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A conversation about cars, trucks, tugs and other machines of transport that flows like an ADHD fever dream, hosted by Hoonigan co-founder and 321 Action Action director Brian Scotto. Enjoy, it’s gonna be a bizarre ride.
Episode 6 Audio only
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[00:00:00] Brian: What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Very Vehicular. I'm your host Brian Scotto, and today we have Mr. James Pumphrey, who referred to himself as potentially my enemy. He jokes, but there was a period of time where Donut and Hoonigan we're kind of rivals. We talk about that. We talk about the business of making content.
Obviously we dive deep into just Volkswagen Nerdage and we talk about a lot of everything else. I didn't really ever know James that well. We worked on two opposite sides and like he said, we were sort of rivals. So this was a great one. It was good to hear sort of his side of things. Uh, I got to talk about my side.
It was a great conversation. Hope you guys enjoy it.
All right, so, um, I invited you on this show. Like seven months ago.
[00:01:10] James: I was thinking about that on my way here. Uh, I was thinking about it on my way here because there was no traffic. We're recording this like four days after Christmas and I was like, you know what? I'm glad I put it off. Yeah. I'm glad I pushed it because I'm just cruising down to Long Beach.
[00:01:28] Brian: So I invited you then. And it's funny because at that time we knew each other a lot less than we do now. Yeah. Because we one worked on a movie together. Mm-hmm. And we'll get into that. Mm-hmm. And then we also did Treffpunks together. Yeah. And I think we just talked a little bit more. Yeah. But I, it's funny because the original idea was like, oh, we could just do a simple, like get to know each other podcasts because I think most people think we know each other.
[00:01:50] James: Yeah. We're very, uh, we're two planets in the same solar system, solar system, but like, honestly, but I think,
[00:01:58] Brian: I don't think we could have been further apart.
[00:02:00] James: No, we were technically enemies, I think. Would you see it that way? I wouldn't, but I think, uh, public.
[00:02:07] Brian: I don't know. It's interesting 'cause we talked about this a lot.
Like we were both. The biggest of who we're doing it. Mm-hmm. So, without question, we're looking at your guys' numbers, right? For sure. You're looking at us back and forth and, and I'll just say off the bat, like you guys were beating us on numbers, but we were like, but we also were like doing a very different show, especially in the the early.
Yeah. But you guys were also the
[00:02:27] James: reason that we did a lot of the stuff that we did. Okay. I think it's like two bands, you know? Right. And I think like one of us is Blur and one of us is Oasis and Wait,
[00:02:39] Brian: which one
[00:02:40] James: are we? I don't know, man. I think we're blur. I, yeah. I don't know
[00:02:43] Speaker 4: you guys,
[00:02:43] Brian: I think you're, although a quick little fun fact, Oasis was one of Ken's favorite bands.
Yeah. But it was a guilty o pleasure. Never talked about it. But yeah. I grew up in New York City working on cars and alleyways on Jack stands, which means I spent a lot of time on my back. As I've gotten older and bigger, I realized I need a better creeper because I've been known to bottom out a few of the cheap ones.
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Like my van, as you can see, Toyo has me covered from my off-road rigs all the way to my soon to be ready track ready Audi, one of Ken's favorite bands, but it was like a guilty pleasure and never talked about it. But yeah.
[00:04:37] James: Um, my sketch group when I was in my twenties, like we loved Oasis. Oh really? And I think it's why I burnt a lot of relationships early on because we were just like, we're the best.
We're not gonna be afraid to say it. That's our persona. We're just gonna like, walk into parties and like mean mug people. It's like, who says comedians have to be nerds? No, we're cool. We all like dress. So are you the no Gallagher of
[00:05:01] Brian: the group?
[00:05:01] James: I'd say I'm prob uh, I'd say I'm more of a Liam. Okay. Yeah. In my life I think I always have a knoll.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, like Jesse or Zach Redpath are my knoll right now.
[00:05:12] Brian: Funny thing, I would just jump on this. So we were all sitting around in here again and we're like, it was a moment where we're thinking about expanding and doing more. And I was making a list of people to call and hire. Mm-hmm. And Jesse Wood was at the top of the list.
[00:05:26] Speaker 3: Oh shit, dude.
[00:05:26] Brian: And then I reached out to him like two days later and I was like, Hey man, what are you doing? He is like, oh, I just joined Donut. And I was like thinking like, I wonder how different life like my life
[00:05:34] James: would be totally different things
[00:05:35] Brian: would've changed a bit. Yeah. So life
[00:05:37] James: would've been totally different
[00:05:38] Brian: because like Jesse was a ripper back then for sure.
Just in terms of like making like drift content. Mm-hmm. Like worked with a bunch of people we knew. So he was just this like guy we knew from that space. And then he went on to obviously go and build like this massive thing with Donut. Yeah. And I wanna give him his flowers 'cause I feel like he doesn't get 'em often.
[00:05:54] James: Dude, Jesse gets plenty of flowers. Does he? Oh for sure. You think so? Okay. Yeah, totally. Um, alright. No flowers for Jesse. Take them back because everyone, because No, he deserves all of 'em, but everyone assumes that the guy behind the scenes doesn't Right. Get it. But totally. He does. Uh, I make a point of it, but dude, like yeah.
Jesse's, I think what I've been looking for my whole, like since I moved to LA is just like a creative partner where like our relation, I think what you and Ken had. Mm-hmm. Whereas like we really are additive to each other. And I've worked with a lot of people when I was like doing comedy and writing movies and stuff and, but those guys were like trying to do exactly what I was trying to do.
Mm-hmm. And we were like trying to do it together. So you feel more competitive. Yeah. Right. And there's like ego involved and finding a creative partner who just like fills the gaps and is like really good at all the stuff that you're not good at. But then. Also appreciates and like points out stuff that you're good at was like, I mean, literally it changed my life.
[00:07:02] Brian: I think also working with a partner and you were kind of getting at this like, who doesn't want the same end result that you do Right. For themselves? Yeah. Right. Like, I had no ambitions to be a driver. I really had no ambitions to be in front of camera. Mm-hmm. That sort of came because of need when we were making stuff.
Yeah. But you're in
[00:07:19] James: front of camera, like a Spielberg type character. Like I used to reference you like as I was, um, like we were hiring new staff and like the cast at Donut got bigger and bigger. Yeah. Like before, you know, when I was planning on just like making that my career, we would talk about like how I would evolve and I was like, yeah, I'll be like, maybe I'll just like be more like Scotto and I'll like roll in and then I'll go take a phone call.
And so at one point like, you know, I come from like a mo like traditional media background. Yeah. So like, I like characters and stuff and everyone at Donut had a character. Mm-hmm. Um, and I was like, at one point I was like, alright, so, and I think Jesse came up with this, but he's like, alright, so you're a mix of Scotto, uh, uh.
And Kenny Powers and uh, Michael Scott from the Office.
[00:08:16] Brian: That's a good mix. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. And by the way, I'm honored to know that I was part of that mix. Oh, for sure, dude. But I, it's funny 'cause you know, our history with Donut goes all the way back to when Ben first like, kind of came up with the idea.
I mean, the first
[00:08:28] James: time our logo ever appeared was on Ken's jacket. And right before, slightly different,
[00:08:34] Brian: but it's funny that you call it that way. 'cause to us that was before Donut existed, right? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so it was like, that was, 'cause we worked with Ornamental Conifer mm-hmm. To do his jacket. Um, and Donuts were just almost like this joke we had just done.
Um, or we were in the process of doing, Gymkhana ate, I think, and it was just like, there were too many Donuts in that video, Uhhuh. And it was just like Donut, Donut, Donut. And it was like, we just started calling it like the Donut videos. Right? Oh yeah. It was like, sort of this joke, like the origin of Donuts really interesting to me 'cause we were somewhat involved early on.
Mm-hmm. And I don't think we really talked about that much, but like Ben Conrad was at, Logan was, you know, director for Gymkhana four through eight. I worked under him. Um, kind of coming up on all of those. And, and I, and I've said this in a previous episode, like, I owe Ben so much. 'cause like he taught me a ton and gave me a route to be a director.
And, and I think the biggest thing I have to thank him for is like, he just lacks ego in that way. Yeah. Like, he totally just let me do my thing. Right. Like he was just, he's the reason
[00:09:29] James: I joined Donut. Yeah. I was done being in front of the camera. Did you know him from before? No, I got. A random e like a cold email from his partner Nick Moser.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they were like, I've told this story before, but they were like, uh, we just did a short film with your friend Josh Fatu. Josh, and uh, we asked if there were any comedians who liked cars and they, and Josh said, there's only one. Just one just me. And like back then liking cars was sort of like a bit of a dirty secret.
Mm-hmm. It was like a third date confession where if I was like, sure that a girl was starting to like me, I could then be like, okay, I drive a stupid car. Mm-hmm. Um, like we can't valet my car. Right? Yeah. Uh, and so there's
[00:10:18] Brian: certain places we can't go because Totally. Yeah. I'm afraid to park my car there.
Yeah. If we go, there's certain gas stations we can't stop at. 'cause my car is too low to Totally, yeah.
[00:10:25] James: If we go to Palm Springs, we will be taking your car.
[00:10:30] Brian: Uh,
[00:10:30] James: because I chose air conditioning delete as a mod. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Um, and so I went in and met with them and like at that point I was just a little exhausted by auditioning and just playing that game.
And I was like, dude, Ben is the coolest guy I've ever met. Yeah. And I'm gonna do what he does. So he is
[00:10:51] Brian: that like, just twirl his hair
[00:10:53] James: because dude, yeah, exactly. Twirling. I just wanna be like hair bro. And then like make big decisions. And for some reason he was like, yeah, you can just, I'll hang out with you and smoke cigarettes and yep, go to bars and I'll just answer any questions you have and involve you in everything I'm doing.
And I was like, okay, cool. This is what I'm gonna do. And it was like kind of a fluke that I ended up on camera.
[00:11:18] Brian: Because you came into Donut like year two I think. Right? Like they did a year of trying a bunch of different things. And so
[00:11:24] James: they started, Matt. The CEO of Donut quit his job at, like, his, his previous job in August.
A Yeah. At oer I got my first email at the end of January. Okay. Of 2016. Yeah.
[00:11:39] Brian: It, it's just interesting to us. 'cause like we kind of were watching it from the outside and then, uh, and then like, I don't want to get into it, but some stuff happened with us, like behind the scenes, not with Ben, but with other people there.
And we just kind of distanced ourselves and went on, did our own thing. And actually the original reason it was called Donut was because Ben and Nick saw it as a company that Ken and I were gonna be involved in. Mm-hmm. And they offered us shares and we already sort of had a plan of wanting to do content with Hoonigan.
Mm-hmm. Like that was already in the line. And when we looked at the business model, it just wasn't, it wasn't, it didn't really fit for what we wanted. And also I think kind of what the expectation they had for Ken to do stuff. Mm-hmm. And for Ken early on, that kind of media wasn't really interesting.
Right. It wasn't until later on it was more of something I wanted to do. So it was like, all right, yeah, you guys kind of go do your thing and so on. And then I feel like, you know, obviously Donut really got, its like its groove when you guys started doing like the, you know, the explainer up to Speeed stuff.
And it was interesting 'cause I kind of back to before being like we were the enemies was like, it was like, I, I don't know if we ever saw, you guys were definitely competition, but in the beginning you guys did something completely different than us. Yeah. It was more like a tie. It was more like. If we were both on primetime television.
Mm-hmm. We were in the same time slot, but it was like Friends and Star Trek. It was like two completely different shows. Totally. Totally. But it just happened to be, it was like
[00:12:54] James: Arctic Monkeys in the Strokes. I feel like
[00:12:57] Brian: they're a lot closer
[00:12:57] James: than that. But maybe, maybe. Well, I mean, yeah, I think like, enemies is the wrong word, but competition for sure.
And for a while. The only competition. Yeah. And I think, like,
[00:13:07] Brian: did you guys ever see MotorTrend as competition?
[00:13:10] James: We saw them as honestly, like they were my, I say it, I was like, I want to take out MotorTrend. Yeah, totally. I'll stick. They were like, uh, like I had like my cross hairs on 100%. And as for them, '
[00:13:28] Brian: cause they were in our cross hairs too, like, I don't think we looked, you guys were doing something so different than us.
Mm-hmm. That we looked at MotorTrend. And this probably has a lot to do with like my history in print as like they were the evil empire.
[00:13:38] James: Totally. Yeah. They were. And I love all the guys over there. Totally. Like Finnegan
[00:13:42] Brian: Fryberg, you know, obviously eventually Tony Angelo. But I just looked at them as like, you guys are the enemy.
[00:13:47] James: Totally. We were making stuff with $0 and they had a bajillion dollars and Yeah. And had like showrunners. Mm-hmm. And all these extra people that I wished we had. And it wasn't that like I, you know, roadkill was the first thing, phenomenal show like what I do, you know, like it was like the. Like it was, it changed the entire industry.
Yeah. And it inspired everyone who's come after them, whether they realize it or not, I would
[00:14:14] Brian: say them. And Mighty Car Mods.
[00:14:16] James: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Totally. Um, but like, it wasn't that I didn't like MotorTrend because I loved MotorTrend. It was, it was like proof of what I could do. Yeah. To like do as well as they were doing.
[00:14:31] Brian: We, we had, um, we did this like industry event where we invited a ton of people from the industry to Hoonigan when we hit like some ridiculous arbitrary number. It was like 1.4 billion, like minutes watched or something. Mm-hmm. And we invited one of the guys, um, Matt Boyce, who is, who is at MotorTrend.
It's one of the sales guys. And he came and he came up to me and I'm like, oh, how have you been? You know, and he kind of gave me this sob story. It was like this moment when like things were kind of rough over MotorTrend. And then he turned to me and he said, I'm not gonna ask you how you've been, because all I hear from everybody who works at MotorTrend is Hoonigan News.
Hoonigan that, have you seen what Hoonigan did? And like that was the moment that I felt like we won. Yeah. Because like I had someone from Inside E MotorTrend, like Yeah. And like he's a really funny guy and he was saying it in a very like, self-deprecating but fun way. Um, just to give me that moment to be like, Hey, you guys are kind of killing it and apparently you're killing it.
Like, you know, with like half the resources we are. And I think that was what was the coolest part for me, was like how little resources we had comparatively. Mm-hmm. To what they were going and doing. Because they had more, now, I don't wanna say TV size budgets, not by any means, but they had more of that structure than I think we did.
Than you guys did.
[00:15:41] James: Yeah. I mean, like, I think you gotta keep it in check. Because it can get out of control and you can end up being a dick and people not liking you. But I think it is, at least when you're starting, it's healthy and beneficial to create with a chip on your shoulder.
[00:15:59] Brian: 100%. I actually didn't, like, once we got sort of in that top tier position, Uhhuh, to be like, 'cause then all you can do is fall.
Right? Right. Like, I heard this thing the other day and it was like something about, you know, you chase a goal, um, you know, you, you're chasing this goal. Um, but no one ever tells you that. Once you get the goal, then you have to try to keep it. And Totally like, keeping the goal is actually harder than, than achieving it.
[00:16:23] James: 100%. Because you know, like we hear, I've been thinking a lot lately about like all these buzzwords that we hear all the time. Mm-hmm. Like authenticity and community. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And stuff like that. And like, what they actually mean. And I think people misinterpret them. And, um, I've been thinking about what authenticity actually means, um, because I am working on this new project and when you're on the top, and I had this realization with Donut, like at one point we were getting more views than any other automotive mm-hmm.
Channel on YouTube. We were the biggest. Yep. And I was like, we can't, like. We can't act like we used to. Like we can't Right, right. Feign that we're the little guy anymore, because now we are MotorTrend.
[00:17:12] Brian: Yeah.
[00:17:13] James: And I remember thinking about that. I, we had a meeting with me, Matt and Jesse in the conference room of, uh, our first office on Purdue.
Mm-hmm. And I was like, I want, I, I want to take, Matt was like, what do you wanna do? I was like, I wanna be bigger than MotorTrend. And he was like, all right, let's do it. And then we were, yeah. And we were like bigger than everybody, but we were still like, pretending that we weren't right. And we were pretending that we were still like the little guy.
And I like gathered everybody. I was like, we gotta figure this out. Because now there's guys like Sea Boys mm-hmm. And, uh, you know, Jimmy Oaks and all these other guys with, you know, I don't wanna be like narcissistic and think that like I'm on their brain, but like, Motrin was on mine. And so like, just like we were wanting to take out that empire, we were now owned by private equity mm-hmm.
And operating with like millions of dollars a year. And we were the biggest. And like, in order to maintain authenticity and to actually act in like what that word means, like, I think before I left I was like having these conversations, which was like, what do we do now? Yeah. Like, what do we do as the biggest thing?
[00:18:26] Brian: See, I think the one thing for us at Hoonigan was always different was I would always just go do something new.
[00:18:31] James: Yeah.
[00:18:32] Brian: So I would either be like, Hey, let's create a new show. But then even outside of content, like, Hey, let's go do events. Mm-hmm. Like let's go do this on the apparel side, let's go do whatever.
And a lot of that stemmed from me really enjoying the startup phase. Yeah. And the biggest joke was like Hoonigan was a startup inside of a startup. Inside of a startup. It was like a nesting egg of startup. Mm-hmm. So like there was always this new thing to go chase with like a new goal, which also allows you to no longer focus on like this one thing that feels so important.
Like, hey, we're number one if we're not number one anymore. Because like, while you guys obviously had that with daily content, like we had it with Gymkhana and like Oh, for sure still do. Yeah. Like no one's ever touched that.
[00:19:11] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[00:19:11] Brian: But like there was always that fear that someone would, and someone eventually will, or maybe not, I don't know.
In some ways I think that the format is over. Mm-hmm. Like I don't think anyone's making that kind of content anymore. Yeah. I think it's sort of like it, I always say like that film is grandfathered into the algorithm. Mm-hmm. And I don't think it works for anyone new. Like you can make a better film than Gymkhana, but it probably wouldn't do as
[00:19:31] James: well.
Indeed. Even when we were doing stunt stuff, like I would call it Gymkhana Light. Yeah. And it
[00:19:37] Brian: just, it was something that just worked for us. Yeah. And like we were happy if he goaded on that. But I think for us it was always, you know, Hey, what's this other thing we could go chase? What's this other thing we could go do?
Um, you know, the one thing we never got to that I was really interested in was like building. Like a really cool destination. Mm. Like a place that people were gonna come and like experience it and we called it Hoonigan Land. And it was this concept of like, how do we do this really cool place, like a place
[00:20:03] James: that lives like there?
Not like an event or like a No, like a
[00:20:07] Brian: permanent place. Whoa. Like something like a, I would, it was gonna start as like a traveling show and mm-hmm. And it was gonna be something that grew out from Burny Yard, but the idea was like, it eventually becomes this place for other people. And like I know like Cletus has Freedom Factory and like that I thought was a brilliant concept, but this was more like, what is the Disney world for car guys look like?
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like, how could you come and do this? Because one of the coolest things, and I don't know if you guys really ever got to experience a SED Donut, but like with our, both the Long Beach office and the Compton office, we had a store. Mm-hmm. And like getting to meet people who just randomly would come to the store was crazy because none of them were from la.
Mm-hmm. Or Ooc. Everybody was like coming into town. Yeah. From elsewhere. And it became this thing like, Hey, I came into town to go to actually to go to Disneyland and while I'm here I had to stop by and check out Hoonigan or their dad had to come by Hoonigan or whatever. And I realized like, man, this just doesn't exist.
