Grind Hard Plumbing Co on Going Viral From Their First Video, How They Got Their Name, & Strategy vs Luck

Summary

Podcast Summary: Life Wide Open with CboysTV – Grind Hard Plumbing Co on Going Viral From Their First Video, How They Got Their Name, & Strategy vs Luck

Episode Date: April 9, 2024
Guests: Ethan and Edwin (Grind Hard Plumbing Co)
Hosts: CboysTV (CJ, Ben, Ryan, Ken, Evan, and Micah)

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Episode Overview

This episode delves deep into the rise of the Grind Hard Plumbing Co YouTube channel, exploring how the team went viral from their very first video, the quirky origin of their channel name, and the delicate interplay between strategic planning and luck in achieving online success. The conversation explores their creative process, wild builds, YouTube’s evolution, and the realities of making a living as online creators. Both teams share personal anecdotes about the early days, viral moments, the hardships of building and sustaining a YouTube business, and the importance of teamwork, creativity, and resilience.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Life in the Middle of Nowhere: The Grind Hard Setting

• Both Grind Hard and CboysTV are based in remote, rural areas surrounded by woods (02:12). The isolation fostered creativity and resourcefulness out of necessity:

  “North Idaho is not an easy place for anything... It works well for you because you get four seasons, you get to live out in the middle of the woods.” — Ryan (00:24)

• Not the only YouTubers in North Idaho—Ambition Strikes, another off-grid channel, is located nearby (00:36).

2. Early Inspiration and Viral Moments

• Ethan’s first viral video was a snow cave time-lapse that garnered thousands of views from a near-zero subscriber base (04:26)
• Building a treehouse with a bike elevator led to true virality—featured globally, including on CNN and in National Geographic books, despite the pay not matching the exposure:

  “As a kid, my dream job was to be a National Geographic photographer, and technically I am, because I sold them pictures of my treehouse.” — Ethan (07:47)

• The viral success enabled Ethan to build more treehouses and accept a spot on a (somewhat cringy) reality TV show (08:13, 10:22).

3. The Reality TV Experience

• TV exposure was more exploitative than authentic—termed “hick exploitation'' (13:55)—and often required faking storylines (elk hunting with dynamite, staged fishing, etc.) (11:07–12:58).
• The pay was decent for the time, but the networks overwhelmingly benefited compared to participants (13:10–13:55).
• Takeaway: YouTube allows for more creative and financial control compared to TV (14:22).

4. Founding Grind Hard Plumbing Co: From Inspiration to Execution

• Edwin’s creative background started with making music and fun videos in the MySpace era (16:45). After burning out on music, he pivoted toward YouTube, making build-style videos for the joy and creative control they afforded (19:07).
• The “lightbulb moment” was combining dirt bikes and go-karts, inspired by seeing what went viral on YouTube—knowing that standout concepts, not just skill, draw clicks (26:40–27:33).

5. The First Viral Build: Pink Mustang with Dirt Bike Engine

• Edwin bought a decrepit go-kart and a Power Wheels Mustang with his last dollars, showing full commitment (28:23).
• Ethan contributed his own beloved dirt bike for the engine—a huge leap of faith (29:24).
• Their approach: finish a wild build first, then reveal it to maximize impact for a brand-new channel—an intentional strategy for going viral (39:49–40:54).
• The initial video, posted without an established audience, quickly went viral, licensed internationally (40:09), and set their direction for future projects.

• “If you’re already famous and then you built a drift car, people seem to care... No one’s going to care about me learning how to build cars... so let’s do something insanely cool.” — Edwin (26:43)

6. Strategy vs. Luck in Going Viral

• The viral Mustang/drift kart build was both planned and lucky: “You need a little luck—the thing actually works—but it was a very strategic roll-out.” (43:08)
• Both teams discuss how luck, timing, and smart packaging (title, thumbnail, idea) all intersect for YouTube success (44:43).
• Early viral traction gave motivation and provided direction for future content (44:24).

7. The Grind Hard Name & YouTube as Career

• The name “Grind Hard Plumbing Co” came from a friend’s stomach tattoo. They tacked on “plumbing co” as a joke, not realizing the bureaucratic complications it would cause:

  “The Idaho state government forces us to be insured as plumbers. Like, even camera guy.” — Edwin (91:10, also at 98:10)

• Neither founder is or was ever a licensed plumber (46:32).
• Banks and insurers don’t really “get it,” making the entertainment business a logistical headache (91:27–93:43).

8. Teamwork, Creative Process, and Channel Evolution

• Mutual trust, respect, and willingness to let each member pursue projects fuels channel sustainability (79:02–80:25).
• The addition of new team members (like Will) allows the channel to work on multiple builds simultaneously, with big projects sometimes taking up to a month per episode (80:25–80:38).
• Creative differences are minimal and usually resolved with the group’s best interests in mind (78:08–79:49).

9. YouTube’s Demands: Burnout, Mental Health, and Structured Work

• Both teams discuss the grind and risk of burnout, and the need for boundaries (61:19–63:29, 71:44–73:41).
• Ethan shares experience with depression and the importance of openly addressing mental health:

  “I got on antidepressants and realized that I was actually just depressed... I was like, oh yeah, I have all the motivation again.” — Ethan (74:29)

• Structure and weekends off help keep the team energized and prevent overwork (71:38–72:21).

10. Building for YouTube: Resourcefulness & Behind the Scenes

• Rural living means trips to the store can take hours, leading to a “make do with what’s around” philosophy (31:20–31:39).
• Even with the means to buy the right part, they often choose resourcefulness for fun, creativity, and storytelling (31:39–31:58).
• Showing failures and missteps yields better engagement and relatability (62:02–62:36, 63:13–64:17).

11. Notable Builds & Notoriety

• The channel's recurring obsession with the quirky electric “Chang Le” car—“I love this little electric car more than I’ve ever loved anything. It’s just pure, joyful.” — Edwin (32:48–32:53).
• Getting on Jay Leno’s Garage:

  “He doesn’t act like a famous person at all... Just passion and genuine curiosity.” — Edwin (36:16–37:19)

• Hosts recall the thrill (and terror) of driving the original Mustang kart and other wild builds—“This is a full-blown race car without any safety equipment.” — Edwin (38:00–38:19)

12. Freedom 500 Event: YouTubers Racing Together

• Both teams share stories from Cletus McFarland’s Freedom 500, including racing, epic moments, and car troubles (48:04–55:29).
• Reflections on the scale of YouTuber-produced live events and the democratization of entertainment (55:29–56:25).

13. Collaboration, Competition, and Copycats on YouTube

• The groups laugh about how multiple creators will get accused of copying each other, even when they come up with ideas independently (69:32–70:24).
• There’s recognition that YouTube’s competitive but collaborative culture helps everyone “raise the bar,” and that no one truly invents ideas in a vacuum (69:24–70:24).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On “hick exploitation” on TV:

  “They call it exploitation because they go around the country and find people who don’t know what their time is worth... and a lot of reality TV shows do not pay the people that are on them.” — Ethan (14:00)

• On viral strategy:

  “We have to post the video of it just done, ripping, first. Otherwise, how are we going to package our vision?... That was kind of one little strategic move that I think really paid off.” — Edwin (39:49)

• On resourcefulness and the rural grind:

  “To run to the store, it’s an hour and a half roundtrip. It’s faster to just figure it out with what I have. That’s where that mentality came from.” — Ethan (31:20)

• On sustainable creativity:

  “Weekends are weekends. If you want to work on channel stuff, sure, but we’re not all here obligated. You’ve got to have time for yourself...” — Ethan (71:38)

• On mental health and burnout:

  “It’s just non-stop pressure to one-up yourself... It’s kind of an inherently unsustainable concept, really. So trying to make it sustainable.” — Ethan (75:10)

• On teamwork:

  “That mutual understanding, no matter how our videos play out, that a decision's made with the group's best intent, always seems to win overall.” — Ryan (79:40)

• On copying and YouTube trends:

  “If the Seaboys suddenly release a video, an amphibious go-kart, maybe they did copy us.” — Ethan (86:26, jokingly)

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Selected Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:24–02:13: Origins & rural backdrop
• 04:26–08:22: Early viral hits, treehouse story, National Geographic moment
• 10:21–14:22: Reality TV, “hick exploitation,” differences with YouTube
• 26:40–30:37: The build that started it all, Mustang/dirt bike kart
• 39:49–44:43: Strategy behind virality & how early success directed channel
• 46:32–47:32: The real story behind the “Plumbing Co” name
• 48:04–55:29: Freedom 500 event, racing stories
• 61:19–63:29: The grind, burnout, building a team
• 69:32–70:24: Commentary on YouTube "copycats" and collaborative evolution
• 75:10–76:32: The stress and pressure of weekly uploads, creative failures
• 91:10–93:43: Insuring the "plumbing company" and the absurdity of bureaucracy
• 95:41–96:31: Losing home insurance due to YouTube stunts

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Conclusion

The episode provides an in-depth, entertaining, and candid look at the journey of Grind Hard Plumbing Co. from their first viral build to becoming well-known YouTube innovators. It’s a celebration of creative risk-taking, resourcefulness, and the camaraderie that fuels wild ideas and growth—underscored by the realities of mental health, business headaches, and the relentless pace of modern content creation. Fans and aspiring creators alike will find actionable insights, relatable struggles, and a wealth of hilarious stories behind the scenes.

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Listen to CboysTV every Tuesday and follow them (and Grind Hard Plumbing Co) on YouTube and Instagram for more insane builds, business insights, and shenanigans.

Transcript

[Ethan]

One week and every single comment you copied the seaboard.

[Ben]

Did you guys get on like Jay Leno with that?

[Edwin]

The Idaho state government forces us to be insured as plumbers. Like, even insured camera guy.

[Ethan]

No, I was on a unicycle. Sometimes safety is not first.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

Or third, because I had to take the truck topper off my truck to fit the go kart. Your house? That's my house. I was like, it's full commitment now.

[Ryan]

North Idaho is not an easy place for anything. I mean, it works well for you guys because you get four seasons, you get to live out in the middle the woods, dude.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ken]

You've got to be the only YouTubers out there, I'd imagine.

[Ethan]

Surprisingly not. There's actually one probably less than 10 miles from us.

[Ken]

Oh, wow.

[Ethan]

Really? They're. They're called ambition strikes and they do like off grid stuff. I don't, I haven't watched any of.

[Ken]

Their content, but yeah, 10 miles down the road and you haven't even watched our video yet.

[Ethan]

I. I don't watch anyone's videos.

[Edwin]

Ethan Legit does not watch YouTube.

[Ben]

Well, you make up for it, dude. You gotta watch more YouTube than anyone else I know. I'll be watching like a random music video and I'll see a grind hard plumbing company comment underneath it. I'm like, yeah, what is going on, like on our podcast on our videos, like early on? And I'm like, man, dude, Edwin is just on it.

[Edwin]

I used to watch probably like six hours of YouTube a day, and then now I have probably watched like three, and then like more like six on weekends. Even all my podcasts I get on YouTube too, because it's like, I don't know, I just feel part of that world even before we started the channel or anything.

[Ben]

Wow, that's crazy. Six hours a day. Oh, my gosh. Well, I guess it's kind of just doing research. You know, being that you're a YouTuber, it's easy to justify, but yeah, it is. Well, anyway, all right, guys. So we've got on Ethan and Edwin from Grindhard Plumbing Co's YouTube channel. You guys got just over 2 million subscribers. You make build type content, but like, kind of like us. You guys build very like abstract vehicles that should not be built. And you guys bring to life. But you've kind of been doing it. You were doing it before we were doing it. You were doing it kind of before any YouTube channel got on. Like the concept of like weird builds do better than just like normal things. I remember the first time that we met you guys was what, four years ago when we came out to Coeur d'?

[Edwin]

Alene?

[Ethan]

Something like that.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Your guys is filming compound, my house, Ethan's house in the middle. Like people think that we're in the middle of nowhere. You guys are actually in the middle of nowhere. Like trees, woods, surrounding everywhere. Like you would think that it's like kind of like you would think like a serial killer would come out of your guys area. Like I think of like Ted in the shed. Like that's what it reminds me of.

[Ethan]

I mean, back when I was. Back when I was dating, like, yeah, it was definitely, you know, people were a little concerned. They're wondering, they're like, I'm going to let somebody know where I'm going before I come over.

[Ken]

Jump out of the car. Halfway there. I think I'll walk.

[Ryan]

Just make sure you text them at the bottom of the mountain because you lose cell service.

[Ethan]

Exactly.

[Ben]

But no, you guys, when we first came out there, you guys had just finished up the Colonel Senders.

[Ethan]

Yep.

[Ben]

So you guys took the like jeep like power wheels platform and then just made it like an actual drivable full grown vehicle. And you were like the first ones to do something like that. I just remember like showing up to your compound and seeing like all these different vehicles that were just weird abstract builds and be like, dude, this is like entertainment right here. This is what people want. The crazy, crazy things like that. So anyway, tip my hat to you guys and what you guys have built.

[Ethan]

Thank you.

[Edwin]

Yeah, I can't take like, or we can't take all the credit for that because one of the first things I saw was Boosted boy Kyle and his shopping cart. He had really good videos, like making really fast Civics and stuff and like gapping Ferraris and Lamborghinis on the highway and stuff. And still that shopping cart video did better than those videos. And I remember watching that and being like, holy smokes. That is what I saw as the first person to make like a goofy thing that shouldn't exist, be more popular than these, like, more common things. So yeah, that was definitely a lot of inspiration just seeing that project.

[Ken]

So how did you guys come together? Like, explain to me kind of your start, like, is that what inspired you to get into YouTube or like, what's the story behind this? Is how long you guys known each other?

[Edwin]

Well, Ethan had viral videos way before Grindheart. You should take that.

[Ken]

Really?

[Edwin]

Sure, yeah.

[Ken]

You were YouTubing before being a YouTuber, huh?

[Ethan]

Yeah, I mean, kind of by accident. Like I You know, from a young age, I always liked film or photography. Most mostly still photography, but I ended up getting into filming stuff as well. Just, you know, kind of for fun. And then first video I ever posted that got any sort of views, I built a snow cave. And I time lapsed the whole process of building the snow cave and called it how to build a snow cave in two minutes or something like that. And it was, it was a two minute time lapse of like a week's worth of digging a snow cave. And that one, I mean, it didn't exactly go viral, but for a channel that had like three subscribers, it got, I don't know, 12 or 20,000 views or something. I was like, oh, this is cool.

