"It's alive! It's alive, I tell you!" Like a gleeful scientist in a midnight laboratory, All Access Magazine is glad to report that despite today's troubled economy, a certain local firm with a humorously macabre approach to marketing – and to life, and to rock-&-roll – is singing no funeral blues, but is open for business and pressing on, "alive and kicking." On a recent weekday, All Access Magazine was glad to catch up with the ever-creative Jonny Coffin, founder and owner of Coffin Case, the Valley-based company that continues to make its presence known in studios and on stages around the world. Readers may remember that Jonny was featured on the AAM cover back in October of 2007, when we learned about the origins of Coffin Case and the story of how he made Slash cry (with joy). Now is time to hunch back into the lab with the inventive case-creator himself, Jonny Coffin.
All Access Magazine (Rob Swick) ~ Good to see you, Jonny! Heck, it has been about a year and a half since we last talked to you, and we see that you're still in the same industrial location in North Hollywood, but it's turning into "NoHo" now, isn't it? What's going on, it looks like your street is getting "gentrified" or "yuppified" or something like that, right?
Jonny ~ I call it, "There goes the neighborhood!"
AAM ~ And that's a good starting point for today, Jonny. We sure covered a lot of ground last time, and this is a chance now to follow up. Let's see, one topic we covered before was your "Blood Drive" effect pedal, which you referred to as one of your "coming effects." Well, it looks like that product has really taken off in the market, and now we'd like to know if there are any other special electric effects you'd like to show off.
Jonny ~ Actually, we do have a few. For instance, right here we have the "Batula" pedal. [Jonny shows off a black bat-shaped item, with a button in the middle, that looks like something Batman might use.] When you plug it in, the eyes light up! And it's kind of a vintage fuzz pedal, with the classic bat shape.
AAM ~ Anything else?
Jonny ~ We're going to come out with a fuzz octave called the "Batavia," mainly inspired by the Octavia, the Sixties-vintage octave fuzz that Hendrix used a lot. And we'll expand on this line, with the bat-shaped enclosure. We'll probably come out with a high-gain pedal, and some really wacky-sounding effects, that sound wild, like the pedals look.
AAM ~ Now, here in your office, which sort of doubles as a showroom, you have both cool merchandise and wicked art. For instance, here's a poster of Gene Simmons in full-metal stage regalia, fanged platform shoes and all, and there are images of some of your high-profile Coffin Girls. Is this Matsuimi Max over here?
Jonny ~ No, that's Cassia, but they have a similar look – brunette, kind of gothy ...
AAM ~ What about this massive, industrial-looking case right here? We see that it has logos on it from Coors and Guitar Hero, and it's big. What's in this case, Jonny?
Jonny ~ Here, I'll show you. This is called The Crypt, and it holds three guitars. It's a trolley, it's on wheels, so you can roll it right into the airport and check it in when you're on the road. It's a "flight-approved," case, so you can take it on the airplane. Besides containing the three guitars, it works with a stand that pops out for on-stage use.
AAM ~ So as we see, this Crypt has a really durable look to it, and we'd like to know, what's the highest it has been dropped from?
Jonny ~ Well, we've done a Coffin Case stress-test, and we had Doyle from the Misfits help us out. He was up on a rooftop, and we were giving him cases to throw off. He had his full look going, the devil-lock hair and all, and he's a big guy, and while I though he would just drop the cases down, he was landing them way out in the street, he was heaving them so hard ... he was going the distance! So beforehand, we had put guitars in the cases, and we'd go on down and open up the cases and pull the guitars out, and after a couple of strums on the strings, we were saying, "Great – still in tune!"
AAM ~ Okay, and back to this Crypt model here, what's up with the logos?
Jonny ~ Well, with the Guitar Hero sticker here, it's for a promotion that we're taking into the bars. We have done this "Guitareoke" thing with Guitar Hero, Coors, and Monster Energy Drinks, and what we're doing is taking these Crypt trolleys into the bars, where the corporate sponsors get to display their names on the "real estate" on the front of the case, and then on the Guitar Hero controllers on the inside, we have these "caps," like this one [Jonny displays a Guitar Hero controller unit that has a plastic shell-cover with the Monster logo] – and they're interchangeable, with one for a "Monster" night and another for "Coors," or for whatever is being promoted.
