The Rolling Stone Interview with Matt Souther & Jason Krzmarzick John Malarkey - writer RS: Maybe you guys could talk about your backgrounds? M: I took wood shop in high school. J: I also took the woodshop classes and was brought up in the hot rod car thing. It was bound to happen that I put it to use. We didn't meet in wood shop though. We met about 12 years later. M: In the methadone clinic, right. J: Hah. No the other clinic- hey has that rash cleared up yet? RS: So it wasn't the same high school? M: Nope. The funny thing is, my best friend in high school lived across the street from his best friend in high school. And those two were best friends in grade school. So I met him through his friend Andrew Hill. And we've been in love ever since. RS: And what town was that in? J: For me it was Milwaukie. M: Lake Oswego. J: There was no avoiding it. We were going to meet at some point, I guess. RS: How did you get drawn to making furniture? J: I needed a desk. I had a design in mind and sketched a bunch. I showed it to him just for the hell of it. And then we decided we should make them for everybody for some crazy reason. RS: When was that? M: Three weeks ago. J: Did you say three weeks ago? It's been about 4 - years. RS: So you've delivered a few pieces for people? J: Yeah, we're doing one now for a company and one for a guy at his home. RS: So where do you make your furniture? J: Industrial Eastside of Portland- kinda by the big neon Wentworth Chevrolet sign. > back to top RS: So what does your line consist of? What pieces? J: We've been running with a couple of lines so far. We have four other lines in the works. M: The first desk the heads our initial product line is affectionately known as the Jack Kidney. Kidney shaped, oversized steel legs. And there are companion pieces known as Rollaway Bastards. Those are the filing cabinets we build. They're a raging success. Still in development. But soon to be a raging success. And then after that it's customers' desires. Custom whatever. RS: How big do you guys want to be? What's your ambition? J: We want to be big enough to turn down Herman-Miller requests for product design, but until then we will accept phone calls from them. M: Huge. We hope to have the fleet of jet airliners, and home theaters. That's all we want. J: Home theaters on the jet airliners. RS: And your company decals? J: On 13-yr-old girls' notebooks and lockers. M: The next step is tattoos. And NASCAR. J: Snowboarding competitions and fashion show runways. RS: Maybe you could do a furniture snowboard from material you use. J: That's how we started, actually. M: Yeah, it's a little known fact that a snowboard is actually a filing cabinet. Modified a little bit. RS: Talk to me about how you make a table. You get sheets of MDF [medium-density fiberboard], yeah? From Parr Lumber? J: Not really Parr. Home Depot. We don't go to Parr. M: I wouldn't say Parr sucks, it's just their hours don't really correlate with our hours. RS: 10PM to 4AM you mean. J: Home Depot has the best hours. We've found a couple of good sources. There's the light MDF and dark MDF. M: It's really the customer's call. They want a dark desk, they can have a dark desk. We have more than one source. Because we believe in doing it over, and over again. J: But to get back to your question, we sit around, sometimes at Denny's and draw on the proverbial napkin, actually I keep a healthy sketchbook. I run it by Matt and he can tell me if we can build it or not. > back to top RS: And so your shop has routers for cutting out stuff? M: Our company assets include a router and a jigsaw. J: We have a welder, spray booth, air compressor and a sweet set of Craftsmen's. RS: What happens if you suddenly get a bunch of orders? M: We're completely screwed, no- we have sources RS: Your day jobs will become your night jobs. And your night job will become your day job? M: That's the idea, hopefully. J: Heck ya! RS: What are the inspirations for your designs, what kind of art? J: Everything I looked at that was halfway decent wasn't put together right. Cheap materials, sat on it and it would break. So that was my inspiration, make it industrial, you know, make it way stronger than it ever needs to be. I kind of come from a mechanical background, kind of grew up with it. Wrenching stuff, raw materials, welding things together for the fun of it. I was forced to be resourceful. Anyway, can't deny Herman Miller-some of early Ray and Charles Eames designs are very practical. It's probably why they keep reissuing those designs. Simple. Constructed well. To me, that kind of thinking and approach just makes sense. Matt just likes- M: To build. I built this radio station in Seattle where they had these two little highbrow, top-notch architects design the whole place. We went in there and put this equipment in, and there were all these industrial materials everywhere. Looked like a factory. It was done in such a manner that everything looked cool. Industrial-chic vibe to it. They had this junk called OSB [oriented-strand board] on the walls. It was