#2150 - Greg Overton

Joe Rogan (0:14)

Good to see you, my friend.

Greg Overton (0:15)

Good to see you.

Joe Rogan (0:16)

Pull up to the microphone so other people can hear you.

Greg Overton (0:19)

So people can hear me and see me.

Joe Rogan (0:20)

Have you ever done a podcast? Yeah, you have done a podcast. I've listened to you on podcasts.

Greg Overton (0:23)

I've done, oh, you did?

Joe Rogan (0:24)

Yeah, I listened to you on some podcast. I was shooting arrows in my backyard, and some podcast came up and it said Greg Overton. I'm like, get the fuck out of here.

Greg Overton (0:35)

See, I'm doing all kinds of shit, yeah. My boy Justin, who's from Pittsburgh, what's up, Justin? He does the Curious Jones podcast, and we also do those Zippos. He does those. So lit zips.

Curious Jones podcast, he's a cool dude.

Joe Rogan (0:53)

We got one of those right here?

Greg Overton (0:54)

Yeah, the Black Dragon Samurai.

Joe Rogan (0:56)

Yeah, this is the Samurai that we have outside next to the, did you see the actual samurai armor?

Greg Overton (1:01)

Yeah, fucking crazy, and the sword, dude.

Joe Rogan (1:04)

And the sword, the sword's even older than the armor. The armor's from the 1800s, but the sword's from the 1500s.

Greg Overton (1:09)

So is that, that's right before the Sengoku Jidai, the time of the country at war, the 300 years where they're at war. I'm trying to think, did it begin in the 1500s?

Joe Rogan (1:22)

I don't have any knowledge of that.

Greg Overton (1:23)

Can you look that up, the Sengoku Jidai?

Joe Rogan (1:26)

Pull that microphone up. Keep it like a fist from your face. There you go.

So I first found out about, I don't even remember what year it was, man.

I remember I was with my family. I was in Salt Lake, and we were walking by this gallery, and there was this fucking dope painting. It's a huge painting of this Native American guy with a buffalo skull that had a bullet hole in the head. And I was like, God damn. I was trying to figure out where can I put that? Where can I put that fucking thing? And I snoozed. I snoozed and I loosed.

Greg Overton (1:58)

And somebody else bought it. And then it got bought. But I didn't lose.

But that, dude, it's an interesting story. And I'll just tell you, like, I had, I was shown with this other gallery for a long time that that same painting was like in the back room, and they weren't really giving me my props, which is what people will do if they just wanna kinda keep you at a certain level.

Joe Rogan (2:22)

So do they do that to keep your prices down?

Greg Overton (2:25)

They do that so you don't leave the gallery, so you don't get too big for the gallery.

Joe Rogan (2:29)

Oh, so you don't go off on your own like you did?

Greg Overton (2:32)

But no, I'm loyal as fuck, dude. I'm still at the galleries that were cool. You know what I mean? If the people hook me up, I'm gonna hook them up. I'm gonna stay there. You know what I mean?

But I just wasn't getting my due at this other gallery, so I decided.

Joe Rogan (2:46)

How long had you been painting for at the time?

Greg Overton (2:48)

I mean, professionally, I think about 16 years.

Joe Rogan (2:52)

Wow.

Greg Overton (2:54)

But I've been doing it since I was a kid, semi-professionally.

Joe Rogan (2:56)

Just always?

Greg Overton (2:57)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:58)

Always doing art. And when did you get, I wanna say obsessed, that's the right word, right?

Greg Overton (3:03)

When I was born.

Joe Rogan (3:04)

With Native American culture.

Greg Overton (3:06)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (3:07)

From the time you were little?

Greg Overton (3:08)

There was books in my grandparents' house. One of them was called Fighting Indians of the West, and then there was Russell and Remington books, the painters.

And so I just look at these photos of Sitting Bull and I wasn't going to say crazy horse, but no photos of crazy horse, but Geronimo and shit like that. And I just saw a look in their eye, like a wild person, somebody who wasn't trapped by the system.

You know what I mean? And as a little kid, I just knew that was better. I knew it was powerful. I just really loved that culture.

Joe Rogan (3:44)

Just connected to it.

Greg Overton (3:45)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (3:46)

It is so fascinating that so many Native Americans who got captured and put into the reservation systems and then eventually integrated with Western culture, fucking hated it. But when Western people, either when they were young, if they got kidnapped, or if they integrated with the tribes, like a lot of trappers and a lot of people integrated with the tribes, when they tried to bring them back to Western society, they all wanted to leave. They're like, get me the fuck out of here. Like, I don't want to do this.