By Danny Thompson
4.8
1212 ratings
The podcast currently has 23 episodes available.
In this conversation, Barnett English shares his journey from a music enthusiast to the founder of the Joshua Tree Music Festival. He discusses the unique aspects of his festival, including its intimate atmosphere, focus on emerging artists, and family-friendly environment. Barnett also addresses the challenges faced by the festival industry, especially in the wake of recent cancellations, and emphasizes the importance of shared experiences among attendees. The festival's diverse activities and workshops, along with its camping accommodations, contribute to a holistic experience for festival-goers.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Barnett English and the Joshua Tree Music Festival 03:05 Barnett's Journey into Music Festivals 05:58 The Unique Experience of Smaller Festivals 08:47 Artist Selection and Festival Philosophy 12:02 Challenges in the Festival Industry 15:03 The Importance of Shared Experiences 17:57 Family-Friendly Atmosphere at the Festival 20:56 Workshops and Activities Beyond Music 24:03 Logistics of Running a Biannual Festival 27:03 Camping and Accommodations at the Festival 29:55 Final Thoughts and Festival Highlights
Barnett English (00:00.269) Yeah, it wouldn't be my first time.
Danny (00:01.914) And so here we go. All right, Barnett English. Thank you so much for joining me here on the Highway 62 podcast. How are you today?
Barnett English (00:12.377) Fabulous, best day of my life. Thanks for asking. Yeah.
Danny (00:14.235) Every day, right? I love the background there. You got some really cool artwork going behind you. that you in the home office or?
Barnett English (00:19.374) Hmm
Yeah, world headquarters. It's our only headquarters. Yeah, yeah, some killer photos that friends have taken and trinkets and books. Things that inspire.
Danny (00:33.838) Wonderful. Excellent. You are the founder, the creator of the Joshua Tree Music Festival. And I want to talk all about that and, you know, what's in store for this year. But first, I'd like to hear a little bit about your background prior to that and kind of how you found your way into starting a music festival.
Barnett English (00:57.351) Yeah, that's a good question. Gosh, I've been a music junkie my whole life. So I started collecting albums when I was 10 years old. I'd get split albums with my brother and it Sears and Roebuck back in Louisville, Kentucky for five bucks an album. And then made hundreds and hundreds of mixed tapes and spent a really stupid amount of my earnings in my whole life on.
Danny (01:12.044) Yeah.
Barnett English (01:25.927) on records and CDs. So I've always loved music and then started a coffee business back in 93. Started selling coffee at music festivals. And so now 30 years later, I've been to over 1200 music festivals selling coffee. And the first one I went to back in 95, I saw some of my favorite bands and met these friends, people that are still friends today and had the most amazing time.
Danny (01:34.815) okay.
Barnett English (01:51.656) I walked away from that one going, you know, that's all I want to ever do is be at a music festival. This is, this is it. This has got it all, you know? And so here we are 30 years later and I'm still doing it. So I was going to coffee, selling coffee at these festivals. And then on a whim, I came to Joshua tree to the campground on Sun Fair road, the Joshua tree Lake campground, where we have the festival. There was a small didgeridoo gathering there.
And so I came to sell coffee there and I drove in in the middle of the night and didn't see a thing and woke up in the morning and looked out and went, holy smokes, look at this view, know, looking at the national park and, you know, stars all, blinding stars at night. And then, so I mentioned to the folks that own the campground, said, hey, Sally, why don't you have a real music festival here, you know? And more than just didgeridoos, nothing against didgeridoos, but there are more instruments.
Danny (02:29.23) Yeah.
Danny (02:45.913) You should.
Barnett English (02:47.689) So she said, you know, gosh, if you're so smart, why don't you do it yourself? And so she dared me. And so within six months, I'd moved to Joshua Tree, found a home and had our first music festival. And that was April of, April 9 through 11 of 2003, we had our first one. So, so I just fell in love with Joshua Tree instantly.
Danny (03:05.324) Wow.
Danny (03:09.579) It's, know, as you know, from just a little bit of, you know, chatting we had done, I'm a musician myself, so I'm used to, you know, from that musician side of going to big music festivals as a musician. You know, I've played Reading and Leeds and I just got back this weekend, this last weekend, we played Riot Fest in Chicago, which is a huge music festival. And I guess from my standpoint, when you say like,
Barnett English (03:23.506) Yeah.
Barnett English (03:32.349) Right.
Danny (03:37.741) All she wanted to do was go to music. like what in your right mind made you think to go into the music festival business? Because it is it, you know, for people, you know, for fans that just go to watch the music. mean, obviously they see it's a big production and everything, but just what's going on behind the stages, the back end of it is is crazy. You know, I mean, did you know what you were getting into?
Barnett English (03:43.708) right. Yeah.
Barnett English (04:00.06) Madness. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I no, luckily I was very stupid and naive. I never would have started it. You know, I thought what, hard could it be, right? Build a stage, get some bands to play, rent a port -a -let, sell a few tickets. And so yeah, I just went into it super naive, but you know, we always, I always started small and you know, never, never dreamt too big and.
Danny (04:24.343) Yeah.
Barnett English (04:27.671) you know, and never ran up a bill too big that I couldn't, pay back later, by selling some coffee. So, you know, we just built it slowly and organically and, you know, so ours is very different. mean, I've been to every single Coachella, you know, that's massive and, been to all kinds of vessels, big, small, green, purple, red. And I've just, I just always, my big takeaway is, I love the ones that are a little more small. You know, they're smaller. So like you and I, we'd run into each other.
Danny (04:52.993) Yeah.
Barnett English (04:56.683) 25 times over the course of 72 hours, having breakfast in the mornings, around the campfire at night, and as opposed to at the Riot Fest, if we dropped a pin and we're lucky to know how to do that, then maybe we could find each other.
Danny (04:57.898) Yes. Right, right.
Danny (05:09.408) Yeah, I mean, was a gargantuan gargantuan event. And, know, you've got the crossover of bands. So, you know, and there was people there from, you know, all kind of bands that weren't playing that they were just there, you know, to just hang out and stuff like that. And it was tough for even them to be like, I want to come see you guys, but I got to get over to this stage. You know, I want to see this band. And and I think my experience has been playing some smaller
Barnett English (05:11.933) Yeah.
Barnett English (05:17.736) Yeah.
Barnett English (05:32.842) Yeah.
Danny (05:38.878) festivals have been where I've had the most fun. All props to Riot Fest, though. you know, not that anyone from Riot Fest will hear this podcast probably, but that probably was the best run big festival we've ever played. Like everything was dialed and the sound and the production, you know, for for you as a band, you know, like playing in the band, there is nothing worse than going to a festival and
Barnett English (05:44.544) Yeah.
Barnett English (05:53.683) Yeah, cool.
Barnett English (05:58.262) Nice.
Danny (06:07.896) You know, a lot of times, too, if you're not like the main headline band, you know, you're probably not doing a sound check. You're still wanting to use in -ear monitors. And, you know, we bring our own in -ear monitor rig and, you know, 20 minute changeover. And sometimes it's like, you know, you got 20 minutes, you turn on your in -ears and you're like, I'm hearing, you know, whatever craziness. I did a whole festival recently with zero monitors, nothing in my ear and nothing on the stage because they couldn't get it hooked up.
Barnett English (06:14.434) Yeah.
Barnett English (06:22.796) That's crazy.
Barnett English (06:33.583) my gosh.
Danny (06:37.036) But Riot Fest, man, it was so pro. Like I turned on my in -ears and it was like, I'm like listening to a record right now. It was so good. So when it's good like that, it's really amazing. But most of the time it doesn't go like that for the musicians. And
Barnett English (06:41.44) Yeah.
Barnett English (06:47.691) Yeah, it's nice.
Barnett English (06:55.246) Yeah, I go to a lot of the festivals and it's like that where they, you know, they just have unrealistic schedules and unrealistic change over times. And, know, so from the very beginning, we just always had two stages. we'd alternate from one stage to the other. So you have a full two hours to completely set up, check your in -ear monitors, make sure everything's sweet. And meanwhile, the crowd is all together at the other stage. And then when they finish, literally you just turn 90 degrees and you look, and then you start 15 minutes later. So.
Danny (07:08.063) Yep.
Danny (07:21.995) Yeah. Right, right.
Barnett English (07:24.501) It does a couple of things. makes life better for the musicians and the artists. So they do a better show, but it also makes it a better experience for those in attendance because we all get to see you and your band and we have this shared experience now. So like at midnight that night, we can both go, my God, did you see that drummer Danny do that backflip? That was crazy. know, and we all, right now we're past the backflip stage of our careers.
Danny (07:45.654) There will be no backflips from me.
Danny (07:52.374) Yeah, I did a 45 minute bike ride today and I'm like, God.
Barnett English (07:53.295) You know, but the main thing is, wow, that's 44 minutes longer than I have done. But you know, it's that shared experience, I think, that really makes people bond and get even closer. know, not only are you and I interacting many times over the course of the weekend, but now we're having these shared magical experiences. So it's not like I was at one stage and you were at another. And we actually might as well have been at two different shows, because we were. You know, so we don't have that shared thing. And that's like a big deal.
Danny (08:19.719) Yeah.
Barnett English (08:23.31) I think that's one of the big things that people drive away with and going, God, we really connected. We really had a real analog human experience. And I think the world needs more of that.
Danny (08:34.451) Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Tell us a little bit about like your thought process from the standpoint of the type of artists that you're booking for this festival, because it is a little bit different.
Barnett English (08:47.791) Yeah, definitely so. gosh, since the very beginning, I've always been really into finding artists that are on the rise, haven't made it big and haven't, the whole world doesn't know about them. There's two reasons behind that, number one, because I think a lot of those artists are, they're hungry, they're living and breathing it, they're sleeping in their van together, they're just really putting on amazing shows.
The other part being, of course, I could never afford large major headliner bands, but I really don't even want to go there. So it makes it, it's a bad business model, but now that we've been doing it for so many years, our regular attendees just come up to me. A lot of them say, Hey, you don't even need to have a website, man. We don't know any of these freaking bands. We love them. And now you got us. So, so we just look for artists that are on the rise and it really.
Danny (09:37.589) Ha ha!
Barnett English (09:46.022) You know, there's no specific genre. mean, we've had bands from jam bands from South Korea and Mongolian heavy metal bands and, you know, all over the world. And it's really just, is the artist super compelling and do they put on an amazing live show? And then the genre doesn't even freaking matter. And how many Facebook and Instagram followers they have doesn't even matter. I don't look any of that stuff up. It's really just, wow, you know, are they going to blow us all away?
That's what I go for.
Danny (10:15.722) Yeah, Yeah, it's I mean, it's a really interesting from me also being a small business owner. It's an interesting thought process because, know, obviously, probably you have the connections and you know the people that if you wanted to book one big headlining act, you could do it. Doing it the way that a lot of festivals do, which is, you know, we'll give them a deposit, but, know, really, we can't pay this band until after the.
Barnett English (10:33.295) Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Danny (10:44.502) festival tickets have been sold. And we again, you know, we we were in a festival in Australia that we, you know, 90 percent of the bands ended up not getting paid, you know, because that risk, that bet that the promoter had made went south and he was he was paying bands from the previous festival he did with the new festival. But there there's this, you know.
Barnett English (10:46.086) Yeah.
Barnett English (10:55.874) man, yeah, that's a bummer.
Barnett English (11:01.989) Yep.
Barnett English (11:06.513) Yeah.
Danny (11:11.956) Like you're saying, you know, don't really want to go down that road, you know, keeping it at this smaller level. You've found an interesting way to make it work for you, work for the bands, work financially without having to have quite that, you know, level of risk and stress. would imagine that these these promoters that are doing these multimillion dollar shows are dealing with.
Barnett English (11:21.916) Yeah.
Barnett English (11:31.122) Yeah!
Barnett English (11:36.948) Yeah. you know, and I think this year we're seeing, we're seeing, I mean, I've been going to music festivals for 30 years actively and I've never seen the, many festivals cancel ever. So this year has there are, could name a gosh, if I started putting a list together, it'd be easily a hundred major festivals in the U S and same in Europe. They've all gone belly up this year. And it's, I think it's two things. Number one, obviously times are tough.
Danny (11:49.747) Mmm, okay.
Danny (12:02.248) Wow!
Barnett English (12:07.157) not just for a lot of us, but for most of us, you know, like I can't afford to go to a music festival with my, my sweetheart and take five days off of work and drive 400 miles and buy food. And, you know, it's an expensive endeavor. So I think that the prices have gone super crazy high for the times we're in, but then also there's a, you know, a huge over saturation. There's tons of festivals everywhere. So, but this year there's been a major correction and, and it's been kind of,
Danny (12:32.82) Huh, interesting.
Barnett English (12:35.856) because the costs have gone up in these last two years post COVID. The costs of everything have gone crazy. So we're actually selling more tickets in May, our last festival. The revenue goes up, but so do the expenses. So it's a crazy business.
Danny (12:52.627) Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a, you know, it's a cycle that that kind of feeds everything. I mean, you know, not to go down like a totally different road, but the conglomeration of, you know, corporate interest, you know, again, coming from the standpoint of a band, you know, Live Nation owning everything and all these venues. A big change that, you know, we saw like a year or so ago was Live Nation saying, by the way, now you got to provide your own insurance.
Barnett English (13:14.035) Yeah.
Danny (13:23.209) you know, to the bands and the bands are like, what are you doing? You're you know, you're taking and I think these are things, you know, that that, you know, the fans don't really get that back end viewpoint of what it's like to try to financially be successful as a music promoter or a midsize club owner. Right.
Barnett English (13:23.817) my gosh, are you serious? my gosh.
Barnett English (13:31.593) Wow, I've never heard that. That's crazy.
Barnett English (13:48.499) Yeah, yeah, the cook.
Danny (13:48.851) You know, the independent those independent clubs that aren't live nation, that your tickets aren't going through Ticketmaster. And those are some of the best clubs. Those are some of the best run clubs that when we go on tour, those are the kind of clubs again that sometimes they'll just have the best sound guy working there, you know, and just like great fans in the club. You know, the dressing room's nice and the from, know, the hospitality people want to take actually, you know, care about the band.
Barnett English (13:58.007) Right.
Barnett English (14:11.658) Yeah, they've got their... they've got their own...
Barnett English (14:17.249) Yeah, they got their own organic, super groovy vibe, know? mean, because the people that work there really are living it. It's like, it's their thing. You know, they love it. know, a corporation can't love something that much. They can build a killer place, but can they really, will that love come through? you know, so yeah, it's unfortunate for a lot of the club owners and like you said, smaller venues, it's tough.
Danny (14:20.296) Yeah.
Danny (14:33.256) But it...
Danny (14:38.281) And I think, you know, from the standpoint of the the the fan, the music fan going to see a show, you know, again, you see the band, maybe they're playing, you know, a House of Blues sized venue or, you know, something like that and thinking, wow, you know, these guys, they're making a ton of money and this is amazing. And, you know, not realizing like the cut that goes to your management, the cut that goes to the booking agent.
Barnett English (15:03.326) Yeah.
Danny (15:04.596) The venue wants 20 % of your merchandise sales. I mean, things like that. mean, it's just, you know, it's crazy on that back end. And it's just sort of you know, self -fulfilling prophecy here of the price, know. So, of course, then the ticket prices need to go up and then, you know, it's just this reoccurring nightmare that we're all sort of dealing with. But yeah, it is ridiculous to try to go to a festival price wise. I mean, it's out of control.
Barnett English (15:09.131) Yeah, wow.
Barnett English (15:25.056) Yeah.
Barnett English (15:33.081) Yeah. And my heart goes out to all the musicians that, you know, I just don't know how anyone makes a living creating the art that they're, you know, they're, you know, they're, they're not just wanting to do it. They have to do it. You know, you're an artist. gotta, this is in you, you know, you want to put this stuff out and this is what you want to do. And so to make a living out of, just don't know how people got to be so savvy and frugal and, you know, wear 40 hats, you know, you got to be your, your own so
Danny (15:59.54) Yes. Yeah, you pivot. Yeah, you pivot. You do different things, you know. I mean, yeah, it's certainly different like the way that we look at touring now versus years ago. You know, we do more special event type things, you know, to give the fan like a really unique experience. For example, probably one of my favorite things we've ever done this last December, we did three nights.
Barnett English (16:12.834) Mm -hmm.
Barnett English (16:22.112) Yeah.
Danny (16:28.838) at the Overlook Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, you know, like the Shining Hotel. And there is an old music hall there on the stage where the drums are set up. There was a trap door that they had built for when Harry Houdini was going to perform there. And I was like, OK, this is amazing. But, you know, so we did like an out on complete album.
Barnett English (16:33.068) cool. Yeah.
Barnett English (16:47.053) That's amazing.
Danny (16:53.34) We did, you know, a different album each night, and then we'd take a break and come back and do another full set of music and then do a VIP event every night. So people could, you know, buy like a hotel package and the VIP tickets. And it became like a complete experience. But we found like, you know, that you kind of have to do more of those kind of things as opposed to just like, we're going to do a US tour and a bus and play a bunch of House of Blues type venues or something, you know, it's.
Barnett English (17:00.291) Yeah.
Barnett English (17:08.621) Yes.
Barnett English (17:13.56) Yeah.
Barnett English (17:19.683) Yeah, I think that's a great, that's a super great model. You know, you can really appeal to your super fan and just say, hey, come spend a weekend with us in this killer location. We're going to do four or five super far out weird shows. We're going to, know, like you say, do this one album one night and, you know, costume the next night. And that's a great way of really, you know, just kind of mining the, your fans, the ones that really freaking love you, you know, it's impossible to go out and try to conquer the world anymore. That's just crazy.
Danny (17:43.889) Yeah.
Danny (17:47.805) Yeah.
Barnett English (17:48.62) You know, the world is too fragmented and disjointed. but yeah, appealing to your own fans like that is killer. That's a great, great model.
Danny (17:57.831) You know, the Joshua Tree Music Festival was voted the number one music festival in the United States by USA Today. What other you know, what are some of the other things that make it so unique?
Barnett English (18:10.332) Good question. And just for the record, I did actually vote for ourselves on that, on that Reader's Choice Award. I think I voted multiple times. But yeah, what makes it special is again, it's kind of like this living breathing organism and I try to keep it, you know, we don't want it to get too big, you know, because I think having a few thousand people out there is really a great size. Again, it becomes this, it's more the experience and the humor and interaction and the shared experiences that we have.
Danny (18:19.676) Sure, why not?
Barnett English (18:40.253) that make it unique. And then we also more than, like I said, I've been to over 1200 music festivals and we make it a family friendly experience. it's like five, 600 kids come and it's super action packed for the kids. So if the kids are having fun, then mom and dad can also have fun because just because you're a parent doesn't mean you don't like to rock and roll still.
Danny (19:02.395) Yeah.
Barnett English (19:07.826) But making it super kid friendly and really meaning that not just putting out a little sandbox and a couple of plastic toys. mean, we have this action packed part of the festival that really is the heartbeat of the festival. So I think that that's part of it, but it's also just really laid back. There's no long lines. You don't watch a band on the Jumbotron. You can walk right up to the front of the stage. You know, you don't have to get your bags checked by the guys in yellow jackets. You know, it's just really laid back. it's
We get a lot of people that actually come up to me and just go, Hey, you know what? We don't go to music festivals, but we come to this one. You know? So, it's just unique in that it's, think it's just smaller, more intimate and, and, you know, but still have some killer music to really inspire people.
Danny (19:43.11) Hahaha
Danny (19:54.887) Yeah. You know, you kind of started to mention a little bit and I had wrote it down besides the music. What you know, there's you do other things, right, for people to do and for the kids and stuff. What are some of those things about?
