REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 392. The Black Rifle Coffee Company Story Ft. Jarred "JT" Taylor

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

In today's episode, Andy is joined in the studio by Black Rifle Coffee Company co-owner Jarred "JT" Taylor. They discuss JT's early childhood skateboarding interest that led him to a filmmaking career, the massive opportunity available to pro-freedom/ pro-American companies during this time in history, and the parallels BRCC has with 1st Phorm in their mission to impact our country positively.

What is up guys, it's Andy Priscilla and this is the show for the real and say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness and delusions of modern society and welcome to motherfucking reality. Guys, today we have a full-length episode. That means it's just me and a guest and we're going to talk some shit. Before I get going on that, I'd like to remind you that we do have a fee for the show. The fee is very simple. Share the show, okay? If you get value out of the conversation, which I'm sure you're about to, don't forget to post the show okay if you get value out of the conversation which i'm sure you're about to um don't forget to post a show and share the show okay that's the fee uh with that being said we're gonna get right into it man uh i've got my good buddy uh who was on the show actually our last episode uh jt taylor from black rifle coffee what's up bro hello yeah dude uh we've had a good couple days we're hanging out we got a we got a rodeo

we're going through tonight it's gonna be a good time but uh i want to sit down man and and just you know people to hear your guys story your story and the story of the amazing company that you guys have built and uh you know there's a lot of parallels between what you guys have done and what we've done with our companies and it's been super fun watching you guys do it and succeed and being a pro-American, pro-freedom brand and all of these things. It's just cool. If you guys don't know, Black Rifle Coffee, when did you guys start this? It was 2014. Yeah.

So tell us a little bit about that. Well, first and foremost, I got to say, the last couple of days, you've actually re-sparked the spark because like I was telling you when we first got here, like, man, after 10 years of this, you know, because before Black Rifle, I was doing things with Matt Best and we had a few other ventures and things like this. After 10 years of this and social media and

being in the in the eye and everything like that it's like you just get you get drugged yeah you're you're you get drugged down and it's like you know there were some times i had conversations with with evan you know in the last few months where it was like you know the logo would give me anxiety like i look i see our own logo that should be a beaming thing of pride yeah here i am i'm just like a beaten dog like oh i don't want it so i just have to i have to say thank you first because like by yesterday afternoon ideas started coming back and i started firing again yeah where and that's how i've always been and i but the last few months i lost it because it's just like i felt beaten down dude you know i get it man uh you know

we've had a number of conversations the last couple days uh and you know that's mutual by the way like hanging out and because it's the same dude like people don't realize like they want the they want it right like a lot of people like like, oh, dude, that's cool. I would love to have this or this or this. But a lot of people just fail to realize what comes with it and the beating that is taken to build something massive and the price that's paid. And the last three years, even though business has been good good it's still the social climate the political climate the world the economic climate all of these things uh bro i'm with you dude it's like

a teeter-totter yeah it's like you never know what what is going to be next or what the next phase is and but yeah i mean it's been like a like a battery you know like coming here and interacting like another thing too i have to say i'm sure your audience knows but whoever's listening from our audience like the staff here is the greatest staff i've ever seen like everybody is the coolest the most polite the everybody's on point like it's been so impressive here even down to you know i've been doing this stuff for a long time yeah and i'm looking at it like oh wow this is this is amazing like it's brought energy back like so

I just I wanted to open that up to say what you've done the culture that you've created here is extremely admirable thank you brother and I had probably eight separate calls with Devin yesterday just every single corner that we had a break I'm like oh my god did you know they do this and like oh you gotta

you gotta get here you gotta get here but I mean I gotta start at the beginning you know my dad was in the navy um we were we were in in the pacific northwest and but he grew up in california he was a skateboarder so naturally like he still skated while he was in the navy and he kind of as me and my brother became teenagers you know we picked up into skating because it was something he wanted to do so like he was like oh you guys want to ramp yeah i'll we picked up into skating because it was something he wanted to do. So like, he was like, Oh, you guys want to ramp? Yeah, I'll build a ramp. Like, so it was pretty fun. And, and the thing that came with skateboarding though, is you had to have a camera because you had to film a skate part in order to get sponsored by a local shop. So a teenager can

afford new gear to skateboard. So I first was running a camera at 13 14 years old you know my what i asked for for christmas that next year was i need a family video camera so i can make skate videos yeah and you're talking back then dude it's probably one of these shoulder jobs 96 97 no they've done a little smaller right then the high eight tapes were we working with the uh the sony the the little handheld sony one or the cask cam like dude i had one of those ones growing up with the uh you know what i'm talking about where the screen like twisted you had the camera and you're right yeah yeah yeah this one that was the best one ever and people don't even know about that shit

because everybody's used to it on their phone ebay was a brand new thing and they came out with a with a really wide lens that could attach to the sony so you know i saved up everything i had by mowing lawns and raking leaves to buy this lens and now now we now we had a skate a skate camera for my junior high and so i edited my first video when i was 14 years old. And back then I was using two VCRs, like stop, pause, record, very rudimentary in old school. But then as I got into ninth grade and that was the last grade in our junior high, and then you went across the street to the high school. Well, when I was in ninth grade, I walked over to their video or their media department at the high school and they had an AVID system. so i i just begged and pleaded until one of the teachers said yes after school you can come over and use the avid

system to edit and that's awesome and and i i ended up learning that and me and our podcast producer dave you know because him and i grew up together uh we started the extreme video club which was an after-school thing where all the skaters, rollerbladers, and bikers would come and we all edited these videos. And so yeah, by the time I was 17 and heading to the military, I had already had experience in editing and I really, really loved it. So when I got into the military, I kept the film thing going, especially because my job in the military was something called the tac p tactical air control party and it's it's the air liaison to the army when it comes to air power so

anytime there's a fighter jet that's dropping a bomb in support of ground troops there is one of us there either lazing that bomb or being very specific with the pilot on how to not hit the good guys so they have one of us that speaks language down there to constantly battle track our force and make sure that we're not bombing our own people and this job was fucking rad but no one knew it existed you say air force people like oh yeah chair force you know air conditioning it's like no i was essentially in the 82nd airborne yeah yeah i went to airborne school and was jumping out of planes and and went straight to iraq like like it was fucking cool so i was i was filming things and trying to put out media i mean back back then there was nothing to host a video on the on the internet so it was all like

carrying them around on thumb drives do you remember this yeah when a dude would come over and be like oh dude you gotta see these videos yeah yeah dude people people are like what like there's people listening right now they're like what so uh we were doing we were i was making these videos like d Dave even was one of the first people to ever have a helmet cam and the helmet cam back in 2004, it ran RCA cables into the camcorder. So the lipstick cam mounted to your helmet, but you still, your video camera was in your backpack. So I did a helicopter assault force mission into the Utah test and training range with a helmet cam, like before anybody had a helmet cam. So I was, I was always trying to push ahead of the time. And then in late 2008, early 2009, I got picked up to be an instructor for that school. And that kind of

became a very more so nine to five set schedule.'re not deploying anymore uh in that position so it's not you know you're constantly on tdy's away on bombing ranges training up and then deploying now it's kind of like okay you're teaching and you stay here well on the way there is when i was up for my first re-enlistment and we were considered a critically manned career field. So we had the highest re-enlistment bonus multiplier. So I re-enlisted for $90,000. That was insane to me. Like that was the first time I ever had money in a savings account.

It was like that, re-enlistment. But it didn't last. Because I'm in my head and I'm like like i want to have a film business someday so i turned around and spent a lion's share of that on then this was also the first time hd cameras became available to like the prosumers what they called it like the the FX7 was the new thing. It was an HDV camera, but it was full HD. So it's like, oh, this is cool. And then again, by a miraculous network thing, a guy that I had done some photo and ad work for in the airsoft world, his name is Andrew Ho, introduced me to a guy that worked for pixar

as security and if you worked for pixar it was owned by apple you got one purchase a year that gave you 50 off and this security guy gave me his 50 off so i could get the biggest editing computer that they offered that's awesome yeah i still owe it to that guy. I still give him credit because you were helped along the way. Yeah, everybody was. Yeah, and I was actually thinking that as you were saying that, how cool it is,

the amount of success you guys have built, that you still remember that. His name is Marlon. And I will always say that he started my career. Yeah, that's amazing, dude. Because he didn't even know me, but he gave me his discount. I was able to get double the computer and I bought 30 books again. Like the internet is new still like 2008, 2009,

like 2009 is when Facebook opened up for everybody. Like, so there's not a lot to Google when you ran into a tech problem back then with this equipment like i had to thumb through 30 books and tell and then you don't know what to look for like you're like what chapter is this problem in yeah it was extremely difficult so i hit the books and uh and i ran around pensacola and fort walton beach, Florida with a lot of the photographers then. The whole kind of amateur model thing was really taking off at that point. So the photography world was super competitive and cool because photographers were doing really cool things with compositing and lights and stuff like that. So I ran around with them because I was the video guy and they were in

with all the bands, they were in with all the businesses, and now here I am was the video guy and they were in with all the bands. They were in with all the businesses. And now here I am with the video camera that can make commercials. So I just, I made free at like, I, I'm in a, a big film group on, um,

on Facebook with a bunch of young filmmakers. And I have to say that all the time. I'm like, I didn't get paid for almost eight years. Yeah. Yeah. But I made a lot of friends. Say that again.