[Ryan]

I'm a YouTuber.

[Edwin]

Yeah. It's not like an igloo. It had multiple rooms and like you lit it with candles.

[Ethan]

We slept 10 people in it. So we said it was. It was a solid snow cave.

[Ken]

So how did you have time to do that when you're not a YouTuber? You spent a whole week digging a snow cave just for fun?

[Ethan]

Yeah, pretty much. I had just gotten out of college. I. Well, two years of college. So I went to local community college for photography and I got my associates. And then I was kind of trying to figure out what I wanted to do next. And I had a trip planned to go to Ireland and some of Europe, and there was just kind of a gap in between that where I was kind of just at my mom's place, which is now. Which is now my place. But so, yeah, I was just kind of, you know, didn't have anything better to do. Built a snow cave for a week. But yeah, then after that, like the next year or something, I was just working for local people doing, you know, construction and whatnot, and had the inspiration to build a tree house. I built a small tree house when I was a kid.

[Ken]

You're going to do a big this time.

[Ethan]

Yeah. I was like, you're an adult. Yeah. I was 22 and I was staying at my mom's house. Not indefinitely, just kind of trying to figure out what I was doing next. And then I was like, you know what? I could just build like a little tree house to sleep in. So I have my own room. So I did that. And then because I like doing weird things that are different, I built a bicycle elevator to get into it because stairs and ladders suck. And the treehouse is like 25ft in the air.

[Ben]

This is not a normal tree house. This is like the mack daddy of all Tree houses.

[Ryan]

That's what I thought, too. The time we went in it, it was dark. And riding that bicycle elevator up and then walking across the rope bridge, I was like, dude, this guy is not afraid of heights. There's no way I could.

[Ben]

Well, dude, when you were walking across the rope bridge that has the ropes on the side, but you weren't touching the ropes on the side, and you just walked across like, it was just like you were in the mall. And then when I got up there, I just watched you do it. And then I get in there and shaking back and forth, and I'm, like, terrified. I'm not. I'm not afraid of heights. But. But that was like, I. I was easily the most scared I've ever been that high off the ground.

[Ken]

Like, how high? General. Like, how. How many feet?

[Ethan]

It's around 20, 25ft.

[Ben]

Like, high enough that you would severely.

[Ethan]

Hurt yourself, get hurt, and you don't.

[Ken]

Even get to see the ground for what. What, when you're going to hit it.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

But, yeah, so long story short, that the bicycle elevator, I made a really crappy little video, like 60 seconds long of just riding up and down it, and that went super viral. I mean, considering I had.

[Ken]

On YouTube.

[Ethan]

Yeah, on YouTube. Well, actually, everywhere. It was one of those videos that, like, went way outside of YouTube.

[Ken]

What year was this, roughly?

[Ethan]

13, 2013.

[Ken]

So, like, early, early, early days.

[Ethan]

Yeah, so it went super viral. It went. It got about a million views on YouTube, and then CNN aired it and really, like, just everyone. Yeah.

[Edwin]

Like, was it in a National Geographic children's book?

[Ethan]

Yeah, yeah, I have. I still. I kept the pay stub because, like, as a kid, my dream job was to be a National Geographic photographer, and technically I am, because I sold National Geographic pictures of my treehouse to put in their book for kids.

[Ken]

Can you tell how much they were they bought them for?

[Ethan]

I was like, 100 bucks. It was nothing. But still awesome. Yeah, it was the pay stub that mattered. But, yeah, it was in, like, I got interviewed for, like, a radio broadcast in Germany, a TV show in Japan.

[Ben]

Holy.

[Ethan]

It was in a children's book in Turkey. Like, it was everywhere. It was wild.

[Edwin]

So globally viral.

[Ethan]

Oh, yeah.

[Ken]

Super, super Treehouse heard around the world.

[Ethan]

Right? So, yeah, And I mean, I made a few more videos with that, you know, few videos with a million views here and there. Some of them not monetized because, like, I didn't know how to find rights. Free music and stuff. But yeah, and then I ended up building a few tree houses because of that for like local people that heard about me and were like, hey, can you build me a tree house? And one of those ended up being a really nice tree house. Like, if you saw mine and thought that was the mack daddy, like the one that I built, it was on the lake, like in the tree. In a tree on the lake. Yeah. And you just walk into it from ground level because on a super steep slope. So it's only like sweet 15, like from the base of the tree house to the ground at the tree that it's around. It's only like six feet or something. Or eight. Eight feet maybe. But because it's a big tree house, it's. I think the total square footage, including the porch, is like 300 square feet.

[Edwin]

What?

[Ken]

God damn. That's a mansion of treehouses.

[Ethan]

Yeah. It's not.

[Ben]

Is it funny how everyone, like loves the idea of a treehouse until you actually are like in a treehouse and you're like, this is kind of inconvenient.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ben]

So if you need anything, you got to like crawl back.

[Ethan]

Right. I think so. This one was designed.

[Ken]

Wanted tree house.

[Ethan]

Right. So this one was designed to. You're good. This one was designed to be convenient. Like you just walked in on a bridge from ground level. Like right in front of this nice house. Anyway, I did a full time lapse of that build. Like, I actually wore out the shutter on my DSLR taking photos for it. Hundreds of thousands of frames anyway. Actually probably millions, but did a full time lapse on that. And I filmed a few clips here and there. So it was just like a time lapse edited to music with a few random clips. And that one for a long time was actually until maybe very recently. I haven't checked. Honestly. It had more views than any grind hard video we've ever done for. It had like 8 million views or something.

[Ken]

Damn. But especially back in the day, huge numbers.

[Ethan]

Yeah, yeah, that one was later. And then I ended up being on a TV show on History channel and.

[Ben]

As like a treehouse builder?

[Ethan]

No, as like an imaginary character that lives in a treehouse. Survivalist style.

[Ryan]

And like classic TV type.

[Ethan]

Oh, they made you.

[Ken]

They made you kind of like.

[Ethan]

Oh, yeah, yeah. It was 100% made up.

[Ken]

We filmed one of those one time too.

[Ethan]

Yeah. Every pilot episode. Yeah, it was. Yeah. So I was on a series of that. That was. It was a cool experience to do it once. I would never do it again. Never recommend it to anyone.

[Ken]

I think that name was going to be Doogie. Yeah, they wanted to name him yeah, Ben was not good enough. Doogie was a better name. He was going to be known.

[Ethan]

Oh, my God.

[Ben]

Can you imagine if. If that would have, like, actually caught on?

[Edwin]

And then that's just my name.

[Ken]

Script writing. But no, that's. So then what. So you do this, this TV show. How long does that go for?

[Ethan]

They only did one season because it was terrible and. Yeah, and it was. What were you going to say?

[Edwin]

Oh, I just had an antidote for what type of show it was. It wasn't Ethan. He probably wouldn't have let the producers make them do this, but in one of the episodes, these guys hunt elk with dynamite. That's how bad it was.

[Ken]

Oh, my gosh.

[Ryan]

Is that even legal?

[Ken]

That's savage. What if you would have got one?

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

Also, they're just pretending like we're setting up traps under these rocks with Dynam. And when the elk goes by, we're gonna ignore the dynamite because we don't have any other way to.

[Ken]

And then we're gonna pick dynamite.

[Ben]

Yeah, we don't have. We don't have weapons.

[Ken]

That is a crazy video episode.

[Ethan]

Sorry. I had to pretend to fish, but, like, they weren't gonna wait around to actually catch a fish. Also, it was like a creek you're not supposed to be fishing in. So they bought a trout from Safeway and put it on the hook, and I had to pretend to catch a fish that was dead.

[Ken]

This is. This is why TV is dying.

[Ethan]

Yes.

[Ken]

This is 100y TV is dying.

[Ethan]

And this was 10 years ago. So, like, it's way worse now.

[Ben]

Well, my question is, through it, why does. Why does anyone give these producers that come up with these terrible ideas any kind of credibility to be able to continue to come up with these terrible ideas?

[Ken]

I think there's some that are great, you know, but. But a lot that are bad. We've had a lot of experience with only experience with bad ones.

[Ben]

How do those ones, like, continue to keep doing it is my question.

[Ethan]

They're just.

[Edwin]

I think there's a person at the top of the food chain that gets pitched normal ideas every day. The day is long, and so you make something stand out. Like these guys with beards down to their bellies are hunting elk with dynamite in Alaska. And then that person at the top of the food chain doesn't know anything.

[Ken]

That is pretty crazy.

[Edwin]

Like, I want to see that. Like, they don't. I think that at that far. It's so far detached, they don't even know that it's not real.

[Ken]

That's some savage behavior.

[Edwin]

Like.

[Ethan]

I don't know.

[Edwin]

That's the only justification I have for you.

[Ken]

How would the TV show pay, if you don't mind me asking?

[Ethan]

I mean, at the time was really not bad.

[Ken]

What year was it?

[Ethan]

2014.

[Ken]

Okay.

[Ethan]

I mean, compared to the money I was making doing anything else at the time, I think we filmed for a little over a month and I made like 12 grand or something. So like. Yeah, I mean, at the time it was great. I think our, our, our official rate was like a $1200 an episode. And then. But it was filmed all in one block of time, basically. And then, and then we got, we made some other money here because we also built the treehouse and we charged them for some of that. Like we built the second. You know, you saw the, the rotaty one. That's the one. We built on that, on that show.

[Ryan]

And like you say it was the start, so something to get you into it and.

[Ethan]

Yeah. And just, you know, something to do.

[Ben]

But yeah, when you think back at that though, it's like these TV networks kind of are just like preying on people.

[Ethan]

Oh, absolutely.

[Ken]

They made a lot more money than that.

[Ethan]

They have a name for it. It's called hick exploitation. Like the producers, that's what they call it.

[Ben]

That makes sense.

[Ken]

Find a guy. Yeah, it's true.

[Ethan]

They call it exploitation because they go around the country and find people who don't know what their time is worth and what their entertainment value is worth.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

And a lot of them, they don't pay at all. Like a lot of reality TV shows do not pay the people that are on them. The people are just doing it because they're like, I'm going to be famous.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

Make $1 million because of something, you know.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Ken]

I remember when we were getting pitched, when I asked how much we were going to get paid and it was like in like 2018, 2019. And it was not much at all. Yeah, I was like, that's not worth our time. We can make way more just doing YouTube, but obviously if you don't have a. A platform, you then can get risen to fame.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

So that is honestly what it's worth.

[Ethan]

Right.

[Ken]

I mean, which, I mean, obviously, yeah, you're not getting paid probably what you are worth for your time, but you do get the. Put onto a platform that hopefully you can then cross over. But nowadays you got YouTube.

[Ethan]

Yep. And also the thing is, a lot of these shows don't. Your character on the show is so far removed from reality, you can't even.

[Ken]

Tough that you can cross over.

[Ethan]

Like, my character on the show didn't know that computers exist.

[Ryan]

Pretty much.

[Ethan]

Like. Like, I. I lived in a tree and had no access to society. Like, how is. How do you capitalize on that as a character, you know?

[Ryan]

Yeah, you're doing engineering on a computer.

[Ethan]

Right. You know, not that you couldn't, but it wouldn't be a, like, direct. Like, for example, Heavy D. They got lucky. Well, yeah, and his crossover. Exactly. His. His character on that show is a very marketable character and very marketable products and stuff. So, like.

[Ken]

Yeah, and it was close to. Probably somewhat close to who he is, you know, because that was his whole thing with YouTube is he was going to just be real because they were sick of doing the.

[Ethan]

The fake reality stuff.

[Ben]

Yeah, but did you pitch the networks at all? Like, hey, I. I can, like, do a bunch of other things, too. Like, do you want to film me actually living my life? And, like, doing these.

[Ethan]

There was a couple other. Like, that show wasn't the only one that approached me. So, like, I. I had pitched another one where, like, they wanted us to, like, go around building tree houses for people. And, like, I kind of came up with a pitch for him, but that didn't go anywhere. And, like, gotcha. It's.

[Ken]

That'd have been a better show than the one that sounds like.

[Ethan]

Oh, yeah. Almost anything would have been.

[Edwin]

It was custom. Treehouse building show would have gone off.

[Ethan]

Yeah, I mean, there was already, like, they were looking for, like, a new take on it because there was already Treehouse Masters and there was, like, some other show. But anyway. Yeah, that never really went anywhere, but it was an interesting time in my life. And the point is it through all of that, like, I already understood that YouTube could be a way to make money in a career and stuff. And then. So then later, when Edwin started talking to me about stuff, I already had that idea and some experience with it and, like, had already filmed and edited videos and stuff, so it was, like, it was easy. Like, oh, yeah, let's, you know, do this. So.

[Ben]

So you came into the picture because you were the YouTube guy watching 14 hours of YouTube back there every video.

[Edwin]

Well, I was definitely doing that. And, like, I was making music when MySpace was big. Like, I was making weird, like, Lady Gaga remixes and stuff. And then you remind me so much of my same.

[Ken]

I was just.

[Ben]

Sorry to interrupt you, but I just can't. Like, you look like Mike right now. Like, the things you do are totally things Mike does.

[Edwin]

Like, oh, man, we're Going to have.

[Ethan]

To Talk music about MySpace there.

[Ken]

I missed out on that too.

[Edwin]

It was fun.

[Ethan]

How old are you?

[Ken]

My mom wouldn't let me get one.

[Edwin]

Ah, yeah. Smart. Yeah, it was a waste of time.

[Ken]

I mean I was in elementary school.

[Edwin]

When it was popping, but yeah, yeah, that was, it was a lot of fun. It was cool. But I was making YouTube videos. Like I hope it's not on the Internet anymore. But one of my first one was Santa Claus versus the Easter Bunny where we like dressed up and fought each other. But that was in like high school. But yeah, I was always making videos and I never really like had a passion for it, I guess. Like I just did it because it was so much fun, which I guess is passion. But I never thought of it like as a job or anything. I moved to Orlando the second I turned 18 to DJ and like try to promote my music.

[Ryan]

So you were into music or are into music?

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

Did you not hear Will's Drift Funk?

[Ryan]

No, I didn't.

[Ethan]

I wrote Will a song about Subarus.

[Ben]

Really?

[Ethan]

I'd love to hear it. Yeah, yeah, we'll play it for you later.

[Ryan]

You'll hit us with the copyright claim.

[Edwin]

Yeah, no, it's, it's not claim. Anyone can use it. It's all good. There you go.

