The Paul Jr. Podcast - Episode 7 - Rick Petko

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
That's the first time I saw the Yankee bike.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Oh, since it's been destroyed. Yeah, yeah, I keep him around.
I think this it came out, This came out good.
Oh yeah, this was good man for us, you know, definitely,
because that got us six episodes when we were like, yeah,
struggling to come back, you know, hm, and they you know,
it's funny because this bike came in. You remember back

(00:25):
in what was it seventeen, when the show came back
for two years, yeah, two seasons. They were really putting
pressure on me to find a project to do with
my father because you know, they always want that crossover
with me and my father, even though we were separate
at the time. And dude, a guy calls me, sends
me pictures and he said, hey, will you fix this bike?

(00:45):
And it's the.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yankees bikes And I'm like wow.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
I was like, well, that's terrible. And then I'm thinking
damn because they were putting because my father's like, I
don't he didn't care. He didn't want to have nothing
to do with any of it, you know. So this
thing walks through the door and gave us perfect content,
like non threatening, not for a client, just something we
did in the past that we were able to restore together,
and honestly, it got us six episodes. Yeah, and then

(01:11):
that lasted, you know, for two seasons. I'd say past.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
That I forgot, actually what even happened to it?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
So what happened with the Yankees bike is And the
only reason I know this is this guy's name was
something Wells, and he came to my shop and he
was looking to buy bikes. I didn't have any for
sale because everything I had I was keeping, you know.
And he said, oh, I just came from your father's
shop and I'm gonna I'm gonna be buying the Yankees'
bike and the Jets bike. And I was wondering if

(01:39):
you had any bikes for sale, and he was telling me,
and he said, you know, I'm a gypsy, He's telling me.
And he was a gypsy guys. I grew up with gypsies,
and I know exactly, you know, nothing against them, like them,
all quite off of blacktoppers whatever. But he was like
wanting to buy bikes, and I had nothing for him.
And then so impro two like six months later, that's

(02:02):
when the Yankees bike shows up. Okay, and I'm looking
at the pictures online and I'm seeing these you know,
round round puck marks almost right, and I'm like, this
is like an eight pound sledge did all the damage
on this thing, and so everything when you look at
that the old tens, everything is beat up with a sledgehammer.

(02:24):
And so but he claimed this guy because someone else
sent me pictures of a trailer upside down with the
Yankees bike and the Jets bike in it. Trailer upside down.
But that's not how they got damaged. They got beat up.
So I think what he did was he bought bikes,
especially the Yankees bike built on television by occ right,
so that had a lot of value, and then all

(02:45):
those signatures of the Yankees. I don't know what my
father sold it to him for. It doesn't really matter,
but I'm guessing he insured it for a lot more.
And so I think what happened was he just did
like a big insurance job on it. Now I can't
prove it, but go look at that, dude. Yeah, it's
take take you two seconds to look at like here,

(03:06):
I'm gonna bring one. I'm gonna bring a piece because
I want to show you this.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, yeah, that didn't happen on the trailer.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
You know what I'm saying. Does that look like anything
that like flipped over somewhere. It doesn't look like anything
that flipped over in a trailer. You see how round
those marks are. Yeah, so someone actually, I think that's
a total insurance job right there. You know, I will
say this. I think this is a prettier bike than
the first one. Personally. I just like this. I like

(03:35):
the lines a little bit better. And then I did
you know, I did the white frame, I did the
inverted front end with the white. I made it a
little bit more home colors, you know, so I went
more white and pin stripe.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
I do. I like all the pin stripes on this one.
It's clean, right, definitely?

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah. The ridge frame, same frame, so on this bike,
it's like the same frame, same motor. I think I.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Changed the forward controls.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Same exhaust, pretty much everything. The only thing we changed
was the tins same and we updated it. You know,
we put like, I don't even know what we did.
I gotta think about this because they had one like
an extra pennant and stuff like that. So we just
upgraded it at that time. And it's got a few
signatures on it, but nothing like this this had the.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
I remember when he took the tank over there. Damn no,
Michael did, right, Yeah, Mikey did?

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah? Crazy? That would The value there is huge, really huge,
because you know, I dude, look at what some of
these signatures are worth today. And that had the whole
team plus Mattingly who was the batting coach. So it's
kind of sad because I feel like that bike original
tins big money down the road and commissioned by the Yankees.

(04:47):
Maybe not the Yankees, but Posada got permission. It wasn't
like someone did some tribute. And that's the thing about
a bike like that. Can you name one other motorcycle
that the Yankees were okay with? No? So that's like
this is a fish as it gets as a motorcycle,
you know at the shop. Yeah, that was great. That's
one of my favorite episodes because of Helen, my grandmother. Yes,

(05:09):
she loved Georgie's such a huge fan, right, I know,
it's good. People love this episode. They come in here,
you know, we're close to Philly, so there's some weird
stuff going on with you know, they're not all about
the Yankees over here, but they love that MLB bite
because it represents every team, you know. So anyways, I
guess we kicked it off like that. Rick pet Coo

(05:32):
needs no introduction here on the Paul Junior Podcast. And
I appreciate you coming out right definitely.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
It's nice to be here. I've been wanting to get
down to your shop for a long time now and good.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
To be here. What do you think of the layouts?

Speaker 1 (05:43):
This is cool? I like it definitely. I like all
the old all year old tins and everything around here.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, this is your flavor, ain't it. Yeah, it's good.
I appreciate that you appreciate it. I think people like
the aesthetic. But when you know about good old stuff,
you know, especially with you and motorcycles, you know, you
could really appreciate it even more than just oh this
is a pretty space, you know. The history, uh, in

(06:08):
the advertising. I think that's that's really what I love
about it.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
And I almost wore my Indian shirt today, did Yeah?

Speaker 2 (06:13):
I think i'd have been fine? Right? Yeah, Well, good man, listen,
I figured let's just talk. This is what I'm doing.
You know, it's catching up. We really haven't seen each other.
I mean, when was the last time we saw each
other in person?

Speaker 1 (06:28):
That's been probably at least ten years.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
I think. So you look great, man, So do you? Yeah, dude,
you're not getting any older.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
You got no facial hair shaved, it's there.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, when the stubble comes in, you can see the whites.
I know. I try and keep this short, dude, because
when it grows, it gets I started looking like old
man Winters, you know. Well good. So I thought maybe
we could talk a little different. You know, everyone knows
about American chopper. We could always transition into that a
little bit. I wanted to get an idea because I
started to think about having you come out, and I

(06:59):
was thinking, there's so many things I don't know about you,
like then, like I grew up with you know, and
I knew Cody when he was a kid, and obviously
my brother Michael, and but with you, I don't feel
like I have a good background on you, like where
really where you're from, or how you how you learned
a trade, or how you got involved with motorcycles any

(07:20):
of that stuff. So I guess where are you from originally?