I didn't get paid for almost eight years yeah like yeah but i made a lot of friends say that again i didn't get paid for almost eight years who else has a similar story to that that you guys have heard a thousand fucking times and if you ask anybody bro anybody that you know probably that's built real shit they got a similar story to that yeah but all while i'm active duty military i'm doing this when i'm getting off work and and and those school hours were long but on on fridays i would get off at about two o'clock i would load my car with all my pa gear and and mixer and everything and i would go play live music friday and saturday night because it was a hundred bucks cash to do it. And I loved it. And it helped me network the area so much better because then I started meeting all the bar owners and I started meeting all the business owners that frequented those bars. And

then it was, hey, do you need an ad or commercial? And again, I didn't charge. I was like, I will do this for free. And before I knew it, I didn't charge. I was like, I will do this for free. And before I knew it, I had this network. I had this beautiful network. And then it was, I would get a phone call, hey man, I'll throw you 300 bucks if you can come knock this quick video out for me. And that started happening. This was all too, because I got a divorce then

and was left with the house. And between child support and alimony i couldn't fucking afford it my hot water heater went out and i just got used to taking cold showers for six and a half months that made you tougher and it was because i couldn't afford to even have somebody look at the hot water yeah yeah yeah i just i get it Dude, I get it, man. Bro, I get it. Dude, we live parallel lives in a lot of ways, bro. So then towards the end of 2011 is when all these people that I had done things for started calling back and saying, hey, my business has grown. I've got some cash. I want to do more ads. I want to do more projects. Let's go. And then, of course, I was doing the fun stuff. I was showing up at music

like Battle of the Bands and offered the current band that I'm in right now. It's called This Saturday. They were a band back then called Drayton Sawyer. And I showed up to the Battle of the Bands and said, whoever wins this thing gets a free music video by me. And now I'm in the band that's awesome that was 12 years ago that's badass what instrument i sing oh that's fucking i can see that yeah yeah show you some of that later that's why you have the your setup your house yeah got it that makes sense he's got the sickest lounge dude that like that i've ever fucking seen built right at his house for people to come stay and it's got a sickest lounge, dude, that I've ever fucking seen built right at his house

for people to come stay. And it's got a stage. It's actually really similar to the lounge that you guys see me hanging out in at my house. Dude, it's funny. And it's set up for training. Yeah. It's fucking amazing.

If any of our people are wanting to try stand-up comedy or any of the comedians that we employ, they want to practice something, we have it set up to where we can run that in-house but yeah so dude that's so badass that's so cool that shit is fucking cool it's entertaining you know the three pillars of black rifle coffee inform entertain and inspire yeah and bro that's ours what's ours educate educate entertain impact you fucking stole that from me you can call evan i stole it from you bro here's the thing i was joking about that you these these dudes are the same as us dudes we're just selling different shit i know yeah that's why it's like the last couple days have been so good because it's like oh i see there's a marriage here yeah there's a there's a deep marriage it's funny too because uh like we spot we both sponsor bj's truck yeah and i didn't really know i didn't

really know these dudes when we like bj was like well we're moving away from monster i got black rifle coffee i'm like i've seen their shit they're cool they're funny i like their stuff i didn't know the guys and then i'm like we could do that and we've been the sponsor of the truck for a while now two years yeah yeah and been kind of working together not really even you know but now we have a big ass badass thing coming out in january together that's gonna shake the motorsports world yeah it sure is we're gonna listen our two companies are gonna dominate motorsports world. Yeah, it sure is. Listen, our two companies are going to dominate motorsports. Oh, it's on. Yeah, and I'm going to turn you into a rally driver.

I am 100% in. We already discussed this, bro. You guys don't even know what's coming. It's going to be so fun. We're going to have a fat guy seat, though. If I fit in it, you fit in it. You're okay. Yeah.

All right. I'm 225. Yeah, yeah. in it. You're okay. Yeah. All right. I'm 225. Yeah, yeah. You're not a little dude. Yeah. So I get, I finished my school tour and I actually like, when you're done with the school tour, you get a base of preference and that means you get to choose where you go. And what I did is I asked every unit who wants me like because i wanted to go somewhere where

people were excited like to see me and immediately one of my really good friends uh silver star recipient master and shropshire was like uh you're coming here and then the chief there pedro is like yeah you're coming to the seventh asos in el paso texas now no one ever volunteers to go to el paso texas but i did yeah and i got there and the first thing that i set up and i i got to show you all these pictures someday is the studio like i have i've built 35 studios like yeah and that and it started as a folding table from walmart with a mattress egg crate stapled to the wall. And now to what you see. All our guys here that are on the podcast team are all shaking their heads, yes.

Bro, that's fucking awesome. To now what I have now. And so now when I got to El Paso, all this time that things started kind of ramping up, I had teamed up with a guy named Gary Stevens. Gary Stevens was actually one of the original Air Force graphics career fields when Air Force employed artists. Like you could be wearing a uniform as a military member and you're a graphic artist. It was badass. And he was the AFSOC graphics guy. So a lot of the things you still see today in Air Force Special Operations Command hanging on the walls are all works of Gary who was also

head of creative for Black Rifle Coffee that's cool man so everything you've seen with Black Rifle from the from the very first logo to our bags all comes you know is managed and created by Gary and so that's badass bro because like you guys do some really awesome like your branding is on point that's that's evan and gary all day long like those two are like a a seven-year-old married couple yeah that fight and bicker and and twist but they have it works they birth some of the greatest visual things that i've ever seen like our bags and stuff that they're coming up the greatest visual things that I've ever seen. Like our bags and stuff that they're coming up with

and the bags that are coming out next year are so cool. Bro, and your guys' hat game. You guys crush the hat game. I see your fucking hats everywhere. People that have no idea that we know each other, like I'm walking around St. Louis, I see them, BRCC, everywhere. And now think how crazy that is that that's coffee yeah who wears a coffee well when your brand stands for the right shit people wear it you know you guys you guys are

standing for something that's not common to stand for right now you know what i mean and it's it's a lonely yes it's a lonely island yeah i think there's two of us on it or fucking six of us or whatever there's there's a couple more uh but bro you know it's it's really cool from i don't i love seeing it i think it's amazing yeah well thank you yeah i love seeing everything here i just i'm addicted to i i love that you appreciate good decorating yeah yeah yeah a lot of that a lot of uh the decorating here you know we my brother actually did sal and i don't you haven't had much time to talk to him but a little bit this morning yeah yeah he fucking loved like

where he's right in the conversation with everything we talked but the thing is it's like i don't think people understand is how creative work you can get out of when you're sitting in a space like this. And it comes down to everybody. It brings it out. So I love it. So yeah, me and Gary at that time, we have a business called Botstick Collective. Gary came up with, he had this logo. Because Gary just had hundreds of logos that when he's bored, he just designs.

And we were like, hey, we need to do a company. Do you have anything? Gary just had like hundreds of logos on that. He just like when he's bored, he just designs. And we were like, hey, we need to do a company. Do you have anything? He's like, well, I have this logo for Botstick Collective. What does that mean? He's like, I don't know. I thought a thumb drive you could call a bot stick. All right, cool.

That's our new company. And so Gary and I set out and we were doing photo, video and ad work for the tactical industry um i mean like from the from 2011 to like 13 me and gary probably have three to four hundred photos published in every gun magazine like that's we were just taking we were whether it was just a gun in on a backdrop in my garage or i would throw it in the hands of a tactical model or anything like like all these things and guns and ammo and recoil and everything. Like there was something I have stacks of these magazines from then of, Oh, there's my picture.

And there's me like, just because if we didn't have somebody, we would just use me like with dark sunglasses and stuff like that. And then Gary and I also would make the, you know, Gary is amazing at making these movie posters. Like he can, he makes the best movie posters. So you guys got to get up. I got to show you some of our old stuff because you'll be like, holy shit. But the fact that we were quick, we were, we were more effective

than, than any of the people that, that really the industry was using at the time. And because this was my job in the military was the tactical side of things, companies realized real quick that this was cheaper to use us because you don't have to send a rep out to assemble the gear or you don't have to babysit us to make sure that we don't have the flashlight on backwards. Yeah, you're doing the shit right. Yes. Yes. So word of of mouth grew that these are the guys to use for this kind of content very quickly and we had a lot of amazing amazing clients we did stuff for tactical taylor gray ghost gear index fasteners shane from index like that they they do all the raw kydex for everybody that makes a kydex holster yeah yeah like like we were doing

so many fun projects with him like it was a lot of fun him and i were going to shot show and like i mean we were we were i was peddling a four by six photo album of pictures to booth people going hey could could could we do your catalog next time all And all this time, Black Rifle's still not happening. This is 2011, 2012. Yeah. So think about all the work that you did. See, because our audience is diverse because we have people that join in for the social issues that we talk about, but we also have a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs. And it's interesting to hear how people think.

