vision to keep asking me to do different stuff that I never had done before. So she was like, I'm gonna, each season was a new challenge for me. So she laid out pants one season then the next season like three or four jackets and then like a guitar case that the guy from the Smashing Pumpkins would carry. She connected me with a lot of cool people and she challenged me and pushed me creatively and because it was all being done as lost art for Anna Suey, it was getting quite a bit of press generation, like a lot of press, a lot of, people were like, who's making this stuff? Cause it was so much more unique or different than what they were used to seeing. So it just started snowballing and then once the press and the editors and the stylists started getting like more known to what we were doing, it just really took off, man. It took off. At that time there was like, I don't know if the industries, maybe it's the same now cause I'm not doing it anymore. So I don't know how much to compare to, but at that time there was something very like a fresh about the whole industry, like, you know, vanity fair and like Rolling Stone and like working with these like celebrities and these photographers, it was a small world that was much more, I don't know, there's something exciting about it back then, you know? Well, it definitely felt like a big contributor to that exciting moment would be the strokes, the yeah, yeah, yeah's and the New York rock scene was starting to fucking explode that hadn't happened since the seventies of Talking Heads and Lou Reed and all that. So that giant contributor to this vibe, although they didn't really wear leather pants, you know, people like Julian were wearing leather jackets again and New York fashion, you know, was looking at leather and rock and roll again. Yeah, there was an emergence for sure, man. Now was she your contact, your insight for all these big rock stars? Cause I'm going to run down some clientele. We got Lenny Kravitz, we got Willie Nelson, we got Cheryl Crowe, we got Axl Rose, who else was in there? Dean Del Rey. Yeah, Dean Del Rey. It's funny because I wore that jacket around the world, which by the way, we had you on the East Coast but on the West Coast at the time, we had a shop called Lords, L-O-R-D-S. Yeah. And those guys were also killing it with snakeskin jackets and the whipstitch pants also. So there was definitely a couple of people flying the flag of high quality handmade goods. So was she your insight into the rock and roll? No, I mean, to some, she was incredible for giving me like that introduction but it was more into the fashion world with Anna. The rock and roll thing came from working with individual stylists who were like, okay, we just saw your stuff in Vogue or in some magazine. We want to like introduce it to who we're working with. Could be anybody. Lenny came first. Wow. And he came out hard. Dang it, dang it. But Lenny came through his wife at the time when he was married to Lisa Bonet, you know? Maybe they were already divorced but she had done a photo shoot for W Magazine and they had her wearing a pair of my pants in that photo shoot. And she then inquired, you know, through the stylist and through the magazine, hey, who made this stuff? I think Lenny would love it. So she contacted me and ordered a snakeskin bag for Lenny for his birthday. So she's the Lilacoy, you know, is her name now Lilacoy Moon. She's really the one who introduced the whole world to me because once Lenny got that first bag, it was like game over, man. He became, to this day he owns the most of anything we've made. And he became like just a die-hard, amazing, like inspiring person that I got to become great friends with and travel with and just got, it was just amazing. Working with Lenny for the over the 20 years also opened up other doors to plenty of other musicians and rock stars, people in the entertainment industry because everyone would see him wearing his stuff, you know? Oh, yeah. I mean, you know. He wore a lot of stuff, man, for a long time. Oh, he was a law star, man. Yeah. Everything. So he had the jackets, the pants, but he also had what I would say is the most famous buckle style from the 70s and 60s was that big brass one, like, you know, Robert Plant War and Guy's War, that big brass round belt buckle. And you brought that back, which was fantastic too. Well, I love like rings, circle, you know, like heavy brass rings, heavy steel rings. I love that stuff. And yeah, for me, that's a law star. Traditional belt is the two circle class, two ring class belt. I love it, man. I love it. Morrison was the first guy I ever saw with the double ring where you just put the, you know, when I saw him wear that, I hunted one for years and the hate Ashbury found one one day, wore the fuck out of that thing for years, man. Yeah, man. That's the shit. That is the shit. I still wear one to this day, bro. That's the only belt I wear is my double ring belt, man. God, I love it. Now, when Lenny first comes in, does he come down? Are you at the loft at that time? Or are you somewhere else at that time? I had my first studio was in the Meatpacking District on Little West 12th Street. It was in like a friend of mine had a big loft, like same