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Scottish Watches Podcast #758 : Taking A Gamble On Retro With Farr and Swit
00:41:14
Growing up is a trap! In this episode of the Scottish Watches Podcast, we sit down with Adam Hodge, founder of Farr + Swit Watch Company, a microbrand that’s turning traditional...
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the Scottish Watches Podcast. Got a new guest. Yep. New guest time. New guest. Do you want to introduce yourself so we can get straight into talking about your watches?
- [00:08]
B
Yeah, sure. Hi, my name's Adam Hodge. I'm the founder of Ferran Swit watch company. A lot of people call it Far and Sweat. No issues with that. It's just like any watch company that's, you know, really fancy, you got to have a special way of pronouncing it so Far and Sweat. But I always call it Ferron Sweat because it came from my middle name, which is Ferrand.
- [00:25]
A
There we go. Great intro. And I'm going to tell you to check the show notes. We're really moving at light speed here because these watches, we need to talk about them. But I'll get you one bit of information. Talking about pronunciations, usually it's Dave that mispronounces everything on the show, but my wife wears your watch or one of your watches. You make more than one. One of your watches to the gym. And she calls it the Fart and Sweat watch.
- [00:46]
B
I've heard other ones. I've heard other. Other variation. I've heard other variations, so I'll take it. Oh, what's your favorite fart? And that's always a good one.
- [00:54]
A
That. That is. I like our one better. It's slightly more child friendly.
- [00:58]
B
Yeah, it's not as harsh. It's not as harsh. Right.
- [01:00]
A
So where did the name come from? Obviously you mentioned there about your middle name. The full name itself.
- [01:05]
B
Yeah. So when I started this whole passion project, I was. I had. I had some buddies that I wanted to bring on. My middle name's Farand. Andy Patel is a jewelry designer that I worked with. Actually designed, like, my wedding ring and my. A bunch of jewelry for my. My wife, awesome friend of mine, and then my other friend, Zach Swatolski. So we kind of just, you know, coming up with a brand name is extremely difficult. I think we went through like 100 variations, all the little charts, all that stuff that you do. And in the end I was like, we just gotta keep it simple. And it was like Farrand and Swatowski. Let's put this together. Fer and Sweat. And it just. The three letter or the four letters on each side with Andy in the middle worked, and I'm happy with it. And so far people actually remember it, so that's good.
- [01:50]
A
They do. They do indeed. And this is the episode where we kind of jumped the gun a lot here. I wanted to get lots of information at the beginning but we'll tell you to check the show notes. You'll be able to see all the pictures, the tech spec. There'll be links to the products, the watches and everything we chat about. In this episode, we should probably do the wrist check thing. We always forget to do that. You're the guest, so I'm pretty sure you got something on the WR wrist that you make yourself. But what is it?
- [02:09]
B
I, I and this is just from, from this, this weekend I'm wearing the, the original OG of the Vice, which I think you know, this, this original one got, got it all started with the direction that our company's been going. This was the watch that I had made a prototype of and then finally pushed to launch it and then kind of changed, changed our path, I think for the best and really got us into our groove. So, yeah, the limited edition one, there was only 85 of them. And I know people want me to make more, so I'm trying to figure out a way to do that.
- [02:45]
A
Good. Well, that's a watch we will talk about because I got to see that one online before we found out about your cassette watches, which is another massive thing we're going to discuss. And if you're listening, clicking across to the website to look at the show notes, you're missing out half the story because these are the watches that look like, well, they look like audio cassette, maybe micro cassettes, mini cassettes. They're budget friendly. We're talking less than $40. And they're in a variation of sizes, colorways and new materials. Those are the ones that came across last year at Halloween when we just went a little bit crazy and did the Halloween video in the spur of moment in one day. But we'll talk about that as well. Hold on. I'm getting completely confused by myself. I'm going to do my wrist check and you're going to tell me what I've got on the wrist.
- [03:25]
B
Oh, gosh. Oh. That is the B sides version. If you notice in the upper left, the B, that's the retro Digital Mixtape Volume 2. Because you got to have different volum B sides in the blue moon color.
- [03:36]
A
This is fabulous. It's an LCD watch. People think Casio are the guys that make LCD watches these days. Well, you've decided to change the game and lower the price point and increase the style and the fun dramatically. But let's rewind all the way back. Do you like that little pun there? Rewind. Let's rewind it all the way back and you can tell us how you got into the world of watches because when we bring a brand CEO, a founder, a director or somebody from marketing, it could be a company that's hundreds of years old, or it could be a company that does watches that are hundreds of thousands of dollars. But you've decided to launch a. That is completely unique, stylish, kicking back to the past, but not boosting the price point. And that's what we've seen with a lot of brands, not going to name any names, but some LCD watches released in the last few years that are hundreds if not thousands of dollars. So how did it all begin?