I try to tell them this, but they don't hear it. And it's like, bro, it takes a long time to get the skills that you need doing things that you love or even maybe not love for free to be able to execute on a big play like you guys have and like we have. If we didn't have a client, and this is just a perfect example of what you just said. If we didn't have a client on the books for us to do work for, Gary was in my living room and we were doing photos for a poster that we would take a movie poster that we would look at and we would recreate it completely in under a day. And just because it was honing our skills and also these are things i was showing potential clients like i'm not kidding i went to walgreens

and printed you know 44 by 6 like picture prints and shoved them in a photo album and walked down every booth and said can we can we have your business and so actually what you did was you created your own fucking spec book on fake ass shit that you made up just so you could show the work that you could do and and the value and and my rate card right there was if we get to keep the first piece of equipment then your first thing's free yeah and everyone said yes they were like wait what and they would look at it it and everyone said yes they were like wait what and they would look at it it was great stuff and they were like yeah yeah so that's amazing we were having a lot of fun yeah when i moved to el paso i realized quickly like i lost my network that i had

in pensacola when me and gary were in florida and now all of a sudden i'm in this new city and i don't have access to the bars and to the scenes and the things that I need for us to do these things. And so I'm trying to come up with a way that I can network El Paso as fast as physically possible. And while I'm sitting at work

with a couple of the guys, I say, we need to start a news team and so we start channel 275 action news we we all go buy suits hold on hold on on youtube holy fuck i know where this is going but continue so we buy this bright yellow van. It's one of those panels. It's like Anchorman shit. No windows. We wrap it with us, like our, because I have the photo studio.

So I take professional headshots of everybody in their suits. And Gary designs the graphics. And now we have this news van. And our lead anchor is a guy named Butch Rogers. Of course it is and he looks it oh i can't wait to show you these photos afterwards but i'm just thinking that scene in anchorman where all the fucking news teams fight that's what we look like yeah that's what i'm thinking we have horrible suits that we all bought at the hand-me-down store we're we have terrible hair and i was troy rafferty and i

was economics that's that's proper branding so we get this van wrapped and then we go to k fox which is the the fox affiliate of el paso and we park it outside and we start harassing them like they're going out to their vans and we're like, what's up? What's up? Where are you going? What's the story? They're like, what's going on? Until Erica Castillo walks out, the lead anchor of El Paso comes out and is like, what are you guys doing? And we're like, we're the new news team in town. And she's like, oh my God, this is hilarious. She loved it. Yeah. So she invites us in. So now we're like we're the new we're the new news team in town and she's like oh my god this is hilarious oh she loved it yeah so she invites us in so now we're in the newsroom and now we're

taking pictures like like we're like okay fox doesn't have nothing with us and so like we tell them we're like hey we're just gonna start we're gonna start poking at you guys on youtube and you guys just share it as social assets. This is right when Facebook is kind of new, where pages are new. And they're like, absolutely. She got it. She was like, absolutely. So we make this essentially ransom video of Butch Rogers challenging their lead anchor to an arm wrestling match. And if he wins,ica gets to come over to our team and so we put that out and they're sharing it and then like we they were going to cover this wine festival and we show up and we keep we keep like scooting in on on where they are and like like and they just went with it

dude they loved it because like even the audience got them extra traffic yeah but instantly the radio station calls. The big radio station over there called KLAQ. And they're like, hey, what the fuck are you doing with this news team? And we're like, hey, make us part of KLAQ. And now we're fucked with KFOX. Because you're the radio station and we're the radio station's news team. And they were like, fuck it, okay.

So now they set us up with five or six restaurants. And we do this. There's this, this whole thing. Like we're going around now. Now I've met the city of El Paso and still to this day. And this is a quick, uh, uh,

antidote to this is Erica Castillo is in the movie range 15. She plays the anchor that's in the end that's on the news. And that was filmed in K Fox's studio because we wanted her to be the anchor that's in the end that's on the news and that was filmed in k fox's studio because we wanted her to be the anchor in the movie that's and her husband uh sean who is a marine and purple heart recipient marine veteran he's in the movie too like five different places i can point you out where he is and he him and erica were a crucial help of them uh in the movie as well because we had um the deuce and a half broke in the middle of of production and we're in los angeles california we had borrowed that from battlefield las vegas tell everybody what article 15 was article 15

was this is actually how i found out about oh well range 15 is the movie i'll go i'll go so so after the news team is when i meet matt and when i meet matt best he he had he had put out these these three really good videos that i was like there's my missing piece like i'm not the star i'm i'm i'm back here i'm the editor like like i'm the guy holding the camera i I'm like, I found my star. Like, so. It was fucking hilarious, dude. And no kidding. Matt sends in this, he sends in a message to this Facebook page that I helped to administer.

And he just says, hey, would you share my video? And I watch it. I'm like, this is phenomenal, dude. Call me. And he was like, well, I was in the army. I was like, I was like really where he was like I was a ranger I go what battalion and I say bn because I know how to spot a fake real quick and he was like oh second and he sent me the photo of him and his in his tambourine everything I was like okay call me here's my number and he calls me and I just go you got to come to el paso and he's like what like you got to come to el paso like i got a studio here i got a news team like you gotta

you you gotta get in on this let's go like and he's just like what like like just sticker shocked like what the bro i just fucking love it this is like dude this is the same shit this is how it's done dude just do shit anybody that knows me yes anybody that knows me can say i move like this because i already see the end but i don't explain it well so i'm just trying to get you to to go along with it right now i'm not good at like i'm not good at telling you because i already see it yeah like it's already like oh no we're going here like so you just got to come along for the ride. Come on. Trust me. Yeah.

So Matt comes down. Uh, we film like three different videos that time we're throwing out ideas. I do photos of him in the studio. And like, I'm saying, I'm like, we got to make you look expensive.

We got to make this look fucking like, like we, and we launched his Facebook page in my house that weekend, that first weekend. And, uh, then he went back, he put out how to be an operator and that that like shot up like and we were we had this whole network of all the gun

and tactical pages it was called operation social media and this back-end group that we had we accounted for 33 million likes and what we would do and it was everybody like like back when like before everybody started instantly like cold dead hands was like one of the biggest ones back then they were the first to see a million followers and like that was a big deal in 2013 like like the first the first gun personality to ever get a hundred thousand followers um was chris costa like and and that was a huge deal in the industry because nobody had that power. Nobody had that celebrity,

unless you paid R. Lee Ermey or something. But only Glock could afford that. So this started this huge wave and this new trend and people started respecting social media more. And so, yeah, as soon as Matt's videos started coming out, we were like, okay, hey, there's an M-Best video coming out on Tuesday. Everybody sign up who's willing to share. Everybody would be like, I am, I am, I am, because it gave them traffic too.

And that was it. Like, boom, we just took off. And the videos were great, though. It was something that the community had never seen they had never seen comedy where a special operations veteran actually poked fun at them and and and poke fun at himself poke fun at the community like nobody was doing that no it was very serious it was chess penis and so all your i remember this because as a fan like i remember watching all this happen and it changed

the whole culture of the whole thing. Yeah. Cause when we launched article 15, all of our shirts were jokes. They were not cool guy. Like I'm going to kill you if I see you type shit. It was all, we were making it like it was no shit. We had Joe's Jack Shack. It was a port of shitter. Like it was the Joe's Crab Shack logo. Yeah. Like that was one of our shirts. Yeah. It's all a joke. You know, it's funny though, dude.

It's from what, you know, I didn't serve or anything, but I have a lot of, we have a lot of common friends, common people, everybody I meet that's actually been in real shit and done real shit. They're all the fucking funniest dudes it's like you have to have a sense of humor to be able to do that it's the only medicine yeah the only medicine that keeps you sane after seeing the horrors yeah war so yeah we matt and i launched art 15 with we had four other friends um that that that were part of it cody zach brad brad was uh uh he was an x82 airborne guy he was an accountant and i traded him a dpms ar-15 for three months worth

of clean book cpa yeah well that's what it costs so yeah cody put up the,400 that we needed to run the first phase of shirts. Yeah. Zach was on operations and we were, and we got Rocco after our first like big event that we held. So he came a couple months later, but we were off to the races and like that first. And he, Rocco's done a fucking awesome career. Rocco fucking went and became a TV star. Dude, he's a fucking star yes like

when you meet him you're like i met him back in 2015 at my he came to the house with wider oh wow and fucking bro i knew right away i'm like this dude is a fucking dude the first time i saw him the thing the first thing i asked him was have you ever been on camera? Yeah. And he was like, what? I was like, do you want to be on camera? Because I see it. Yeah. Yeah. And so the first, we launch January 15th. The Article 15 clothing store comes out, becomes live in 2013.