all lacquered and varnished. They'd finished it enough that it looked awesome. And it was sanded, and varnished real nice. A wall. And you'd see conduits in the ceiling, but it was all clean looking. And so when Jason had this idea of this desk, it was like, that's the design that's kind of happening these days. All these dot.com guys seem to like the industrial tiff. If you wanted to design some kind of walnut bassinet, you know, Elizabethan, I would say forget it. We're out of business. Screw you. This is simple, it's cool, it's easy to do. Um, I mean it's hard, requires a lot of skill- J: Dude, you're riffin'! RS: Are you going to branch out into accessories, or chairs or other office items? M: Yeah. A lamp would be easy, a chair would be harder. Means we'd want to hire an ergonomics professional. But we prefer to use temp workers. I mean, do you know how to make a comfortable chair? J: No. M: But a lamp, yeah. J: A wire, a switch, that's it. We might do booths. We have enough sketches to go by for two years at least, and this list gets bigger. We'll figure it out when we get there. RS: So what's the name of your business? M/J: Overkill. M: We are officially incorporated now. Tax i.d., business license- it's spooky. > back to top RS: So tell me about the desk you're making for the guy at home. J: It's a Christmas present. He's a car buff. The drawer pulls are going to be shift knobs from maybe, a '58 to a '63 Chevrolet. The baskets for the hanging files are going to be made out of perforated steel. Industrial overkill look. RS: How do you get the legs so shiny? M: scotch-brite it, then clear coat it. J: We go to a steelyard and get stuff that just came in. It's called prime steel. Not rusted like the older stuff that's been lying around. Virgin. It might cost a little more. M: "But we pass the savings onto the customer!" RS: So how are you spreading the words about yourself? J: We sneak around at night. Matt wants to tuck a brochure under your pillow. Word of mouth and the website so far. Super Bowl next. RS: You want to make every piece yourselves? J: Ideally, the design would be ours, and then we'd have to farm it out if the quantities were too much for us to handle in house. The fun part is doing it yourself. You know, put the hood down and see the blue light and your off. M: In a perfect world we'd design a prototype, build 'em and hand 'em off to the production team. 300 people. All temp. workers. You know, "Number 4-this is not your coffee break! If you have time to lean, you have time to clean." RS: "The bigger the room, the bigger the broom." J: Hey, can we use that? RS: So do you play music like Jason? M: Yep, I'm a bass player. RS: Are you playing in any bands right now? M: I'm in the Baseboard Heaters. RS: So talk about your musical influences. What were the first albums you bought? J: I think I stole my first album when I was 5, Elvis's King Creole. When I was old enough to play drums, it was Van Halen One and Two all the way. M: I had this older cousin who was in high school at the time, he set me up. He gave me The Who's "Face Dance", which was new at that time, and I got into that and Pete Townsend, basically then went backwards through the whole Who catalog. It was like with this band, I don't need anything else. I was a Who freak. J: I guess like the more happy, bubble-gum stuff. I had the Jan & Dean Anthology, you know, it had the pictures after the car wreck on Wilshire. The Ventures, Beatles- Simple. Happy music, I guess? > back to top RS: You could understand the lyrics. J: Then Van Halen. The David Lee Roth-era Van Halen. Very important for me, thanks Mr. Roth. RS: Not Hagar. M: Neil Young's cool. There's a cool Jim Jarmusch documentary on him. It's on 8mm so it looks like shit but it's really cool. A whole year on there. The concert footage is cool. There's a concert in it in 1996 at the Gorge, I was there with my wife. It rained the whole time, but the energy that guy was getting out of the place was incredible. It was going to explode at any moment. The tube amps frying. RS: So, what would be your perfect project, your big dream? M: A build-out would be really cool. J: Yeah, an office doing a complete remodel would be really cool. RS: What if someone calls you from New York, or Santa Fe? J: We'd ship it out there. Build it, crate it, ship it on a truck. M: The stuff's easy to assemble. RS: So who runs the business? J: It's just three guys. Matt's better at some things, I'm better at others, and we have a marketing guru, John, who couldn't make it because he is too busy marketing. RS: Any last words? J: The drive behind overkill is to design something custom. It's why I'm into it. Nothing like sketchin' something and have it become a tangible piece that can be added to our line. The stuff we build is not rocket science, it's clean, practical design that will last. M: Yeah, we can do whatever for The Man, do the get-your-4%-raise-every-year, but this way we get to be our own boss. And the sky's the limit. Matt Souther & Jason Krzmarzick John Malarkey - writer > back to top