[Ethan]

Writes free music for your videos.

[Edwin]

And the. That was kind of a beginner song. Like we got a serious song coming.

[Ryan]

Okay.

[Ben]

But yeah, music video and all.

[Edwin]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Ethan]

We have some ideas for music videos for sure.

[Edwin]

Yeah, we're gonna do a rock song too. That's like a Mad Max themed music.

[Ethan]

Video and with like samples of all.

[Ken]

The shop sounds that would actually be very fitting.

[Ethan]

Like different tools noises and like banging on different stuff and like engine noises. They're like tuned to different. Yeah, it'll be cool.

[Ken]

Wow.

[Edwin]

And Steven, our camera guy, he's an incredibly good piano player.

[Ethan]

Oh, like phenomenal.

[Edwin]

Genius level will blow your mind. So we're going to do kind of that whole, you know, in Fury Road, there's the guitarist on the front of the truck. We're going to get like a piano on one of our trucks and really go for it.

[Ethan]

It's going to be.

[Ben]

Stay tuned for that. Hyping up the music video, promoting the music video.

[Ryan]

It's like you guys are doing your press tour.

[Ethan]

I mean, we have no idea when it's to going to happen. So it's not really a great idea to promote it yet.

[Ryan]

One of those one day things.

[Edwin]

Yeah, yeah. It's going to be sick though. But when I Seriously, kind of my first serious channel was trying to promote my music, and then I started doing music tutorials. And then I kind of had this website that had, like, presets for synthesizers. And so around that time, I just got kind of burnt out on music, and I realized that I like the process of making the videos more. And so then I started kind of a lifestyle brand with one of my friends. It was kind of like when Red Bull was getting into Red Bull Media House and Art of Flight came out, and we were doing, like, really cinematic surfing videos, and we filmed, like, a couple breakdance competitions for Red Bull and stuff like that. And what year would this be?

[Ken]

Like 2017.

[Edwin]

Somewhere around there. Yeah, it was right after Steel Rafferty got his first gold medal in the X game. So it had been, like, around there.

[Ethan]

I think, because we started grinding.

[Ben]

What an interesting way to keep time of knew what I was like.

[Edwin]

Was it.

[Ben]

Was it pre gold medal Steel rapper?

[Edwin]

I guess I just assumed you guys followed Wake or ad. I got to see your boats.

[Ben]

How old is he? Oh, he's 14 months after Ste got it.

[Ethan]

But it would have been somewhere like 16 and 17 because we started.

[Edwin]

Seriously accurate. Yeah.

[Ken]

Nice.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

Then I just wanted to, you know.

[Ken]

Give it time for the listener.

[Edwin]

I'm kind of blown away that you, like, dialed that in like that, but, yeah. Then I moved back to Idaho, and we hung out before then.

[Ethan]

Yeah, a few times. Yeah.

[Edwin]

Yeah. But not a whole lot. But our mutual friend Stephen, who's now our filmer, was hanging out with both of us all kinds of a lot. And so after that, lifestyle brand didn't go anywhere. I was just, like, kind of traveling and surfing, and I was filming documentaries and stuff and commercials for travel companies and things like that that were, like, cool gigs filming weddings, you know, pay the bills. And then I was kind of, like, simultaneously starting a wedding filming company at the same time as I was like, I'd rather just film whatever I want. Since I'd been serially watching YouTube for so long, I was, like, thinking ideas like, what's really fun? What would give a lot of cool creative control and stuff. Building weird things. Like, I've always been really into dirt bikes and been dirt biking my whole life and missed it because I didn't have a dirt bike in Florida. I mean, you see where Ethan lives. Like, I lived even further in the woods.

[Ethan]

Oh, wow.

[Edwin]

Yeah. I dirt bike to high school. It was awesome. I didn't even want a dirt bike in Florida because I was like, where am I gonna ride like, there's not.

[Ethan]

Even any hills here. Like, what do you.

[Ken]

You go to Miami and join the 12 o' clock boys.

[Edwin]

Yeah. Well, that's what she really wants to do that. That's my dream.

[Ken]

Yeah, we want to do a video doing that too, too.

[Ethan]

We probably go to.

[Ben]

We've done it. But Evan is. He's our wheelie guy. Right. And even he's like, I don't know. I mean, think of all the things I could go wrong. Like, he's kind of nervous about, like, getting in the pack.

[Ethan]

I'm not really interested in that at all.

[Edwin]

Yeah, you guys are all like. You guys can all hold 12 o' clock wheelies just fine.

[Ken]

It seems on a pit bike, I can. But yeah, if there was like, I'm not a full size bike.

[Ethan]

Oh, okay.

[Ben]

It would probably get left in the dust. Yeah.

[Ken]

I think I was just gonna be more filming it, but I figured we have, like, a few friends that are in that scene. They get us in the door. But it actually kind of. The idea got kind of scrapped because YouTube's like, buckling down on riding on the street, stuff like that.

[Ben]

Really?

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

That sucks. Those are some of the coolest channels I know.

[Ken]

I. That's what I used to watch, like 2016, 2015. I just watch like, you know, running from the cops on dirt bikes and stuff.

[Edwin]

And like, we could see the influence on the shifter cart on the street.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

Some of your first, like, major viral videos were those.

[Ken]

That was actually our very first one. But yeah, that's actually a really good connection. That's. I just saw those videos were popping.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ken]

And like, they'd have, you know, 2, 3 million views, so I just kind of stationed it that way. And that's where the title get came from.

[Edwin]

But not to mention how much fun they were having doing it.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Right.

[Ken]

That was such a different time, though, for. For making videos. But it was like one of the.

[Ben]

First times I'd ever sat down and watched YouTube. I was at your house. We were watching it on your big lap or big computer downstairs, and you were like, check this out. Because we were like, getting into dirt bikes at the time. Look at these guys that would just ride wheelies, like, in the street.

[Ken]

We were just mind blown because we were so nervous about getting pulled over by, like, the local sheriffs and stuff. So, like, we were. We felt like we were outlaws riding. But these guys are doing on a whole nother level, you know, running from the cops, just like blatantly like.

[Ethan]

Right.

[Ken]

Just the disrespect but anyways, yeah, back to you guys.

[Ben]

So when you were moving back or even when you were in Florida and you heard about Ethan filming this TV show, were you like, oh, local kid kind of, like, makes it big with his TV show and, like, wanted to be a part of that world somehow? Or were you like, yo, check out this TV show?

[Edwin]

I didn't see it. Ethan wasn't really proud of the TV show.

[Ken]

You weren't going around marketing it?

[Ethan]

No. Yeah, not really. I mean, yeah, like, I probably made, like, one post about it on Facebook. Like, hey, look, I'm on a TV show. Like, it was. It was so embarrassing how fake it was. I was just like.

[Edwin]

Like, yeah. So it wasn't anything like that. I don't think I even knew about it until I came home. And then. Yeah.

[Ethan]

Because we didn't. We barely knew each other at the time.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

We'd only hung out a couple of times when I was filming a TV show. Like, after that is when we started hanging out more and getting to know each other more.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

Because we were in, like, the parkour kind of slack line. Unicycle.

[Ken]

Yeah. I was going to say that's something both you guys, you just have tried so many different things that you now have this, like, experience, and, you know, you can use to. To work.

[Ethan]

And that really is that the Parkour is ultimately the connection that we know each other at all. Because our friend Stephen was super into parkour, and so was Edwin, and I was, like, surface level into parkour. I. Like, I'm really bad at being upside down and, like, knowing where I am.

[Ben]

But going downstairs, like, on the last one, you'd rip a 360.

[Ethan]

Yeah, no, no. I was on a unicycle. Unicycle parkour.

[Ken]

You just got to take it to the next level.

[Ethan]

But it was a weird sport, so I'd, like, hang out with the, like. Yeah, yeah. I'd imagine there's not a lot of.

[Ken]

Unicycle Parkour guys to hang around.

[Ethan]

Right?

[Edwin]

Exactly.

[Ethan]

There's no way. There's no other unicyclists at all. And I met Steven because I was also into slacklining. So I did unicycling. I. I was known as the unicycle guy at. At college. Like, I.

[Ben]

We had one of those at our college.

[Ethan]

Yeah, I think they all do.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Every college has got one unicycle guy.

[Ethan]

I was also into slacklining, and one day I just went into the, like, student union building, and I was like, yo, anybody want to go slack Lining and Steven, who was like, I don't know, whatever, like six years younger than me or something. And so he was this like super shy little 16 year old kid with like a fro of curly black hair. He's just like, oh, that sounds like fun. Yeah, I'll join you. And then like no one else did. So it was just him and I out there slacklining in the rain for a while. And so that's how we got to know each other. And then he was into Parkour, so I just started hanging out with him, unicycling with the Parkour guys. And then that's how, that's how we met.

[Edwin]

And then when I was trying to think of the wedding video business, I was like, I know I can do it, but I don't know if it's going to be as like rewarding to my soul is just being creative. And I was missing that aspect of making music already. So then it was like trying to find a way to like do YouTube with like drift cars and dirt bikes and stuff.

[Ryan]

And so you knew you wanted to be a YouTuber.

[Edwin]

Yeah, for sure, for sure. It was, it was kind of like planned like that from the beginning. I was like, I'll give YouTube a solid go for a year while I'm setting up this wedding business and if it doesn't work up, I'll just take the wedding business as far as I can, you know, I don't know where the idea came from specifically, but I was like, man, a dirt bike engine and a little pink Mustang would be awesome because I was seeing people make really good drifting videos, really good dirt bike videos that weren't getting any traction. And like, no one knows who I am. So it's like if you were already famous at the time and then you built a drift car on YouTube, people seem to care, like if you were on TV or something like that. And I'm like, okay, no one's going to care about me learning how to build cars, you know, is kind of what I was thinking. So, like, this would be insanely cool. So I went on like Marketplace and bought like a really crappy go kart.

[Ethan]

And a really like, you beyond crappy go kart. I mean, it is so much worse than you can imagine.

[Ken]

You're like, come on, like, we're not.

[Ethan]

Talking like a shifter cart that's all beat up. No, this was like a kid's go kart from like probably the 70s or 80s that had been mutilated by so many people that didn't know how to weld. It had refrigerator water line for the brake line.

[Ken]

Oh, my.

[Ethan]

It had a two cylinder Honda street bike engine from like the 70s in the back that had no power at all, barely ran. And it had like a sort of roll cage made out of just like 2 by 2 quarter inch thick angle wire.

[Edwin]

That was sketchy.

[Ethan]

It's just like.

[Ken]

It was. That's sketchy.

[Ryan]

Kids are calling a death trap terrible.

[Ethan]

Yes, it was. Yeah. Just to paint a picture of how bad this go kart was. So it had an engine, and we really tried to look at, like, whether we could use that engine, but it was just not gonna work.

[Ryan]

Did you guys know how to weld and. Oh, yeah, manufacture at the time.

[Ethan]

That's why.

[Edwin]

That's why I reached out.

[Ethan]

Exactly.

[Edwin]

So I was living in my truck and I had like a truck topper when I made this like cedar kind of slide out drawer thing. And I was just like climbing and surfing and being a bum. So I didn't have any money. So I spent my last money on the go kart and this pink power wheels.

[Ken]

Wow.

[Edwin]

And when I went to the guy's house to buy the little pink Mustang, he was like, hey, I also have this Barbie kitchen set if you're interested. And I was like, oh, no, this. This is for me. Like, I'm gonna make a go kart. And he was like, okay. Like, it was so awkward, but I had to. It was full commitment.

[Ken]

You're walking out.

[Ben]

You're like, well, I guess I'll take the part.

[Ethan]

Exactly.

[Edwin]

It was full commitment because I had to take the truck topper off my truck to fit the go kart. And I was like, all right, your house. That's my house. I was like, it's full commitment now.

[Ethan]

Well, then. Then he just moved into my treehouse.

[Edwin]

So, yeah, it worked out. It worked out. I was going to, like, buy a welder and just try to figure out how to do it. But then I was snowmobiling with Ethan and I had the Mustang in the car and.

[Ethan]

In your mom's Tahoe or something. Yeah.

[Edwin]

And I was like, what do you think about this?

[Ethan]

Yep.

[Edwin]

And he was like, just bring it by my house. Yeah.

[Ethan]

No, I was like, just. Just bring it over sometime and we'll, like, look at it and figure it out. I was like, yeah, I'm sure we can. And at the time, you were talking about putting like just a predator engine in it, because that was, you know.

[Edwin]

Much more attainable and built in gas tank. I wouldn't have to figure out all that stuff. And I had no idea. I was just watching welding tutorials because, like, I'm. No, I'm going to need to do this. Yeah. You know, cut up that go kart that I bought and do it. And then Ethan was like, it was the craziest thing I'd ever seen before because, like, I mean, you guys know, like, if you're a kid with a dirt bike, your dirt bike is all you have. It's like your pride and joy. It's your baby. It's like, actually all you have. So Ethan gets this crappy go kart I bought running in, like a day, and it's terrible. And he's like, this engine isn't gonna fit. We should do. We should put a dirt bike engine in there. And he just pulls out his dirt bike and rips out the engine. Right. And I was so nervous. I was like, oh, that's your dirt bike, man. You're pulling out the engine. That's great. Yeah. What if it doesn't work? You know?

[Ethan]

And then also, the plan was always actually to just put the engine back in the dirt bike. I was like, we'll just throw it in this, build it, have some fun with it, and then, like, just throw the engine back in the dirt bike. It's fine.

[Ben]

We always think that we're going to do that, too. Oh, you know, yeah, yeah, Perfect. And then we'll just, you know, put this into the next build or something like that never happens.

[Ethan]

No, of course not.

[Ryan]

Like the eight years and then we'll come back. But that's one of the coolest things and one of the things I tell everybody about you guys, that it. Everything is built just in what's in your yard. You might have an old car that was from another project, and you just have half of it there. Like, it's. It's nothing to anybody. And you're like, okay, I can use this, you know, the a piece off of that to manufacture another piece for this. Everything you guys do is so resourceful. And it's pretty incredible to see in an area like that. You know, you're like, I'm not just going to run to the store. That's going to take two hours exactly. And you have to make it work.

[Ethan]

That's why I, you know, developed that skill set. Cuz, like, I mean, I also grew up without any extra money. So, like. But it also just being there, like, to run to the store, it's like an hour and a half round trip or something. And it's faster to just figure it out with what I have. And so that's, that's where that kind of mentality came from. And then also I just kind of enjoy it. I like kind of repurposing things and.