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah? I guess. You know, we probably never really had
those conversations we did, even with your dad or anybody together.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
And I think it was more. I think it's more. Uh,
it was the timing which you came in. It was
just chaos.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
It was extremely busy. Everything was just taken off like crazy.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, and that's probably why my father brought you in
because we needed more help than we knew.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Right, Yeah, it was a a I think you're just
finishing up the commandschee bike. Actually at the time, okay,
that's when I stepped in.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
That was a good project. That was a good time frame.
That was a good time frame for the show. Was
super early on. Creativity was just starting to really flow.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
You had the little trailer outside.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
That's that's right, that's right, And we had that little
water jet right that really before we had the water jet. Jeez,
that's crazy, man. So we were still like basically borrowing
like everything we could find in the steel shop to
make stuff work.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
We were you just put together the second shop upstairs.
So I come in and I did work downstairs for
a while, and as the deep stair shop was getting
laid out.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
That's right, because we split for a while, we had
that we start we did the downstairs shop and then
we built the upstairs and then we kind of had
both going because I remember working up there. Meanwhile, the
pow bike was being worked on down below. So that's interesting.
So you came in on the Comanche, which to me
is when I think about that bike, man, that really

(08:46):
is like that first season seems like the first season, right, I.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Think it was.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yes, Yeah, I think you're right. Okay, so how it
So when did you, I guess, motor Let's talk about motorcycles.
How did you get into motorcycles?

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Growing up? My dad painted bikes. Okay, so that's actually
where I came from was painting, which I still have
one of the first gas tanks ever painted. Really you
still have that. But yeah, that was my thing painting.
I was doing like more restoration type paint jobs at
my house out of my garage. And then I believe
it was I think Laconia was going on, and I

(09:18):
rode up to Laconia, so I saw where your shop
was at. So then when I got back home, that's
when I called. Actually I talked to is he Ronnie
or Steve at the time? Maybe Steve?

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Did you stop by on the way to Laconia.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
I didn't stop.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Oh, you just knew where it was.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
I just saw the eggsit. Yeah, for a seventeen k
that was your big thing on the when the show
came out, and.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
You were a painter by that time. You were doing
paint like restoration work like old bikes.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah. Really, that's she I can't believe I never knew that. Yeah. Yeah,
And I was already a welder, you know, I did
a lot of welding and everything like that. But then
at the time I think you guys needed somebody to
do the welding. I think everything was going over to Rollmar.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yes, yeah, he Romar was a very skilled welder right
down the street. I think he welded up up the
black widow for me. You know, all that web work.
I had it all attacked together and he came in
because at the time I didn't really you know, we
came from that stick MiG welder background. Tig welding was like,
I don't know, it was like a whole different art form. Plus,

(10:16):
you know, the tig welder we had was like, you know,
like as big as that block right there.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
And I don't think you had the Miller ones yet.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
No, maybe came no no, those little short wave no no.
And then obviously tig welding's a lot easier. Now it's
like much more friendly, even aluminums, way more friendly. So yeah,
we needed that at the time. So you kind of
came in as a welder. Huh.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yep, just came into actually at the time I think too,
was to help then with the all the mock ups.
I think when I came in, we were like.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Twelve behind, oh like production mock ups. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yeah, I came in started doing that and then just
kind of kind of drifted into the TV part of it,
which wasn't even talked about like initially.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
I got you. So you just kind of transitioned it.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Just yeah, just kind of float in there, and that's
why it kind of happened.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
That's wild man. Yeah, we used to do a lot
of production bikes back then, the mock ups that you know,
Pat Kennedy tank, whichever tank it was, Venders, there was a.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Lot of them. Yeah, I think at least a dozen.
Ben was behind.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, we were I think we called him t Reck.
I don't even know if we called him anything at
that time, there were t recks. Is that soft down?

Speaker 1 (11:19):
That?

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah? Right? Okay, interesting So that was Comanche right and then,
and so when you transitioned into the show, what was that.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Like, you know, it was just kind of thrown into it,
and it really wasn't a whole lot different probably than
doing everything else we were doing at the time. It
just happened to have, you know, the cameras there with you,
But yeah, it was it was interesting. I never signed
up for that part of it though. Yeah, I know that,
I know.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
And you were always like the quietest guy, you know.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
I just like doing stuff and making stuff and building stuff,
and then yeah, just kind of turned into that.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah that's wild man, that's crazy. So but when did
the sheet metal come into play? Did that just did
you just graduate? Did you just start learning that when
you were working for us you had all that?

Speaker 1 (12:00):
No, I was doing that at home.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Okay, so tell me about that aspect of your life,
because painting and sheet metal are two completely different things,
right they are.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Well, let's see, Well, growing up, I think before I
came up there, I was doing auto restorations. Okay, I
was working at a place local to me. We were
doing auto restorations there, and I did all They didn't
have any like forming materials, no, no English wheel, nothing
like that, so I was doing everything by hand with
a sandbag.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Im just hammering everything out.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Hammering everything out. Yeah, I did that. I remember doing
a lot of tea birds, the back sections of tail
lights on tea birds, and a lot of tailgates stew
To Baker tail lights or tailgates.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Oh really?

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Which was all the lettering? Doing all those?

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Like would you have to emboss that in there because
it said Stewda Baker.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah they were. They were tough doing it and nobody
else liked to do it or could do it. So
then I was doing all those and.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
So what did you have raised letters that you would
knock the sheet metal over to have that embossed?

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Look, I would just hammer everything and just use certain
dyes and everything. It was. It was tricky, but that's
the kind of where I started out doing. So I
want to you got a sand blaster out back, got
a burlapsack, put sand in air and that was my sandbag.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
That was it. Huh, nothing fancy, nothing at all. He
got the job done, though. Wow, that's interesting. So what
made you come to us of all places? You know
what it was?

