Estevan Oriol – Ruby Hornet Interview Pt. 2

Here is the rest of the Estevan Oriol interview with Ruby Hornet.  (We posted Part 1 earlier.) He mentions that he is broke just like us, never turns down a fan, how he shoots too many dudes, and how he thinks Everlast is more talented than your moms (AYYOOOO!!!).  I’ve tried to stop by Last Laugh twice last time I was in LA but both times they were closed.  One day, One day…I’ll get those LA DJ slipmats.

Full Interview after the jump…

RubyHornet:  I know you recently put out a very smooth calendar featuring very beautiful L.A. women.  What was the inspiration for the settings and shots you chose?

Estevan Oriol:  I’ve been shooting girls for a long time, since I started.  I was on tour with Cypress Hill as their tour manager, and that’s where I started shooting girls.  You go on the road, and I’m taking pictures of backstage stuff and live shows and the cities that we go to.  At some of these shows you meet girls that want to party with the band, you know, off the hook pretty girls.  I was like, ‘hey, can I take a picture of you?’  And they would say, ‘yeah, no problem.’  They were all happy just to be hanging out.  So I started building this collection of girls, and I’d get home and see girls around L.A. and think, ‘man, I got to shoot them too!’  Then I started thinking, I never get hired to shoot girls, but I like shooting them.  So I figured, ‘what’s the way I could get to do that?’  I always had men, everything was all f**king men.  It started looking kind of weird.  Cartoon was tattooing all these men, and I was taking pictures of all these men, and doing videos of all these men, rappers, street dudes, low-riders.  We weren’t really getting out there with the girls.  I was telling my wife, ‘it looks funny that all we have is men on all our s**t.’  Look at Snoop and Dre and all them, those dudes are married and they got girls in all their s**t.  Look at where it’s taken them, it blew them up and they’re even talking s**t about the women in there…So, we needed that balance…That brought on me shooting more and more girls.  I had all these pictures of girls, and music, and street dudes, the one thing that I don’t really have out there a lot is just the women.  I needed to put myself out there more to shoot that stuff.  So I came out with that calendar, and that lead to doing a book called L.A. Woman.  That’s a coffee table book that I’m putting out through Drago Publishing in Italy.  The calendar is a sample of what the book is gonna be, and I put out these playing cards that are a sample of what the tattoo book I’m doing is, and what the book is.  I just tied it all together, and I put out shirts with the same imagery to just build the brand.

RubyHornet:  As far as the brand, I know you have SA Studios Agency.  When companies come to you, what are they looking for?  I know you guys specialize in reaching the Hispanic Urban marketplace.  Do companies come to you with misconceptions about reaching that market that you find yourself  erasing?

Estevan Oriol:  Yeah.  They come to us thinking we can just do things with bald heads and tattoos.  Everybody only thinks I can shoot Mexican guys with tattoos.  They’re like, ‘oh, you can shoot Black people too?’  I go, ‘yeah.  Did you see the Snoop Dogg and all those pictures?  Xzibit, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, J-Rocc…’  And they go, ‘you shot all those?’  And I say, ‘yeah.  I shot all those. I can shoot women.  I can shoot cars.  I can even shoot white people.’  It’s crazy.  I can shoot f**king anything.  I can shoot a pencil.  I can shoot a book.  I can shoot a building.  I can shoot people f**king, people fighting, people playing in a band, backstage kids kicking it in the dressing room.  I can shoot people in their house doing dope, people in prison.  I can shoot people in a coffin.  I can do it all.  I don’t understand.  People still to this day, when I show them all my pictures they say, ‘did you shoot that?’  And after I shake them a little bit, I just want to tell them, ‘why would I show you some pictures that I f**king didn’t take?’  I want to say all that but I’m like, ‘yeah, yeah.  I shot all that.’

RubyHornet:  Going from bouncer to tour manager, to director, designer, it seems like all of them require you to understand people, relate to them, and then exhibit a great amount of patience.  Would you say that’s true, and is your biggest strength relating to people?

Estevan Oriol:  My biggest strength is holding back.  Every once in a while I have this small little sign of turrets come through, and I’ll say something and be like, ‘man, I can’t believe I just said that s**t.’  But, sometimes they just bring it out of you.  You can’t even control it.  Most of the time I keep it under control and stay nice and polite and respectful.  Every once in a while I’ll slip out a little something, but I’ll twist it up and make it funny.  You got to be on point.  When you slip or fall, you play it off.  It’s the same thing when you’re talking to people.  When you slip, you got to play it off and act like you meant to do that.