We had teased it in the two videos prior to that, how to work out like an operator and a few others where it was like, art 15 clothing coming soon. And then like a lot of comments of what is this? What is this? What is this? So we went live on February 1st, we had $10,000 in gross sales. But to us, I mean, we are all E-5s in the military.

Matt's contracting and Cody is our CFO. He's like, man, that's 120,000 a year business. He's like, that's not bad, boys. And mine and Matt's goal was, can we get 2,000 extra dollars a month to spend on helicopter rentals, machine guns, and cool cameras for us to make better videos? And that's our goal.

That was success for us. And then February rolls around and it's $30,000 in gross sales. And Cody in the meeting says the same thing. We have a 300,000-year company. This actually, my $3,400 actually made sense here. And then March rolls around, and it's 68. And April rolls around, and it's 100. And we're going, oh oh fuck and by october

of 2013 we had grossed one million dollars and we're all looking at each other like what that's amazing that's amazing dude that's amazing you know we built our company basically the foundation of our shit pre internet took me 10 years to get to a million dollars though oh shit yeah pre-internet though that's very difficult i know and these kids think they got it hard now with the fucking internet that's amazing and but but but look at look at those videos took you you fuckers, what, that's eight months? Yeah. Yeah, that's insane. And it was, we were, it was very strategic.

Like we would put a viral video out that would get one to two million views. And at the end of that video, we would have a product that referenced a joke in the video. So like how to be a man, fuck lettuce. That was one scene where he just goes fuck lettuce fuck lettuce the shirt has sold over 38 000 pieces i think that was the first shirt i ever saw you guys was the fuck lettuce shirt didn't you have like a fucking state yeah i just

had a state bro i remember that shirt from 10 fucking years ago. Think about that. That's so wild. I didn't even fucking know you guys. I remember that shirt. That's awesome, dude. So all this is going on. Matt's still deploying.

So what? Do I still print the fuck lettuce shirt? No, we need to do a read. Can you make me one? Yes, 100%. I will make you a gold one. I will fucking wear it. I will fucking wear it. I'll use the gold, the shiny gold. do okay we need to be can you make me one because i like 100 i will make you a gold one i will fucking wear it i will like i'll use the gold the shiny gold like you're the only one that has the

gold i will wear it on the fucking show bro i love it so matt is coming to my house for a week to two weeks i'm taking a hundred to two hundred photos in different outfits and everything we're doing as much as we can on videos and then he deploys for 45 days and i'm posting everything as if like so no one knows this like they just think like i've got all this banked and now it's just going up like and then he comes back and we bank everything again. He goes and deploys and that goes. So an email comes down and this is around March of 2013. And the email is from someone very high up in Matt's program in the agency. So Matt's kind of fucking like pingy.

He's like, dude, I keep hearing that someone up top is asking about me. Like, I don't know what this is about. He goes, I just got this email. Will you call this guy? Like, since you're kind of like the straight up.

And so I take lunch, I'm out. Yeah. What the fuck's up? I take lunch at 1130. Like, cause I'm on base. Like I'm still a fucking E five running the training department and attack

peace squadron. And I take lunch and I go sit in my shitty nissan xterra and i call this phone number and it's evan hafer and i stay on the phone with him for the entire lunch an hour and a half laughing my ass off because by the end of the conversation evan has told me that he wants to fucking build a uh a contraption that'll sling a toyota prius into the air so we could shoot it with a tank like so you're like holy shit another another one of my brothers we found we found another one and like no kidding and you guys are fucking sweating balls man you're like oh shit dude yeah yeah we're fun yeah so when i get back on with matt i'm like bro this guy is fucking awesome like i'm going up to

utah to meet him so i fly to utah like weeks later like it wasn't even that much time to meet evan and he's living right in downtown park city it was fucking badass yeah and like dude the second he picks me up it's like he's like i really want to get out. You know, I have these ideas. He had started this company called Twistrate, which was all of the crowdfunding websites will not touch anything tactical or weapon related. But there are tons of our friends in the military and in contractors that have developed really cool widgets and equipment, but they just don't know how to product, like how to patent them and how to get started. So Twistrate going to be the kickstarter for the tactical world and i was like dude we're in this sounds awesome we're in and the great fucking idea first day sounds like

i mean yeah in theory but again i guess we'll find out in a minute yeah there just wasn't enough there wasn't enough support for it like it wasn't as big like everybody wasn't like running to be like oh i've got a product like it just maybe the wrong time i don't know maybe that shit might work now yeah it might work now yeah because everybody is back to kind of building and designing and trying and nobody wants to work with these big ass fucking shit bag companies anymore so that very first day that i meet him he's like why i dude i have this i have this book of all these fucking t-shirt designs i've always wanted to do i'm like well fucking

get one out right now because i've got artists on speed dial and he's like well i want i want an elk fucking a deer or a unicorn fucking an elk with a fish on its head and i just wanted to say gone fishing and i'm fucking i get on the phone with this guy and i'm like all right we want a unicorn fucking it out uh with a fish on its head and it says gone fishing and he's like wait no i wanted to say outdoor magic that shirt exists did it do well oh fuck yeah that was one of the first. Bro, I have been so overthinking my whole life. Holy shit, between this and fucking watching these motherfuckers do this shit the last three years without questioning a fucking thing.

Motherfucker, I have way been overthinking it. Holy shit. Outdoor magic? Outdoor magic. Oh my God. Fuck fuck i'm an idiot but like i come home still laughing like and when i tell matt like what we did like he's so confused like what you you what you designed a shirt with fucking an elk what what outdoor. What the fuck is going on? It is outdoor magic. So as soon as Matt gets home, we all go out there.

He meets Evan. We're all having fun. Evan comes out to El Paso. I've got the photo of us in my garage. Bro. And we've got a whiteboard, and we're fucking everywhere. Let me ask you a real question, just to stop the story. Was it more fun then or now? Oh, I back to that's what i'm saying people you guys out there building shit do not understand how much fun it is to do what you're doing to see

i would trade it all to see matt and evan's excitement and smiles like that again yeah like like i loved i loved it we were on fire like nothing like we we could have built a tank in that garage like with with what we had around there if we if that was it so awesome so then like that's when we start learning you know evan has this this hobby and this passion for coffee every time we come to salt lake he's taking us to the best coffee place he's talking about coffee and and everything's coffee. Every time we come to Salt Lake, he's taking us to the best coffee place. He's talking about coffee and everything's coffee. He's got this one pound roaster in his basement

that I sleep in every time I went there. He's the dude from Black Hawk Down, bro. He's the coffee guy. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we wanted to mess with that scene, but that guy actually went to jail

for childbirth. Oh, yeah. It was an iconic yeah it was an iconic like yeah like coffee thing and it was like oh we wanted and then we looked at it i was like oh yeah we're gonna stay away from that yeah um so uh yeah the coffee like he was roasting in his basement in a one pound roaster and he had this book it was all these roasts that he had created and he was ordering beans from all over the world like high quality beans and doing all this shit with coffee and around fall he was like hey can let's launch a coffee with with art 15 so he gets with gary our designer and he's like i want to do this

coffee and gary does this this this bag and it's called dark roasted freedom um from freedom roasters which was a fake company but we just built this bag that's got the art 15 logo it's called Dark Roasted Freedom from Freedom Roasters, which was a fake company, but we just built this bag that's got the Art15 logo. It's a beautiful bag. And Evan goes down to Public Coffee and roasts the profile he wants, and he runs 500 bags. We ship those to our fulfillment center,

and we do this video called operator versus Grinch. And this is, this is in 2013, the December, like leading up to black Friday. And we advertise dark roasted freedom and it, it, it,

it sold like sold within, you know, six days or so, like just flew off the whole run pretty much. Yeah. I think, I think when I got the box back, we had, and these are the only ones we have left, actually.

I think there was like four or five left. But the big thing was, is our customers and our audience kept writing in how fucking good it was. They kept saying, I just bought this because I thought the bag was cool, but this was actually really fucking good. So every time I would get that, I would just screenshot it and send it to Evan. I'm like,

look, dude, you did fucking well. Like this is legit. And he like, no shit response. All right, well,

I'm going to start a coffee. I was like, fuck yeah, we're in like, hell yeah, we're in. Yeah. And so,

yeah, that December he shows the logos and is like, look at it. It's BRCC. And he's laughing. Now, what year is this again? 2014. Okay. Or no is 13 like the end of january is when like he officially hit it um but he's like brcc he's like a backroom casting guy oh shit dude i think that motherfucker went to jail for that really yeah the, the backroom casting couch guy.