Barnett English (20:02.047) Yeah. Yeah. Man, I just was going over the schedule for our next festival. We have over 99 different movement or mindfulness or merriment type workshops or play shops. So they might be a music play shop or a dance class or yoga class. We have a grief cafe and
AA meetings in a queer salon where we have counseling and drag bingo with the lovely Lady Shalane. She comes out to grace us and entertain us. So a lot of people really love that. In fact, you know, it's kind of a revelation because I've been going to festivals for so long and I'm such a music freak that I just go straight to the front of the stage and stay there all day. You know, go to the bathroom, get some food.
Danny (20:32.603) Hmm.
Barnett English (20:56.543) get something to drink, come back. But I just focus on the music. But so many people tell me that, no, we spent all day around the lake and we didn't, we just went to play shops all day. Cause that's where we actually really get to meet and connect with people. Cause they sat in this group with 12 people and they like poured their hearts out or learned something new together. Well, now they're friends for the rest of the weekend. Like they're tight. So it adds to that whole shared experience and then getting to connect with people. So.
Danny (21:05.776) Hmm.
Barnett English (21:24.956) We've really made that a big part of our whole weekend. So yeah, there's a lot beyond the music.
Danny (21:29.298) Cool. Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, I could definitely see where that would kind of just add to that, you know, that overall mystique and, you know, just thing that sets it apart from so many other music festivals. You know, we started to talk a little bit about the behind the scenes and the logistics and stuff now. And this is a twice a year festival, correct? So you do May and October.
Barnett English (21:49.791) Yeah.
Barnett English (21:53.921) Yeah, every May, every May and October. Yeah, we started that first one in spring of 2003. And then in 2006, we had our first fall festival because it was kind of like Christmas. I couldn't wait all year for Santa to come again. So whether it was a great idea or not at the beginning, I was like, well, let's do one in the fall too. So ever since 2006, we've had a fall one. So this will actually be the 41st time we've had a festival.
Danny (22:09.201) Okay.
Barnett English (22:24.673) Two of those are virtual and one was a socially distant concert series back in pandemic times. But so yeah, it's a lot. you know, so it's basically a year round kind of thing. And I'm always, you know, like I'm bands now for the May and October Festival of 2025. And so it's a constant thing. Yeah.
Danny (22:29.618) Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Danny (22:41.17) Okay, that's kind of what I was gonna, yeah, I was kind of interested to just get a little feedback there on, know, just obviously it's a full -time thing for you, you know, and I think it must be difficult, you know, for people that kind of just have a regular job to think about being in that position where like, you're working every day on something that's going to happen a year from now, you know, or eight months from now, you know, and.
Barnett English (23:06.229) Yeah, yeah, it's kind of crazy.
Danny (23:10.235) But I guess we all know how quickly, especially as you get older, that'll seem like the blink of an eye and you'll be having a festival.
Barnett English (23:15.477) Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, but it is like, you know, with our festival being two weeks away, I am actually, when I get, you know, within two or three weeks of the festival, I become all reinvigorated about it because there's these bands that are playing that I booked like nine months ago and not having, I haven't forgotten about them, but then I'm, now I'm like interacting with them and working out a bunch of the details. And so now I'm getting excited again. I'm going,
damn, these guys are gonna be amazing. it's kind of fun. And when it gets closer to the event, I start getting super, super charged up and have trouble sleeping.
Danny (23:53.337) Yeah. Tell us a little bit about because like you said, there's an October upcoming event here. Tell us about this October festival.
Barnett English (24:03.044) Yeah, it's, it's a October 10 through 13 and, and we, we start, the festivities kick off on Thursday evening. So a lot of people actually come on Wednesday night and set up camp and chill out and sit under the stars. And then, but by Thursday evening, we've got music happening and then Friday, Saturday and Sunday, it's all day and night music and workshops and play shops and kids bill activities. So, you know, a lot of people come in on.
on Wednesday and then they leave on Monday. So they've been there for a while, you know? So like it's five days and nights and a lot of meals of camping outside together and hanging out. so it's, you know, it's an investment in time for people. So I'm always really grateful and honored that so many people show up and keep coming back.
Danny (24:50.19) Yeah, yeah. You know, so you mentioned camping, which is always a huge part of these music festivals. And I don't know how like the European music fans do it, but they they will will camp in a muddy field in its four days of pouring rain. And when I'm playing one of those, just like that you you you couldn't pay me enough.
Barnett English (25:06.391) Yeah.
Right?
Danny (25:16.132) to go do, you know, what these people are doing to watch these bands play. is so do you do packages that kind of involve like camping as well as a ticket? Or how do you kind of how does the customer go about?
Barnett English (25:17.612) Yeah, I
No doubt.
Barnett English (25:27.749) Yeah, well people come in all shapes and sizes and they camp out in all different ways. Some people come and sleep in their cars and some sleep on the ground, literally on a bed roll and then all types of tents and then the trailers and RVs and then we have some RV hookups and then we have a bunch of, probably close to 40 now, old trailers that we keep.
dragging home and refurbishing them. So they have an air conditioner and a cozy mattress and lights and we paint them up all funky. And so we brought those out to some folks. so yeah, it's all shapes and sizes out there in the campground.
Danny (25:59.691) my God. Yeah.
Cool.
Danny (26:11.671) So so somebody who wants to come to the festival, can they do like a package, you know, where they're getting admission, but also maybe renting this camper or just getting a camp spot? Are those all kind of packaged together?
Barnett English (26:17.806) Mm.
Barnett English (26:24.966) Well, actually, if you just buy the ticket, you can come in and camp with your tent for free. And then if you want to bring your vehicle in, you just buy a vehicle pass. we keep it pretty simple and pretty straight. Yeah. And if you want to rent the trailer, then that's a different fee. But one thing we do is we don't, know, we're kind of, we're all free range humans. don't have any, we don't have any VIPs because I think we're all VIPs.
Danny (26:35.073) Okay, people simple, yeah.
Barnett English (26:51.813) You know, and I go to a lot of festivals and they have a VIP section that's the closest you can get is 40 feet from the stage, you know, and, unless you've paid to be in the VIP section. And I think it kind of kills the whole intention of gum going to a festival as we came to be together and now you're separating us. So we've never done that.
Danny (26:55.939) sure sure
Danny (27:03.504) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's yeah. And some of that is, again, a response to bands looking at different ways from a financial standpoint, because we've we've been doing we've been doing a bunch of the final no effects shows. I think we did 10 of 10 of them as like.
Barnett English (27:21.221) Mm -hmm.
yeah.
Danny (27:32.103) you know, it'd be like us Pennywise no effects. so no effects there. They're wrapping up. think they have five more shows and then they're, calling it quits. And so, yeah, they were selling like, you know, on stage access and different kinds of things. And I think a lot of that is just like the band figuring out like, okay, how do we, you know, how can we maximize it? You know, so I, I sympathize with the band, but at the same time, again, it's like, yeah, are we.
Barnett English (27:46.805) yeah.
Barnett English (27:56.037) Yeah, for sure.
Danny (28:00.857) taking something away from just kind of the original experience of just going and everybody's in the room and you know, or in that field, right, right. Nobody's special.
Barnett English (28:07.753) We're all there together, know? Yeah, yeah, we stick with, yeah, yeah, we're all special. We're all special for sure. So yeah, we don't do that because I just feel like it really does kind of, it is a bit of a vibe kill, so to speak. I mean, I just love that, you know, everybody's right up there on the dance floor together and it's really kind of hysterical. I mean, I look around and I kind of crack up. I have a lot of friends that are my age, I'm 61 and they'll go, yeah, man, we're, you know, we're too old. We don't go to music festivals. I'm like.
I've got 80 year old friends that dance circles around my ass out there. So it's really, really refreshing to see folks of all ages at our festival from the kids that are running around to the, it's unique. I don't see that a lot at other festivals.
Danny (28:40.376) Sure, sure.
Danny (28:53.794) Well, it sounds amazing. mean, I haven't been to the festival. I'd love to come to one. And the way you describe it, too, it just seems very fitting for the area, you know, for how a lot of things work in, you know, the Morongo Basin, that area out there. It is, you know, a little bit different mindset with some of these things, you know.
Barnett English (29:04.466) Yeah.
Barnett English (29:14.674) Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I love the mindset and I love, you know, I was listening to your interview with the folks that are putting on the film festival, the queer film festival. you know, and then you guys were talking about like, wow, when we first moved here, I just didn't realize how many people, how many artisans are out here. And it's true, they're just, it's for per capita, there's so many talented artists out here.
Danny (29:26.194) yeah, yeah.
Danny (29:36.28) Yeah.
Barnett English (29:42.921) I go to a party with 30 people and I feel like I'm the only person that can't play an instrument really well or paint or sculpt or something, you know, like it's that thick. And so that's another really cool thing about, you know, the town that we live in. I love it.
Danny (29:46.67) Hahaha
Danny (29:55.342) Yeah, I think on that I think on that episode, I said that that, you know, I was like two or three weeks earlier, like playing a festival in Portland, you know, one of these big no effects festivals. And I'm backstage hanging out with another drummer who lives three blocks from me in 29 Palms. You know, it's just like and yeah, it I yeah, it is an amazing amount of artists out there. And that's part of what just makes as part of the charm for sure.
Barnett English (30:13.112) that's great. That's so great.
Barnett English (30:24.945) Yeah, for sure. I love it.
Danny (30:27.094) Well, I will make sure in the show notes to put the website and just all the information that people need who want to see what the schedule looks like and just get more information and want to come out. But I mean, you know, if you're in the Southern California area and hearing this and you haven't been out to the Joshua Tree area, especially in this kind of like mid -October time frame, like that, that's the golden.
Barnett English (30:35.891) Yay!
Barnett English (30:52.967) Yeah.
Danny (30:54.913) You're hitting the golden months there where it's just unreal, magical, like perfect, unreal weather. You know, come out, watch some great music, bunch of great places to go eat, you know, just I guarantee people are going to have amazing time. So.
Barnett English (30:57.498) It's pretty sweet, yeah.
Barnett English (31:12.973) Thank you so much, Danny. I really appreciate it. I love what you're doing and getting a lot of these stories out. You know, like we were talking, there's so many artists up here and for you to be chatting them up and sharing their stories, I think is really, is a great thing. Cause I think people can't really find out, people can't really figure out what's going on up here. I think you could drive up and down highway 62 and go, what's going on here? So these types of things are awesome.
Danny (31:28.194) Thank you.
Danny (31:37.549) Yeah. Yeah. You know, when I when I first moved out, my brother, you know, he was talking to, think, somebody in my band. came to see us in Chicago. He saying, yeah, the first time I flew in to see, you know, go to Danny's house at Christmas, I thought, man, this this area is weird, you know? And then the second time I came back, I was like, it's kind of kind of interesting, kind of cool. And the third time I came back, I'm like, man, it is really cool out here, you know? And I think that's the experience that a lot of people.
Barnett English (31:55.371) Yeah.
Barnett English (32:03.808) Yeah, yeah, totally.
Danny (32:07.222) you know, have as they come out and come out more often and just, you know, experience some of the everything that there is to offer out there. So, yeah, I'm trying to do my little part in just highlighting the cool stories and the cool people and and, you know, and just some of the cool history as well that is out in the area. So I really appreciate your time and I hope you have a great successful festival.
Barnett English (32:22.572) I love it.
Barnett English (32:34.901) Awesome, thank you so much brother, I really appreciate it. Take care. All right, bye bye. Yeah.
Danny (32:36.949) My pleasure. All right. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. I think we hit everything important. Okay. Okay, cool.
Barnett English (32:45.397) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
Summary
Graham Kolbeins and Jonathan Andre Culliton, founders of the 29 Queer Film Fest, discuss their backgrounds as filmmakers and the inspiration behind the festival. They talk about the films being showcased, including world premieres and queer horror shorts. The festival is designed to create a space for queer stories and foster the filmmaking community in the high desert area. They also discuss the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community in the area and the support they have received from local businesses and organizations.
Visit the webiste HERE
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background 04:10 Inception of the 29 Queer Film Fest 06:01 Film Highlights and Gala Events 08:35 Festival Schedule and Venues 11:31 Attending the Film Fest: Tips for Newcomers 13:46 Future Plans and Fostering the Filmmaking Community 15:01 Acceptance and Support in the High Desert 17:28 Closing Remarks and Event Details
Danny (00:01.779) All right, Graham Cole Beans and Jonathan Andre Coliton. Coliton, thanks for being on the Highway 62 podcast. How are you guys today?
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (00:02.208) Yeah.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (00:10.902) Thank you for having us. great. Yeah, we're doing good.
Danny (00:16.915) Awesome. And you guys are the founders, right, of the first ever inaugural 29 Queer Film Fest that's happening in September the 20th and 22nd. Before we get into a little bit about the actual Film Fest and kind of what it's all about, give me just a brief little background on each of you.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (00:24.214) Thank
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (00:40.758) Sure. So we're both filmmakers and I'll just start talking about myself. I'm mostly a documentary filmmaker though I've recently started doing some narrative filmmaking. I shot a short film here in 29 Palms in June called Outage that I'm currently in post -production on.
Danny (00:50.707) Ha
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (01:07.688) I'm pretty deeply involved in film and when we came out here... Can I roll that back a little bit? Okay, great, I just lost my train of thought. Sorry. Yeah, so I'm a filmmaker, a videographer.
Danny (01:20.669) Sure. I can edit anything too, it's fine.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (01:33.654) and I'm a queer person in 29 palms and those all informed co -founding this festival. I'm also... Sorry? Where are you originally from? I was born in Vancouver, Canada.
Danny (01:43.315) Where are you originally from?
Danny (01:48.648) Where are you originally from?
Danny (01:53.467) Okay. Right on. I love Vancouver. I was just, I was just in, I've been to Canada a lot lately. I was in Toronto last weekend and the weekend before I was in Edmonton. So I spent a lot of time in the Kenyatta.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (01:57.504) Yeah, that's a great place.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (02:06.143) I'm cool.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (02:10.142) Nice. What were you doing in Toronto?
Danny (02:13.043) I play in a band, so we're playing some festivals up there. But yeah, we do a lot of Canadian shows. Graham, what about you?
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (02:16.319) Awesome.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (02:21.11) me? You mean Jonathan, yes. That's okay. No, I'm a born and bred Bostonian with all the details. But yeah, I'm also a filmmaker. Currently I'm rolling out a couple of films.
Danny (02:24.967) Jonathan, I'm sorry, your buys are both Canadian.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (02:43.542) Spookable which played at the Maryland Film Festival in frame 48 and is about to play at Prism 37. And then I have Will It Justice Drag Queen Private Eye which is showing, both of those films are showing actually at the 29 Queer Film Festival and that film stars Lady Shalane who is the premier high desert drag queen of our current timeline.
Danny (03:12.083) Yeah, Yeah, she was one of my first guests on the podcast, like second or third episode ever. Right on. How did you guys how did you guys end up settling in the 29 Palms area?
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (03:13.462) Amazing. She's really special.
Yeah, so I moved out here four years ago from Los Angeles. It was during the pandemic. I had lost work and I had always wanted to move to the high desert but never really thought that it was feasible. But in that moment an opportunity became available. A friend said, hey, I have a cabin that just opened up and I moved into that cabin in July 2020. And I've
just loved living here ever since. Yeah, and then I followed Graham because I fell in love with them so I just followed. I just came out here to be closer to them.
Danny (04:01.949) Right on.
Danny (04:10.449) Very nice, very nice. So tell me about kind of the inception and the idea and how it came to be that you put this film festival together.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (04:20.438) Yeah, well we both were mentees in Workshop 29, which was a program out of PAC, the Arts Council here. And we both were encouraged to do programming. They wanted people to think about all ages programming and
programming for different identities basically. So we were encouraged to do some sort of event which isn't really natural to our filmmaking careers except for film festivals. know, that's sort of the place that Archive gathers. So we thought, you know, this is an opportunity not only to make an event here, which is the first of its kind here.
but also to create a film festival from the perspective of being filmmakers who have been at film festivals and had varying experiences. And as you know, we have such a beautiful place to offer, but no movie theater here. the idea of sharing film...
Danny (05:36.326) Yeah, right.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (05:40.678) and making a place for it, a literal physical place where you can sit in a comfortable chair and watch it in a dark room as it's intended is something we thought was really special that we could give the entire community.
Danny (06:01.023) on. Sounds great. What tell us a little bit about some of the films maybe I know there's quite a bit on the agenda there I read through the press release but maybe give us what you think is going to be a few of just sort of the highlights of the you know the Cup multi -day event.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (06:16.182) Yeah, so we're showing 30 films over three days, including three feature films. Yeah, the features are sort of can't miss. You've got a world premiere of Poppy's Pregnant, which is the story of our friend, trans -MAC non -binary person getting pregnant. Then you've got People's Joker, already an iconic film from Vera Drew.
And then we've got Off Ramp to Cabot Off, which is a film with a trans actor, but it's about juggalos, if you know anything about insane clown posse. So these are unusual queer stories. So the features are really can't miss to me. And then what else do we have? We have a queer horror program full of shorts from around the world. We have
Danny (06:59.955) Yeah, yeah.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (07:11.104) Bears, Lesbians, and Queers, My, which is an eclectic program with all kinds of different representation. And one of our other gala events is the premiere of Willa Justice Drag Queen Private Eye, along with a performance by Lady Shalane and Drag Bingo, which she does all around the high desert. And Free Eye Fall to Pizzas. Pizza.
Danny (07:37.247) yeah. Give us a little bit of just kind of like the schedule, because I know there's different events. There's a couple different venues involved. I've attended a film festival. went to the Yucca Valley Film Festival this year. you know what, it's something that I'm really enjoying about living out in the area there is, I mean, first of all, when I moved out there,
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (08:04.115) It was.
Danny (08:06.463) I just didn't expect there to be so much arts going on. know, even though I knew like other drummers and other musicians that had moved out to the area, but it's been so great to just kind of get involved with, you know, the community. And I think because it's a little bit smaller area, it's easier to attend these different events and, you know, versus like going to like a big film festival in Austin or in L .A. or, you know, any of those kind of things. So I'm really enjoying that. And
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (08:22.602) you
Danny (08:34.451) If you've never been to a film festival, I mean, I've been a movie film fanatic ever since my cinema study class in high school in 1984 back in Chicago. And I never went to a film fest until I went to the Yucca Valley one this, this year, you know, so it's a really cool experience. And if you haven't been to one before, I would just really recommend people to, to check something like that out. But anyway, give us kind of a rundown. Where is it happening?
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (08:35.871) you
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (08:43.722) Thank you.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (09:02.186) Anyway.
Danny (09:04.347) a little rundown of like the schedule and how it all works.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (09:07.51) Sure, yeah, to your point we're making it so it's like everything's within like 10 minutes of each other and that makes a really great film festival experience and in my experience so yeah we have theater 29 as the main hub of the festival 99 % of the programming happens there we have an after dark 18 plus show
on the night of Saturday the 20th, 21st, that is at corner 62 and then out on the patio. And then we have a after party on the 20th at Out There Bar which is totally free and cross event with Tits and Palms. So it's mostly at Theater 29.
and that's a great venue for theater out here. We have a projection situation there that's really comfortable and beautiful. So it's mostly there and the food vendors will be there as well. So the fun will be brought to there and people can kind of hang around there for hours. Yeah, and unlike bigger festivals that have like maybe three or four different screenings happening simultaneously,
Everything's happening like in a linear fashion so you could go to every program if you wanted to and we're trying to make the Theater 29 experience really cool so there's going to be a prop exhibit with props from a bunch of the different movies and themed snacks and all kinds of fun stuff. Yeah, every day has a gala event, a feature, and a shorts block so there's something really big happening every day.
Danny (10:32.935) Gotcha.