Like there isn't this thing that brings everybody to one place in automotive and there should be, 'cause there's all of us, right? Like there's so many of us here. And I remember when I came to LA for the first time, like going to a couple dealerships. It used to be this like motor sports bookstore on Santa Monica Boulevard back in the day.
Mm-hmm. You know, you go check a couple boxes, but there wasn't like this one cool place to go and like that was this thing we were working on, like right. As the company sold. And then it never happened.
[00:21:26] James: I will say that like I think we got really good at making like videos, you know, like Yeah. You guys were
[00:21:35] Brian: hyper-focused at being great at that
[00:21:37] James: and we didn't do anything else.
Yeah. Like we made, we did pretty well with, you know, apparel and stuff, but like, as far as like building out the brand, like you guys had like burn yard and uh, we, we were like kind of like just in the content minds. Yeah.
[00:21:56] Brian: But you guys were, I mean, your owners were media people. Yeah. Right. Like I was a media person who kind of enjoyed branding.
Ken was a brand and marketing person. Mm-hmm. Who content was just something to tell a story with. Right. You know? So I think there was always this like, Hey, how can we do this? How can we do the next thing? How can we do the next thing? Do you? But I think to actually a bit of our failure, 'cause I think with some one point we were doing way too much.
Yeah. There was just way too much going on.
[00:22:20] James: You think that was a failure point? Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. '
[00:22:23] Brian: cause I was spread across so many things. Yeah. And I would start something and then I would move to something else. Mm-hmm. And then I, my void would be felt on that thing. Yeah. 'cause like, I didn't really ever replace myself.
Um, there were, there was a lot, everyone did their own thing. Mm-hmm. And everyone kind of got to a point where like, very few people were replaceable. Mm-hmm. Right. Like, we didn't have a lot of redundancy and realized, like, Vinny was on camera, but he was also our number one sales guy. Yeah. So it's like everybody was doing two jobs.
Yeah. And it worked really well until it didn't. Right. You know, like nobody was just talent. It wasn't until like the last few months that we started to move people to like talent only deals. Mm-hmm. And that didn't work either. Yeah. 'cause then they weren't in the building all the time and the vibe changed, but like, people didn't, that wanna do all the talent and then also be at work all day.
[00:23:10] James: I'd say that was for me when the vibe changed at Donut too. Right. Like we all were writers or producers or like, I, when I got hired at Donut, I wrote like I was a copywriter. Mm-hmm. I just, I wrote sales decks. Oh, okay. Uh, and I think there is something to be said about like you're saying like startup mentality and.
Kind of being involved in everything. And then once you're finally on camera, you kind of like, you're all sort of speaking the same language and Right. Moving the boat in the same direction. And then eventually you're showing up to do a shoot and you're there for three hours and like, it just doesn't, again, it's like, I think it lacks authenticity and,
[00:23:51] Brian: well, I think something that's really interesting is like our start was, was not intentional, right?
Like we had all this camera equipment, we were doing a bunch of like agency work level stuff and um, that was what the bus, like, that was our business. Right. And actually we were making more money off of White label and, and doing that kinda stuff. Like we did, you know, we launched the new Can-Am X-Ray when it came out.
Mm-hmm. We were doing all those kind of things as well as making Gymkhana films and one day. I was just like, let's go make some cool stuff for YouTube. Like we have the equipment, like let's just make it with the people we have. Yeah. Right. And we launched Daily Transmission and that sort of became this thing.
Yeah. And it wasn't intentional. Like we never sat there and like sat and like wrote out an idea. It was more like, Hey, just quick ideas, let's go run with them. Nobody was supposed to be talent. People just became talent. Right. Like it was all very sort of like natural. Um, and that worked really well until I think the expectation was to make more and more and more.
And then all of a sudden it went from being, you know, very unintentional to very intentional. Mm-hmm. Right. And, and like I think some of that really intentional stuff was fantastic, but I think there's other times where you're just like, okay, this was a lot more fun when we were just going out in the yard and filming it.
Oh, totally. But you can't do that forever. Like it's impossible. It just doesn't work. Yeah. Like every, I don't think it's because we hear from people all the time, oh, daily transition was the best show. Like, why won't you guys make it again? And it's like, it's like a band's first album.
[00:25:11] James: Dude. I say that all the time.
Like I watched the, that first season of High Lows, like the first time we built cars and we like rented this shop in Santa Clarita and we like turboed these 2, 3 50 Zs and like watching that series, there's no way any of us would do that. Right. Like we were up for like 48 hours in a row. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Working.
[00:25:35] Speaker 5: Yep.
[00:25:35] James: And we were all making like 60 grand a year. Yeah. And like there's just no way we would do that. And. You know, we were, that was like at the beginning of Donut, where we were also like working seven days a week because we just liked hanging out with each other. Yeah. Yeah. And we were all just like, really this group of friends, we all lived within like two miles of each other and would, if we weren't in the office, we were hanging out in each other's houses.
Yep. And we were just like, we were at that point, we were just rolling cameras and working on cars and like, just kind of stoked to be there. And I think the, the magic of that really lies in the time. And I think, you know, leaving Donut and starting Speeed, like as a much older person mm-hmm. In a much different position in my life, you know, I went through like a long period of like, sort of like resentment and then like kind of mourning the loss of this awesome thing that I did.
And then. Kind of thinking like, oh, how do I do that again? But then I heard like Jerry Seinfeld talk about Seinfeld and he was like, it was lightning a bottle. Yeah. He was like tho that group of people to come together at that time when all of that worked. Like everything going on outside of the show.
And then for all those people to be at the point in their lives where they could like dedicate themselves in that way to that thing. Like what a fortunate mm-hmm. Position to be put in by the universe. And just like, you know, it like where YouTube was, where automotive content was, where the automotive industry was, where Jesse was, where I was, where Matt Levin was, where like you were, where hurt was, where Vin was to all come together at that moment and like make this thing like, dude, how fortunate we were to be able to just be a part of that thing.
[00:27:27] Brian: Uh, I totally agree. People all the time will come to me like, man, I'm so sorry about what happened such and such. I'm like, and I just steal the cliche of like, man, we were there for a good time, not a long time. Yeah, dude. Like it was so much fun when it was going on. Yeah. Right. And I look back at it now and it, it's almost like any relationship, like I think like you get out of a relationship when you're first out of it, you're like, you hate the person.
Yeah. And you hate their new boyfriend. You hate their new boyfriend. Yeah. And you hate their new this and you can't believe that and you never liked their dog anyway. And whatever it is. And then do you ever
[00:27:58] Speaker 6: think that they're actually fucked up?
[00:28:02] Brian: And like you did, you go through all of that and then you,
[00:28:06] Speaker 6: you hate your friends who still hang out with 'em oh 100.
Like, why do you
[00:28:09] Brian: still follow her
[00:28:09] Speaker 6: dude? Why do you, yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:11] Brian: And you go through all of that and then you meet someone else and you, you sort of fill those voids that were in your life and then you look back and you're like, ah, I don't have those feelings anymore. Yeah. And, and that's like a bit of where I'm at, of like, man, I, it was such a good time that I had with those boys and like got to do all this really cool stuff and what a fun, like punk rock, DIY era of my life mm-hmm.
Where we just got, we had the, like, the privilege just go make whatever we wanted. Yeah. Hey, you wanna make a a car show that's like MythBusters, we're gonna call it Scumbag Labs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. We can do that. Like, that's totally the kind of show Totally we wanna make. And it was like, we got to take this time and make all the stuff that, like Discovery Channel would've never green lit for us.
Totally. 'cause it was either too weird or it was too provocative, or it didn't like land on the, the steps that like a three act show for them needed to be. Yeah. And
[00:29:03] James: you say that and I, I think it brings up, I think both of us come from. A place where, like before we were doing YouTube videos, we were able, like we were in the rooms and having those conversations, like we could talk to discovery.
Right. Right. Like we could get a meeting with, uh, like a TV channel. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And the reason that we were doing the stuff that we were doing is because those guys didn't get it. Yeah. And like, they would never let us. So we, both of us were like, well, I'm gonna do it myself. Yep. And in that time of, and that's why we went into YouTube.
Mm-hmm. And in that time of us being like, fuck it, I'm just gonna do it myself. That entire industry just went away. Yeah. And now all my friends, or all these people I know who are like. Doing that are like, man, you really, you really saw the writing on the wall? You really like got out and like started the YouTube thing like right at the perfect time.
And I'm like, oh no, I didn't do this on purpose. I I was, I was giving up. Yeah. I was just failing upward. Yeah, I was, yeah. I was giving up and I just like stumbled into the right decision.
[00:30:09] Brian: Dude, Ben Conrad and I pitched Netflix a show in like 2015. Yeah. So this was two years before Hoonigan ever does daily transmission and a year or so before a Donut, um, we pitched them a show with Chris Harris, who then later on went on to go do Top Gear and Todd Richards is a pro snowboarder, uh, as like a Anthony Bourdain type kind of like no reservation show.
And we went and pitched them the show idea and like we thought it was great. They obviously never made it. And I think that was one of those things where I was like, man, this show sounds so perfect. Like they didn't understand who Chris Harris was. Right. Like, they didn't get it. And like then you go and you watch those pieces like work later on and you're like, they just didn't understand it.
Totally. And that was like, oh, I guess we'll just go make stuff for YouTube and like, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Totally. Do you, let me, I wanna um, kind of go back to something we were saying before, which was you were mentioning how. There's this lightning in the bottle moment. Mm-hmm. Like, you're at Speeed now I'm here doing my own thing.
And as like, I start to think about working with new teams, like how do you keep that? Like how, like even it may never be lightning in a bottle, but it could still be something pretty good in a bottle. Like how do you stop that from going away? Like, like as someone who went through it. Mm-hmm. And I don't know, and again, this might be the longest conversation that you and I will have had, um, 'cause you and I saw each other at events in between things.
Mm-hmm. We obviously worked on drifter together, but that was like very focused on what we were doing. And I think Tre Punks was just like, kind of like a cool, like kickback kind of moment where we just got to chill a little bit. Right. So I, I I don't really know that much on your, per your, your perception, but I've heard from other people who've been in and around on it.
Like, and same thing at Hoonigan. You put too many people in the same room that are creative and, and things change. Private equity comes in. Right. All this stuff happens. You eventually get to a point where, um, it sours a bit. Mm-hmm. It sounds like it's sour. Like how do you stop that now? Like how would you do it different?
Do you have an idea? Do you think about that? Is it something that's in your brain?
[00:32:07] James: I mean, I think like we're only a little over a year into Speeed. Um, but I mean, so Speeed is me, Jesse Wood, Zach Redpath, um, Sr. And, uh, now Tim Moore. And then we have another editor, this guy Tom, but like the four owners are me, Zach, Jesse, Sr.
So me is me. Jesse is Jesse. Um, Zach is just an amazing director and a really great writer and just a guy that, like I mentioned him in my Why I'm Leaving Donut. Mm-hmm. Video of just like we did season two of High Low. We all were like, we got stuck on the side of a mountain. Like it was just sort of like, I quit for a week.
Um, Zach was like, I'm moving to Paris. And uh, we were like, whoa, we'll give you like a promotion, like a full-time, like contract, like Job. He's like, nah, I'm just gonna like go to Paris. And so, like almost immediately, like when we started Speeed, I was like, we gotta get Redpath. And so like he was the first guy I actually pitched Speeed to.
He was the first person that heard the name the first. And, 'cause I was telling him, I told him and Matt Levin because I was nervous to tell Jesse. And I thought if both of them liked it, then I could tell him that they both liked it. 'cause he respected both of them. Right,
[00:33:33] Brian: right.
[00:33:33] James: So, um, and then SR who is like just this amazing editor, um, and the four of us own Speeed right now.
Oh, nice. And so I think to me like. Donut, we just tried so much stuff. Mm-hmm. And we had no idea what we were doing. And like, I didn't even know, like the industry I was entering into, all I knew was like I was kind of sick of doing what I was doing and I really liked these guys and now I get to hang out.
And so like it evolved so many times and changed what it was so much. Speeed is much more intentional, I think. And I think every, like, we're older than we were and all of us have a lot more experience. Like we all came from Donut. And so I think like Speeed is very much a second band. Mm-hmm. Like I have no desire to make Speeed as big as Donut.
Right. I just want it to be cooler. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And more intentional. And so I think that like all of us are on the same page with that. Like intentional, like it's Speeed is on purpose. Whereas like Donut was the only thing that we were play like wanted to do is be bigger. Right. Right. And let's just like be more popular and be bigger and like we don't know what we're doing.
Like this worked. Maybe that worked. And I think like there's still that element with Speeed. Like I say, like every time we make a video in a new genre, we're sort of asking permission to be able to talk about that stuff. Like, oh, are we allowed to talk about clothes? Right. Are we allowed to talk about.
Outdoors stuff. Both of those were, yes. Are we allowed to talk about crypto? That was a no. Uh, and so I, I'd say like, to me it's just like a much smaller team, much smaller, like outward ambitions and just like the project and like how it looks and how it feels and how it's like presented, I'd say is like much more mature and much more intentional.
So I think like we're all, I don't know, just like very much on the same page and I think we're all working on the same thing.
[00:35:51] Brian: I, I think the aspiration thing is the most important. Yeah. Like when we were at Hoonigan, it was always like, how do you get bigger? Totally. How do you get bigger? How do you have more audience?
How do you have more views? How do you have, how do you sell more product? Mm-hmm. And it was all about like this weird, like numbers chase. Yeah. And. It wasn't until I left that I realized that if you are like at some point, like, you know, our total, our total number was like this 25 million, you know, audience number based on multiple channels, all this stuff.
Right? And you're like, if you're trying, if you're looking to reach 26 million, what you're not doing is servicing like the original core mm-hmm. 500,000 or the original core million people who, who ride or die with you every day. Totally. Instead, like you're continuing to broaden this audience. Mm-hmm. And how could that actually really be good?
Totally right. Because if you, and I think you and I go back to the same analogy, you keep going back to your favorite band. Mm-hmm. The minute your band makes a song to sell on the radio or to be an MTV hit, I might be, um, dating myself, but, you know, or to, to hit tho those numbers on Spotify, it's like, or to become a TikTok song, they are now losing the, the whole thing that made you like them to begin with.
Totally. Right. And, but it's also difficult 'cause at the same time I respect from bands where it's like that first album, you don't wanna make it anymore 'cause you've already made it. Mm-hmm. So it's like sometimes repeating the first album over and over and over again is also just trying to like, continue to capture lighting in a bottle versus go do something new
[00:37:21] James: Totally.
And get that bag. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. But I think, um, it's just a different kind of project and I think like, kind of culturally right now. I feel like there was like this time for about a decade where just everyone like had this attitude where it's like, like you and I are similar ages, like growing up in the early two thousands.
I have no idea how old you are. Huh? I have no idea how old you 40.
[00:37:52] Brian: Oh, I was gonna say you could be anywhere from 35 to 44. Hell yeah. You live in that. You live in that world. Yeah. Thanks. Do you know how old I am? 43. Oh, thanks. I'm 46. Oh, wow. All right. I appreciate the, down, down on that one. Um, the other day hurt told me I was 50, so, you know, well,
[00:38:07] James: it hurts a shit talker.
I think there's this period where like we all just kind of agreed where it's like, if it doesn't, like even if it sucks, if a lot of people like it, you gotta admit it's good.
[00:38:19] Brian: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:20] James: Like, whereas like, I think we grew. Do you think
[00:38:23] Brian: that's true?
[00:38:24] James: No. Yeah. I don't. I used to, but I don't think so. Yeah. And I think that, I dunno, this is sort of an opinion I'm trying to form.
Uh, well the other
[00:38:34] Brian: day, 'cause I wanna, the other day we were on a panel. Mm-hmm. And you said something that, I don't think it's a hot take, but I think it's a take. People don't wanna say. Mm-hmm. Which is people will say like, oh, you know, it's, you know, my stuff's not doing well because of whatever, because of the algorithm, because of this or because of that.
And you, you said something like, it may just not be good. Yeah. Right. Like you have to like take that as a potential variable.
[00:38:56] James: Yeah. And a lot of times it can, a lot of times it isn't good and it's still popular.
[00:39:01] Brian: That is true.
[00:39:01] James: I'd say. Yeah. And like there's a d there's different ways to be good. Like Mr.
Beast is very good at the algorithm, right? And he's very good at attention hacking. 1% little kids. Does Mr. Beast make good things? No. Yeah, he sucks. He's a piece of shit and he's bad for Just tell it right to the camera. There you go. He's, he's bad for culture, he's bad for kids. We should call that out. And like, the dude sucks, but he's very, he's technically very good at specific things and I think in YouTube, I, I think it's kind of maybe dying, but there was a period where like everyone was like, you know who the best is Mr.
Beast? And you can't argue with the numbers. Yeah. And I think that like more and more that's sort of like proven to be damaging across culture. And I'm hoping that we're moving more towards like a time when. When you and I were growing up where it's like, you should call out shitty stuff and if stuff is like bad, we should say it.
And I don't, I want to encourage people as much as we used to.
[00:40:14] Brian: Yeah. I, I agree. I mean, I think that, you know, you hear this in the car world where people are like, you know, what's the, uh, what's that saying? What I respect all builds, respect All builds. Yeah.
[00:40:24] James: Like, nah, dude. And
[00:40:26] Brian: it's like, I respect that you love your own car.
Yeah. And like, that's cool. Mm-hmm. But like, you know, some kids are ugly. Mm-hmm. Like, you just gotta call it what it is sometimes.
[00:40:35] James: Totally. And
[00:40:36] Brian: I'm not here to like shit on other people's stuff, but like, not everything's great either. Totally. And I think the same thing comes to content.
[00:40:41] James: And I'm not here to say bring bullying back because I also think that a lot of the, all of the people who make that statement is like, bring bullying back.
It's like, motherfucker, you're the one I'd be bullying. Like, you are the one who I think needs to shut the fuck up. You're the one who I think doesn't need a voice. You're dumb. Like you've never read a book. Quit telling people what to do. You fucking idiot from two
[00:41:06] Brian: white guys with beards on a podcast.
[00:41:08] James: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the thing, dude, it's like, I, I won't apologize for it 'cause I work hard and like I work with talented people and we study and we and you do too. Like, you guys know what you're doing. What I'm, uh, offended by currently is like, there's just so many people, everyone has a voice now. Yeah.
And I think that like, uh, there's just too much fucking noise. And I, and I think that like, I. I dunno. Get good at something. Like, you gotta deserve it, I think. And I think you deser you, you earn it by learning how to do it. So I'm over fake it till you make it. And now I'm on Learn it till you earn it.
[00:41:46] Brian: Okay.
[00:41:46] James: I'm into that one. Yeah. I like, like that.
[00:41:47] Brian: I, you know, I think you and I both also came from a world where we were already on a media path before. Yeah. The internet became, like, before kids were like, I wanna grow up and become a YouTuber. Mm-hmm. Like, you and I were already doing media and I used to always say this, like, I may not always work in automotive, but like, I'll always work in media 'cause I just really enjoy media.
Like, media for me is the, is the media. And it's like, I just enjoy telling stories, whether it's written, whether it's podcasts, whether it's video, hopefully eventually more feature films. But for a lot of other people, it's just like a route to success. Yeah. And it's like, Hey, I want to go do the things I love and get paid to go do them.
Which I think was like a massive appeal for vlogging. Yeah. And everybody was like, I'm gonna just go make videos about the stuff that I do and like, that's gonna make me really successful. And it really oversaturated the space. And not everyone's really good at telling a story. Right. Like, I think that is the main thing that separates it.