RubyHornet:  I was reading your biography, and it was really a trip reading all the things you’re involved in and what you’ve accomplished.  Where I’ve seen people falter is in not presenting themselves in the right way, and trying to present everything at one time.  They may meet someone once and want to put everything out there, rather than let it naturally come out.  I guess it’s a skill that you’ve mastered in being patient and presenting yourself right.

Estevan Oriol:  Well, you never really know.  You got to feel people out.  Some people, you’ll just tell them a little bit and they won’t think you can do it cause the things you told them weren’t what they wanted you to do.  So you got to feel it out to be like, ‘well, did I tell them enough?’  And then you got to say, ‘well, I can also do this if you need.’  Some people will be like, ‘it seems like you do too much, like you’re too scattered.  You’re a jack of all trades, but a master of none.’  That’s kind of why when people ask me, ‘when are you going to do a record label?  When are you going to do music?’  I’m like, ‘oh, f**k.  I got my plate full already.  I need to do more photography, more videos, more filmmaking.’  That’s what I need to do, and do it on a higher level.  I’m putting out the same work as all these big guys are doing.  I can focus and push the buttons just as good as them.  I’m working with the same celebrities as them, but I don’t get the same rates as them.  They’re in a different realm.  I mentioned Terry Richardson and David  LaChapelle, and those types of guys.  Those guys don’t come out of the house for less than $70,000.  I’m coming out for way less than that, and we shoot all the same people.  I just need to step up my rate.

RubyHornet:  The things you talked about, the control, do you think reaching that level of David LaChapelle and Terry Richardson, you’d have to give up some of the control?

Estevan Oriol:  No.  Not control, money.  I never had an agent that got me work that I got paid for.  I’ve had two agents that got me free editorial work, and they handle jobs that would come in for me.  Like I would meet somebody and say, ‘yeah, I can do your album cover.  Talk to my agent.’  They would handle it from there.  But I never had an agent out there grinding for me and trying to make me money.  They want 25%.  I don’t think they deserve it really.  All they’re doing is getting on the phone and answering phone calls.  I’m in the f**king jungles of Panama risking my life, and meeting and shooting Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino on my own.  Managers for bands get like 10%.  A venue is bringing 20,000 people to see your concert, and they sell your t-shirts for you, and they do all the work, and they’re supplying you with the place to have all these people come, they take 18%-20%.  Why the f**k does a photography agent take 25%?  What are they doing for 25%?

RubyHornet:  I guess they feel like they’re gatekeepers.  The machine needs that to keep itself going.  It’s like the institution, you got to know the right people.  But people like you show that you can get around that.  You’re going the long way.

Estevan Oriol:  I’ve met some agents that come around and they just get intimidated cause they see our warehouse and our clothing company, our store, our cars, and they’re just like, ‘f**k.  What can I do for him?’  But this is 13 years of building, working, not making money but putting more into all this s**t.  If I just got rid of all this s**t and had a little office like a normal dude, it would look cool.  I’d be paid, but we went and got these warehouses and built lowriders, and stores, and made clothing companies and all this s**t.  It made us look like we got this big a** empire, and that we’re rich.  Actually, we’re just keeping the lights on.  There’s a lot of s**t going on and it’s spread out.

RubyHornet:  It’s really crazy cause coincidentally, right after the interview with you, I have an interview with Everlast.  I was wondering if you’ve heard any of his new work, and the direction he’s taken with the Whitey Ford albums.  Back when you were the road manager in the 90’s, would you have envisioned him doing what he’s doing musically right now?

