Talking about future guests and answering some of your questions

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
All right, everyone, we're back with the Paul Junior podcast.
You know, through the years, people always ask about the bikes,
which my favorite, you know, what bikes I like the most,
or what the crowd favorites are, or people give their
opinion of what they like the best. But I would say,
without question, one of the most difficult bikes, one of

(00:26):
the hardest bikes to build for us through the years
was the build Off one bike, the copper and aluminum
bike that we did for the live build off in Vegas.
I think the reason being that we have these thirty
inch wheels. We built it from the frame, the whole
bike is copper and aluminum, there's no body work, there's

(00:47):
no paint, and it was also under duress really in
a way. It was the first time we were kind
of in a competitive situation with other builders, and we
wanted to prove our salt, wanted to like make sure
we weren't leaving anything to chance, because we wanted to
win really bad. Without a question, you know, the Build

(01:08):
Off one copper and aluminum bike was probably the most
difficult bike we've ever built, except for maybe we did
do two platform. I don't even know what you would
call them for World of Warcraft, for Hoarding Alliance.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Those were pretty in depth.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
And the Alliance thing, it wasn't a motorcycle, but it
was we use like motorcycle tracks. It was a motorcycle,
had a motorcycle. I mean we could drive it, but
it had a track front and rear had all this armor.
And that was also all copper and aluminum. So I
think anytime you're using like alloys as opposed to you know,
bondo and paint, all the sin is there, right, so

(01:48):
you have to make sure it all looks perfect, so
your aesthetic is nice, like a.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Painted bike would be.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
So certainly the bikes that had the most, you know,
the least amount of body work, we're.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Definitely the most difficult to build.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, you know, the first build off certainly was a
high pressure situation. Was against my father and Jesse James,
without a doubt, there was a lot of tension there.
There happened to be more tension between me and my
father than me and Jesse for the first buildoff because
there was a lawsuit. But I think they were really
trying to get Jesse to like go after me and

(02:22):
I kind of you know, there's three days of rehearsals
going on building up to the live unveil in Vegas,
right a lot of interviews.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
They didn't want us near each other. They tried to
keep us.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
We actually went out and did our parts separately because
they didn't want the talent. And I got in trouble
for saying talent because people were like, oh, you call
yourself talent. That's just an industry name for people who
are on television. They didn't want the talent next to
each other because they didn't want any interaction until it
all kind of hopefully blew up is what they were

(02:55):
hoping for. And so I think there was an intention
that they really want wanted Jesse to come after me.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
There was this because I heard.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Some rumbling, so I kind of got I heard something
in the background.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
It's in my book.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I won't get into it entirely, but I know they
wanted that. And then uh, and then I think when
we came out on stage and me and my father
sat down because we came out first, uh, and we
started having a conversation and the host was a big
fan and wanted to see us get along and basically.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Said, you know, would you guys get along? And it
turned out.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Then I tell my father I love him, and I
give him a hug on stage. And I think by
that time Jesse was supposed to come out and create
some sort of static, and I think he was just
he knew he was he couldn't do anything. From that
point on. It was like, what's he gonna do? Jump
into a father son scenario. It would have been nowhere,
you know. Uh. So I think he came out and

(03:48):
tried a little bit, but kind of half heartedly, and
so it never really amounted to anything, even though I
think it was supposed to. And then the second build off,
he was so focused on Richard Rawlings because they had
Richard Rawlings had said something about his ex wife and there.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Was all that.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
So focus was way off of me by the second
build off. But you know, Jesse's an interesting guy. We
never really became friends or anything like that. I think
we're very different people. But I really do appreciate. I
feel like what he's done through the years. I think
really it kind of in some ways his show kind

(04:27):
of sparked our show and look where it got us.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
So I always appreciate that about him.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Is there any situations during the course of American Chopper
that I wish would have turned out differently well, except
for obviously me and my father's relationship not being that
great at the end there. Yeah, I think so, you know,
I think. I mean, in my perfect world, I would
have liked to have taken over OCC. You know, I'm

(04:56):
not unhappy with the direction. I was glad to get
out on my own. But let's just say it was
a healthy environment at OCC Andather me and my father
were able to build that thing in one accord, not perfectly.
We didn't have to always get along, we didn't even
have to always agree. But if it didn't end the
way it did, I would have just chose to stay

(05:17):
on and take that company to the next level.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
That's what I would have liked to have done.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Now, it didn't work out that way, and I don't
think about it like that, But if you're asking that
kind of a question, I certainly think it would have
been nice to stay on and grow that business bigger
and better than it was.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
That would have been my intention.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
If we were able to stay in, if we were
able to get along enough to work together and be
on the same team, I think the longevity would have
been even greater for occ you know, I think through
the years of experience that I have and people have
seen me do all these great things as far as
building and being out there creatively business wise, you know,

(06:02):
I think sometimes people want to know if I'd ever
be interested in like teaching or showing the next generation.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
How to do and be those things. I think to
some extent.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
I like to talk with young people just about the
process and whatnot. I do find that like my brand
of creativity and the way I think and how I
operate is kind of unique and distinctly to mine, if
that makes any sense. Like my approach is, I don't
know how you teach it. I don't know how you
could teach it. No one taught me it. So I

(06:38):
have like a creative that no one really ever taught me.
I didn't take classes, I didn't go to school for it.
I didn't read books about it. I never read a
book an article on creativity. God just has given me
a gift to do what I do. God has given
me the opportunity and the gift, and the rest is
what you see. So it's so hard to like teach
a gift. You could teach practical application and common sense.