Mm-hmm. And then other people just do the like, Hey, I'm just gonna do a really, really hot take because it's rage bay. That's the thing that, like, it's rage ba dude, if you wanna
[00:42:49] James: go on vacation and like people wanna watch you do it, get the fucking bag. But I, I don't like, takes.
[00:42:57] Brian: The story time interruption brought to you by our good friends at FCP Euro.
So I have an affliction. I like really unreliable European cars. It almost seems the more unreliable it is, the more I lost after it. So of course the car I'm talking about right now is my 2000 2D two se. This is probably one of the most unreliable cars Audi's ever built, but it is so magnificent during its fleeting moments of reliability.
Luckily, a lot of the things you need for this car, I can get a FCP Euro. Lemme tell you a little story. It, it's been running great. It's been just fantastic, aside from all the lights on the dash, but it's been great. Then I opened the door and there was this smell. It smelled like a gym bag and it shouldn't smell like a gym bag.
That car actually smells pretty good, real leather. But uh, it smelled horrible and I realized all that rain we got, it definitely flooded. And when I say flooded, it not the normal kind of flooding. This is like water coming out of the air, vent level flooding, and that also means water going into the fuse panel.
Which meant that a few relays might have shorted as well as a bunch of other things that got corroded hit up. FCP Euro had 'em out to me in a day. This is what's great about them. They enable really bad decisions with European cars. I mean, they are like class one enabler. 'cause if I couldn't get those parts as quickly as I do, I don't think any of my cars would run.
Maybe some of the old Fords. Anyway. FCP Euro, thank you very much. And if you have similar habits, maybe you too should try. Uh, fcp euro.com. I don't like takes, I don't like hot takes. But you're also a take guy though. I'm not really a take guy again. I the other day, didn't you say nine elevens are like dunks or something like that?
Nine elevens are like dunks, dude. Yeah.
[00:44:41] James: I I think overall hot Take culture is like melting our brains. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's like no nuance and there's no real conversation. I'll have a conversation about that. You know, subway
[00:44:51] Brian: takes,
[00:44:51] James: yeah. Yeah.
[00:44:52] Brian: The most recently, one of the most recent guests he had on said the, that Hot Takes are ruining culture.
Oh, I know. I was like, that's so good. I mean, I 100% agree. And he was like, yeah, I agree. Yeah,
[00:45:01] James: 100%. I don't wanna shit on, I mean, I support people and I just think like, you know, it's, it's rough out there in the world, man. So I'm thinking a lot about what's wrong, you know? Yeah.
[00:45:14] Brian: I, I also think like, I, I'm, I'm one of those people who have.
To thank YouTube for so much. It's done for me in my life. Mm-hmm. But I'm also a little angry at what it's doing now for like, the creative curve. Mm-hmm. Like, it feels like YouTube really sort of flattens that like, it, it forces everybody to make similar content because it, what's work, it works well.
Where it, when I first discovered YouTube, it was this. Like non gate kept place that you could put anything up on. Mm-hmm. You could make a, you know, eight minute video of, you know, driving a car through an abandoned airfield and it could work. You could make a video about how to pronunciate words and wear almost no clothes.
And it worked like there was all these, like, you could make this video about like how to build, you know, a log cabin and it worked. Right. Those still crush. They do crush. Yeah. I've, yeah. I don't even wanna get into that, but that's like a whole great space. Yeah. Yeah. You'll see the one where like the guy like digs out.
Well, we'll we'll talk about that later. There's so many good ones. A SMR
[00:46:12] James: off grid builds so good, are just the best. And they
[00:46:17] Speaker 6: crush, they get like 8 million views.
[00:46:20] Brian: Even if, if I see a thumbnail of like a rusty revolver founded at the bottom of a lake and then like right next to is the before and after like perfect finish.
I'm like, I'm gonna watch this. Like, I don't even like guns, but I'm gonna sit here and watch this for, you know, for two and a half hours as this guy painstakingly restores this thing. Yeah, it did. And like pops all the rivets out. It's amazing. Four,
[00:46:41] James: four day lean two winter camp. Oh, best.
[00:46:45] Brian: Yeah. But anyway, back to it.
Like, I just think that, that it's sort of created a model where all the content like feels the same. Is that something that you feel?
[00:46:52] James: I do, but I think that it's up to us to change that. And I feel like so many of my peers are like, well, I don't know what to do like YouTube and like the algorithm and then just want us to make like.
Crap. Right. And I think I told, I was on Colin and Samir recently, and I said this where I think with YouTube we've self-inflicted all of the worst parts about the Hollywood studio system where we can make whatever we want, but we are only willing to make hits. Right. And so, like, we're only willing to, like, nobody's telling us what to do.
Like we're independent artists for the most part. Especially now that, that, I think private equity experiment failed in YouTube. But like, I think there is like gonna be, especially after, you know, you guys went through what you went through. We went through what we went through. And just like overall, just like it's not really a scalable business in the way that people thought it was, it would be.
Mm-hmm. Um, like you can't scale a band. No. You know? And so I think that, I think that there could and will be this like middle class YouTube creator space that doesn't play by those rules. I think like it got grotesque for a while, you know, and I think Mr. Beast and guys like that mm-hmm. Are responsible for it.
But like all of a sudden you're introducing like the dude spending millions of dollars on a video. Like he's spending more money on a 20 minute video than. People spend on feature films, right? And he is getting numbers that for whatever, like there's no categories in YouTube. So like, even though like most of the audience is four to seven years old, we're still held to sort of like the same standard.
And it's like, well if this guy like locked a guy in a room and he got 150 million views, like, what are you guys doing? And I think that like YouTube is this amazing place where like we can make awesome stuff and we can self-publish it and we can self-fund it. And I think the main thing that's standing in our way is us and like our just like agreement to make sloppy shit, you know?
And I, I want to encourage people to like, I don't know, I think like we're, we did it last year where we took some risks and like kind of led with like, I want to make this video. And this year we're planning to do it more like my, we just had our last meeting of the year and. I was like, all right, next year I want to continue to dare people to not watch our videos.
[00:49:43] Brian: Yeah. I'm, I'm totally into that. Yeah. I, I, you guys did the Carhartt video, I think was like the second video or something you did. Yeah. And I remember thinking like, that was really smart. 'cause immediately you have told people, this isn't just a car channel. Yeah. And we're gonna, I'm gonna do whatever I want to do.
Mm-hmm. And just create this like, different space than what I think you guys had very much locked yourself into as Donut. And I think for Hoonigan, we dealt with this a lot, which was like, early on we were just like, burnouts and drifting and some rally stuff. And it's like, how do you keep expanding the brand?
Right. And at a certain point, I actually felt like we were expanding it maybe too far, like it was doing too much. Mm-hmm. But it was part of that grow, grow, grow, grow thing. And like, how do you keep speaking to a bigger and bigger audience? But on the flip side of things, like with what I'm doing. Like, I'm uploading two hour long podcast to YouTube.
That is exactly what they don't want. Right. Like the, the, it's not the watch time. They want, it doesn't chuckle the boxes, but like, I don't really care, like totally. I built my business model on it not being successful by being the most amount of views. Mm-hmm. Because I think if you build the model around trying to make money on YouTube, then you are imprisoned by the algorithm and the way that all works.
Mm-hmm. But if you sit there and say, Hey, I'm gonna make this thing and it's either going to make money elsewhere for me, or I've got partners that sort of understand what I'm trying to do, um, and I'm not sitting there chasing a particular metric and like it, or you, you lower the bar of what you want to go and do and then keep it there.
Mm-hmm. Um, it allows you to take more experiments and just like kind of go have fun stuff. For sure. Versus getting stuck in that we always make this because this works. Right. Like this versus that became that show. Mm-hmm. It was super successful. It was easy to make. It was low budget, it was the winning show for us on YouTube.
It averaged a million views in episode, like, and we could record eight of them in a day. Yeah. Like, think of how nice that is. Right. For production. Really good. RI That's a good r oi. Yeah. Like the, the business people love to hear that. Right. But. A a, arguably the views said that that was one of the most success, not one of, it was the most successful show we did on Hoonigan.
[00:51:47] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:48] Brian: The fan base said the opposite. Right? Right. Like the audience that was watching it was bummed by it because they missed the banter between people. But that show had a ceiling of how good it was gonna, of how big it was gonna get. So we had to do something else because we were chasing this other goal.
And I think it goes back to your ambition thing before, which is like, setting lower ambitions I think is actually really valuable. Um, I, I've do you know Mark Arsenal? Oh
[00:52:12] James: yeah.
[00:52:13] Brian: So Mark, like, um, I, which is one
[00:52:16] James: of the reasons I quit doing that. Oh, really? Yeah. Why? He was just like a guy who was successful.
Yeah. Uh, in places that I wanted to be. Okay. Or just like I respected what he's done. Um, and like, he, yeah. I think you were too, like there were a few guys who were just like, yeah, fuck it man, get out there. So I like, without me prodding, like I was kind of talking to him about, 'cause we got the Zoomies thing and I was kinda, I felt kind of burnt by that and he was like, oh yeah, you should just leave and start your own thing.
He's like, I'll start a company with you. Yeah. Mark got like a hundred companies. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, all right.
[00:52:56] Brian: So it's interesting. So I had a similar conversation with Mark and it was over Zoomie. So real quick, rewind, you know, fat La Illest really kind of one of the first like. Universal automotive brands.
Totally. Right. Like something that wasn't specifically drifting or specifically one kind of racing or, you know, specifically like JDM, like, I felt like they were somewhat broad in what they were doing. And so when Hoonigan came around, they had already been around for like a year or two. Mm-hmm. And I, you know, I met him through building my nine 11.
Right. Yeah. 'cause that was like the whole RWB thing in the us So when it first started. And so he was great with me early on, like considering that like, you could think of us as competitors. Like he would just, what if I had a question, whether it was types of shirts to use or how different rollouts have worked or so on.
Um, you know, I would go to him and he was great and was, I was really, I really enjoyed his sort of, um, professional friendship through that period. Um, and then Hoonigan started to like really hockey stick. Mm-hmm. And like we ended up in Zoomies before them, did all the stuff, so on and so on. And, you know, from my side, 'cause I'm, I'm a bit competitive person.
I sat there going, oh yeah, we're winning. Yeah. Like, we're winning. Totally. 'cause like, we're crushing them, right? Yeah. So he called me one night and he said, Hey, like, you know, I'm thinking about going to Zoomies, you know, they've approached me and so on. 'cause Hoonigan was the first automotive brand in, in, in Zoomies.
Yeah. Like, we broke through that, which was not an easy, you guys did crazy. And we did crazy numbers. Yeah. We did all doors. We did a 40 door test and then, um, within 40 days we were all doors. Yeah. Um, we were the fastest growing brand to ever go to Zumi at that point. We, the only other brand that went faster than us was Little Wayne's brand.
Yeah. Um, but there was like a stipulation behind it. 'cause they had like a major like, spend to support it. Mm-hmm. And it was like a limited time. So it exploded. And it was a good, it, it's one of the reasons we did content right. So like, I thank it for that, but. I think I, I wish we could have slow played it because it put so much focus on us just dealing with that.
Like it was an expansion we weren't ready for. Mm-hmm. It was, I don't know, like 10 employees and all of a sudden we're in 600 stores in the malls. But anyway, to go to get back to the Mark story, mark was going there and we were talking and we were talking about something and he just said to me, he was like, I don't know man.
I just, he's like, I don't know. I just don't know. Like if I really want like LLS to like grow that big, you know, like I kind of enjoy it at the size it's at now. Right. And when he said that to me, he's like, I just, it's just easy. It's like easy to maintain and I, I didn't see it as real. Right. Like, I thought he was lying to me.
Yeah. And being like, oh yeah, of course. That's what you say to the guy who built the more, the brand that, you know, shadowed their brand.
[00:55:42] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
[00:55:43] Brian: And then all of a sudden, like, I woke up one day and I was like, fuck, mark was right. Mark was right. Because like, I don't enjoy this anymore. Right. Yeah. Right. Like, I stopped enjoying this, this now feels like a job.
Yeah. And the brand is also abandoning some of its early fan base to continue to grow. Mm-hmm. And do all this stuff. And it was, it was this tough world because I did enjoy the success. Mm-hmm. And like, that definitely fueled me was the success of making something that did well. But I could look back at it now and go, yeah, mark was right.
Like, yeah. Keeping something to a certain size, like for me, 15 people was the greatest size. Hoonigan was. Yeah. Not that I didn't enjoy the, you know, 80 or so people who moved through the doors. Like I loved working with almost all of them, but. There was certainly this like sweet spot around 14 to 15. And, and the way I say it is like, if you can't fit your entire crew into like two minivans to go get lunch mm-hmm.
Like, it's, it's the wrong size crew. Like if you still can't get a table to feed your whole, your whole gang, like at, you know, Sizzler 'cause GaN used to run a Sizzler was a good time. Um, like you, you just don't, like, you've gotten too big. Right. Yeah. And the minute we all started taking lunch separately was like when the business changed.
And like that's a, just a nice sized company that I enjoy. Mm-hmm. It'll never be as successful as something that's bigger, but like, man, that's like a really good size, but it's,
[00:57:05] James: it's like,
[00:57:05] Brian: what is success?
[00:57:06] James: Yeah, exactly. You know, I'm sure Mark still likes Illist.
[00:57:10] Brian: Well, he sold it, but yeah. I think he, um, no, and I think, I think he did let it get a little too big actually, if you were to ask him, I mean, he'd be a good person I talked to, but he's, uh, no.
It's funny though. Both of us sort of had that similar moment with Mark.
[00:57:23] James: I wonder if that was like a cultural, like, time thing. Just like scaling. Yeah. Like if that was like a 2010s tech. Well he also though
[00:57:31] Brian: came from Nike. Mm-hmm. Was working at a big company, knew that I never really worked at a big company.
Yeah. I had worked at like a medium sized publishing company that ran like this chaotic, you know, operation. 'cause it was mostly hip hop and music like, you know, magazine. So it wasn't particularly an organized business. And then I went to go work for Hoonigan. So like, I, I never really had that experience of what.
Wheel Pros was, which like they were just a big business. Mm-hmm. And had like a lot of moving parts and a lot of Zoom meetings. I just was actually Teams meetings, which is the worst. Yeah. Fuck you. Microsoft teams. Yeah. Hate it so much.
[00:58:06] James: But I mean, do you think that like, like for me, scaling Donut to that big, like even selling Donut was like, to me it was like validating, you know?
Mm-hmm. And I think that there's, like, now that I've done that, I don't, it's not that like I didn't like it, but like, it's not the reason, like now I don't have to do that. Like, I've done that, you know? Right. And you've done it. I think, you know, even more with Hoonigan where it's like, oh, cool, I I that with that project, the goal was to make it as big as possible.
Yeah, yeah. And like under these metrics checked and I did that. Yeah. And that was cool. Um, and so I think it's like, it's like smaller ambitions, but also like different ambitions. Because I think, like with the current project, before we knew what we were gonna do, all we knew was Jesse and I were gonna do something together.
And he was like, okay, so we need to be okay with the idea that it's gonna be way smaller from the outside, but it's gonna feel way bigger on the inside. Like from the inside it's gonna be bigger for us. And I was like, that's cool. And so I think that like, there are more. Like the ambitions are still there.
They're just like different. Yeah. I think like a consistency of like the artistry of all the videos. I think the voice is more consistent. I think trying to do, again, like daring people not to watch our videos, I think that's in a lot of ways harder. Um, and so I think like there's, they're more nuanced ambitions.
Mm-hmm. Rather than just like get as big nuances is everything though. Yeah. Yeah. Like I
[00:59:54] Brian: live, if, if you were to ask me what motivates me, it's nuanced. Yeah. Like I love the little nuance stuff. Mm-hmm. It's like what's what makes everything. I could tell
[01:00:01] James: with Tre punks that shit was like, so well run. It was amazing.
[01:00:06] Brian: Do we, do we wanna jump subjects now? Because by the way Sure. Yeah. I like, this is, to me, this podcast is just starting. 'cause I was literally gonna say like, we don't really know each other that well. Yeah, yeah. But like, here's three topics we should talk about. Oh yeah. And then we just spun out on kind of the uni Donut thing.
Just
[01:00:20] James: gave the free. I need to, I wanna stop doing that because people keep having me on podcasts and like asking me questions about YouTube and I'm like, I should like charge for that shit.
[01:00:30] Brian: I, I, yeah. It's an interesting space and I'm happy to have that convo with you though. 'cause I feel like we both were, I, I think you guys did the YouTube thing better than we did.
[01:00:38] James: Mm-hmm.
[01:00:39] Brian: Um, I think you
[01:00:40] James: guys did the brand thing better than you.
[01:00:41] Brian: Yeah. Yeah. That was like where our focus was. Um, I was unwilling to do things for the algorithm. Mm. Where like, I know that you guys were very algo led 'cause I knew Matt and I knew totally how his brain worked. Yeah. Where like, I was only gonna do something if I wanted to make it and I would do thumbnails that were more like cooler looking even though they didn't work as well.
Like all those things. And it's funny now 'cause now you get to ab test your thumbnails and I'm like, I don't even like how that one looks. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll still sometimes choose the one that I just aesthetically like more, even though it's gonna get me less views. Yeah. We'll
[01:01:13] James: keep the big one for like four days and then we'll swap it back to the one that looks cool on the homepage.
Yeah, yeah,
[01:01:18] Brian: yeah. Just 'cause it looks better. So, um, yeah. So, um, so this is an interesting one 'cause like you and I both started in Volkswagens. I actually think there's an incredible amount of people who started in Volkswagens or VW Vortex who now work in the industry. Yeah. More so than a lot of other like, sort of marks and I, I don't really fully understand why that is, but there's a lot of us.
[01:01:41] James: I think it's because in order to. Uh, like shine on VW Vortex. It was almost more important to be funny Yeah. Than it was to have a cool car.
[01:01:52] Brian: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You had to be like really good at crafting a thread uhhuh. Like it was its own little media. Yeah. I mean, in a way forums, especially those kind of forums were like their own medium.
Mm-hmm. And you had like all these different kind of people like crafting the right post. Totally. Like running the right build thread. Totally. Um, or just being a really funny commenter. Yeah. Like if you were a car lounge guy and you were just in it,
[01:02:13] James: if you didn't have like a cool car, you could be funny and you could be a vortex all star.
Yeah. There's
[01:02:18] Brian: this guy, um, chapel. Do you know Chapel Uhhuh? Do you know Chapel?
[01:02:22] James: Didn't he have like a purple? I don't even, I,
[01:02:23] Brian: I don't even know a car he had, but he was like the hero of the car lounge. And it's funny 'cause he's now on my Patreon and he basically runs as like the moderator there. Oh yeah.
Because he's just so good at like running community stuff. Mm-hmm. Which I think is like, is funny. But no, vortex was great for that. When did you get into Volkswagen? When was like your like early two thousands?
[01:02:42] James: I think I got my first Volkswagen in like 2002. Okay. What was it, 2001 maybe? Uh, a 97 Windsor Blue.
G-T-I-V-R six. Oh yeah. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, mine was that
[01:02:54] Brian: really good. My first one was in 97. Mm-hmm. Or 95 golf. I wanted to mark one GTI really bad, but my parents didn't want me to have a car. That old. Yeah. And I had raised enough money to buy it. Mm-hmm. And I was like, you know, like working in a snowboard shop and like doing all those different stuff.
And my dad and my mom said, how about this? We'll, we'll match you dollar to dollar if you buy a newer car. And it's, to this day, the newest car I've ever owned because it was only 2 19 95, so it was only two years old. Oh, like relative? Yeah. It was only two years old at the time. So it's like the newest car I've ever owned.