AAM ~ The cap is like a "mask" for the guitar!
Jonny ~ Right, and then we have a Guitar Hero competition, coordinated with models who go in with these packs, and encourage patrons to partake of the promoted beverages.
AAM ~ So what kinds of places are you doing these promotions at?
Jonny ~ Well, just a lot of the local haunts around here – for instance, there's this Irish pub over at Ventura and Vineland – and then again, there's a place almost around the corner, called the "Good Knight" bar – so we're doing the "Guitareoke Nights" at these places, promoting the brands.
AAM ~ So people are out there enjoying the Coors, or the Monster Drinks, and then interest is generated in the game, and at the same time you're sparking more notice for your cases.
Jonny ~ That's exactly what it is. You know, we diversified our market into the video game arena last year, so we did a license deal with Sony for their roster of bands, and the first Guitar Hero series we worked with was kind of this "Monster Rock" set which included KISS, Ozzy, Mötley Crüe, and The Adicts. So that was a "collector series" of cases, because all those acts are very collectible. And now we're looking into "Series Two," thinking of doing a Mötörhead promo. The roster's pretty large – there's Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent – we did some camouflage cases for Ted! – and then there's The Who, and we're testing the market right now, and seeing what's selling ... starting with stuff like KISS, which is big with collectors.
AAM ~ Yeah, it seems we heard that Gene Simmons referred to having something like five thousand "KISS" collectible items.
Jonny ~ So now with us, they have five thousand and one!
AAM ~ Now, here you have an ad which features a real youngster, maybe grade-school or junior-high age, who looks like kind of an aspiring Ozzy, and that brings us back to something we talked about last time, which is your charity work with a project called "Little Kids Rock." Is this something you're still involved with? Is it still going strong?
Jonny ~Yeah, we've done some stuff with them, and we definitely support the young talent that's out there – we get a lot of kids whose parents bring them by here, and some of these kids are already going on tour. We have kids in bands who already have record deals, who are under eighteen. We've been working closely with a band called JetStream – they just got a deal, I think they're on RCA, and their bass player just turned thirteen! And they all range from that age, thirteen to fifteen or sixteen – and they're amazing young talent, and they're over here picking up gear from me, little guys, and I saw them play and I was blown away -- and so when they were here, I was asking the lead singer and the guitar player, "So what are you listening to, what are your influences?" And he said, "Actually, I'm listening to Montrose!" – so Montrose was the big influence of the week when he was here, and I just heard the band's new demos, and you can definitely hear traces of the old, classic Montrose spirit from the Seventies, and these kids are just tearing it up. In fact, there are a lot of kids like that – for instance, one of our poster boys, Dario, just turned eighteen, and he's been on the road with Jani Lane of Warrant, and he's worked with a lot of other guys from the Eighties, and he's just a phenomenal player, who plays at our booth every year at NAMM – and then another kid is "Jack the Ripper" out of Arizona, who played our booth twice this year. And a lot of these guys are just fourteen, fifteen-year-old kids, who are really into playing. So we are definitely into the "Little Kids Rock" organization, we support that, because that's one of our things, looking for new talent. We're tired of seeing the same thirty or so faces in these magazines, and it's refreshing to see these new kids coming on with the intensity they have, and bringing a new spark and some good energy to the whole music scene and the guitar market.
AAM ~ So now you've got these youngsters doing demos while they're still in junior high, and they're bringing it on with a vintage flavor.
Jonny ~ Yes, and that has been part of what led us into the video-game direction, the fact that kids are exposed to rock musicianship at such a young age. For example, there's this little guy in our catalog, Tristan, who's actually a drummer, but he plays a little bit of everything, and he's eight years old.
AAM ~ And we're seeing that a lot with the younger bands we review and interview, where they're often more likely to already be multi-instrumentalists.
Jonny ~ And Tristan is a good example of this – he's actually "groomed" on Guitar Hero – he and his friends, they watch it, they play it, they absorb it – they're like sponges, so they absorb the culture through their interaction with it. Take a look at their stances when they're playing, or the way they're hitting the drums. In fact, this one father I know, who's the coach of a baseball team, told me he was watching his kid in the outfield, playing air guitar out there. And Dad said, "Pay attention!" – and the kid looked up, saying, "What?" – and went back to playing air guitar. He'd rather be playing guitar, obviously, than baseball!