(07:03):
You could teach someone how to build a railing, because
it's mathematical, that's how I learned. But the creative process,
I don't know how you do. I don't know how
you do that. And know how you show someone how
to be creative? Yeah, I think you have to have
it or even like musicians right for instance. And I
always I know this is going to sound weird. I
always relate more to painters and musicians than motorcycle builders

(07:26):
because it's more because when I hear them talk about
their creative process, I relate to that one hundred percent,
not a motorcycle another motorcycle builder.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
It's more on the art side.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
So I see the way musicians say I think, or
a painter or a sculptor might see.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
That's the way my mind works. So how do you
teach it?

Speaker 1 (07:48):
I mean, you can learn to sculpt, but you know,
there's Picassos, and there's you know, you know the works
of Leonardo da Vinci, and then there's you know, everybody's
got a different propensity to or skill set, and I
don't know how to teach that.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
To be honest with you, I can encourage people to.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Try because I didn't know I was creative until I
was twenty six years old. Most kids are out of
college by then, so I didn't know I had the gift.
I knew I could build things, but not to the
extent in which I ended up doing later on, you know.
So yeah, it's one of those things. I call it
given the opportunity, and that's what happened to me. I

(08:27):
was given the opportunity through American Chopper in occ and
my father. Frankly, my father had opened up a door
because I wasn't going to be building motorcycles.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
I was working in the steel business. He started building them.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
I joined him, and I ended up having a gift
for it that I didn't know was there.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
So that was given the opportunity. You know.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Was there a moment in this show that never got
the attention it deserves?

Speaker 2 (08:54):
I would say this probably a lot of.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
Moments in the show that didn't get the attention it deserved,
because I would watch it and say, where's that great thing?
We did constantly, and in fairness to you know, the
editing side of things in production, they were always under
the gun to get episodes done.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Quite often, our show was.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
So good we'd have two two and a half hour
episodes that they had to make literally forty minutes because
you have commercial.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Breaks, so who decides what comes and goes?

Speaker 1 (09:29):
In my opinion, stuff that got cut out that I
think would have made the show way better. But you know,
I'm not on the editing side, and it's easy to say,
but yeah, Constantly there would be these great scenes that
just wouldn't make the cut, you know, and I would
watch it and be like, we would all go look
at each other and go, we did that was so
funny or that.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Was so great and it just didn't make the cut.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
There's a couple of charitable bikes that come to mind
that really were meaningful and it was a very heartfelt
tribute on our part. The Make a Wish bike was
a big one because you know, Make a Wish is
such a b organization and you're dealing with children who
are quite often, you know, their kind of last request is,
you know, to see us, which we had a lot,

(10:10):
which was which was a great honor. We would have
Make a Wish kids come through all the time, and
eventually we ended up doing the Make a Wish bike
and we got the kids involved and they did their
handprints all over it for the paint. And it was
really it was really very cool. And March of Dimes too.
When I went on my own, we built a March
of Dimes bike for a company who's the owners. The

(10:33):
owner had three daughters, triplets that had been had some
problems early on in March of Dimes really came through
for them and we were able to build a March
of Dimes bike as well. So charitable bikes like that
that really have to do with like kids, to me
is like, I don't know, you.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Can't get any more important than that.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
And then of course, you know, anything we've ever been
able to do for veterans through the years, that's always
been big for us. You know, always felt like if
I wasn't willing to go fight in a war or
join the army, then I better honor people who are
doing that in my stay. You know, is there any
bike out there that I wish I had? I would
say every bike I ever built on Air I wish

(11:16):
I had back, And I'm not even kidding. And I've
called after some of them and I've had well, I
have a few, and I know where there's a couple,
but yeah, all of them. To be honest with you,
I mean I would get back. And you know, I
think I said that once and I get a couple
of pictures of some random production bikes that they don't

(11:37):
really mean that much to me.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
I'll be honest.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
If we did, you know, one hundred production bikes, that's
not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the really
heavy iron the big theme bikes from back in the day,
whatever they might be, whoever they might be. For all
of those bikes to me are very important. For one,
they have television shows associated, which is tied to my legacy.

(12:00):
And for the most part I had a large say
in the design and fabrication of them, on like a
ninety percent basis.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
There was a few.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Bikes that you know, when we were real busy, got
done without a lot of input from me. But the
main the big bikes, I had a tremendous amount of
say and creative input. I'll tell you a bike I
want back real bad. I shouldn't say it. If I
say it, the price is going to go up. That's
the problem. But I don't think it's going to be available.