Speaker 1 (13:13):
I think I saw the show like the first or
second episode and the mix between like you and vin
I kind of felt like it's like well, I kind
of fall in between them both. I was like, let me,
let me give him a call, just randomly because at
the time I actually at the restoration shop. The owner
is big german dude. He was a real dick and
he's like totally belittle this one guy there. I was like,
I will not I will not work for you anymore.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, you couldn't stand it, and then I left and yeah,
you have no tolerance for injustice. Not like that. No,
that was pretty it was it was abusive. Huh, Yeah,
it was bad.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
So yeah, that was in That was I refused to
work there anymore and saw your show and then went
up to look on you. So where you're at, like,
it's only one hundred miles. I can do that, And
that's kind of where it happened.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
And then I would imagine that once you started working
for us, well the show kicking in, so it probably
pushed you a little bit, huh, Like as far as
your skill set, like we were always pushing the limits, right, Oh, absolutely,
like he had to try We were constantly trying new things, right,
it was kind of pushing the envelope.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah, just with building everything. I mean it put what
I was doing up to a whole another level. You know,
obviously I had to just you're being on TV and
then just just building everything, just your techniques and doing things.
I mean, I'm working with a sandbag, you know, just
a burlap bag, and then suddenly I have an English
wheel or.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, you're like, this is great, this actually works. Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
And then we started doing deals with the different companies,
air gas and you know, a couple of ones, and
we were able to strike geting the equipment in and
we were able to attack actually get really good stuff.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah, real good equipment. That made a big difference.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Oh, absolutely didn't. We had the first flow jet. We
got that in.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
We got tell me about the first flow jet. I
got to tell you. So I grew up in the
steel business, right and I had been building bikes by
that time maybe for like four years and using like
the sheer in the shop and cutting stuff out by hand.
That water jet, to me was it remains to this day,
the most important piece of equipment that I've ever had.

(15:04):
And it's because you can think creatively and then utilize
that piece of equipment in such a way in that
it saves so much time. You mean, you think about it,
even a square plate with four holes takes x amount
of time. Oh yeah, on the water jet, it's just
it's minutes. And so I love the reverse engineering of
what the waterjet can afford you, right, how you marry

(15:26):
things up and how you make stuff work in a
much quicker way.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah. We went from that little one, the first one
we got, you know, up to what was the five access.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yepant that's right, and then right at occ they had
two water jets, right, the five access and then the
other one. Wow, okay, let me back it up. So anyways,
you felt like you would fit in between me and Vin?
Is that what you said? That's kind of what made
you think to even approach.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yep, that's though. That was, you know what I was
thinking about it. And then I called, like he said,
I think it was Steve. It was probably Steve who
I talked to, and then he called me back, and
then I was up there, I think, going to I
think it was a Wednesday. I rode up or drove up,
and then okay, I got hired on.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
The spot, and that was it. They were like, all right, go,
do you remember in the start mocking that bike up? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (16:10):
In the in the in the top shop. Your office
was tiny, barely two of us could fit in there.
It was you and your dad in there when I
come up from my interview and then just fit in there.
And remember you guys were grolling me and then.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
We were putting it to you.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
It was yeah, I just want to know if I
can make a tank.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, okay, can you make a guess that's kind of
what we need. And you're like, yes, I can. Yeah,
that's interesting. You know, even for the years in the
steel shop. It's funny because coming up in the steel business,
we would hire people, you know, and they would come
in with their resume and they'd be like, uh, can
you well yeah I could. Well can you grind? Yeah

(16:46):
I could grind, you know, like he was like yes, yes,
And then we'd be like, all right, let's let's go
out into the shop. Nine out of ten it was
like it was like it looked like chicken crap their
weld right, and then they're grinding was nowhere near what
we you know, sometimes you could work with that and
teach people.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Hey, good grinder's hard to find.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
It is really when you when you need to do
it right, It's true, one cannot do it nope. And
I remember back in the day, we would have like
different grinders for different purposes, like you know, like the
hard grinding with the hard wheel, and then maybe a
matabo with like a sanding disc because it was a
it was a it had less vibration, so it would
just be a nicer finishing grinder, you know. So a

(17:27):
lot of nuances to that stuff. But so I could
see us, like I don't really remember it like, but
I could see us, you know, grilling you about it.
And then obviously you were up for the task because
you got the job, and we were desperate for skilled
workers at the time, especially someone who had experience with
like making a guess, shaping steel. You know, we were
able to bend and everything. I was never like, I

(17:49):
was never like a sheet metal shaper type guy, you know.
So I do feel like you fit right in day
one though, man, because we're you know, Vin's chill, I'm chill,
different personalities, but you know, you you just stepped right
into it and it was welcome. I remember that at
the time because we were behind and we needed to
ramp up with I think the business was screaming at

(18:09):
that point. It was like we couldn't keep up with
bikes or T shirt sales, and it was out of control.
It was right.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
You remember when we made the dirt road out back
so we could get out because of all the fans
would be outfront. You couldn't leave.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
It was our little scape route. Yea, Yeah, that's crazy, man,
it was. It was insane back then. That's interesting because
you came into it at a time where we were
we were really the show had really hit, you know.
I mean we had like seasons yet to where it
built and built, but it was very popular. I think
by time, by time you came into the fold, what

(18:45):
was your initial thought process when you saw me and
my father's I want to call it instability, but like
the insanity of what that looked like. I don't know,
have you ever had experience prior to a scenario like that. No,
so this was like very foreign. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
One of the ones I remember was you guys were
I think it was destroying the leather couch. That was
a popular one. I would showed that one a lot
and driving the was it the expedition or excursion? Were
not just destroying stuff?

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah, my father had a helmet on, right, it was
driving that what was that. Yeah, the excursion.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
It was hard to believe. It was like, man, this
is like perfectly good.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
What's wrong with this office? Nothing?

Speaker 1 (19:29):
I didn't get the concept, you know, with the with
the drama and with the TV end of it, what
people really like to see. It wasn't all about the bikes.
Me personally, I liked the bikes.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
The drama.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
I didn't really know about that or how that worked
in TV land.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, well we didn't either until we created it, you know,
because it worked, it worked, But there was nothing like
that before us. You know, we we we uh really
unknowingly created a whole genre of television that now they
call docu drama. But at the time we just were
not us like our natural craziness. We were always like that,

(20:05):
and the steel business everything was like we did dumb stuff.
You probably would have hated everything we did. You would
have saw it as being pointless. And that's kind of
your point, right. You came in you were very uh
single minded about Hey, this is work, bikes, this is
what I love. And then there's these idiots flying around
the room, you know, destroying stuff. It's like my god, yeah, like,

(20:26):
what's this is all good stuff? Why are you driving
over it? Uh? We did that and we had a
lot of fun doing it, and it was a good
relief for us too, because there was always a lot
of pressure, you know, like whatever it was, whether it
was like personal relationship or business pressure. And that's just
kind of how we blew off steam back then. You know.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yeah, as time went on, I got you know, obviously
used to it, but you know, it was you could
see how it was working. Yeah, everybody just to just
to build up and you needed that you did at
a time with just blowing stuff up, running the cars
into the woods. Ye whoa to send him into the trees?