Anyway, if you don't know, don't even fucking ask. You either know or you don't. Black Rifle Coffee Company. Bro. So he shows me the logo, and I immediately, I'm like, I love that. That is awesome. Like I said, I looked at it, and I saw how much further that went than art 15, like right away.

Like I was like, okay, that actually like that could be Nike. That could be like, like it has it like art 15, art 15 was a, was a lifestyle, but it was kind of a comedy like brand and, and, and it, it didn't have legs to stand on itself if we weren't constantly putting things out and, and, and, and kind of reinventing it. So he goes forward with that. He puts out these two commercials that he films that are wacky and funny. And then we start getting a bunch of trolls,

like Evan is dump trucking them under the black rifle coffee facebook name so like these trolls are over there like with the black rifle coffee he's like fuck you no he's like hey man i think i saw you off exit 34 at the truck stop you had two dicks in your mouth like that's coming from i'm like this is awesome like he is body slaying anybody that comes over so i can't wait to meet my customer service team monday so i grab my camera shit and i drive over to butch rogers's house i can't wait to show you butch because you're gonna go this is the greatest human being on planet earth his real name is tyler putter Potterball. He's still a tech piece of Washington

state. He's the greatest person on the planet, like the nicest person. But you look at him, you're like, you are from the 70s, you're Butch Rogers. And I light him up and he's wearing this really thin muscle tank and he's reloading ammo, sweating with a bandana on. And we do this video called the troll policy. And he's like, here at Black Rifle, we're fucking men. We don't have time for stupid things like the internet. And he's loading ammo in between. He's like, so if you like our coffee, great. great if you don't we don't give a fuck like and he's just and that that video goes out as the black rifle troll policy it was the first video we saw get a hundred thousand views and like then the then fans started pouring in of like okay this is fucking hilarious like this is awesome and then and then you know we started

started really looping in black rifle stuff with art 15 and then that was kind of when range 15 the movie was coming about and evan was in that movie very briefly gets his dick ripped off by a zombie midget that's not fun did you see the movie no i never saw it yeah which is weird pulls it weird and that's why we couldn't get a rating we couldn't even get nc-17 because we had more than fucking zombies one second of a hard exposed dick was in our movie that we wouldn't cut if you have more than one second of a hard exposed dick so there's too much of that makes it x-rated well they won't rate it oh so we got nr bro and here's the funny thing here's a fun fact for you

guys listening to the show this is very weird so where was the premiere of that movie we did we did the premiere of of the trailer at shot show in in vegas yeah but no no no you guys did a special premiere at sundance yes we did the advance yeah yeah the preview at sundance these guys previewed their film at sundance in the very next fucking bar the very next fucking bar i spoke that night the very next bar and here we are fucking sitting here it's so wild dude that so great story I spoke to veterans because there was a ton of veterans in the area for that yeah

that were transitioning from military into entrepreneurship it was a room of like I don't know a hundred people it was a very small room

all veterans and these you're right next door yeah it's fucking crazy so wild yeah like

a funny story about Sundance is it's you know the media there is all liberal so they watch the trailer to range 15 which is or rent like like the the so far opposite of them and the first like after the trailer stops and because the first showing you do is all for the press all all the writers. They want to see it, and then they have a Q&A. So I'm standing up top with Nick Pomolshano, Tim Kennedy, Matt Bess, Rocco. We're all up there for the Q&A. First reporter, do you think it's in good taste for you to make fun of Marcus Luttrell? And Marcus goes, well, that was me that was making fun of me and she turns around and he's like i'm

pretty sure i earned the right to fucking make fun of myself and she's like oh god because the final line in the trailer is the zombie attacking marcus and and nick looking over and go well i guess we're the lone survivors dude dude those motherfuckers don't know what to do when you do shit like that no like her head was going to explode because like you could tell like she was ready like that her whole piece was going to be around how distasteful this was to do that and marcus is and mark dude marcus and i think that this is on film somewhere, but he goes into this tirade, like almost directed right at her about the sacrifice. And if we're not allowed to have comedy,

like how the fuck am I supposed to live? He's fucking right. And dude, there's an American flag behind him as he's like, he's like getting more and more. Like it was like, oh my God, like this was, this was planned. That's fucking awesome, dude. No, it was super funny. So yeah, we did the movie.

We did the movie with Ross Patterson, one of the, the, the co-founders, co-creators and hosts of drinking bros, uh, drinking bros, you know, later that year is when we started the podcast was early 2015 and or mid 2015. It really it was exact it was what month was it i want to say our first episode aired on thanksgiving of 2015 okay we we started in june of 2015 okay yeah we were right there yeah we talked about that yesterday in the gym getting your fitness stuff done yeah oh yeah yeah yeah i'm a fitness i know you're serious i'm changing my uh instagram to JTFit. How many protein shakes you drink today?

14. Okay. Yeah. That's a little below average, but- Okay. Yeah, I need more. We can work on that. All right.

All right. All right. Well, there's mayonnaise in most of them. Oh, well, that counts as double. Okay. So, yeah. The movie- Fucking milk chicken.

Milk chicken? Yeah. I i gotta show you that video i can't wait to show you that video because this is the type of stuff like i just want to run your comedy right listen i i'm in perfect so we uh the the movie was uh it was wild because we crowdfunded it we crowdfunded it we we partnered with our direct competitor ranger up so i want everybody to think about this like we at the time didn't know them we at the time saw them as someone to try and overtake or take down you know when you're new destroy and you're like oh yeah yeah i want to fuck over the big guy i used to be like that too bro until you yeah until you realize like but we go a lot further together we changed that yeah it was wait like and that's what i thought like i no kidding was like you know at the end of the like i i saw that i had this cloud over me from something that i had respected

beforehand and looked up to and went okay when i got into the because i've had to have this conversation with so many people nowadays of like pulling them in and saying hey coming into the business space you cannot come in with piss and vinegar wanting to fucking punch him no you'll get kicked off the motherfucking ladder 100 people don't understand that i talk about that all the time like there's there's a ladder and people who are up towards the top who become there's this weird thing in business and by the way i fell into it as well when i was young i started building a company i looked at all the bigger companies like fuck them we're gonna fucking kill them and turns out we never affected them at all they just kind of did their own thing and went their own ways we grew and a lot of those companies are still big and still exist you know

but if you cut but i can tell you this me having that attitude cost me a lot of fucking time yeah and that's where i i caught myself and i and i and i brought it to the guys i'm like hey what if we what if we invite invite Ranger up in on this movie? Yeah. And of course, Cody, the CFO, is like, well, yeah, that would cut our cost in half. Because originally, Range 15, we were going to fund ourselves. And we had set the budget at $325,000. We were just going to sell shirts until we made that block of money.

We were going to make the movie and put it out. So it wasn't huge plans but we knew we wanted to do a a real film like a comedy and so i send the email to nick pomosciano randomly from you know jt at art15clothing.com i sent him the script it then was called zone 15 i said hey and i sent him a like a three slide plan that said, here is the budget. Here's how we're going to release it. Here's how we're going to monetize it. Here's the plan.

He emailed me back, I want to say like an hour later, saying, we've wanted to do this forever. We're in. Let's get a meeting. Isn't that crazy? wanted to do this forever we're in let's get a meeting so now we went from like thinking that we needed to take this big dog down and and ranger up is evil and blah blah blah blah blah blah but in the back of our heads we're also like those guys are kind of the fucking the bees knees yeah yeah and it's like dude we're invited to go sit down with Ranger Up, Tim Kennedy, Jack Mandeville, Nick Pomichano. Holy shit.