type of deal, like a commercial space that he had made into like a hidden living situation. And he, when I started working leather, he got interested in it too. And he was like, you know, you can set up your studio here and work here and make stuff. He would make stuff as well. I don't remember if I met Lenny during those years. I was like, I think I was there for two years in that studio. And then we moved up to the 29th Street Studio, which is the one that you're talking about, which is the big loft, you know? Right. But Lenny used to come around that one and hang out regularly, man. He'd come by. I mean, that was the beauty of that place. It was like people would come by just to hang out and it was such a large space that they could be doing their thing. We could be doing our thing. It wasn't like, it was more just like a nice place to just spend time without, you know, people could come there and kind of relax. They didn't, they get out of that. Like, you know, they're on the West side. Let's go over to Lost Art and hang out and just like smoke a J or something, you know? At the same time, there was another guy in New York, Stuart with Lost Worlds. And he was doing the motorcycle replicas of like old Buko and stuff like that. He's still out there, Lost World. I don't think I know that guy. Yeah, he makes like really thick horse hide motorcycle jackets, identical, like, but even better than the original replicas of like Buko deep pocket motorcycle jackets. See a German dude? Nope, nope, nope. He's over there in, I don't know. Anyway, since I moved to Miami, bro, I haven't really kept up with the leather world at all. Because it's too hot down here for leather. Now let, let me ask you this. So Lenny starts coming around and then other rock stars are coming around. And are they coming down to the loft and getting fitted or going over stuff with you? Like, how did that work? So yeah, I mean, for the most part, people would come into the studio, they'd go through, you know, the racks of clothes and the stuff that we had hanging there. We would come up with like the original idea for what they wanted to have made. I would tape measure them. We would then make all the patterns for them for whatever they're having made it up and we would make it, you know? That's, that's when the person came to the studio. A lot of people that were like coming through town because they're on tour, they didn't have the time to come to the studio. So maybe I'd have to go to their hotel room, spend an hour with them in their hotel room, taking some measurements and just doing the same thing. But there or on a tour bus or on like whatever, man, wherever they were, if they needed me, that's where I'd go backstage, in between shit, in between interviews, you know? Whatever. But for the best experience for them and for me was when they come to the studio and we would get to like, you know, play guitars, hang out, you know? They could see the leather, the real way. So a lot of cool people came through during the, I was in that space for 10 years, the big locks for 10 years. After that I moved to another loft, but it was a little bit, quite a bit smaller. But during the 10 year period of that in the big place, so many cool, fun, interesting, like creative people came through and it just added to the whole energy of it, you know? The whole vibe of that place was amazing. I mean, I remember you brought Jacob through a couple of times. I don't know if, I mean, I remember him coming through a few times. Like it was just like that. One person would get something made and then, you know, a month later, they'd be like, hey, my friend saw it. I want to come by and show my friend your place and come in and they want to get something made. Someone else from a different, the band or a different band, you know? Word of mouth, man. You got any great memories? Like what about Axel? He got some stuff, right? Yeah, tons of stuff, man. You remember any stories on him? Oh my gosh. He started wearing my stuff before we met because it was, again, it was done through a stylist who we worked with, who was working with Axel. She started getting him stuff. Then it turned out that I got to go back in my mind, man. There was also a girl that I used to date who after we broke up started dating. Like one of the guys in the band, maybe like John Fushante, I don't remember who it was, but it was like one of the guys. It wasn't Axel, but he started seeing her wearing her leather pants because, you know, anyway, one day he was in town and I got a call and it's like, yeah, you know, Axel wants to come to the studio and he rolls in with a few people late. Like a lot of our stuff happened like in the AM hours, like 2 AM, 3 AM, people would roll in after their show or they'd be out for the night and the club would shut and they'd be like, oh, let's go over to Lost Art. Let's go wake up Jordan and like hang out there. But he was late one night and he was in my, I had a little private room, which was like where I had my bed and stuff and he was in there looking, I had these like jewelry, these necklaces from like, when I would travel to like Brazil or the Amazon or India or wherever I collect, like these really cool, amazing beads and