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah? I remember we did that Michael's car. He was
not happy and all this stuff. Whenever he was not happy,
he wanted to kill.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Someone, not even doing the super Bowl commercials we did there.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
That's right, Yeah, that's crazy. The first commercial we ever
did was a super Bowl commercial for AOL.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
You remember that one?

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, yeah, I remember all this.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
It was like a quad processor or something, wasn't it
or something like that? Is that what I'm thinking of?

Speaker 1 (21:28):
There was there was one thanks remember the whole everybody
that had to show up to.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Make it all work. It's crazy man. Yeah, that was interesting.
The whole experience was interesting. So let me ask you
a question. The first time me and my father really
got into like a terrible argument, I felt like we
were very disruptive to people. Even I was talking to
Michael about it, and you know in the steel business.
It was terrible when I was a teenager. But I

(21:54):
feel like some of our fights right around the time
you came in, because I remember having him in that
upstairs shop. I always felt bad for everybody man because
it was it was scary, Like the way we fought
was like a like really angry.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah. Yeah, you know a lot of people even today,
everyone always asks, you know, is it real? It was
a real you know, it's like what you see is
how it was, you know. I mean it wasn't made
up ahead of time, and you know if it wasn't real,
I didn't know it, you know, but it didn't seem
like it was not real.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
No, definitely not. I think you're good for credibility in
that way, because that is the number one question people ask.
They're like, oh, was that was that real? That wasn't real? Well,
because how could it be? It seems so surreal, you know,
so as time went by. Obviously you were there for.
How many years did you work at OCC and what

(22:47):
was your commute?

Speaker 1 (22:48):
It's about one hundred miles each way.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Wow, so how many hours is that? Like? Four hours
a day is a bit?

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, I think my record was nour twenty. A lot
of tickets.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
And you would go through the park, right, didn't you
usually go through that park up there?

Speaker 1 (23:02):
And uh yeah, right up through along the river New Jersey.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, and that was a hairy run. A lot of
dead animals, a lot of dead I remember seeing. I
remember seeing bears. Be you did didn't kill them by
motorcycle or car? Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
I mean that was I always I didn't like ride
a bike to work a lot, just because of the
animals coming through that park.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
A lot of deer, a lot of bear, Yeah, a
lot of cars.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
So what was your favorite thing about the show?

Speaker 1 (23:31):
You know what? I what the favorite favorite thing which
I miss now is just the creativity and being able
to do it at such such a good level and
doing it for the people that we did afore because
they were so appreciative and you know, just they they
loved what you did. Yeah, just a creative end of
it is something that even today. I mean, I do
a lot of cool stuff. I make a lot of
cool stuff, but I don't have all that like we
used to.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, it was kind of a movement, if that makes
any sense. And and it's interesting because I miss that
too to some extent, right, certainly the relationships too, and
like how the team got it done. I thought that
was fantastic and the interaction was fun too, Like I
don't have that anymore. There's not like a team of

(24:12):
crazy guys working every day to do the impossible, which
really quite often it did feel that way, at least
from a time frame. I think people think we put
like fake stress on the show, And the truth was,
if it wasn't for editing and filming purposes that we
had to get stuff done, it was for an unveil
and there was already and there was three projects that

(24:33):
we didn't get to yet, you know. So I feel
like all that pressure made great television, But it wasn't
wasn't manufactured. We weren't pretending to be real busy. We
were overwhelmed, slammed right.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
Well, what nobody understood was that you had American chopper
to a TV show. You also had Orange County Choppers
building bikes.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
So not everything was a TV bike, that's right. We
built hundreds and hundreds of you know, customer.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Bikes, tons and tons.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
It was all the same people. So we were filming
every day and you still had a build those regular
bikes every day.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah. That was crazy, man, crazy times. I do miss that,
I'll tell you. Once the show went off in twelve, man,
I remember being done with it because it was so
so much work for so many years. Think about it.
We were like that show film we show. We filmed
that show for eleven months out of the year and
we took one month off, right, I mean for us,

(25:22):
right with all the travel and everything else. And by
the time when it was done the first time around,
I was like I was spent, I was burnt. I
was like good. And then I had this time period
of time, maybe like six months later where I started
to really miss the show, like I started missing it all.
All of it was a weird thing, man. It was
like a separation thing. And that's been like all the

(25:45):
series of these different emotions throughout the course of years.
And I think where I'm at right now is such
an appreciation for what we had that I missed it
at the time a little bit because it was too overwhelming,
you know, and me and my father were very uh,
you know, we had our differences and that was always
a very difficult thing. There was a lot at play.
There was a lot of personal stuff, there was a

(26:07):
lot of business stuff, as you remember, I'm sure, the
different things we fought about. And so now when I
look back at that, I don't look back at it
with angst or like even for the really kind of
terrible stuff. I look at the whole big picture and think, man,
what an experience that no one ever gets, you know,
like who gets to do everything that we did? And

(26:28):
then the appreciation people had for us, and even today,
the nostalgia right now for the show I see it,
especially having this showroom, the nostalgia is off the charts
because all these people grew up with us and we
had an impact. I'm sure you.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
See it, right, you're oh, yeah, no, I hear that
quite often.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, So I guess ultimately what happened with occ and
yourself that you moved on.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Well, for me at the time, it was twenty sixteen
and we were having our second daughter, and I think
that the show had ended on our end at the
DOCC shop a little bit prior, or maybe we're just
in between shows. And then it was just you know,
Brittany's at home, we're having her second kid. It was
just like, you know, it's time, it's just time to

(27:13):
be closer to home. Just at to book home one
hundred miles you know, in a hurry is kind.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Of yeah, especially with kids. Man, having a kid myself,
you don't want to miss nothing's worth missing out on
that kind of stuff, you know. And like with your commute, dude,
that was like half your week. Yeah, just driving.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
There was a lot of time. And you know with
all the driving, I mean there's a certain ratio of crashes.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
To write, your percentage was increasing.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
It was I mean I lost my license for a while.
I mean that happened because of my tickets, which I
didn't even know. Really I lost that for you a
couple of months cost me a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Really, you had to get it all back just to
buy it back. Well, you know it's funny too, well
not funny, but like when you think about the hours
we put in, it was extreme. It was no eight
hour days. It was not eight hour days. It was
like six to seven, you know, so it could be
like especially when we were up against it, right, a
lot of frustrating like late nights, trying to you know,