- [04:18]
B
Well, the company itself was just something I'd already been a watch collector. I don't know if you've heard people hear me tell this story, but I was like 18 and on a cruise ship and went to St Thomas which has like watch doors all over the place. And I had walked by, I still just, I can like play the, the video in my head. I had walked by the, this store that had like a citizen pro diver like loom dial and the display was awesome. It was on like a scuba tank or something. So I'm like to my parents like because I went on a trip with them, hey, let me go in and just, just check this out. And you know it had that same, that thing that we all get I think as watch collectors which like gets the bug, gets the heart pumping. It just something about it like gets you so excited. Just you're like, I've got to get this. So at that point I just, I spent 350 bucks which I, you know, was a lot of, a lot of money for me as an 18 year old back in the early 90s or late 90s. And from there I just started getting into the publications like Watch Time and that and then started trying to collect as much as I could with my budget. Progressed, started going to, started going to the Watch Time shows I think fairly early on because when I would go, I'd bring my dad along, who was not a watch guy at the time, and I got him hooked, which was great. But we would go and it basically be an industry like for jewelers and that kind of stuff because we would, you know, have the, the show booth and it'd be a lot smaller. I think I remember like Mr. Singer just setting stuff up when we, one of the shows we went to in Chicago and then it's a big banquet and there's like, they go through like two hours worth of what every brand is coming out with. And it wasn't as big as you know, watch collecting is now, especially with all the micro brand shows and everything. But that just, it kept fueling it and the people you meet and when you have some random stranger say something about the watch you're wearing and it buds into a conversation, I just, that, that just keeps you like more in love with the whole passion and of collecting and, and from there I kind of turned that into a company which like I say is a passion project. I had an idea to make that seaplane and just kind of went full force ahead and said I'm just going
- [06:21]
A
to do this kind of the same with me. I launched the podcast through the passion of collecting watches, meeting people, sharing their stories and wanting to chat about the thing that I'd found as a passion a couple of years before. Ended up turning into podcast, ended up turning into career and here we are today. So it's strange the way that the path takes you but from collecting to deciding to start your own brand with watches. You mentioned Citizen, that wasn't exactly super budget, $350. So what made you decide to move into. Well, you do two different areas. I mean the limited edition you've got in the rest there, that is Mary Synth Wave. It's the. If you go on YouTube and you look for AI remixes, that's the background image style everybody uses. It's GTA, Vice City, Miami Vice, that kind of style in there.
- [07:05]
B
So like when we first started, I kind of did. I was the normal micro brand stuff. Like I had this, I had this goal of getting people into watches. So I did. If you look at our seaplanes, the seaplane, it's subtle, it's got the wave pattern on the bottom, it's got the starry night on the top. The whole shtick is, you know, it's a seaplane. So it's a diver pilot, combo pilot, hands diver, loom diver, you know, 300 meter diver or 100 meter diver. Actually when we launched it and it was safe, it was a Swiss automatic Salita. We priced it at like I think close to 600 when we first came out. My goal was to get these, you know, people who don't like watches into watches.
- [07:40]
A
And what year was that?
- [07:41]
B
That was. We got the watches. So we started the company in 2018 and then got the watch in 2019 and I launched it minutes and hours in Chicago. It was like the first time I had the watch. I was showing it to people and everything and yeah, it was so. And it worked. I mean people liked it.
- [07:56]
A
Did you have nerves going to the show because this is your baby, this is what you love. But are the other guys going to love it as well?
- [08:03]
B
Well, I had, I had a soft launch at a bar. So I had like all. Any. Any of my friends, we were doing like, here's the soft launch. So we like rented out a bar, got them boozed up, and then took pre orders from anybody who was there. So I had, I had, I had some orders done. So I felt good. And people. I mean, like, I thought it looked beautiful. And it, I mean, the sapphire crystal on the bezel, the way we angled it, it just pops on the wrist. So I don't know, I come into things confident. I. I'm like, I do. I do music stuff, so every once in a while I'll jump on stage and. And, you know, rap or whatever. So with that, I kind of learned how to turn those nerves. You talk about where you're like, oh, is people gonna like this into kind of energy? Like when. Especially with shows, it shows I can take any nerve energy, turn it into excitement. Now when I get, When I get. When I get a. You know, my watch is in my hand, my whole full stock. That's a night I don't sleep usually because I'm always like, am I doing this right? Was, you know, was this the right move? I mean, I. I sweated when we launched the, the mixtape one. That one was. That one was one I wasn't sure of.
- [09:05]
A
Where did that idea come from then? Because I've not seen anything like it. If I cast my mind back to being a child, I think we're probably about the same age, because you mentioned certain decades there. So I was a kid of the 80s and the 90s, and I remember Soundwave. I think it was Transformers. Yeah, the tiny little cassette. And I thought that was really cool. That was really nice. I got one as a Christmas present. I remember that. And then last year, the guys at Hot Launch, part of Precision Engineering and Moser, released their concept, and I think it's called Retrovision 85. But that was not 40 bucks. I think that was like north of probably 40 grand. I can't remember the exact details on it. So what made you go in that direction? Because you played it fairly safe, you know, automatic Sellita, Swiss made, yada, yada. Cool design, cool watch, cool bezel. But then you took it in a completely different direction.