Like I've never owned Oh, my GTI was too, I've never owned anything that close to Yeah. The on sale date at the dealership because my,
[01:03:34] James: yeah. I guess back then it was five years old.
[01:03:37] Brian: Yeah. It's great. Mine is two years old. Yeah. My newest
[01:03:40] James: car now is over 20 years old.
[01:03:42] Brian: The newest car I own it right now is my 2004 van.
And my 2002 se
[01:03:47] James: I have a 2000 4G wagon.
[01:03:49] Brian: Yeah. Everything I have is two decades old. Yeah, yeah. Which is totally normal to me and not to my wife or any of my friends. Yeah, totally. Well, my non-car friends, so. Totally. Um, yeah, I dunno man. It's like, but it's, uh, it's interesting 'cause like you came to TRV Punks and for those listening, uh, my friend Jason Whipple and I, we did this event called TRV Punks, and I'll let you explain Trap punks actually, instead of me explaining it.
Sure. I'd love to hear you explain it. Here's
[01:04:10] James: how I, what I tell people when they're like, well, when they were like, so what are you doing this weekend? Like, okay. So there used to be, I preface it by like being like, all right, this is like the nerdiest thing, 100%. And I was like, all right. So there used to be this Volkswagen website called VW Vortex, and now a bunch of us are in our forties and we can afford to buy the cars that we used to have or want.
And so these guys made a camping trip and a bunch of guys, uh. Either bought new old cars before the year 2000, or got their old cars that were built before the year 2000 running and we're all driving up the coast of California ish. And, uh, we rented a summer camp.
[01:05:00] Brian: That's pretty much it. Yeah. We were calling it a summer camp for middle aged men.
Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty much it with cars.
[01:05:06] James: It was so good. It was so fun. I'm happy
[01:05:07] Brian: you enjoyed it. Yeah. It, it was usually when you're the person hosting an event, you don't enjoy it. 'cause like you're just so busy with all the logistics of it. Mm-hmm. And making sure everything's going well. But like, I thoroughly enjoyed it and like, so did Whipple.
Like it was just chill. Like it was really good. It was like good food. It was fun. Yeah. So
[01:05:24] James: it was, it was run really, really well. Um, very mature. Uh, like everything was just like very tight. Like you could tell that both of you have like built massive companies, but then it was like also super fun. And it was cool being around.
Um. Because like you can go hang out with like drift guys anytime you want. Or like even like BMW guys like almost anytime you want. But it's very rare, at least for me to be around a bunch of Volkswagen guys who like know all the front lips and side skirts that I specifically know. And so that was like a real treat.
Or like people who remember cars that I remember right. Or like then like actually I know where that car is are like, I built that car. It's like, no way.
[01:06:13] Brian: There was actually this peak moment where we had coffee the next morning, after the first night and, and Les brought out a box of old performance VW magazines and everybody just sat there.
Yeah. Going through and like reminiscing. And I felt like, man, this is like such that high school reunion moment where like people pull out the yearbook and like look at you like look back then 'cause like a bunch of guys there had cars that were in the magazines. Denny was in there, were inspired by 'em or or stuff like that.
So like, yeah, it was a lot of fun. We're definitely gonna do another one this year. We also did it invite only not to be exclusive.
[01:06:44] Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
[01:06:45] Brian: That wasn't really the goal. Although if you ask Whipple he'll probably say that 'cause that's just the kind of person he is. But it was more like just to control it.
Mm. And I hate to use the word curate 'cause I feel like that word's used so much. Yeah. But we wanted it to be small and like matter. Mm-hmm. And this actually goes to like back to the media thing. Do you know Foster Huntington?
[01:07:02] Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
[01:07:02] Brian: So, um, I've said this multiple times on the pod, so if you need to get up and take a leak and you're a normal listener, this would be a good time.
Um. I was having like a really hard time at Hoonigan. I wanted to leave, this was right before Ken passed away, and I decided that I was gonna go pick up the Saudi 4,000 I had bought in, um, in, uh, Vancouver. Mm-hmm. And drive it down by myself and just have, like, for me, the only way I can really sort of like meditate and have a good think is driving.
Mm-hmm. Like long distances by myself. Like, I'll drive for four hours and realize I like never turn the radio on. Mm-hmm. Right? So I pick up this car that barely runs, I'm like fixing it the whole way home. And I go and I stop at Foster's house and Foster has these like really cool tree houses and like all this stuff.
He has a cool, like, scape. Um, he has like a little pool set up on his property. Like, it's just this like really rad space. And he's the guy, uh, who started the Van Life hashtag, like he's the one noted for it. And we were just chatting and like, you know, he's had these ups and downs in his own sort of career, both in front of camera, behind.
And he just said this simple thing to me. And I, I, I, you know, I'm sure other people have said this, but he's the one who said it to me, so I'm gonna give him the quote. He said, do you want to mean a lot to a little? Right. I mean, a little to a lot or a lot to a little. Mm-hmm. And at Hoonigan we definitely got to a point where we meant a little to a lot.
Right. Tons of trucks with big Hoonigan stickers on 'em. But like, they didn't really fully like, understand the vibe or the brand or whatever. It just became this massive thing. We were the number one sticker sold at Zoomies, I think for the entire time Henigan was there. Totally. You, you guys got to
[01:08:35] James: the point where.
Like it was kinda like monster energy where Yeah. Or no fear when we were younger. Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Like something like that. Like having a Hoonigan sticker didn't necessarily mean you knew what Hoonigan was. It just meant you were a kind of guy.
[01:08:48] Brian: Yeah, exactly. And it became that thing and, um. And then I realized like, man, I really, really wanna mean a lot to a little.
Mm-hmm. Like, that is like the space that I really enjoy being in. Totally. And that's why like, I went to go do podcasts 'cause like, not as many people listen to him. Um, I mean, unless you're Joe Rogan, but like most people don't listen to him on that level. And but the people who do absorb it and listen for like two hours.
Yeah. Like I listen to the podcast, I listen to like, I feel like an understanding for those people in a way that mm-hmm. Like, I don't normally, I actually just started listening to Smartless just like last week. Yeah. And it's funny 'cause I've always liked Jason Bateman and like, uh, but now it's like, it's almost weird.
Like, I feel like I know him better. Mm-hmm. Because you, like, you, you can't act for that long. Right. On a podcast. You kind of just like let out who you are. Totally. Lot more. It's kind of like an enjoyable space. Um, yeah. I don't know. It's just one of those things. I think for me, the same thing with Treffpunks.
It was like, I wanted this to be really good for 30 people. Yeah. And it was, and like we didn't make money on it, we just wanted to go do it. Mm-hmm. Right. Totally. Like, it was one of those things of like, Hey, let's just go and make this cool thing that we would really enjoy being at. And it's funny 'cause it's more of what I want to do now.
Like, I wanna make books even if only a hundred people buy 'em. Yeah. Yeah. Where like, there was so much stuff we couldn't do at Hoonigan because it wasn't financially viable. My pod, this podcast is a perfect example. I was, I mean, I ran the company, but still every time I wanted to do a podcast, everyone would be like, it's just too much work for like, not the same return.
[01:10:15] James: Totally. Jesse gets frustrated with me because I keep. Pitching ideas and I preface them like, okay, so this isn't an idea that's gonna make us any money. And, and he's like, well, someday you're gonna have to come up with some that will. But I think we got a couple years before we actually have to. Yeah. But like, I don't know, like, but you guys are doing well.
We doing some good. Yeah,
[01:10:37] Brian: you're doing, you're doing very well. Doing for, you're doing, you gotta, you have to get out of your brain that you're like, you're not supposed to be doing Donut numbers. Right. Yeah. But you're still doing way bigger numbers than most people are. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's doing well and you're doing the stuff you want to do.
Yeah. Which is like the best part of what you're doing. The fact that you can go and do a, what was it, like a 1920s camping trip or something like that. Yeah. That shit was awesome. Um, and you could go do that. And then you can also go do like a rant about like where Volkswagen sits today. Mm-hmm. And you have an audience that will watch both.
Mm-hmm. You have transcended a thing I think a lot of people don't transcend on YouTube, which is, it's not about the subject matter anymore, it's about you guys. Yeah. Like, they're buying into the thing this matters because we like this. Mm-hmm. And, and that's the stuff we wanna tell you. And like, that's where my world started.
I, I started in at Mass Appeal Magazine. Mm-hmm. Mass Appeal Magazine before Vice became Vice Massive Hill was the mag in New York. And the magazine was literally just things we thought were cool. Yeah. Right. That's literally, that's what it was. It was just things we thought were cool. We had literally had a section in it called, Hey you're cool.
Yeah. Where we would just interview people we thought were cool. Yeah. And you might not have any idea who they were, but by us saying, Hey, we think this person's cool, means that you should stop and read it. Yeah. Right. And this was before like, sneaker culture exploded to the level it was. And you know, we were talking, doing everything from sneakers to like fashion to.
That's interesting 'cause I see a lot of the stuff you're doing now and I'm like, man, this feels like a video version. A bit of like, it is 100% of mass appeal a magazine. Yeah.
[01:12:10] James: Like it's, you know, we obviously not struggle, but like starting a new thing. You, you wanted to find it, especially if you're trying to like make money from people, like sponsors and stuff.
They want to know what it is and I think like eventually what we landed on is Speeed is a men's style magazine and cars are a part of Men's style. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like, it went from being like, well, well originally it was just men, it was gonna be Donut for men's wear.
[01:12:39] Brian: Oh really? Yeah. Okay. That was like
[01:12:40] James: the initial idea.
And I was gonna do like up to Speeed on like Supreme. Stuy and stuff like that. And then like a few weeks into it, I was like, you know what, I really do miss cars.
[01:12:54] Brian: You and I have had the same journey because I left Hoonigan, did non-car for a year, went and did animation with super plastic, and for the first six months I was like, I love not doing cars.
Yeah, this is fantastic.
[01:13:08] James: I mean, I made almost 2000 car videos. Yeah.
[01:13:11] Brian: It's, it's, I, I can't even count how many we made at this point. Yeah. Like we did 380 of daily transmission alone and we stopped making that in 2018. Yeah. So it's like, just, it's incredible the amount of content that we out, like
[01:13:25] James: people say helped do what you love for a living and you'll never work a day in your life.
It's like, nah dude. If you do what you love for a living, find something else to love or else you'll just want to kill yourself. You
[01:13:37] Brian: and I are too similar. 'cause I've said that a thousand times. My dad used to say my, both my parents are scientists and my dad said to me at some point, you know, do what you love in your, you know, and you'll, you'll never work a day in your life and it's fucking bullshit.
If you do what you love, you will work every waking minute of your life. Last night I had this idea, I don't want to say it out loud yet, but I had this idea, I was so excited about that I stayed up for like another two hours writing in my notebook. Yeah. And it's like, it's cool 'cause that's exciting, but that was like two hours that I wasn't sleeping in bed with my wife, you know?
Yeah. Like, because, because I was so, yeah. You know, caught up on this like, idea of more work Totally. Of creating more work for myself, so, yeah. Um, all right. Let, let's get back to Volkswagens. Why do you think Volkswagens right now, at least in my opinion, are having a bit of like a, like a reboot? Because like, I mean, Haggerty just announced like the Mark three golf is, you know, one of the cars to get this year.
Yeah. Um, obviously we've seen a couple, like mark one rabbits, um, you know, hit, bring a trailer at some good numbers. Um, I feel like a lot of my friends who I grew up with are getting back into them, like mm-hmm. Do you think it's like an age thing, or do you think it's, do you think it's like a RA response to something?
I don't know. I, I have my own thoughts, but let me hear yours first. Yeah.
[01:14:50] James: I think it's, uh, I think some of it's an age thing. I think, you know, I think trends are just like cyclical, you know, stuff is popular then it's not, and then it is again, kinda like skips a generation or something. Um, I think that like, it's probably influenced by the market.
Mm-hmm. Where once, at least recently, like once something is universally agreed on to be like a cool thing, it, like, it becomes eventually like inaccessible and so therefore becomes less cool. Like I bought the. The golf was, or the GTI was actually my second car. My first car was an S 13 240 SX that I bought for $3,000 in and it had like 16,000 miles on it.
That's so you were early on that. Yeah. Because that
[01:15:45] Brian: was before those were cool. Yeah. Like my, my good friend Trevor's sister had an S 14 that we would take to seven 11 to get stuff while we were working on his Volkswagen. Yeah. Yeah. Like never did I think of that car as cool. It was just the car that we would drive back and forth to seven 11.
[01:16:00] James: Yeah. I got my first two 40, apparently the same year that Ryan Turk got his, uh, I'm early to, I'm early to every trend. Yeah, you really just, I mean that you're just, I just a tastemaker, I just really pay attention to things and I care about it. Um, but so like, yeah, those cars used to be so cheap and my GTI costs like three times the amount of my S 13 and I think that like a $3,000 S 13 is like really cool.
A $20,000 S 13 like is way different, you know what I mean? Yeah. And I saw someone, I saw a TikTok of someone saying that like, our culture feels stagnant because there's no cheap rent and you need to be able to ha you need to have cheap rent so that weirdos aren't homeless. Um, because now in order to just have a place to live.
You can't just be a weirdo, you have to go work a normie job. Mm-hmm. And then like, you're not just like creating culture. And I saw something similar. Someone was like, Broadway is dying because they moved it to Times Square and now they're making stuff for people in Ohio where like, uh, plays and theater used to be a thing that locals went to because locals and students could afford to go to the theater.
And they're now, they're spending so much money to produce the shows that they have to charge so much for tickets that nobody local, like young and like actually Cool, can afford to go do it. And I think that, I mean, one thing I'm kind of dealing with is like, cool is decided by broke weirdos.
[01:17:35] Brian: Mm-hmm.
[01:17:36] James: Totally. And so things that are cool that influence culture are the things that are accessible to broke weirdos. And so I think that Volkswagens are cool. They're inherently cool, you know, um, amazing history. They look aesthetically, they're very neat. And I think that like, it's just at the point where like.
One guys like us remember them and we're like, oh yeah, dude, maybe I'll get one. But then also I can tell a kid that's a broke weirdo. Like, you can afford a mark three golf. Yeah. Like you can buy a $3,000 golf and it's like a good car and make it pretty cool. Pretty easily Make it pretty cool. Yeah.
[01:18:17] Brian: There's a recipe book out PW Vortex. Yeah. Yeah. Go, go check out the mark three forum. Go blow
[01:18:21] James: off the dust,
[01:18:24] Brian: boot up the 56 K. Run it. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, you know, I grew up in New York City and I remember when you could live in, you know, towns in Brooklyn and close to the water in Queens where it was 500 bucks for rent, right?
Yeah. And like that was normal. And like that's all been pushed out and that was definitely the broke weirdo error. Error of like, oh yeah, this is just a bunch of people who've all moved here and like want to go make something cool. Mm-hmm. That definitely doesn't exist anymore. Less, at least not in major cities.
Yeah. I feel like it's moved to like other places and people are finding that in other small towns and stuff, and I, I know you and Vinny have a Detroit conversation. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if that's public, but we, we can snip it. Vivin, we can snip it, but Right.
[01:19:02] James: We actually went back during the winter and I think we're less, uh, less enthused, but I'm still.
I'm still into it.
[01:19:10] Brian: No, I, I like I get that and I like, for me, I always like building the car. That's not cool. And it's funny 'cause I'll bring back up the nine 11 thing you said the other day. Like obviously we're sitting right next to a nine 11 right now. Yeah.
[01:19:20] James: But you had it when it was cool
[01:19:22] Brian: actually, no, but I actually bought it when it wasn't cool.
Like I owned this for so long and it's funny 'cause Vinny jokes that I only like things that other people don't like and that the minute people start liking them, I don't like them. Yeah. Right. That I'll bitch and moan and complain. Like, not a lot, not enough people like old Audis and 'cause of that, there's a lot of parts and it's hard to find them and so on and so on.
But then the minute that they become trendy, I'm like, yeah, I'm done.
[01:19:43] James: Yeah, yeah. Totally.
[01:19:44] Brian: It's like that puff me 'cause
[01:19:45] James: you're a taste maker.
[01:19:47] Brian: I, I don't, I mean, I, I'd love to hear that, but I think there's also just something of like, I, I don't know if it's like just the striving to do it differently. Mm-hmm.
Like even as a kid, something as simple as JCOs were really big. Mm-hmm. All my friends had JCOs,
[01:20:01] James: literally and figuratively. Ha ha. Yeah.
[01:20:03] Brian: And I would wear these other pants because I just didn't wanna wear JCOs. Mm-hmm. Not because like, and they were like the same price, so it wasn't like, well I, I bought the cheaper ones or the knockoffs.
It's just that like everybody had JCOs and like, there was something wired in me that was like, I don't want the same thing everyone else has. I think like my uncle had a lot to do with that when I was a kid. Like I would, I listen, I like this one song because everyone else. And school liked it. And he was like, that song's trash.
Yeah. Like, that's a bad song. Like, why do you like it? And it's like, well, everyone else likes it. Mm-hmm. And he was like, yeah. And then like, he introduced me to like Led Zeppelin. Mm-hmm. And he was like, this is good music. Which it was, but like, it definitely made me, you know, it was one of those things of like, I was very, and it really stood out of like, I purposely wanted to do
[01:20:46] James: To be different.
Yeah. Be different. To do something a little bit different. Yeah. Which
[01:20:48] Brian: is almost impossible to do today. I think there's so much, like, there's so many people doing so many things mm-hmm. That the nuance is broader and easier to find. It doesn't feel that different. Mm-hmm. 'cause to me it's, I, I listened to, like, I watched your one episode and I'll admit this and I'm sure the same for you, is like, I've barely watched any Donut stuff.
You probably barely watched any Hoonigan stuff. 'cause like you're so busy that like, you don't really watch other YouTuber stuff. Right. Totally. But I watched your Volkswagen one because everybody was talking about it. Like in my community when you did it for Speeed and I was watching, and I think one thing that was really interesting, a take that you had on it was, I actually never thought Volkswagens were cool
[01:21:26] Speaker 5: Right.
When I
[01:21:26] Brian: was younger, because Honda seemed so cool to me. Mm-hmm. Right? Like you had super street sport compact car, like Honda Tuner, like, you know, all of these magazines that were completely focused at. The Honda industry and like we had to buy our magazines at Barnes and Noble for $10. Totally. 'cause they were imported from Europe.
Like it didn't feel like the culture was here. I felt like I was part of a culture that existed overseas and because of that, it felt cool to me because when I went to, you know, like Francis Lewis Boulevard in Queens, I was like one of few Volkswagens and there was hundreds of civics. Yeah. But it feels like your vision of it is a little different.
Maybe that's because you came in a little bit later to it. Yeah. My
[01:22:05] James: vision of it was I lived in Louisville, Kentucky, and to me the exotic land where. Like all the Volkswagens were, were like, was like Long Island. It was, and like Pennsylvania. Yep. And New Hampshire and all these like East Coast guys had these like sick builds and like, oh dude, if I lived
[01:22:27] Speaker 6: there, like they all probably drive around with each other
[01:22:30] James: all the, every weekend.
They're like all these like shows that you guys all like went to. And I was like some kid from the south that just like wasn't a part of it. And like, I don't know, like it, it's like a chicken or the egg thing. But all the music I listened to mm-hmm. Was from Long Island in New Jersey.
[01:22:47] Brian: So you big, you big emo fan?
[01:22:49] James: Yeah, well like post hardcore. Okay. Yeah. Cool. What you want? Yeah. Yeah. Like Bayside and Uhhuh Thrice. Yep. Uh, and so like, and you know, Volkswagens are the reason I dressed the way mm-hmm. That I dressed and like the reason I started getting tattoos and you know, it was just like, I think I've always been attracted to sort of like a consistent aesthetic, right?