all kinds of cool stuff that I'd put on a lot of the clothes, but I'd also have my own private collection in my room. And he reached out to like touch this necklace that I had brought back from the Amazon. And as soon as he touched it, the necklace like exploded. What? It was like, and the beads like all fell on the floor and like some of them like broke and he felt terrible, but it was like the craziest things were most like, it didn't, he hardly even touched it, man. It was just like some kind of weird energy thing. Like that moment, it just like expels. So that's my memory of Axel hanging out of my place. I'm like, don't touch anything, bro. I remember when I was there one time, you were covering Lenny Kravitz flying V in Gator. Yeah, we worked with Gibson, sent us the stock wood flying V. We covered it all up in alligator and leather and then send it back. Well, then send it to Lenny's guitar tech, he let him like set it all up with the electronics. And yeah, man, it sounded amazing. He played it. That thing was so good. Now, let me ask you at what point you start fucking exploding and you have to have some employees, right? How many employees did you have at one point? The biggest? A couple, three. Just like two people on the table with me and then I had like an assistant who just did most of my computer shit, you know? Right. And when it starts to take off, where are you sourcing the leather and the snake and stuff? Are you going to the garment district? Where are you finding? Cause your leather was incredible. It was kind of a gooey, real pliable feel but real durable. Yeah. I would source most of my stuff in different places in New York but then like the real original materials like some of the snake skins and some of the like crystals and the fur, you know like that would come from all over the world, bro. All over the world. I still have a lost art snake skin like bracelet with the Buffalo coin or whatever. Oh, right. That was my friend Lonnie started making those. The wife of Kirk Hammett from Metallica. Oh yeah. So I started working a lot with those guys and Lonnie is super creative and she started getting inspired. And so she started making like a line of wristbands and I think that's the ones that you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. Not one. Kirk Hammett was always such a fucking king when it came to fashion out of those guys in the band. He really, I relate to him on another level in the fashion world. When we talk, we're talking mostly clothing, eyewear, stuff like that. That's what we talk about more than metal or guitars, you know? And he was a big lost arts person also. Yeah, man, Kirk's amazing. Like amazing supporter, both him and his wife, Lonnie, those guys, amazing. And like some of my best memories were going to see their shows. Like a Metallica show is like no other concert. I've seen a few different concerts in my time. There's nothing like a Metallica show. And I've seen a bunch and they're all incredible now. What a good time, really good time. I still have your book over here, man. The coffee table kind of book with all the designs in it. I still got that. It's fucking like one of my crown jewels. It's on my table. People see it. They're like, what is this? I'm like, a long time ago, my friend. It's an antique by now, bro. That's a vintage book. It's fucking cool though. Now let me ask you, where does it start to go south? Because you did it for 20 years and now we're gonna get into your next phase of your life. But what happens? Where do people stop wearing leather or does it cost too much to live in New York or everything? What happens? Yeah, I think a little bit of everything what you just said happened at once. And after doing something that was so labor intensive for 20 years, just my whole team and myself, we were just tired, bro. You start getting pains in your hands and your elbows, your forearms from like 20 years of doing the same type of repetition. We were just tired. I had the opportunity to work with most of the iconic people who I had a lot of respect for and it hoped that someday I'd be able to do something for. I got the checked out box for almost everybody. We expanded into like, we did some really cool art and design projects like the wings for the Victoria's Secret fashion shows, some motorcycles, just like more like very interesting stuff. And afterwards, I'm just like, there's really nothing. Like, I don't know what I want to do next. I've already done that, you know? New York was going through some changes. I wasn't really so didn't think the changes were positive. I preferred the old ways because I'm kind of that way and everything, you know? It was just a time to be like, you know what? This has been an amazing time in my life. 20 years has been like checked. I wrote the book. Now I could just like chill a little bit, go try to do something else. The grind of doing it every day, constantly the work, so much work, man, so many hours of work. It just made me tired at the end. I needed to step away and be like, hey, that was good, but let's move on. And the women I had working with me had been with me for years and years and years. So it was like part of my family and they were tired. And just the