- [09:50]
B
Yeah. So, like, our next step, I think, was the. The Lumedale Wayfinder. And from that I had realized these younger people and people who don't like Watches, when I say, you know, a $600 price tag, they're like, oh, my God, that's outrageous. Us watch guys, we, like, we were like, oh, hey, that's. That's a what? You know, we know the specs. It's a great deal. So then I got. I used that sweeping quartz from Seiko, the VH31. Put that in, just dumped a bunch of lume and went as high grade on the loom as I could. And that kind of got more people, like, if they. Even if they didn't like watches, they see the glow on that thing, and they'd be like, wow, this is super cool. So I got, like, I dropped. I dropped a little bit lower the price point, and I was able to scoop up a lot more people. And that's what I liked doing, was getting more people, like, into watches. And then from there, we kind of went with the vice. But if you're asking specifically about the price point on the retro digital watches, I can tell you where that came from. That one's got a full backstory.
- [10:47]
A
Tell us the full backstory and then lead into telling me the story of what made you decide to make a cassette watch. But tell us that story first.
- [10:54]
B
I want to give credit to my son, who he was probably 10 at the time. And I had. There's. I. I do stuff with, like, there's a company called Giddy Grip Skateboards, and they make, like, garbage pail kid stuff. And they had, like, a garbage kill kid watch, which is kind of similar to the old FW91. So I bought, like, three of them. I was like, oh, this is fun. I'm gonna give my kids a watch they can wear and they can tell the time. Because I bought, you know, the. What's the Swatch kids watch? Yeah. So I bought those for them, and it didn't go over as well. They, you know, for me to be like, hey, put your watch on. Hey, put your watch on. Like, you could tell that. But I had given him the garage show kids watch, and they didn't take it off. And, you know, I think it's because they could read the time and it was digital. And then my son just one morning was like, hey, you know, dad, why don't you make one of these? And my initial reaction was like, oh, just it. That doesn't fit to what I'm doing. You know, I got 400 plus watches. They're analog. I'm trying to get people into automatic. And then I was like, you know what? You got to step back and think about this. So I walk my dog, who. My dog is 15 right now. She's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's on her. We're enjoying our last bits of her, but her walks, like, help me think. And I think I've done like 80% of my design while walking my dog. So I had already had the Vice edition, which had vertical sub dials. And I had this plan to switch the sub dial sideways and then make the cassette tape and use the sub dials as like the, the inner wheels of the cassette tape.
- [12:21]
A
The reels. Yeah, yeah.
- [12:22]
B
I kept, I kept drawing it out. It wasn't working. It wasn't fitting. I'm trying to square. Put a, like a, a rectangle thing inside of a circle, right? Like, literally I'm trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. And it just wasn't working. So then I, I was like, oh, my God. Like, as I, like started walking, I remember thinking like, this is perfect shape for the cassette tape. I was like, I. I've. I've got to get. This is gonna, this is easy. I can change colors. I can make it clear. I can make it clear black. So as soon as I got back, I started like, just putting some ideas down and later revisited and really just mashed it out. Like, here's the cassette tape. I want, I want the handwriting. I want to have the clear, the all clear. Like the cassette tape that was clear with the case. And then I remember the black back, the black and clear cassette tape back. And the box just kind of came. I was like, I'm going to put it in this, like, real simple box. It's just going to be a square box. It's going to look like cassette tape. I tried to work in ways to put like, mix the mixtape list on there where I'd list out the songs I wanted. But then I was like, okay, you know, I want the customers to have their own version. I'm still trying to figure out a way to get an interactive makes your make your mix type of mixtape where you put your, you know, your, your mix together. But I mean, the whole mixtape and explaining to my kids, the listening to the radio to, you know, pirate the song when it comes on, and when the DJ stops talking, you hit play and record and then you get it. Yes, I've, I've got it. And the art of like handing someone a mixtape, putting together the mix so they listen to it and the emotions that the songs I'll bring to them, you know, it's like your little love letter, your secret little love letter to them people when you give it to them. So I feel like cassette tapes, like vinyl. I mean, vinyl, you can, when you play it, you've got, you know, you can talk about the, the way it scratches and, and the, the way it captures the guitar and you. Vinyl's cool, right? Cassette tapes, like, functionality wise, they go bad, they get unwound, they don't sound great, you know, but I could still take a Walkman, pop my cassette tape in and go snowboarding and never have the thing skip. That was about the only thing they had going for him, was they didn't skip. But I still. I just still remember opening the cassettes, the smells, the crinkle, you know, putting them in and putting together. And I have a. I have a love for. For cassettes that will never die. And just taking that with what my son had told me, mashing them together and then creating the models, which I was like, I didn't tell anybody. Like, I made this. And I mean, I mentioned stuff to Andy and Zach because I was at that point kind of doing 90, 95% of the work. It just sifted away a little bit. And I didn't really tell anybody other than, hey, Max, I got something coming. And I didn't tell my, my family or anybody. And then, like, everything showed up. And I remember I showed my dad and I was like, hey, you know, what do you. What do you think of these? Like, I just bought like a thousand of them.