AAM ~ Sounds reasonable! Now, one point we want to revisit is the tale of how, when you were starting out, one of your first achievements was the twenty-ounce silver inlay you did on a guitar case for Slash, and tears came to his eyes. Are you still working with precious metals for select clients?
Jonny ~ I definitely am, and you picked a good day to be here, because I have some stuff with me that is usually at my house. [Jonny opens up a special carrying case, containing gently-wrapped examples of his handiwork.] Here is the wax that I used for Slash's snake logo, this is the original carving, here's all the custom work. Here is the picture he gave me to work from, so it went from flat artwork to carved wax, and then a mold was made for the silver emblem.
AAM ~ And are there any other gems waiting in your treasure-chest?
Jonny ~ Well, here is a custom fitting I am carving for a case.
AAM ~ That's going to be a pretty hefty piece of silver!
Jonny ~ Yeah, and I'm trying something a little different – I'm using an octagon shape, and I'm still detailing, and carving away at it.
AAM ~ May we ask who you're doing your special work for?
Jonny ~ I think I'm going to do another piece for Johnny Depp, for one. When I do this work, I like to start from scratch, and sit down with somebody and have him draw out his "dream case," showing what they want in pencil, and I take those rough drawings and refine them, and check back, and once I get everything approved, I start to carve away, using a lathe to trim and shape it, and then I go back in and detail it with things like dental tools and other sharp instruments such as Exacto knives.
AAM ~ Cool! Now, on a different subject, what's this we hear about a "Coffin Club"?
Jonny ~ Oh, you heard about that! At this time, we're looking for a high-profile club in Hollywood, to start up a very cool "theme club" that nobody has ever done before. We're taking a lot of different subculture elements, from hard rock, metal, and tattoo culture, and theming an event with a kind of Quentin Tarantino atmosphere. We could actually call it "Club Tarantino," but it's also the "Coffin Club," officially. So you might go in there and see a Japanese all-girl band playing, and then the next band could be thrash-metal, and then we'll have an atmosphere going on that includes a fashion show with the models, and go-go dancers, like something right out of a Tarantino film. That will probably be starting up this summer, maybe around August. And we'll probably be doing it once a month – at a club near you!
AAM ~ And we certainly look forward to it. Now, getting more into the marketing end of your business, could you please tell us what the hottest case or item might be in your line right now. What's really jumping off the shelves at this time, Jonny?
Jonny ~ Well, we can't go wrong with our standard models – our guitar case, the bass case, and our big flying-vee case, the "extreme case," the big one that fits all of the odd-shaped models, like the BC Riches, the Beasts, and the Dimebag guitars. Those three basic case models, with the red-velvet interior and black exterior, are hands-down our best sellers. People really respond to the red interior, and that's our standard look. Then we have our trademarked "diamond-tuck" interior, and with the black outside, that's really the driving force of our sales, that's what goes into our bigger accounts, like Guitar Center and Musician's Friend. Most of the mom-and-pop independent shops also pick up those cases. First, the look is the most popular, and also, we've refined our pricing to permit the best price-point availability that we could.
But on the other hand, I am still doing some one-off custom stuff, that is especially made to order, and such projects can take about six months to do right. So when I have time, I'll take on something like that – like this handle, this little piece, which I told you I started carving as a little project for Johnny Depp, to run it by him and see what he says. Anyway, back to our overall production, I might mention that as a company, we're also doing more U.S.-made products lately.
AAM ~ And that takes us in an interesting direction, because during our last visit, we learned that the bulk of your company's cases were produced overseas, in China. So here in your No Ho corporate headquarters, you do research and development, but not necessarily production, so could you tell us something about doing more business with U.S.-made components?