idea of thinking of finding new people and starting to train them and trying to like, you know, get it, it was just like, forget it, man. Better to like have the good memory and then to try to like keep it going. Well, what I always find when I interview artisans on the show, and it always seems to happen like this, the artist is such an artist that when the business side comes into it, it becomes taxing and most of them don't wanna fuck with it. And the whole thing just drops to the, you know, to the ground, it ends because they're like, you know what, fuck all this, man, you know? And that's the truth. That's the truth, man. To some degree that happened with me. I mean, obviously in the early years, I'm at the table 10 hours a day doing everything hands-on. As the years go by, you tend to be doing less and you're watching the other people who are working with you doing the work and you're doing more like bullshit stuff, man. Talking to people, dealing with fucking shit, making sure that there's enough leather for the next, like, you know, like you're kind of living in the future. You're not living in the moment. You gotta always be thinking like, okay, what's next? How do I make sure that I'm staying ahead of everything that I gotta stay ahead of? And it just kind of after doing it for 20 years of any business, anything, man. I don't care what it is. Just takes a toll and you get a little burned out. That's it. I understand it. I understand it. So when you reach that toll, do you just say that's it? You close and you move? Or do you say we're done and you're sitting around for a while, figuring out what you want to do in life? No, man. I just said, fuck it. I'm moving to Miami fast. Wow. What made you choose Miami? I had a couple buddies of mine from New York who had moved down to Miami. They may be like two years prior to that. They loved it, man. They were like, this place is, it's on the upswing. Whereas like cities kind of, in my mind, you could feel a city that's having a good moment, which Miami is right now and has been for the last couple of years. So it's nice that I came down here to check it out. And I was like, fuck, man, this is pretty nice, man. I can't do leather here because it's too hot. You know, a few years before I finished doing Lost Art, I was also doing a lot of painting. I figured I could just continue with my painting while I'm here and get that going. And then I did that, you know, and that's what I'm doing. I'm a painter in Miami. And I also have been, you know, working on some choppers. That's amazing, man. Before we get into the choppers, one last question on the leather era. Do big stars ever call you anymore like Lenny and go, hey, man, can you make me something? Well, I still run into Lenny, you know, here and there and especially in Miami. So he knows that I'm not making anything anymore. You know, at that time when I left New York, I was married. I don't know if you met my wife's son at that time. I don't know, we might have... Yeah, I did. You did, right? Okay, so son worked with me with Lost Art for like quite a number of years while we were a couple. And then when I decided to move to Miami, she continued doing it. So like, as far as I know, she's still making stuff for any of the clients that still want stuff to be made. It's definitely not like, she's not promoting it like I used to, you know, like I was much more of like, you know, I want to get my brand out there. She's just like, you know, if people want stuff done and they're still returning clients who are always asking for more stuff, that's what she's doing. That's why the website's still up, thelawstart.com. Oh wow, wow, I had no idea. I was wondering because the website was still up and I was like, oh shit, here he is right here. And then I emailed and I guess she's the one that gave me your phone number. Okay. Yeah, wild. So she's still making stuff, huh? She is. Yeah, and she makes incredible stuff, bro. Like she has a bit of her own style, but it's like amazing, well-made, she's super talented. So yeah, if you want something, get in touch with her. Wow. And is she doing the style of jackets like he used to do? Handmade. Wow. All by hand, bro. Yeah. She's got the skills. She knows how to do it all, man. I'll stop in there when I'm in New York next month. Right on. No, she's in Miami, bro. Oh, she's in Miami. Yeah, she moved down here too, like a little, and, but we're not together anymore, but she's doing the leather work that she needs to do down here in Miami. Wow, that's wild. Yeah. So you're painting and then you get the chopper bug and you decide you've never built a chopper. You don't know electrical or fabrication or welding or anything. I've rode choppers all my life and it's very cool to see that you have taken on another thing a lot like myself. I started comedy at 44 and never did it. I'm gonna do comedy. You're the same way you're like, you know what? I'm gonna build fucking choppers. I don't know how to do it, but I watched a lot of your YouTube videos and it's a lot like comedy. You found a teacher. You recommend people find a teacher and you become an apprentice quote unquote. That's what I was doing in comedy, sitting in the back room of the comedy