[Edwin]

Yeah, interesting is we keep it up too because now we could go on like ebay and buy the exact part we need. But I don't know, there's something that's like more fun and more entertaining about just figuring it out. Like Will and I bought this, the cheapest electric car and like try to do this 100 mile challenge and it failed. So now we're building it up better.

[Ben]

Do you guys love that electric car? You guys have gotten, you have money's worth out of that.

[Ethan]

Have no idea how much they love it.

[Edwin]

We actually seriously disturb Ethan all the time. I think people think we're messing with them, but Will and I just get.

[Ethan]

I still don't know. Honestly, I still think you're messing with me. With the places you can't even walk.

[Edwin]

It's a hundred percent genuine passion. We love this little electric car. What's it called?

[Ben]

The Chang Wang or something?

[Edwin]

Yeah, the Ching Wang. That's what I'm going to call it now.

[Ethan]

The Chang Le Chang I love. Wait a second, the Chang Le.

[Ben]

Yeah. When you guys drop a YouTube video or an Instagram reel of it and you're just like so hyped on it, I'm like, I. I literally think every time I see it, I go, man, these guys just love that electric car.

[Edwin]

I love it more than I've ever loved anything. It's just like pure, joyful.

[Ethan]

Your wife is probably listening.

[Edwin]

Yeah, well, she's not a thing, which is a person.

[Ken]

That's very good.

[Edwin]

That's very good point. Exactly. But yeah, I mean, when we went to sema, we went to like dream racing and you know, we drove a Ferrari around the track or whatever and it's fun. But that Chang Lee, just off road.

[Ben]

Going one, getting paid right now.

[Edwin]

No, we're not.

[Ben]

You gotta get. You got China in your pocket, don't you?

[Ethan]

Hang on though. The distributor of Chang Lee tried to sell the business to Will, the US importer of the, of the Chenglis that we got it from. They like sent a text to Edwin that somehow they thought was Will and we're like, hey, would you like to buy our business of importing Chengli's?

[Ben]

Did you do it?

[Edwin]

Well, we just got that text yesterday.

[Ken]

You gotta do it. It's like they got it and then send us one.

[Ben]

Yeah, let's see what the let's see what it's all about.

[Edwin]

Yeah, let's see what it's about.

[Ben]

All.

[Ryan]

All about.

[Ben]

Or you guys should drive your Chang Wing to us. There's 500 miles.

[Ethan]

There's no chance of that.

[Ken]

It's like, all the.

[Ethan]

It's also way more than 500 miles, Will.

[Edwin]

And I do want to drive it from coast to coast, so we'll just drive two. We'll drop one off at you if we buy the business, and then we'll just keep rolling.

[Ryan]

But it's like, the slowest gumball rally ever.

[Ethan]

Yeah, Gumball. You mean cannonball.

[Ryan]

Cannonball.

[Ken]

Sorry.

[Ryan]

Gumball is the European one.

[Edwin]

Oh, okay.

[Ben]

Ryan's European. European.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Clearly you can tell from the jean shorts.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

And the Florida T shirt.

[Ryan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ben]

What do tourists wear?

[Edwin]

How to be Florida with the Chang Lee. It sat in Ethan's yard for three months, Will. And I never even looked at it or sat in it or anything. And then one day, we were just like, let's drive that thing 100 miles off road. And we just drove it through Ethan's woods for, like, 10 minutes, just grinning ear to ear like, this is the best thing. Oh, dude.

[Ethan]

Well, the thing is, we. They had asked for us. Like, they didn't ask much. When they sent it to us, they're like, just make a couple posts about it on Instagram. And we'd had it for three months and hadn't done that, so they were like, hey. And that's why you guys started driving it. You're like, oh, we need to film some stuff for them. And then they were out there driving it for, like, three hours, just literally from across the property. Because it's.

[Ken]

They put the cameras down, they were still driving it.

[Ethan]

Oh, absolutely. It's. It's electric, so it's quiet. And from across the property, you just hear, whoa.

[Ryan]

And then a bunch of laughing.

[Ethan]

Oh, yeah.

[Edwin]

It's like, could it be a worse machine? But that makes it so much fun to try to get it to go.

[Ethan]

Over a little tiny bump, because everything is a challenge. Yeah. Yeah.

[Ben]

No, that's how we were when we first got the smart cars and then again when we got the mini trucks.

[Ethan]

Oh, the mini trucks are so good.

[Edwin]

The mini trucks are legitimately just so much fun.

[Ken]

Workhorses, man.

[Ben]

Yeah, they're the best.

[Ken]

They don't stop.

[Ben]

So when you guys first made the. The Mustang, the dirt bike swap. Mustang, or I guess Mustang swap derp.

[Ethan]

Yeah, whichever way it goes.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ben]

So that was, like, the first video that got traction, didn't you guys get on, like, Jay Leno with that?

[Ethan]

It was like a year. A couple years later that we were on Jay Leno.

[Ben]

But.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

How was he?

[Ethan]

We didn't really interact with him much.

[Edwin]

I was just.

[Ben]

Right.

[Ethan]

It was just film and then kind of. Yeah, I mean, he was cool, but like, it was just kind of a. There was a lot of other people there, too. He was busy all day pretty much.

[Edwin]

Bit. Yeah, he's. He's super chill and. Yeah, like, he's not gaudy or.

[Ken]

I'd love to meet J.

[Ethan]

He still wears the denim off camera.

[Edwin]

Like, walks up to you and starts chatting. Like, you know, he doesn't. Like. He just doesn't act like a famous person at all. And he's, like, so famous. But. Yeah, like, on that whole shoot, I was surprised because I thought he'd have, like, people doing everything for him, but, like, there was this little kind of booth with a cooler, and he, like, came down off the racetrack, like, after we were racing and, like, just grabbed a water and sat next to me, like, grabbed his own water and just sat with us. Not like a director's booth or anything like that. And then what really struck out to me is he got on the phone himself, and I guess someone just got this kind of rare Lamborghini type deal, like a really fancy car that was like a limited colorway or something. And he called him up himself, and he was like, hey, I heard you got that new car. Like, we'd love to stop by and just get a clip for the show. You know, just be in and out 30 minutes, like, asking him. Himself. Yeah, And I thought that was really cool. I got, like, bad respect for him in that. I was like, that's cool that he's still, like, chasing it through passion, you know? Like, he doesn't have to be doing that.

[Ethan]

Yeah, for sure. He could definitely have someone else make.

[Edwin]

The phone call, but he genuinely wants to see the car.

[Ken]

Right. He doesn't have to make TV shows anymore. He just literally loves cars.

[Edwin]

Yeah. It's so cool.

[Ethan]

I do think that he looked at our. Are the things that we brought and was just like, what? Yeah, like, he didn't want to add it to his collection. No. You can tell when he's, like, really interested in something and ours. He was just like, what is. I don't like, he. Yeah, he just. He definitely wasn't excited about that.

[Ryan]

Yeah, well, it's pretty hard to process, like, looking at it. You're really. You got to wonder what you're looking at. Yeah.

[Edwin]

I think we. We shocked Ben a little bit with the Colonel because, Ben, you were the first one to drive it, right?

[Ethan]

Yeah, yeah, I think you were probably.

[Edwin]

The first one and really gave it a little blip. And he was like, whoa, this thing is serious. You know, like, you really, like, if you're just looking at it, you're like, oh, okay, yeah, it's like a toy, but, like, definitely a sketchy toy. But then you get in it and you're just like, holy smokes, this is a full blown race car without any safety equipment.

[Ryan]

Yeah, I was gonna say pretty much everything you guys build is full blown performance, little safety.

[Ethan]

It's not so much that I'm against safety, it's just that the aesthetics matters.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

A lot. Because that's. I mean, we're. It matters a lot to me personally, but also matters a lot for, like, you know, YouTube and thumbnails and everything else.

[Ryan]

You just can't put.

[Ethan]

You can't put. Everybody's like, you got to put a roll bar on. You got to put. It wouldn't look like what it is. It would just be a ugly pile of crap with a plastic body on it, you know? You know, sometimes. Sometimes safety is not first.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

Or third. You know, I think that was something about the first video was just how cool and unique the first Mustang looked because it was like a brand new channel from complete zero. Like, my other YouTube endeavors didn't have any audience whatsoever, and we built it before we posted anything. And so we made the decision. We're like, we have to post the video of it just done ripping first. Otherwise, like, how are we going to package our vision and we don't have any trust. Like, now we can do that, like, build as we go and show it on YouTube because people know that we're going to finish it and it's going to be good deliver. But then we were like, you know, that was kind of like one little strategic move that I think really paid off. We're like, all right, it's done. It looks cool. It's like we unload it from a truck, drifted around this little pull out in the lake. And that was our very first video. What was crazy is, is now you hear it all the time, but even then you hear it all the time like, oh, like, you just need to, like, grind for years and years. But that first one really did go pretty viral. And since we didn't have monetization or anything, we like viral hog type deals that, like, license your footage for you. And so they licensed it and it was, like, in the news in, like, 15 countries, like our very first thing. And it's probably still the most viral thing we ever did, except maybe the Barbie Jeep right thereafter.

[Ethan]

Yeah. In terms of, like, reaching outside of YouTube. Yeah, definitely.

[Edwin]

Wow. Yeah, it was crazy.

[Ethan]

I mean, I think the chopper is probably.

[Ryan]

I was gonna say this monster chopper is gonna break the Internet.

[Ethan]

Yeah. Like, it's insane.

[Ryan]

It already has.

[Ethan]

It already has broken outside of YouTube for sure. And then once it's done, it definitely.

[Edwin]

Yeah, I think there's a lot of people waiting to see if it actually works.

[Ethan]

Right.

[Edwin]

Because there's so many people who don't think it will.

[Ben]

But, dude, when it does, I think that's the craziest thing you guys have built. And I have a bunch of questions on that one. But I remember when you guys first dropped that video and I saw it on YouTube, you guys maybe had, like, 500 subscribers. Like, when I saw that, because I saw the video pop up, and I was like, wow, this is a really good video, like, well put together. And then I saw you guys had, like, no subscribers, I was like, wow, this doesn't really make sense. And then, sure enough, time caught up.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

I remember when we had still only posted that one video. I remember we were sitting up in the treehouse, which Edwin was living in at the time. He just actually came and lived in my treehouse. But we were just sitting up there because there was slightly better cell phone service to use as a hotspot for the computer to have Internet access.

[Edwin]

That's how we uploaded it.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I was going to wonder.

[Ethan]

And we watch.

[Ben]

I was wondering, how do you guys upload your videos out in the middle of nowhere? Well, he takes days.

[Ethan]

He uploads from his house now. And he lives in town. Okay, but back.

[Ben]

Back then, you used to.

[Ethan]

Or we go to. Or we'd go to town and just go to a coffee shop and upload, but.

[Edwin]

But there's most of them, like, the first ones, just hotspot from the treehouse. And at night, it was a little bit better reception for some reason. So, yeah, hotspot from the treehouse did it.

[Ryan]

Dude, are the only videos ever uploaded in a treehouse of any significance.

[Ethan]

But, yeah, the point was, I remember we were just sitting up there watching the subscriber numbers tick over to the first thousand so that we could apply for monetization. But at that time, YouTube was, for some reason, super backlogged. And so it took, like, a couple months to get approved. So we had millions of views that could have been making money, but weren't. And that's why we did that. Like he said that I think it was like storyful or something like that that, yeah, they just licensed the video and then gave us a percentage of the revenue, which of course normally is a really terrible deal, but it's better than.

[Ben]

Needed it.

[Ethan]

It's better than no revenue because we couldn't monetize it.

[Ken]

So man, that's. That I think is a really good lesson to a lot of other like people that are trying to make it on YouTube or they're just starting out or, you know, they're doing it and it's not working. Do you guys applied that strategy to it? Because like, it is so much more than just making, you know, grinding and eventually getting lucky. Like, you gotta have a little bit of strategy to. For when you do get that to go. And I'm sure that video wouldn't have gone as viral if it, if it would have just been, you know, those little parts.

[Ethan]

Right.

[Ken]

But yeah, I mean, it's obviously no mistake on how you guys became successful also just your guys's love for adventure and lack of fear of trying new things as I. It seems I've. You know, you can just tell from listening you guys stories. But no, that's, that's a, that's a great lesson for anyone that's trying to become a YouTuber. So it was no mistake.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

And people kind of ask that like, oh, was it, you know, luck or. It is like, I mean there's a little. We did get lucky in the sense that it actually worked, but it was planned like it was, it was very.

[Ken]

It takes more than just luck. You got to have everything else align.

[Ethan]

Right.

[Edwin]

And you see it more and more now that YouTube's algorithms getting better at just showing you what videos are the best. Like people coming out of nowhere with just a really cool idea and it just takes off.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Good ideas always prevail.

[Edwin]

And stories. Yeah, even the idea is almost a little more important because you could have the best story, but if it doesn't look right or have something that catches you, then it like, I mean, it's a full package. Yeah.

[Ben]

Title, thumbnail.

[Ken]

It's a full circle. I mean, I, I have a chart I could run through, but don't need to. But that's something also like that played into our advantage is we got lucky in the fact that the third video got some traction. And I mean, I'm not saying it blew up, but you know, when you have seven subscribers and then it Hits it gets a thousand views and then ten thousand and thirty thousand, whatever. That, that really put some gasoline on the fire and then makes you want to keep going. Like, I'm sure it's very hard where you're, you're, you know, you've posted 50 videos and you're, you're actually trying and you're not getting anywhere.

[Ethan]

And also if you have one early on that gets those views, it gives you a direction. Like you can, you can go, oh, this works. Yeah, do more of this. Whereas like, yeah, like you said, if you're getting just, you know, 40, 45, 50, you know, if you're just slowly building the views for each video, you don't have any indication of what is better than anything else because it's just this like really slow build. Whereas if you.

[Edwin]

Yeah, it was enough motivation for us to be like, this could definitely be something. Let's just not work for six months and just do this and see what happens, you know?

[Ethan]

Yeah. And we just kind of would. Both of us were lucky in that we were self employed at the time. He was doing filming, I was doing construction. And so we could just like work a week here and then take a few weeks off and like, you know, you had a trip planned or something. So, like, while you were on that trip, I was, I did. I built a shed for somebody and made some money and pay the bills and then, then we came back and then. Yeah, so we started in April and like, I think the first time we made enough money to like cash a check was what, like September, October of that year?