Jonny ~ As you know, for me this all started as art, working on a custom basis. And then we went into a consumer line, to get the products out there for the demand, because a lot of people wanted the look, but they couldn't spend the money necessary for custom work, so to meet the required price-points, we had to seek manufacturers abroad -- which everyone does. When you break it down, the eight major guitar companies that are out there are all using the same factories. One week a factory could be doing all Ibanez guitars, and next week it could be a run of SP guitars, and the next week maybe it's Schecter guitars. The same factories pump out all that stuff, and it's very typical in this business. And then a given guitar firm will also have a custom shop Stateside, so if you want something unique and high-end and you're willing to pay for it, you can get the hand-crafted custom work done here in the USA. With that approach, I'm still doing that upper-end stuff, with the sterling-silver cast handles and custom fittings. But now that we're expanding into the sound market with our pedals, we're finding that the American-made products make more sense for us.
When we produced the Blood Drive, it was manufactured by MXR of San Francisco, involving Jimmy Dunlap, of Dunlap-MXR, so it's a U.S.-made pedal. Now, with this new "Bat" line that we're doing, they're all "boutique" pedals, hand-made, hand-wired, hand-painted. They're a little pricier, but you can only get them here, and they're very limited. I sign every one of them, and they're numbered. We cast them in a series, so they're very collectible. That's the new pedal. Now the next phase will be the amplifier line. Yes, we have an amp coming out, and prototypes will be seen in the next couple of months. We're working on this with John Kasha, and he's been in the business since the Eighties. He's an amp guru who has been around with all the best of them, doing high-end hand-wired amps. He's out in Simi Valley. He and another friend had approached me about teaming up on some amp designs, so we've been testing some circuits and amplifiers, and they're phenomenal-sounding. We're taking his tube amp and his patented technology, and we're coming up with some premium coffin-shaped enclosures, and some other approaches that might be a little more standard. The amp line is definitely something that's in the works right now, and from the response I'm getting from the players who have "test-driven" our preliminary efforts, it's going to be a big hit, and something to look forward to, maybe for a late-summer release or into the fall of this year, and for sure by the holidays.
AAM ~ So this will be Coffin Case's patriotic step in helping to jump-start the economy, it seems. And we're hearing that in keeping with the way your firm started, there will be a fusion of artistic form and functional utility. You told us that you're excited about the sounds that you're coming up with, so are there any particular directions you're taking, anywhere from thrash metal to jazz guitar, hmm?
Jonny ~ We are really attacking and catering to our hard-rock market. Our coffin-shaped Blood Drive, for example, is an overdrive pedal. A lot of people mistake it for a high-gain, because they see the coffin shape, and automatically think it's going to be a high, high-gain pedal. They plug it in and find it's a nice, warm, dark, analog pedal -- and it's an overdrive pedal, not a high-gain distortion pedal. So it works well for the great players, who know what they're doing to make it work. But for the average user, they see the coffin and they really want some high-gain stuff, so we're definitely going after that market. We'll have a three- channel amp, with a clean channel, and then a crunchy one, with a typical kind of Marshall-boogie sound, and then we'll have a "burn" channel, which will be an ultra-high-gain output. It's a three-stage amp, and so while we do want to tackle all the markets possible, we surely want to focus on our metal sector, our rock customers. Those are our people!
AAM ~ So now, with people such as John Kasha over in Simi Valley, and others elsewhere, you're getting locally-crafted components for U.S.-made amps, right?
Jonny ~ Yeah, John is already doing everything locally – he gets high-end local components here, and he hand-wires his devices, using his patented technology, including the glowing tubes which are part of his look.
AAM ~ Yeah, despite the solid-state age we're now in, some musicians swear by the "warmth" of the tube, it appears.
Jonny ~ True. Now, John's a very innovative guy, and he's got some technology that is very cutting-edge, including within the transistor world as well. Some of the stuff might be a hybrid of approaches, partly so we can have some different price-points, to make it affordable for a good range of musicians. Now, with the American-made stuff we're coming out with, we want to have three basic models: One will be our black, very clean standard model, and another that will be an upgrade from that, which will have more in the tube circuitry, and a third model which will be pretty much like my high-end cases, they'll have silver-work on them, all dressed up, and I'll build cases for the enclosures, and it'll be a top-end package. To start, we'll just be doing single-speaker, coffin-shaped enclosures that will sound very crunchy for the studio. And we're getting them into the hands of some producers and studios, so these will be the go-to amps in the studios, and when artists play through them there, they'll realize how good the tone and quality is, and then we'll move on to the stage. We have some great plans for stacking up the heads in the coffin shapes on top of the cabinet.