Yeah. And we fly to North Carolina and we sit down and have this talk about the script and everything. They had scripts printed out for everybody and they had a whiteboard with things that they wanted to add to it. And then Nick brought up, he's like, well, what do you think about crowdfunding? And I was against it at first because I always feel kind of embarrassed like asking for anything. And I felt like the community at the time knew that we were doing well

because as you saw the climb and you saw the increase in production value and better stuff and more guns and things like that. So they're like, yeah, you guys are making money. So I felt that it would be received wrong you had a little you had a little success guilt yes yeah and but i just i just thought that it was going to be received wrong because what i didn't think about and this is what nick finally changed me on he goes no get away from the mindset that you're asking them for something you're letting them you're asking them

to be a piece of yes and i didn't think like that then and now i've seen it because the people that still to this day come up to me and say i donated to range 15 and that was the greatest thing i've ever got to do yeah it's fucking awesome dude and so we launched this off and i mean i'm telling you man like we we make this by the way we're one of the only movie campaigns to to try and raise money for a movie that had nothing for the movie in the video trying to raise money for the movie saying like it was just literally we're going to make a movie. And the goal was 350,000. And dude, the night before, like Nick is so nervous. And he's like, dude, you think we're going to, you think we're going to make it? And I'm like, okay, well, if the launch video hits 18,000 shares, it gives us a million views on Facebook. That should give us around 6,000 people that actually go to it. Like

I'm trying to break down the conversion math. And I'm yeah man i think i think we're gonna make it like like we got 45 days we're gonna make it boom this thing goes out it hits 350 in like the first 10 hours shut the fuck up and we're like oh what and nick's like i'm gonna i'm gonna raise the goal and we're like oh why he's like we're gonna add more explosions so he puts this graphic on that's like if the goal. And we're like, why? He's like, we're going to add more explosions. So he puts this graphic on that's like, if we get to 450, we're going to have big explosions. And then it screams past 450 in like three days. And we're like, oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.

What are we going to do? He's like, we're going to get a celebrity. If we get to 500. So we kept posting these updates screams past it we end up raising 1.3 million dollars for range 15 the third highest crowdfunded film in history at the time dude the only the things that beat us out was like super troopers 2 how how exciting was that it was exciting but it was nerve-wracking because now it was like as you because you can see 14 000 15 000 18 000 donors and i'm going oh that's a lot of people

to let down if we fuck this up yeah because that happened like this this and this is where the story turns to like we raise all this money and now you have three massive creative entities ross ranger up and us all now like we have a million and a half dollars to make a movie no no no it's getting pulled in every direct we need to do this we need to do this and and fighting ensued yeah uh and in june like uh the the thing closed the end of may and we got ranger ups rewrite back and matt threw it against the wall and was like this is a disaster like he hated some of the things that were written there he didn't like the way he was written as a character you started writing it as a committee yeah and so so like oh god i was sweating like a fucking like it was the most awful like five days like where i was like we've we've just raised all this fucking

money and now nobody's getting along. Everybody fucking hates the project. This is a fucking disaster. I hate this. Let me off the ship, please. And finally, we were honest with Nick. Matt was honest with Nick. He said, I didn't like the rewrite. Nick goes, all right, Jack and I are going to fly out to El Paso. I'm going to rent a conference room and we're not going to leave that room until we are all happy with the script and no shit. They get on a plane. We are in a Holiday Inn Express in a conference room and Nick has taped a giant butcher paper up around the whole room and we have the laptop and we have scripts for everybody's like,

let's go read it. And everybody sat at the table and we acted it out in there and rewrote the whole thing, like from start to finish for dialogue and, and position and using, using each, uh, scene change, uh, like those big pieces of paper. We're all, we're like when we changed scenes and how we got there. So we made sure that it flowed. And then we walked out of there and everybody was happy again. And I was just finally like, oh God, I can breathe.

Yeah. Dude, a lot of times when you get all those people trying to make decisions about your product, you end up with a watered down bullshit version. But the thing is, is you have a lot of very creative people yeah that all have their own vision and and it's this is a shared vision so it's like it's a very difficult thing like you want to talk about the one of the hardest fucking team exercises on the planet getting three creative entities together to work together

how long did that take two days that's not we got through the whole thing in two days and um and then in october of 2015 we went into production and it was 13 days for 90 pages. It's wild. There's a documentary on Amazon about it called Not a War Story. It shows how gnarly it was to try and get all that in 13 days. You shot the whole thing?

In 13 days? Yes. It's insane. You're talking like 10, 12 pages a day. That's amazing. We did it through a lot of gray hairs. Because again, I was talking with Ross about this a couple days ago when I was on Drinking Bros after the show. And I was like, you know, it sucks when you are a lead actor and the executive producer

of a project because you have to give a performance but you're also in the know of all the fuck-ups that are happening and the budget and the like dude every every day we would we would start at 5 a.m we would cut it off at at 10 or 11 because of uh labor loss like the crew would go into overtime and then you have to stop overtime at a certain piece at 11 o'clock myself matt nick ross rocco would all go in the trailer and the line producer would tell us who stole from us what went over today what's missing what like and you're just like dude and then when that meeting's over you know it's 45 minute meeting at 11 45 okay the van's here to take you back to your hotel i'll see you at five yeah it's like yeah and oh by the way we're covered in fake blood

through the whole movie like this is something i didn't think about when we wrote this thing that's like every day you're just sticky with this corn syrup and it's just like oh god oh but we got through it yeah we made a movie that's fucking we went to 750 theaters nationwide all of which had an after party and i'm here to say that is the only time that's ever happened in history there has been relationships wives and babies that that started the night of range 15 i know that's of a marriage that came out of they met at the at the at the first showing of range 15 so it's like and the fans the first the year after the year anniversary after it had came out, they had all got together and they hired a designer and they, and,

and the day to the day, one year to the day, June 16th, a person hand like showed up every location that all of us was at. Like we were all over the country, but one, somebody showed up with these two books and the books were photos and like notes from every screening dude that's it's fucking awesome yeah like you go through this thing like photos of the theaters

like they were bringing costumes and like bro that is super cool man for them to do that yeah like probably one of the coolest gifts i've ever i've ever got yeah i still to this day i show everybody when they come i'm like you have to see this like this is so wild that's fucking awesome dude so what so let's talk a little bit about uh black rifle becoming the massive amazing american coffee machine that has become yeah so um matt and i roll out to our iraq tour with the movie in in um july of 2016 we get back from that i want to say july 20th and on the 22nd i like, we're loading up and going to Salt Lake. He's like, all right.

And we tell Evan, we're coming to you. It's time to focus on Black Rifle. The movie's done. It's out. Over. We're coming to help. So we drive to Salt Lake where me and Matt are sharing

a single bedroom apartment with a twin bed. I'm on a cot in the living room. And Evan's in a rented office space that he's sharing with another company. And there's two, maybe three employees at the time. The first couple of days, we write every awesome video idea that we could come up with together on this this big piece of countertop i think he had just sitting in there and then i say can i have can i have a

little bit of money from the company to buy a computer and build a studio in this closet and he's like yeah so i go get a mac laptop i buy some monitors i buy foam and everything and we we foam out this this whole room and like the next day matt and i and rocco write the song safety brief and record it and we have that animated and put that out and then um like a week and a half later, we shoot the How to Be an American, and that gets 88 million views on Facebook. And Black Rifle went from averaging $3,000 a day to like 15 to 20 consecutively. And it just boom.

And then within two months, Evan's looking to try and buy a building like and he's going through one of our partners and friends like that that was very wealthy that's like okay we need a space we need a space and we find this building we move into it and you know there were we were sitting four of us were sitting on the floor on the carpet and lawn chairs in the washington room which is we call the washington because we have the giant uh wrapped wall of washington crossing the delaware that's awesome that's fun and we're we're just throwing out ideas and okay what's next what are we doing here and all while like we're still kind of like squatting in salt lake like we're we've we've just

moved into this building matt and i you know we still have uh you know people in el paso and going back and forth um and so then yeah we find i evan found a new house to move into and i just took his lease at his current house and moved my wife at the time and the kids down there put them in but like i lived at that office like i started decorating our side obviously i started wrapping walls and because i gotta have my space i get it i built i built three studios you know there was a music studio podcast studio so we like we got everything uh everything down there we moved dave down to Lake and, and got the podcast back up and running. And, and, um, yeah, I mean, even like Jason Rao came in from breaking Benjamin and recorded

the guitar tracks to one of their latest albums in the studio, like a day after I got it set up. That is awesome. And man, the media, and I have a lot of this stuff on phones and I've, I've cataloged so many things like, like, cause I, I just had the foresight of like filming certain meetings at certain times, because again, this is still, I always kind of assume that I'm on borrowed time. Like I always feel like I'm not supposed to be here, so I'm taking advantage of this. Like, and I just remember like Evan talking in that washington room one day there was a con you know he was having this conversation

of the potential for this thing to go to a billion dollar company one day probably 10 to 12 years later and it happened three years yeah so it's like and that was so far-fetched and foreign like at the time where it was like whoa it's like an amazing dude and you know like like so he gives me the task uh everybody was pretty grinded up then too like it was stressful so like everybody's kind of testy people you know the honeymoon phase is yeah yeah it's everybody's fucking tired and things like that like i'm i'm staying at the office until like fucking nine o'clock at night and shit like just anything any anything and anything that i can find to like fix do whatever the hell it is and then then he's like, we need to get a fucking coffee shop in here. So I get crumb Aaron crumb from nitro circus.