Danny (10:55.717) Wonderful. All right. And this might seem like almost like a silly question. But again, this is my experience, you know, like when I go to a website to check out a film fest and I think this is something for somebody who's never been to one before, it can be a little confusing, like, OK, what do I pay for? What day should you know, like how is it organized? What day do I go to? You know, obviously this is, as you're explaining, a little bit more condensed.
running linear like you said makes it a lot easier. Give like the simplest explanation to an absolute total film fest newbie and maybe even a recommendation of how they should go about doing it.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (11:31.414) We'll right back.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (11:38.07) Well, you do want to go to all of the programming, you want to buy the pass and you want to wait for the pass because we have a little small town glitch that made the passes not go up immediately. So I'd say wait for the pass. The passes are limited because we have a limited capacity venue. So we have to limit the amount that we can block out for that.
Danny (11:51.377) Hahaha
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (12:03.26) So if you don't want to go to quite all of them, would say go on the website and choose those four programs. It's going to be less than the past, but you'll only be paying for what you're actually seeing. Yeah, check out 29qff .com for the full event listing and links to buy tickets to each of the programs.
Danny (12:31.677) sounds good. Ali will make sure that I put in the show notes here on the podcast, all those kind of links and everything for people to check it out. It sounds like it's going to be a fun event. What do you guys got planned in the future? Are you thinking that far down the road yet with this stuff?
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (12:38.336) Thank you.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (12:48.212) Yeah, we all, yeah, they really encouraged us to do that at the mentorship to really think about this as a start of more programming. we envisioned that not only will the film festival be a banner for more filmmaking programming, for film, more film going programming, but also filmmaking, because that's what we sort of started doing out here anyway.
You know, we walked out to all these beautiful, like, mountains and stuff, and we were like, why aren't we shooting? Why are we finding excuses for stories to happen here more and more? So as we work through the festival and as we, you know, get more youth programming going in the high desert, I think it's an invaluable thing for us to bring filmmaking into that, to give people a great skill if they want to leave the area to go.
to Los Angeles to make with what is left of the industry there. They have that opportunity too, but there's plenty starting to happen out here and in different communities all over the country with independent filmmaking. So that's my personal vision for it. don't know if you... Yeah, we really want to encourage and foster the filmmaking community here in the high desert.
Danny (14:02.983) Yeah. Yeah.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (14:15.67) Hopefully we'll be doing this festival every year. We were really grateful to receive a grant from the T -Bid, the Tourism Bureau here in 29 Palms. Hopefully they'll continue to support our efforts. We've received a number of amazing sponsorships from local businesses, including Son of the Desert.
Danny (14:28.401) Mmm
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (14:43.562) We've got Ace Desert Hardware, Maso Menos, The Station. So it's been really just encouraging to see the amount of support in the community.
Danny (14:49.554) Woohoo!
Danny (15:01.083) Wonderful. You know, I wanted to ask you guys just as a personal note for you, you know, from your perspective, moving out to, you know, the high desert area, Murongo Basin, how do you find the area as it relates to, you know, being queer or, you know, the LGBTQ plus community, the acceptance level and just because it's an interesting, wide ranging mix of people, right? There is, you know, like
filmmaker and then the next, you know, plot of land over could be like, you know, a guy with a prepping bunker, you know, with Trump flags out or whatever, you know, which is fine. But it's a wide mix of people.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (15:40.042) Yeah, that was a great one. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely, there is a strong, perhaps underserved queer community in this area. We've met so many incredible people and we try to support all the events that we can that happen locally. Out There Bar does,
a number of queer events like Tits and Palms. So we try to go out and just be in community with the other queer people whenever we get a chance. And we're really lucky to have some best friends living next door who are a queer couple. So it feels like we have... It's like a sitcom vibe where it's like, you know, there's all these cookie cutter houses around us and then we both have the weird houses.
Danny (16:28.211) Ha
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (16:38.304) There's like, you know, a couple of non -binary people, couple of trans -masse people, four queer people total on the end of this street. know, so that's been a unique experience for me to have our neighbor be a fellow trans man. Like, it's not something that I had in Los Angeles. I'd have to go to meet all my trans man friends, you know, someplace in Silver Lake, so.
Danny (16:39.612) Ha ha ha ha.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (17:06.238) I feel like out here I have way more of a community in some ways because you reach for it more. But you're right, we have the people with the flags down the street. It is right around the corner. So yeah, safety in numbers and community always.
Danny (17:08.262) Right, right.
Danny (17:28.467) Awesome. Guys, thank you so much for being on the show with me here. I look forward to hearing all about the event. I don't know. I think I'm going to be out of town during that weekend, unfortunately. But I will make sure for all the listeners, I put everything in the show notes where they can buy tickets, get more information, go to the website, read more about all the different films and everything that's happening on the weekend program.
And again, if you've never been to a film festival, I highly recommend the experience. It's super fun. I love it. So, yeah, I hope you guys have a really successful event and I'll be looking forward to future projects.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (18:10.016) Thank you so much for your time. Thanks, Danny. We really appreciate it. Have a good one. See you around the desert.
Danny (18:13.949) Thank you. My pleasure.
Summary
Patrick Hasson shares his journey from being a filmmaker to becoming a full-time artist. He talks about the frustrations of the film industry and how it led him to seek a change. He bought a house in Joshua Tree and transformed it into a colorful, vibrant space, which he rented out on Airbnb. This sparked his interest in painting, and he started creating abstract art using a dripping technique. He eventually ventured into portrait painting, focusing on desert rock musicians. Patrick Hasson is an artist who specializes in creating vibrant and unique portraits using a drip technique. He shares how he discovered this technique and how it has become his signature style. Patrick also talks about his series called Desert Dudes, where he painted portraits of desert rock musicians, and how it led to his first art show. He discusses the challenges he faced during the pandemic and his upcoming series called 1969, which pays homage to classic rock musicians. Patrick invites listeners to his upcoming art show and shares his journey as an artist.
Patrick's Contact
Instagram Here
Patrick's link tree with all the important details about upcoming shows HERE
Danny (00:01.369) All right, Patrick Hassan, welcome to the Highway 62 podcast. Thanks so much for taking some time out. How's everything going today?
Patrick Hasson (00:10.988) Doing okay, man. It's getting a little cooler in the desert, so things are good.
Danny (00:12.716) Awesome.
Yes Yeah, I actually I'm down in Irvine for the summer here, but I was home Day before yesterday came came home for a day to check on the house and all that good stuff and definitely it was starting to feel a little bit better so looking forward to Looking forward to that. So you've got a great art show coming up that we are going to talk a little bit about but you've got a great story on you know, how you became a full -time artist and
I want to hear all about that stuff. give us the, you know, the dime store tour.
Patrick Hasson (00:49.57) Okay, I was a independent filmmaker for about 20 years from the East Coast. Eventually, like most people, made my way to LA 2002. Did, you know, did some films that I wrote and directed. I did a little comedy called Waiting, a horror film called Bloodshed, did some documentaries, but long story short,
That's a tough business as anybody who's been in it. I think for me the most frustrating part of the world of film is film's a very expensive medium. And because of that, you usually need a lot of people to come on board, especially producers. So, you know, unless you're Quentin Tarantino, what happens is the art you're trying to make always gets compromised and
Danny (01:46.072) Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (01:47.084) Which is fine, but what happens, you know, as the budgets start to get bigger and the last film I did had a two million dollar budget, which was really cool, but the producer really kinda came on in the editing process and it just, it destroyed the film, so that was happening with me, you know, very frustrated with that world and I was an alcoholic and pretty...
Danny (02:04.92) Mm
Patrick Hasson (02:16.31) pretty bad drug addicts, it was kind of this perfect circle of wasn't happy with filmmaking, my life was out of control, and then there was a period there where I just, know, most of the times I would freelance as an editor to make money. At that time, I was editing adult films. I had cut for Digital Playground, Playboy, blah, blah, which is kind of a mind fuck, you know, like.
Danny (02:32.014) Mm -hmm.
Patrick Hasson (02:45.41) You know, some people hear that and they're like, that must be wonderful. And I'm like, trust me, there are things that you do not want to see eight hours a day, five days a week. So I just kind of felt it.
Danny (02:57.293) Well, plus the amazing dialogue you've got to work around when you're editing.
Patrick Hasson (03:01.557) my god.
I mean, I actually shot a documentary about that world, which was cool, but I just, was done, so I checked into a rehab 2014 and I got out, you I was living in a shitty apartment in LA and I had somehow bought a house in Joshua Tree. I bought a little drug house.
Danny (03:10.488) Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (03:31.906) for 73 grand and the whole reason I started coming to Joshua Tree to kind of turn the story back is when I got to LA 2002 I'm reading the LA Weekly and on the cover was it was Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri from the Stone Age and I was like huh who's this? So I knew nothing about Desert Rock so always a big music fan read this article and it they talked about you know Chris Goss and Brant Bjork and
Danny (03:46.275) Mm -hmm. Sure.
Patrick Hasson (04:00.874) Mary O 'Lally and it talked about these generator parties and Kaius and all these desert bands and you know what really got me was like these guys were just kind of doing their own thing you know especially like a
Danny (04:09.751) Hmm
Danny (04:14.647) Yeah. Yeah, I've actually, I actually played with Nick a couple times. Yeah, I filled, I played drums in face to face as my full time band, but I filled in for the Dwarves a couple times. So I did a bunch of rehearsals with Nick. I don't think we did shows together, but he came down to my studio down at Costa Mesa and we did rehearsals for a pre -production stuff we were doing for a new Dwarves album.
Patrick Hasson (04:20.939) Really?
Patrick Hasson (04:29.218) Nice. Nice.
Danny (04:44.343) that I was hoping to play on, but I was out on tour and then, you know, they always had Josh Freeze play on there and if you can get Josh to play on your record, you're gonna probably pick him over me anyway. But it was still really fun to hang out and work on those songs with him.
Patrick Hasson (04:54.668) Yeah. Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (05:00.864) Yeah, Nick's awesome. He was my neighbor for a while before I sold the Rainbow House, which is a whole nother story. But yeah, he's super cool guy. Love Nick. So, you know, I started coming to the desert and I don't know, I guess for some reason I thought I was gonna run into these guys and hang out, but I didn't. And I was never a musician. always...
Danny (05:18.871) Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (05:25.378) loved music and I was kind of in my head wanted to be a musician but I just I don't know it just never happened. So coming to Joshua Tree I just did that for years so living in LA I would come out to Joshua Tree and just hang in the park I didn't know anybody. So when my life was you know starting to fall apart in I guess it was like 2012 I started driving to the desert and one day I was like I wonder what a house costs out here and you know back then
Danny (05:31.864) Mm -hmm.
Danny (05:54.931) Right? Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (05:55.042) houses were 60 grand, you know? So I was like, you know, I wasn't thinking, you know, totally straight, but I was like, wow, man, you know, if I bought a house out here, I'd have a place to die. I mean, that's kind of what I thought. I was just like, because living in LA, you know, I would envision myself being like 65 and little shit apartment, not getting hired and it.
Danny (06:08.481) Yeah. Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (06:18.752) I just, so I did it. bought it and then I got sober and then it was like, what am I gonna do with this house? So I started coming out to the desert and like I said, it was a drug house. So I would be there, you know, two in the morning, ba ba ba. You know, like what the fuck? And I would come and it was some guy like, hey man, is Bob here? I'm like, no, Bob.
Bob's not here, and that happened a number of times. I was like, all right, I gotta change the mojo of this place. The house was covered shit brown, and I just was like, you know, I'm gonna paint it really bright, happy color so that people know this is not the drug house. So painted it bright orange, and then once you paint the outside bright orange and the inside's all crappy white, I just started painting, like one day was looking at a stop sign.
Danny (06:50.359) Yeah.
Danny (06:58.509) Mm -hmm.
Patrick Hasson (07:14.114) was like, I'm gonna paint this room like, you know, red. And then I was looking outside and there was like a yellow flower. I'm like, I'm gonna paint the kitchen yellow. So then all of a sudden, I went to art school way back in the day and I remember the color wheel, you know, you got blue, yellow, red, your primary. So I painted the primaries and then the three, the two bedrooms and the bathroom, I painted the secondary which was orange, green and purple.
Danny (07:27.628) Okay.
Patrick Hasson (07:44.206) And, you know, it was amazing. I had turned this really horrible house into something, you know, bright and colorful. And again, I didn't know what I was going to do with it. My neighbors were like, what the fuck? know, at the time when I came to the desert, everything was, you know, brown and white. You know, there I don't remember seeing a whole lot of color. So.
Danny (07:52.929) Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Hasson (08:11.714) In fact, I had one neighbor, he was like really upset. He's like, dude, your house looks like Sesame Street. I'm like, what's wrong with that? You know, I like Sesame Street. So I just, I heard about Airbnb and I put it on Airbnb and that really changed my life because people started renting it. I called the house Rancho El Reposo. You know, this is 2014. You know, I was just like, wow.
Danny (08:15.159) Yeah.
Danny (08:19.444) Ha ha
Danny (08:33.593) Wow.
Patrick Hasson (08:41.154) I'm making money, so for two years, I'm going back and forth from LA. You know, I'd come out, be here two hours, clean the house, because I couldn't afford someone to clean it, and then I would go back to LA. I did that for two years, and the house was getting popular, and people started to know about it. So, you I was in this weird predicament in 2016. I was like, I gotta do something.
Danny (08:52.568) Yeah.
Danny (08:59.203) Hmm.
Patrick Hasson (09:08.278) You know, I can't keep doing this drive back and forth. So luckily, I was doing OK financially from Airbnb and I found the house, which I'm actually in right now where I live. You know, it was this pretty big house, but it had been the site of a murder -suicide, which I wasn't aware. Apparently, it had happened years before, so the realtors...
Danny (09:31.437) Wow.
Patrick Hasson (09:36.643) didn't say anything about it, a cop told me one day and I bought this place for $105 ,000, three acres. I had a big Kwanzaa hut in the back and it was kind of the same deal. said, all right, you know, I'm going to go rainbow again. So I painted the roof. I painted it red and purple stripes. So again, you know, people are driving by like, what the fuck are you, what are you doing? You know, and it's right on highway 62.
Danny (09:53.593) Mm
Patrick Hasson (10:05.89) painted the outside purple and red, so it really attracted attention. Inside did the same thing, each color a different color. you know, I had zero money for decor or anything. So I just, started, let me actually get one. I started, I was buying, I was literally go down to Olivera Street in LA and I buy these little $10 guitars.
Danny (10:24.962) Okay.
Danny (10:35.214) Mm -hmm.
Patrick Hasson (10:35.914) And as you could see, I had all this rainbow house paint because of doing the painting. I just started, you know, just, I mean, it was basically like this. I just kind of started splattering paint on it. And I was like, yeah, that's cool. So I hung them on the walls and I opened the house and it, it happened again. It, you know, people really dug it. Unfortunately, it became kind of a party house, which,
That's hard to change once it begins, the cool thing was it got really popular. So I started, you know, basically the walls, I my little guitars and you know, obviously I was like, well, I gotta live somewhere. So I bought a little fifth wheel. I bought it in LA for like four grand and I put it at the edge of the property and you know, basically I lived there for two years, but the...
Danny (11:08.505) Mmm.
Patrick Hasson (11:34.41) I thought the really cool thing about it was, not that I was spying on my guests, but I could kinda watch. You know, I'd look out and I'd see what they do and yeah, but the cool thing was is I had lucked out, like I had a friend that had an old piano. said, hey, you want an old piano? I was like, yeah, sure. So he brings the piano over and I did the same thing as the guitar. You know, I kinda did this rainbow splatter on the piano and.
Danny (11:39.449) Yeah, keep an eye on things.
Patrick Hasson (12:03.916) People loved it. my God. was like, people were taking pictures on it. It started blowing up on Instagram. And then I had a friend that was like, I got an old car. You want it? I was like, yeah. So we bring the old car up and again, splattered it with paint. So you kind of get the idea. You know, I had an old tree outside. I painted that rainbow and I called the place Rancho de Colores. And it was just a trip, man. You know?
Danny (12:05.336) Yeah, yeah.
Danny (12:22.325) Yeah, yeah.
Danny (12:30.713) Calories
Patrick Hasson (12:32.938) It was an absolute trip, so I'm living in a little trailer. My Airbnbs are doing okay and I'm making a living, you know? And it's a trip. It's a total trip and then I was like, all right, well.
Danny (12:48.985) Did you get, I was gonna ask, did you get inspiration for that name from the Rancho Dolores Hotel? When I was reading your email and you mentioned that, always think of that hotel on Highway 62, El Rancho Dolores. Have you seen that place?
Patrick Hasson (13:04.674) Rancho.
Patrick Hasson (13:08.139) Where is that?
Danny (13:10.081) Right when you're, it's kind of by, well, it'd near Split Rock Avenue, which is, live right off of Split Rock there. So there's that gas station right there. There's a Chevron. It would be a little bit to the west of that on the north side. Yeah, it's right there as you kind of coming into town. El Rancho Delores. I always thought it was such a cool place and I love that name.
Patrick Hasson (13:25.49) Okay, I'm sure I
Patrick Hasson (13:34.646) That's a cool, yeah, I mean, I have to be honest. just, I loved Rancho de la Luna. So I was like, I just kinda did a spin -off, you know, being a big music fan and you know, and then from there it was just like, okay, well, I don't wanna live in this trailer forever. So I had to basically come up with a plan. But the cool thing was, is I would always have.
Danny (13:41.365) Okay. Yeah.
Danny (13:47.267) Gotcha.
Patrick Hasson (14:02.626) clothing with paint splattered all over it. My pants, my shirts. And you know, I'd walk around town and people were like, hey man, you know, where'd you get that shirt or those pants? I'm like, this is my painting clothes. But I think because I was painting with these rainbow colors, people dug them. So then I'm like, well, fuck. You know, so I started going to the thrift stores and I'm buying pants and shirts and sorry about that. And I started, you know, hanging up clothes.
Danny (14:28.217) It's okay.
Patrick Hasson (14:31.926) back at the trailer and I would just kind of do my thing and I called it Vicious Color. So now I'm selling clothing, you know. And again, I knew nothing about clothing, but the cool thing was I'm selling the clothing in my Airbnbs. You know, I'm getting a little business around town. I'm selling the little guitars. And then, you know, for a little while I went to the,
Joshua Tree Farmers Market and I actually had my own tent and I tried to make a go at the rainbow clothing thing but I learned really quickly that with women's clothing, I have no idea the different sizes and there's so many elements to women's clothing that I was just like, all right, I'm way out of my element. So.
Danny (15:02.485) Yeah.
Danny (15:19.671) Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Hasson (15:24.554) I still do it sometimes, like if someone brings me an item of clothing, I'll do a custom one, but I realize like, okay, this is not the thing for me. I basically, living in the trailer, was like, cannot live in a trailer for any longer. So what I did was, same thing, the trailer, I decided I'm gonna paint it rainbow. So I paint the outside rainbow and...
Danny (15:29.059) sure.
Patrick Hasson (15:51.552) the floor, was like kind of a crappy linoleum floor. And like I said at the time, everything I did was like Jackson Pollock -y, splattering paint. you know, I'm like, all right, well, I can't throw paint all over the trailer. And I wanted to do this rainbow mosaic on the floor. So it just, kind of dawned on me. I was like, you know what? What if I put each color of paint into like a little ketchup squeezy bottle?
Danny (16:02.317) Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Hasson (16:20.434) And that's what I did and I used house paints. You know, it's pretty thick paint. And, you know, I basically got red and I squeezed and I had a little glob of red and then I did a little glob of blue, glob of yellow. So I started making this mosaic and the cool thing about house paint is it's really thick. So what happens is the colors don't just blend together. And what I did is I got a house nail and I just would run the nail.
Danny (16:21.912) Mmm.