- [15:10]
A
And he said, where's the eight track version?
- [15:12]
B
Just about. He goes, oh, my God, you're going to sell the shit out of those. And I was like, I sure hope so. If worst comes to worst. I got a bunch of free giveaways, I guess, you know, But I designed the blue with the black. I have the all clear. They show up, I love them. I'm like, I give them my kids. My kids are pumped. I'm pumped. My wife thinks they're great. She actually likes the watches. She doesn't wear watches. So then, all right, I get my boxes and then I'm like, all right, I'm. I gotta. I don't want to send an email to my subscribers yet because I can't pull that back. But what I can do is I can post on Instagram and if people start, you know, slinging mud at me, all right, I'm just gonna drop it off. Never happened. Or, you know, whatever. So this is where it's funny when you talk about nerves, like, this is the one thing where I was, like, sweating when I was doing my post, I just took a couple, like a wrist shot, dropped a couple pictures of the. The mixtape out there and actually like it, you know, talked internally with Andy and Zach and both of them were like, I don't know, this kind of, like, devalues our brand, I think. And I was like, I don't know, it throws something else out there. And then I had other people I showed it to, they're like, you gotta sell this for a hundred bucks. I was like, I would much rather someone buy three or four of these at, you know, 25, 30 bucks, and then want to buy the next ones versus selling one for a hundred. Like, I want to get these on. I want someone to buy this for the kid. Like, I like that. My kids like this. So, yeah, so when I did that Instagram post, it was. It was a relief because everyone did. They were excited. It was. It kind of blew up from there and, you know, writers started picking up on it. Once I started fully launching it.
- [16:40]
A
What year was it you launched?
- [16:41]
B
I want to say. So it must have been. Maybe it was last year. I feel like it was about. So I had my, My. My B sides. I had my B sides come last. So maybe it was about the summer of 2004, because I. I put on the box summer 84. So that was 2004. And then summer 85 was the latest launches, which happened in 2025.
- [17:04]
A
Did you say 2004?
- [17:05]
B
No, no. 2024. 2024.
- [17:09]
A
I like your monologue there. I know you're a little bit worried about going on and talking for too long. That doesn't happen when we bring a guest on the show. It's all about them. It's their story. That's what we want to find out about. And I'm hearing this live for the first time. Just like you listening at home, at the gym, in the car, walking the dog, wherever it is you do. Because we don't do that on the show. We tell us your story first and we'll see if it's good enough to come on. We want it live, direct and raw. And that's exactly a bit like recording pirate music from the radio station. And we did that as well. That's an international thing in the UK, on a Sunday afternoon, we had the top 40 countdown. Yeah, it was on BBC Radio 1. A whole host of different DJs would do it, from Mark Goodyear to Mike Reed to whoever it was that week, and we would do exactly the same thing. We would wait until they shut the hell up and they would release the pause button. And as soon as we heard it starting to fade out or we heard the breath getting drawn of the announcer in his microphone, boom, hit the pause button again. It was an art, it was mysticism to be able to do it properly. And that has been lost ever since we could record CDs. The mixtape has died off, the legacy of it. And the thing is, you couldn't just put it in an order. You couldn't shuffle it, you could program it. If you're making a cd, you're editing digitally, you can move it around to your heart's content. This was live to tape, so you had to get it right. And bringing that into school, playing at lunch break, playing it at PE is the background music or whatever, that was just something that children have lost to the eras. And it's the only generation that did that. Because prior to that, you couldn't record in vinyl. You couldn't record wax cylinder. That's it. Tape is the only recordable medium versus CD that came after and vinyl that came before. So it holds a very warm place in my heart. As well as in the UK especially. That's where computer games came. So Commodore 64, Sinclair Spectrum, the games came on cassette and you could copy them once using back to back tape decks before the audio quality dropped so much that the games wouldn't work. So, yeah, holds a special place. But. Well, I've been chatting to you. I've been going through my WhatsApp messages and you were talking about kids loving your watches. Well, our video editor, Gav, I gave one of the watches that you sent across to him for his kid because it was tiny, this little watch, you do them in all different sizes. And he went to a local museum event where they had lots of. It's called Retro Reels and it's vintage movies. And when I say vintage, I'm talking 40 years ago, not that vintage. We're talking Gremlins, we're talking Doctor who, we're talking Star Wars. If I was to change camera and ask you to have a look at this, what would you tell me this is here?
- [19:34]
B
Oh, he's got a DeLorean in the back.
- [19:38]
A
Yep. This is Gav's kid and he is wearing one of your watches because it fits perfectly. And this is him.
- [19:44]
B
So. Oh, look at that. See, that's. That's what. That's where I win the most. I feel like is. Is is the getting on these kids and they. And the tell people tell Me, like my. My son, my daughter has not taken it off since I gave it to them. That is huge to me. That's huge. I mean, that's a huge win.
- [19:59]
A
There you go. Look at this mail.