Like everything should kind of fit together and like contribute to like this one vision. And to me. I knew a bunch of Honda kids and at that point, again, they were like in Kentucky. So they were all like on house arrest and, and shit. Like my friend, that wasn't where my head was going, but Okay. No, like my friend Raymer like literally got arrested.
Like I let him drive my GTI and he like just ripped down Shelbyville Road and, uh, got pulled over and had like a warrant and got arrested and like, he was driving my car. 'cause like I had been drinking and like, I, yeah, like the cops arrested him and just like left me with my car and I was like, like, how do I get home?
Yeah. I was like, I'm just gonna like chill here. Uh, and then I guess I like called my dad or something, but like, that was Hondas to me. And so like, yeah. Having a Volkswagen, I was like classier, you know, like I bought my magazines at Barnes and Mobile. At a bookstore? Yeah. You had
[01:24:16] Brian: to go to a bookstore. They
[01:24:17] James: had British pounds on them.
Yeah. Uh, they're this big and uh. Yeah. Like the, the scene didn't exist where I lived. It was like, uh, close to New York. You know, this is like a little bit more cosmopolitan.
[01:24:33] Brian: It's funny for you to say that 'cause I, I ran a Volkswagen car club. Yeah, I know. New York City, long Island area. Mm-hmm. Called Auto Creek.
Yeah. And like we did an event called Full Moon, full throttle, where every single month 150 of us got together. Yeah. And thrashed back roads. And I'm so happy no one ever died because I look back at it now as I'm older and I'm like, man, that was so dangerous. Yeah. But it was a lot of fun back then.
Totally. So it was that community and it, it's interesting 'cause I never thought about it this way, but here's the take. The Volkswagen scene was as close to skateboarding as car culture got before drifting. Oh
[01:25:07] James: yeah.
[01:25:07] Brian: Because I think that you really like created this like definition or maybe, I think we had that like back in the day in Hot Roding, right?
Mm-hmm. Like the greaser was like a look where like you could look at someone and be like, that guy's probably into Volkswagens. 'cause there was, you're right. Like there was definitely a way everybody looked music, everyone listened to, I'm a bit older than you guys, but I listened to Emo because I knew so many people in the Volkswagen community.
So it was just like part of that culture. Like I grew up more on like, you know, hardcore like New York hardcore era. Mm-hmm. And like punk rock and stuff like that. And obviously nineties hip hop. Um, but like emo was this thing that I found because like guys like Mark c Sheerman was listening to taking back Sunday.
Yeah. And his slammed, you know, mark three golf, right. Things like that mean what's
[01:25:50] James: more subversive or like rebellious than doing something that other people don't understand. And so like, muscle cars, you like get it. It's like they're at least back then, right? It's they're fast. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's, it's a cool car.
It's fast. And then even Hondas and stuff like that, it was like, well they're faster or than a lot of even the muscle cars and they're cheaper and you know, there's all these like things you can do. Volkswagens didn't make any sense. Like, we were like, so why do you like it? Because I can barely even fucking drive
[01:26:24] Speaker 5: it.
[01:26:24] James: It's so low. I smack the oil pan on the ground and I rub through my tires with my fenders. Is it fast? No, there's only like four of 'em
[01:26:36] Speaker 6: that are fast. And those guys are barely even cool.
[01:26:40] Brian: It's actually true. 'cause a bunch of our guys, we had fast cars. We had CNN performance. We had like the first nine second Jetta and all these things.
The guys were, the more, the faster your car was, the less cool. Yeah, totally. Mark Cheat had like a two liter slammed, you know, ster with the
[01:26:56] James: fifth
[01:26:56] Brian: 15 inch TH mic know? Yeah. Yeah. With the 15 inch TH line. See, famous car. I know that car, famous car.
[01:27:01] James: And there's a picture about this big in PVW that I Yeah, yeah.
Like go over with like
[01:27:05] Brian: a magnifying glass to be like, oh, look at those.
[01:27:08] James: I almost got 15 inch, uh, T or th Ts. Yeah. Yeah. I almost got 15 inch T lines. Do you
[01:27:15] Brian: wanna know a funny story about that? And I, I, if Mark, if you're listening, I hope I don't butcher this, but Mark ordered those wheels, I think from tuning Hor, right?
Mm-hmm. Right. And um, they show up and he puts 'em on the car and they don't fit. Yeah. So his mom is like, furious with them. 'cause he's young. He's like 19 or 20. Yeah. His mom's like, I can't believe you did this. Like, you know, these wheels don't fit. Like he spend so much money on him. So she brings him down to like the local body shop and he basically goes to the body shop and says like, Hey, can you make these fit?
Mm-hmm. And somehow some random guy at a body shop created a trend. That then pulling fenders that of pulling fenders and like kind of the way that they did it, that modified the way Volkswagens looked. Yeah. For like the next, you know, five, 10 years in the US Dude, that car like that aggressively pulled.
Yeah. And look, there were cars in Europe that had done similar stuff, but that car set the stage. It was a two liter. It was really slow.
[01:28:08] James: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:28:09] Brian: But it
[01:28:09] James: was so cool. I mean, it had to be a two liter. 'cause if it was a VR oil pan would hit the ground, oil pan would hit the ground. This
[01:28:14] Brian: is that weird Volkswagen nerd stuff where you're like, oh, I could have more power.
But then I couldn't go as low. I couldn't be as low. I couldn't go as low. Yeah. Or like, you'd be like, I could go to five lug with bigger brakes. Mm-hmm. But then it pushes the wheels out so I can't run as much left. Yeah. Because you have plus suspension, because you got plus suspension. And while that's great for handling, it's not as cool for the looks.
[01:28:34] James: Mm-hmm. I think I'm gonna put a mark two rear beam on the silver car.
[01:28:38] Brian: Is the, is the mark two beam narrower? Yeah. Yeah. Really?
[01:28:40] James: Yeah. Oh, I didn't even know that. So I have, I have the, I have this set of, uh, Schmidt race lights. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was on Joey, that white Jetta. Oh yeah. Jetta. Um, and so like, they're so wide that I have to like narrow it, narrow the rear track.
[01:29:00] Brian: I love, I just like the exact opposite of what everyone else does with their car was like, oh, I want it wider wide body. You're like, no, I'm gonna narrow this so I can run a bigger liper wheel. Yeah. So, well I
[01:29:10] James: put 16 by nines on it. I know. I saw that when we first put it together. And dude, I am. I have different tastes than I used to.
Like I think the car looks, it's really low now on seventeens, but like my cortisol level was through the roof
[01:29:25] Brian: bro. I don't know how you drove your car. So hammered on Trav punks because your car was slammed. Thank you. Your car slammed.
[01:29:32] James: Thank you. You don't, you have no idea how much it meant to me to show up after years of like, 'cause again, I lived in Louisville, Kentucky away from like where all of these guys from BW Vortex seemed to like hang out all the time.
And I think I'm like younger than most of you guys. Mm-hmm. So like, I like looked up to this group of people and like they were so formative and I think like the way I moved to LA and did comedy, like it was a big part of like what made me different than everybody. And to pull up to a parking lot full of those guys and for them to be like.
Hey. Your car's pretty low, huh? I was just like,
[01:30:11] Brian: are you sitting here thinking, oh my goodness, I've made it to an hour and a half and I could definitely use another 45 minutes of this. Well, guess what? There is another 45 minutes of me and James talking after the two and a half hours of this pod on my Patreon.
Another reason to join, like, which by the way, as being one of those guys on the other side, we all felt really old. 'cause I was like, I don't think I could drive a car that low anymore. Like it was the realization of like me looking in my car going, nah, it's like pretty low, like the tires and the fender and then you showed up.
Just hammer hammered,
[01:30:45] Speaker 6: dude.
[01:30:46] Brian: Hammered. Yeah. Which by the way, I feel like is a term only Volkswagen guys appreciate. Yeah. To be like, yo, your car's hammered. You're like, what does that mean? Yeah. It means it's so fucking low to the floor that it basically doesn't drive. Yeah. That it gets stuck on speed bumps.
Like, have you ever high sided on a speed bump and had to have everyone get out of the car to get through a Speeed bump? Dude,
[01:31:02] James: I had to on Tre bunks. I, I had to because the driveway to our campsite was. You learn the obstacles. Yeah. Yeah. You learn the roads around you. Um, and so, yeah, I did kick someone outta the car.
I
[01:31:14] Brian: mean, I think owning a low Volkswagen, it's like you were like, you wanted to like get into rock crawling, but like you just wanted to do it like on a regular street. Yeah. Yeah. Like you need like someone to get out and navigate for you. You've gotta like go half up on a curb. Yeah. Like, you know, it's like you're doing the same thing as rock crawlers.
You're just doing it on like a standard straight. Yeah.
[01:31:32] James: The two best ways to have fun going two miles an hour. Yeah. Slammed Volkswagen or Giant truck on 39 inch tires. Yeah,
[01:31:40] Brian: exactly. So what are you, uh, are you gonna build another car for TR Punks this year? Are you gonna finish?
[01:31:46] James: I would like to because you have two mark threes right now, right?
I do. One's really taking apart one's ba The green car's basically a shell right now.
[01:31:54] Brian: Is it Rusty? Is that why you took it apart? Yeah. Just start over with a new one.
[01:31:58] James: Yeah. Thank you for the permission. I, I just hate to tell you I what Im, if someone who
[01:32:02] Brian: grew up on the East coast and now understands how sweet, sweet, sweet working on a non rusty car is Uhhuh and who just bought a mark three synchro.
That's rusty. Yeah. It's like, I just don't know why I'm doing it to myself again, like the chassis's dry, but I'm removing everything else. Yeah. And it's just such a pain in the ass. But if the chassis's rusty, just get something else.
[01:32:20] James: And I like, I don't have like a big warehouse to put cars anymore. I only want to own so many cars and I really like this.
How many is that? Many? Like what is
[01:32:30] Brian: that number?
[01:32:31] James: I don't want more than five. I have. Three right now. I really don't want more than three. I wanna, you sound
[01:32:38] Brian: like such an adult.
[01:32:39] James: Yeah. I wanna fi, I wanna be able to fit all my cars in my driveway.
[01:32:42] Brian: I have so many that I'm not really sure how many I have right now.
Yeah. It's like either 24 or 25 or 26. I don't really many. I'm not really paying. But
[01:32:50] James: you have a farm. If I had a farm, it'd be a different
[01:32:52] Brian: Yeah.
[01:32:53] James: Situation. Like I, right now I wanna like drive all of my cars.
[01:32:57] Brian: Yeah.
[01:32:58] James: And so like I really, I have an A mark three that I really like. Maybe I'll can, I wanna paint that one.
I wanna do the interior. I wanna shave the bay and I want to probably do some like body work stuff. Mm-hmm. I really like body work stuff. I like doing the little things. Um, and so like, I don't know, I'll either maybe like bring that back finished or I wouldn't mind something older.
[01:33:23] Brian: I was gonna ask like, do you like the mark ones?
The mark twos? Like you seem like a mark three guy. But
[01:33:28] James: I had a Westy Mark two. Mm-hmm. I like those. Um. 80 on 13 inch th lines.
[01:33:34] Brian: By the way, for those listening, a Westie Mark two is not something with a West Flia pop top. It is a car built in the Westmoreland pan plant in Pennsylvania. Mm-hmm. That's shut down in 85 or 86.
Mm-hmm. And so, and then sold all of its tooling to China, which is why China still has jets.
[01:33:49] James: Yeah. And so it had square headlights instead of round ones, but not the walls and not long rectangles. Yeah. Not rectangle squares. Yeah. Small, small squares. So that car was really cool. It had a three speed automatic and ultra ultra lows and 13 inch th lines.
Um, and it was just like great condition. Had like 85,000 miles. Mm. And like this, just like perfect tweed interior. And it had exhaust.
[01:34:18] Brian: How many guys do you think say perfect Tweed more and more like Perfect. Tweed is such a more, I'd say that's a good brand name by the way. Perfect. Tweeted. Perfect. Tweeted.
It's also a great name for a fucking post punk post care band. Perfect Tweet. Fuck. I go watch. Perfect tweet.
[01:34:31] James: Yeah. Yeah. Uh. And I loved that car. So I, I think I would like a small bumper mark too, would be really cool. I think that's probably the sweet spot for me.
[01:34:39] Brian: Yeah. I'm, um, I, I need to like, cut down my collection.
Mm-hmm. And, um, I'm actually thinking about doing it as a content series 'cause it's not because I think it'll make good content. Although I do like, I, it's a story I want to tell. Yeah. But I think it's something that'll actually motivate me to do it. 'cause like right now I don't really have a reason to cut down my collection other than that it creates anxiety.
Right? Like I'm at the point now where I'd rather have. 10 cars that all work mm-hmm. Than 25 cars where every one of 'em has a problem. Like even my cars that I drive a lot have issues that I just don't deal with because it's like, oh, I could deal with this, but this one has a bigger issue right now.
Right, right. Like, so I, I think like having a better collection of 10 is more important than having all of 'em. But then at the same time, like, I don't know, I like having them all.
[01:35:29] James: Yeah. Squeaky door gets the squeaky wheel, gets the oil.
[01:35:32] Brian: Yeah. It definitely is. And it's also one of those, like, so like for me, like my perfect Volkswagen collection, like I have my Mark three that I'm building right now.
Mm-hmm. Um, my first, my first Volkswagen or my first car was a black four door golf.
[01:35:46] Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
[01:35:47] Brian: And I then VR swapped it. Yeah. And if I could have Synchro swapped it, I would've mm-hmm. I'd jumped ahead. You,
[01:35:52] James: you, you VR swapped it in 18 hours with two Oh, you know this story because, because dude, I did my oh seven K swap in the silver car.
Yeah.
[01:36:03] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[01:36:03] James: In 4 57 hours. Uh, basically two go to Treffpunks,
[01:36:08] Brian: which is incredible.
[01:36:09] James: Yeah. And I posted it in the WhatsApp group and it was like, damn dude, that's so fast. And you go.
[01:36:16] Speaker 6: That's nothing. 18 years old, Queens, New York, dead of winter. All I had was, all I had was a Harbor Freight eight piece tool set.
Two cans of OE and a half pack of Newports. Did it in 12 and a half hours, drove it to school the next morning.
[01:36:38] Brian: True story, 17 hours, but true story, me and my buddy, my, my buddy Trevor did it. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I just don't have energy like that anymore. Now I can't even like change my oil in 17 hours been texted
[01:36:47] Speaker 6: me and he was just like, dude, fucking Scotto bro.
[01:36:53] Brian: That's like the equivalent though of like me telling my Al Bundy story. Yeah. It's like I'm just trying to relive a moment. Totally. Which I still lived in. Like I wish I still was able to, you know, score four touchdowns of punk or whatever it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, um, I, I, I have that, I have my Mark three and like that's a cool project.
I'm just gonna make it a driver. I think I'm gonna finally build my swallow tail this year for Tre Punks because like that's a car that looks really good on the internet. My Green Rabbit. Yeah. It's a car that looks really good on the internet but like it's you doing
[01:37:20] James: an A, B, F or you have that 1.4. I'm
[01:37:22] Brian: actually gonna build, no, I'm actually gonna build an eight valve for it.
So Whipples, I originally was gonna put the ab BF in there and the more I drove the car, you know what, the more I realized, like I wanted to feel like stuff like this gives me hope
[01:37:35] James: for like the, going back to the YouTube conversation we were having and like the algorithm and things like that. So many guys I know who have built the most insane cars.
Are now building like eight valve rabbits. Mm-hmm. Or have you seen Steph Papadakis? Supra?
[01:37:53] Brian: No. Just like, but I've seen his RAV4, which is fantastic. Yeah,
[01:37:56] James: yeah, yeah. His RAV4, he built himself like a Supra, it has like 360 horsepower. Yeah. But it's just nice. Yeah. Yeah. And I think Jason is the same way. Like Jason's built an insane, like Y body.
[01:38:09] Brian: Jason's Mark three is Formula V. Perfect.
[01:38:11] James: Whatever. Yeah. His Mark three is perfect. His Mark two is probably my favorite car at Treffpunks,
[01:38:18] Brian: which was basically a Stockish. A Stockish, yeah. Stockish, GTI, which is like, yeah. Yeah.
[01:38:22] James: And so I think a lot of us, whether it's old or I really do think it is like a trend, is like we're moving back into like these nuanced versions of Cool, because we were at a point in like you ook, where it's like I was a big part of it, you know?
[01:38:37] Brian: Uh, I once, I once thought it was a good idea for us to take a Honda Ridge line and put an Indy car in back,
[01:38:43] James: uh, and, you know. Now that we've made 3000 horsepower, 1200 horsepower, it's not that fun. No. And there's other things that you can do with cars. And so I think like seeing that that movement in the automotive world gives me hope for just kind of like everything moving that way.
'cause everything kind of moves together in culture. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like music is moving more towards like, geese is like one of the biggest bands in the world right now. And just sort of like, I think we're moving more towards like an analog sort of like slower, more artistic sort of like time.
[01:39:20] Brian: I agree. And I also think people just like. Like tangible stuff more and can appreciate, again, to use the word nuance. That's like the PB playhouse word of the day of like just the little stuff. Yeah. Like for me, uh, I'll be very honest, I found an opt valve cover for an eight valve. Mm-hmm. And that was enough for me to build the engine Totally.
To be like, this valve cover's super rare and really cool and I want to put it on something. And instead of putting a better engine with more power in the car, I'm gonna put this other engine in and then just build it in a really cool way. And Whipple actually built it for me. So it's like, 'cause he really enjoys engine building that's just like, not how my brain is wired.
Wow. But that's too nervous what he's good at. Yeah. Yeah. He's really good at like, just, I'm gonna spend hours measuring this. Yeah. You know, so, um, but for me, I think it's, I I've been enjoying that sort of going backwards from everything has to be insane. Mm-hmm. To like, Hey, this could just be a normal car Totally.
But like, really cool to me. Absolutely. And that's all that really matters. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, I also think of like, this is, I think something that Vinny and I try to talk about a lot, um, and, and I'm gonna get into a weird conversation that I, I, I think you, you live in and you understand, but I don't think of myself as a role model, but I, I, I would be not self-aware to realize that.
Like I've done enough stuff that people are like, oh, I look good to see what those guys do for sure. Right. I think we created this world through YouTube where everyone thought they had to have a thousand horsepower car to be cool. And when I was younger, even in my car club, like you could have like a ratty eight valve slammed on Steelies.
Yeah. And like it just had cool presence. Mm-hmm. And it was in, and I think, and like that's what I loved about Don culture was like, I came when I went to Rides magazine, you know, in order to be accepted in the world of like hip hop. Car culture, you had to have an Escalade. So your entry point's $70,000.
[01:41:16] James: Yeah.
[01:41:17] Brian: And then you're dropping $15,000 wheels on the car. Mm-hmm. So it's like, you like, and that was the lowest level. 'cause most of what people were talking about were like, rolls Royces and like all Bentleys, all these crazy cars. And then kids in the hood were like, no, we're gonna build my grandma's box Chevy.
Mm-hmm. And make that cool. And like the starting platform wasn't, was like, again, dude was cool. And you would go to the, I would go to these spots, like to go film these cars and Sure. Some of them were dope on 20 sixes. Some of them weren't even on wheels yet, but they were still, they still had a box Chevy.
Yeah. They still belonged 'cause they were part of it. Yeah. And I think that there has been something that has happened in the past 10 years where everyone feels like they need this crazy thing to belong. And it's like, man, you could have like a slammed civic or a slammed golf and like, it's pretty cool man.