(28:06):
get it over the finish line, to get it on
the truck, to get it to California or wherever it
had to be. You know.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
I remember getting home like nine o'clock at night, you know,
just after working nine o'clock, I get home, you know,
just to eat, crash out and get up in the
morning drive back.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Jeez, must have been worth it, though it.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Was, you know what I mean, you can't trade it.
I mean, look what we got to do with all
the people we got to do with, and even all
the people got to meet. I mean just all those
mus celebrities, you know, just sports people, and just to
working with you know, the film crews, all the different people.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, isn't it funny? Like people talk about what's it
like to be on camera? And at first I remember
like it was it took to getting used to. You
may have experienced that. I don't know, maybe you were
comfortable right away, but I remember early on I was
like it just was awkward. I come from Montgomery, nowhere
in New York I didn't even like my picture taking
and I'm on camera, you know, and I feel like

(28:58):
I feel like that quite often. It takes time to
get used to that whole aspect of things.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
You know. Yeah, it was for me. It didn't happen naturally.
I mean it was it took a while just to
get used to it too. I remember Zach at the
when I came in, he was doing a lot of
my filming, my stuff, and it was like he always
wanted to see everything, everything everything. It's like, look, dude,
I just did half of it.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, where were you?

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, So it was it was it was hard, just
like them winning all their shots and yeah, you do
this and that. So everything you were doing for me,
you like, put my blinders on and get in my
mode and I just start started doing what I got
to do. And then suddenly it's taking you three times
as long because he's got to do this, he's got
to do that, and that that was the biggest adjustment.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah, I think that that's that's a big that's a
big factor when you're when you're focused and you're in
the mode right, because that's how you get work done right.
And there's a lot of stop and start because you
have to make provision for the camra we and eventually
you just get good at it. You just know what
they need, you know. But I will say people always say, well,
how is it? How is it? The truth is, like

(30:00):
the camera guys and producers and show run like they
just become colleagues. Like the people they just like anyone
else you would ever work with, Like he just the
guy's just holding the camera here. But it's just like
we worked together. We worked with them. It was just
par for the course, you know.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
Yeah, you had to know how they how they operated,
what they were looking for and like you said, you know,
just that kind of stuff. So it was it was
your buddy just looking over your shoulder.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right. Yeah. And it was fun. Man,
those guys were good. He got to meet some cool people,
mostly from California. And because the show was so stable
and we filmed so much, we had guys on there
sometimes for years, which is not usually people jump around
and they did, you know, they'd come and go because
they have to keep their portfolio fresh, so they're not

(30:44):
just you know, on one show all the time. But certainly
we had some great guys Zach being one. God rest
his soul, you know. So a lot of good people,
even Martin Marty Martin Martin Martin who was our sound guy.
He's passed on. A lot of these guys have are
not around anymore.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
He was great, Omar and Percy and you know, just
there's you know, there's a yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
What a great group of guys. Omar, Percy, all those guys.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
Man you know Chip Chip, he was a van of
White's brother. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, it's such a crazy world, that television world. So
once you left OCC, it was on good terms, right,
it was just time.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
So where did you go?

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Oh? I left there already had a deal set up
with actually a Harley dealership right by my house, poking
them mount In Harley Davidson. So I worked to deal
with them just to do pretty much everything we did
up in Orange County, just no theme bikes. That was
my deal. Was like we're not doing thing, but right.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
You're like, I don't want to do that. I don't
want to do things.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Yeah, they were just like let's stay away from there,
you know, but let's put together a full custom fab shop.
There's only at the time, there's like maybe three dealerships,
Harley dealerships in the country or saying in the world
that would allow you to do what we were doing
to that point.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Really so yeah, yeah, because they didn't really want custom
they didn't want their bikes changed, never wanted their bikes change.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Now, not to the extent that we were going to
be doing them.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
No, Yeah, it's funny a quick Harley story. I remember
in some prominent publication during the height of our show,
there was some article giving us credit for Harley's ten
percent increase that year in sales and Harley's like pr
team like spun it way down. Oh no, it's because
of our great marketing and advertising in our newest you

(32:26):
know bike. But everyone knew, dude, American Chopper was selling
bikes for every manufacturer out there, like two at a time.
As matter of fact, we were making bike riders of
people and then they were going and purchasing bikes. I mean,
we really even the haters in the industry, and there
was a lot of them, because you know, it's very
ego centric, it's very even coming into it myself, I

(32:47):
knew all the big players and they were all haters.
They all hated us, but they loved the fact that
people wanted to buy bikes from them, you know, they
they loved to hate us.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Look at the aftermarket world. I mean, look what happened
to that. When when American Choppers you know started, I
mean that just blew up. Now there's there's Chopper shops everywhere,
you know, everywhere custom choppers.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Everyone was building motorcycles or parts, and they they're all gone,
all gone. I can't even you got to pre order
a transmission from Baker Like they're not on the shelf anymore.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
That sucks today, I'll tell you what I mean.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
It's hard to get anything. Everything is just built to order,
or it's just a big wheel bagger, right, just put
the big wheel on there. I never got into them.
I built a couple just because people asked me to,
but just never my forte, you know. But I could
see the value because you already have the bike, and
so you just have to customize that bike, not buy

(33:42):
another one, you know. But it's interesting. I think that
that that and I wonder about the trends now. I
wonder if we're gonna I wonder if choppers are going
to come back. I have a feeling that they're going
to come back. I love Choppers, right like I do
Pro Street and I do Theme. That's my bread and butter.
I do Mark. You know, I sell these bikes to

(34:03):
companies that don't need motorcycles, but they need outside the
box marketing. I know what my business model is, but
I love a hardcore chopper. I even watch my father
the other day just finished the bike, and I was like,
I love this bike. It's so back to the roots,
you know what I mean. It's so back to the
core of what got me interested in motorcycles, which frankly
was choppers. We were building choppers before we were a company.