Like, and he, he loves the story because he, he said he would come over to consult because he's, he's also a general contractor. It was, he's like, he's like,

I'll just tell you what you need to do, but I don't want to do it. I'm like, okay, okay, just tell us what we need to do. And he comes over and then no shit. Like an hour later,

he's got a tool belt on and we're both fucking taking down the walls like and yeah three months into the project he's like god damn it i didn't want to do this but yeah like we design we start ripping down walls and like and and start building this coffee shop with and i did it with him like the very first one like i was in there nailing the fucking wood panels to the wall like on a rainy sunday afternoon trying to get as far as ahead of schedule as we could to get this thing moving you know and and like i remember like uh i had the lights installed and again like i'm pulling my hair out and like evan walks in he's like these fucking lights look shit i'm like i didn't even notice okay like what lights do you want he's like, these fucking lights look shit. I'm like, I didn't even notice.

Okay. Like, what lights do you want? He's like, I'll go get the fucking lights. And he rolls out and he comes back with these awesome lights. Where the fuck do you even find these? He's like, I knew a place. But yeah, I remember him fucking so pissed about the lights. But yeah, we got that coffee shop up and running.

And that changed the mood the mood too because now like evan had a spot like to start doing what he loved best yeah coffee stuff yeah like and then you know things just kept things things were on fire then like it's like trying to remember it now it's like what year is this this is like this is through 2017 going into 2018 is when that's when like first investors come in and the talk is we need to move to San Antonio and we're like what like we just moved here

and he was like we need to move to San Antonio all right well moving to San Antonio and no kidding like when I think about how it like unfolded like it was no kidding like overnight one day it was like all right we all got to go to san antonio and then like i woke up and like 20 of us are in a hotel together in san antonio like and then we rent this house that we call

grandma's house that's where we're going to work every day you just call it grandma's house because the movie no it's it's it's grandma's house because it was it was furnished like a it was just furnished like a like a grandma's woman's house yeah and it was on a golf course but that's like where we were working out of every day because we didn't have a building and so like then then we go through the process of of trying to find a building and okay we think we found a building and we find a building and then again we're back to like where we were in the beginning of 2017 where we get into this building and there's five of us sitting in there like all right and here i gotta go i gotta build another fucking studio no shit man gotta get the podcast up and running we're in san antonio now

so i put the i put the drinking bro studio together up in there and we, we, it's never not, we never missed one. Yeah. So we always did it and got that studio up and running. And then we, we ended up finding the black rifle ranch that we were able to lease. And we started producing like our Halloween videos out there and started putting up the archery targets and and everything and like really starting to to just design the brand and we we you know the bernie store opens

up it's a partnered store you know ran by by mason who owns the gun store right there it's it's one of the it's the only black rifle that has a gun store attached to it like that you could walk through that's really cool so it's like once you started seeing these things tangible like like they got the fire again like so everybody again everybody's all over the place nobody has like a specific role it's just you know it's fucking organized chaos yes yeah for sure for sure bro i get that every phase we've gone through as well it's it's that comes around like when we moved into this building it was like that moved into our last building it was like that you know what i'm saying um everything that you're that you're saying is like i'm just sitting over here like yeah yeah yeah i fucking get it dude it's fucking awesome i'm glad it's not just us yeah this is wild like it's so much to unpack

yeah so how mentally fucked up are you now very i have a lot of trust issues a lot of trust issues holy shit dude so that's um so you guys you guys go public right yeah and and now one of your big initiatives is is the retail stores yes retail stores and then also so we have a few few initiatives here that are that are that are going down we've again we've evan has always kept us online with this content is king like we have to be the leaders of content in inspire inform inspire, inform, entertain. Let's go. And so that was pushing Brand. You know, he was- I can't believe they fucking used that same thing. Like we never talked about this before.

He briefed that too. Like that became our pillar in 2017, I believe, is when he briefed that to us. Dude, I have an equation I use. I teach it. Really? Yeah, it's E2i equals e it's education entertainment impact equals engagement holy shit yeah that's what i teach that's what i

fucking teach it's it's fucking that's why i can't wait to get him here because he's gonna he's gonna bro we got sparks coming back we got to do a show yeah with you three guys and then our guys oh yeah that'd be fucking awesome that'd be super sick um so yes we have the brcc fund which we're we're the initiatives there are to really lift up a lot of these veteran charities that are doing very impactful work you know it's time yeah we saw a ton of veteran charities spark up everywhere but going through and finding the ones that are really doing impactful work. It's time. Yeah, we saw a ton of veteran charities spark up everywhere, but going through and finding the ones that are really doing impactful work in the community and helping these veterans either transition or get help or anything that's needed, that's a big thing.

Retail store expansion, big thing. We've got to get these stores up and running as well as Evans in development of the process for how we're going to take applicants to become store owner operators. So like taking a veteran that wants to have a store. Yeah. And that, that generally doesn't, doesn't have the money or the, or the network to be able to raise the money. But if they go through the program that takes like two years, then we will provide that. Dude, that's how we do our shit. For our retail store franchisees, for supplement super stores, we take our employees. They have to go as an employee.

They have to work every station. Yeah. And then once we feel confident enough that they can do it, they have the option to get funded by us to do it. That's amazing. It's the same shit you're doing. It's fucking awesome. I love this. Yeah.

And, uh, so many parallels. I know. And then, yeah, like he said, like I was telling you yesterday,

like he really wants to do this shark tank style initiative where we're going to start taking in these dreamers, these veteran, veteran dreamers and entrepreneurs and saying, all right, we're here to help. Yeah these dreamers, these veteran dreamers and entrepreneurs and saying, all right, we're here to help. Let's do it. And I'm excited for that because I think that's a big deal.

That's going to be amazing. I would love nothing more than go in and teach somebody how to message. This is what I like. Yeah. You know what's cool too, dude? I think, first of all, I think that the table is now set for that to, to really go. Yes. Um,

people have become awake to the, the, the true monopoly that we face as small business owners. Now you guys aren't small, we're not small, but we're still small business because we're not owned by big business. You what i'm saying and um the the table is set for people they want they don't want to see any more of these hollywood jerk-offs fucking pretending to help people and shit they want to see real motherfucking americans helping other real people do you want to be able to feel it too. Like this morning, you could feel it here. The community sees it. They can see what you're doing. And that goes further than anything else.

Because, dude, yes, because, dude, we are all the same. And people are starting to really understand that there is an us, the normal citizens of America, and of them, the motherfuckers that try to squeeze every ounce of fucking profitability out of us they're just breeding consumers that is it that's all they want to do they wouldn't be putting 400 pound fucking fitness models on tv uh and then teaching you to sit at home and order all your food and watch fucking whatever streaming service that you have they wouldn't be

doing they're creating consumers those people consume more yes those people consume more food they consume more data they consume more health products uh meaning like big pharma you need health products right to not die from being so fucking unhealthy like this is the play and people are becoming wise to it and that gives an opportunity for people like us to actually go out and do real shit because dude people are not stupid they see what's going on and no matter how hard they push this and propagate this fucking bullshit on us this woke stupid ass shit that nobody agrees with the more people are looking for an alternative to support i think your whole dude i think you guys could fucking take down starbucks

like legit i don't know if you ever talk about that but like when i see the fucking stores and i see the inside of the store and i see their culture is bro is is imploding themselves bro let's just say that 100 if you're going to you know allow homeless and and kick out cops and and do all this stupid bullshit it's like you're you're not gonna win nobody wants to go there no if it's not safe first yeah if safety is a fucking is people are afterthought nobody wants to fucking be a lot of these big companies are gonna get eaten the fuck up by guys like us they really are they really are and like you guys who are out there building your brands you have no idea the opportunity that awaits in front of you

if you don't adopt this crazy shit that all the big companies are doing. Just be yourself, dude. Yes. Be who the fuck you are. Authenticity will get you everywhere you want to go. Yeah, for sure, man. Bro, I love what you guys are doing. I fucking love it.

I hope you guys open fucking 30,000 motherfucking stores all over the world and dominate coffee dude i i mean i yeah another thing there needs to be one in here yeah yeah because the boys were all like well can we get some beans and some cans i'm like no we need a store in here you know what's funny we're building two buildings across the street i'm pretty sure we got space i'm pretty sure we can figure it the out we'll talk about that after the show i can't wait bro um look man i just want to say uh i have the utmost respect for what you guys have done like for real and and getting to spend some time with you the last couple days uh what you said at the beginning of the show is also mutual to me it gets me excited like i'm sitting here as

the show is going on i'm letting i'm trying to let you talk because i'm really bad about jumping in the middle like yeah so like and people listen get fucking pissed they're like fucking eddie shut the fuck up i'm working on it but like i'm sitting here with all these amazing ideas just from listening dude listen it's just awesome it's funny because like like when i got back last night and i remember like our one of our first conversations i'm just like man i'm beat down because everything's transactional and i'm like oh god i got so excited i started firing off with fucking opportunity ideas and i'm like oh no no i'm not supposed to be doing this that's that's different that's different that's different one of the

things that he's talking about was you know as you become and people don't understand this like unless you go through the process when you become a person that can solve problems for people or, or that you have resources and, and bro, I'm willing to solve problems for people. Like, and I, I see it as a duty, right?