It's, it's pretty cool just to keep it on the road. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's just to keep it running and like do small stuff to it. Well,
[01:42:06] James: like I said, I think everything culturally kind of moves together. And like we both had YouTube channels that sold for tens of millions of dollars during a time when like, like.
Just money was fake, I think in like the 20, in the end. It was fake for me. Yeah, yeah.
[01:42:25] Brian: Me too. It turned out that money wasn't even real, but like
[01:42:27] James: people were just like selling companies for like $80 million and it's like, oh, I'm gonna like, I'm gonna start a company. It kind of does this thing. It doesn't work yet, but you know, we just raised $80 million in funding and I think just like, that was just like a decade of fake numbers.
Mm-hmm. And I think that that's sort of proving to not be the, you know, it's proving to be fake. Mm-hmm. And everything's sort of like washing out from that experience, like for the whole world. And I think the response is like this more analog, smaller kind of thing. And so, yeah, like. Bullshit companies were selling for a hundred million dollars and cars had 3000 horsepower.
You know? Yeah. It just, everything was ah, go test. It was all just
[01:43:13] Brian: like a good click bait.
[01:43:14] James: Yeah. It was a gluttonous era.
[01:43:16] Brian: Ask anyone who owns a 3000 horsepower car if they enjoyed driving it. Yeah. Like deeply draw force, know that made a little different, but like, by the way, one of the most badass men I've ever gotten to hang out with, but yeah.
Um, yeah, man, I don't know. I'm just enjoying like, the simpleness of cars right now. I just bought a van gun and like I had all these plans 'cause we, I bought it 'cause we were on trap punks. Mm-hmm. And we were, we had like a camera support vehicle and I thought to myself, you know what would be a really good camera support vehicle?
A van gun. Yeah. And that's like all it takes for me to go purchase a car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, yeah, that's enough of a reason. 'cause I can justify it. And that's like why I bought so many cars during the Hoonigan era was I would justify it for content. Mm-hmm. Like, oh, if I go buy this F 600, like that'd be a really cool build on Hoonigan.
Never got built on Hoonigan. Now I pay storage for it every month. 'cause I haven't even moved it to my farm. Um, but I bought the van and I gone with that idea and I was like, oh, I'm gonna do a 9, 9, 6 engine in it with a 9, 9 6 box, like all these crazy mods. And I ended up finding a, a vehicle that was well maintained and just works.
Mm-hmm. Like man, I'm just really enjoying its stock. Yeah. And I realize like I may be crossing into this world where. I'm just enjoying like, old cars just for being No,
[01:44:27] James: totally. Yeah.
[01:44:29] Brian: Like I really enjoy the nostalgia and I, I'm starting to realize that there's no difference between my, my, um, father-in-law who has a Volkswagen thing and drives it to the beach.
Listening to the Beach Boys. Yeah. As me driving around in my nineties Volkswagen, you know, listening to Mop Deep. Totally. Like there's no difference. Yeah. Hundred percent. Like I'm just that guy now. Yeah. Like, it's like, I'm just the same thing.
[01:44:50] James: Yeah. Like I'm really, um, like I really wanna build like, maybe like a Mark one Rocco mm-hmm.
With like, uh, carbs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a Carbed eight valve or something, because like. The thing I want is like for the engine to be take up the least amount of space. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In the engine bay. Possible. This is
[01:45:11] Brian: such a VW guy thing to want to be like, I want the smallest engine under my hood as possible.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then have the least amount of things coming off of it. Yeah. So that you look into it and it's like this like piece of art with like a frame around it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I once got pulled over by CHP in the, in the Canyons and they, they wanted a state ref me in my rabbit and I'm like, first off it's a 1975, so like, it's not really state referable 'cause it's pretty smog.
I was like, but you're more than welcome to pop the hood. 'cause like it's a stock engine. Like no, there's definitely something under there. Like we heard it, you know, he's like, I heard that blowing by. I'm like, no. What you heard was a car that makes 50 horsepower stock from the factory trying to get up a hill.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that's what you heard. Like it was just trying really hard. And he popped the hood, and all there is is just this little carbureted eight valve in there, Uhhuh. And he just looked at it and he looked at his motorcycle and he looked back and he said, motor on my bike's bigger. Yeah. And I was like, yeah.
He's like, all right, you're good to go. Yeah. That was all he had to see. It was like, it was so just like wimpy. He was like, I'm not even gonna write this guy a ticket. Yeah. The green,
[01:46:15] James: the green paint makes it look. Yeah. It looks like it's, than it's, it looks like it's like
[01:46:18] Brian: a hot hatch, but it's a, yeah. I love that car.
It's a, it's a mild hatch. It's like lukewarm at best. Yeah. So
[01:46:24] James: you're gonna build that for, the
[01:46:25] Brian: plan is to build that this year, do an eight valve, do nice paint. It's original paint on it right now, but there's like enough rust spots and enough dings and dents all around it. Mm-hmm. That I think it's like I, I'll enjoy it as it is now.
Like I originally, I bought it, um, and then my whole thing was like, I just wanted to get it to run under its own power for a week mm-hmm. Before I pulled it out and put the 16 valve in, and that was whatever, three and a half years ago. Just kept driving. It really kind of just fell in love with like, what it is.
Mm-hmm. But now it's like, there's like a bunch of little problems. There's been problems all along. Like, I always refer to that vehicle as like my, it's like my escape room on wheels. Mm-hmm. 'cause like, I just never know when it's gonna break. But all this stuff's like really easy to fix. Yeah. It's all like screw, it's like four parts on it.
Yeah. It's like a screwdriver and vice grip will get you home. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I, I. I wouldn't take it on Treffpunks. Right. Because like it makes so little power uhhuh that like, it just wouldn't be fun at altitude or like doing anything like that. So you're gonna
[01:47:19] James: do a carb date valve again, or like,
[01:47:20] Brian: no, I was gonna do a carb date valve.
I was gonna do just Weber's. Mm-hmm. Um, but Whipple has talked me out of it because Whipple's like so pragmatic. He's so like, just build a car that is like fun to drive and that you're not having, having
[01:47:33] James: problems with. Totally. I have those like white ass wheels and I was like, yeah, I'm willing to pull the fenders.
He's like, why don't you just put wheels that fit your car?
[01:47:42] Brian: But like, realize he's like over 50 now, so he's like at the pragmatic part of his life, you know, we're just, I'm on my way and all of his down are run right now. Yeah, I know. It's pretty amazing. But, um, well, not all of them. Yeah, but he's finished.
He's on his way there. Yeah, he's on his way there. But, um, anyway, uh, gen V makes, um, they make a Weber. ITB, like a Weber lookalike. Oh, cool. Or like a DOE, they call 'em, I think heritage carbs. Mm-hmm. So I think I'm gonna run those. So they look like carbs, but underneath, underneath their actual injector, you're gonna do like an A, BA?
Nope, I'm doing, uh, original. I'm actually, the engine I'm building is the engine out of his 85 GT. I Got it. Yeah. So I'm building, so it's, it's sort of like a mid eighties kind of period. Correct. Other than the itbs, but it'll look that way. Like I'm trying to keep, and then most of the, I've got a bunch of op parts for it.
Mm-hmm. Which are like really rare for Mark ones. Like you see 'em a lot from Mark threes Yeah. But just weren't as, I don't know, available. So we do that and then like, kind of keep it pretty much how it is. I want to do like a, like a sort of like brown interior in it. Mm-hmm. I saw a brochure from Japan in 1975.
Yeah. And it was that color car, but with this like, really sort of cool like car, like caramel camel, like interior. Mm-hmm. And I was like, that looks really good. I wanna put that together with, I got some like, old Ricardo's, um, you know, just like, kind of build this car that I wanted to build when I was 21, but couldn't afford to about wheels.
So I'm not sure. Um, I have a set of, um, there these old Audi wheels that were, that I had, um. I forget the guy's name now. You know the guy who does the split wheels down in San Diego? Yeah. Cham Sham boy. Yeah. Yeah. Sham Cham. Cham. I don't even know how to pronounce it. Yeah. So I thinking if I knew what it was, I'd forget.
But, um, uh, he made a split of this like old 13 inch Audi wheel for me. Yeah. He made just one. Mm-hmm. And it looks pretty sick, so I'll probably run that. But I've been collecting wheels for my rabbit, so I think I have like nine or 10 sets of wheels. Everything from like the classic rss mm-hmm. To like r the original RML snowflakes, like the OG ones that rot aorm made for them.
Yeah. Way, way back in the day. Um, to like just a whole collection of like weird, like rally wheels. Like, I dunno, I just like collecting like four by 100 wheels are pretty cheap. Yeah. So like, they're, they're a fun thing to collect. Yeah. So
[01:50:05] James: my cars are, both my golfs are four by 100 still.
[01:50:08] Brian: Yeah. Like, people don't really care that much about like 15 by totally sevens.
It's not like a wanted size.
[01:50:12] James: Yeah. And Jason's like, why don't you switch to five? Look, it's like, 'cause what am I gonna run? Like WRX wheels? Like, I like the, I think one of the main reasons I like cars is finding stuff. Mm-hmm. And my taste in cars. I think as far as like, cars I've built has been 100% just like what I could find.
Yeah. Like they, I never like set out with like an intention of like, here's my vision for this and I'm gonna execute it. 'cause it's just impossible. It's, it's always like, oh, I have this and I have this, and I'll put this on there too. Um,
[01:50:45] Brian: we're, we're very alike. 'cause I'm kind the same way. It's, for me, it's like.
Like, it's like this weird pyramid of, um, it's gotta be something that like fits into a cool style and design. Totally. But it also has to be a good deal. Yeah. Like I'm never gonna buy that set of like, I want OZ Futuras Uhhuh for something. I don't even know what car I want them for, but I want them for something.
But like, I'm not gonna pay 3,200 bucks for Oh no. 3,500, whatever they're going for now. I'll wait till I find a cheap set somewhere. Yeah. And refinish 'em or get a, a bang or find them on a car and literally buy the car just for the wheels and sell the car. Yeah. Like I enjoy the story of finding those parts.
Mm-hmm. Um, more so than anything.
[01:51:23] James: And I'm over wanting perfect stuff. Like, I like hella magic color taillights.
[01:51:28] Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
[01:51:29] James: And I have a pink set on the silver car.
[01:51:31] Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
[01:51:31] James: And people are trying to sell those for $1,200. That's crazy. I bought mine for 250 bucks and they have like a crack going down the middle of it.
It's like, Hey, chances are this 25-year-old piece of plastic sitting in the sun would crack anyway. Yeah. So I'm just gonna like. Remove the middleman for two blocks. I bucks.
[01:51:54] Brian: I think like perfectly imperfect. Cars are a huge thing. My, uh, nine 11, my, my wife before she was my wife, uh, knocked over my motorcycle and scratched the hood of the car, Uhhuh.
And she was horrified and she thought, you know, Ashley like was calling the body shop like, you know, can, can you fix this? And they're like, we'd have to repaint the whole car. Like, that's not like flat white paint. Like it's not something we can match easily. We'd have to repaint the whole car. And you know, she told me, I think she thought I was gonna like lose my shit and I think it was a mixture of one, I really was into her.
So I was like, I'm not gonna get mad at, at her over, over something with a car. Um, and by the way, I've heard people, like, I've told this story before on people who are like, I would've blah, blah, blah. I'm like, and that's why you're home alone in a basement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but
[01:52:37] James: I sleep in a race car bed
[01:52:40] Brian: and it's like I wasn't gonna get mad at her or something like that.
Plus it was probably partially my fault 'cause I had too much crap in the garage. Um, but it also was like, it took away like the worry of scratching anything.
[01:52:50] James: Totally. Because I'm
[01:52:51] Brian: like, oh, well I already got a big scratch on the car now, so like I just don't care as much anymore. And I just found myself treating the car differently after that.
Yeah. It was like, great. I didn't paint
[01:52:59] James: my E 30. And I think if I had, I wouldn't drive it nearly as much as I do. I like street park it on Venice.
[01:53:05] Brian: This is my worry with painting my rabbit. Yeah. Because like right now I drive the shit outta that car. Mm-hmm. Like I, people tag me in photos of that car all the time because they'll just go somewhere and just leave it outside.
Dude, I
[01:53:14] James: like, like I don't know you that well. I mean I know you. No, we really don't know each other that well, but, but I think it's okay
[01:53:20] Brian: to be honest about that. But I'm like
[01:53:21] James: leg I, I'm legitimately I know of you from afar. Yeah. Yeah. And your history with owning a million cars at Darwin. Yeah. Watching you drive that car as much as you do has made me as like a fellow car guy, like proud of you.
I'm like, man, it looks like, looks like Scott's like, looks like his spirit's good man. He must like really love that rabbit
[01:53:46] Brian: one. The car hit this nostalgia thing. 'cause that was at a moment at Hoonigan where we were just building thousand horsepower cars and simultaneously I was building a thousand horsepower Audi, but like still doesn't run.
Right, right. And you know, and I was chasing this thing that everyone was like, that's what you should be doing. And then like, I bought this car off of Cory. Fixed it, got it to run. And I just enjoyed it. I just enjoyed it for what it was. And it was kind of actually pretty private to me early on. Mm-hmm.
And it was actually this thing I felt like I shouldn't share with like, the Hoonigan audience, right? Yeah. Because it just felt so un Hoonigan. Mm-hmm. Right. 50 horsepower front wheel drive car. Like what's cool about that? Like, it just didn't fit. And I think it like got into an episode or in the background of one or something and like a ton of people gravitated to it and we're like, yo, what's that Mark one, you know, we obviously started talking more about it and I think it actually like freed me
[01:54:37] James: Yeah.
[01:54:37] Brian: From this world that I had created that like, I could only as the guy at Gant, I could only have like a Nova a nine 11. Mm-hmm. You know, and a thousand horsepower Audi. Yeah. Like I couldn't have these other things. Mm-hmm. Um, because that just didn't work because they couldn't, you know, do Donuts. Mm-hmm.
Right. Like, it was like, there was like this thing that like the cars had to do. And that kind of freed for me of being like, yeah, people are into this too. Mm-hmm. And it, it actually opened me up to buying a bunch of garbage. Um, some of which I still own because I was like, Hey, people also think this really cool old front wheel drive Audi's cool.
Apparently not, but I did. Um, but yeah. But I also set this rule for myself, um, that I was gonna stop owning, uh, normal cars. Mm. Which is not an easy life choice, right. Like to not own a daily driver. Right. Yeah. To be like every car I own is something Has to be fun. Yeah. It has to be fun. And there are days where it is.
Tense because I have to go do a really normal thing. Mm-hmm. Like, I have to go to a, like a normal meeting that doesn't, that no one's like clapping because I drove my cool car there. Yeah. Or I have to go to a doctor's appointment, or I have to pick my kid up Right. And bring my kid somewhere and my car breaks on the way.
Yeah. And like, that is really not fun, but when you balance it out, like it is fun to just drive something cool every day. Mm-hmm. Like, I really enjoy that. Like the, the most pedestrian vehicle I own is a, is in probably my S eight. But like that car is like, it's, it breaks every day. It's, it's such an unreliable vehicle.
Yeah. But I really enjoy it. And then my other one is a Ford van that's like lifted on 35. Yeah. It's like totally not a, makes like 700 horsepower.
[01:56:13] James: Yeah. All my cars are specific. Mm-hmm. And old. And I got to the point where like, I got access to press cars pretty frequently. Mm-hmm. And it would have to be like a really special press car for me to like, feel better about it than like my car.
Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, like parking at the grocery store and like, you get outta your car and you're like, I'm cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I'm a cool guy. Um, and so like, uh, and when I first started working for Donut and first started getting press cards, like any press card, I'd be like, just fuck it.
There's rules. Yeah. Of course there's rules. And now it, it's like. It's hard for me to find a car that I like more than my cars. Yeah. I have a hard time, specifically
[01:57:05] Brian: me. I have a hard time driving any new car that really gets me that excited. Mm-hmm. That's just like a thing. But when I was a journalist, I didn't.
Other than the Audi, which was a project that didn't run, I didn't own a car. Yeah. So like, I was a, you know, I had pressers every week. Mm-hmm. That was all I drove. Um, and, you know, you'd get excited about just the new G 37 when it came out. Yeah. 'cause it was new Uhhuh and someone else was letting you drive it.
And, well, when we first
[01:57:27] James: started doing, uh, auto, like car reviews, like, we used to joke that Nolan just loved everything because they they were new. Yeah.
[01:57:37] Speaker 6: He's like, yo, the new Ultima is actually like, pretty nice you guys, you know? Yeah. It's a
[01:57:40] Brian: lot better than not driving something.
[01:57:44] Speaker 6: Yeah. He's like, you know, it's got ac it's got heated seats, like, it's pretty good.
[01:57:48] Brian: It's funny 'cause I, I, at some point I wanted to get back into driving press cars and I had driven a couple new cars and I realized that like, the things I was excited about was like 10-year-old technology. Yeah. Because I'd be like saying it to someone, someone's like, you know, every car has that now.
Yeah. I'm
[01:58:02] Speaker 3: like,
[01:58:02] Brian: I don't know, man. Have you seen the things I drive? Like, I don't know. Like, yeah. Like we, they all do this. Like, oh,
[01:58:08] Speaker 6: huh.
[01:58:10] Brian: Wow. Maybe I should look at new cars. I can see
[01:58:12] James: the top of the car in the camera.
[01:58:15] Brian: Yeah. That's like new tech to me. Yeah, totally. I mean, to me, like the new tech that came out when I was still a journalist were things like Hill Assist mm-hmm.
And Bluetooth connectivity. Yeah. Like, that was new and like, I really haven't like, driven money, like new cars since then.
[01:58:27] James: So Yeah. Whenever I have a press car, I'll make sure to drive it to like San Diego or something for like a I'll like schedule a podcast or something. Right. Just to like put the miles in Insane traffic.
Yeah.
[01:58:37] Brian: Yeah. I don't know. For me right now, I'm like anti new car. I'm sort of, it's like forcing me to like make my cars more like normal, drivable. Mm-hmm. It ma it's making me fix things like air conditioning. Right. Because otherwise I would just, just like my wife had like a newer S eight, I would just jump in that and then I would just drive that every day and then drive and then it just became the everyday thing.
Or like my van before it was modified. I think there's something kind of fun about that slight adventure that you just don't know where your Oh, for sure. Whether or not your car's gonna get you there or not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I dunno. I enjoy it because like you, for you it's cool for me it's cool too, but like for a different reason.
Like, I like the coolness of like, it's an adventure. Yeah. Like me going to Trader Joe's today mm-hmm. Is an adventure. Like there's a very good chance I'm not, you might not make it back buddy. Yeah. Stock up on the trail mix while you're there because we might, we might not be getting
[01:59:26] James: Yeah. Better get a snack just in case.
Better get rations too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think it just at least needs some noise and like a smell. Yeah. And it gotta just like rattle around a little bit.
[01:59:39] Brian: Yeah. Like you, it ha you have to travel with tools. Yeah. Like it's gotta be something that you're like, ah, this might break. Or like, you have to be the kind of person that's like, can't wait till the end of the year so that you're triple a toes re-up.
Mm-hmm. Because you're like, oh man, I've used all my toes this year, dude, I brought it up
[01:59:55] James: on the past few podcasts I've been on. AAA is the only thing in the world. That costs less than I think it should.
[02:00:04] Brian: I hope they're not listening. Yeah. Because the amount I use all my toes. Yeah. Every year. Yeah. It is such a great deal.
[02:00:10] James: Yeah. I love it.