- [20:00]
B
Oh, my God, that's awesome. That's so. And what's funny is, you know, most of these kids have no idea what a cassette tape is. They just like the watch itself. And I don't know. That's what. That's where it's been, like, universally. People enjoy it. So I'm like, that's spectacular. That's awesome. That makes me smile. That made my day.
- [20:19]
A
Well, I will send you these pictures across with his permission, of course. And I'm pretty sure he'll let you guys post them because he's quite cool about that kind of stuff. But that was iteration one, and the one that that kid is wearing there is tiny because when it arrived I thought, what's that? Is that like a ring watch? What's that going to be good for? And we found out what it was good for. The one I'm wearing is slightly bigger and chunkier and. But the whole point of you sending across some watches for us to look at, and we get all kinds of stuff, it can be Casio G shock. We've had stuff from Swatch right the way through to armed guards outside when they bring Greubel forces and things that are like half a million bucks for us to photograph and video. They don't leave the premises while it's happening. And then they shuttle the contents back away into a safety deposit box in the back of a van and disappear. Now, when you sent across all the different releases, there was one in there that was just about to hit the market. And when I opened it up, I thought, why has he sent me a video cassette? This was like a VHS perfect reproduction vhs. Not just outer sleeve, but the physical cassette part inside. So what was the story behind that? Because the marketing behind it as well, it was phenomenal.
- [21:25]
B
Thank. No, thank you. Yeah. That you had good timing because I was putting together the little care package for you and I finally had all my pieces. So I was like, oh, I'm going to. I don't even think I told you about it.
- [21:35]
A
You didn't tell me anything.
- [21:36]
B
I just put it in. I put it in and I was like. And that's what I've actually had. People who buy that, they do the same thing. They buy the kill count. They buy it and they give it like. I just had my friend Ryan buy this for some of his friends, you just give it to them and when you receive it, you don't even like, you gotta. I want people to explore it, so. And I like to just hand it to people and let them. What am I gonna do with this and what is it? I never heard of this movie. And you know, the whole opening and discovering process of oh my God, there's a watch in here and this thing has got a blood splatter on it and it's. So that's. Yeah, this came because of. I had, I had. The cassette tapes were going so well and I was like, the natural progression is let's get some vhs. That's the other thing I miss again, horrible medium. The fact that we could copy on it was awesome because you get the two side by side and you could rent from Blockbuster or your local video store and then copy, you know, make a copy, right? And you can sometimes get the really long one and get two movies on one one vhs. But like I said, it's a natural progression, a funny medium. And I was like, the first. And this is going to be a whole series, Ricky. This is the next one is going to be even more, even more fun. But this one right here was just. It's the easiest because it's a slasher flick. I mean, that's like. When I think of grimy, you know, VHS's and the videos, the horror movies are the ones that like The Friday the 13th, the Nightmare on Elm street, you know, those all are the ones that like really like the rated R movie, right? The big. The slasher flick, which I think just is awesome and a ton of fun.
- [23:07]
A
Well, I've told the story in the show before, but you'll not have heard this. My introduction to horror movies happened by accident, by accident on my front, to the detriment of myself and my mental health the next few years at school. But to the bemusement of the people in my school who were controlling video nights. This was a thing in the 80s that happened probably across the UK, if not abroad as well. And we were in primary one or two, so we were five or six years of age. And the primary seven kids were given free reign to run video night, which was really Video afternoon. When school finished, the teachers buggered off. It was changed days, you know, everybody was happy. We didn't have a responsible adult in charge of things. So these primary seven kids who are about to head to high school decided to play. Not a Disney movie, not a children friendly movie, but the Gate, which is a horror flick, I think It's Stephen Dorff's first movie, I believe. And we sat down, age 5 and 6, to watch this dreadful thing. It was our first introduction to anything grotesque. And that scarred me for life, but also prepared me for life. Because since that moment, nothing ever scares me again. So I have lived worry free for the rest of my days. But when this arrived and you didn't tell me, you mentioned there, you know, the care package arrived. I opened it up and I thought maybe they've made a movie. Let the guys at Moser make movies. The guys at Studio Underdog make movies. And I pulled it open, looked at it. First thing I noticed was cover art. Genuine shit hot cover art. As if it is a genuine movie. You mentioned slasher flicks like Freddy Krueger, Nightmare on Elm Street. I don't. Even Amityville, all these different movies of the past. Friday the 13th. And it's got everything on. It's got the fake sticker that says horror, which looked real. You touch it and it's not real. In the corner you've got your logo that says Farm Sweat Home Video. You've got used movie on sale. You've got 50% surcharge if not rewound on the side. Everything about it is legit, even the back where you've got the R rating at the bottom. It's a mix of everything together, all the best parts. And then you get what looks like the cassette inside. And this is a storage box so you can't. If you try to put. And I almost tried to put it inside, it doesn't have the reels in the back. Sounds like a VHS manger.
- [25:12]
B
Oh, you're right.