Estevan Oriol:  I haven’t heard any of his new stuff, cause now we’re all busy. Before I was his dude that would do everything for him.  Because I was the tour manager, and they didn’t want to tour anymore, I was f**ked.  I would only get paid when he was on tour.  When they stopped touring and didn’t want to tour no more, I was said, ‘f**k.  What am I going to do?’  So I had to step up my hustle on the photography, the videos, and the clothing.  All those dudes put us on the map.  They were down for the homies and they would always hire friends.  Some people say, ‘don’t hire your friends for business.’  They would say, ‘f**k that.  I want to be on tour with my friends and have fun, and go around the world with my friends instead of a bunch of dudes I don’t know.’  Guys that go on tour, the working type of dudes, they just talk s**t about the bands.  ‘This motherf**ker this, this motherf**ker that…’ and then they work hard and complain the whole time.  Guys on video crews and s**t like that, you only meet them that one time, you don’t have no relationship or bond or anything with them.  But they’re good at what they do, cause that’s what they do.  But the whole time they’re sniveling about it.  If you’re not in that industry, it’s hard to explain.  Those guys, they didn’t want any of that.  They were like, ‘let’s train one of the homies to do the lights.  Let’s train one of the homies to do the sound and be the merchandise guy and all that.’  They put a lot of people on, a lot friends.  They brought a lot of friends on the road, and a lot of the guys didn’t work.  A lot of the guys thought, ‘well, I’m here with the homies.  I don’t have to bust my a**.  F**k that.’  And that is the wrong attitude.  Whereas, me and Cartoon saw it as an opportunity to do something bigger.  To take the ball and run with it.  We didn’t expect people to do s**t for us, and give us a rapping deal or s**t like that.  I was like, ‘can I shoot some pictures?  What do you think about that?  I don’t need to shoot the album cover, but can I shoot some publicity photos and submit them and try to see if they’ll use them.’  He’d be like, ‘yeah.  F**k yeah.  Try to get them in there.’  Then when we were doing the first video for B-Real’s side group, Psycho Realm,  I was like, ‘because the songs are your vision, you should write the treatment and have the directors do your treatment.  You wrote the song, and then you get the co-directing credit like Cube and Dre were doing.’  He said, ‘you’re the photo guy, why don’t you do that s**t.’  And he put me on with them.  He went to the label and said, ‘I don’t want anybody to do it.  I want him to do it.’  The dudes from Psycho Realm got me my first video, and then the label gave me the second one, then Sen gave me one, and then Muggs gave me two, and then Cypress gave me two.  So when I went out into the industry to try to hustle work, I had 7 videos under my belt.  That’s from the homies hooking me up.  But it wasn’t like they just gave me s**t.  I had to bust my a** and make it happen.  If I didn’t have something cool, they wouldn’t have done it.  They would have been like, ‘holmes, it’s not quite there yet.’  Cartoon used to do logos and tattoos and ended up getting  album cover work out of it.  B-Real showing his tattoos off got the Goodie Mob over there, then Outkast and it took off from there.  Now he’s doing everybody and their mom…But the question was about Everlast.

RubyHornet:  His new music is way different than House of Pain.  Could you predict that he would go that route?

Estevan Oriol:  I always knew that he could because he’s full of talent.  That guy is just a talented dude.  He has his moods and s**t like that, but as far as an artist and musician, he’s sick.  You hear what he does.  He’s f**king dope.  For him, I think the hard thing is just working with some of the people out there cause they do ignorant s**t, and they act dumb and they don’t take responsibility for f**king up and they’re scandalous people out there.  Accountants try to get you twisted.  There’s all kind of scandalous people in the game.  That gets him frustrated.  But when it comes to just sitting down and playing a guitar, rapping, or singing, he’s sick with it.
RubyHornet:  Before you go, tell our readers a little bit about what you have coming out, and some places people can look for you.

Estevan Oriol:  They can come see me at our store at the Last Laugh on 6th and Los Angeles.  I’m there a couple days out of the week.  I roll in there and check on the guys and all of our s**t.  If people are in the store and want something signed, I sign it for them.  I learned that from House of Pain and Cypress Hill.  Those guys never ever turned a fan away.  They never treated anybody sh**ty.  Press people, the crews in the venues, they were open to everybody.  That’s what I learned from them.  I take that onto the business that I do now…They can check out the L.A. Woman book coming out on Drago Publishing in Italy.  It’ll be on the website.  I got a Cartoon book that just came out, and I got a book on tattoo culture.  The whole thing of documenting Cartoon when he first started tattooing up until now.  The title was going to be Ink.  We turned down all those realities shows, and then they came out with Ink this, Ink that, and all kinds of s**t and really burned the name out.  So, we don’t want to put the name out there, cause we don’t want 5 realities shows and 10 clothing lines named after it before we can get it out there.  We’re keeping it under the cover for right now. I just shot a Tech9 video for the song, ‘Like Yeah.’…People can go on our websites and blogs (MisterCartoon.com, EstevanOriol.com).  People can keep tabs on us through that…