(34:25):
We were just doing it as a hobby. You know.
My first bike I ever built was a chopper, you know, impractical,
way too long of a front end. But I love those.
So I wonder if that makes a comeback, you know,
oh it will.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
I mean there's a lot of a lot of customs
out there now. Most of what I do up there
at the dealership actually are like almost like restomants. I
get a lot of bikes and parts.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
So who determines what the creative direction is for the
bikes you're working on, the client or yourself.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
They're usually a mix of both. Yeah, I see what
they're looking for a lot. Some people are just like,
you know, just this is what I got, build me something.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
They give you a budget. Yes, and you're doing that
through the Harley Dealership. Okay.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, we got a full full custom fab shop inside
the dealership. It's got the viewing windows just like we
had to put Orange can rely that whole setup like that.
But I have full machine shop in there, all my welders, table,
you know, English wheel, all my stuff.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
Really, and you're doing exclusively motorcycles there.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yes, it's all my all myself in the room.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Now is it? Is it you and the Harley Dealership
or you work for the Harley deal Is it like
a tandem thing? Or it's how does that work? Well?

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Technically are our shop is called Pocono Customs?

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (35:32):
But I do work for Harley, gotcha?

Speaker 2 (35:34):
So they're separate but the same, Yes, for Harley's purposes,
I'm sure. Yes, they're like they can't be the same,
but they can be together. So why do you guys
get a special privilege in that way? Why do they
allow that? Did it pre exist or something?

Speaker 1 (35:47):
No, No, we we put it together before I left
Orange County okay, and the whole thing together, you know.
I mean we did have to talk to certain people
to get everything we'll say approved for how we wanted
to do it. But now like we have actually new
owners now. But I heard that, but we we don't
do anything outside of Harley we did before, like maybe
i'd work on Indians or even some metric. Yes, they're

(36:08):
like none of that, No, everything is one?

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Is that because of the new owners?

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Okay, well that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yeah, we were owned by American Road Group now and
they own I think about ten that's ten different dealerships.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
That's all that. That's it. It's all conglomerates. It's no
more like individual owners. These bigger companies are coming in.
They're just buying up all the dealerships, which makes sense.
And I could see why they would be like just Harley,
you know, they want to be faithful to the brand.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Yeah, we did have when when they came in, we
had a bunch of different brands you know, in the store,
and then they got rid of everything.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Really, man, so interesting see all this, I mean I
know bits and pieces of it, but I think people
are really interested in hearing this stuff. So tell me,
Like what so what else are you? I mean, I
know you got like a farm, right, you got like
a little farm going.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Yep, yeah, we have an eight acre farm Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
So jealous.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
It's it's nice, it's pretty, it's peaceful, it's old. It's
probably from the Civil War era. Right right around there,
you have a barn. We do have a couple of barns.
I think we got seven outbuildings on the property.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
Now you built a few really so you have a
workshop there too.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
We do. We just put in like Brittany has a shop.
She does yarn, she dies yarn, Okay, so she has
a shopter on a property. And then our newest shop
is our distillery that we're doing. So we have it's
RPD Whiskey Company. So that's our distillery building.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Rick Rick Peco design.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
We didn't designate the d yet, Okay, so we're not
sure it could be it could be distillery.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
We can use it interchangeably, you know what he's going
to argue with it, you know.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
But I've been doing The Knives, which I had to
take a break from that just to get the distillery going.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah, so so let's back up for a second, because
the Knives interest me. I looked online. Spectacular. I love
the style, real art. I love Damascus steel such a
I mean, it just makes a knife spectacular in my opinion.
It helps it along, right, It's like it's like a
nice paint job, you know. So how did you get
into knives? Like forging and.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
Well, you know what, we were doing it actually when
we were at Orange County yet. Actually Jim, he used
to work for trade.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Oh, Charade Trade, Shrade, Yeah, that's right, not Suarade, but
Sharde Trade. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Yeah, And at one time I worked up in their
building at Shrade. We were actually it was where I
work with Orange County. We were I think fixing one
of their heat treat ovens at the time. I was
up there doing refractory work. And then me and Jim
were talking about that one day and he was still
doing some knife stuff on the side, doing here and there.
Some Me and him were actually building knives up at
Orange County, So I was doing something there. My first

(38:40):
knives is when I was working up there, and then
just kind of drifting on the you know, just a
hammer mount and just forging and doing stuff. I bought
a forge from my ferrier. He was selling his.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
Forge oh, for shoes, for making shoes.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
So I bought his forge and just started hammering stuff
out and I made a bunch of railroad spike knives.
Was my first.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yes, that was like the first time I saw knife
from me.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
I made a bunch of those and started selling the
crap out of them.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
So what is that? Just it's a good steel to
work with. No, no, not really, just just available.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Yeah, it's not even high carbon stuff. Okay, So it's
a good learning point, right, and you can make cool
things with them. Yeah, And that's what I did, and
I started selling them. I started selling them on eBay
and I think like I sold them a couple of
them from up to like five hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Wow, spike knife, Yeah that's right. Cost was way.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Down on those, about fifty cents a piece.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah, that's great. It's a good return, definitely.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
But it was cool. It was just fun to do,
and you know, it just gave me more creativity to do.
And then them morphed into doing the Damascus and just
all my my own kind of patterns and hand foraging
and and everything. And I started working actually with the
company out of Sweden, Doma Steel, and they have like
it's powder metallurgy and they use they add the powder
and yes they did work out like alchemy.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah kind of right.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
But it's the like the purest stainless steel in the
world that they use, really, and they've been around since
I think the late sixteen hundred.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
So what is pure stainless steel? No nickel in it?
Isn't there nickel in stain What is in stainless steel
that when it's of a low quality, there's rust? Maybe
some iron.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Well they be iron iron. So there's all different grades
you will have like the three oh four to the
three sixteen.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
Now they get harder and softer depending on the grade.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yeah, okay, yeah, but they have like the purest form
of powder stainless.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
So I started working with those. The owner re Pair,
he's actually a huge bike person. He was a big
fan of the show. Yeah, he's come to the house
a couple of times and just started working with the
steel and everything. So we we have a good partnership
with them. So very very beautiful steel that they have.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Now does that steel come looking aesthetically pleasing like the
Damaska So let me ask you a question, Damascus steel,
don't you have to fold that, yes, like a lot
of times. Yes, like however many times, and then you
get your patterns depending on how you fold it.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yes, okay, yep, yeah, So I do make my own
and I use the domin steel and that comes as
it's like a billet, just a just a flat piece
of flat stock, right, And then that's more. You just
kind of cut it. You don't do any hammering, right,
that's more.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
That's more getting a shapier knife, your hand at sharpening,
getting it to look pretty right.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
Yeah, that's doing you know that set up there. But
then doing my own stuff, I make my own patterns,
do my own hand forging.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Now where do you get your style for your knives?
Because I noticed that I like the style it was
what's the word I'm looking for very I don't know,
maybe like organic kind of shapes and things, you know,
the handles they just look I don't know that it
definitely is a specific style.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
You know what I mean. I just like something that
actually fits my hand really well. And that's kind of
just how I've always done it. Just something that feels good.
And then alas of other people different size hands, you know,
how does this feel any big or smaller? We just
kind of came up with a really good, you know,
metiorocre kind of set up there.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
But yeah, we do all kinds of nives. I built
just knives for a lot of people all around the world.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
And so will they put in a like a creative
request like hey, I want like this handle, like they
give you specifics or they just say build me a
knife and here's five seven hundred bucks.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Yeah, no, it varies. Some people are like, look, just
build me something cool. You know, I need nine inch knife.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, so do what you want.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Most of the wood in the handle material I pick myself.
I use all exotically from around the world. It's all,
you know, just just really good stuff. You just it's
not regular oak out of the you know, from home
depot or something like that. You know, but I'm not
just really good quality stuff from all over the place.
And then one of my favorite ones that make I
like doing a sandmi, which is a three layer Okay,
so what I do is I do it's a high