- [25:13]
A
When you open it up, it does. And when you open it up, that's where the watch lives. So the present. I don't want to say bad things about the watch because the watch is also fantastic. But the presentation is equally as good. It's a 5050 combo and it's the unboxing experience. We talk about Omega wasting a lot of cash with our solid mahogany openings. When they do the limited edition Speedmasters, you look at it once you put it away, it's cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars to the price for that experience. This is worth it because this probably didn't cost hundreds of dollars to do. Especially at the price point you put the watches out. But the feeling, looking at it, the reminiscing, the nostalgia, the kick to the gut, opening this up and going, I've not seen a new VHS in 25 years.
- [25:55]
B
When I had I had started working on the idea and the original, just a VHS watch. It's very similar to the mixtapes. Comes in a box. And I was like, you know what? Wait a minute. No, we've got a. We got a great box. We're going to put it in a. We got to put it in a cool box. So it's just. I put that up to the side. I'm going to put in a cool box. And then I had actually met somebody. His name's Trevor. Shout out to him. He's actually does, like, he does a movie production. So him and I had had a lot of different lunches and we had talked about partnering up on it and making a trailer. And I had this whole idea of a trailer. In the end, it just got very expensive because I'm trying to keep this thing cheap. And I was working with a guy from, you know, who does professional movie work. So in the end, we're like, hey, let's just separate this and we'll. We'll come back to this later if this works out for us. So I. During all that, I had been searching for, how do I make this, you know, cool box? And I came across these guys called Brain Shutter Studio on Etsy. Let me see if I got one. I do.
- [26:48]
A
Cool.
- [26:49]
B
So they sell these storage cases, right? These little storage cases, and looks like the set tape. And, like, you could store all your stuff in here. You have cool stickers. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. So I had. I had sent them a note. It's like a mom and pop out of North Carolina. And I had sent them, and I had sent them a message just like, hey, I really want to talk with you about using you for a case for my watch. I heard nothing. Later on, I'm like, I really want this to happen. This is just too cool. Like, they're. This is. This is what I wanted. I have this whole vision because I got. I got to get this done. So then I start pounding them on. On Instagram, like, oh, we thought you were spamming us or. And I'm like, just have. Have a call with me. I'm like, I'm. I'm serious. And I will buy a lot of them if we can get a price that works for us. And then I sat down with them, and it turns out they're horror heads. So they were like, oh, this is. This is really cool. And I mean, they 3D print them. So this is all, like, basically them. Yes. This is a 3D printed. The case is 3D printed. So I was like, how fast can you do like 500 of these? And I give them, give them months. I give them months. So they're like, we can do this. We can. Let's. This is going to be awesome. So a big shout out to them if you don't. I have their logo in the, in the lower corner. I think I put their logo on this as well. Yeah. Brain Shutter. Brain Shutter Studio. So if you like horror and like the whole idea of the cassette tape stuff, really cool stuff, check them out. I had, I had an artist do this, the, the COVID for me. And I basically, I tell people I went down this one. I went down a rabbit hole on. Because I, I basically wrote a fake movie. Like, I had this and I'm gonna do this for the next one too. Like, I, I, you know, I got the whole synopsis of a movie. I want to have the killer killing everybody, killing someone every hour. And then I want these, these group of kids, these teenagers to go after him. And then he finds out and then he goes after them. So that was like my whole then. And that's why, like, I had that. I was talking to the movie guy, Trevor, and it was like, holy crap, this is going to get expensive. I'm going to have to make a movie. But yeah, so I went down the whole path and then I met a guy who could, who could do the COVID for me. He gave him the kind of idea, I want to have like one of my watches on the COVID for fun. And I love Easter eggs. So I think if you look at the actual cassette tape, I made the FBI warning, I wrote like FNs and I, you know, writes rights. I love that crap. Like, I'm all about how much stuff can you hide in there that people may or may not pick up on. And then the guys who pick up on it, you're like, dude, you're in the club. You know, you saw, you spotted it. So, yeah, so it just, it all slowly and this was a long process. I barely got them in time for Halloween. I think I got it to you. Like, I was. If I had had him a month earlier, we would have had a much bigger splash. Like, I just, I was like maybe four weeks short. But again, it's horror, so it's good all year round. But it's. People are, yeah, people. And they're still selling like crazy and people are still like, as excited to get them and, and happy about it. And yeah, the watch is just, it's just the stainless steel version with the blood splatter and that one Took a lot of time because I was trying to make it not cheesy, but cheesy. Like right on the. I try and get right on the cusp of, you know, where you can enjoy it. And it's not ridiculous, I guess is the way to say it.
- [29:52]
A
I'm growing a picture in my head and this is the first time we've spoken this recording. We never even did a call ahead of time. We messaged a couple of times by email. You're super busy. We were busy over Christmas. Then we whatsapped briefly just to set up the recording. So this is my first introduction. I'm absolutely loving it. I'm learning so much and I'm getting the passion. Everything you say, you could have done this cheaper. You could have done a million things that cost a million dollars less than all this. You couldn't have chased those people to make. I didn't even realize this was three. I'm genuinely telling people now.
- [30:21]
B
Amazing, right? It's amazing how I have never smooth.