Like I help a lot of motherfucking people that nobody ever fucking hears about or talks to me. I know. And, and you know, the other thing about that is you can't advertise it. Like, no,

because you look like that guy. So like, so like if I come on the show and I'm like, Hey, I fucking did this and this and this and this and this and this. I just doubled the donations for our event this morning. Like I brag about these. I'm a fucking bragger.

Then if I don't do it, Andy's just a rich motherfucker that doesn't give a fuck about anybody. And people don't understand that when you become a person that can actually solve problems, people really do start looking at you differently it's not that people think like oh money and fame it changes people no it changes the way people treat those people yes and that's what people don't understand and then as a result those people start becoming more withdrawn they isolate themselves lonely as fuck yeah because every motherfucker you talk to you're just waiting for the transaction for the transaction like and and how deflating is it once it gets there because there's so many times i've been so excited for something i know and then that that that ass comes out and i just clam up and i lock

up bro you know what i like i just like motherfuckers to keep it real like bro just come at me with the shit right away like don't like if you need help fucking tell me i fucking help you but like don't come at me just like pretending like we're best friends or like hey bro it's been a long time since we talked how's the family how's this motherfucker what do you want like for real and that's what that's what it becomes and it's it sucks because it does make it feel very transactional it was funny because the first thing that he said when he got here we were fucking literally like 30 seconds into the conversation i'm training doing my weight workout him and dj are standing there and we were talking about somebody i forgot what the fuck example we were talking about somebody that was

that was fucking around yeah you know but you had connections to yeah and you're with your guys's deal right or was it me no it was mine i was just talking about yeah we were talking about something oh that's right i remember now i'm not gonna say what it was yeah like basically we got to talking about like how people will do things not understanding that when those things come to materialize in the public it's not their fucking name that's on it you know what i'm saying like my name's in the head yes like what you said about seeing your logo and having anxiety you know i thought people like why would you have that well when every motherfucking ball that's ever been dropped ever anytime this rings it's because

there's a problem that's right and dude in the culture that we live in in the internet and i'm all for extreme ownership you're right it's my fucking fault but like bro when you run a company with fucking thousands of fucking people involved guess what there's going to be shit that happens that's reality and in today's age, that's automatically fucking, it goes out and it's me. It's my name. Right. And like, it's like, dude, if people would just stop and realize like that, like there's always more to the story that than what people think.

And that, you know, trying to manage a massive company like you guys are like what we're doing, not truly not knowing what the fuck we're doing yeah like i never fucking did this and it kills the creativity like yeah because you start playing defense yeah you're like you're like oh dude well if i say this or do this this motherfucker over here who got me dude it like generally takes almost two to three hours of evan and i being together before we can kind of sift out everything and the fun and the laugh and the fucking and the creative ideas start coming back like i'm gonna tell you something that we're working on right now when this is over because it's a secret

because it's really fucking funny but we came up with it last week when i was or the last couple weeks when i was with him but yeah it's like you gotta like it takes a few hours to like sift because him and i start unloading like this motherfucker did this this yeah this happened this happened this and we're both like all fired up yeah and then it like settles and it's like oh my god i had the greatest idea bro people people don't think i don't think customers or uh fans or even um other people who aspire to have their brands or their companies ever consider that part of it at all. Like they never consider that, you know, ever like, dude, like for example, a dude that was in business 20 years ago, like you listen,

if you're an old motherfucker, you listen to this show and you think oh yeah i fucking did that no you fucking didn't because i'm gonna tell you right now it's way fucking harder now your fucking every move was not scrutinized no your fucking every conversation was not scrutinized not on your fucking every fucking thing you ever did in public is not on fucking camera like they don't fucking get it oh that's what i was talking to dj about it's like that's a fear a fear is somebody like trying to fuck with me while I'm eating out with friends. And like, they just want the video of me because they know, you know, I've got a fucking temper. By the way, which has actually happened to both of us.

Well, we were trading these stories yesterday both of us have had people bait us try to bait us in public into a reaction so that they could fucking film it and have publicity yes like there it's so like dude you and this goes into we can we talked politics the other day so i'm not gonna get too much into it but like bro i'm just gonna let you motherfuckers know if you want people to solve the problems in society, you have to stop criticizing them for being fucking not perfect. You motherfuckers ain't perfect. None of you are. And the fact that you pile on people on the internet and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is why you get these people in office to shit their fucking pants and rob you of all your fucking rights and money. Like, holy shit, dude. It's not that hard to understand. fucking pants and rob you of all your fucking rights and money like holy

shit dude it's not that hard to understand the best and brightest people are not fucking volunteering to do the fucking service anymore and so we're stuck with joe biden who shits himself on fucking tv or in front of the fucking pope like the fuck are we doing anyway that's my politics for the show i love it thanks for tuning in i love it yeah yeah well if we ever want to have this country the problem solved by people who can actually solve them then the people you need accountability yeah but bro you the guy you guys out there on the internet gotta start having some fucking grace for people you know like this fucking piling on motherfuckers right like i think it's happening bro like i saw this fucking post today uh cancel

kanye and it was from uh it was from the anti uh uh semitic page or something like these guys were and they're trying to say he's anti-semite and all this shit no fucking comments are like a thousand long and everybody was like yeah fuck yeah nah yeah yeah they're not with it and so i'm hoping that i really hope because i feel like we're moving that way that people have started to understand the problem that this kind of bullying creates online it creates a situation where the best people won't fucking try to help you guys they won't do it because they're just like, fuck it. I was just sitting with Tito Ortiz, fucking Ian Smith. Both dudes ran for office. Both dudes got their fucking family names drugged, got their fucking every bad thing said about them that they ever did.

And you motherfuckers vote for people based off like these things they did 10 fucking years ago yeah that's not the point the point is can they solve the fucking problem or can they not and and you know in ian's case like ian literally was trying to root out evil in his district yeah evil yeah evil yeah greed and evil that needs to be fucking exterminated yeah and the way they attack these people bro is by assassinating their personal character off the mistakes they made in life bro that's fucking absurd i know who fucking cares i'm with you dude like ah well i know this bro like here's the deal like if i have fucking have brain surgery okay and my doctor uh has some personal indiscretions from back when he has a dui 10 years ago yeah um

do do i care if he's a good surgeon or do i care about his fucking personal indiscretions i care if he can do the fucking job and this is a very obvious thing that most of culture is missing right so think about it guys do the job yeah and when you see people getting fucking drug for some shit let's stop it yeah stand up for it stand up for those people like dude i i hate it anyway i love you though hell fuck yeah i have to say you know my one promise to the brcc customers and your customers like the promise from me is i am here to bring and elevate the content world like with this military sprinkle of awesomeness bro you guys are the best you guys look like what to evan's standard which i love you guys are the fucking best like there's nobody doing it better

right now thank you we're not doing it better than you. We're not doing. Well, you're about to start. You're about to marry into this family. I feel good about how we do things. And I feel like you guys do them better than us in that way. And I fucking bro. It's, and I look at, it's inspiring.

I look at your culture here and I'm, I'm, we need to start taking some notes out of your book because I love notes. Yes. Yeah. Uh, because the things on the horizon are fucking amazing. Yeah. Jim Connnor 12 is going to be

fucking wild uh final send november 11th is going to be absolutely crazy and then recoil that's going to be is going to redefine motorsports let's let's not forget about your fitness journey and mark hard oh yeah yeah mark hard mark hard is coming you know we can't talk about it not yet not yet Not yet. Well, bro, listen, man. Thank you so much for coming in. Thanks for sitting down doing the shows. This is it's been more than enjoyable, bro. I can't wait to hang out and make out later.

You know what I'm saying? Okay. We're down to the breast. Yeah. Yeah. We're getting real here. There's the transaction. Yeah.

Yeah. There is a transaction. But JT, for real, bro. And to Evan and Matt, it's really fucking awesome. Logan, we love you too. Yeah, all the guys. I don't know all the guys. Making sure I don't make anybody jealous.

Everybody over there, you guys are fucking doing it. And you got a shit ton of fans here at this company and our audience. And I just love what you guys are doing. So man, thanks for taking the time. Thank you. This was amazing. Yeah. All right, guys, that's the show.

Where can they follow you? I'm just JTArticle15 on Instagram. JTArticle15 on Instagram. All right, go check them out. All right, guys, that's the show. I appreciate you listening. Please share the show. We're from sleeping on the floor Now my jewelry box froze Fuck a bowl, fuck a stove Counting millions in a cold Bad bitch, booted swole Got her on bankroll

Can't fold, that's a no Headshot, case closed