“Unconventional
Ambassador”
An
interview with Rock Star/MX Team owner Jordan Burns
Story
& Photos by Eddie Graveline
www.motopress.net
In
the labyrinth that makes up the pits at a Supercross or outdoor National, it’s
easy to be sucked in by the glamour and sparkle of the factory and support team
semis and completely forget about the smaller teams and privateers in the box
vans. If you stop and think about it, though, those privateers are the heartbeat
of Motocross in America. They’re the ones who keep the various regional and
local series going. In many of these people, there is a hunger for success that
is unmistakable. It’s a hunger to not only succeed personally, but to help the
sport succeed in growing and moving more into the mainstream.
About five years ago, a couple of punk rockers had an idea that they thought
would make the sport better. Erik Sandin of the band NOFX and Jordan Burns of
Strung Out had always loved the sport of Motocross and they wanted to make it
better. They wanted people outside the normal confines of the industry to see
it, because they knew that it would be appreciated if properly presented.
Jordan and I sat down a while back to talk about the evolution of that original
idea and how it turned into Moto XXX as we know it today. The Strung Out drummer
reflected on past triumphs as well as current challenges and future goals. The
Moto XXX guys have always been purists. They’ve created a team system that
works and they’ve stuck with their original formula.
“To kind of put it in a nutshell, Moto XXX is myself, Erik Sandin of NOFX and
Kurt Haller”, explains Burns. “Kurt is basically the main man. He runs the
whole thing now. Me and Erik are kind of busy with our bands. In the beginning
it was Erik’s and my idea to make a video. We got Kurt involved because he had
already been making videos and he showed us the ropes. Basically, it took off
from there. We put our first video out and it was a good time. I think we were
like the third video of our kind to come out. It was good timing and look what
it’s turned in to. Now we’re in our fifth season as a full blown race team.
It’s pretty interesting because there have been so many teams that have come
and gone. Here we are, three little guys from outside the Motocross industry
that came in and we’re still surviving and doing bigger and better every
year.”
The whole reason that Sandin and Burns wanted to get involved was that they saw
both an opportunity and a weakness at the same time. They addressed both in one
venture.
“In the beginning, me and Erik were watching some of these cheesy videos that
were out. It was almost like, kind of an embarrassment to the riders, you know.
We were familiar with the snowboard and skateboard scene and how they make
videos. We just wanted to make a different kind of video. It was before we knew
about any other video coming out. I used to always film for fun. I’d always
film different stuff. We just kind of got an idea, but me and Erik had no clue
about how much work it took to make a video. Kurt came into the picture and he
had already made two snowboard films. It’s a lot of work.”
Since the launch of the first Moto XXX video, a barrage of MX videos have come
to market. What has always bothered me is the fact that 90% of them are just
rip-offs of the classic formats like “Crusty” and Moto XXX. I suppose that
imitation is the greatest flattery, but it’s frustrating to see the lack of
imagination out there. Jordan gave me his take on the evolution of MX videos.
“It’s hard to keep it different. I think we’ve done a fairly good job of
it, keeping the videos true to our style. There’s a ton of videos coming out,
but I tend to think that there are some “names” that will always continue to
sell and of course, everyone is going to keep on making videos, which is fine.
Hopefully, the certain stellar titles will just keep on going.”
For Moto XXX, the goal has always been to cross promote two different worlds to
each other. They wanted to bring MX to the punk rock/board sport culture and
vise versa. They have succeeded in doing that and it’s made their venture a
success, both competitively and commercially.
“Well, I’ll tell you something” Jordan says. “When I first was in my
band, my goal was to make my band well known with Motocross and Supercross and
all the guys. You know, me and Kenny Watson used to just promote the hell out of
our band with the riders. We became really familiar with all of the riders
because back in the days when I first got into Strung Out, this music was not
popular whatsoever with motocrossers. A lot of them were just getting over the
“mullet” days, you know. Slowly it’s progressed into the extreme sports
thing where motocross came into the same family as skateboarding, surfing and
snowboarding. All of those are together now and it’s this whole extreme thing.
I like to think that me, Erik and Kenny, people don’t really know, but I like
to think, without being at all cocky, that we played an important role with
bringing this music to these people. In getting a lot of bands involved with
this scene and putting a lot of the bands that we know in our videos and CD
soundtracks and getting those bands exposure. It’s just a whole new
scene that got created for our music. It’s really cool to see what happened.
That’s another really cool thing about our team. It’s really original.
Everything about it, what we’ve done is unique. Like I said, sometimes I think
we don’t really get credit where credit is deserved. We’re totally the
underdogs and we’ve succeeded. We got a new rig and we’re looking good. Our
pits are looking good. We’ve always had great riders riding for us.”
Jordan attributes a lot of the success that the Moto XXX race team has had to
the quality of riders that they have been able to get, although this year has
been one of mixed emotions since their 125 contender, Mike Brandes was hurt in
the opening round of the Supercross series.