Danny (16:41.452) Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (16:49.826) through the different globs and I started creating these different shapes and it was this really cool mosaic and I just had a moment. Because I was never an artist that could look at someone's face and do a lifelike sketch of it. That's not my jam. I was always more abstract but when I did that I was like, there's something.
Danny (16:54.371) Cool.
Patrick Hasson (17:16.918) to this, you know, it just kind of hit me. was like, huh. So I started, you know, so basically I finished the floor. I put the trailer on Airbnb, it called it the color trip trailer. And again, I don't know if I was surprised at this point, but people started racking fifth wheel. So I moved back to the original house, Rancho El Reposo. Obviously I took it off.
Danny (17:35.351) Ha
Danny (17:41.229) Mm -hmm.
Patrick Hasson (17:44.698) Airbnb so I'm you know I'm renting the trailer. I'm renting Rancho de Colores, which is cool and I I want to you know take this dripping That's the technique that I was doing I called it dripping and I was like, you know I'd like to paint some canvases with this dripping technique. So I had an old garage I just you know turn that into my studio and I got some canvases and I would lay the canvases
flat on the ground. You know, and I just started, you know, playing with the paint and, you know, I really like the effect, but with the canvases, what I would do is I would paint them black because with a black canvas, it really makes colors pop. And I've always been a fan of that. There was a couple artists I can't...
recall the name right now that would use black canvases. And I just, always thought for a long time it was a really cool effect. It made things pop. And I'm not a big fan of white. I've never been a fan of white. So, you know, I start doing these abstracts on the canvas and, you know, I would hang them in the Airbnb's just to see what kind of reaction would they get. And people were like, hey, you know, can we buy this? And I was like, huh. So, you know, I start selling this like,
you know, rainbow -y art. And, you know, I did it for a while and I started getting a little better, but I wanted to try to do a portrait. So that was a little terrifying, because like I said, I've never been, you know, one of those artists. And I admire artists that just can look at something and sketch it out. Like, you know, in fact, when I was in art school, I had a drawing teacher that
Danny (19:23.491) Sure.
Danny (19:31.521) Yeah, yeah, it's amazing, I know.
Patrick Hasson (19:35.914) He looked at one of my drawings. He's like, you're not going to be an artist. And, you know, I remember him saying that. And I was like, what the fuck, You know, like, who says that to a student? So I thought about, you know, if I were going to start painting portraits, what would I paint? And I, you know, I thought about desert rock and because it really was the reason I came to the desert, living in the desert. And
Danny (19:42.711) Ha ha!
Danny (19:46.681) Ha ha ha!
Danny (20:00.917) Mm -hmm.
Patrick Hasson (20:05.27) I said, you know what, I'm gonna do a series. Well, at first I was like, let me see if I can do one. So I got a picture of Josh Homme and I got a little digital projector. I had the picture, took it in the projector and I projected it onto, and at this time I realized that my technique with.
Danny (20:11.062) Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Hasson (20:32.972) going on canvases, the problem is the paint would be so heavy that it would kind of all go into the middle. So I started painting on pieces of wood. I would just go get plywood, Humdepo, boom. So I paint, you know, I basically sketched you know, portrait of Josh onto the piece of wood. But what I did is I went into Photoshop. I would take the picture, put it in Photoshop and there's a
Danny (20:40.494) Mmm.
Patrick Hasson (21:02.092) there's a, what the hell, like a filter called cutout. And what it does, it'll break up the different tonal, like a light part, it kinda does an outline. So it was cool, I had this outline, but it broke up the tonal ranges, and I just went for it. I make this, and it took a while because the thing with my technique is I lay the canvas flat and I'll do a section.
Danny (21:06.795) Mm -hmm. Sure.
Danny (21:12.599) Yep, not a dark, yeah, yeah.
Patrick Hasson (21:32.646) And I let that section dry because if I try to do everything at once, it becomes just a big mush mash. So, you I would do a section like say his ear and I let that section dry and then I would do another section. And the cool thing was I started creating layers. Like a lot of my paintings, if you see the person, they'll have, you know, six, seven, eight layers. And it's this, you know, it was just a technique that it was, I just was fucking around with it.
Danny (21:51.9) Mm -hmm.
Patrick Hasson (22:02.242) and it just was, it was really cool what was happening. It just, it spoke to me. So I did that first portrait and you know, I put it online and people were like, wow, that's, that's really good. And I was like, huh. And that's when I decided, I was like, all right, well, why not do a series about Desert Rock? So basically I came up with Desert Dudes. I'm like, all right, I'm going to do
Danny (22:25.571) Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (22:32.098) I don't know, I think I did a total of 27, 23 made the show. But like for the next year, that's all I did. You know, I painted Nick Oliveri and Mario Lali and Chris Goss and Gary Arce and Jessica Von Rabbit and just all those cats. Chris Garcia, Bram Bjork. And then after a year, I had created this series and I was like, I have to say I was proud.
You know, was like, wow, I am somebody who could be an artist even though I can't, you know, draw realistic things. So I, you know, at the time I started going around the different little art galleries around here and, you know, I talked to a few of the galleries and no one really seemed interested. And then I can't remember how I ran into Michael McCall. He was the curator at the
Danny (23:02.028) Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.
Patrick Hasson (23:29.8) Yucca Valley Visual and Performing Arts Center in Yucca Valley, which is an amazing space I think they may have changed the name it might be like the Joshua Tree Gallery of Contemporary Art, but it was this really amazing space We started talking and I said hey, man. I I had this series of desert rockers you want to come check it out, so he came to my studio and He's like yeah, this is this is really this is really good and
He's like, I've never seen paintings like, I he was like, you what is this technique you're doing? And I said, I call it dripping. It's something I just kind of came up with and evolved over time. it's, you know, I think seeing it in person, really is striking. Cause again, a picture online, like you could see that portrait right there.
Danny (24:23.127) Well, yeah, I was going to ask you about the so obviously, you know, most people will be listening to this. But, you know, if you're look, if you watch some of the reels I'll put up on Instagram. I've been right behind you. You know, is this Paul McCartney painting? And I was going to ask, so is that is done with this drip technique? Holy crap, that's amazing. I mean, that is like it's not what I
Patrick Hasson (24:44.256) Yes, and it's like with that, thank you, thank you. it's like.
Danny (24:54.519) And this is always the real interesting element for me of talking to artists, you know? And, you know, I don't know, it's so funny because you know how you're saying like, I always wanted to do music and you never did. Well, I did. I do music. But there's always this part of me like I. I love film, you know, I always talk about this. I took this cinema study class when I was in high school that this class had won all these awards back in Chicago.
And that's really developed like my love of film. So, you know, way back in high school and, know, so I've always had that thing of like, man, there's always this side of me that's like, I wish I would have gone into film, you know? And then there's that other appreciation of me where I'm the same way. I cannot draw anything. Like I've tried and I can't do it or I can't do it well, but I just, I love the creation process of something, you know? And it's so it's like,
Patrick Hasson (25:34.018) Sure, sure.
Danny (25:51.929) Obviously I love like my favorite part about being in a band is really being in a studio, in the studio, creating songs more so than I like touring and all that stuff, especially now that I'm almost 60. But, you know, and I'm not a filmmaker, but I make YouTube videos. You know, I go out on these motorcycle trips and what I love about it is, like, I get to do that creative part of it, you know, the editing and putting music with it and all that. I love that creative element and.
Patrick Hasson (26:02.592) I got you.
Danny (26:20.875) It's just, it's really cool that, you know, as you were saying, you couldn't really just look at something and sketch it out, but you found this way of creating something. And I mean, when you look at this picture, I can't wait to see it in person, but I mean, it's amazing. Like the detail and the color and the shadows and shading. It's really, really cool.
Patrick Hasson (26:35.446) Right on.
Patrick Hasson (26:44.13) Thank you, man. Thank you. And I have to tell you, you are a filmmaker. I mean, you're doing it. You are a filmmaker, And that's kind of how I feel about music. I have this like really deep down, I've always wanted to be a musician, but it's again, it's like, was like, it's too late to start. now living in Joshua Tree, everybody plays music up here. Everybody's jamming out. So I think there is a part of me at some point that
Danny (26:48.569) Yeah, yeah, I guess.
Danny (27:04.419) Yeah
Danny (27:08.353) Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Hasson (27:14.07) I might grab an instrument. And I've had periods in my life where I would grab a guitar, but then I would just get disinterested. that's kind of one of those things where it's like, well, you you didn't think you could be an artist and now you're an artist. Maybe, you know, maybe someday pick up an instrument and who knows, you know? And it's, I'm always very envious, especially up here, because there's so many amazing musicians and you guys can just jam, you know? Like,
Danny (27:20.759) Yep, yep.
Danny (27:32.589) Yeah, yeah.
Danny (27:38.115) Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (27:41.558) I mean, when I'm painting, can't really jam with anybody, but you guys can just get together.
Danny (27:46.369) Yes, there is. Yeah, there is that element from the musician standpoint that, you know, obviously, you know, there's a fun element of playing alone. But like I never for years and years like I don't geek out about drumming like I don't watch like drumming videos and then go in the garage and like spend hours trying to figure it out. I'm just so not interested in that at all. So for me, it's more of the process like I like doing it with other people. So being in the band,
You know, again, at this stage of the game, the only enjoyable part about traveling to play music is the 45 minutes of playing music, you know. Well, and, you know, hanging out with the guys is fun, but everything else around it, like the travel, the sitting around waiting, it just sucks. So bad. But yeah, it's that creating with somebody that is a really fun part of doing music for sure.
Patrick Hasson (28:40.962) Yeah, and that's, know, obviously as you can tell, I basically paint musicians. I don't do only musicians, but I love music so much. This is kind of how I can vicariously be a part of music. you know, so going back to the Desert Dudes, we put on this show. was 2019 and this amazing gallery. So we put up this show and I was...
Danny (28:47.299) Yeah.
Danny (28:54.829) Hahaha
Patrick Hasson (29:08.566) I mean, I was just blown away. was like, wow, I'm having an art show. And then the show got a bunch of press, which was great. And Mario Lali had, you know, he had read about it, I think, and he came to the gallery and, you know, at the show, his portrait was kind of the first one as you walk into the gallery. And, you know, he really, he dug it. You he was like, wow, this is great. And, you know, he's looking at the other portraits and...
You know, so many of the people I painted were people that he's played with, jammed with. So I didn't know this, but he got a bunch of, like, I guess he had talked to a bunch of the musicians and then he hit me up and he said, hey, you know, how about we, a bunch of us jam at your closing party? And I'm like, okay, so a bunch of my musical
Danny (29:42.696) Mm Yeah.
Danny (30:01.881) Cool.
Patrick Hasson (30:07.232) heroes that I painted, you guys are come to my closing party and jam." He's like, yeah. And I just was absolutely, positively one of the greatest moments of my life. was Gary Ars, Mario, Dave Ketching, Gene Troutman, Jessica Von Rabbit. I know I'm gonna forget people. Chris Goss.
Danny (30:15.121) That's great.
Patrick Hasson (30:37.014) guitarist from UNIDA, his name's not coming to me right now, Arthur, Arthur from UNIDA, and Hutch set up the sound. I mean, was incredible. They did this improv jam and it was so cool. so that, you know, that was kind of it. I was like, wow, you know, I guess I'm a legit artist. And it was just really cool the way
Danny (30:51.673) Cool. That's great. Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Hasson (31:05.538) it came round circle because that's the rocks why it came out here and now you know what it was 2002 I I didn't know it just it was like 20 years coming around circle and it did well and the one article that written up about it it was by this guy Brian blue sky who writes for the desert son and it it.
Danny (31:06.177) Yeah, sure.
Danny (31:11.47) Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (31:32.736) He came by to do the interview with me, but he also, you know, he saw all my Airbnbs. He's like, wow, this is crazy. You got these rainbow houses. Like, yeah, yeah. You know, I didn't think much of it. I was just like, you know, this is how I make a living. So the article turned out being about the Desert Dude show, but it was, he also wrote about the Airbnbs and it like, you know, I think it was like when it came out, I was on the cover of a bunch of newspapers. People call me like, yo dude, you're on the cover.
Danny (31:46.402) Yeah.
Danny (32:00.53) Hahaha!
Patrick Hasson (32:02.252) with your painting and I'm like, Arthur, Arthur say that's, don't know why it was escaped me. And I had done a painting of Arthur and his painting was on the cover. think he's the one who hit me up. He was like, dude, you know, we're on the cover. And it was just, it was a trip in that article because you know, the desert sun is a satellite of USA Today. made it to USA Today, which was, it's pretty mind blowing. So
Danny (32:04.183) Yeah
Danny (32:14.318) Yeah, yeah.
Danny (32:28.718) wow.
Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (32:31.904) You know, like life was, my life was really good. And do we, how much time we have left? don't want to like.
Danny (32:40.345) We should, we can start to transition into like the upcoming show and what you've got going, where people can, you know, like just other shows you've maybe, you know, have planned or other places that you show the work or anything like that. We'll kind of wrap with that, yeah.
Patrick Hasson (32:54.338) Okay. So, yeah, I'll condense it. So basically, 2020 hit, pandemic. I was super freaked out. My Airbnbs got shut down and I relapsed. So my life went from like high point to pfft. And during the pandemic, I was like, all right, I gotta do something so I'm not thinking about it. So I was living at Rancho El Reposo and I spent two years and I turned the house into the Rainbow House.
Danny (33:02.198) Mm.
Danny (33:08.056) Mm.
Patrick Hasson (33:24.034) which was like literally every inch of the house was fucking rainbow. The problem was it really took a toll on my body. around, you know, when I finished the house, I said, you know, I want to do another series. And I wanted to do a series called 1969 because, I mean, me personally, think 1969 was probably the high point in so many areas of culture, you know, art, music, film.
Danny (33:29.518) Hehehe.
Danny (33:51.619) Hmm.
Patrick Hasson (33:53.538) I was born in 1969, so I just thought like, yeah, man, let's do another music based series. you know, I started working on that. And like I said, I hurt my back and Airbnb was really becoming more more difficult. I had a bunch of herniated discs in my back. So I got to a point, you know, my doctor was like, can't, you know, cause I was like the one man machine. had to do everything all the time.
Danny (33:57.593) Cool.
Danny (34:20.354) Sure.
Patrick Hasson (34:21.698) And my doctor's like, know, you should probably, if you want to keep painting, you can't really do both. So I was like, all right. So I put the house on the market, which was, you know, was bittersweet because I, it was a very beautiful house. But I sold it. And then of course, after I sell it, this is May, 2023, before I sold it, I'd reached out to TV shows and stuff. Like I thought like, this would be cool.
you know, have one of these HGTV shows, shoot it. No one ever got back to me. But then of course, as soon as I sold the house, like two weeks later, producer from HGTV, I guess had seen her on social media. So she hit me up and they ended up filming the house. I guess it was, I can't keep trying. It was sometime in the last year. And then that ended up being on a show called Zillow Gone Wild, which, you know,
Danny (34:52.546) Sure, sure.
Danny (34:57.926) Ha
Danny (35:13.144) Yeah.
Danny (35:18.486) okay.
Patrick Hasson (35:19.394) it aired a couple months ago. So it's cool. But yeah, and then there's a there's a the design network is actually shooting it this Sunday. So they're supposed to interview me and hopefully I'll make the show. But the cool thing is, so I got out of Airbnb, I moved over here to Rancho de Colores. And literally for the last year, all I've done is focused and
Danny (35:23.348) I gotta check that out.
Patrick Hasson (35:49.218) I've been able to complete this series called 1969 and it's a, again, it's a musical, like classic rock musical portrait series. I did all the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, The Stones. I did 23 portraits and all and the show, 1969, it's gonna be opening September 7th at the...
Danny (35:57.23) Mm -hmm.
Patrick Hasson (36:17.506) It's the Schaeffer Gallery at the High Desert Artists Center, which is new. It just opened a few months ago. It's an amazing space. It's in Yucca Valley. I think I even have the address. People that are listening. So, where is it? Okay, it is the High Desert Artists Center. It's in the building, I think it used to be called Route 62. It was like a vintage store. But it's at,
Danny (36:45.151) Yes, okay.
Patrick Hasson (36:47.202) 55635, 29 Palms Highway, Yucca Valley. Yeah. So, the official opening is September 7th. We're having a soft opening September 6th because there was a conflict and there's a celebration of life for somebody that was, you know, big in the community. So we're having a soft opening on the 6th and then we're gonna be part of the Yucca Valley Art Walk.
which is September 21st, and then the show itself is gonna be up from August 31st to September 22nd. So, you know, if you can't make the opening, you know, the gallery's open Thursday through Monday, you can go to my website. I have all the info, my website. Is it cool if I shout up? It's patrickhassen .com, which is P
Danny (37:38.957) Yeah, yeah, hit it.
Patrick Hasson (37:44.576) T -R -I -C -K -H -A -S -S -O -N dot com and all the info's there. And so.
Danny (37:50.937) Yeah, I will be sure to put everything about the show, all your social media, all your website stuff in the show notes here as well. Cause I know a lot, you know, on, on podcasts, I'm a bicycle riding podcast listener, you know, or, or doing my drive from 29 Palms. My girlfriend lives down here in Irvine, you know, so I'm always in the car and like the podcast, you know, so it's always good to able to go back and find that stuff. so you don't have to write it down while you're driving. So we'll make sure we get all that out for everybody.
Patrick Hasson (37:58.775) Right on.
Danny (38:19.801) Yeah, I really look forward to it. I gotta come by the gallery and see this stuff in person. It looks amazing. So, and you've got a great story, which just makes the art even better, you know? Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (38:20.289) Right on.
Patrick Hasson (38:24.354) Please do. Please do. Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (38:32.802) Right on, right on. And also, after the show closes, I'm gonna be in the Highway 62 Art Tours, which is the first three weekends. Yeah, first three weekends of October. I highly recommend, if you've never been, check it out. I think there's maybe 180 different artists. You you can pick up one of the booklets. I think they're out now, but it's really amazing. There's so many amazing artists, so I'm gonna be open.
Danny (38:41.081) I was gonna ask about that, yeah.
Danny (38:56.91) Yeah.
Patrick Hasson (39:02.91) all three weekends at my studio, which I'm actually trying to turn into a gallery. So hopefully by art tours, it'll be a gallery set up, but I'm not sure if I'll have it all done by then.
Danny (39:12.537) Cool. Yeah. I, you know, I've only lived out in the area for a couple of years and last year was the first time that I, you know, went around during, the highway 62 art tours and me and my girlfriend, we, had such a blast. We loved it. And I mean, it is definitely like, you know, I'm trying to get my mom to like fly out from Wisconsin just for like one of the weekends. Cause I know she would love it so much, but it's really cool because
Patrick Hasson (39:27.328) Yeah. Yep.
Danny (39:40.599) Yeah, you do visit some galleries and stuff, there, I mean, there's such a wide range of artists, right? And a lot of times you're just going to the person's house, you know? So it's like this really intimate way of viewing the art and getting to talk to the artists themselves. I mean, it's really unlike any other art, you know, event that I've ever heard of or seen. and again, yeah, you really discover like a real wide range of.
Patrick Hasson (39:49.121) Yeah.
Danny (40:07.593) of mediums, you know, and it's just so fun, so fun.
Patrick Hasson (40:11.124) And it's cool because you get to know the artist and each artist has a story just like me, you know, and they have, get to see their space and how they created. And, you know, so many people in the desert, seems to be a common theme is, you know, people come out here to kind of find themselves or, you know, maybe change their life or, you know, chase after their calling. there's so many interesting stories out here, you know.
Danny (40:13.859) Yeah.
Danny (40:32.493) Ha ha.