[Edwin]

Yeah, and that was crazy. Yeah, like, because that's. I mean, I had a friend in high school who was one of the first monetized YouTubers.

[Ken]

Oh, wow.

[Edwin]

Yeah. And who is it?

[Ken]

Who was the name?

[Edwin]

Do you know Des and Nate?

[Ken]

I don't think I do.

[Ethan]

Okay.

[Edwin]

They're like early comedians on YouTube. And he had this like really viral joke that got memed. Those, like, guns don't kill people. People with mustaches. I don't know if you've heard it, but like it was like mad viral. It was like, I mean, most of the, like big YouTubers you think of now, like this was before that, Right.

[Ken]

Million views on YouTube when there's not that many people using the platform. That's hard to do. Yeah, very hard.

[Edwin]

Yeah. So I saw that and I was like, that is the coolest thing ever. But it seemed like very unobtainable at the same time because at that time it was all pranks and comedy that Were the only things getting that kind of views Besides your occasional cat video. But, like, I knew it was possible. Ethan had viral videos. He knew it was possible. So we were like. When we had that little blimp of success, we're like, all right, let's just go for it. You know, it kind of made that decision pretty easy. Like, it seemed like a no brainer to us at the time.

[Ethan]

Yep.

[Ken]

That's cool.

[Ryan]

Were either of you guys plumbers? How'd we land on grand hood plumbing?

[Ethan]

That's definitely a story for Edwin. Yeah. But to answer your first question, no, Neither of us were ever plumbers. I have been paid to do plumbing, but I was not a licensed plumber.

[Ryan]

Not certified.

[Ethan]

Yeah, it was great. Yeah. No, I'm not a license plumber.

[Edwin]

It's like, I thought it'd be so funny because I was thinking that these, like, kind of little goofy projects would get us to the point where we're building, like, full on race cars sooner. But then the goofy projects ended up being so much fun. I was like, well, I don't even want a race car. We can't use them in Idaho.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

Like, I want little buggies.

[Ethan]

Yeah. Like, when we first got the Barbie car running, like, we think we both thought that it'd be kind of fun and, like, it'd look really cool. But when we first started driving it up and down the driveway at my house, we were like, this is so much more fun than a dirt bike. The dirt bike that I took the engine out of was not, like a race bike. It was a CRF230, which was perfect because it was air cooled and electric start. But, like, as a bike, it was really not exciting. As a bike, it felt slow as a go kart. It was, like, the most terrifyingly fast thing you can imagine. Yeah.

[Edwin]

And so I thought. When I still thought, okay, the end goal is for a plumbing company to be on a race car is hilarious. Let alone, like, because I see these youtuber garages, like, full of race cars. I'm like, if they all had plumbing company logos on it, that's so funny.

[Ken]

Imagine you guys actually do, like, well, we did it.

[Ethan]

Well, we did.

[Ken]

Last night. We're out of here.

[Ethan]

Last night, we achieved that dream.

[Ben]

Oh, my gosh.

[Ethan]

Going full circle, we had a race car in an actual official race that said grind hard plumbing company on the side of it.

[Ken]

So let me tell you're a reckless racer, dude. You were driving like a maniac out there. You were taking people out, hitting people. I'm. I'm I was Cletus mad at you at one point?

[Ethan]

I think Cletus is an expert entertainer.

[Ken]

Because you guys were under caution. He kind of like, hit you.

[Ethan]

No, he. I've never seen Lambd into me from behind and then pit new maneuvered me.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

But he pulled up next to me and then, like, gave me a thumbs up. Was like, hey, I was just doing that for fun. Like, you're good.

[Ken]

You're like my neck.

[Ethan]

Exactly. Yeah. I was like, oh, that's good.

[Ken]

Yeah, I saw that.

[Ben]

I was like.

[Ethan]

At first, though, I thought he was actually like, oh, no.

[Ken]

I was like, I'm not getting an invite back.

[Ethan]

Exactly. But then when I jumped the car or what did. I got crashed. Went airborne. Like.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

In his. I was like, all right, we might get another invite. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ryan]

Legendary.

[Ethan]

At the end of the day, it's all about entertainment.

[Ken]

You're the only guy that went in the air out there that night.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

And I kind of did it twice, cuz the other time I got pinched between two cars. My front end, like, went up between them.

[Ken]

You are so funny.

[Ben]

Did you guys have a run?

[Ethan]

So funny.

[Ryan]

Yeah, we did, dude. So I was like, next to you. And I was like, all right. We got a podcast with them tomorrow. I'm not trying to piss him off, you know, like, whatever you came in.

[Ken]

It was just, boom.

[Ryan]

It was the hardest. I got hit the whole race.

[Ethan]

I don't even remember that, honestly.

[Ryan]

Just bumped out.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

But you just wailed into me and I was behind or from the side. I think I was kind of running in the middle. And then you were trying to go low, and we were just right next to each other.

[Ken]

Boom.

[Ryan]

And I was like, all right, game on, dude.

[Ethan]

I do remember that. But there's multiple red cars out there, so I didn't know it was you. I thought that was because the muscle was behind me. Keaton. He was behind me for a bunch of the race. So when I did that, I thought it was him that I had.

[Ben]

It's so funny that you two were next to each other, like, the entire time.

[Ryan]

I felt he was always right by.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ben]

It's funny because we. We. We call Ryan's car the Red Etne because Evan wears red at knees.

[Ken]

Well, he used to until he trashed him, but yeah.

[Ben]

And there's two, like, little Redding around.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ken]

You guys were on, like, polar opposites.

[Ethan]

Of the driving spectrum.

[Ken]

Driving spectrum. You were almost debatably demo derby out there. And Ryan was not trying to piss anyone off. He didn't Want to piss you off because you were coming on the podcast tomorrow. He didn't want to piss Cletus off because it was his race. He didn't want to hit Heavy D because he's our friend.

[Ryan]

But I did. But I did.

[Ethan]

He.

[Ken]

He ran into you, Ryan.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

And you apologized to him. You're like, I'm sorry, but.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Ryan was just being so nice out there, and you were just trying to avoid the crash.

[Ethan]

Yeah, well, apparently I was still being too nice, because every time we were under caution, you were getting passed. People just whipped around me.

[Ben]

What was up with that?

[Ethan]

Because. Because at the driver's meeting, they said, you cannot pass under caution except when we do the lane split thing. And no one paid attention to that rule. And then one time they came over the comms and said, hey, driver, such and such, get in behind, so? And so you're out of position. And so I thought they were going to do that anytime it happened. And just every time people were just whipping by, people were like. And not.

[Ken]

They had that outside rule where if you were on the inside, but. And you know, there's two lanes and say there's two cars on the outside, and you're like, number six, you could jump up to number, you know, three on the outside lane, which.

[Ethan]

Well, that's. That's like. That was part of the explained rules. But I mean, I'm talking, like, as soon as we go yellow, I was like, caution, staying behind the car. And people would just whip by me while they're saying, you know, the caution, caution, caution.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

And then somebody just goes and passes four cars and no one did anything.

[Ken]

You gotta look at. There's a helicopter on.

[Ryan]

Yes.

[Ken]

If you're not cheating, are you really trying?

[Ryan]

Yeah. You're not racing.

[Ethan]

Right. At the driver's meeting, I took the rules as rules, and everybody else took them as suggestions. So next time, I know to be a little more aggressive.

[Ken]

That's the thing. A lot of those guys had, like, eight races under their belts.

[Ethan]

Exactly.

[Ken]

So they've been racing also their whole life. Whereas you guys, like, this is your first.

[Ryan]

I feel a lot better. Like, if I went. If we raced today, I would do a lot better today, because I now.

[Ken]

Understand you got so much better as the race went on. Like, you could just tell you were getting confidence, and then you were, you know, figuring out. The one thing that we were lacking as a team that we did not do any service to Ryan on is he didn't have a right mirror. His car had no mirror on the right Side, which is pretty important, being, like, it'd be nice to see who's coming up. And everyone else had these, like, intercom things, like a spotter up in the stands. Like, did you guys do that?

[Ryan]

No, I was out there.

[Ken]

That would have been huge. Cuz, like, we could have been able to be like, ryan, go scoot to the outside. Because every time there was a caution, you would go from. Let's say you're at one point, you were in seventh place. You went back to, like, 11th. Yeah, that would have just been huge. So next time we're bringing an intercom system. Maybe we'll bring, like, Haley Deegan and have her be the spotter and just be like, telling what to do.

[Edwin]

That would be nice.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Turn. Turn left.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

That was a hell of an event, though. Did you start to finish?

[Ethan]

Yeah, it was. Did you ever use your nos?

[Ryan]

I did.

[Ethan]

I forgot it existed.

[Ryan]

Oh, yeah, It. It helps you.

[Ethan]

But also, I was. I was definitely going to save it for the end. And, like, I just never.

[Edwin]

It didn't make it to the end?

[Ethan]

No, it didn't make it to the end, exactly. So I was saving it for the end. And then also I just forgot about it entirely because I was just focused 100% on it.

[Ryan]

I had a lot more than I thought. I figured I had, like, 10 uses. And I started using it with, like, lap 80. I was like, screw it. I'm just gonna try to get up close to the front. Yeah, we'll see what happens. Like, you know, everybody is like, you'll be able to go from the back to the front in five laps. I don't know how to. Like, that's not true. So I was like, I'm gonna try to fight my way up. And I had a lot more. I had more to go when my car died.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

Abruptly.

[Ethan]

Next time I'll have to remember the NOS button. Yeah. My car also had Derek from Vice Grip looked at it, and he knows everything about all of the cars, and he's like, oh, yeah, this one's this. And it has a 308 limited slip differential. So apparently I had, like, the highest gear differential there, which means higher top speed. But that's irrelevant on the track, so.

[Ryan]

Yeah, because you're not topping it.

[Ethan]

Exactly. And so I had less acceleration, and I could see it every time we pulled out a caution.

[Ken]

Same with him.

[Ryan]

That's mine too.

[Ethan]

We might have both had that.

[Ryan]

I'd hit the gas and everybody else would move, and I'd even try to jump. Like, I'd Lay back.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

And then be like, all right. And wait to kind of, like, come up on people. And every time someone would just dip on the ground and then blow by me.

[Ken]

Even. Even whistling came up after and was like, yo, like, your car was like, really slow out there. He wasn't saying, like, you were driving slow, but he was like, no, like, seriously, like, we'd be like, next to each other and I would just go right past you, like, on the straightaway.

[Ryan]

And so, dude, I don't know how the frick he's finding that many Crown Vicks. Like, that dude's got a heck of an event going on.

[Ethan]

Yeah, it's impressive. None of them can go to the auctions anymore. They have to send, like, new people each time because the auctions know. And they'll up the prices. They'll jack the prices up. They'll be like, oh, it's Cletus. The price is triple. So he sends, like, people that are not even, like, affiliated.

[Edwin]

Yeah, right.

[Ken]

That event is. Every time I go, I am mind blown, like, just to put that event on.

[Ethan]

Insane.

[Ken]

And let alone, like, the fact that he's facilitating it. And then he's got an intercom in his. In his helmet and he's talking to the people in the crowd as he's racing. Like, they're like, tune into Cletus. See what he has to say. He's like, yeah, it's pretty gnarly out here, you know, but like, no, honestly. And then the fireworks show. Yeah, trucks. He knows how to put on a hell of a show. It is so fun every time we go.

[Edwin]

It was surreal. Like, I was thinking about watching Cletus's videos, like, before we were doing anything, just like from iPhones and burnouts on YouTube to what we saw last night. The first, first ever sold out Freedom 500. Like, the execution of the ideas, but also just like, what. What YouTube is enabling people to do is insane. Like, it would have taken all these teams and you would have had to get permission from all these gatekeepers.

[Ethan]

You would have had to have investors and you would have a board of people that make decisions.

[Edwin]

The people at this top of the production company never would have gave Cletus a shot. Like, oh, what do you do? You just build drag racing cars? Yeah, that's not a show. Like, yeah, maybe if you were, you know, half rat person, then we'd make that into a show, I think. But it's like, that's the power of YouTube and it's just so cool. That's why I'M so obsessed with it. It's just the democratization of media business in general.

[Ken]

Like, it's so cool to make it to that level of success on YouTube is extremely hard to do that. If you can do that, you can do pretty much anything. Like, I think it just shows that you have the willpower and what you set your mind to. If you put that into anything, you'll be able to accomplish.

[Ethan]

Yeah. And. And we were talking earlier about, like, luck and stuff, and I think that there's very little luck involved with Cletus's whole, whole story operation. Like, he knows what he's doing.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

Like. Like I was saying about the entertainment and, like, him bumping me in the crowd. Like, he 100% knows what people want to see.

[Ryan]

He knows how to just trying to.

[Ken]

Be so, like, trying to be.

[Ethan]

He's an entertainer.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

In every sense of the word. Like, he. He just knows how to entertain people no matter how he's doing it. And that's why people will watch his content even if he's flying RC airplanes.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

It has nothing to do with anything he built his channel on, but he knows how to entertain people to a greater extent than a lot of other.

[Ryan]

You know, I was thinking about that last night I was laying in bed and I was like, man, that was so crazy. I can't believe I did that.

[Ethan]

Right.

[Ryan]

Thank you for all, like, the people at home that are watching how lucky we are.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

As people who watch it, to, like, be alive in this time and watch him do something like that, that's never been done before.

[Ken]

Right.

[Ryan]

That's completely uncharted territory that he's, like, putting his brain to and making it happen, and people will do things like it probably forever now.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

But for him to reinvent what it is to be an online. I'd be a YouTuber, you know. That's pretty cool.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

I mean, we're still in such an early stage of all this. Like, I mean, I'd say all of us are. Are kind of pioneering something.

[Edwin]

This path, in a sense, and to reinvent yourself constantly. Like, we kind of reinvented ourselves this summer with, like, longer videos and, like, crazier projects, but still, I'd say relatable projects was kind of like our goal. And I think that paid off really well. And you guys reinvented yourselves this year, and it seems to be paying off big time. Like, you guys are going like, crazy and the videos are just getting better and better, and there's, like, not a dull moment in a video. You Posted for what, the last year. Is there, like a lull? No.

[Ben]

Try to keep it pretty high.