(42:38):
carbon center, and then I do stainless steel outer, and
then I will hand forward that together.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
You fold the steel over it.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
You don't fold it. It's just three layers. And then
I will forge all that together.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
And then what I did, well, so you heat it
and is that with the powder and chemically forge it
together with heat and.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
The heat no powder. Oh okay, Actually what I would
do is I keep it in My thing is I
keep it in kerosene.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Okay, this is a really good tempering type thing.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
It's for a flux. Okay, we'll say, so, so welds
together really good. So I soak it in kerosene and
then I can forge well them together.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Really so the kerosene will actually get into the steel
and cause that fusion. When you put the right temperature
to it, it keeps.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
All the all the impurities out. Ah, is what it
did when you're going through the heat cycles. So like
when you're doing a stand my because it's stainless, stainless
is really hard to weld to forge, well, I will
weld to build it up, like all the four sides.
So I'll weld it up, put a handle on it,
and then I will forge that out. So I'll forge
it together first, and then I made.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
A You mean you'll weld it together and then forge it.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
Well, I'll say I tig welled the edges all right,
So it's.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
And that's not hard or brittle. The tig weld that
doesn't know.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
And then I will I'll put in the forge, heat
it up. And then I made a press out of
my one of my logs splitters, so I can I
can use the press and stretch it out all different ways.
And if you see some of the knives, it'll look
like like an EKG. That's what it looks like. And
I'm all on when I do all my grinding because
the way I set up my press, so it's that
really cool. It looks just like all these punky, sharp lines.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Oh, it's kind of like like a heartbeat almost really.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, it comes out really well. Then afterwards the stainless
will polish up really nice and shiny and bright, and
then the high carbon will be darkened. Then what I
do is actually do that in the coffee edge. I'm
I'll put it in coffee because it's like the only
food safe kind of coloring you can use. And then
the high carbon steel will turn black, so that'll be black.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
It'll be is that being dyed or oxidized?

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Oxidized?

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Okay? Interesting? Is it the acidic nature of coffee that
does it? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (44:33):
It typically used like instant coffee. Really just a super
high concentrate.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
Yeah, and it's food safe, so it's like one of
the best things to use. Otherwise you use like maybe
ferrochloride or something like that's chemical.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
You don't want to be playing with that stuff. Yeah, yeah, right,
So what's next for Rick peck Coo?

Speaker 1 (44:51):
Next is the distillery.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
Yeah, tell me about that. I'm super interesting.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
So we're doing the distillery. It's all set up. We've
made a couple of bad so far. I'm working on
flavors and you know, different recipes and stuff like that.
But yeah, we're doing bourbon whiskey and moonshine. Got a
shirt on today. But yeah, that's just the latest thing
we're doing. I was always interested in it actually for
quite a while anyway. And then me and Brittany we

(45:17):
went to Europe and we just one of the guys
that was with us on our tour. He was a
like a master distiller from a very well known distillery,
and just did a lot of talking with him. And
then really as soon as we got back from Europe,
I started the whole process and it took me about
two years to get all the licenses and everything squared away.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Now, okay, Now does your does your farm afford you
the ability to do this? Is this some kind of okay?
So the farm is a big factor in how you're
able to make or distill certain alcohol.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Yeah, we couldn't do this if we weren't a farm.
I would have to like actually build a full distillery
on a commercial proper. But yeah, we're able to do it,
but we're not open to the public. That was my
choice on our property.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Right you don't want people there? No, So so then
how does distribution work for something like that? How do
you just?

Speaker 1 (46:02):
What I will do is I work with a distributor.
But I'm in a program with the Pennsylvane New Liquor
Control Board where they give me like ten liquor stores
to work with, so I can work with them initially
right away. So then my deal with them is pretty
much I have to keep them supplied with like a
case a month.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Wow. And then are they So where are you in
the process? Are you? Is that is that in play yet?
Or there's no distribution just yet?

