Not forgetting where you came from is always important no matter what you are doing. Johnny Cupcakes knows the importance of this and in an attempt to get back to his roots, he embarked on a month long U.S. tour. Himself along with a select few loaded up the van with suitcases and tour exclusive shirts for the Johnny Cupcakes Suitcase Tour. The humble beginnings of Johnny Cupcakes were experienced the same way. Packing his suitcases full of t-shirts to sell while he travelled the country with the hardcore band and trying to get the brand out to as many people as possible. Well almost 10 years, 3 retail stores, and hundreds of cupcakes later, he still believes in hitting the street and meeting his fans. Out of Print was lucky enough to catch up with Johnny for an interview last night in Philadelphia at their Ubiq appearance. The whole night was a lot of fun. Johnny and the whole crew on tour with him are amazingly fun people and we look forward to an opportunity to hang out with all of them again.
OOPM: I know you have a background in hardcore (music), do you still ever go out to shows at all?
Johnny: Well, if there is an old band playing that I was into. Going to shows ins’t really as pleasant now.
OOPM: Were you in bands back in the day?
Johnny: I was in a couple bands, but the one that was signed and toured a lot was called On Broken Wings and we toured with Integrity, Embrace Today, Bury Your Dead, Evergreen Terrace. We were signed to Eulogy Records.
OOPM: What did you do in the band?
Johnny: I did samples and synthesizer. I just put in like weird noises to make it sound a little different sort of like the DJ in Deftones mixes in stuff.
OOPM: Do you feel like your hardcore days have influenced your designs?
Johnny: Yeah, just cause everthing was just cool, being in a band and seeing the process of getting shirts made to go on tour and working with different artists and finding out about different printing methods. It definitely influenced me.
OOPM: What are you guys listening to in the van right now?
Johnny: In the van, what are we listening to…we have satellite radio so I like listening to the 40′s and 50′s station, a lot of old hip hop R&B and and early 90′s stuff.
OOPM: So, when you got started there were a few different nicknames going around…
Johnny: Yeah, Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Hotcakes, coffeecakes.
OOPM: How did you end up landing on the cupcake? Is it significant or is it just kind of random?
Johnny: It was just random, maybe because I was small like a cupcake. [laughs] I don’t know, that’s all I could think of but, no, it was just random. I thought it was the funniest one so I put it on a shirt.
OOPM: What’s your favorite cupcake?
Johnny: Everyone always asks me that. To tell you the truth, I’m like really sick of cupcakes.
OOPM: I bet [laughs]
Johnny: Just because my name is Johnny Cupcakes people think I can eat cupcakes everyday. Every day of my life I have someone bringing me some. It’s a lot.
OOPM: What designers are you into right now? What lines do you look forward to?
Johnny: As far as other clothing lines, I don’t know, I really don’t pay attention too much.
OOPM: Just focus on your own stuff?
Johnny: Yeah, I love looking at old illustrators from the 40′s and 50′s, like really old cartoons some of like the black and white Disney days.
OOPM: Is that more collecting inspiration for yourself rather than going to other peoples designs?
Johnny: Exactly, yeah.
OOPM: You’ve done a number of collaborations, what would you say was one of your favorites?
Johnny: We did one with The Hundreds, we did one with Warner Brothers, which I was actually going to get sued by Warner Brothers for the Batman and Joker shirt I did a few years ago. Then they like called me up and asked me all these questions, then they found out about my brand and they thought it was the coolest thing. Then they were like, “we’re going to let this slide, and if you ever want to use anything in the future we will give you a tour of Warner Brothers.”
OOPM: Nice, so it turned into a good thing?
Johnny: Yeah, for sure.
OOPM: Have you ever been in a bar fight or a food fight?
Johnny: I’ve been in a few of food fights. I’ve never really been in a real fight. I am pretty small but I’m pretty quick. I’d probably pull some Mike Tyson stuff and bite someone’s face off [laughs]. I have such a loyal following though if anything would ever happen…
OOPM: You’ve always got some back up.
Johnny: There are like police officers that wear my stuff, detectives, people in gangs…
OOPM: Your fans run the gamut.
Johnny: Yeah, it’s pretty cool.
OOPM: So tomorrow night is the last night of the tour, what is the success rating of the tour so far?
Johnny: It’s been amazing, it was a little better than I ever hoped for it to be. It almost seems to good to be true, but it’s been awesome.
OOPM: Being stuck in a van with people, there is always one, so who’s the smelly one on tour?
Johnny: ummm…I think it varies and depends on what we eat.
OOPM: If you had a theme song, what would it be?
Johnny: Probably be the Pee Wee theme song or the Mario Brothers song.
OOPM: What’s in your pockets right now?
Johnny: My pockets?
OOPM: Running the brand obviously takes up a lot of your time, but what do you do besides that?
Johnny: I go out to eat all the time, I love going out to eat. Have hang outs, bbq’s, movie nights, travel all the time. I’m gonna buy a ukalele when I get home. I have some low rider bicycles I ride. I used to collect arcade machines so I have a lot of those. That’s about it right now, I’d like to take cooking lessons, I don’t even know how to make cupcakes. I’d like to start a family someday, we’ll see. I just gotta make time for a personal life.
OOPM: If all of it ended tomorrow and you couldn’t do this anymore, what would you do?
Johnny: I have a bunch of ideas for restaurants that I want to open. I want to write children’s books, I’m gonna write children’s books. Yeah, that’s what I’d do.
OOPM: What’s a healthy or unhealthy diet like on tour?
Johnny: A lot of these guys want to eat fast food, but I try to make sure we all go to nice places. We all had Tapas for the first time in our lives, so we’ve been addicted to that the whole tour. But on the unhealthy side would be all the freakin cupcakes that everyone gives us, which taste good, but are also very unhealthy.
You can check out more photos from the Philadelphia stop here in our Galleries section!
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