AAM ~ Now, on the subject of your own musical endeavors, we'd like to know what's up with your band, the Death Riders – are you getting out there and playing these days, Jonny?
Jonny ~ That's funny, as you walked in, our drummer was just walking out! Yeah, we're going into the studio this weekend, to finish the tracking that we started about a year ago. So we're on record Number Two, and now we have a title, which will be: "And Then Came The Rain." It's still the same lineup as before, with me, and Blasko – who's playing with Ozzy now, so his schedule's a bit busy – and Blasko also rents an office here at Coffin Case, so I see him every day, and it's pretty convenient, we're able to throw ideas around, and then go into the studio. Then there's D.C. on drums and Danny on vocals, same lineup. And we're doing well on the licensing of our stuff, we're doing a lot of film licensing, and we're getting our music out there. We just sent off a couple of tracks to a big-screen production, and we have a lot of cool little things that come up. We just submitted a couple of tracks to "Sons of Anarchy."
AAM ~ We're curious – you started with a guitar case shaped like a coffin, and you went to bass cases, and now you can get a Coffin Case for your microphone, and you can get cases for your drums as well. But have you had any artists come to you with requests for really different cases, for "resting places" for more exotic instruments? Look, this is rock-&-roll, so of course folks want cases for guitars, basses, drums, and mics – but who knows, we thought maybe a cello player might want a Coffin Case also.
Jonny ~ Yeah, actually we do get a lot of cello players, and a ton of upright-bass players – you know, with a lot of "psychobilly" musicians, it goes with their whole theme, so they ask me all the time, could I make a case for an upright bass?
AAM ~ So do you?
Jonny ~ Ah, no – it would be a big case, and by the time we could build them, and warehouse them – especially if we did them overseas – well, the profit margin, compared with a bunch of smaller cases, just isn't so feasible. But – I am working with another company, King Double Bass, and they're a very cool company, a couple of guys named Brad and Jason, and they make a cool upright bass that's very popular with the psychobilly players, and they do nice paint jobs with flames – and with those guys we're trying to put something together where they can maybe offer a Coffin Case with their product, maybe do some kind of license deal, we'll see – maybe we could find some local manufacturing, and have them stock the products, and distribute them for me. It's something I'm not doing myself right now, because they're just too physically big for me. But I do want to support it. And then again, we get requests for violin cases, which we've done before, and they seem to go in waves. First everyone wants one, and then I'll go for a year with nobody asking for one, and then all of a sudden the requests start coming in again. And right now the desire is there again, so we'll probably do another run of those. But for anything else, like say an accordion or a flute case, I don't really see any of that happening in the future. But I do get some strange requests. For instance, Dave Navarro asked me to make him a real coffin for himself, and I was thinking about it, and then the other day somebody asked if I had made a coffin for myself, which I guess could be a reasonable question, but I haven't yet made my own coffin.
AAM ~ But what about for Dave or anybody else?
Jonny ~ Nothing's out of the question! I think it could be a natural progression, to finally get into the "Rock-&-Roll Resting-Place" business.
AAM ~ Now, speaking of "flame-art," we know that you have an affection for the fiery, hot-rod-inspired pop-art of the Sixties, and it looks like that style is popping up in your catalogs, so we're wondering, who drew the bug-eyed ghoul for February's catalog, Number 13?
Jonny ~ It started out as a sketch on a napkin, and I had a guy in San Francisco named Dirty Donny refine that idea. And you know, I'm a product of the Sixties culture as well, growing up making monster models, and guys like Big Daddy Roth and Robert Williams and Von Dutch were heroes of mine, kind of the "B-subculture" guys, so this catolog-cover you're talking about could be sort of loosely-based on a "Weirdos" character, by Big Daddy Roth.
AAM ~ Now, you don't really do one of these catalogs every month, or even every quarter, do you?
Jonny ~ No, they're just kind of random, we try to drop them every six months – you know, the products don't change that much.
AAM ~ Okay, back to the Guitar Hero, could you please tell us more fully what Coffin Case is doing with this cultural phenomenon?
Jonny ~ Well, as we discussed earlier, we love promoting with Guitar Hero, because it's obviously a great chance for kids to get in touch with the basics, for them to work on hand-eye coordination, and getting a taste of the excitement of the crowd – the graphics are pretty phenomenal in those games, representing musicians and their attitudes, and their stances and postures, and this translates into more "culture for kids."