Speaker 1 (46:27):
There's no distribution yet. Like I said, we're working on
we still get to do our labels, but we we
have product and we put that out, got some flavors,
some really cool we're doing them Britney's candy, I'm cotton candy.
So you come up with sore doing a cotton candy.
We're doing a blueberry. We're doing an apple pie to
have an apple pie.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
That seems to be very popular. That apple pie. Moonshine
is it's very good too.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
So we're we're raising our proof above everybody else's and
we still get a really good sweet flavor out of it,
which which is really good. We're going to keep our
price point like at or just the hair belowka.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
What is that like forty a thready five forty three
dollars a bottle something like that in that area. Yeah, yeah, interesting.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
So we're doing that with the moonshine. And then because
the moonshine is really off to still.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
It's easier, you can see it's it's it's a quicker,
easier process than bourbon.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah. The bourbon has to age by law two years, okay,
and a brand new American oak barrel, and we can
do that on the property also, so we have another
in one of our barns. We have that set up
to do to do all our aging.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
So that's going to be done in there on the property.
The whiskey also, I mean that only has to age
really a little bit, nothing dramatic. And then but we're
gonna do it. We're doing a honey whiskey. We're gonna
do a honey bourbons and then the moonshine. So the
moonshine will go out first, the whiskey will age for
a little bit, and then the bourbon will be aging.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Now the honey bourbon is that is that are you
using honey as the of what makes the alcohol or
is that like you add flavor to how you're making
the alcohol.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Yeah, well, we'll add flavor to the to the alcohol
we're running. One of my deals also with my township
is that since we're a farm distillery, I have to
use my own base. So we changed our crop from
hay to corn. So now we're growing.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Oh so that's that's part of the catch. They want
you to grow your own corn for your whiskey. Interesting,
well that's good, which is great start to finish sort
of thing.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Yeah, So like the first stuff that we made, the moonshine,
I mean we grew the corn, I milled the corn,
you know, and then I made everything right there in
the building and came one hundred percent off our property.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Do you let the corn dry on the stalk or
do you do you harvest it and then let it dry.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
It would dry just like normal. Yeah, it's you know,
it's number two dead corn. It's regular horse corn. Yeah, basic,
same stuff. But I have a farmer I lease it
out to, so then he takes it down to his
place and then he'll dry. It goes through a dryer
and he'll bag it and then whatever I need to
bring back up.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
And that's sick man. Yeah, you're like a renaissance man, bro.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
You know, it's nice to do everything start to finish. Yeah,
so that that's really cool. One of my things when
I bought this place is that I wanted to be
able to make a living off the property. Right, So
that's kind of where we're finally getting to that now.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
At home steading kind of. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool man.
I'm jealous, man, I want eighteen acres in a barn
in some civil war kind of layout.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
That's great, it's cool. You know, it keeps it. It's
stare at the house. I don't have to buy a
property or you know, reno foot because then you.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Know, expenses go crazy, they do.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
You have to you have to, you know, put out
a lot just to get to zero.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah, we're we're doing right now. We're looking at that.
We're looking at buying a house with property and potentially
putting a building up so that I could just move
everything in there and not ever have to have another location,
you know. And like you said, if you want to
go out and build something, just walk out your door.
I like all the outbuildings, so I got to figure
that out. You get you you're onto something here, because

(49:35):
I mean, all those outbuildings sound spectacular. I especially love
old barns. I just love them, you know, they're just
I don't know, I always wanted like an old barn shop,
you know. I mean, look around. This stuff would be
great hanging on the walls, you know, with those beams
from you know, the mid eighteen hundreds or something, you know.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
And our barn or Hay barn. It's all pegged together.
And then we actually have a summer kitchen also, so
it has a really big stone fireplace, like a walking fireplace,
and you can see like you upstairs or even downstairs.
It's just all everything's all smoky because back in the
day they would cook out there instead of get in
the house hot. They're cooking out the summer kitchen. That's
went the summer kitchen, and you can just all see
the remnants from it.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
But it's all pigged together, you know, just Mortis and
ten and joints.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
That's fantastic, esthetically spectacular. Yeah, yeah, man, we got to
come over and have dinner in your summer kitchen, right,
can we make that happen or what?

Speaker 1 (50:26):
It's not over them? But yeah, we've been there one night,
buy that two thousand and seven, so we've been there
since then.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Nice cool man. Well, hey, I got to come out there, definitely.
Would it take you to get here two and a
half hours?

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Two and a half hours.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
It's not bad.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
It's just a little bit a little bit less. We
recruising pretty good.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yeah, that's not bad. It takes us two and a
half hours to get to Montgomery from here, so it's
not that's a day trip. You know. I'd love to
come up there. Yeah, should check it. Give me the
I need the nickel tour man. You know, we'll maybe
sample some of this, you know, some of the some Moonshine. Yeah,
what the heck man?

Speaker 1 (51:03):
Okay, our best so far we have. I've been able
to get one hundred and forty proof out that we're.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
Doing all corn really.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
So, and then we ever Bourbon that was about one
twenty five proof.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
That So what's the idea? You give up a higher
proof for the same price as the next guy who's
not giving as much proof and try and make it
more palatable at that number or maybe not that much,
but you know.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah, we're just we're just going to try to stick
like with about ten ten proof over what other people
are doing. And it tastes, like I said, just as good, yeah,
or or better. It's really smooth and smooth drinking. So
we were just doing this the other day at the
Cotton Candy we did, you know, two nights ago. So
we got that one. So so Brittany nailed that one.
We're working another with another company too. Actually out of Kentucky,
I went to a I did a six stage distiller

(51:47):
course down in Moonshine University down in Kentucky. I'm just
to get some more more recently, or it was in
January of actually last year, okay, and I went down
invaluable absolutely, just the contacts and the knowledge just from
so many people. We had so many people come into
a class room and just you know, just like talk
to us about what to do and how to do
it and you know everything. It is really cool. Just
a crash course both six and ten stays, which is

(52:08):
really good to do.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Dang.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
But yeah, we're working with actually one of their companies
down there. Do you do a lot of flavoring, So
a lot of natural flavoring. So we're using them do
some of our for flavoring for the moonshine.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Oh yeah, good products. Yes, yeah, I could see that right,
use the good stuff. None of that red dye or
any none of that weird stuff.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
Now there's no dies. Actually it's cool and like everything
is clear.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Yeah, so everything is right. There's no coloring because there's
no it's not necessary. Wow. Wow man, Rick Peckco. Moonshiner making,
whiskey making whiskey. Well, good man, this has been great
catching up. I can't believe it's been ten years. I
mean we've spoke of yeah once or twice, some text messages.
We keep up a little, but no in persons like this, you.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
Know, it's been long. Overdue.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
Yeah, long overdue. Well, thanks for coming out, man.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
I really appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
See this again, you know.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Sure, No, next time we'll be bring the kids down.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
We'll come down. This time we can hang out. Let's
do that. That was my intention for you guys to
come out here when it was like warm. But this
podcast is not waiting until the summer. You know, we're
cranking him out now. And I'm enjoying this. I really am.
You know, I'm getting I have had a great Mikey
was great and and I had a jersey John from Pickers.

(53:25):
He was fantastic. I've known him for years and years. Yeah,
because we go like back and uh, you know, he's
he's an interesting guy. Really, I'll send you that podcast
you're going to be Really he's impressive.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
Yeah, to check it out.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
You know, he's a real artisan. But is he nearby? Yeah, yeah,
he's right over here in Barnegat, Like he's like fifteen
minutes away. He's very local to this area. Yes, you know,
but I appreciate you coming out, man. Listen, let me
know when it's a good time to come out there.
I'd love to come out and take the tour definitely
and see what you got going.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
On, you know, springtime, summertime. We'll set it up.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
Sounds good, awesome, Thanks buddy,