Danny (40:35.981) Yeah, my my problem with the art tours is that I'll spend too much money or want to spend too much damn money, you know, because I always have said like, I don't need a big house. I never buy like, you know, I'm not into like fancy cars. like my bicycles and my motorcycles. But if I had fuck you money, I would buy a ton of cool art, you know, like, you know, and I've just even to just be in that position of just spending even a few thousand bucks, you know, on a great painting or something. It's just.
Patrick Hasson (40:40.576) Yeah. Cheers.
Patrick Hasson (40:51.287) Nice.
Patrick Hasson (40:57.633) Right on.
Danny (41:05.431) You know, I it's like a girl. It's a cool investment and it's just something great to spend. If you've got the money, man, that's something cool to spend money on for sure. Patrick, thank you so much, man. I love the story. I love what you're doing. I mean, obviously it's right up my alley being a musician and a huge music fan. You know, the nostalgia of it always, always really gets to me as well.
Patrick Hasson (41:13.82) Hell yeah, man, absolutely.
Danny (41:30.513) And I can't wait to come by and maybe I can come by on the the six for the soft opening. I'd love to, you know, get a chance to meet you and chat with you. Thank you so much, man.
Patrick Hasson (41:30.924) Right on.
Patrick Hasson (41:37.708) Be still.
Right on, man. Thank you, man.
Summary
Grace Alley, owner of Nomadic Ceramics, shares her journey from corporate America to pursuing her passion for ceramics. She discusses the challenges and rewards of running a small business and the importance of connecting her art with a greater purpose. Grace also talks about her second location in Durango and her plans to create an eco collective. She emphasizes the value of personal interaction and offers classes for those interested in learning ceramics.
Takeaways
Combining passion with a small business can be challenging but rewarding. Creating an eco collective allows for collaboration and a greater purpose. Personal interaction and connection with customers is important for small businesses. Offering classes can be a way to share knowledge and engage with the community.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background 02:19 Transitioning from Hobby to Career 03:36 Opening a Shop at Art Queen 05:21 The Nomadic Ceramics Experience 07:15 Expanding to a Second Location in Durango 09:05 Creating an Eco Collective 10:27 Balancing Time Between Locations 12:17 Volunteering and Planting Trees in Ghana 13:37 Long-Distance Relationship and Waiting for a Visa 14:42 Durango's Cycling Community 16:22 Website and Online Presence 17:38 Traveling Between Joshua Tree and Durango 19:29 The Rewards and Challenges of Running a Small Business 21:04 Conclusion
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visit the webiste HERE
Danny (00:00.654) All right, Grace Alley, thank you so much for joining me here on the Highway 62 podcast. How are you today?
Grace Alley (00:07.832) I'm good. are you today, Danny?
Danny (00:09.453) Doing great. I'm down in Irvine here. I got to fly out Friday to go to Canada for a show for the weekend and staying down here a little bit during the summer just to, you know, enjoy a little bit less heat. So yeah, it's actually been good. So got the pool right out here and just living life. So, you know, you are the owner of Nomadic Ceramics and you have a location in 29 Palms and
Grace Alley (00:24.984) Yeah. Yeah.
Danny (00:37.152) Yes, also have a second location we're going to talk about in a little bit. But before we get kind of deep into, you know, the shops and what you're doing there and all that stuff, give us a little bit of your background and where you're from and, know, and how you kind of ended up doing what you're doing now.
Grace Alley (00:53.269) Okay, yeah, I'm from Colorado. I was born and raised in Golden.
group traveling and you know long story short it took me quite a while to graduate college. I kept coming in and out of college and traveling and that's where I first went to Africa and then I ended up in corporate America up in Seattle after college and that's where I started doing ceramics as a hobby.
And I always was trying to figure out this balance between my passion and making a living. So I was trying my hand in corporate worlds. And that was a couple of years of a total disaster because I am definitely not meant for a conventional path. And I did everything you're supposed to do wrong times 100 in my corporate life. But luckily that's where it.
sort of learned a little bit of business acumen and ceramics was always a hobby and it just sort of took over. I moved from Seattle down to Desert Hot Springs to work in Cannabis Corporate and that didn't work out either. So my hobby became my career, I guess, about a year and seven months ago.
Danny (02:19.103) so pretty recent, okay.
Grace Alley (02:21.227) It feels, it sounds very reasoned, but so much has happened. But the company I was working for in Desert Hot Springs dissolved and I was like, let me try my hand and see if I could turn this interest of mine, this passion of mine, ceramics, into something I could rely on to make money on. So I wasn't sure what I was gonna do and I just, I came up here and I started doing the pop -up markets at 29 Palms and...
Danny (02:25.586) Yeah.
Grace Alley (02:48.616) got to know the community really well through that. You're interfacing face to face with people every Saturday morning and you're out there with your ceramics and introducing yourself to the community. So I got to know people that way. It was such a great experience there.
Danny (03:01.895) How did you originally get interested or get started doing ceramics?
Grace Alley (03:07.134) I took two semesters of it in college and I shouldn't have been allowed in the class. I was an anthropology major and the art department only wants art majors. So I begged the professor to let me in and I said, this may change my life. Please let me in the class. And lo and behold, it did. So now I think I'm doing it for a living. It still hasn't sunk in, but...
Danny (03:09.274) Okay.
Danny (03:34.842) Hehehehe
Grace Alley (03:36.105) The pop -up markets in 29 led to getting a little shop over at Art Queen. And Art Queen's right in the heart of Joshua Tree, as I'm a lot of your viewers and watchers know and listeners know. So I got super, super lucky and super blessed to get one of the little shed shops at Art Queen. And I still have that shop and I've had that shop for a year and three months now.
Danny (03:44.675) Yeah.
Danny (03:48.463) Sure.
Danny (04:02.019) Gotcha. And Golden, Colorado, that's that's where the Coors plant is, right? OK, yeah. OK, I I've spent a lot of time in Colorado. Actually, I just got I was just in Denver to Wigan two weekends ago. And but when I was younger, my uncle, who was originally from Wisconsin, I grew up in Chicago, but my uncle went to school in Boulder. So we would come out and visit and.
Grace Alley (04:06.418) That's right. Yeah, grew up across the street from Coors, actually.
Danny (04:30.422) Yeah, I remember going up to Golden and going to the Coors factory and it had that smell, that brewing smell like every everywhere.
Grace Alley (04:36.476) Yeah. Yeah, I grew up smelling that smell every single day. I love it, by the way.
Danny (04:44.362) Yeah, I'm sure you get used to it and whatnot, but I love that area. It's beautiful. Beautiful out there.
Grace Alley (04:52.003) is really beautiful. Colorado is an amazing place. There's plenty to do if you love doing things outside. And it's developed a lot and changed a lot since I was little. There's a lot of amazing microbreweries, amazing restaurants. now that I've opened my second shop in Durango, that's like the southwest corner. I had never gotten to explore Telluride, Silverton, Durango. It is so beautiful down there.
Danny (04:54.709) Yeah.
Danny (04:58.027) Yeah.
Danny (05:17.649) Okay, yeah.
Yeah, it sounds like it. Tell us a little bit about your shop that you have in Joshua Tree there. You know, what is it exactly you sell? What all do you do there?
Grace Alley (05:31.27) I've always been unable to be a production potter, which means everything I make is a one -off or a small set or like something big and complex. luckily having the opportunity over at Art Queen afforded me the opportunity to be experimental in ceramics. It's harder to do that if you're just selling online or at pop -ups because you can't cultivate an audience plus you can't fail. You can't try things.
Danny (05:39.524) Okay.
Grace Alley (06:00.888) mess it up and have it not work out if you're always hustling and trying to get to markets and trying to get in front of your audience. So this is why I say I'm incredibly blessed to have the opportunity over at Art Queen. And that's what they're all about over there too. They're all about giving artists access to customers and access to a brick and mortar or a between. I have a little shed shop over there. It's affordable. It allows me to experiment and bring in things I never knew would sell.
Danny (06:00.892) Mm -hmm.
Danny (06:25.745) Mm
Grace Alley (06:30.435) and see the reaction on people's faces when they want to consume these products. So it's been given me a lot of direction as an artist and a great foundation of clientele to build relationships with. Art Queen is an amazing place. I got it before and now it's been transitioned into new ownership. It's owned by a nonprofit now called AHA Projects and they are doing some massive renovations over there.
Danny (06:42.681) Yeah.
Danny (06:54.81) Okay.
Grace Alley (06:59.172) And it is just so exciting. Everybody's so excited. It's under construction right now. If you're used to this area and you drive by, it looks really crazy right now. They've torn out everything and come fall it should be really nice to walk around in there.
Danny (07:01.495) Awesome.
Danny (07:15.858) Now, so you're primarily just selling ceramics that you create, not anything from any other creators, is that correct?
Grace Alley (07:24.714) I used to just be me, but I actually have a couple people on my team now, some amazing and talented people who want to help out and want to see other things do and it gives me the opportunity to help them too.
Danny (07:26.733) Mm -hmm.
Okay.
Danny (07:35.882) Yeah, gotcha. Okay, do you do classes or anything for people that want to learn how to do ceramics? Okay, great.
Grace Alley (07:45.419) Yeah, I do classes. do things at people's Airbnbs where I'll come have a custom class for them. Sometimes an engagement party and the ladies want to get wild and make pinch pots. Other times it's people who want to do energy work and healing and all the things. So luckily with Clay you could do all the things.
Danny (07:52.362) cool.
Danny (08:03.297) Gotcha.
Danny (08:06.838) Gotcha. And again, I mean, a year and seven months seems like a really short. mean, it is a really short period of time that goes by in the blink of an eye. And, you know, I'm still a small, I've had a small business for 20 years now and, know, just planning things and it just. Everything just seems to be upon you so quickly all the time. And so in that short period of time, then you have also opened this second location in Durango. Is that correct?
Grace Alley (08:36.204) That's right. And I attribute that to what I've been given at Art Queen. Having an affordable space and the opportunity to develop my skill set in both creativity and the business side. I have been running around the desert like a chicken with my head cut off for a year and a half because of the perception of the demand of running a business and what you think you need to do and what's enough.
Danny (08:48.862) Mm -hmm.
Danny (09:01.512) Yeah.
Grace Alley (09:05.969) And luckily I could spin my wheels a little bit because, you know, owning a small business and being creative, you might go in the wrong direction a little bit here and there before you figure out, I don't want to be doing that. But I've been putting in the effort and trying to grow the business and trying to take care of others too. The things I'm ready to progress on from other people are excited to do. So.
Here's a good example. I have a thrower. So I have a guy who throws for me because I want to do more of the embellishment and more of these carved vessels. So I've got a kid who loves throwing.
Danny (09:45.298) What is that exactly for someone like myself that knows nothing?
Grace Alley (09:51.264) That's when you put the clay on the wheel and make it spin and pull it and create the item. So that's throwing pottery.
Danny (09:53.617) Okay, okay, gotcha.
Gotcha, okay.
Grace Alley (10:01.01) Yeah, and that's what I kind of want the Art Queen store to be now, is I want to be able to bring in artists who want to learn how to learn how to talk to people, how to learn what to make and how to sell their things. as I'm moving on and changing my focus into the Durango location, I'm sort of opening up the Art Queen store to other artists who want to contribute and see how their things do over there.
Danny (10:24.005) How are you splitting your time between these locations?
Grace Alley (10:27.901) Right now I have a couple people doing things for me over at Art Queen and I've been focused on Durango. I've only had the Durango store for about a month and a half now. So I'm back in the desert right now to get things to bring up there, but I've been focusing on Durango and both shops are intended to be part of the eco collective. So up until very recently, it was just me, just my work and just me experimenting in creativity and business. But now that I've got a little time under my belt
Danny (10:37.38) Gotcha.
Grace Alley (10:57.343) business is growing a little bit, decided to bridge my two worlds. And like I talked about in the very beginning, I've been going back and forth to Africa for 12 years. I've been going to Ghana. I've gone to Ghana like eight times now. And I volunteered over there. There's a whole story in there, but I've always been wanting to connect the two worlds. And what I decided to make happen was to create each business, the art queen business and the Durango business into an eco collective. So that means
Danny (11:15.873) You
Grace Alley (11:27.358) whoever's art is in there, mine and my team's art, inherently within the purchase price of some of the items is the $10 to plant a tree. So we add $10 on to some of the items and we give clients the option to give us increments of $10 over the asking price of the art and that those funds go directly to my husband who's in Ghana and he plants trees with those funds. So they can plant a tree for $10 anytime.
Danny (11:39.926) Mm -hmm.
Danny (11:52.811) you
Grace Alley (11:55.901) And sometimes on the larger pieces, maybe I'll add 20 or $30 onto the price or maybe even $100. And they're planting 10 trees. So when they take this home and they have it in their home forever, they know that their trees are out there growing as reviewing this item.
Danny (12:07.457) But yeah.
Yeah, that's cool. How did you originally get interested in going to Africa and doing work there?
Grace Alley (12:17.085) Towards the end of college, I did a child labor and trafficking mitigation project with a college group. And it's a non -governmental over in Ghana. I just went and did six months. It was like an extremely abrasive and life -changing event. And that's where I met Safo. And 13 years later, we're married now, and he's got his non -governmental. They've planted 15 ,000 trees. And he just opened a school.
And we're waiting on his visa so he can come to the US for the first time he's ever been here. But in the meantime, I'm collecting funds for him and sending it to him so he could continue planting the trees.
Danny (12:44.074) Wow.
Danny (12:48.383) Okay.
Danny (12:55.134) Wow, so he's there full time and you guys have been doing this long distance and thing for quite a while. That's gotta be a challenge.
Grace Alley (13:02.328) Yeah, for a very long time. It's like so ingrained at this point. I don't even think too much about it. But right now, it's been over two years since I've seen him. And the Ghana visa office is extra, extra backed up because of COVID. And plus, they don't have the infrastructure we have.
Danny (13:27.909) Yeah.
Grace Alley (13:28.931) So we're just waiting on the visa, we're planting trees and making art, and we know we'll see each other again someday, but it's just the nature of what we're doing. But there's no alternative for us.
Danny (13:31.021) Okay.
Danny (13:37.649) Sure.
Danny (13:42.075) Gotcha. Gotcha. What made you choose Durango for your second location?
Grace Alley (13:48.588) it wasn't that I chose it. It's that I was coming up on summer here in the desert last year and I was trying to get a strategy together of how to supplement with the seasonality. We all know up here in the summer, there's a bit of a drop off. So I just started looking around for retail locations and I, it was pretty serendipitous that it was in my home state. It was on, at a main street location with big, huge windows and it came with a bigger rent.
Danny (13:56.571) Mm -hmm.
Danny (14:12.208) Yeah.
Grace Alley (14:17.986) So I was like, can I do this? I gave it a go. It's always a risk growing your business. And it's been a month. So we have no way to know if my risk is going to pay off yet. But I'm here to try. And I'm here to make art.
Danny (14:26.521) Yeah, yeah, sure.
Danny (14:32.622) Okay, gotcha. Yeah, wonderful. Are you a cyclist by chance at all? you into cycling?
Grace Alley (14:40.474) I need to get a bike or not show my face in Durango.
Danny (14:45.795) Exactly. I mean, it's home to Sep Kuz who's like, you know, this amazing American cyclist, winner of the Vuelta a España Tour de France stage winner. I'm a cycling dork. So, you know, you said Durango, the first thing I said to my girlfriend yesterday, I'm like, that's where Sep Kuz is from, you know, and like most people are like, I've never heard of this person you're you're talking about. So but yeah, it's a hotbed of the cycling community and
mountain biking and whatnot. So it's, it's, it, you know, it's one of those places that has, you know, I have a soft spot for, so I love all those, those mountain communities that are, you know, have such a cycling, background. So yeah, you'll be riding, you'll be mountain biking and riding bikes in no time.
Grace Alley (15:20.967) Mm -hmm.
Grace Alley (15:29.229) That's right. know it really is amazing. It's everybody around there just loves nature. Everybody's really happy, healthy. It's a really big blessing to be able to have a shop there. I maybe should turn it into a ceramic, like a bike themed ceramics.
Danny (15:34.623) Yeah.
Danny (15:40.617) Yeah, that's great.
Danny (15:45.986) Well, yeah, yeah, definitely. I think you got it. You got to got to work some cycling into the ceramic shop for sure.
Grace Alley (15:52.81) Yeah, I'll park little bikes into the side of the cups or.
Danny (15:57.404) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You do a Tour de France edition. So, you know, something every every July during the Tour de France. So what is so beyond visiting the shops? Do you have a website or is there? Is that not work within the model since everything is kind of one off creations?
Grace Alley (16:07.97) Yeah?
Grace Alley (16:22.315) I do have a website. I'm working on being better with the computer and updating the website. My focus has always been person to person interaction. And I tell all of my clients, my customers, just call me, just text me. I'm small enough to where if you want something, you can literally just text me. I'm making it special for you. And that's how that goes. But if people want to plant a tree,
Danny (16:33.214) Mm -hmm.
Danny (16:43.006) Yeah.
Grace Alley (16:47.415) It's nomadicceramic .shop. It's $10. We plant the tree and we watch it for two years and make sure it grows up nice and strong. And it's $10 anytime. So if anybody wants to get a gift for somebody or plant a tree at any time, it's $10. The funds go directly to my husband, Safo. And that's also a place where you might find some of the things I make once in a while updated to my website if I have time.
Danny (17:14.737) Gotcha. When do you think you'll, you'll be back out in Joshua Tree?
Grace Alley (17:19.83) I'm here now for the Leo Party and I'm wrapping up some work at the studio and then I'm gonna head back to Durango and kind of see out summer there. And I'm just gonna bounce back and forth. only a 10 hour drive and the drive goes through Navajo Nation, which looks like Mars. So I'm intrigued by the nature between. Yeah.
Danny (17:21.552) Okay.
Danny (17:37.243) Cool. Yeah. That sounds like a nice road trip.
Grace Alley (17:43.989) It is, if you like 118 degree heat.
Danny (17:47.259) You're used to it. Come on. You live in the desert, you know.
Grace Alley (17:51.145) I know, I actually really like prefer the heat. So I know that I'm a desert dweller. I know that my spirit is happy here. Cause even Colorado in the summertime, I'm like, it's not quite hot enough.
Danny (18:05.125) my God. Yeah. You know, it's so weird. It seems like the older I get, the less I'm dealing with like really hot as easy as I used to. But in general, if I got to choose hot or cold, I'm definitely, I'm definitely a hot person for sure. I definitely would rather deal with a little bit of, you know, warm temperature versus cold weather. I hate the cold, but that is a...
Grace Alley (18:23.04) Yeah. Well, it like it offers that in a nice spring and fall out here, huh?
Danny (18:34.617) I know God, I used to do so much spring skiing in Colorado when I every, you know, when I was in Chicago, I'd always make that pilgrimage in the spring to go skiing out there and always just, that, that was great. Great, great weather and just such a great time. Yeah, I'm to have to come out for sure. grace, thanks so much for taking time to be on the show. I really love what you're doing. you know, combining these.
Grace Alley (18:49.097) Welcome come shred and drink. anytime.
Danny (19:02.23) two things that you really have a passion for. I mean, you know, again, I'm a small business owner and I know how hard it can be. It's always up and down, but you know, the other side of it is you're, you know, how keeping, always keeping in mind how lucky you are, you know, to be able to do these two things when somebody else, you know, has to go off to work. you know, every day, you know, I'm down here at my girlfriend's house. She's a nurse, you know.
Grace Alley (19:03.011) Absolutely.
Yeah.
Danny (19:29.703) Every day she comes home and she's like, God, you're so lucky. What'd you do today? And I'm like, well, you know, I did some stuff on the computer, but I went for a bike ride around two in the afternoon. And it's like, there's all these positive elements of working for yourself. And then there's the negative, you know, sides of it as well. But you know, I think you're real lucky to be able to combine these passions and do something you really love and do something good with it at the same time. I think is really wonderful.
