#1443 - Jonathan Ward

Joe Rogan (0:00)

One, Jonathan, you're the first man, not only the first man ive ever met who made his own leather jacket, but absolutely the first man who made his own leather jacket has ever been on the podcast, wearing that jacket.

Jonathan Ward (0:10)

Well, I thank you so much.

Joe Rogan (0:11)

It's a fucking sweet jacket, man.

Jonathan Ward (0:13)

I'd show you my G-string, but it's probably a little munch for this time of day.

Joe Rogan (0:16)

Well, how are you functioning? Is it like on the side? How are you tying that one?

Jonathan Ward (0:20)

Well, I prefer a center rear yank, so does my wife because she can just put the leash right on it and two for one.

Joe Rogan (0:27)

When did you get into making leather stuff? Is that a recent thing?

Jonathan Ward (0:31)

About three years ago. But I mean, Joe, my whole life, I've just been a rampant fan of craftsmanship, and I've done various deep dives throughout my life into all sorts of different art forms. In fact, the reason automotive design became my thing and turned into a business was because my hobbies of painting and sculpting and finished carpentry would work and all these different things.

If you think about it, transportation is like this incredibly communicable, extroverted combination of so many different art forms.

Joe Rogan (1:02)

Yeah.

Jonathan Ward (1:03)

So I've been also in my travels in the last 10 years or so, or maybe five, I've really been focusing on, always have been focusing on getting immersed in that local culture, but now I've stepped that up a notch and I'm doing these deep dive travels into different art forms of different cultures. So leathercraft, I've been visiting tanneries and studying for masters in the US and in Morocco and Mexico. I just got backlogs last week from Mexico doing it.

Yeah, it's super fun. And it's Zen because for me now at this point, the scale of the shop is such that I'm actually doing a disservice if I'm out there actually building your car, right? Because that's what I used to do. I'd weld it and shape it and I was on the floor. But at our size, I'm not.

And our fill rates, as you recall, suck. It takes forever for us to finish anything. And there's something about just literally putting on your podcast, going in my spare bedroom at home because my son's off at college. The second his ass was out of there, it's like a leather studio and it's totally built that sucker out with really good audio and lighting and stuff. So being able to come from sketch to have finished good within a matter of weeks, a hundred percent myself, independent of everything, I needed that. I really kind of felt I was losing that tactile craft connection at work.

Joe Rogan (2:27)

Well, what you do is so unusual. And there's other people that build cars, there's other people that do innovative things with automobiles. But what you're doing is at a level and with an obsessiveness that is, to me, deserves to be rewarded. I love it.

I love the fact that you make these fucking... I love the fact you do those derelicts where you leave the patina on the cars, where you take these beautiful old cars that have... They're gorgeous because of the life that they've lived.

Jonathan Ward (3:02)

Totally.

Joe Rogan (3:03)

And you just redo the insides so that you can drive them really well and they don't smell bad.

Jonathan Ward (3:10)

You see it and you're down with the romantic sort of rosy eyes of memory, and then you actually drive a vintage vehicle for most people in the modern world. After a couple miles, you're like, well, that sucks.

Joe Rogan (3:20)

I have a very peculiar obsession with cars, but it's not wide.

I go from 1965 to 1972 with Broncos, maybe 72, and then that's it. And then there's modern cars, like 90s cars I'm cool with. I like 2000 cars. But all those 70s and 80s cars can all eat shit. They suck, Joe.

Jonathan Ward (3:44)

I'm right there with you. And people bring me all sorts of requests to do later model cars. And I used to try and get my head around it. In fact, we did a Caprice Classic.

Joe Rogan (3:54)

I saw that thing.

Jonathan Ward (3:55)

What a shit show, man.

Joe Rogan (3:56)

But what a ridiculously overbuilt car that thing was.

Jonathan Ward (3:59)

It was crazy. But the reality was, at the end of the day, I was rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic because it was still a 90s piece of shit built poorly by people who didn't give a damn.