AAM ~ But what we want to know is, beyond making the Coffin Cases for the controllers, what's your tangible product involvement?
Jonny ~ Of course there are our drumstick cases, because the game has expanded into percussion, and it's not just about guitars anymore. So we have done the small case, which is actually an accessory case, since there are both drumsticks and microphones in the game, with the same graphics – Ozzy, KISS, etc., but in smaller versions – and we're getting a lot of drummers buying them, because they love the graphics on them, so it's turned into a double-market for us, for both Guitar Hero Rock Band and for actual musician sales.
AAM ~ And now, back to guitars, how does it happen that Fernandes Guitars, a company originally from Japan, now has an "outpost" or "station" or "touchdown point" or just-plain-office right here at the corporate offices of Coffin Case?
Jonny ~ Well, my whole thing has been, I like working with artists, and I like creating a community, and I like manifesting a synergy, and Fernandes is a company I have worked with for years, via Hi-Watt Amps. And from that firm, Alfonso and Andreas were friends of mine, and they were going through a re-structuring, and looking at their overall plan of how they might want to "sub-out" their distribution, and focus more on artists' needs, and artist-oriented marketing and relations, so they found a distributor, and they were looking for some office space to create an environment to support artists, so I had them come by and look at our office space here, and they fell in love with the spot – this was probably about a couple of years back – and so they moved in here, and they have a showroom with the Hi-Watt stuff along with the Fernandes guitars, and a lot of great artists come on by. You know, Tony from Static-X just walked on by ...
AAM ~ Tony Campos? Wow, that's cool, we just got their new CD, scheduled for release around St. Patrick's Day, and he was just here? "Missed him by that much!"
Jonny ~ Yeah, he's a Fernandes player, along with Blasko, who also has an office here, so there's a lot of synergy going on here. And as for this room, somebody might want to rent this one out – I have a meeting with Fender's PR people, so Fender might take some space here also. And then there's Monster Energy Drink – we've done a lot of events with Monster, and they've been a great sponsor for us, and we've co-sponsored different things with them, and they also rent some warehouse space from us here. So there it is, we've created a cool little environment of artists, musicians, and creative people who support each other, and create product and events for our people.
AAM ~ So now we've heard, despite these challenging times we're in right now, Coffin Case has new products on the line, which we're sure will be hellaciously-well received, and that's encouraging. Now, how long have you been in this building?
Jonny ~ About five years.
AAM ~ And now you're seeing the area changing, sort of "around your ears," so to speak. And yet, as this happens, while No Ho seems to "re-invent" itself, it's happening in a kind of artistic way, true? Now, while you first observed, "There goes the neighborhood," it's really not all bad, is it?
Jonny ~ No, not all bad, no. But in fact, the topic of "reinvention" is fresh in my mind, because we recently did a "reality show" here, featuring Gretchen Bonaduce, and the title was actually "Reinventing Bonaduce"! See, Gretchen was in this relationship with Danny Bonaduce for about 17 years, and they have a couple of kids together, great kids, so now her show is about her life after Danny, subsequent to that other show that featured Danny himself, "Breaking Bonaduce." Gretchen came on by to see me here, and she was very sweet, and she told me she was doing the show, and we hit it off. So when she approached me, she said, "Of all the companies out there that I've been looking at to work with, you're the coolest one, and I want to be a part of your company somehow, for this show. So can we work with you, set up a photo shoot, something like that?"
So the initial meeting went great, she was a beautiful lady, a fine person, and I said, "Well, let me think about it for a couple of days. Let me come up with something." Because you see, I didn't want to just go ahead and put her in the short-shorts for that kind of approach, or just have her stand by the case for one of our more "typical" shoots. See, what her "thing" is, "reinventing" herself, is trying to find something that suits her, so I took time to really wrap my head around it, to think of something for her. So about two days later, I called her and said I might have something for her, and she came on by to talk about it. And I asked her, "Do you want me to tell you what my idea is, or do you want me to surprise you?" And first she said, "Tell me ..." but then she said, "No, surprise me, let's just set it up!" So I went and met with her production company, and they asked about my idea, and I said, "I want to rent a real coffin, and bring it in here, and I want to turn it into a bubble bath, and I want to throw her in there and do a bubble-bath shoot!" And they thought it was a phenomenal idea. Then, after we made arrangements for the camera crew, they were also very interested in our company, and we had a follow-up meeting, and they said, "Hey, we want to come back with a second unit, and film you during a day in the office with her, this would be great! See, you have all these beautiful girls working here, and you have all these cool products, and we had no idea it was this multi-tiered."