- [30:24]
A
This is High Fidelity 3D printing. Now you've said it. And I'm looking extremely close in the corners, I can just about tell. But guys, look in the show notes. I will do a close up of this. You cannot tell. It's so bloody good. And I've got a lot of 3D printed stuff here. So that is phenomenal. The fact that they're horror heads. Even better. I've been to million, not millions. That's a bit of an exagger. I've been to a ton of horror festivals here in the uk, up and down the country, all kinds of stuff. Especially before the pandemic. There's one in Edinburgh that used to happen called Dead by Dawn. And it was 24 hours of horror movies. You go in at 6pm One day and you get out at 6pm the next day.
- [30:59]
B
Oh my God.
- [31:00]
A
And they had curated limited edition releases, first prints. They had the big ones as well, obviously mixed in and amongst. And then suddenly out of nowhere, you would have some of the actors and the stars coming out to chat to you.
- [31:13]
B
Wow.
- [31:13]
A
And it was just phenomenal. They don't really do them anymore. You know, things kind of died off after the pandemic. It's not quite as vibrant a world out there, but this, it just ignited the fires in my brain. Because when it arrived, and I've told this story before, I'll tell it again. It arrived the day before Halloween and we were chock a block. End of the month we were doing some Halloween stuff already. This arrived and the Wife came home tired and I was tired, but I looked at it and thought, we need to do something here. So I had just pulled out of storage a 14 inch Sony Trinitron TV for my retro gaming. I was going to get all my consoles set up and I had a collection of VHS players because I still get VHS tapes that I haven't digitized yet.
- [31:53]
B
That's awesome.
- [31:54]
A
So they were sitting there and I thought, I wonder if I can put something together in the space of a couple hours tonight, get it edited in time for Halloween. So I set up some red lights because obviously I've got all the studio equipment set up a camera. Convinced the wife this would be a great idea. She's always game for a laugh. And we set up the tv. We had that genuine, not filtered, not a plug in, but genuine snow when the analog TV can't latch onto a signal. So it was crystalline away there, but like Poltergeist. And we got her to pretend, pretend to put the cassette in the machine. Obviously didn't or would have ruined it. And then we cut to the actual watch itself and we put some suspenseful music on it, edited it up quickly, put it online. It launched Halloween. It was phenomenal. Response we got, was tremendous. And it all comes down to the fact if you hadn't had the brains to think of this, if you hadn't put the ingenuity into it, and then that sparked my creativity, we wouldn't have done that. People wouldn't have seen it. And we get lots of messages from people saying they bought the watch because they saw the video. So everybody won.
- [32:53]
B
And that video was surprised of me, I think, I think it just popped up and you had like tagged me. I was like, holy crap, guys, this is awesome. This is, is. It's incredible. And, and like you said, you, I know you had to rush it because I had just sent it to you and the timing was just perfect. So props to your major. Thanks to your wife too. For, for being game.
- [33:12]
A
Yeah, no, she's up for these kind of things. And last year I'd moved house and got married. It was a very busy, stressful time in life. As we came out of that, there was a couple of creative things we did. I wouldn't say viral videos because it didn't pop off for like tens of millions of views, but they were fun. And watches are all about fun. I do enjoy the hobby, I do enjoy the podcast, but this just let me relax a little bit more and get creat creative in a way that you can't really do with a vacheron. But when you get something through that's got a bloody knife on the actual emblem on the front of the cassette, you've got free reign to do what you like. But the question probably now is where are you going to go next? Are you able to tell us about anything that's happening?
- [33:47]
B
Yes. So what's really great is this the whole VHS line, the Be Kind Please Rewind series is just, it's just kicked off. We've got, you know, our kill count of course, but, but my goal in all of this was to get this, this model launched and then do follow up features is what I'll call them. So the next one which is coming out is going to be even more fun. So we've got right now the slasher flick, right. The next one which I feel is going to be perfect is we're going to do late 80s early 90s buddy cop theme. And I'm pulling in a lot of watch friends of mine, influencers, you guys will probably all know to do the trailer. So once it warms up here in Chicago, it's absolutely frigid right now, it's freezing. But once it warms up in Chicago here, we're going to, with our friends start doing our own little think of like a Sabotage video kind of thing for the trailer. And we're going to pull as many people who want to be on it, who want to be in it into the mix to just try and have a huge fun video, fun trailer for this, for this next feature which is, and right now my, my slow part is I gotta finish up my fake script and, and, and finish up the watch. I got the idea. We actually have some great ideas for these watches coming out. There's gonna probably maybe do a couple of different versions of it. But yeah, it's gonna be. I want, I want people to be like all my watch friends and Ricky, I'd love you to be a part. I mean you'd be a great villain.
- [35:18]
A
Oh yeah.
- [35:19]
B
Kidding me. 100 but just like everyone. And what's funny is like I talked to my friends about it and when I throw it out there and they're like holy cow, I can't wait. When are we doing this? When are we doing this? I' warm up and then we're just gonna, we're just gonna run and gun a bunch of stuff. I may have like a spreadsheet and like say like hey Ricky, I need you to you know, turn around the chair and, and put your finger to your, to your mouth and say I'm evil.