“He got hurt pretty bad,” Burns said of Brandes, “but he’s going to be
back in action, I think, pretty soon. He’s going to start riding the YZ250F
four-stroke and he’s really excited about riding that bike. Brandes is an
amazing rider and he definitely has the capability to win a Supercross. He was
looking pretty good in the first round until that crash. Then we have Kyle Lewis
riding for us who is an awesome rider. When you look at the guys that have
ridden for us, it’s gnarly. We had two-time 125 champion Brian Swink ride. I
look at it and think it’s crazy. Here, we’re these three guys and we’ve
had these amazing riders ride for us.”
Without a doubt, Moto XXX’s defining moment to date in racing has to be Brian
Deegan’s win in the 125 class at the 1996 LA Supercross. Deegan, in true XXX
style, “ghosted” his bike over the finish line jump at the end of the race.
Promoters and officials didn’t like it, but the fans and media ate it up.
Burns recalls the incident fondly.
“That
ghost ride was the best thing he could have ever done because that made it so
that it was a special win. Otherwise, the industry would have written it off as
a one-shot win, but the ghost ride was amazing.”
Because
the Moto XXX team takes an unconventional approach to competition and the
promotion of the sport, success has not come without a price. According to
Jordan, even though the team has always had a great relationship with the fans,
their efforts have been met with resistance from the establishment much of the
time.
“I
think people see what we’ve done. We’re the only video company that’s
taken every red cent we’ve made and put it back into the sport. Hopefully
people see that and appreciate that, that we haven’t just done it for the
money. We’ve done it because we dig the sport of motocross. Obviously, we
don’t have to do this. That’s a question that we get asked once in a while,
‘why do we do it’. We do it because it’s awesome. Look at how far we’ve
come. Moto XXX has grown extremely over the past few years. We’re the one team
of our kind that’s won a 125 Supercross . Sometimes I don’t think we get the
credit that we deserve. For instance, today I was pretty bummed because we used
to do free giveaways and stuff. That was our main thing. In the beginning we
handed out a lot of free CDs, T-shirts and all kinds of stuff, but the promoters
and the AMA would shut us down on it. Our old team manager, Kenny Lawson, almost
went to jail for it. Now I come out here today and there’s people doing what
we used to do and doing it with no problem. They’re handing out free
giveaways. It kind of just baffles me. It’s something that we want to do and
something that our fans expect a little bit. We like to have fun with it. It
never harmed anyone or was a bad time. To see other companies being able to do
that and the big teams being able to sell their T-shirts in the pits, but they
tell us no, we can’t sell out shirts in the pits, it just really doesn’t
make sense, you know. It’s a very political thing to me and it seems quite
unfair. Hopefully, one day the cards will turn around for us. We’re not going
to go away and I think we’ve proven that. We’ll keep going and going and
going.”
Moto
XXX seems to have been blackballed to a certain degree by much of the industry.
This is undoubtedly the reason that the team has yet to land a really big
sponsor, but as Jordan explains, Moto XXX has more to offer a sponsor than
traditional teams.
“It’s
going to be like a little dream come true if we ever get to bring in a (big)
sponsor. I’ve always been puzzled as to why we don’t get a big sponsor, you
know. I think that we have a lot more to offer than your average team. Someone
who gets involved with us could possibly be involved with the videos, the
soundtracks, the motocross team, the freestyle team and the whole music end of
things also. We could really cross promote. We’ve been involved in the Warped
Tour before. I just think we have a lot more to offer than your standard,
average team.”
Jordan’s
yearning for major industry support should not be misunderstood as a lack of
gratitude for the sponsors that have been with the team to date. Quite the
contrary, actually. Mr. Burns feels that the effort has been a nice mix of
completely new sponsorship from outside the industry and traditional race
support.
“Obviously,
the record labels have been with us from the beginning. Fat Wreck Chords, Nitro
Records and Epitaph Records, those three have been with us from the beginning
and that’s been a really cool thing. It’s a unique sponsorship that we have
because we brought that end of the music to the table by getting the record
labels involved. Obviously this year we couldn’t be more stoked. We’ve got
DGY backing us which is awesome. Noleen has given us incredible support. Atomic
22. O’neal is along with us again. It’s like the support along the way has
been seeming to increase. Obviously our dream is to one day roll up in a semi
truck. When that day comes along, it’s going to be gnarly.”
The
team has also branched out to the freestyle scene where, as you would expect,
they have employed some of the best in the business. They see freestyle MX as an
important part of the futures of the industry and their team and they intend to
continue building for the future. It’s obvious that with the passion of Jordan
Burns and the rest of the Moto XXX crew, they will be a steady presence in the
MX scene for years to come. Their ability to broaden the fan base of motocross
and Supercross has been an invaluable-albeit somewhat unappreciated-asset. Even
if you don’t care for their style, you can’t argue the fact that they have
been good for the sport or that they’re in it for the long haul.
“I
just think that in the future we’re going to keep on doing what we’re
doing”, Burns says in conclusion. “Obviously we’re hoping to bring more
sponsorship and end up in a semi. I don’t think we’re going to go away.
We’ve proven that we’re here to stay.”
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