store. Watching the fucking masters craft their one hour sets and you are doing kind of the same thing and now you're building choppers, roster choppers. How long has that been going on and when did you start? This one behind me is the first one that I did about a year and a half ago. Yeah, it's so cool. I started the first one. Yeah, for me man, because I didn't like I was creative, but I didn't have the skills that you need to build a chopper. You gotta be really fucking skilled, bro, in like welding and electrical, all the things you just said, you gotta be at a very high level. So I didn't have those skills, but I found a teacher who was this amazing guy from Cuba who just like is a complete genius. I mean, he only speaks Spanish. I only speak a little bit of Spanish. Most of our communication is just him pointing and like me learning as I go, but being around him and watching what he's capable of doing was just like one of the most mind blowing experiences of my life, man. When you're around that stuff and like me, I get inspired by hand work, by craftsmen. Like that's my whole thing, you know? So it's a completely different type of craftsmanship than working with leather. In the big picture, it's all like the same, man. And I find it really inspiring to be in that environment. So for me, just being in the garage, smelling the gas, smelling the oil, like seeing the welding, the sparks flying everywhere. It's like awesome. Well, the chopper is a lot like the leather world where there's been so many styles over the years and choppers and leather go hand in hand. Go hand in hand, bro. Starting back with the Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and the Wild One Marlon Brando and of course the Holy Grail Easy Rider. But I grew up around choppers and choppers have gone through so many phases. And a lot of people don't understand when you're building a chopper, there's two choppers. There's the unrightable and there's the rightable. And the unrightables were happening with the Orange County Chopper type of people with the 300 rear tire and the fucking goofy fucking shit welded on it like a fucking Spider-Man face and stuff. But the real rightable choppers like the San Francisco Motorcycle Clubs were doing with the mid-controls up a little bit so you can just haul ass, but the cool fucking look, that's the ultimate chopper. Stuff like Jesse James was building, Roland Sands was building, all of these guys out on the West Coast that were killing it. And a lot of people don't even know that a couple of brothers built the Easy Rider choppers, which is amazing to think back in that era of motorcycles when it was primarily a white culture, say, and these two brothers built the coolest choppers ever. And there's amazing history. If you've seen the history of the chopper that Jesse James put out, that TV show, it's fucking mind boggling. Yeah, no, man, it's a whole world. It's an incredible world of artists, man. That's kind of an overlooked, I think, because they're working in maybe functioning art rather than just like an art thing that doesn't have any function. To make a chopper, you have to definitely have the spirit in the soul of an artist. It's been an incredible experience. So I did, this is my first one. I'll show you. Yeah, love it. Sports motor. You got the king and queen seat. You got the fucking springer front end. Awesome looking. Yeah, all the stuff you said, man. So you start with the sports there, like you stock sports there, you cut the frame, you weld on the hard towel right here, and then you rebuild it back up with either some of the same parts, but mostly parts that you either have to buy or make. Right, a key thing on the choppers, too, what people really need to learn, which is vital, the first thing is the frame with the rake. If you get the wrong rake and shit, the bike's not gonna handle right. It's gonna be fucking weird. So welding and geometry is a huge thing in choppers. It's like BMX bikes and these people, they're artists, but they fucking figure it out because they go and do R and D on these fuckers. They ride them 100 miles an hour on a highway. It's insane, bro. It's really insane. For me, you know, I've never been a daredevil. I've never been like an adrenaline junkie. I'm not even into riding on the highway at 100 miles an hour, you know? What I like is the process of building them and then looking at them and taking it for a nice cruise around the neighborhood. That's good for me, man, you know? But it's really just like a piece of art. It's like a sculpture. I'd rather look at that than some sculpture of some piece of metal that doesn't really make any sense. That makes more sense to me, you know? After that one, I was addicted to it and so I started a second one right away. That one got finished. So I've got two under my belt, man. I'm ready to start the third one. And did you sell the second one? No, I got it here. I don't want to sell it. I'm not looking to sell my bikes, you know? If someone wanted to make one, that would be the best thing I would like. Just like Lost Art, they wanted to have a custom jacket made or custom pair of pants, whatever. I would make them their custom chopper, talk about how they want it to look. We'd