- [35:39]
A
I don't get that link whatsoever.
- [35:40]
B
But you know, I'm just, I'm. We're gonna, we're gonna have, I want to have so much fun with, with that that everybody's enjoying it and, and then, yeah, we're working on the watches right now. So it's, that's next. And of course, you know, I've got a whole idea of the kid, the magical kids movie, the raunchy comedy. It's. There's so many ways you can go with all the, you know, when you think of like the, the R rated section in your, in your video store. That's what I want to do is get the movies that you could, you really want to grab. When you're a kid.
- [36:08]
A
I get the feeling you've never grown up.
- [36:10]
B
Well, what's the point? I mean, you have to, you have to tap back to like you said, the excitement that, you know, look, I used to sell, I used to sell lubricants for air compressors, which was a great gig.
- [36:22]
A
I'm glad you said the air compressors at the end of that sentence.
- [36:24]
B
I got a lot of, I got a lot of shtick as being the lubricant salesman. But I, it was a great gig and it was awesome. I traveled the world. You know, I had an office and an employee or in China. So it was a great, great gig. But I was traveling too much. Time was coming to an end. This was kicking off. This has allows me to do a lot more of my like passion and creativity and making things. So it's, it's been awesome. Yeah.
- [36:46]
A
So that is us almost at the end of a show. It's been phenomenal getting to know you, finding out about the impetus that drove you to decide to break out on your own, do something different. Because we love speaking to people that create micro brands. We love founders, CEOs, people that invested time, energy, blood, sweat and tears into something that benefits the watch collecting community at large. And you did it differently. You could have gone down the tried and tested route. You didn't, you changed, you pivoted and you've won. And the stuff that you're doing continuously because looking at progression from automatic with that, as I mentioned, synthwave look right the way through to the LCD watches with the cassettes through to kill count and what you're talking about coming down the line next, these are watches everybody should have because they're affordable. We sometimes have to caveat when we chat and say, yeah, 500 pound diver watch that's economical, that's affordable, that's budget friendly. Not for everybody, not in this day and age, but something around about 20, 30 bucks. That's something you can buy. That is something you can get as a gift for a friend, a family member or somebody. You want to get into the hobby. This is all about enabling people because this is a good thing to enable for.
- [37:48]
B
Exactly.
- [37:48]
A
Check out the show notes, go across, check out these guys on their Instagram channel. Check out their website. Some things are in stock, some things aren't in stock. But I believe you've got a newsletter so people can sign up and then when new drops come, they can find out first.
- [38:00]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Go to the site and sign up and you can always get notified when things are back in stock. That's my challenge is getting the watches, packing them up, getting them to the warehouse and getting them in stock and keeping them in stock. It's a lot. I'm going to have a video here coming up with the people who actually do the packaging for us. I use a local autistic school which has kids. It kind of progresses them from high school into adulthood. So we utilize that to help doing our packaging, assembling the packaging for the, for the mixtapes. But yeah, it's all about scheduling that, getting this stuff in. It's common cash flow problems and all that stuff you have with micro brands. So please don't be too frustrated when you show up and something's not in stock. And if you really want it, you can always email me. I always have a little secret stash usually of stuff. So I deal with a lot of custom orders too, where someone will be like, hey, the negative, you know, atomic Purple is out. Don't worry. I got something I can, I can, I can tweak your order and send it to you. So I do my best to accommodate because I know how that feels. So thank you.
- [39:03]
A
Thank.
- [39:04]
B
I really appreciate you. You know, you've taken and done a lot of support for us, helped push our brand out there. It's a, it's a huge help. So I love that you're a nerd like me. That's, that's pretty cool.
- [39:14]
A
Safe space is right, potentially even bigger across oceans, across the world, across the globe. Yeah, we're all connected by this crazy obsession in the hobby and people are into watches, they're into cars, they're into cameras, they're into tech, they're into things of the past when things are a little bit easier and life is a little bit calmer. But that is the end of the show. It's been phenomenal getting to know you, bringing you on, having a chat will not be the last time. And I think if we keep in touch a little bit more, maybe ahead of time, we can not. You won't tell us exactly what's coming, but you can give us a date that things might arrive and then we can leave a little bit of space in our schedule so we can do a little bit more. Because that was fun creating a video at Halloween and it was the right amount of, I don't know, adrenaline and fear and dread to get something done on time for it to render out, because the computer sometimes doesn't render the videos properly and you have to try again. No, it all came together in a perfect crescendo. So that is us. We're out twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. You can also check us out on YouTube. We have one episode a week, usually on a Saturday, sometimes a Sunday morning, but generally a Saturday. And obviously, check us out on Instagram, ottishwatches, our website, scottishwatches.co.uk, and if you get any comments, thoughts, feedback, positive, negative criticism, we love it all. Drop us an email. Never DM us on Instagram. And email address is infoscottagewatches.co.uk so all it remains for me to say is, good luck with the next one, you won't need it and we will catch you again soon.
- [40:33]
B
Thank you. I love it. Thank. You, sam.