[Edwin]

Yeah, but that reinvention is getting. It's more fun to make, it's more fun to do, and it's more fun for the viewer. So this kind of, like, highly competitive YouTube world is making things better, which is really cool.

[Ken]

I don't know if I'd. If I'd say that we reinvented, I'd say we evolved. That's probably maybe a better word for us, that we just keep evolving and trying to just make everything better. Like, right now, we've been really focusing on building the. The back end of our team, you know, the support of what we are doing. Because it takes so much, as you guys know, right, Just to do this week after week after week after week almost. We're coming on eight years doing this and, you know, just to make it more sustainable, building that back end support, like getting our fabricators, because we're not. We don't know how to build like you. You guys do. And, you know, just all the people on our team, a lot of people used to always be like, well, you got so many people on your channel. Like, I remember back in like, 20, like 18, 20, 19. And now it's like every big YouTube channel has a team around them.

[Ethan]

Oh, yeah.

[Ken]

You know, like, it used to be like, why don't you all just have your own or, you know, how are you gonna make that work? But now it's like, if you don't have a team, it's like, you're not even.

[Ben]

I think the biggest thing for us too is being from Minnesota and having no YouTubers around us. Like, there's no one to really talk to. And like, you know, for the longest time, we had never even met another YouTuber to, like, bounce ideas off of or be like, so how does this work for you? And so we just had to figure it out, like, trial and error for the first, like, five years before, like, you know, kind of get some insider.

[Ken]

Information, but so small you can't really contact anyone.

[Ethan]

And I mean, we had the same thing exactly in the middle of nowhere too.

[Ben]

Just kind of figure out what works for you. But yeah, that's. That's definitely the biggest thing for us, though, is trying to, like, build out the team because we want to do this, you know, for a long time, right? The Runway should be super, super long, as long as we can continue to make good videos, which at the end of the day is the only thing that matters. But, like, trying to Avoid burnout by, you know, just, like, running ourselves into the ground just because it is so taxing. And, you know, for sure, especially on the builds, like, not trying to burn out our fabricators of, like, these crazy timelines and trying to just, like, make that clear, too. If we, like, miss a video upload on a. On a Thursday. We upload every Thursday. And if we miss, people are like, yo, you guys are slacking. Oh, you're just, like, taking a vacation.

[Ken]

Lazy. They have no idea.

[Ben]

It's like, no, we're trying to make a bigger and a better video, and sometimes that takes more than seven days. But I know you guys are on the schedule, too, every Friday, so, you know, the grind of it.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

And it's. It's hard, too, because sometimes it's like, okay, we set up a video for. This is the first time we start this project. Like, we just released the first start of the monster chopper. We're planning on it being a first test drive, but we couldn't get it in time, you know, so it's like, things like that are really hard, and you can't plan for it. And if you have that deadline, then it's, like, weird. We're never really ahead. It's hard to almost either reinvent the video on the last day. Like, all right, now this video is about the first start. Even though there's a bunch of clips of us talking about, okay, to get it running, we got to fix the brakes, this and that.

[Ken]

And then your audience, like, loves that. That's what they. They want to see is you guys building it and figuring it out.

[Edwin]

And.

[Ethan]

Yeah, yeah. And that's. I mean, a lot of them are really there for the, you know, the realism of it.

[Ken]

Like, the people.

[Ethan]

When you show your mistakes and stuff. Like, some people don't show that at all. And we always get comments when we do. You know, when I, like, I build something that totally doesn't work, I have to redo it. They're like, wow, that's awesome. Like, it's cool. Yeah.

[Ryan]

Like, seeing that.

[Ethan]

Yeah, it makes it, you know, keeps it relatable. And, like.

[Ben]

Yeah, I'm sure you get the opposite, though, of like, oh, you idiot. You should have done it like this.

[Ethan]

Oh, every. Every time.

[Ryan]

Every day, there's somebody smarter than you.

[Ethan]

Oh, yeah. Every day. So funny. Especially the chopper build. There's, like, every video has about a thousand experts that know why it's not going to work and how to do it better. Of course, you know, you just can't really listen to Those.

[Ryan]

Well, the thing is, is they're seeing a final product of it. Not in that something is easy or easier to replicate.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

So at the end. Yeah, it makes sense to anybody. Like, even with the steering thing, you did hydraulic for a while. I looked at one. Oh, that doesn't work because it's too slow. But you had to think and make all that happen. And then at the end of it, you go, that's too slow. I have to figure out how to make it better now.

[Ethan]

Yeah, like, exactly.

[Ryan]

It's. It's easy in hindsight when you see the whole thing to go, oh, it's much better this way. But when you're standing there in the garage after 15 hours of breathing, you know, welding dust and all that, and you're like, how the heck does this all have to go together?

[Ethan]

Right.

[Ken]

You know, it'd still be hard to replicate even if you look.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Like, I'd like to see any of these comet warriors replicate. You could even, like, give them everything, the dimensions. I'd love to see them build it.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Like, good luck, man.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Unless you, you know, just.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ken]

I mean, everyone talks big in the comments.

[Ethan]

It's probably going to be a thousand hours by the time it's done. Yeah. Like, I'm not keeping track, but it's. I. I would be surprised if we should.

[Edwin]

On the next big bill.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

That would be actually a really interesting.

[Ethan]

Stat we kind of did on the kernel. Keep track, because we just kept track of days. At that time. You were. Edwin. Was. Edwin was marking each day in the video. Like, it'd be like the first episode, you know, day one, two, three. And so we actually had, like, a pretty good estimate of days. And then we kind of got an hour estimate from there. This one, I just, like. I know it's been six months or something of, like, most of every week working on it, aside from when we're on trips like this.

[Edwin]

But.

[Ethan]

But, yeah, I would assume it's gonna be close to a thousand hours. And, like, not to say that there aren't other people out there that could do it, but you have to have, like, six different skill sets to just. To build. Like, there's 50 parts on that. 50 plus parts that are machined on the mill and the lathe or, you know, one or the other.

[Ryan]

And you need to have an understanding of engines and electrical.

[Ethan]

Right, Exactly. The wiring.

[Edwin]

Like, I did that. Yeah.

[Ethan]

You have to be able to do the wiring. You have to be able to do the welding, the bending of the pipe, the CAD to design the parts in, you know, to cut them. Like it's, it's a skill set that normally to build a product like that, you'd have like eight different people doing each job. And there are other builders out there who do all those jobs. But like the average person watching it is like, they just see it happen and it's like, oh, yeah, cool.

[Ken]

But then on top of that, you're talking to the camera, trying to make entertaining video.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

So like smile.

[Ken]

That makes it even, even harder, right?

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Like doing wrenching on your vehicle is, you know, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard. But wrenching on your vehicle with a camera and you're trying to like make a.

[Ethan]

Make it entertaining.

[Ken]

At least for us, it's. It pretty much doubles the workload, especially.

[Edwin]

The amount of time it takes. Yeah, you gotta wait, pull apart the tank and Steve and I are like, wait, like it takes us a while. Like we got the motion time lapse slider and like lights and like, you know, we're setting up and Ethan's just sitting there like, yeah, hey, let's go, let's go. I want to get this done today, you know, but every time it's. It's honestly kind of fun getting the comments like, this will never work because every time we read them, Ethan's like, like one day I just came up in the morning and he was like showing me like these like, he was like, I don't think it won't work for that reason. He's like, if this works at all, I'm going to drive it to Sturgis.

[Ethan]

I was like, let go.

[Ben]

What is the final idea?

[Ethan]

I mean, the idea is just to make it work, you know, like it's.

[Ben]

We'll be able to drive it down. Do you want to be able to do like trails with it?

[Ethan]

No, I mean, trails is completely out of the question. It's probably going to be over a thousand pounds. Like you're not gonna ride a thousand pound bike on a trail. But I mean, I'm just guessing, wildly guessing. But each tire probably weighs over 200.

[Ken]

So yeah, it would fit in so nicely at Sturgis. They would actually really appreciate.

[Ethan]

Well, they actually. Yeah, somebody from everyone would love Sturgis, like reached out to.

[Edwin]

To us through.

[Ethan]

Through somebody else. And they were like, hey, what do we, you know, what can we do to help you get here?

[Ken]

So, so you're aiming for this summer then?

[Ethan]

Sturgis? Yeah, I mean it's. Dude, the bike's mostly finished.

[Ken]

We should go to Sturgis.

[Ben]

Too.

[Edwin]

Like, yeah, let's do it.

[Ken]

We don't need to jump on your guys video. But we would just meet up with you guys down there.

[Ethan]

No.

[Ken]

And, like, hang. Because I've always wanted to go to Sturgis and maybe get some Wild Hogs, you know, a couple choppers. Maybe Ken will get a trike. I could see him on a trike. Or maybe we do like, a sidecar on Evan's bike. Mike rides in the sidecar. I could see that.

[Ethan]

With his laptop.

[Ken]

Yeah, I could see it.

[Edwin]

Let's do it. That'd be fun to do together too.

[Ken]

That would be a.

[Edwin]

Will built his CBR1000 swapped Honda Ruckus. So it's just like a scooter. But how is.

[Ken]

How is that perceived down there in Sturgis? Like, if I showed up on my R6, would I get my ass kicked?

[Ethan]

I don't think so. I think it's just bikers. Everything's bikes.

[Edwin]

Like we did. Will and I were here for an event, and we happened to be in Daytona at bike week. And there was all kinds of crotch rockets, and there's a bunch of custom ruckuses like the ones with, like, the bags and stuff. And, like, it was mostly Harleys and baggers and choppers. I think motorcycle people just love motorcycles. Like, there's like, maybe kind of clicky areas of bike week, and I assume Sturgis is similar. Like, maybe there's a bar where it's like, only Sportsters or something.

[Ethan]

Yeah, no, there wouldn't be a bar for that. Because early guys call sportsters the girl girls bike.

[Ben]

If you.

[Ethan]

If you r to sportster hard, like, hardcore Harley guys think you're an amateur. They're like, you don't. That's like the beginner bike.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

So that's the Weenie Hut Junior.

[Ken]

I'd probably have to get a Harley just if we're going to Sturgis. I don't think I'd have the nuts to drive my R6 down there.

[Edwin]

Yeah, you should just half track the R6. Put a tire in the front, leave the track in the back, ride that around.

[Ryan]

Oh, my God.

[Ethan]

I don't think you'd be able to.

[Edwin]

Go to Sturgis, though.

[Ethan]

The track would burn up in about the first 20 miles.

[Edwin]

You have to trailer it there. Yeah. And probably, like, get one of those tracks for, like, the snowmobiles that race on grass kind of a thing.

[Ethan]

That would be kind of put bogey wheels instead of. Be fine.

[Ben]

We could do that on the Harley. Like the snow Bike Harley.

[Ethan]

Yeah, there you go.

[Edwin]

A half track Harley at Sturgis.

[Ken]

You guys ever been to Sturgis? I asked that.

[Ethan]

No, no, not at all. I don't claim to know that the chopper is going to be that rideable. I just know that if it's. If it's cape. If I'm capable of riding it, I will.

[Ken]

Yeah, I don't doubt that one bit.

[Ethan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I know it's possible to ride it to some extent. I don't know if it's possible to ride it that far or, you know, that fast, but I'll try.

[Edwin]

Maybe you're not cornering at 60, but, you know, I think it will work enough to like, ride to town or whatever.

[Ethan]

Oh, yeah. And. And that's really my goal is like, I want it to work well enough to ride it to town because, like, Sturgis is probably, I don't know, 800 miles or something. So, like, to do that feasibly, I'd have to. It'd have to be able to maintain comfortably a speed of like at least 60, 55 miles an hour to be able to make that plausible in a reasonable time frame. So if that's not possible, it's fine. We'll trailer it there and then just ride it around while there. But at least to be able to ride it down, that's the goal.

[Ryan]

It's so bringing up, like, our bikes or street bikes that are now snow bikes. You talked about a competitive nature of YouTube, but it is kind of cool that I feel like a rising tide raises all boats. We did the R6. You guys did the Hayabusa snow bike in like the same time frame. It's so we're friends. We didn't talk about it.

[Edwin]

No, I had no idea.

[Ethan]

It's really funny because yours, your, your R6 video dropped like a week before ours, but I was already building the boost. Like, I was. Obviously, you know how the time frames work. Like, but the funny thing is, like, one week and every single comment, you copied the Seaboy. Yeah, totally.

[Ken]

We were getting that. We copied you and you guys did it after us. And we were like this. We can't do anything. Why did a cop get.

[Ethan]

But it's funny because, like, yeah. Oh, okay, sure. I watched your video and in one week, I drove to Seattle, bought a Hayabusa, brought it home, got a timber slip kit, put it on it, and filmed the video. I. I know.

[Ken]

That's what doesn't make sense.

[Ryan]

Just because you wanted to copy us?

[Ethan]

Yeah, just because I was like, wow, That's a good idea.

[Ryan]

It'll be really good to post that next week.

[Ethan]

Also, like, if we're talking copying people, like freaking stunt freaks team did a Gixxer 1000 snow bike like 10 years ago.

[Ryan]

Exactly.

[Ethan]

Like we're all copying someone.

[Ryan]

No one feel like an artist. But I, I think that's. It's kind of funny how that thing, how things like that work.

[Ethan]

It's hilarious.

[Edwin]

You read Austin Kleon? I feel like an artist.

[Ryan]

I just know of it from. I haven't read.

[Edwin]

Oh, okay.

[Ben]

He doesn't even know how to try.

[Ethan]

They make audiobooks.

[Ryan]

Yo, I should do that.

[Ken]

I started hearing too a little bit.

[Edwin]

Well, you said that title and it's funny because I read all of his books every month.

[Ryan]

Really?

[Ben]

How do you have time?

[Ryan]

Yeah, I'm trying to figure it out.

[Edwin]

I'm a nerd.

[Ethan]

He also doesn't sleep a whole lot.

[Ken]

Do you not sleep much or like how many hours of sleep a night you getting?

[Edwin]

I don't know. Like I. Well, because I grew up with insomnia and I didn't really know it. And then when I was DJing, I was like making music all day and DJing all night. So like maybe like three, four hours. I don't know a night. But then like now I sleep like a baby. But just every little free time I have, I just cram in. I'm either like working on YouTube, editing all night, reading creative books. It's just pretty much the world that I live in. And I like don't stray out of that world. But now I probably sleep like six hours a night pretty well.