Grace Alley (19:58.601) Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more and I think that that has to be part of it for me I can't just sit here and be a ceramist living in the desert having two shops I had to connect the two worlds because it's such a blessing to have worked for myself to be able to do this that I cannot just
Danny (20:08.863) Yeah.
Grace Alley (20:17.902) enjoy that by myself. And enjoying something by yourself, it just isn't as fun. Thank you.
Danny (20:19.541) Yeah.
Danny (20:23.61) That's great. Grace, thanks so much. I will put in the show notes. I'll put the website, the Nomadic Ceramic Doc shop, said, correct. If people want to donate to plant a tree, I'll put your Instagram, all that kind of stuff down there so people know where to find you. yeah, for anybody that's listening to the show that isn't in the area, because I do know I look at the demographics and we do have a lot of.
Grace Alley (20:42.117) Right on.
Danny (20:50.225) you know, listeners and a lot of people following the Instagram that, you know, live in LA and stuff like that. So, you know, make sure when you're coming through town and you know, you make a stop there at the art queen, you can't miss it and, check out the ceramics. Thanks so much.
Grace Alley (21:01.701) Right on.
Thank you so much, Danny. was such a blessing and an honor to be here. Thank you. See ya.
Danny (21:08.241) My pleasure. All right. Cool.
Visit Rob's webiste HERE
Purchase Robs work at
Clic
Visit Very Very in Twentynine Palms to Purchase Rob's work
HERE
Chapters 00:00Introduction and Background 02:58Transition to Landscape Photography 08:00Shifting Focus to Portraits and Personal Projects 11:01Thought Process and Approach to Framing Shots 14:53Reviewing and Editing Process 24:04Settling in Joshua Tree and Future Plans 29:01Where to See and Purchase Rob's Work 32:01Conclusion and Farewell
Danny (00:03.037) All right, Rob Han, welcome to the Highway 62 podcast. Thanks so much for taking some time out. How are you today?
Rob (00:10.414) Great, thanks Danny and thanks for having me on.
Danny (00:13.853) My pleasure. I'm a big fan of your work. I actually purchased one of your photographs from Very Very over the Christmas season. So I think I showed that in that Instagram reel, but it's just right up my alley. And so before we get real deep into what you're doing with photography now, give us a little bit of your background. I know you've wore a lot of hats.
Rob (00:22.569) you did? cool.
Rob (00:27.694) Mm -hmm.
Rob (00:43.118) yeah, yeah. So I was born in England, grew up on a farm very close to Stonehenge in the south of England. yeah, I left school at 16. I'd done tons and tons of jobs. You know, I was a firefighter, like every restaurant job. I was a bike messenger. I've been a, I've been like a, a doorman bouncer. I was,
Danny (01:00.765) Ha ha ha.
Rob (01:12.045) I was a model, which that started when I was already 30 years old. And I did that for about 10 years. But during that period, early on, actually, I was kind of wondering what I could do next. And I was in that world, you know, surrounded by photographers. And I'd also always kind of had an opinion on, I like looking at photographs and kind of developed a taste.
Danny (01:17.502) wow.
Rob (01:41.132) before I even bought a camera and I bought a camera thinking, well, maybe I could be a photographer, you know, and just sort of just started shooting, shooting friends and sort of went from there.
Danny (01:54.772) So, and I was reading a little bit in your bio. So when you first started doing photography, you were doing like portrait photography, is that correct?
Rob (02:04.587) Yeah, I was. I, you know, initially because I was in that world, I thought I might kind of do fashion or, but, but then I went to see this big show of Irving Penn that originally was at MoMA in New York. And, but I actually saw it in London and it was just fantastic. You know, I bought the catalog and I just was fascinated by all the portraits that he'd done.
And not only were they wonderful pictures, but he'd met all of those people. He spent time with them. And I thought, well, that would be a cool thing to do, you know? And he photographed everyone you could ever think of. And they were beautiful pictures. And so, you know, I kind of went in that direction. I was already, you know, I'd been in that kind of fashion world for a while. And initially it was, you know, it was exciting and it was fun.
Danny (02:58.657) Yeah.
Rob (03:03.69) but I was getting a little tired of it. And the whole portrait thing seemed like it might be more interesting to me. So that's what I pursued. And after several years of just shooting friends and getting my act together, then I started showing my work to magazine editors, this sort of thing. And I got my first breaks in music.
Danny (03:08.993) Yeah.
Danny (03:13.825) Gotcha.
Rob (03:32.937) In England, there used to be at least this weekly rock paper called NME, the New Musical Express. And when I was growing up, I used to get that, you know, it used to get delivered to the farm like a day late. And I would read every inch of it. And I was just fascinated by that. And so it was cool to actually start shooting for them. And I would shoot, you know, three or four things a week.
Danny (03:40.931) Yep. Sure. Yeah.
Danny (03:48.867) Ha ha!
Rob (04:02.729) for them, a lot of portraits, band pictures. I also had to do live stuff, which wasn't really my thing, but it was fun to go to festivals and that kind of thing. So that was where I really got my breaks. And then later on through that, I started shooting stuff for record companies. And then I started getting work for other kinds of magazines. And I did quite a bit for...
Danny (04:11.876) Mm -hmm.
Rob (04:30.248) like national newspapers, like Sunday supplements, you know, shooting, doing portraits of all kinds of people. You know, mostly in the arts, directors, writers, actors, musicians, that kind of thing. Yeah.
Danny (04:36.485) Yeah.
Danny (04:41.669) Mm -hmm.
Very cool. So I'm sure you met a lot of interesting people doing that.
Rob (04:49.831) Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, you know, usually for a very short period, you know, but it was still, it was still interesting. It was still real interesting to be in a room with them. Yeah.
Danny (04:55.461) Right, right.
Danny (04:59.718) Yeah, yeah. How did you get interested in make that shift into these, you know, the landscape road trip type photography that you do now?
Rob (05:11.302) Yeah, well, I, you know, I was kind of, so all that period, I was shooting stuff and it was all work. It was all commissioned work for other people. And I was sort of aware, I really wanted to do something for myself, something like a personal project. And I thought that would be a way of kind of advancing things. But I really couldn't think.
what I wanted to do. And I was living in London at the time and nothing was really exciting me. And then one night I was at home watching the TV and there was a show called This is Modern Art. And it was this kind of thing telling the lay person about modern art, you know. And this guy was out in, he went out to Marfa, Texas.
I'm talking about Donald Judd, who is this kind of minimalist sculptor who relocated there from he was in New York, he went out there, bought up an old, with some help, I think, bought up an old military airfield to show his work, you know, in the hangars and the buildings, his work and his friends work, and gradually bought other places within the town, this little tiny West Texas town that was kind of, I guess,
Danny (06:13.287) Okay.
Rob (06:37.864) you know, maybe kind of going nowhere and turned it into this real center for art. And it's kind of a hip, arty place these days. Anyway, so this guy who was presenting the show, he was in a, like a open top car driving towards Martha, this big wide open landscape, you know, and it looked, so I'm at home.
in England and the rain's beating on the window and it's the winter time and I see these big open blue skies and I'm like, wow, I want to go there. And so I had spent some time in America before, so I sort of had an interest in it, but I thought it would be great to take a big road trip and take pictures along the way.
Danny (07:07.752) Hahaha!
Danny (07:13.993) Yeah, that'll do it.
Rob (07:33.448) And so that's what I did. I flew to LA and I drove down to Marfa and back. I had rented a car for a couple of weeks. And that was the start of that. And that was, I wasn't really sure what I'd be doing, but I've really got into it and I've been doing it ever since. And that was like, it was October 2001, actually.
Danny (07:56.81) okay, so you've been, yeah, but you've been doing it a long time then, huh?
Rob (08:00.04) Yeah, yeah, I have.
Danny (08:02.059) What is it about the landscape and the subject matter in this American West that you find so appealing to photograph?
Rob (08:11.625) Well, first of all, I guess there's, you know, I was coming at it with a European romantic idea of all that stuff. You know, I've been for years and years, I've been listening to music, reading books, you know, I got excited by Carowaks on the Road and movies, you know. A big movie for me was Paris, Texas.
Danny (08:20.514) Yeah.
Danny (08:34.379) Mm -hmm.
Rob (08:41.257) that I saw in the cinema in like 84. And that really struck me. And I keep going back to that one actually. And so I had this kind of romantic idea of the whole thing. And then when it comes to photography, I've found it really suited me because I like a lot of space and I could sort of get that feeling of wide open spaces and...
Danny (08:49.036) Yeah, that's a great movie.
Rob (09:11.081) and just finding something within that space. And I don't know, there's something that's really attractive to me about that. You know, I spend a lot of time in New York now, and I know people that walk around every day with cameras shooting in New York, and I've tried it, but it's not for me. It's very busy, it's complicated, and it's just not my thing. You know, I guess I'm a kind of a minimalist, you know. And...
Danny (09:25.708) Mm -hmm.
Danny (09:36.461) Gotcha. Go ahead. Okay. You know, one of the things I was thinking about is, so you're, you know, you're out there, maybe you find a old building or cool signs or whatever the subject matter is that you're going to take that picture. When you're framing that shot, I was kind of interested into the thought process of, you know, are you,
Rob (09:40.584) No, no, sorry, you, you, you.
Rob (09:53.352) Mm -hmm.
Danny (10:05.87) Is there a feeling or almost a story that you're hoping to capture that the viewer would later relate to? Or are you really thinking more about just kind of framing the shot from a visual standpoint? Yeah, just kind of interested in your thought process with that.
Rob (10:22.698) Yeah, well, I mean, I guess when I'm standing in front of a thing, it's mostly a visual thing. And I can, you know, every now and then I'm looking through the camera and I just get this feeling like, yeah, this is good, this one works. But having said that, it all kind of fits into a greater idea of, you know, I'm not shooting.
Danny (10:31.053) Mm -hmm.
Rob (10:52.683) I'm not really documenting what's out there. I'm not shooting, you know, all the box stores and all of that kind of stuff. I'm looking for other stuff that is kind of magical and romantic and, or might be funny, you know, but it has to, I see it all as like one big body of work and it has to fit in with that, you know. So it is a visual thing when I'm looking at a thing and just trying to.
Danny (11:01.646) Mm -hmm.
Rob (11:21.227) you know, should I get a bit closer? Should I do this angle or whatever? I'm also looking at, you know, maybe the colors and things like that, but it's also has to fit in. It's like I'm shooting a big movie and it has to fit in with that movie, you know? So it's both, I guess.
Danny (11:41.137) Gotcha. How do you go about planning one of these road trips? Do you research in advance maybe areas that you've, I don't know, heard about or seen through some other medium that you think will have a lot of subject matter that would be interesting to you?
Rob (12:02.283) Yeah, sure. So I'll often, you know, I'll, I mean, these days I'll see things on Instagram and think, that looks like that might be quite interesting, you know? And, so, but I've always seen stuff in whatever medium or heard about things. And so when I'm planning a trip, say, you know, like the most recent one I did was I went up to the Pacific Northwest from, from Joshua tree.
Danny (12:09.552) Mm -hmm.
Rob (12:32.396) And I will have a few places I want to hit. But the rest of it is just kind of wandering. And I'll have a loose plan. Quite often I'll change that like part way through. But I'll have a few. What I'm really hoping for is to just stumble on things that I had no idea was there, that I couldn't imagine, you know. But it's, so there's a kind of plan. And sometimes I'm just intrigued by the name of a place.
Danny (12:51.312) Yeah. Sure. Sure.
Rob (13:01.836) or something, you know. And I never really know if it's going to work or not. Sometimes when I'm out there, I just, if I haven't got anything for a day or two, I'm just thinking, maybe I won't find anything, you know. But generally I do, you know.
Danny (13:15.313) Hey.
Danny (13:19.411) Gotcha. Yeah, that I was going to ask you about that, that there must be some periods, you know, where you're going a day or two and just kind of going, man, I, you know, I'm not finding anything here. You know, is this going to be a bust or, you know, how, how long, how long are you out there? Usually.
Rob (13:36.621) usually a maximum would be a couple of weeks. I think I, the biggest trip I ever did, I think was like 19 days. but more often it's maybe 10 days to two weeks, something like that. it's pretty tiring. it can be expensive, you know, cause I'm staying in, you know, I'm, I'm not that young anymore. And, so, you know, I, I like to stay in a place with a bed and a shower and,
Danny (13:41.362) Mm -hmm.
Danny (13:50.354) Okay.
Danny (13:56.147) Yeah.
Danny (14:01.779) Me neither.
Yeah, the hostile days are over.
Rob (14:07.212) So, you know, that's all, yeah, so that all costs money and, you know, gas and all that stuff. So, and then also it can be, I don't know, there can be a period where you're kind of seeing stuff and you're getting inspired or whatever, but, you know, maybe if you go too long, that kind of runs out. I don't know. But it might be nice to just...
Danny (14:14.931) Sure, sure I can imagine.
Rob (14:36.716) If I was like super wealthy and also didn't have other commitments or whatever, did just wander for a long time and take my time and stay a few days somewhere. But that's not the way I've been doing it. No, I put in a lot of miles in that period, you know.
Danny (14:43.956) Yeah.
Danny (14:48.82) Gotcha.
Danny (14:53.301) Gotcha, gotcha. From a question regarding kind of the process a little bit, you're out for a couple weeks, you're shooting all these photographs, do you kind of review things every night, maybe update or backup files, or do you kind of do a big dump when you get home before you start that editing process to kind of have a little bit of time away from those shots you've taken so that when you do that photo dump at home,
you kind of get that, you know, reminded of these shots that maybe you've forgotten about or.
Rob (15:26.829) Well, I get a lot of time because I'm actually shooting on film. And yeah, I shoot with a medium format film camera. I just get 10 shots on a roll. But what I will do is when I, sorry, go ahead.
Danny (15:32.853) okay, gotcha.
Danny (15:41.622) Is that, I think, you know what, I'm wondering, I think I might have seen, it might have been your page that I saw. Do you use one of those, it kind of looks like an old timey camera. Do you use one of those or have you?
Rob (15:57.517) not really. I do, I do have, I think I know what you're talking about. You're talking about like a large.
Danny (16:00.981) Okay.
Danny (16:05.973) That's my technical term, old -timey camera. Yeah, there's an English company that has been making a camera that I've been seeing people do some really neat stuff with.
Rob (16:08.717) You're talking about a large format camera thing, like, you know.
Rob (16:18.094) but, but no, I, I actually use the camera I have, I've had for more than 25 years. It's a, it's a Mamiya, Mamiya seven, and it kind of looks, it just kind of looks like a big 35 millimeter camera. so it's not, it's not really old time. I mean, it might look that way. It might look that way, I guess. but so, but what I do is when I'll take a shot of something,
Danny (16:26.101) Okay.
Danny (16:33.494) Gotcha. Okay. Gotcha.
Danny (16:38.718) Yeah, yeah.
Rob (16:47.245) I will also take a picture of that thing on my iPhone. And that's to record what I did. And also, you know, when I'm out on the road, I'll send some shots to my girlfriend and say, Hey, I shot this today or whatever. So I kind of know what, what I've got kind of, sort of, and, and I will actually, you know, I'll carry a little journal and I'll, I'll, you know, make like a little
Danny (16:51.894) Mm -hmm.
Rob (17:16.012) very rough sketch of that picture. And I will kind of review it as I go along and say, yeah, I think I've got something. I think I've got two or three or whatever. But I don't really see it until, so, you know, I've been spending, you know, like four months out in Joshua Tree. And that's when I'm shooting in that period. But I don't get this film developed until I get back to New York.
Danny (17:18.264) Okay.
Danny (17:44.057) Okay.
Rob (17:44.555) And so I don't see that stuff, but some of it for like months. It's kind of, it's a strange way of working, I guess.
Danny (17:46.489) Wow. Yeah, yeah.
Nah, I could see that being kind of neat though, after so much time passes to then finally reveal the efforts of your work.
Rob (17:57.227) Yeah.
Rob (18:01.419) And then I get it all developed and I have contact sheets and more often than not, it's really disappointing. It's just because I've got this stuff in my mind. this is a good one. That's good. And I look at it and I'm like, my God, this isn't, you know, but I've kind of got used to that because it's just a, it's a, it's a contact sheet is it's just a, a very basic,
Danny (18:11.257) Hahaha!
Rob (18:28.395) Basically, what I'll do is then I'll scan the negatives with a film scanner. And so I've got a digital file, I bring it up on the screen, I'll make a few tweaks and it all kind of comes back to life. And then I'm like, yeah, this is a good one. This is it. But when I first started this whole doing it this way, I would be kind of devastated at times. I mean, I have done, spent all that money all the time and this stuff is just not good at all, you know, but I...
Danny (18:40.026) Gotcha. Okay.
Danny (18:50.586) Yeah.
Danny (18:56.858) Yeah.
Rob (18:57.834) But it comes back and it comes alive again, you know.
Danny (19:00.826) Wow, neat. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the expense of being out there and that was before I knew you were doing it on film. So that's gotta be quite an added, you know, financial element to the whole thing.
Rob (19:12.01) Yeah, so I don't shoot that much actually. I'm kind of careful. Sometimes I'll stop and look at something, I'll look through the camera and I'm like, is this really interesting? And sometimes I'm like, no. So I just don't take the picture. And then if I can, I'll take maybe one frame of the thing. If I find something that I really am excited about,
you know, I'm going to take more just to make sure I've got it. And then sometimes with the nighttime stuff as well, I'll do more because I'm just kind of guessing the exposures and I'm not really sure if I'm getting it or not. But I'm careful. And also I'm shooting less than I used to because over time you kind of get to know what works or what doesn't.
Danny (19:57.306) Let's see.
Rob (20:09.449) and whereas there are things I would shoot more that I don't find as interesting now. So it's kind of strange. I don't shoot all that much. But hopefully I'm getting the good stuff.
Danny (20:19.93) Gotcha.
Danny (20:24.506) You know, I'm sure there's a lot of people like me that are amateur photographers that just have that interest in photography. I've always been very interested in it. I'm kind of a gear head as well, like a tech gear head. So I love the technology of new video cameras and drone cameras and just everything you can do with it. Would you recommend in a way,
Rob (20:32.968) -huh.
Rob (20:44.776) Yeah.
Danny (20:52.09) you know, the wannabe photographers out there to try to shoot on film from the standpoint of that you have to think about that shot so much more versus, you know, when you're out there with a digital camera and you can just take a hundred pictures of one subject matter and just keep making setting changes and then see if you ended up luckily getting some.
Rob (21:08.81) Yeah.
Rob (21:15.85) Yeah, I don't know about that. I'm not sure that I would advise that. I mean, I just stick with the film camera because it works for me. I like it. I imagine if I was starting today, I'd probably shoot digitally. But if you could try to have that mindset as if you are shooting on film, that might be a good discipline. But I'm not sure. That would be hard to do, I think.
Danny (21:36.794) Yeah, yeah.
Danny (21:44.41) Gotcha.
Rob (21:44.747) But that might be a way to try to think of it. Because the other thing is, you know, I see people shooting and they'll shoot like a ton of one thing. And I just think when you get home and that stuff's on your computer, there's so much stuff to look through, so much editing. It's sort of, it's a lot, you know. But I'm not sure. I'm...
Danny (22:08.282) Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Rob (22:12.458) Because I haven't been a digital photographer, it's hard for me to say.
Danny (22:19.354) Gotcha. For somebody who is trying to find their way in photography, I mean, do you have any advice for somebody that's kind of trying to find their style or their format or, because I go through all these different things that I try. You mentioned, you see a lot of people just in New York just shooting tons of things. And I bought myself like a small point and shoot.
Rob (22:45.704) Mm -hmm.