So they ended up coming by for the shoot with Gretchen, and I had Neil Zlozower do the photo work. Neil's a legendary photographer in Hollywood, who shot all the classic Van Halen photos. Now, Neil has quite the reputation of being very vocal, very verbal at his photo shoots, and we thought he was a good guy to stir things up. So he came down and we set up, and the coffin was delivered, and it was pink, to my surprise – but it worked, in a funny way, looking like something that was dug up from Forest Lawn cemetery. It was rickety and rusty, and pink on the inside, and I thought, "Are we really going to put her in this thing?" And then she came in, and two of our models who were here working that day helped out to coach her along, and I coached her through also, and we had a lot of fun shooting that day. Then the second camera that came got some other stuff later on, with some of our models working, reading prison mail and answering strange phone calls. So the crew left with a bunch of great footage, and they're pitching our "Coffin Show" as a whole "reality" thing, maybe for Spike TV, or something like that. And with the Gretchen production, viewers will get a little taste of us – I think we're in the first half of Episode Three, which should air June 7, I believe. And then the second half shows Gretchen dating Kevin, a friend of ours, the drummer for Lords of Altamont. They go to a Lords of Altamont show that night, I'm pretty sure. So that's our involvement with her show, "Reinventing Bonaduce." And out of that, we might get a whole spin-off show of our own, "The Coffin Chronicles." Anyway, back to my comment about "there goes the neighborhood," that came from when I kind of mapped out my ideas for where to go with the show, because I thought the first episode should be "There Goes The Neighborhood," showing how us, this strange little company, came in here, and now, for some reason, all of a sudden all the buildings are getting wiped out around here.
AAM ~ Right, it's turning into lofts, and they look like pretty high-end lofts, at that.
Jonny ~ Yes, this neighborhood is changing dramatically, and this quaint little "music street" that we had here, full of studios and space-rentals, is slowly turning into art-lofts and becoming a very trendy area. So it's good and bad – you know, change is good, and we welcome it, but at the same time it's kind of sad, seeing some of these companies that you've worked with for years, packing up and going away. There was Lon Cohen, the rental place across the street, and then Andy Bower down the street – all these great little rehearsal places, all gone now, leveled.
AAM ~ So in a literal sense, the neighborhood really is going. And yet, even in these troubled times, you're moving forward with new products, new plans, new visions, even new "tiers," to use your word. It seems to us, if somebody asked which comes first, form or function, from your story, going way, way, back, there was such a "synchronicity" that you simultaneously had both, and your firm continues, as a business, to meld form and function, fun and commerce, and art and music. Does it appear, then, that for Coffin Case, the future's looking pretty bright and secure?
Jonny ~ Well, everyone knows it's tough out there right now, it's no secret, and it's challenging. And that's one of the things we were discussing with the reality-show ideas, that it is rough right now, and we are a small company in the bigger scheme of things, and that's part of the struggle, too. Every day is a challenge, and now it seems you have to work twice as hard to get the same results as before. It's not getting easier out there, and it might not ease up for about the next eighteen months, that's our projection. So although we always focus on the product first, and the quality and the aesthetics, we've also taken on some new things to see how we can get through some really rough times. So that's why renting out some of our warehouse space, and working with Monster and Fender, brings down our overhead somewhat, and balances things out, so when times get tough, we're able to prepare for them and to weather them out.
AAM ~ That's good, Jonny, showing everybody that you sure can't keep a good ghoul down, and you're not going to stuff this Coffin in the ground, right?
Jonny ~ That's right, you said it!
All Access Magazine and I, Rob Swick thank you Jonny for taking the time to chat with us awhile! Looks like Coffin Case is doing great, and readers don’t forget to check out all the newest and greatest at www.coffincase.com
