BEASTED CLOTHING INTERVIEW (Sheel)
The Boy Hollywood
CHAMP: What's Goodie Sheel? What are you up to at the current moment?
BEASTED CLOTHING:Just grinding man. Working on Beasted and playing drums for a few different projects: Slick Rick the Ruler, Bad Rabbits (www.myspace.com/badrabbitsband) and Irepress-(www.myspace.com/irepress) nonstop.
CHAMP: First and foremost I'm really feeling' the teez you're coming out with from The Kimbo Slice joint to the Sir Charles tee so I gotta give it you guys. How long have you been in the clothing industry?
BEASTED CLOTHING: Thank you man. We try to keep it comical. I, personally have been in the industry for almost 5 years now, but Beasted is only about a year old.
CHAMP: I'm always interested in hearing about the story of how clothing companies came to be. Some usually start lines to wear clothes for themselves, but what was the vision in the beginning stages?
BEASTED CLOTHING:I think this probably goes for a lot of brands, but we just had a bunch of random ideas and felt like putting them on t-shirts. The vision was to keep it fun and diverse. We aren't trying to do anything crazy innovative or anything like that. We just want to be fun with it and if all goes well, make some money while doing it.
CHAMP: Where does the Beasted aspect of the company derive from?
BEASTED CLOTHING: If you mean "where did the name come from?" it's a word I use constantly and thought it would be a good brand name. All the definitions of it here are where it basically came from: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=beasted
Also, Greg, the CEO of Karmaloop and myself used the word in the Karmaloop office a lot. That was kind of an inspiration as well.
CHAMP: You guys are definitely appealing to the urban market. How much of an influence does hip hop have on Beasted?
BEASTED CLOTHING:Hip Hop is a huge influence. One of the first t-shirts that we made was the Slick Rick-"I OWN AMERICA" t-shirt. I got the idea while playing in Slick Rick's backing band. He has a song called "I OWN AMERICA" which is a hilarious song. We have some other hip hop based t-shirts coming out soon.
CHAMP: Yearly, how many collections do you come out with, and how many pieces do you make per collection?
BEASTED CLOTHING: Well, we have only been a company for a little less than a year, but we like to keep a good mix of timeless/classic shirts as well as some time sensitive shirts, so it all depends as far as when things are released. Timing is everything.
CHAMP: Have you witnessed any celebs/stars/ etc rocking some Beasted apparel?
BEASTED CLOTHING: So far, just Slick Rick, but hoping others will embrace it. If not, it's all gravy.
CHAMP: Now I know a few about the processing of materials. What type of tools do you guys use frequently to create your gear?
BEASTED CLOTHING: Our printer uses screen printing and digital printing.
CHAMP: For someone trying to start up a clothing line. What are the first few words of advice you would give them?
BEASTED CLOTHING: Have fun and make sure you have already built a solid network of friends, fans, and general people that are willing to help out, display, distribute and in general represent before spending too much money on it.
CHAMP: It seems that with technology these days it's getting easy for anyone to just come out with clothing companies. Do you feel the
clothing game is getting oversaturated?
BEASTED CLOTHING: Yes... I do think it’s already oversaturated. We aren't trying to be the next OBEY or the next Johnny Cupcakes or something like that (shouts to both of them because they are the truth), but like I said, we are having fun with it and hoping to maybe make some money at the same time.
CHAMP: How do you feel about the transition of the urban look from baggy gear to fitted clothing?
BEASTED CLOTHING: It will always go back and forth I think. I don't mind it. I personally like to fit right in the middle of both. Not too fitted and not too baggy. A lot of people hate on kids wearing tight pants but it doesn't bother me. I think people who hate on it are just wasting their time. Let people do whatever the hell they want to do.
CHAMP: For all my Canadian heads, are there any exclusive Beasted spots?
BEASTED CLOTHING: Not yet. Any ideas?
CHAMP: What else can we expect from Beasted?
BEASTED CLOTHING: I think the basics: hoodies, beanies, collaborations, more hilarious and classic designs and hopefully Charles Barkley gets arrested another time so we can exploit his latest mug shot. My favorite one that just dropped is this SLOTH from the GOOONIES/Raiders design. A lot of brands are constantly doing the Raiders take off thing but we thought this was the most classic out of all of them since the actor who played SLOTH in the Goonies was actually a player on the RAIDERS and the GOONIES was a huge childhood inspiration for a kid like me growing up in the 80's.
