Pioneers often don't realize that they are pioneers. It seems like it's some unseen force that guides them and pushes them along the way. And even though theirs may be the path less chosen, they seem to be surer of themselves than most who travel the beaten trail. While Rick Klotz, founder of Fresh Jive, may downplay his personal and professional achievements they are no less important in today's street wear culture.

With his roots and heart deeply planted in skateboarding, Rick has never defined his company as skatewear. His has been a company that encompasses much more than that. Fresh Jive has been an opinion, a statement and sometimes even a defendant.  On the proverbial eve of the Fresh Jive's metamorphosis, we caught up with Rick at Ottawa's high-end boutique. NRML. to talk about his past and the reasons behind his lecture/exhibit tour "What a long strange trip it's been".

Rick Klotz, with some of his early work.

So you grew up skateboarding and snowboarding, when did you decide to start getting involved in clothing?
I started skateboarding at a very young age, probably like six or seven. Really, ever since I could remember. It really was the most important thing to me up until the age of 14, although I did skate until the age of 30 when I broke my leg. There is a vibe, an aesthetic and a headspace that you get from skateboarding and living that lifestyle. And I think anyone who skateboards can clearly understand what I am saying. It's hard to describe.

That had a lot to do with my company even though I never considered my company a skateboard company, but we did have skaters riding for it at one point or another. It was just a certain headspace that I got growing up from skateboarding that reflected itself subconsciously through the company that I did.

Given the struggles of starting up street brands and that Fresh Jive could be considered a pioneer in that category, do you think that new brands have it easy these days?
In certain respects some things are easier, but in certain respects something's are harder ‘cause it's very difficult to have a startup company these days. Yes, anyone can go out and print some t-shirts easier than before, but to actually make a business out of it is definitely more difficult nowadays.

I have heard you make the reference that Fresh Jive was all about having fun and not taking things seriously. Your original Tide clothing logo comes to mind as an example. How did you guys move from a brand like that to a now label-less brand? 
The catalyst was that I had been struggling with doing the clothing line the whole time. It's not some sob story but I started the company with no experience. So I made a lot of wrong moves and I learned as I went. I tell people that I have had 21 years of on-the-job schooling, because that's how I felt. I have gone a lot of directions ‘cause I could and the business was just flat. I was really bored of doing what people consider street wear, the market that we were associated with. I just wanted to give it up, but it's hard to just stop doing a business. So I just said let's go for it, let's do something really gnarly and re-invent the company. Let's take the name off the clothing, that way we don't have anything associated with our history. It will give us an opportunity to do something with a different style and people will accept it, because you can't do that with the same name. It's like XYZ skateboard brand could not make fashion clothing as good as it can be, and the public is just so tied into the company through it's brand awareness.

A lot of the tongue and cheek brands like Fuct and Bitch skateboards were around during the early nineties, do you feel like that jokester and ‘screw you' attitude was an air of the times or is it just that companies have grown up?
I don't know if I would have even considered us ‘out there' in the nineties. Now, licensing is so big that you just can't appropriate any logo, you have to know what you are doing. I have probably appropriated more logos in the last five years as far as artwork is concerned but I have done it in a legal way (I think), like in a statement or a parody. We just grew into doing it in a smarter fashion.

Rick speaking at his art show.

I know that you have run into a few legal battles along the way, are there any that stick out in your mind?
Ya, the one that sticks out in my mind is the Stussy lawsuit. I parodied their logo a few years back along with other ones, not as a statement against the people of the company but as a statement that all our brands in the market are really doing the same shit. It's just a smoke and mirrors game with marketing and aesthetics. Everybody is just trying to out cool the next guy so their brand can be bought. The parody logo is quite popular in street wear, and with Stussy being one of the first companies to be doing it with their logos, including Channel and Louis Vuitton, I thought it was kind of like the pot calling the kettle black, with them suing me over it.

Looking back, is there anything that you would have changed about those events?
No! The only thing I would have changed and I regret is that we ended up settling right before court. After I spent $100,000 dollars on it, they didn't want to settle. They wanted a bunch of money and a written apology in the press. So I said there is no way I am going to do that, and I am going to put out the shirts. And now the only thing I regret is settling. I wish I went to court and fucking killed them in court. It would have cost me a lot more money, but I succeeded ‘cause I got the shirts out and I did not end up paying them any money at all. They finally agreed to just call off the lawsuit if we just promised never to parody any of their logos. Which was fine with me because I already did it once and it was just a one-time project. But I went through a lot of money and a battle with them which ended up being one of the funnest things I ever did in my life to tell you the truth.

Let's talk a little about the tour that you are on now. You mentioned you felt this was the right time to do such a retrospective.
I never really wanted to do a history of Fresh Jive. This show is called ‘What a Long Strange Trip It's Been: 21 years of my dysfunctional life with Fresh Jive'. People say we succeeded, but I don't know what you call success. I had a lot of ups and downs, and I don't think back and get caught up with the product we made. I know we made a pretty good product over the years, but I look back and think about the journey and the stories that we went through and to me that was more of an exciting story. So when Garrett [Louie, Timebomb Trading Inc.], our distributor up here asked me to do an exhibit, he suggested we do a history thing and I thought, "Oh, it's good timing. We are finishing with one chapter of our company; we are abandoning street wear and taking the name off." I thought it was good timing to show the history now and talk about those stories, create some closure, explain that we are starting from year zero but this is what we went through. So along with the show we created a limited edition fan zine, which is being given out at the show with some great stories to read.

Your history has been playing the role of antagonist, but you are a lot more low key now. Are we going to see more of the old Rick in the future?
We still do t-shirts and I still believe in the t-shirt as a form of propaganda, communicating opinions and stuff besides trying to make a buck or two, so I think you will still see that, perhaps in more subtle ways. Maybe it won't be in the straight-ahead ‘fuck you' way that I have done in the past, but in a more subtle, aesthetic way. Some people might call it more ‘mature' but I don't like to use that word, it's just stupid. Let's just say it will be in a different aesthetic.

Do you think you will ever venture back into the skate market?
No, I don't think we will go into the market but what I am hoping now is that we will make a very far break from the market. I am really hoping there are kids out there like me ‘cause when I used to skate, I did not want to wear skate fashion. I wanted to wear something completely opposite. Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of skate brands out there that are cool, but I know that my philosophy as a teenager when I was skateboarding was that I did not want to wear anything from the skateboard community, I wanted to wear other things. And that is how I started Jive because I was really into skateboarding, but I was really into this fashion and that fashion and this music, etc. I was really into a lot of different things. So I am hoping that the skateboarder that is thinking out of the box will come to appreciate what we are making now.

All photos: Andrew Rashotte

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Open House: Timebomb Trading Inc.