[02:00:11] Brian: We should get AAA as a partner,
[02:00:13] James: dude. We should. And I just want, yeah. I wanna work with brands that I support and aaa dude. And don't sleep on the discounts. You feel a little geriatric typing it in. But you'll save some money on a hotel.
[02:00:25] Brian: You get like 20 bucks off every hotel and they never even ask for the card.
Yeah. You literally just like, uh, do you guys have a triple, like Yeah. Yeah. They just punch it in. Like they don't even wanna see your card. They've got it. So I also use them for insurance too.
[02:00:36] James: Uh, I have one of my cards insured. Yeah.
[02:00:39] Brian: Triple. This is not AAA ad, but it could be aaa. It could, it could be. Um, no, I, I switched over to them.
They're pretty good Anyway. Um, what other kind of cars are you into? Like if it wasn't Volkswagens, what would it be? Volkswagens.
[02:00:51] James: I like BMWs a lot. Oh yeah. I know you an E 30 with an S 54 engine in it.
[02:00:57] Brian: Yeah. I want, I don't get the BM BMW thing at all. I wish I did.
[02:01:01] James: They're just square. They're square. Rear wheel drive cars.
I know, I know. I get it. Old BMWs. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I don't like being BMWs.
[02:01:09] Brian: I can appreciate what they are. And I, there's some that I think I would buy, like I could see buying an eight series probably 'cause they're like the least reliable version Yeah. Of BMW made, made. Right. That's like the least
[02:01:21] James: fun one I
[02:01:22] Brian: can think of.
Um, I think I could see buying an eight series. I could see buying, I could see buying an E 30, um,
[02:01:29] James: E 30 rules and they're still, you still get a nice E 30 for less than 10 grand. I like clown shoes. I think that's super clown shoes. Super cool.
[02:01:36] Brian: I don't think I fit in one, but I, they look cool.
[02:01:38] James: Yeah. Might be surprised that
[02:01:40] Brian: I don't, there must be like a stigma thing to it.
I was just having this con, I had this conversation multiple times and I had this conversation with my wife. I don't know why I don't like them. Hmm. It's like someone must have hurt me when I was younger who had a BMW.
[02:01:52] James: I think e thirties especially are like E 20 eights. They just like look like three boxes.
Yeah. And it's real, real drive and it's just like car and that's why I like them. Yeah.
[02:02:02] Brian: The E 30, like older Volvos, the Mark two Jetta to me is like when a kid draws a car. Yeah. Yeah. They're drawing that car. Totally. Yeah. Like it's just a simple shape. It just works. Yeah. So
[02:02:14] James: yeah. I love BMWs. I'd like maybe like an E 34.
Yeah, those are good. And I want to, with a V eight. Mm-hmm. I'd like to do like a. E 39 M five engine in it or something. Or maybe like an E 90 V eight. What's that? A S 65? Sure. Um, yeah. Uh, like I think I want something with like a V eight, but like a high vy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like small displacement V eight.
That'd be fun. I want a mark one Rocco. I want like a bright, like either like bright orange or like signal green. Mm-hmm. Mark one Rocco. Um, my rabbit signal green. Yeah.
[02:02:51] Brian: Just they called it rally green in the Volkswagen. Yeah. Color book.
[02:02:54] James: Maybe I'll get an orange one and then we can, we can be friends part.
[02:02:57] Brian: Uh, the other color car I really want in life is orange. Yeah. Did you always like colored cars?
[02:03:02] James: I think old cars can be bright colors and new cars that are bright colors look dumb.
[02:03:07] Brian: Hmm. Interesting. I like an
[02:03:08] James: orange 2002. That, that's fucking cool. Dude. Sick. That's a cool car. Like a yellow rabbit.
[02:03:15] Brian: F eight, but like an orange, F 80 and an orange.
F 80 is
[02:03:18] James: not a cool car. Yeah.
[02:03:20] Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry if you drive one. Yeah. So I used to only like black and white cars, right? Yeah. I had a white nine 11, a black nova. Like all my cars were black and white. Mm-hmm. And even when I first bought my rabbit, I was looking for a white mark one.
[02:03:33] Speaker 3: Oh yeah. And I
[02:03:33] Brian: saw that rally green one.
I was like, man, this is just a really, really cool color since I bought that. All I want is colored cars now. Mm-hmm. Like I just really enjoy color and I, in a time when you drive through parking lots and every single parking lot is like white, silver, gray. Mm-hmm. And black. Yeah. Like that's it. Like there's no coloring cars anymore.
Like in the eighties and like the early and like, you know, all the way through really the sixties, seventies, and mid eighties, like we had great color cars. Mm-hmm. I just don't think we have like good colors anymore. And if you do have a good color, it's only on an asshole car. Like there's really good Lamborghini colors.
Mm-hmm. I like Lamborghinis, but they're for assholes.
[02:04:12] James: Yeah. But my mark three is a silver arrow, so it's like a silver. Mm-hmm. Mark three golf. And back in the day, like there weren't any silver cars. So like that was like a very
[02:04:24] Brian: Yeah, yeah.
[02:04:25] James: Sought after mark three color. And so in that Matt, I bought it from Matt Crook when that car popped up, I was like, oh yeah, dude.
Silver Arrow car. Hell yeah. And then like I got it and realized, oh, all cars are silver now, so it doesn't look as special. But
[02:04:41] Brian: No, it's cool to Volkswagen guys. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Which all this is all it really matters. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. It's like as long as like the seven people who know, know Uhhuh, like that's the reason.
[02:04:47] James: Yeah. Silverado fordor with euro bumpers, dude. Texture. It's kind of fresh. Yeah. It's pretty good.
[02:04:52] Brian: Well, like I once painted a black car, black magic just because, and like for those listening, black as in black, black magic as in metallic black, but it was like a special Volkswagen color. I did a full respray, like cars stripped all the way down, all the glass out.
Mm-hmm. To paint it black magic, just because Volkswagen guys would think it's cool. Yeah. I remember my mom was like, you did what? 'cause I, I spent an inheritance that I'd gotten from my great-grandmother on repainting my car. Talk about the most irresponsible thing you could do at like 21 years old, shit.
And I got this money, which was shit, Bitcoin, it was like 3,100 bucks. Yeah. And I like worked at a body shop and the guy was like, all right, I'll repaint your car for that much. And it was just metallic black. Yeah. Like I did, went to all that work just to impress Pearl, like seven guys who were like, that's a black magic car.
Yeah. Like you can't get black magic in the states.
[02:05:42] James: My E 30 is painted like GMC nineties truck black. Mm-hmm. Because there's nothing in it. Yeah. There's no pearl, no glitter, nothing.
[02:05:54] Brian: So my nine 11 is painted a pure white, I forget what white it was, but it was like the purest white. But then we put a pearlescent on top of it.
Oh, hell yeah. So that way it was like a, because I felt back then, like all whites looked off white and I wanted like white, white, like absence of color white. But then, but it like was almost too shockingly white. Mm-hmm. And then we dropped a pearlescent on it and it gave it this like. Marshmallow look, which was kind of cool.
[02:06:20] James: Yeah. I like white cars a lot right now.
[02:06:23] Brian: Yeah. I still like white cars. I really hate black cars. Unless they're big body cars. Right. Like I can't imagine owning like a Q ship, you know, like a big sleeper. Mm-hmm. Um, like an S eight or like something like that that's not black. Yeah. Like it just works like immediately.
Just looks more Lexus four thirties. Like they just look cool. Yeah. VIP black,
[02:06:42] James: like a silver Lexus ls. Isn't that cool? That's geriatric a black Ls. Yeah. That's Yakuza. Yeah,
[02:06:47] Brian: yeah, yeah. Exactly. You need the, you need those Yakuza vibe. Yeah. Big body mer. So maybe I could get away with like a dark purple. Mm.
Maybe like a dark, dark green. Yeah. But there's gotta, it's gotta be dark. Like it has to feel menacing. Yeah. There's nothing menacing about a silver car.
[02:07:03] James: I think some cars, like white cars can look. Like fleet? Uh, yeah,
[02:07:09] Brian: yeah, yeah. For sure.
[02:07:10] James: You know, or they can look like really cool. So like a nice car in white is sick.
Or like a lot of old cars in white are sick, but a cheap car in white is like more cheap rental. Right. Feels like a rental car. Yeah.
[02:07:24] Brian: Yeah. That's how I feel about old trucks. Like old white trucks look like contractor grade trucks. Totally not as cool. No. Where like an old black truck looks really cool. Oh yeah.
'cause they're actually kind of rare. Yeah. Like I had an old black seven three, um, old body style Ford, and like, that thing was really rare. You like to think a black truck is rare. It's like, yeah. They mostly came in silver. Mm-hmm. And like then a bunch of people bought 'em in red for some reason. Yeah. So, yeah.
[02:07:49] Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't
[02:07:50] Brian: know. I like, I, I'm now on this thing where it's like, I just wanna own a bunch of color cars. Mm-hmm. So like, I'm, as I was saying before, like I got these 24 to 26 cars. I, I wanna make this. Concept. And the name of the show is just gonna be like, does it run? 'cause I was like this big like joke was like, is it Scott's, does it run, was this like Hoonigan joke?
And I want to kind of go through, cut it down to like 10. But like, I have like all these like mandates I need, which is like, I have to have a certain types of cars. Mm-hmm. I need like, you know, I need my, my sports car, I need my van, I need this, I need that. But then I also have like the color cars I want to own.
And the, oh yeah. This would all came off the tangent was I really do want an orange car. Yeah. I had an orange opal at one point's. Cool. But I sold it. That's forever. Got it running. And, but it was like, that's a such a quintessential like late seventies, early eighties color. So good.
[02:08:40] James: Yeah. I want a bright old car maybe for Tre Punks next year because like old cars you can get away with a lot more.
Mm-hmm. Without being a douche bag.
[02:08:50] Brian: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. All right, let's, let's subject change real quick. Yeah. Drifter movie.
[02:08:57] James: Yeah.
[02:08:57] Brian: That was fun working with you on it
[02:08:59] James: dude. It was like, we don't
[02:08:59] Brian: have to talk too much about the movie 'cause I don't know what we can say and what we can't say yet. Mm-hmm. And I don't know when it's coming out or anything, but it was fun to work with you on something in like kind of a space.
I think that was outside of what the two of us spend most of our time in now.
[02:09:13] James: Totally. And it's a thing that, like I came from that world, right? And I think. Like I, I feel like I have my pre Donut professional life, then my Donut professional life. And then starting Speeed and sung calling me out of the blue to do that movie.
Kind of like made my post Donut life sort of like combine my whole life. And I feel like that was a thing that like really made me feel more like myself in a time that like I needed to. And so it was like just like such a great experience, like being on set and really great car curation. I met people that like I hang out with all the time and it was cool 'cause like I'm very aware of you and I'm very aware of like your, what you've made, but I've never been on set with you.
Right. And so there, you, you directed second unit, but there was a day where like you directed me and I was like, that's pretty cool. And it made me in like, I wanna make a movie now, you know? Oh yeah. And like I think there's all this talk of like Hollywood being dead or whatever, but like, it's like, you know, we've made big projects that cost as much as features and you know, I make 45 minute YouTube videos now.
So just like, how do we double that? Mm-hmm. And I think that like, it's totally realistic to think about like making a a movie and I think. Yeah. And even like get, starting to think about like how, what like distribution would look like. Like maybe we do it on YouTube and sell tickets. Like in that way I think there's just creative ways to do everything and I'm pretty, I don't know, it was like, I just really, really liked it and I wanted to do it again.
[02:11:08] Brian: Yeah. I had a similar sort of like awakening, like I always wanted to do a movie. Mm-hmm. Um, and something that's always been like there, um, back in the day, David Aer, who like, you know, worked on training day, rewrote fast and furious, did um, uh, fury. Mm-hmm. Um, uh, end of watch bunch of great stuff. Um, he reached out to Ben Conrad and wanted to do a gym Conna movie.
Mm-hmm. And that like planted this like seed in my head of like, man, I really want to do this. Like, this would be really cool to do one day. Mm-hmm. Um, we chased it, never really kind of came together. And then I got that phone call from Sung Mine originally was to actually work on the initial D project.
Mm-hmm. Um. For various reasons that paused and sung was like, I just wanna go make something. Yeah. Like, I'm gonna make my own film and I want to have the control. I don't wanna have to deal with the studio. Like, we're gonna fund it. We're gonna do this whole thing and you know, I want you to, to do all the action for it.
Um, which was this really, really amazing experience. 'cause s let me sort of run most of the second unit stuff just completely on my own. Mm-hmm. And like, kind of figure that out. Run my own team. Well, Rogie the whole group. Um, but then I got, well I think the part of it that I was unexpecting was getting to jump in and help with some of the, uh, some of the narrative stuff.
Mm-hmm. Like working with you. Um, got to work with Michael, um, you know, got to work with a bunch of other people, um, you know, Rosie, like Tamara's character and like I wasn't expecting that. And one of the things that when I went there, I was, I was a little bummed the first few days 'cause I was so busy that I thought I was gonna be able to get to like Shadow Sung and like watch what was happening on main unit.
But honestly, like, if I wasn't, if second unit wasn't operating, I was doing something else to help main unit for the next day or do something else or whatever. Or just continue to work logistics. So as the shoot went on and they started to kind of run behind schedule and sung and, and, uh, Chris were giving me stuff to do, I was like, man, I really like this.
Yeah. Right. Like, I really enjoy not just the action stuff, which is something that feels very second nature to me at this point. I've been doing it for almost 20 years, but like I, man, I really enjoy the narrative stuff. Mm-hmm. And I immediately after that came home, sat with, you know, will, and was like, I wanna go do this.
Like, I wanna go make a movie. You and I talked about it, I think on like one of the last days we had on set mm-hmm. In Willow of like, man, how do we go do this? Yeah. How like we, if it is anything that, that project showed me, um, is that. I could go do this myself. Yeah. Right. Or with other people. Yeah. But like, but like this is possible.
Mm-hmm. Right. Because it always felt like it was this other world. Mm-hmm. Like it wasn't close to what we were doing. It was like, oh, there's like what we do for YouTube and then there's Hollywood.
[02:13:46] Speaker 3: Yeah. And
[02:13:46] Brian: we're not Hollywood.
[02:13:47] Speaker 3: Yeah. But
[02:13:48] Brian: in, but like, and granted that was like a low budget independent film, but I was like, man, we could definitely go make this, like, this feels like something that's within Reach.
And I immediately went home and like bought all the books. Yeah. Like, like just read
[02:13:59] James: Saved the Cat yet Save,
[02:14:00] Brian: read, saved the Cat. I'm actually reading Roger Corman's, like how I, like how I made, you know, money, how I never lost money in making films or something. Or like how I made a million dollars. I forget what the name of it is, but Roger Corman, he is like king of the B films.
Mm-hmm. And it's actually a really great read because he just writes about, um, how to just make low, low budget stuff. Mm-hmm. And I think that I enjoy that creative, um, kind of like sandbox. Mm-hmm. Because like, that's how it was at Hernani. Henigan. Yeah. It was like, Hey, we can't afford to do this, so like we have to do it this way.
Yeah. And that book is really like, he, he did all this stuff and there's all these like, great actors and great directors who, who worked with him, you know, from Scorsese like and so on. But he was known for just like, how cheap can you make it? Mm-hmm. And just like an interesting look at it. 'cause when I look at what we've done, I think the reason why, you know, Neyo was successful, Donut was successful, and a lot of other people who are our peers is because.
We got to sort of bush whack in a time where no one was doing it. Totally. And like you look right now and you're like, yeah, Hollywood's falling. Yeah. This is the perfect time to go and make something. And they're telling everybody
[02:15:05] James: to figure out how to make it and self produce. Yeah. And meanwhile we've been doing it for 10 years.
Yeah. I think.
[02:15:10] Brian: And it's like, I don't think, I don't think the movies, I don't think the theater, I don't think the audience is the problem. I just think that the traditional way of going about it's the problem. And Yeah. And this is the set standard bloat. Right. You get to, you know, lose it. You spend too much
[02:15:23] James: money on the wrong thing always.
There's no, there's no lack of money. There's a, there's a ton of money they just keep, some people want more of it. Yeah. Yeah. And they want to charge like even like, uh, that was another like Subway takes that I just saw recently. Oh really? Yeah. It's just like, uh, if you wanna save the film industry executives and like the top of the bill.
Oh, I did see that one. Actors just take less money. Take less money and pay more people more money. Yeah. It'd be fine.
[02:15:50] Brian: Fucking idiots. It's great. Yeah, it'd be great. Yeah. It's just
[02:15:52] James: like, make cheaper stuff. Pay certain people less money. Yeah. And most people more money.
[02:15:58] Brian: Well, there's a couple movies that have done that model of like paying everybody scale.
Mm-hmm. Which is like the basic rate for Yeah. The for the union. And then everybody earns Yeah. On the movie making money. Mm-hmm. And I think that's like really valuable. Yeah. Like if I could redo Hoonigan, you know, and realize like I was a, I only own 10% of Hoonigan. Like it was Ken's company. Yeah. And Waserman was our other, our other partner.
Um, I may have done most of the work 'cause I was the one running it, but that was my sweat equity that I was putting into the company. Um, but if I was to redo it now, knowing what I did, I think that, I think it's some point there needed to be like a, a way that everybody felt like they were earning on the business doing well.
Oh, for sure. I
[02:16:37] James: think that's the big,
[02:16:38] Brian: yeah. But like, but then, but that being said, I don't think that selling companies is the goal anymore. Mm-hmm. So it's like you have to find a way to do that. Obviously with movies there, there's still an element where it does kind of sell at the end and mm-hmm. Oh, every movie is just a business.
Totally. And like, you realize, like each movie you make is its own business. Mm-hmm. And you kind of figure that all out. But like, man, there's such opportunity. And obviously I'm sure you've been like seeing all the Marty Supreme mm-hmm. Stuff that's going on. Like, I think that, that, you know, I think he's done.
You know, I think he's done an excellent job in that marketing team that's done it. Mm-hmm. Of like putting that movie out there for people to talk about. Mm-hmm. I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know if it's good or not. Mm-hmm. Reviews are really good. But I look at that and I think about it from like a more micro version of like how people in the automotive industry can position a good movie in a completely different way than Hollywood has ever done it before.
Or like
[02:17:27] James: Sinners. I think Sinners is even a better example. Marty Supreme. Supreme. Because fantastic movie Marty. I just watched it this weekend.
[02:17:32] Brian: First time, no? Yeah. Oh
[02:17:35] James: yeah.
[02:17:35] Brian: Oh really? Yeah. Did you like it? Yes. Loved it, right? It was so good. Yeah.
[02:17:39] James: But like Sinners had a better opening box office. The Marty Supreme.
Yeah. Like 60 mil. Yeah. And the Marketing for Sinners was a lot of like technical film stuff. 100%. Like ler talking about like aspect ratios and shit. Mm-hmm. And like giving the audience the benefit of the doubt that they're like interested in why this movie is good. And I think, you know, like, I think first and foremost, I think of myself as like an entertainer.
Yeah. But the way that I've always entertained is to like educate, like the three E's in Speeed. Like we came up with this after the fact, but it's like,
[02:18:14] Brian: uh, every, I love this by the way. I love justifying something afterwards and being like, this is the reason why we didn't do it, but why we should have done it.
[02:18:22] James: But honestly, that's what they all mean. So first and foremost, it has to be entertaining. Yep. If it's entertaining, uh, then it also has to be educational. So if it's those two things, then we can put it out. Um. Then the third one, I forget the third one, but the third one is like extra. It's gotta be extra, yeah.