Danny (22:46.074) camera to do like street photography with and I found that to be really interesting and but you know I'm kind of all over the place on these different things that I do as opposed to kind of like focusing on one thing and trying to really get good at that. Do you have any advice for somebody on kind of you know how to find their you know their niche or their style in photography?
Rob (23:05.737) Yeah, I don't know. I think it can take a long time. You know, I think it's a thing that, yeah, maybe you do start out shooting everything and then you sort of, hopefully you can decide, well, this is good and I'm good at this. But I don't know really. I think it can take a long time to be really satisfied with what you're shooting, you know, and I think that...
you might need a lot of patience. But I think that is a, I think if you're trying to make your mark and get noticed, I think it is a good idea to, to maybe kind of specialize in, have some kind of subject instead of a bit of this and bit of that. And then maybe once, once you've done that, maybe then you can add something else. But, but I think that is a common, you know, I sometimes people show me the pictures.
and they're all over the place, like you say, and it's hard to get a handle on it. And I think certainly if you were trying to get noticed or if you had aims to be in a gallery or something like that, they want to know, they want to be able to read you and see what you do and what you're about. I mean, you're a musician, right? And I guess it's probably similar if you were just doing like a ton of
Danny (24:08.25) Mm -hmm.
Danny (24:27.386) Yes.
Rob (24:34.088) different style to be like, what is this band? You know, it's like, so maybe, I don't know. Yeah.
Danny (24:35.162) Right.
Danny (24:39.258) Sure, sure. Gotcha. That makes sense. Yeah. Do you have any upcoming trips in the works?
Rob (24:45.801) No, nothing in the works. So, you know, you never know, there might be something, but we generally spend, you know, like maybe four months after Christmas through to May out in Joshua Tree. And that's when I would do a big trip as well as, you know, local stuff. We might go visit sometime soon -ish.
Danny (25:02.01) Mm -hmm.
Rob (25:14.664) when I'd want to get out a day or two and shoot. But no, I'm kind of unusual in that I don't shoot all the time. Before we had the place out there, I would maybe take like one trip in a year where I'm just shooting for maybe a couple of weeks and the rest of the time I'm not. But what I am doing is, so I'm, I sell big prints through some galleries.
Danny (25:31.834) Okay.
Rob (25:44.745) but I also go out on the street in Soho in New York on the weekends selling smaller, affordable prints. And so I'm doing that like every week. And so I'm kind of like living with the work and I'm selling it, I'm talking to people and it's, so there's a connection to it. And I'm always thinking about what I'm doing. I want to, so I did a book.
Danny (25:52.186) Mm -hmm.
Rob (26:13.898) that you know sold out I did like a thousand of those and I want to do another book so I'll be putting that together with a view to have another book a different book new book so you know in that way I'm I'm doing the work as well but the actual shooting of it you know I I don't do it that often but so I probably won't take a big trip until like after Christmas which I know it's I know it's kind of wild but
Danny (26:22.586) Okay.
Danny (26:40.73) Gotcha.
Rob (26:42.889) But all this stuff, all this ideas about what I might shoot and everything is kind of, it's going on up in my head, ready for that to all come out. Plus I've been doing this thing, and I'm not sure where I'm going with it, but I've been doing this thing where I've started to place things within the landscape. And a lot of that's been kind of around the kind of high desert.
Danny (26:43.162) No, no.
Danny (26:53.082) Gotcha. Yeah.
Danny (27:06.81) Mmm.
Rob (27:12.746) So where I'm setting things up more and I enjoy it and I think some of it looks good but I'm not sure how much I can sell that stuff or where I'm going with it. But you know, who knows? Yeah, yeah.
Danny (27:23.79) Yeah, yeah, still figuring that one out. Cool. That's great. I know you live part -time on the East Coast and part -time in Joshua Tree. How did you find your way to settling in Joshua Tree?
Rob (27:36.713) Well, I've been going out there, you know, like since that very first trip, you know, I spent the first night of that trip in Joshua Tree, actually at the High Desert Motel, which was, you know, affordable place. And so, you know, I've been going out west a lot. And then my girlfriend, who is, you know, long time partner, she's a sculptor and she,
Danny (27:52.602) Yeah.
Rob (28:06.635) She used to be working movies, doing art production, and she'd be on the West Coast, East Coast, but she's always had this, both of us have this kind of a fantasy to have a place in the desert. You know, there was a big attraction to us. And then just a few years ago, you know, we were able to start looking at places and we looked for ages online and...
We came out a couple of times, looked around and then this one place came up and it looked just right and we flew out and we did it. But it's been a long time, you know, a fantasy that turned into a reality, you know. And I love it out there, you know, and I probably would spend more time, but you know, my girlfriend's kids and grandkids are...
Danny (28:43.051) Awesome.
Danny (28:47.947) Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Danny (29:01.067) Sure, sure.
Rob (29:01.194) are here on the East Coast and you know so there's we have to spend time here plus I do this thing of selling in New York as well but who knows in the future but it's but it's I think it's great I love it out there.
Danny (29:15.403) Yeah, Rob, where's the best places for people to go to see your work, purchase prints, all that stuff?
Rob (29:23.306) Okay, so I have a website where I sell the smaller prints and it's just my name's robhan .com. My Instagram where I post something pretty much every day is rob .han. And then I sell big prints through a place called Click in, well, I wasn't saying New York, but they've got like 12, it's CLIC, like,
Danny (29:39.179) Mm -hmm.
Rob (29:52.042) like chic but with an L. There's a gallery in Stockholm as well. And then Very Very and The Station in Joshua Tree have been selling my small prints too.
Danny (30:05.835) Wonderful. Yeah, I highly, for anybody listening that hasn't checked out your work, it's really, really great stuff. I mean, it's totally right up my alley of the type of stuff I love. And yeah, like I said, I purchased a nice print from Very Very, and there's quite a few more that I would love to get to kind of round out the collection in the home there. So definitely check out Rob's work. It's really great. I really appreciate your time.
I had to hold myself back from starting to go into like technical photography, you know, stuff, because, you know, like I said, I'm kind of a wannabe photographer, and, you know, it's always great to talk to somebody who, you know, really, you know, knows the stuff, but.
Rob (30:41.099) Yeah, well...
Rob (30:47.051) Well, to tell you the truth...
Rob (30:53.195) Yeah, but you know, Danny, I'm not the most technical guy. And so I probably, I've got like one camera, one lens. It's very simple. And you probably wouldn't learn much about that stuff from me, you know?
Danny (31:06.576) But at the same time, what I think is so great about that is like, again, because I run into this, just creating even like podcasts where people say, I want to do a podcast. And what they really always ask about is the technical, what microphone do I need to use? And it's like, you can use anything. It has almost no bearing on how this whole thing turns out. And.
Rob (31:25.515) huh.
Rob (31:29.515) Bye.
Danny (31:34.416) In your case, it's like using the tools that you have and learning how to create what you're trying to create. You know, and we see that in music all the time, you know. A great guitar player can take a really cheap guitar and a really cheap amp and make it sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan, you know. And I had a friend who was a guitar player like that. And people would go, how do you get the sound so good? He'd say, tones all in the fingers, you know. So.
Rob (31:53.099) Yeah.
Rob (32:01.483) I think...
Danny (32:02.8) Because it is easy to just buy, well, I need this lens, and now I'm going to buy this lens, instead of just using those tools that you have and learning how to create art with those things.
Rob (32:13.771) Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. You know, it's, it's not really the equipment. It's what's in your mind, you know, it's that that's where it's coming from, you know,
Danny (32:23.152) Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Rob, thank you so much for taking time to be on the show. I really, really appreciate it. I really love your work, so keep it up. And yeah, I'd love to meet you in person one afternoon. I'm sure we'll bump into each other at an event or something out there.
Rob (32:33.579) Yeah, thanks so much.
I was just going to say that, you know, I'll get in touch when I'm back out there and it'd be great to meet up. All right, thanks, Danny.
Danny (32:43.632) Yeah. Thank you so much.
Summary
Ash Maharaj, owner of the Harmony Motel, shares the history and significance of motels and the Harmony Motel in the Joshua Tree area. The motel was built in 1958 and has a mid-century design with a large courtyard and open windows. The name 'Harmony' comes from the musical notes on the sign. The motel gained fame when the band U2 stayed there during the making of their Joshua Tree album. Other notable guests include Snow Patrol and the filming of the movie 'Crazy Beautiful'. Ash Maharaj, originally from South Africa, came to the US in 2000 and decided to stay after the tragic loss of her mother. She purchased the Harmony Motel in 2004 and has been running it successfully for 20 years. Ash, the owner of Harmony Motel, discusses the challenges and rewards of owning a small motel in a small town. She talks about the unique experience of meeting people from all over the world and learning about different cultures. Ash also shares the economic challenges she faced, including the 2008 crash and the rise of Airbnb. Despite the challenges, she appreciates the freedom and flexibility of being her own boss. Ash emphasizes the importance of booking directly through the motel's website to support small businesses.
Takeaways
Motels originated in the US as convenient and accessible accommodations along highways. The Harmony Motel, built in 1958, has a mid-century design and is known for its musical notes on the sign. The motel gained fame when U2 stayed there during the making of their Joshua Tree album. Ash Maharaj, the owner of the Harmony Motel, has successfully run the business for 20 years. Owning a small motel allows you to meet people from all over the world and learn about different cultures. Running a small business requires constant adaptation to economic challenges, such as market fluctuations and competition. Being your own boss provides freedom and flexibility, but also comes with the responsibility of marketing and maintaining the business. Booking directly through the motel's website helps support small businesses by avoiding high commissions from third-party booking platforms.
Harmony Motel Website for Booking
https://www.harmonymotel.com/
https://www.instagram.com/harmonymotel/
In this episode I seit down with Author William Hillyard, author of " Welcome To Womder Valley - Ruin And Redemption In An American Galapagos"
In this episode I talk to Heather Basile, owner of The Mojave Moon Apothecary in Twentynine Palms California.
Check out her shop HERE
Be sure to check out The Highway 62 youtube channel HERE
In this episode I sat down at The Out There Bar in 29 Palms with Author , Chris Campion and Out There Bar owner , Ian Riekow to talk about the new deluxe art book projectabout the lost Sci-Fi film, Saturation 70. The story of this film is an incredible one and the book that's coming looks to be amazing...You can back the project on kickstarter.
Kickstarter HERE
Chris Campion website HERE
In this episode I soeak with Matt Beurois who is the Program Director of The Yucca Valley Film Festival. Now in it's 5th year, The Yucca Valley Film Festival features some of the best indipendant films of the year. This event is sponsored by the city of Yucca Valley and is 100% free to the public.
The event takes plav=ce November 10th 11th and 12th
go to their website for details HERE
anny (00:00.914) All right, Matt Beurois, thank you so much for joining me on the Highway 62 podcast. How are you?
Matt Beurois | YVFF (00:09.187) I'm very good. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. I love the podcast and very happy to be here.
Danny (00:13.679) Thank you Yeah, I you know when I was
looking at the name and I'm always looking at somebody's last name like okay how am I gonna pronounce and you know just not having spoke to you at all I was like oh it's like Matt Berrios or something like that so when I asked you and you hit me I was like oh okay and offline we were just talking about Paris and I was just saying how I've met so many people out here from France lately it's crazy but so and you are would you say the director of the Yucca
Matt Beurois | YVFF (00:22.783) How do you pronounce that?
Matt Beurois | YVFF (00:39.423) Yeah, yeah.
Danny (00:48.048) Thanks for watching!
Matt Beurois | YVFF (00:48.651) I would say program director. My job is to find the movies, yeah, the UK Film Festival, I find the movies, I find the filmmakers. We have a very small team and my job is to get people into town to attend the festival.
Danny (00:50.742) Program Director of the Yucca Valley Film Festival.
All right.
Danny (01:05.346) Wonderful. Yeah, so we'll come back and hit all the.
the good details of the film festival, but I would love to hear a little bit more about your background, you're a film director yourself. I just like the end credits of The Barn are on my TV at the moment. I was going to watch over the weekend and I wasn't able to do it, so I was kind of getting through it today. I need to re-watch it. I was working a little bit today as I had it on. So, but yeah, give us the...
Matt Beurois | YVFF (01:17.155) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (01:23.938) Oh.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (01:32.974) It's...
Danny (01:37.59) the rundown of where you're from and how you came to be out here.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (01:41.545) It's a journey. It's definitely a journey. So I'm a director, producer, filmmaker. I made a lot of short films.
like 25-ish, a little bit more than that probably. And the last short film I directed and produced was a huge hit in Los Angeles and the US, and Asia and Europe, everywhere except France. So that was a French doc comedy with very famous people in France, and we got like 68 awards worldwide.
Danny (02:08.717) Hahaha
Matt Beurois | YVFF (02:20.375) everywhere except France and the first one we got
Danny (02:22.434) Hahaha!
Matt Beurois | YVFF (02:24.887) was the best international short film in a festival in Los Angeles. And that was the first award I ever had and I was the only French people in the room, only French guy in the room and I just got that small statue in my hands and it was like okay this is where I need to be, this is where I want to be. So that small success gave me the fuel and the will to
Danny (02:30.163) Oh wow.
Danny (02:36.432) Hehehe
Danny (02:44.276) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (02:52.851) to change a whole lot of things in my life. And to basically, it took a couple of years, but then to move to the US, get the visa, and then later on get the green card and move to Yekavalli. First Los Angeles, then Burbank, then Yekavalli. And once we arrived in Yekavalli with my wife, we...
Danny (03:02.951) Mm-hmm
Matt Beurois | YVFF (03:13.627) Our business is to make film festivals. We have a bunch of them. We have some in California. We still have two, three in France. We have one in Nashville. We have business ties in New Mexico, in the US. So everywhere we travel, everywhere we make friends, we try to make business and work in good intelligence with friends. So we had all of that and...
Danny (03:18.884) Okay.
Danny (03:27.401) Interesting.
Danny (03:34.93) Yeah. Let's, to, yeah, I was going to back up a little bit and just get a little bit more of your background growing up in Europe. How did you, you know, get into filmmaking? Did you go to film school or what was your background like?
Matt Beurois | YVFF (03:52.039) I did not go to film school. I learned to make movies by making movies. We were a group of friends when I was a teenager and one of us got a camera. It was the big tapes back in the days, VHS, and every weekend for years we filmed short films. And then we edited it with two big VHS recorders.
Danny (03:57.387) Yeah, yeah.
Danny (04:07.702) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (04:22.633) So we really learned the craft by doing, by making films. So one weekend it was at my house, the next weekend it was at another friend's house, the weekend after that it was at another friend's house. So it was sleepover, writing films, filming the movies, editing the movies, and the next weekend again and again.
So that was a whole adventure for years and years. And then some of us, the group of friends we were, some of us got to work into TV. Some others just dropped the whole thing. And I'm the only one who really kept going and started to make real films and feature films especially.
Danny (05:03.095) Yeah.
So and it was interesting I wanted to make sure I asked this as you were talking about the film festivals that it was an actual business for you So you're I never really thought about film festivals in that way So you and your wife travel to different areas and create these film festivals, huh? interesting
Matt Beurois | YVFF (05:21.267) Well, it's... Yes.
Yes, our company that's based in Yeka Valley, Colorado studio, we do marketing, pictures, video, social media, everything to help small businesses thrive. We do it for ourselves and we've been since we created our first festival in Paris, I think 13-14 years ago, it was just a small thing and then it became bigger and bigger and bigger and we were consistent enough and
Danny (05:29.896) Okay.
Danny (05:35.936) Mm.
Danny (05:39.201) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (05:56.089) enough to keep delivering year after year. So what we did in Paris, France became a rendezvous, a place to be for emerging filmmakers and we started to create this whole network of people, motivated people who wanted to make films, show the films, promote the films in hopes that someday you're going to go to the next step and go working for the studios, working for a bigger production
Matt Beurois | YVFF (06:25.809) I'm making independent films, I know what it takes. So when we do film festivals, we exactly know what it takes and the labor of love that it is to put everything together to make the film happen. And to then, when you have the movie, not to stop there, but to push it to film festival and then to push it to the streamers, distribution company, to show the movie to an audience as big as possible.
Danny (06:29.792) Yeah.
Danny (06:46.274) Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Danny (06:54.871) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (06:55.929) We started as an association in France, a non-profit, and then it became a small business. And when we moved to the US, that business became the business with which we got our original visa. So that was interesting to take everything we knew how to do and how to do well, and to transform it into something that got us the foot in the door to get and actually move to the US. So that was an interesting journey.
Danny (07:00.364) Mm-hmm.
Danny (07:10.175) Okay, gotcha.
Danny (07:23.382) Right. Sure. I bet. Now, and I was mentioning it. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (07:27.412) Today the UK Valley Film Festival
is very specific for us, it's very unique because that's the only film festival that we do not own. Every other thing we do, we own the copyright and the brand and the event, we do whatever we want. The Yokevallé Film Festival, the festival belongs to the town of Yokevallé, so we are here to execute their vision, the strategy they have and to work with the recreation department so they can
Danny (07:40.333) Okay.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (08:03.358) get the residents happy and get hopefully some people into town for tourism during the weekend.
Danny (08:11.118) Yeah, I was mentioning that I was watching a little bit of your feature film, The Barn, which people can watch on Amazon. And it's always amazing to me when somebody really goes through that process of making a movie. I've never really worked in the film industry. One of the guys in my band works in reality TV as a show producer. And so I'm always hearing the stories of
Matt Beurois | YVFF (08:17.927) Mm-hmm.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (08:27.826) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (08:35.538) Okay.
Danny (08:39.85) you know how they're getting a little bit of spec money to film this one you know pilot episode and just everything that goes into it and it just seems that like ninety percent of the time or more it never ends up going anywhere or it's a fail and it i'm just always blown away at you know having a little bit of understanding of what goes into it getting to that point of really finally creating a movie the funding and just
Matt Beurois | YVFF (08:44.138) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (08:53.899) I'm sorry.
Danny (09:07.65) putting it all together. Give us a little bit of a short story of what it was like doing that first feature film.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (09:16.219) Well, the financing of a movie is always the most challenging. It's a pain in the ass. Every filmmaker you're going to meet is going to be looking for money to make the movie happen. So what we did for the bond, we didn't wait for any money. We financed it ourselves with our company. And what we did to make it possible, we wrote a script.
Danny (09:23.3) Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Danny (09:35.123) Mmm. Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (09:42.619) and we knew before writing the script the locations we were going to use and all the locations in the movie The Barn it's my mom's house she's got a farm and the house it's her house the bedroom it's her bedroom the living room it's the living room the barn itself back in the days when we filmed they had sheeps before we filmed in that place and now they have
Danny (09:57.404) Hahaha. Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (10:12.333) So we wrote the script knowing exactly all the locations we could use for free. The all the rooms, the forest, the barn, around the barn, the road next to the house. Everything was actually on location. We never walked more than five minutes on foot to go to another location for the next scene. So we did. She was helping.
Danny (10:20.118) Gotcha.
Danny (10:33.994) Wow, okay, great. How does your mom feel? How does your mom feel now living in a house that has had a horror film made there?
Matt Beurois | YVFF (10:45.407) Well, the barn itself, it's quite different now. When we filmed, it was a mess.
Danny (10:50.354) Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (10:53.555) We almost didn't touch anything. It was a mess because it used to be like I said the ships and then it was used as storage all my crap from all my teenage years all my sister's crap Everything was there. It was a mess So we almost didn't touch it because it was it was good for the movie to have some bunch of stuff around Since then my sister took over and now she's got a horse
Danny (10:59.144) Mm-hmm.
Danny (11:22.463) Oh wow.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (11:24.409) It's neat, absolutely clean, it's beautiful, you would not recognize the place, definitely. So every scene where we killed people, every scene where the zombies escaped, you would not recognize it, it's completely different. Yeah.