[Ken]

That's pretty good.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

And we kind of have like a. Somewhat of a 9 to 5 structure.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

So, you know, for personal development out of it, you know, even though it is probably watching YouTube, it's figuring out what you're gonna do.

[Ethan]

But yeah, I mean, you were, you were talking earlier about like long term sustainability and burnout and stuff. And like, I think that's a large part of why we've gotten as far as we have without dealing with too much of that is having a structure of okay, weekends or weekends if you want to work on channel stuff. Sure. But we're not all here obligated to do it. We're not trying to keep that separation. You got to have time for yourself and to do things that aren't. And it really, I think at the end of the day you come back refreshed and motivated instead of just like.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

If you're just doing it non Stop.

[Ben]

Like hamster.

[Ethan]

We're gonna get burned out.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

And we love.

[Ethan]

Except Cletus, apparently, he just lives and sleeps and dreams and just never stops. Right. Like Thursday, when we got here for practice, like, he was just literally running all day. Like, he was running away from me and, like, he was, like, running and jump over a fence, and I was like, do you ever stop running? And he's like, occasionally, yeah.

[Ryan]

Not this weekend.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

But anyway.

[Ryan]

Yeah. That is wild.

[Edwin]

I think, too. We love it so much. It doesn't feel like burnout. Like, because there are some times where we work, like, three weeks straight, you know, stay up all night editing videos and stuff, and then the next day I just wake up and start again. Like, I don't even think. Like, oh, I'm tired. Oh, this is exhausting. Like, I mean, I could speak for myself. I'm such a big YouTube nerd. I, like, just don't think about anything else. So, like, sometimes if.

[Ken]

If.

[Edwin]

If Ethan's gone for a week, or if we don't have something to do for a day, I'll just, like, make a video and upload it on my personal channel.

[Ken]

Like, it's like, really?

[Edwin]

That's what I want to do. Like, I can't stop it. I drive my wife crazy. Yeah. Like, we're on Italy, and I'm like, you. I bet you could make a YouTube channel just, like, with a camera on a tripod filming like, the ocean for three hours and upload that. And people would love it, you know, Like, I just, like, can't turn it off.

[Ethan]

That's insane.

[Ryan]

Part of the insanity of why it works, right? You know, like, why while you guys doing.

[Ethan]

Works obviously in my, you know, court of what we do, like, it's the same thing. I. My wife is in the army, and she's been stationed in El Paso for the last most of three years.

[Ken]

Really.

[Ethan]

So I go down there to visit her periodically, you know, whenever. Whenever I can. And I'll be there for, like a week. And the whole time I'm there, I'm like, either, like, imagining a build or like, sometimes I'll take the laptop and do cad. Like, I don't know how to not be thinking about that. Like, even when I'm not physically do it, I'm still. I'm still. You know, planning builds, thinking up ideas. Like, it's just always there.

[Ken]

I mean, we can relate to that.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

But I'm definitely not making YouTube videos, and. But it's probably really hard for the listener to, like, understand where we're coming from, but there just is something when you're doing creative that burnout can occur.

[Ethan]

Oh yeah, absolutely. And to be honest, I. For a couple of years there, like I was off and on feeling very burnt out. And all along I knew that part of it is like dealing with a long term or a long distance relationship through that as well, like living alone and all of that. But then, then I got on antidepressants and realized that I was actually just depressed. Not like as soon as I switched.

[Edwin]

That, I was like, oh yeah, I.

[Ethan]

Have all the motivation again. It wasn't really. I mean, obviously there's always like moments where you feel burnt out when things aren't going well or whatever. But. But yeah, that changed a lot for me. And like, I always try to talk about it whenever it comes up because like, mental health is super important and, and what we do, I think is really not the best for your mental health. Like for anyone.

[Ken]

Terrible.

[Ethan]

Yeah, it's terrible, right? It's like, it's just, you're non stop in the spotlight, like, you know, reading all the comments and like we all try to like not take them to heart, but you can't read a negative comment and not feel it and like that. And they're just the non stop pressure to one up yourself and, and just keep getting more and more. And it's just like it's kind of an inherently unsustainable concept really. So like trying to make it sustainable.

[Ken]

But it's like how far, how long can you keep doing it?

[Ethan]

Right.

[Ken]

That's why we're doing this back end thing.

[Ethan]

Exactly. And there's, there's, there's totally ways to make it sustainable, but like just that just sort of the nature of trying to always expand exponentially. It's like that there's very few things in, in reality that actually happen that way. And so, but yeah, anyway, our last.

[Ken]

Video was our shop tour. Like it was Wednesday and we were kind of wrapping up on filming. We had been working like cleaning it, getting everything like still. We were still trying to get it done because we had planned for that Thursday because we needed to have it done so the following week we could actually film in there and do this.

[Edwin]

Build that.

[Ken]

We're trying.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

And like I was like, you know, Wednesday. I'm like nervous. I'm like, God, like I really hope this video turns out. Like, I was like worried. I'm like, God, is this even gonna be good? Like, does anyone want to watch this? Like, we got, we got a million people that are for sure. Gonna tune into this. I do not want to let them down, you know, and then ends up turning out great. But.

[Edwin]

Right.

[Ethan]

But yeah, there's always.

[Ken]

People loved it, but no, for sure. Like, I feel you on that. Like, it is. It is very taxing as far as that goes.

[Edwin]

Well, it's a lot of responsibility for, like, just a handful of people to. To tackle, you know, because if you've got, like, a really big ad campaign with a big business and you got a hundred people working on it, part of that responsibility is divided up to make it. But also if it is good or not.

[Ken]

Right.

[Edwin]

Like, if one of our videos flop. If one of your videos flop, it's a hundred percent because you didn't make a good enough video. And that's a lot to like. Yeah, it's like, wow, that video was, like, not good.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Or.

[Ethan]

Or like. Or if you build. Like, for me as a builder, like, if I build something and it just totally doesn't work or breaks like the first time, or. Especially if we're going to an event like this one, obviously, we didn't bring anything, you know, to Cletus's the Freedom 500. We didn't bring anything because he provides the cars for that, and we didn't have anything for burnouts and whatever. But, like, we've done events like race things or going to King of the Hammers or something like that, or like, driving all the way to Moab, and then, like, you get it out on the trail and it just immediately breaks and it's like, well, now what? You know. Yeah, so it's like.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

I mean, not only did your thing just break, but what are you going to do for the video?

[Ethan]

Exactly. Yeah. More so. What? More so for the video, it's like, we got all the way here and now what's the video? You know, when we've had that, the.

[Ken]

Schedule is what creates that, though.

[Ethan]

Like, exactly. It's that worry. Yeah, it's. It's that.

[Ken]

That's the. The choke.

[Ethan]

Yep, 100%.

[Ben]

Do you guys have any, like, creative differences as far as when you're, like, going through making a video because you're the builder, you're the filmer and editor, like, two completely different worlds that have to collab to make it work?

[Ethan]

Not very often.

[Edwin]

Yeah, I don't think so. There's. There's times where there's, like, parts that I leave out of the video are put in the incorrect order. And Ethan's very.

[Ethan]

He doesn't like, I'm very linear. I Like, things to be, like, very logical and.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

And so.

[Edwin]

Yeah. And sometimes, like, describe something and like, it. It just didn't work in the video or it made too big of a lull, you know? And I'm. I'm like, okay, I gotta get around this. And then sometimes Ethan's like, oh, you didn't put the part of me explaining this thing. Or.

[Ethan]

And then that didn't make sense. And like.

[Edwin]

Or you showed the handlebars before. You showed that. Even though I did that first. And I did that first for a reason.

[Ethan]

Right.

[Edwin]

And, like, I'm with him. Like, the people watching our videos do want to learn about building, I think.

[Ethan]

Right.

[Edwin]

At the same time, it's, like, it would have been much less entertaining to do that way. So I think, like, that's probably our biggest creative differences, is I have no problem, like, rearranging the order a little bit to, like, mention. Yeah, yeah. Make it a little more entertaining.

[Ethan]

And I've also learned that that's, like, over time, I've also kind of realized that that's like. Like, that's more important. And sometimes it doesn't matter. I mean, it still bugs me internally, but I don't, like. Yeah, right. I don't let it, like, be an issue because I'm just like, well, whatever. I mean, sometimes Edwin will come up with an idea for a build, and I'll be like, yeah, I don't want to build that. But, you know, or. Or, like, I don't think that's possible or whatever. But. But, I mean, that's just the creative process and stuff.

[Ryan]

So one of the guys said it a while back, and I can't remember what the mutual understanding of that whatever decision you make or you make is for the betterment of the team, you're not doing it. You're not taking stuff out of the video. You don't want to put him in it. You just want to make it better.

[Ethan]

Right.

[Ryan]

And that mutual understanding, no matter how our videos play out, that that decision's made with the group's best intent, always seems to win overall.

[Edwin]

Yeah. In this point of, I guess you could say contention, Will fills in that gap perfectly.

[Ethan]

Right.

[Edwin]

Because Will's, like, the newest guy on our channel, the newest member of the team, and he's full time with us now. And so my really stupid ideas that Ethan doesn't want to do, that he doesn't want anything to do with, like, the Chang Lee. Will is, like, so easy to get.

[Ken]

Hyped on that nice tie break.

[Edwin]

Go for it. It is A nice tiebreaker.

[Ben]

Cigar, Evan? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Edwin]

Well, anything to work on the harder stuff.

[Ethan]

It's not even a tiebreaker because then I'm just like, sure, do what you want. Like, yeah, it gives me time to work on what I want to work on and, like, keeps us going with content.

[Ben]

So I've noticed that you guys have done that, like, especially the bigger builds that you're doing. You need more time.

[Edwin]

Oh, yeah, Those chopper videos were four weeks.

[Ethan]

Yeah. Of. Of labor. Like, for like three. Four weeks of me working on it for one video.

[Ken]

Yeah, you got to pick it up, man. Just do it all in one week on Thursday and then do it all the next week and Fridays for when you post.

[Edwin]

Yeah, I think sometimes, because Ethan's extremely resourceful and builds things right from the get go. So I think sometimes it bothers him if we call it Swindle Brother Project, because Will and I are just goofy.

[Ethan]

We call them. Will and Edwin are the Swindle brothers. They're not brothers in reality, but, like, they have the same kind of energy and attitude. And Will brought the word swindley to us. And it's just.

[Ken]

I don't know if that's a good word to describe yourself. Where's my wallet? I'm gonna keep it away from that guy.

[Ethan]

Yeah, it doesn't mean, like, literal swindling in terms of like, stealing things or. Or conning. It's just like a. It's kind of hard to describe. Yeah, just a general, like.

[Edwin]

Yeah, we have chaotic nature definition on everything. Like, the word premium could mean good or bad or something. Not even that, like, swindley is the same way. But with Will, I think that some of the projects are maybe more wasteful or less resourceful than you would like. So he's like, that is just. No. And then he'll just walk away and work on his own thing. But then we get, you know, we make. We make our video, we have fun, we build a cool little weird contraption and it works out normally. There was one that was so bad that we couldn't even show it on YouTube.

[Ethan]

Yeah, that. That one was. That one was really bad, and I'm really glad it didn't get shown.

[Edwin]

Was it.

[Ethan]

I was going to really be firm in my opinion that it should not be shown. Had that not been a group decision, I would be like, I'm not okay with this.

[Edwin]

Well, like Ethan said, he. His wife is on base in Texas and so he'll leave, like, like a week, a month. Pretty much.

[Ethan]

Lately it's been like, Every other month. But yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Edwin]

So sometimes if we have an idea that we know is, like, not Ethan approved, we'll do it.

[Ben]

That's like Mike and F, dude.

[Ken]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan]

Actually come up with something.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

And so this one. Will showed me this picture of this, like, kid on, like, a homemade raft of, like, plumbing pipes. And he was like, wouldn't it be funny if we made an amphibious go kart with, like, plumbing pipes? And I was like, yeah, that'd be awesome, because you'd been definitely a really good idea. Yeah.

[Ben]

You're like, finally, plumbing pipes. Yes.

[Ken]

How do we bring this back to the name, guys?

[Edwin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ethan]

Edwin had been talking about an amphibious go kart for a while. So, like, they've been. Will brought in the idea of the plumbing pipes.

[Edwin]

Yeah, for sure. And I was like, okay, what if we do it with only supplies from Home Depot? It's like building a go kart that's.

[Ethan]

Amphibious and parts we had laying around.

[Edwin]

With all parts from the Home Depot parking lot. And we're going to buy, like, one of those clear kiddie pools and put it in front of the Home Depot and, like, take the thumbnail, like, actually in front of Home Depot with our golf cart or go kart. We're all hyped on it. I had to do some editing, so I was, like, gone for a couple of days after starting the go kart with Will, and it turned into a complete disaster. Like, he got super stressed out and.

[Ethan]

Like, and demotivated Will. Like, Will is really hyped at the beginning of a project. But then sometimes if he hits a certain point where, like, he realizes it's not the result he wants, it just completely flips and he's like. He just wants to get it done as fast as possible. And it just is a downward spiral because as soon as he loses motivation and gets stressed out, he just starts doing worse and worse work. And then he hates it more and more. It's just like. Yeah, it's not a good.

[Edwin]

At the end of the day, it turned into a thing that had the front end of a banshee and the rear end of, like, a custom go kart type thing with, like, a bunch of smaller than there should be Home Depot pipes.

[Ethan]

Like, two of them, actually, only two, like, three inch, three inch abs. Like, drain pipe with caps on it. And only two of those. It wouldn't have floated with the frame bolted through the pipes. So, like, they weren't even really watertight.

[Edwin]

Yeah, it looks, looked. It looked terrible. It didn't function at All. And we were.

[Ethan]

And it had a knockoff Honda Grom engine in it that barely ran, being the lowest point on the thing. So, like, the engine, you know, it's a horizontal engine. That's how they're designed. But it was, like, under the seat in the middle, and, like, the whole engine would have been submerged immediately.

[Edwin]

Like.

[Ken]

So you had to scrap it, huh?

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

Yeah. That was the only thing that we.

[Ken]

Still like, That's a pretty good idea, though. Like, actually doing it completely out of people. Like, just replace all the metal with pvc. I guess. You couldn't necessarily.

[Ethan]

Yeah. Like, there is a way that it could be done that, wasn't it?

[Ben]

Yeah. Be really cool, though, as a channel that makes, like, quality builds. You were like, I can't let this happen.

[Ethan]

Exactly.

[Ken]

Because, like, well, they got to work.