Yeah. Extra. Or like the third one's, like emotional or like endearing. But it's like that's, it's like basically like catharsis for Maria, like share sharing or whatever. So like, it has to be those first two before it can be like super personal. Right. You know, or else it's just like masturbatory. But like first and foremost it has to be entertaining and then educational.
So like, I think, yeah, the, the press for around sinners I thought was like really great.
[02:19:09] Brian: Yeah. I think it spoke a lot to filmmaker world. I, I'll give you two things or three things off of that. First I made an homage to sinners. Mm-hmm. Aspect ratio changing. Hell yeah. In the beginning of gym Kana Aussie shreds.
Hell yeah. We go from what is like scope, like ultra wide uhhuh into like regular wide. Yeah, yeah. Um, midway through, just because I thought that was such a cool thing. It is. He did. Where you constantly are changing aspect ratio uhhuh. And I didn't realize it, like I watched it in the theater and it wasn't until like midway through that I realized it.
And the only reason I realized it was because I saw a post about different aspect ratios. Yeah. Yeah. And then I went and like, was like, oh. It's, and it was like a different
[02:19:46] James: experience depending on where you saw it. Yeah. So like you get like the full experience. Yeah, I saw it on 70 mil, but yeah. Did you change access ratio, like on actions?
Mm-hmm. It was like, whoa, so cool. No, it was great. It
[02:19:56] Brian: was, uh, it was fantastic. Then the other thing is, um, you guys did three E's in Speeed, I'm imagining, so it would stand out. That was kind of like a, like a search optimization thing.
[02:20:08] James: Yeah,
[02:20:09] Brian: yeah,
[02:20:10] James: yeah. And just to make it like a brand name. No, I get it. Yeah.
Because I
[02:20:15] Brian: always thought the issue with Donut, like when Ben first came to me was like, that name isn't very easily trademarked. Totally. Where like, Hoonigan was its own word. Yeah, yeah. Like it was very easy for us to trademark it and protect it. Mm-hmm. And it also made it very easy to like search it, right?
Mm-hmm. Because it was like the only thing that came up. So I was curious when I first saw that, 'cause we were like, why misspell speed? And I was like, uh, it makes a lot of sense.
[02:20:36] James: Yeah. It was sort of like, for a while I was gonna call it power baby. Right. Sometimes I regret not doing it. Um, I mean is
[02:20:43] Brian: I'm assuming Speeed is sort of the Up to Speed mm-hmm.
Connection. Yeah. So it was like an
[02:20:46] James: homage to that. And then there's another. YouTuber called, I show Speeed. Yeah, of course. And he's huge. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, I think it was like SEO Yeah. But also to like, make it not just car, I think just to make it like, like you said, like its own word.
[02:21:06] Brian: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, I will be honest, I'm like seven days old from realizing like, oh, up to Speeed.
Speeed. Like that just didn't click for me early on. Yeah. Like it was just like car channel called Speeed Extra E. That makes sense. Yeah. Like visually I liked it. Like I didn't question it. And the other day I saw like something feed up, you know, feed to me that was like an old up to Speeed. I was like, well that took, that was a little slow.
Yeah. A little slow for me. Pick that one up. He's also
[02:21:33] James: this like painter, I think his name's Darrell White and he did like a lot of the Peewee Herman. Mm-hmm. Uh, like set design. And he does these like paintings where it's just like a saying and they like scale. Mm-hmm. Like really far away like that. And so I was like looking at a bunch of stuff when I started it.
And I think the. Extra e sort of like lent itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, and so like, our first logo is like, kind of like a, a force perspective, like scaling back Right. Kind of thing.
[02:22:05] Brian: I dig it. 'cause I grew up in graffiti, uhhuh, and a lot of times if you wanted to like fill space, you would just add more vowels, uhhuh.
So like if you had a tag uhhuh and then you wanted it to like, you know, but you wanted to fill the whole side of something, like the side of a city bus you'd like mm-hmm. Just add more ease. Yeah. So you would just do like, oh, I wanted my tag as whatever, and I would add eight es in it just to take up the whole space or something like that.
Yeah. It was like a pretty standard thing.
[02:22:26] James: And so like we add extra vs to like, we have merch that says Cool with three Os, right? Yeah,
[02:22:31] Brian: yeah, yeah, yeah. Saw that, saw that. Um, yeah, man. But, uh, going back to making movies, so like, I don't know, is that, do you wanna do that next? Because like, I wanna do that next.
I'm pretty,
[02:22:41] James: yeah. I wanna do honest about that. I wanna talk to you about this, uh, maybe off air, but like, we wanna do a magazine. Mm-hmm. Um, for Speeed. Yeah. Speeed Mag. Um, I definitely wanna make a movie. Um, I wouldn't mind, wouldn't mind. I'd like to like explore the idea of like, making a series. Yeah. Like a comedy series.
Um, and like, again, I. Thinking about interesting ways to like, publish things on my channel. Mm-hmm. And then potentially licensing it to like Netflix or something like that. Yeah. I dunno. I wanna do, like, I wanna continue to do what we're doing and kind of explore like the filmmaking aspect of YouTube and like, encourage more people to like, make things that they think are good.
Because I do think that a lot of this, uh, algorithm jail is self-inflicted. Mm-hmm. And I, I want to encourage like, other creators to like, do stuff that you, like, do stuff that you think is good. 'cause I do think that like, if you make good stuff, people will watch it. Mm-hmm. And people will find it. Um, and then I want to, I just wanna do like more comedy stuff.
Like, I kind of want to continue to like, combine all of my experience, um, like with YouTube and like comedy and stuff like that.
[02:24:06] Brian: On the comedy thing. So I was asked in a panel, one of the panels that you didn't join on the Drifter movie, someone asked about your performance. Mm-hmm. And I said, you know, I think the one thing that'll probably come as a shock is that you may be showing up thinking that you're getting James Poey mm-hmm.
From Speeed or from Donut, but you're gonna get him playing a character that's like very serious and like, has a darkness to him. Yeah. Um,
[02:24:31] James: which is the real James Pumphrey, is it the real James Pumphrey? Yeah. Dude, I got, no, I got a deep darkness.
[02:24:35] Brian: But like, that was definitely, it was like interesting because you called out that role.
Mm-hmm. Like I know that you wanted, you, you know, I know you've said this on the podcast, you don't need to repeat it here, that when Sung gave you the script, you're like, Hey, I see one character I think I can fit. Mm-hmm. Sung saw that for you as well. Um, sung also plays a character that is unlike any character that I think people know him as.
[02:24:56] James: Yeah.
[02:24:57] Brian: He's not han he's not super cool. Yeah, yeah. Right. Like there's this completely different piece to it. Um, but you wanna make comedy stuff, but like, you know, you're really good at that role. Yeah. Like, 'cause I think you did a very good job of that. And I'd love
[02:25:09] James: to do those roles too. And I think that like, like the best dramatic movies are super funny, you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. And so, like, I, I, I think I would just like, I would like to continue to do everything that I can do to keep making stuff. Ideally some of those things that I make. Well, give me some tape that someone can watch and be like, Hey, I think maybe he could do this other thing. This. Yeah.
And then hopefully, like, I would love to be in other people's stuff.
[02:25:37] Brian: Did, did you listen to the Smart List with David Decoy?
[02:25:40] James: No.
[02:25:41] Brian: It's very good. 'cause he talks about how it's, it's actually all the stuff I didn't know about David Devey. Mm-hmm. Like, I didn't know he was like an academic. Mm-hmm. I didn't know he could care less about sci-fi.
Yeah. But he talks and, and also like how influenced he is by Charles Bakowski. Mm-hmm. And, but he talks about how like, the greatest comedy comes in, like really sad, ver like things, right? Yeah. Like he played these, like you think about Ca Fornication mm-hmm. Where it's like, hi. His story in that, which is a very Bukowski like character is, it's really funny, but it's also really like mm-hmm.
It's really heavy. And he's like, that's like his zone. Like he really loves this like, heavy comedy mm-hmm. That like, works really well. But you've played a lot of like, really like topical fun stuff, especially for like, for that other stuff. But I feel like there's this other side of you that like, and again, I don't, I, I will keep saying this, like, we don't really know each other that well.
Yeah. But, um, this is now the longest conversation we've ever had. Mm-hmm. Um. But that other side of it is something that like, feels like it, you fit in really nicely.
[02:26:38] James: I appreciate that. I would love to do more of it. I really just, I want to do,
[02:26:42] Brian: honestly, I'm just getting clips that when you and I make a fucking killer movie, they go back to this and they're like, remember this moment where they barely knew each other?
Now they own an island together
with a racetrack on it.
[02:26:56] James: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Accepting our, uh, independent spirit award. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just like, I think I just, I want to do a bunch of stuff I wanna do, and I think I can do a lot of stuff and I just wanna, like I said, I wanna do whatever I can to give people confidence in the idea of giving me an opportunity to do stuff I want to do.
Yeah. You know what I mean?
[02:27:22] Brian: Yeah. I, um, it's funny 'cause when I left Hoonigan, I think a lot of people thought I retired. Mm-hmm. Because like, I bought a farm. Yeah. Which like had nothing to do with any of that. Well, it's
[02:27:31] James: like, that's the Yeah. You, you bought the farm. Bought the farm, which usually means you die, but like,
[02:27:36] Brian: but the idea that like, yeah, you're done.
Like, you're out the pasture kind of thing. Mm-hmm. Um, the reason I bought the farm very quickly is because in the couple years before Ken passed, he bought the ranch. He fal loved the ranch. Yeah. To the point that I hated the ranch. Yeah. Because we'd have these really important meetings and he'd be like, yeah.
So anyway, look at these blueprints for the ranch. Look at this for the ranch. I got this designed for the ranch. And I'm like, dude, we have to have a serious conversation. All you talk about is the ranch. But when he passed. There was this, like, ran, there was this solace in like, man, he really was enjoying life in the last couple of years.
Mm-hmm. I can't say he always was, but he was, and I know it looked like he was from the outside, but he was racing cars and doing all this stuff. But like, he really seemed like at home mm-hmm. With his family on the ranch, like doing cool ranch stuff, like chopping wood, these things that were like not part of his public life, right?
Mm-hmm. Like, he was just enjoying that time. And I had always wanted something similar for myself and I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna buy a farm. Yeah. And I like over leveraged myself and like bought this property. Like, did not, I did none of my homework. Yeah. But I just was like, I could die tomorrow. Like I'm gonna go get this place and then like, I really, I still really love it, but like in those, that first year, I was just there all the time.
Mm-hmm. And I was, it was like therapy for me mm-hmm. To be out of a city, to be away from everything. To like have quiet, to like turn my cell phone off. Like all these things that mm-hmm. Um, that were happening because I, I went in this like massive, and I don't take this super dark turn at the end, but like, I went into this massive like.
Like, just weird state of like, what is my life now? Totally. I'm
[02:29:05] James: going through that right now, dude. This is
[02:29:06] Brian: all over. Yeah. I was like, dealing with like all different things, like depression, all this stuff, but I was also in this like, I fucking hate social media and I'm part of the problem.
[02:29:17] James: Right?
[02:29:18] Brian: Right. Like, I had read all these books and I was like, like from, you know, everything from like the Jonathan Heet books to um, uh, stolen Focus, like all these great books.
And I was like, man, I'm part of this. Like, I've created part of this problem for an audience. Like, I thought I created positive content, but still I created this like dopamine distraction, right. Instead of like going out and enjoying the world and touching grass. Right. So I was like just going and doing that on my own and trying to like kind of find, find my way.
Not all of it worked, but I went and really kind of en enjoyed going and doing all that. But people really thought that like, I retired and like, yeah, it was over for me. I was, I was working at another company as a chief creative officer, you know, for super plastic and doing that whole thing, but I was like, yeah, I was just off to go do something else.
Um, but what I realized was like, you know, and I, and I don't know if you know this, but like the, when Hoonigan went bankrupt, I lost most of my money mm-hmm. Because my money was tied up in that equity. So like, I did not do well off the Hoonigan deal. Yeah. Like it sold for pennies on the dollar for me, right?
Mm-hmm. So I wish it never sold 'cause it would be in a better off situation if it was still there. But, um, so, but even if I had made. Enough money to not even retire, but to take a break. It was very obvious to me that I couldn't take a break. Right. That actually, one of the biggest issues I had at Super Plastic was that like, there wasn't enough going on for me.
Right. Like I, it was like a very nice job. They paid me handsomely, but I was like, started my day at 10 and ended it at four. And there really wasn't much more expectation for me, and that, like, wasn't enough. And I realized and kind of, I'm trying to land this plane here. I, I think very similar to you. It's like, I just wanna do a lot of things.
Yeah.
[02:30:56] James: I wanna make shit. I
[02:30:57] Brian: just wanna make shit. Yeah. Like, like magazines, books, movies. Mm-hmm. Podcasts. I mean, the big joke is like, I've launched a podcast and I already have an idea for four other podcasts. Right. Right. They all have me in 'em. Yeah. But like, it's like, I, I just enjoy that. And that was like the thing that I missed.
There's two things I really missed from Hoonigan. One is I miss, like, I miss going, showing up to work every day and seeing my friends. Yeah. Like, that doesn't happen anymore. Totally. Like, I wake up and I sometimes just spend the day by myself all day. Yeah. And like, that's just not as much fun. And like I, a bunch of us are trying to break that by being like, Hey, let's just fucking catch up for lunch.
Yeah. You know, like, let's, I can totally relate that to do that.
[02:31:35] James: I work at my house. Yeah. And like, my two friends come over to my house.
[02:31:39] Brian: Yeah. We're in my house right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My garage. No feeling
[02:31:44] James: like, just kind of Groundhog Day sometimes. And so I really wanna focus on having goals and I like having goals that seem.
Like they need a lot of luck involved in them. So I dunno, you wanted that, like there's something I thought when you were directing the two scenes that you directed me in and thinking back on, like it makes sense, uh, that it contributed to, I think like the success of the Gymkhanas and just like Hoonigan in a whole, as a whole, I think you're like very good at understanding what the audience is seeing and like what they're gonna be thinking while they're seeing it.
And so like, just the way that you like set up the shot but then like communicated to like the actors as far, alright, so here's what's happening, here's what you need to do. Like, it felt like very old hollywoody, like it felt like in a great way. I was like, all right, great. Like, it felt like, you know, like you being like, all right, so like, hang the rear tire over that.
[02:32:51] Speaker 4: Right.
[02:32:51] James: You know, and it like wasn't in like a disrespectful way, like at all. It was just like, Hey, this is what we're doing. Here's what you need to do to make that happen. I'm like, all right, sick. And, you know, I think it's like the same, like, I watched some like BTS stuff of you guys talking about the latest Gymkhana, where you were like.
He drove, when he drove across the water, it didn't look like water. Like it didn't look like it was deep. Right. So you like sunk the other car and like put the boat in there so that the audience would know that it was deep.
[02:33:23] Speaker 4: Right.
[02:33:23] James: And I think that's something if like you take any advice, if you're like some sort of creator watching this, this you do, I think like thinking about what the audience is experiencing in the thing that you're making is something that's like really overlooked.
And I Do you think so?
[02:33:40] Brian: I do. Oh, interesting. Okay. And I
[02:33:41] James: think like very like the most important thing, like that's the most important thing is like how the audience audiences receiving the thing. And I think that's something that we think about quite a bit and I think separates us from other people. And like you're very, very conscious I think like goat level of like, here's what the audience is gonna see.
You know? And so like I appreciate that's like the reason that like, I would want to work on a big project with you. 'cause I think we like share that. Like, okay, but then like, what are they gonna think? You know? And it's very fun to like imagine that that's what it is for me.
[02:34:18] Brian: I appreciate that. I, for me, I think I, it's so second nature for me to just think about it through that lens.
I've never even thought that that was not like, that was not normal. Yeah. But now I, and coming from the world of magazines. You're constantly thinking, what does the audience think of this? But you like never had immediate feedback. Mm-hmm. Like so I'm one of those people who loves the comment. Well yeah, because good or bad, it helps me sort of understand where the audience is at.
And I'm at a point now where like you could write negative comments and like I can either take them for real. Like there's sometimes you're like, man, that's a really good point. Mm-hmm. But then there other times you're like, yeah, you're just the outlier. Just like the same outlier who says everything you make is great.
Yeah. Right. Like there's both sides of that. Totally. Like there's those people in the middle that like really kind of find that, and I think that's one of the best parts we have in modern day content is that you can get that immediate. Critique sometimes bad. But like, I think in general, that immediate critique is so neat because it allows you to adjust how you make stuff.
And like, as much as previously I said that I hate things about YouTube, like I did really enjoy those analytics. 'cause you could sit there and be like, well, people stopped watching after this. Yeah. Like what was it about this that wasn't good that I don't think like your average, like movie directors get, like I, they make a movie, it takes, you know, a year for it to come out.
Sometimes they're not even involved in the edit. Mm-hmm. So like what it actually becomes versus what they directed is like two separate things. The script probably wasn't theirs, it was someone else's script. And then the studio gets involved and reworks the whole thing again and then it goes out to theaters and then they get like professional cri critique.
Yeah. Yeah. And like, like you can't, like professional critique is so different than what the audience thinks. Yeah. Like what the guy who's reviewing it for Variety Totally. Is so different than what the audience is. And I think that's like a really unique thing that me, you and everyone else who's come up in this weird world that is YouTube content mm-hmm.
Can really learn from. 'cause I know other YouTubers who do not look at comments at all. Yeah. Like, they literally just don't even look at it. I saw you guys posted something the other day about like, you guys are in the comments and you're reading them.
[02:36:26] James: We do. I have to manage it for sure. Yeah. Like, like I'm an addict.
[02:36:31] Brian: Mm-hmm.
[02:36:32] James: And talk about like, I. Don't know how, I didn't realize this until like this summer, but like, I like showed up and I was like, guys, this is a terrible job for people who are addicted to like dopamine hits. It's like, we'll, like work real hard on something for like two weeks, then we'll put it out and like, we'll either be like real happy or like kind of sad for the next four days.
Oh yeah. And it's just then, then we'll like do it again and again and again. So I have to like, I actively manage filling my life with other reasons to be happy or sad.
[02:37:04] Brian: I can't imagine being a movie director and making something every two years and then having it fail. Yeah. Like the greatest thing about daily transmission was, well, if today's episode sucks, we got another one for you tomorrow.
Yeah, yeah. Right. Like, I get to fix my mistakes. Mm-hmm. Imagine working for two years and you put something out and it's like not good. Like that's definitely something I, I worry. But that being said, like if I could pick the things I want to do, like number one thing is, originally I was saying second unit direct action, but I think like, I'm just gonna say it like I just wanna direct a movie, should, dude, like, that's the thing I wanna really wanna do.
I think you
[02:37:36] James: could. I think you'd be good. I wanna be in it.
[02:37:38] Brian: Let's do it. Yeah, let's make a movie.
[02:37:39] James: Let's
[02:37:39] Brian: do it. Yeah, for sure. Should we end on that or you got anything else? Yeah, dude, let's just fucking end that. Let's fucking make a movie. Make a
[02:37:45] Speaker 6: movie, bro.
[02:37:46] Brian: Thank you everybody.
[02:37:53] Speaker 5: The mailbox is, the mailbox is the mailbox. Not accept any messages at this time. Goodbye.
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Typically on set. I can't wear sunglasses. Why? 'cause I'm often looking at a screen and a lot of times it's hard to really see what's going on if my lenses are too dark. But heatwave fix that problem. These new photochromics, they adjust from almost clear to a pretty dark tint, depending on the sun, which is great because when I was in Australia filming Gymkhana, it was one really bright, especially in the outbreak.
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