discuss the seat, the rake, the trail, all those things that you were just talking about and then I'd make up the bike, you know? But I haven't had the opportunity to do that yet for someone, but I'm still new to the game, you know? So what I have been doing though is these videos, and I've just been putting my videos on my YouTube channel, you know, Ross the Chopper's is the YouTube channel. And that for me is just like a cool way to get the word out there and just show the bikes and seeing that people are getting like interested and inspired to build their own chopper. So if I could kind of push them on their way and help them a little bit and get them to the point where they're building their own bike, just like I did, then that's badass. For me, that's like, cool. One person builds a chopper that from watching my video, then I'm like, I just, I accomplished my goal. Now, my question for you is, did you make the seat, the leather seat? I didn't. But I added, I did add some leather to it. I don't know if you noticed, man, I added like a little braid with some feather, you know? Oh yeah, there's some Jordan flavor right there. But it's not at all a representation of what I do, bro. But you know what? Making a seat is a whole new thing. I will it one day, maybe make a seat, but I gotta like, I gotta get a lot of work. The greatest seat maker, there's two of them. Paul Cox, who does the handmade whip stitch. Paul Cox being one of the greatest chopper builders I've ever met and a pure artist. And then also we had, what's his name? Out there in Malibu. Fuck, he makes jackets and motorcycle seats and everything. Shit, what is his name? I can't even fucking remember right now. And I know the guy, he lives in Cabo part time, but he makes motorcycle seats also and he did a lot of stuff for Jesse. When I did lost art, I had a guy who asked me to cover, I don't remember, I covered his entire chopper in snakeskin. You did? Yeah, we covered the tank, the fender and snakeskin and then the headlight and the grips and the seat I did in leather. So I've done the outside of a bike before. I should be getting into doing my seat, you know? But it's just so much work. But I'll send you pictures, bro, the bike, the chopper that I did, man. We stitched lost art into the seat with big heavy stitching, super bad at welded all around the tank and covered in the snakeskin. Yeah, you could go crazy on a chopper, man. Like that's why they're so cool. Cause you could just like, there's a lot, a lot of creativity that you could work into them. Have you had an opportunity to talk to Lanny about choppers? Cause he's a motorcycle. No, I haven't talked to him in quite a while for not since I've been building the bike. Right. I hit this straight before we go any further. Now, when his crotch blew out on his leather pants and his dick flew out, that wasn't your thing, right? No. They were not lost art leather pants, man. That's why they failed. Leather pants don't rip, bro. Yeah, yeah. Oh, shit. You're right, you're right. Man, well, I'll tell you what, man, it's so great to touch base with you again. There's people in my life that have really, you know, been amazing and a big part of me, you know, like me, I wear clothing and people go, wow, look at that fucking jacket. And, you know, you were at a period of my time when I was working with the Stones, I was just wearing the best fucking shit and I absolutely loved your jacket. I did a, I did a 10 month tour on stage wearing your jacket, that black one. I remember, bro. I remember seeing the video clips, man. Yeah. I remember your motorcycle that you showed me pictures of when we first met. You were riding a chopper. Yeah, yeah, man. Choppers were a big part of my life for a long time. And, but leather will never go away with me. You know, right now I'm heavily into Japanese jackets because they're nice and slim and they get the best horse hide. And I love wearing leather, man, to this fucking day I wear leather, you know, even when people look at these like, oh man, don't wear leather on stage, you're a comedian. It's like, man, fuck you, man, you know. Listen, leather is my first love, man. I'll always have like a special place in my heart for when I even just smell leather, like I get, I still get goosebumps. I love leather, you know? And certain people like us, we have that attraction and connection to it. And it's just like, it goes back way deep in our DNA, man. It's like, you know, all the way back in time. Bro, my computer battery is gonna kick in like one minute. We're out of here. I just want to congratulate you for starting a new chapter in your life. Do you got a website? The YouTube channel, Rasta Choppers at YouTube. Rasta Choppers. And the Instagram is Rasta Choppers as well. I miss you. Bro, it's so good talking to you, man. I'm so happy to hear how, I saw your videos, your hysterical, I was cracking up. It's amazing that you're doing what you're doing, man. And I'm glad that we reconnected. It's been a few years, so now we're together again, bro. Thank you for having me on your show. I appreciate it. I love you. I'll see you when I'm in Miami. Come to Miami. Let's ride some bikes, man. Candles lit, buddy. Cool, bro. Talk to you later. Yeah.