SA: How's it going? I wanted to start by asking how you got into art and graffiti?
SLICK: My earliest recollection of doing anything art-related is probably with my Mom. She used to paint, as a hobby. She still paints now, but she had these oil paintings, and she'd let me mess around with them. I'd go in there and paint over them, I'd be fucking them up. That was my first taste of painting with oils. I remember kicking it with her, and we'd go to different museums and things like that, so that was the closest I came to fine art. Growing up, I thought I was going to do special effects. I loved horror movies and zombie movies, and I wanted to be the next Rick Baker or Tom Savini, you know? And I actually did some of that in junior high and high school; I was really into it! I was also really into b-boying and dancing, at the time. I was a popper, a breakdancer. Then, when I saw Style Wars, it turned my whole life around. It opened my eyes to graffiti. I thought, “Wow, I can write my name everywhere, and people will know who I am!” So I caught that fever. Rocksteady Crew used to come to Hawaii to perform, and when DOZE did some demos, he was one of the first guys I saw do real graffiti. I was like, “That's what I wanna do!” So we had a crew in Hawaii called Bomb Squad, which was actually a graffiti crew, but we also had some of the best dancers on the island. So we became a performing unit and did shows, and graffiti was part of our performance.
SA: And how did you get into clothing?
SLICK: I started to airbrush T-shirts for this company called Cosmic Airbrush. They brought me in and taught me how to airbrush, because I was doing graffiti. That was in the '80s, so we were killing it, doing T-shirts, and sweatshirts. It was the hot shit, and at the time, not too many people were doing it in Hawaii. So I had roots in T-shirts. Then the owner of Crazy Shirts, a big tourist brand in Hawaii, took me under his wing and gave me free reign of the art department there. He was on the anti-graffiti task force, so he felt like maybe if they showed me the ropes, I wouldn't do graffiti.
SA: Why did you move to LA?
SLICK: The main reason was to go to school; I was gonna pursue a career in commercial art. I wanted to be an illustrator. In the '80s you'd see all this photo-realistic airbrush illustration, and I thought the best school for that would be Art Center. I didn't get into Art Center right away, so I had to do a term at Otis first. Everything happens for a reason, because if I didn't go to Otis, I wouldn't have hooked up with the K2S [Kill To Succeed] crew. At that point, I'd actually stopped doing graffiti. I'd decided to be a good student, I was gonna learn. But on my lunch breaks, I'd go to MacArthur Park, and K2S were over there doing some murals on the bandshell. It really got me open again, and to how they do it out here. Their styles were so different. I'd walk over there and check it out, and I brought my portfolio, dressed all fresh-off-the-boat from Hawaii, with bright pastel colors. They were tripping out on me because they all come from gangster roots. They must have been thinking, “Who is this fruitcake coming from Hawaii?” But they were really cool, and right away they got me into the crew.
SA: So after one semester at Otis you switched to Art Center?
SLICK: The only reason I left Otis was because I thought Art Center would be better for that photo-realistic type of illustration and they said there was better job placement with an Art Center degree. But halfway in at Art Center, I realized that after you figure out how to do the rendering and illustrate perfectly, it's like, “Damn, why didn't I just take a photo?” I was over it, and it was way too expensive. I was already an artist, I was basically just learning how to talk about it. I thought, “I'm paying all this money for this shit? I'm out!” That's when me and Erik Brunetti started doing FUCT. We decided to go hardbody with it. Then me and him had a falling out over creative differences. At one point, it was really ugly with him and I, like shootouts and the whole nine. But I have no bitter feelings towards him and if that didn't happen, I wouldn't be here now.
SA: Wow. What did you in between FUCT and DISSIZIT?
SLICK: The big one was Shaolin. I hooked up with Jeff Hartzell around '96, and we started a brand called Shaolin Worldwide. We were combining a lot of Asian imagery and motifs with popular culture, like a lot of hip-hop shit, and rock shit, and punk stuff. I thought we were doing some great stuff at the time. The thing is, back then I didn't have my wife; she runs the show now! Jeff and I are both designers, and it's hard when two designers own a company. The designs were cutting-edge and on point, for the time. But there were people who had their business tight, who could rip off what we were doing, blow it up, and then oversaturate the market - to the point where by the time we were ready to come in, people were over it already. Drunknmonkey came in and just killed the market for us. It was disheartening because Jeff is real cool people. We're still friends to this day. We had a lot riding on that, and we just couldn't get it to a point where we could get it to be profitable for the two of us. After the bad experience at FUCT, and the bad experience with the way Shaolin ended, I was over doing clothing. I wasn't gonna do it no more. Then DISSIZIT came along. And that's why it's like, this is it, this is the last straw! It also means this is the shit, you know?
SA: And when did you found DISSIZIT?
SLICK: It was soon after Shaolin folded. I was over having partners, and I thought I was just gonna do my own thing. Originally it was DISSIZSLIX, like “This is SLICK's shit,” which is still my own website. But I wasn't thinking about the marketability of that name, or if anyone could even pronounce it! So the first year or two of DISSIZIT we were using DISSIZSLIX, but we changed it. Coming from a writer background, it's hard for me to wear something with another writer's name on it, so this made it like a neutral thing, you know?
SA: Are you able to find time to work on your personal art while you're running DISSIZIT?
SLICK: Right now the fine art thing is on the back burner. I feel like the clothing thing is more pressing right now. People do art well into their 80s, so there's no rush. I feel like to give the art thing a proper chance, I need to set aside at least 6 months to go somewhere and figure out what I'm gonna paint. I don't think I'm being fair to myself or the art community to put out more crap. There's a lot of artists already doing that. I always felt like if I do something, I wanna make some kind of impact or be remembered for it. I don't wanna be remembered for putting out crap...
SA: Right. What are some of the DISSIZIT collabos you're excited about?
SLICK: One of the big collabs for me, is the Iz the Wiz collab. It's really special for me. I wish we did it while he was still alive. The whole thing with me starting DISSIZIT goes back to Style Wars, when that train goes by, and he's like, “This is it! This is it!” Doing a collab with him was inevitable. Another big one was with Chaz Bojorquez. We did a few tees with him and we got him to do some lettering for us. That was amazing because of he's part of West Coast/LA history.
SA: Yeah. How did the Estevan Oriol collab come about?
SLICK: We go a little way back. I know his father, Eriberto. He gave me my first exhibit in LA at Pico House. He gave us our first chance. It was really dope. Estevan's dad is super cool people. Estevan started making a career for himself with the photos over the years. Then when we linked back up, I started to blow up the LA Hands icon, and he got known for that one LA Fingers photo too, so I thought we had to smash that together. It turned out great!
SA: And what about the Andrew Sebastian pillows?
SLICK: Actually, they're friends of mine, from way back in the day.
SA: What's on the horizon for DISSIZIT?
SLICK: This year we got the registered trademark for our LA Hands logo. It's really exciting for us, because up until now, people were afraid to let us use it because they were afraid Disney was gonna sweat them, but now it's ours. We're gonna go big with that. We're gonna do an offshoot website which revolves around the LA Hands and the origin of it and shows the products we're going to make with it. We're starting off with 6-inch vinyl toys and we're doing a collaboration with Bounty Hunter, who I think is the father of custom vinyl and that whole culture.
SA: What do you like to get into when you're not running your brand?
SLICK: Uhh, I play a lot of video games, and I hate to say it, but I play racquetball. It's funny because it's such an '80s sport, but I smoke fools on the racquetball court. So if anyone wants some, come to Cerritos and I'll school you!
SA: Thanks for your time!
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