Danny (11:29.758) I gotcha. You had also.
Yeah, yeah. Gotcha. That's probably that's probably a good thing. You had mentioned in your email that you are working on another feature length film and you're doing it all here in, did you say Morongo Valley? You were filming.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (11:52.711) We filmed it already. It's called American Game. We filmed in Joshua Tree, Yake Valley, Morongo, 29 Palms, a little bit in Whitewater, down the grade, everywhere around.
Danny (11:54.406) Oh, okay, already done.
Danny (12:04.43) Oh great. Yeah, yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (12:10.575) Mostly in private lands because we didn't want to ask for permits and all this kind of stuff. So what we did we Called some friends in the community and was the hey you have a big space You have a lot of acreage. Would you help us and let us access the land for like two days and same process then the barn we Called a bunch of friends
Danny (12:20.103) Mm-hmm.
Danny (12:27.934) Sure, yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (12:34.235) And we said, okay, this is what we have. This is the list of locations, what we could use. And then we said, how can we write a script that fits within these locations? But that was a real, it was an excitement to film a movie right here because the landscapes are amazing. And in the desert, you could film a drama, you could film science fiction, you could film, we did an action, a short action independent movie. You could do anywhere you,
Danny (12:49.75) Mm-mm. Yeah.
Danny (12:58.778) Yeah
Matt Beurois | YVFF (13:04.329) you want in the desert. The way you're gonna film it, the way you're gonna write the script, you could turn it into anything and I love that about the desert. The same way we live here, the way you enjoy the desert, Danny, it may be very different than the way I enjoy the desert. It's not right or wrong, it's just we are two different people and I'm gonna see beauty here and you're gonna see beauty there and maybe I didn't notice and that's the desert. People
Danny (13:12.674) Yeah.
Danny (13:26.134) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (13:34.629) a lot and when you take time and when you connect to it it's really a very magnificent place with a lot of layers and that movie shows one side of it. The movie American Game shows the oppressive heat of the Sun in the desert and we use the wide landscape to trap the characters inside.
Danny (13:35.548) Yeah.
Danny (13:43.617) Yep.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (14:03.803) In the desert, one thing I said to the cinematographer, most of the time I said, I want to see the mountains in the background, but I never wanna see the peaks of the mountains. I don't wanna see the sky. I want to create an impression like, they will never go over that mountain here. They are always trapped in the game, the American game, except in the end when they try to escape.
Danny (14:14.326) Oh, okay.
Danny (14:19.01) Yeah.
I say.
Danny (14:27.414) Awesome. It sounds great. Do you have kind of a rough idea of when that will be available for people to watch? Or next year, okay.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (14:35.911) Next year, next year. We have a first draft of the movie. We need to do some sound, special effects, sound design on it. We still need to mix the dialogues and all of that, but the movie is edited. It's a feature length film. It's pretty impressive what we managed to do with only a few people and literally no money to make that film. The dedication of the team,
Danny (14:44.727) Mm-hmm.
Danny (15:02.476) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (15:06.655) It was incredible. It was challenging. Again, 11 days to film a feature film in the heat of June in the Morongo Valley. That was not easy every day. But the...
Danny (15:16.302) Hahaha
Matt Beurois | YVFF (15:21.619) The script made it possible and the dedication of the cinematographer, the sound guy, the actors, the performers, of course. And it was it was an amazing experience. Yeah, I'm really looking forward for the movie to be completed so we can release it next year.
Danny (15:23.691) Yeah.
Danny (15:33.666) Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. I'll be looking forward to that. And we'll make sure to, you know, let me know as it's getting closer so we can help to do our small part to promote and maybe even have you back on the show too to talk a little bit more about it. So the film, the Yucca Valley Film Fest, how long has that been going on? Five years now. Okay.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (15:40.107) Thank you.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (15:47.199) Thank you. Okay, yeah, yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (15:53.802) Yeah.
Five years, we're gonna celebrate the fifth anniversary. So already we started in 2019, 2019 was the first edition and then COVID hit. So we...
Danny (16:09.885) Mm-hmm.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (16:12.659) We discussed with the town, the recreation department and the town manager and the council members and we said we don't want to stop. If we stop that means the festival is going to die. If you stop for something that it's not going to come back up again. We are building a festival, we are building a brand. We need to continue. So we built two amazing digital editions during
Danny (16:38.942) Okay.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (16:42.627) and we could feel the appetite from the filmmakers and the enthusiasm from the community to see the event coming back in person. We underestimated the amount of people who would come to the festival actually. We tripled the attendance compared to the first in-person year in 2019. So this year we are much more prepared. We have a process in place to
Danny (16:47.453) Oh yeah.
Danny (16:54.177) Yeah.
Danny (16:59.03) Hahaha
Matt Beurois | YVFF (17:12.861) know what day the filmmakers are coming, what time they arrive, all of that to get them to make it more smooth and make it a great experience for the filmmakers
who are going to come into town for just a weekend. So for a weekend, imagine you made a movie last year and you're trying to get it into festivals. And the Yerke Valley Film Festival says, hey, we want you to come to town and show the film and do the picture signing and the red carpet and everything. Everything the big festivals do, we do in Yerke Valley. So it's a mix between an ambitious event,
and something that's really community-rooted with a lot of people from around here who come to the festival, watch the movies, ask questions to the filmmakers. So for a weekend, when you are a filmmaker, Ukeveri becomes the center of your world because
Even if you're not famous, you're going to be the star of the festival. You're going to show your film. You're going to sign autographs. You're going to walk on the red carpet every night. If you want, you're going to be interviewed on the podcast of the festival. You're going to meet many other filmmakers. So it's really something that what we do today with the UKVLFM festival as the result of 15 years, almost of experience in creating events and creating film festivals, I've been to many,
Danny (18:11.423) Sure, sure.
Danny (18:34.642) Mm-hmm.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (18:39.342) and the bigger ones, the most prestigious ones are not necessarily the ones where you have the best experience because if you go to Tribeca it's amazing Sundance or South by Southwest it's amazing but you are as an independent filmmaker you are just gonna be a face in the crowd.
Danny (18:51.446) You know, like Sundance or something, yeah.
Danny (19:02.11) Yeah, yeah, small fish in the big pond, right?
Matt Beurois | YVFF (19:05.243) Absolutely. At the UKVLFM festival, you're going to be on stage multiple times. You're going to meet with the community, meet and greets, picture signing, photo booths, red carpet. You're going to talk with people who just watch your movie. You're going to have a feedback from the audience. You're going to meet other filmmakers and maybe you're going to make movies with them later. And all of that happened. I mean, we have multiple examples of filmmakers who came to the UKVLFM festival,
Danny (19:15.839) Mm-hmm.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (19:35.237) later on made movies together, producers, script writers, cinematographers, so that's a place the networking and the social impact in the community and in the filmmaking scene also is actually more important than what we expected to do in the beginning. So that's pretty, that's a very good feeling.
Danny (19:38.743) Sure, sure, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the networking must be amazing.
Danny (19:56.702) I-I-I-
I had a few questions just kind of about the film festival and film festivals in general. So you know, obviously, again, like we mentioned, you know, Sundance or some of these big ones out there, you know, everybody is submitting to those kind of festivals in, you know, like something at the size of the Yucca Valley Film Festival. When you first get it going, is it a challenge to get submissions? Or are do you reach out to filmmakers and request a submission from anybody?
Matt Beurois | YVFF (20:13.044) Yeah.
Danny (20:28.656) primarily, you know, is there just so many independent filmmakers out there that once they know there's a film fest that's like game on and you're going to get a ton of inquiries.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (20:39.943) It's not easy. It used 15 years ago, you could just put up a small event in a, literally in a cave, not a cave, a cellar in Paris, or an underground thing, and you would have 50 people showing up. Today, you have to, you have to give them something.
Danny (20:41.543) Okay.
Danny (20:50.551) Ha ha!
Danny (21:06.786) Gotcha. Okay.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (21:07.375) So the filmmakers, when they come to the Jokovare Film Festival, they know they're going to have the screening, they know they're going to have the Q&A's, the discussion afterwards. We have round tables, panels, we have a master class, we have meet and greets with the community, we have the red carpet, we have many things. Literally, I sent an email this afternoon to one of the filmmakers who's going to come to the festival and I sent her
Danny (21:24.866) Mm-hmm.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (21:38.009) detailed schedule almost minute by minute 15 minutes by 15 minutes and I told her at 6 p.m. you're gonna be doing this 6 15 you're gonna be on the podcast 6 40 you're gonna be on the red carpet 6 55 you're gonna be doing this and then we have the art opening and then screening starts at 7 so they need to show up on time because if they don't they're gonna miss out on something so
Danny (21:50.849) Right, right.
Danny (22:02.143) Right? Yeah, the whole thing's... Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (22:07.289) It became kind of a big enterprise, but when we started the Yokel Valley Film Festival, to answer your question, we already had a huge network of filmmakers that we were working with and involved with. So we do accept submissions, but my job for 10 months before the festival is to go online and to go to other film festivals in different states, mostly New York, Arizona, Utah, California.
Danny (22:16.373) Okay.
Danny (22:31.572) Mmm, okay.
Danny (22:37.367) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (22:37.569) and to watch a lot of movies and to say oh this one is interesting oh this one it was filmed in Joshua Tree I should get in touch this one oh that's a sci-fi movie I've never seen something like that let's try to get this movie so the Yikavadifim festival really yes it's really yes
Danny (22:45.94) Okay.
Danny (22:51.694) Gotcha, so you're kind of curating, you know Films that you would like to have at this film festival to create that experience. Gotcha
Matt Beurois | YVFF (23:02.415) Absolutely. If there is a connection to our Mojave desert, I'm going to be interested. But the film has to be good. We also get movies that are romantic comedies, filmed in a cafe in LA or Chicago, and the movie is so good and the performances are so good that we take the movie anyway. But it's really a mix between submissions,
Danny (23:07.848) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (23:26.271) that we receive and the outreach we do 10 months a year to get the best movies on The Secret to get them to come to Yorke Valley.
Danny (23:35.806) I see. Okay. Gotcha. Interesting. So, and give us the date of the event this year.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (23:43.731) The Y'Kabal de Film Festival is going to be November 10, 11 and 12. So Friday 10, Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 of November. And you have a...
Danny (23:55.114) And so what's the experience like then for just me as a film lover? How does it work? Do I purchase a ticket that works for the whole weekend? What do I get to do and see and all that good stuff?
Matt Beurois | YVFF (24:11.219) The Yekebade Film Festival is 100% sponsored by the Town of Yeke Valley. It is admission free. So you don't have to buy a ticket, just show up. And the first thing I tell everyone is, when you're going to arrive this year, you're going to have a tent outside, you're going to get the program, if you're a filmmaker you're going to get a badge, we're going to give you all the information, and then, first thing you do, you're going to walk the red carpet.
Danny (24:17.223) Okay. Oh.
Danny (24:40.344) Cool.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (24:42.113) on Friday and Sunday and everybody is welcome. We want everybody in the community, the kids, the dogs, everyone, the families. We want fun pictures and all the pictures we do every day the next day they are on Facebook. So you can take your own pictures out of Facebook very easy. Everything is free. Then you walk in the main room, the community center, the Yucca room, the big room.
Danny (25:00.29) Cool. Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (25:12.233) and there is complimentary popcorn for everyone. It's free seating, we have an art exhibit during the three days, we have music playing. This year we're gonna have a podcast for the filmmakers inside the room. We have a photo booth also so if you want to take more pictures and not being under the slight light fun pressure of the red carpet. We also have a photo booth inside that's very cute
Danny (25:30.835) Mm-hmm.
Danny (25:36.866) Hehehehe
Matt Beurois | YVFF (25:41.013) Yucca Valley staff does an amazing job as decorating the full house.
Danny (25:42.281) Yeah.
Danny (25:46.042) it sounds like, I mean, a really fun event for just, you know, the local community and to be able to kind of experience, you know, a red carpet and just kind of the whole, you know, shebang, the whole experience of a film fest that they're not going to get to go do it at Sundance or Tribeca, you know, but they can get to experience that on a smaller level. And I, you know, would imagine it could also be really inspirational for, you know, younger adults and teenagers or whatnot.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (25:50.643) It is. Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (26:03.659) True.
Danny (26:13.266) who may really get inspired to go into filmmaking. And I've just always been such a film fanatic. I've talked about it before on the podcast and I hate repeating myself, but who knows? Maybe this is the first episode somebody listened to. But...
Matt Beurois | YVFF (26:17.684) Yes.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (26:29.515) Ha ha ha.
Danny (26:30.218) You know, I was lucky enough to go to a high school in Chicago that did a class called Cinema Study that I've rarely ever heard of any other high schools ever having anything like that. You got two teachers. It was a gigantic class. You had to be on you had to get on a waitlist like two years beforehand to get in the class. And it just from that class on.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (26:34.581) Yeah.
Danny (26:54.03) I have just been a lover of film and I often wish that I had gone into film instead of my music career. I know there's a lot of actors all have bands and they seem to want to be rock stars and a lot of rock stars, not that I'm a rock star, I'm a mid-level drummer in a punk rock band, but a lot of us are like, oh, I should get into some acting and getting into filmmaking and stuff.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (27:07.145) It's.
It seems absolutely.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (27:21.147) Yeah, a lot of actors want to be rock stars and a lot of rock stars want to be actors. That's what it is. But you're absolutely right. Absolutely. The learning experience.
Danny (27:27.992) Yeah. The grass always looks greener, I guess.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (27:34.843) about filmmaking, learning how do people write a script, how do you film that scene, how do you do that stunt, how was it to direct the actors, all of that. Any screening, any event during the festival, at some point we take questions from the audience and we do have a lot
Danny (27:56.226) Gotcha.
Danny (28:00.018) Yeah, that's great.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (28:05.297) implication and the involvement of the community. We have a community of people who love movies really and all the questions we get are always specific, smart, sharp and interesting and this is really it works both ways. The residents who come to the festival are gonna learn about scriptwriting, music composing for
Matt Beurois | YVFF (28:35.117) You're going to learn from the filmmakers on the making of the films, but the filmmakers also Come to town and we created we use the film festival as a platform So they learn about our community this year. They are going to meet with the wrestling team from the high school They're going to meet with the martial arts club we have in Ikebari American Adjiuji Suu Collective and Yeah, and on Sunday they are going to meet with Miss Ikebari
Danny (28:59.004) Yeah, Americana. Uh huh.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (29:04.757) scholarship so it's ready for them it's also an opportunity to see oh Yerkevare is a small town I've never been and then they realize how
Danny (29:07.106) Very cool.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (29:17.407) cool we are, the many things that happen in the community and we would love them to come back and maybe film some of their next scenes in our area. So it's really, it works both ways and that's again, that's very unique for the UKVFM festival because people show up and they want they want that experience and that dialogue.
Danny (29:19.092) Yeah.
Danny (29:44.018) Yeah, I, you know, it keeps kind of revealing itself to me more and more. It wasn't something that I thought about when I moved out here. You know, for me, it was like, I like the outdoors. I like to, you know, I'm going on my motorcycle, stuff like that all the time. Uh, but now as I'm here, like I am blown away with the amount of creative people. Like the art scene, it's like art film, like it's off the.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (29:57.183) Same, same, same.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (30:07.251) Definitely.
Danny (30:11.202) I mean, there's so many people from all these different backgrounds. And, you know, I guess we are slightly, you know, it's an advantage for what seems like smaller communities out here. But because of the proximity to Los Angeles, you know, there is a lot of, you know, I met some artists and stuff this weekend during the Highway 62 art tours, you know, that are, you know,
Matt Beurois | YVFF (30:29.707) to LA.
Danny (30:40.716) worked on big projects and big films and you know but we're close enough that you know at some point they're like I want to live in maybe a smaller community but I can still work in the industry if I want to and so it's a little bit different than a smaller community that's you know not near an epicenter for music and art and music and things like that so it's just like
Matt Beurois | YVFF (30:44.121) Yep, yep.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (30:51.071) Yeah.
Danny (31:02.946) It's like you go around a corner and all of a sudden you're like, Oh my God, look at this place and look at this, but this guy's doing, this is incredible. And it's a really exciting element of the area out here. It's in really just a vibrant scene. It's, it's really cool.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (31:11.84) You're right.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (31:18.883) It is a vibrant scene. I think we have exceptional artists around here We're gonna have once again this year at the festival many local artists competing for music videos for short films for Photography it's Every year we have more and more and I'm always amazed by the creativity of artists musicians
Danny (31:31.389) Mm-hmm.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (31:49.057) the mindset of people coming here? I don't know. Maybe it's because of the vortexes, because it's always been historically a place where you could be free. I think it's all connected and we all want to enjoy that and that's also a reason why we don't want the Yekavalefum festival not to become too big. It has to, I really believe, we have room to grow.
Danny (32:01.832) Yeah.
Danny (32:12.647) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (32:18.735) I understand that and I want that, but it's also a community film festival.
Danny (32:18.978) Sure.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (32:24.451) So I think to keep that and to keep a close relationship with the small businesses, with the artists, we need to keep that direct interaction between a filmmaker from LA, a photographer from, I don't know, Portland, and the local artist from Joshua Tree, the guy who does pottery in Pioneer Town. We all gather in the same place for three days,
Danny (32:46.69) Mm-hmm.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (32:54.345) festival has to be a platform for that. So when it becomes too big you can lose that and I really wanted the recipe of the Yikavere Film Festival to continue being, to continue serving the community. That's really the goal we have in making it.
Danny (32:56.694) Yeah.
Danny (33:13.062) Yeah. Well, I got to tell you, Matt, it sounds I'm like, excited and I'm jacked up to like come to the film festival. I'm really looking forward to it now. And I think it's just, you know, it sounds like an amazing event. Where is the best place for people to get more information about the film fest?
Matt Beurois | YVFF (33:24.799) Thank you.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (33:34.283) www.yukavadefilmfestival.com
Danny (33:37.579) Okay.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (33:37.867) website, www.yekevadefilmfestival.com. The program is going to be announced officially November 1st maybe a little bit before, maybe a little bit after, it depends. But we have a pretty good idea already of the program. We know we have secured more than 45 filmmakers and artists to come
Matt Beurois | YVFF (34:07.921) They are going to be coming with a cinematographer and the producer and a friend and the actress and the actor and the family members so it could easily turn into more than a hundred people Just artists flocking into town to attend the festival for three days So we know already it's going to be exciting and successful and we know that Whenever you attend Friday Saturday Sunday, you're gonna meet exceptional artists and you're gonna have quality
Danny (34:08.887) Yeah.
Danny (34:23.732) Yeah.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (34:37.841) time to talk with them and learn about filmmaking and of course watch great movies that's what it is at the end of the day the movies there's no movie we're gonna show this year that's not good every single movie is good has something to offer and a lot of them have been filmed around here so it's always like
Danny (34:44.535) Yeah.
Danny (34:51.782) Yeah, awesome.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (35:01.595) Amazing to see how filmmakers from the outside use our use the outdoors we live in every day and how they see that and how they put it into film We have westerns comedies science-fiction dramas We have it all and we have the kids program on Saturday animated films for the kids
Danny (35:06.538) Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Danny (35:26.942) Oh cool, wonderful. Sounds great. I will make sure for the listeners, I'll put the show notes and, or in the show notes, I'll make sure to put the website address so you guys can find that stuff easily. And Matt, merci beaucoup.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (35:40.395) Appreciate it.
Matt Beurois | YVFF (35:44.331) Merci beaucoup and I hope to see you, Danny, at the festival and all the listeners. It's free admission, compliments to the Turner Yucca Valley. They really want the festival to be a place for the community to enjoy and have a good time. So it's all free, popcorn included. So just join. Thank you.
Danny (36:00.462) That's amazing. I will be there.
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