[Ethan]

I mean, at this point, people know that will build stuff different than I do. But, like, at the same time, it's a channel that we've built together. And, like, there's a. My name is still associated with it. And, like, something that bad, I was like. Like, I don't even want it.

[Ryan]

Yeah, it's got a function.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

Get that.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

But they're later, like, maybe, like, four or five months later, this video went pretty viral, I'd say. It was like a fishing raft houseboat that was made a hundred percent out of these pipes, but it had just a car kind of chassis underneath it, and it had these little flaps that rolled out when you were in the water. So as you turned the wheels of the car, they flapped and propelled the boat forward. And he had, like, a little fishing cooler and fished off of this little boat. And it was with, like, an electric thing with a solar panel. It's super sick. And it was like, I don't know, someone who wasn't speaking English, but he made, like, a montage for English speakers that were, like, just the building and no talking.

[Ryan]

Interesting.

[Edwin]

And it got, like, 7 million views in a couple weeks. And I was like, you're, like, kind of onto something. It was.

[Ethan]

I could see that popping off. It really wasn't a problem of, like, of. Of inspiration. It was a problem with execution. Yeah, right.

[Ryan]

That's what I was gonna say one day. If it ever comes down to, like, where you find out a way to execute. Right. That's a banger.

[Ethan]

So, you know, for anyone listening, if the Seaboys suddenly release a video and amphibious go kart, maybe they did copy us.

[Ryan]

Can we get that out next week?

[Ben]

Did you ever see our.

[Edwin]

Our Hummer Pontoon Yeah, that was pretty hilarious.

[Ethan]

That was awesome.

[Ben]

That one actually worked a lot better than we had ever thought it was going to. Like, we took it out multiple times, took it to the sandbar. That was, like, a mile away. So a mile there, mile back, I.

[Ryan]

Think, really we only made it back on pure luck. Like, w watching how everything was starting to bend. Like, the pontoons would fold down so you could drive it down the highway, and one of the bolts, like, broke on the end, so it was starting to flip up and.

[Ben]

Oh, you think?

[Ryan]

So ideally, it would have still floated because they would have still been attached.

[Ethan]

But it would have been like.

[Ryan]

So we had the weld on the. The thing CR. On the hinge crack. So, like, we were losing structural integrity.

[Ben]

Fast, but forgot about that.

[Ryan]

We'll have to have big wrench just tidy it up a little bit. But it.

[Edwin]

It, Yeah, I think is awesome. It looked like you guys had a great time.

[Ben]

Oh, we did, dude. That thing. We have a great idea for this summer. We'll tell you off camera. It's actually potentially could be the best.

[Ethan]

Thing we've ever done.

[Edwin]

Okay.

[Ben]

So far, like, is this vehicle that we're buying, arguably the best vehicle wherever we could ever buy, and then what we're gonna do with it. Oh, it's so good.

[Edwin]

Oh, okay. I'm getting excited just thinking about it.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

Have you guys ever gotten serious trouble for any of, like, your water stuff? Like, I feel like people are so protective over water and, like, registering boats.

[Ben]

Like, well, we registered the Hummer pontoon.

[Edwin]

And you were fine. So no one gave you any crap for that video.

[Ethan]

I don't.

[Ben]

I don't even want to put that out there.

[Ethan]

Yeah. Okay.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

Well, some of. Of some of the stuff, like, especially with, like, waterways, like, we really want to do, like, drive the Hayabusa snow bike across the lake, you know?

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

But then we're like, okay, but if we fall and that, like, pollutes the lake, one, that is, like, on us, like, that's a crappy thing to do. But two, like, I feel like you'd get in a lot of trouble for something like that.

[Ken]

To answer your question, though, we try not to impede on, like, people's lives or, like, property or, you know, just be an inconvenience. Inconvenience.

[Ethan]

Right.

[Ken]

Like, just inconvenience anyone by us doing our thing. And it might seem that way in the videos, but most time, we're very cautious.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Of other people's time and just lives and their property and whatever.

[Edwin]

So if you Prank someone. You're pranking someone, like, in the family, like, yeah. You're never in, like, random people's faces or, like, trying to cause a stir with the police.

[Ken]

Normally, if we prank someone, it's like us looking stupid and them just being like, this guy's a idiot.

[Ryan]

Like, we're not trying to make them.

[Ken]

We're not ruining their day, you know.

[Ben]

For the most part. What else.

[Ken]

What have we done that was bad?

[Ben]

I don't know.

[Ken]

I mean, we made those valet drivers drive the shitty ass Lambos, but no, that. He was chopping it up afterwards and we gave him a good tip and he was pumped like we were. He was. You guys can stay here all day. Didn't care.

[Ben]

I think maybe like when we had Grandpa Ron pretend that my Lamborghini was his and that people were stealing it.

[Ken]

That one Asian guy, he was. He got it pretty good.

[Ethan]

He. He.

[Ben]

The rest of people thought it was funny, though.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ben]

We come out, he was like, hey.

[Edwin]

It was a joke. It was a joke.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

He was pretty not happy about it, but it was already done at that point.

[Edwin]

Yeah. Well, if you know someone's gonna be bothered that easy, it's probably a good thing you bothered him. That's the way I see it too.

[Ken]

Yeah. I mean, he thought the guy steal everything.

[Ben]

That was funny. That was funny. Well, how long we been going?

[Ken]

I mean, you guys got anything else?

[Edwin]

That's solid. It was cool getting our story out in one place. Like, I don't think we've really done that before, so.

[Ken]

Thank you guys for sharing.

[Ben]

Wait.

[Ken]

Okay.

[Ben]

I. I think we kind of got off. Off track when you were finishing up, but grind hard plumbing, where does that. Where's the grind hard plumbing come from?

[Edwin]

Oh, you wanted to put it on it funny.

[Ethan]

Yep.

[Edwin]

To be on a bunch of race cars, plumbing. And then my friend just had grind hard tattooed across his stomach.

[Ethan]

Not me, to be clear. Not me.

[Ken]

Like, with a curve around his belly button.

[Edwin]

Yeah. Kind of all the way across.

[Ryan]

Was he just in the club one day and he's like, I should put.

[Ken]

Grinding hard up in this bitch.

[Edwin]

I'm not sure what the. The motivation there was.

[Ben]

Okay, so you saw his tattoo and you were like, is it cool if I.

[Ethan]

Well, well, they were.

[Ben]

Borrow that name.

[Ethan]

They were talking about starting the channel before I got involved. And this is. This friend is who Edwin got. Why? Edwin got into drift cars. Like, this guy was drift cars. And he's like, yo, check this out. And it was like, I'm into this.

[Edwin]

And he was like, grind Hard. And I'm like, well, if you just Google that, you know the SEO is going to be a nightmare. And so, you know, like, grind Hard. Work hard. There's already a record label called Grind Hard, naming it after a plumbing company. I wouldn't advise people to do because we still get in a lot of like, like the. The Idaho state government is still like, forces us to be insured as plumbers. Like, even camera guys.

[Ken]

No way.

[Ethan]

Because they refuse to understand. Yeah.

[Ben]

That we.

[Ryan]

You don't do plumbing company.

[Edwin]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

They just don't get it. They're like, no, you're a plumbing company. You said you're a plumbing company. Even though we're registered as an entertainment company. Yeah, they just don't get it, dude. They're just so confused.

[Ken]

That's the thing that happens, though. Like. Like, in our state, we don't have a problem. But I've heard of other YouTubers in, you know, different states where, like, they can't get a loan as a. And They're a successful YouTube channel with over like a million subscribers. And they can't get a loan because the bank doesn't see them as, like, a legitimate business.

[Ethan]

Right.

[Edwin]

Yeah, that one's even a little ridiculous.

[Ben]

They look into it like, wow, like the.

[Edwin]

The loan. The bank looks at your finances and like, wow. Like, this is like a really interesting profit loss statement for a plumbing company. And it's like, yeah, like, you sell a lot of T shirts for a plumbing company. It's like, no, no, no. It's like, this is like an entertainment company. They think something else, you know, and they're like, oh, like. Like you're a tick tocker. And I'm like, oh, no. I was like, oh, no.

[Ken]

Oh, like TikTok.

[Ben]

You're like, yeah, I do plumbing. Tiktoks.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

But every time, like, business insurance nightmare. We still can't, like, get our business properly insured.

[Ken]

Damn.

[Edwin]

Because of the name.

[Ryan]

Plumbers.

[Edwin]

Because of the name and because of what we do. And like, in Idaho has one insurer that they made legal to insure anybody. So this insurer cannot deny you. And it's the only insurance that we can get because they're so confused on what we actually do. The name isn't like, yeah, ensuring Ethan would be hard, Right. He's like racing around Barbie Jeeps and stuff. And we have been denied for that reason. Like, the insurance people are like, oh, yeah, no problem, no problem. Be this much a month and then they'll call me up before they write the policy. Yeah, we Watch your videos now.

[Ethan]

Really?

[Edwin]

Seriously? Yeah, seriously.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

For real. They're like, yeah, we saw this video specifically where at the time we had one of our friends part time helping us like weld some stuff. Like, yeah, this person was underneath a truck welding without like this safety stuff.

[Ken]

Really?

[Edwin]

I'm like, they just saw it on YouTube and they're like, no.

[Ken]

So Mike, Ken and I bought a house together on our first like move in video. Ben went and put like farm animals and stuff in it. Anyways, we were like trying to get.

[Edwin]

Wait, could you. We were that again for me.

[Ken]

Like you put like farm animals in it. So like, like I didn't know and nor did Ken or Mike, but it was like my birthday going in to go move in. Got like my new house family like coming to come see it. They're all proud, you know, that I pulled my money together and bought this house with two other guys. But walk in, there's Benin's like overalls with like a pitchfork and there's like hay everywhere. I had chickens in my room. One laid an egg so good. And then in Kendra there was goats. And yeah, it smelled terrible. It smelled like a barn in this house.

[Edwin]

Like a.

[Ken]

Like a fairly nice house. And yeah, it was. It was a lot.

[Ben]

But I thought it was hilarious.

[Ethan]

It was great.

[Edwin]

J.

[Ben]

And Ken gave great reaction, obviously, as you would walking into your new house with a farm animals in it. But his girlfriend started crying. His mom was so mad. Who's my aunt was so mad at me. I think she might have even started crying.

[Ethan]

Like I just like they were.

[Ben]

Tore the family apart.

[Ethan]

I think they were just.

[Ken]

I think my mom was sad because Alex, my girlfriend was sad because she went there the like a day or two in advance and had two or like two full days of her just like. Like she. She took off and was trying to clean this house and make it as nice and proper for her to move in. And then basically those two days of work were completely put down the drain and then moved backwards. Oh by a lot, by a long shot. And so she started, you know, she didn't even go in. She just started crying and left and then. Which rightfully so she deserved.

[Ethan]

I felt bad.

[Ken]

I felt bad that due to you're dating me, you get, you know, roped in with these idiots and. And you know, your hard work just went down the drain. And that's when my mom was sad about. I think she. And I was bummed too. It was, you know, not. Not the best birthday present. But it was a great video and so my point. We were trying to get our. Our home insurance. Our home insurance dropped us right there, so we had to go and get like, a new. They were like, we're not insurance.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Then we had to go and just off of some farm animals being in your house.

[Ben]

I was like, we're not insuring you guys unless you're a farm.

[Ethan]

I'm sorry, I don't know.

[Ken]

No, we're not a farm, but, yeah, they dropped us.

[Edwin]

Wow.

[Ken]

So, yeah, similar how you think of.

[Edwin]

Those content creator houses in, like, LA where like, 12 tick tockers will live in and, like, do stunts all the time.

[Ryan]

Yeah. They're like, like, all super young.

[Edwin]

Yeah. And they probably lose their insurance. And like, it's not like if you get away with it, then no one knows you did it. Like, if you put farm animals in your house, the insurance would never know, but you put it on Internet for millions of people to see and then you lose your insurance. You know, like, there's. There are some real repercussions for some of these things, and hopefully your insurance ended up being too much more.

[Ken]

But there's a give and a take.

[Edwin]

Yeah, for sure. You got to do what you got to do.

[Ken]

Pretty committed to this, so.

[Edwin]

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, That's a funny one. I did not know that, you guys.

[Ken]

That's an old one.

[Edwin]

I'm gonna have to dig that up.

[Ken]

Yeah, man, we got. We got some gems that are very low view counts.

[Edwin]

Oh, you know that one not even do well.

[Ken]

I mean, it's probably got like a million views now, but.

[Ryan]

But I think it's like I put barn animals in my friend's house. Yeah, something like that. Like, you know what you're getting?

[Ethan]

Classic.

[Ryan]

It's a classic.

[Ken]

Yeah, man. No, this has been. This has been fun, though, getting to chop it up with you guys and.

[Edwin]

For sure.

[Ethan]

And.

[Ken]

And like I said, it's no surprise, the success. I mean, just because of your guys's love for adventure, you have no fear in trying something new.

[Ethan]

And.

[Ken]

And just with that, you've been able to take all these little things from all these different avenues and then put it all together and. And use it to build this awesome channel and business. So.

[Ethan]

Thank you.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

It's just.

[Ken]

It's cool to see and I think a lot that people listening can take from that, so.

[Edwin]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks, guys. And. And next time, we got to get you on the Scent and Bent podcast. I really want to see you guys talk to Will and see what happens.

[Ethan]

Oh, yeah, that'll be hilarious.

[Ken]

Doesn't like us or what?

[Ethan]

You just never know. Like, he's just say some something funny.

[Edwin]

He's just goofy as heck. And yeah, we get Will, Evan and Micah together and I just want to know what that would look like.

[Ryan]

Just watch their brains. Let's do it.

[Edwin]

All right. Let's do it. Yeah.

[Ryan]

All right.

[Edwin]

Sounds like a plan.

[Ken]

Well, subscribe to Grind Hard plumbing company if you haven't already. And yeah. And we'll see you guys next week.

[Edwin]

Some interesting plumbing content is out there waiting for.

[Ethan]

Thanks for having us. One week and every single comment you copied the seaboy.

[Ben]

Did you guys get on like Jay Leno with that?

[Edwin]

The Idaho state government forces us to be insured as plumbers. Like, even camera guy.

[Ethan]

No. I was on a unicycle. Sometimes safety is not first.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Edwin]

Or third, because I have to take the truck topper off my truck to fit the go kart. Your house. That's my house. I was like, it's full commitment now.