(12:30):
But maybe someday I'd really like to get the Cadillac
bike back. Well, the Cadillac Bike would be like the
second toughest bike we ever built. I think just from
the standpoint of it wasn't a build off, but there
was going to be a comparison because my father was
also building a Cadillac CTSV bike. Apples to apples, and
we put a lot into it. I mean, we did

(12:52):
giant offset wheels in the air ride and the whole
I mean, and it's a crowd favorite too. Among a
big sea of my motor cycles, that one really stands out,
and there's a reason for it. It's got a great aesthetic,
and that would be one I'd love to get back.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
You know.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Through the years of American Chopper, I think there was
I don't I can't think of anything in particular that
they said, well, we can't put this in the show.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
I can't think of anything in particular.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
But I know we made them nervous a lot because
we did things that seemed probably illegal in some cases,
and they were worried about it coming back. But honestly,
every everything crazy we did, it seemed to really it
just seemed to resonate with people and they loved it.
So they were like, we'll put it in and worry

(13:37):
about it later.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
No they didn't. They didn't.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
And you know, to that point, with the content that
we made, we really made ourselves.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
We created the content.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
We didn't have like a production team going, you're doing
this and you say that and you it was so
organic and I think then, you know, when the laughs
came on our side, it was very natural and it translated.
And I think that's again speaks to the state power
of American Chopper. People don't understand television that they're you know,
you can do everything real and then you got to
come in and you got to do pickups, which you know,

(14:07):
you have to fill in the blanks for production.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
That's all.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, you know, I got to tell you, like the
first five years of American Chopper, the fans, which were
probably mostly just regular people, were kind of rabid. There
was some really unusual things that took place, especially when
it came to like showing up and doing appearances at
some of the bigger areas.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
I mean, we had so many unusual things. I'm serious.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
We had a full grown man pee his pants and
his dude was not like a fanboy. He was like
this guy peed his pants and would knock it out
of line, and the line was like a mile.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
I mean, the line would go all day, you know.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
And this was at Harley's hundredth anniversary, so you could
back it up two thousand and three and he said,
he said, I pissed my pants, but I'm not, but
I wasn't getting out of line.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
He really did. It's so insane. I was crazy.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
And I don't know, maybe it was something in the
water in Milwaukee, because at this like the next day,
some lady shows up and she's in a gown from
the hospital with like the back open, you know, like
like in her underwear underneath, and she had her like
wristband on an IV thing coming out of her arm,
and she checked herself out of the hospital to come

(15:23):
see us, and we saw her, so we brought her
up and.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
She didn't look so good, you know.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
So we had a lot of unusual things like that,
and honestly a lot of really sweet things with kids
and parents and families and grandparents bringing grandkids and like.
Mostly that was the The appreciation was extreme, but there
was some really crazy scenarios and there's a lot that
I would never even talk about that was even more

(15:49):
insane than that. But those are two that come to mind. Yeah,
you know, everyone wants to know what's up with Mikey.
I'm trying to get him to come on the podcast.
I think maybe he'll do it. He is coming up
this weekend. We're gonna hang out, chill a little bit.
But you know, I think he's been doing some stuff
with my father, So I don't know if he's off

(16:11):
limits or what.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
But I'm gonna find out this weekend.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
You know, being Mikey talk occasionally, He's a hard guy
to get a hold of a lot of times.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah, Mikey, where's Mikey. Mikey.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
I'm trying to get him to come on the podcast.
I think he will eventually. I don't really know. I
saw him do something with Rick and my father recently
on social media, so I don't know if he's a
free agent.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Right now or not.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
But I would love to have him on because I'd
like to talk about not just the early days of
American Chopper with him, but also, you know, the Senior
versus Junior when the show split and I started Paul
Junior Designs because he had come over with us, so
I'd like to talk to him about some of that stuff.
I'd really like to talk to him about like when
things started, his perspective on the show. I think he

(16:58):
came in like they're in a Black Widow maybe first
episode of the series. I think we did two pilots
before he joined the show. So I'd like to get
his take on that, how he remembers things, you know,
where he was at at the time. That would be
fun to talk to him. I'd love to talk about
that stuff. I talked to Vinnie and I talked to Cody,
and they're both going to come on the podcast. We're

(17:19):
just trying to coordinate that. And I invited Rick. I
even offered the beach. I'm trying so honestly, it's just
people schedules right now that people are busy, everyone's working,
So we'll see. I might have to go on the road.
I mean I might have to do something like that.
I've been thinking about it. We could do remotes. We

(17:41):
could do a remote and then always maybe go visit
people or they could come here.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
I think there's so much to talk about.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
We can do this three and five times so and
I'm sure people out there are like, Hey, you said
you're doing a podcast, you have no guests.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Well, I'm working on it and we're getting there.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Hey, guys, you know, I really appreciate you know, following
me on social media, checking out the podcast and really
just supporting Paul Junior Designs at everything we're doing. Uh,
we're gonna keep moving forward on this. We're gonna keep
bringing you good content, you know. We we We're gonna
have some big announcements coming up pretty shortly. And uh,

(18:18):
and hang in there, because I think I think it's
gonna get good