Episode 1625 - Mike Elias

Summary

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast – Episode 1625: Mike Elias

Release Date: March 13, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 1625 of the "WTF with Marc Maron" podcast, host Marc Maron engages in a profound and revealing conversation with Mike Elias, the creative force behind Ship John, a bespoke clothing and accessories brand based in Portland, Oregon. Unlike Maron's typical guests from the entertainment industry, Mike brings a unique perspective as a craftsman deeply rooted in traditional craftsmanship and modern design.

Early Life and Craftsmanship

Mike Elias hails from a humble background, growing up in Divide and Crickton, a small town in New Jersey, where his father worked as an oyster fisherman. This rugged upbringing instilled in Mike a strong work ethic and a profound respect for craftsmanship.

"[...] I am a guy who was possessed with the need to create and manufacture and design."
— Mike Elias [16:35]

From an early age, Mike immersed himself in hands-on work, starting his first job on an oyster boat. This environment not only taught him the value of hard work but also ignited his passion for creating durable, high-quality products.

The Birth of Ship John

Mike's journey into the world of fashion began somewhat serendipitously. While exploring various job opportunities during a cross-country trip, he stumbled upon a niche that perfectly blended his love for craftsmanship and design. Initially focusing on making custom cycling hats, Mike's dedication and attention to detail quickly garnered attention.

"Everything I've ever designed is something that I see missing in the world or existed. But they don't make it the same way anymore."
— Mike Elias [19:47]

This led to collaborations with local bicycle builders like Sasha White, who recognized the quality and uniqueness of Mike's work. These partnerships were pivotal, allowing Mike to expand his skill set into metalwork and bike frame fabrication, further enhancing the Ship John brand.

The Will's Jacket: A Milestone

A significant milestone in Mike's career was the creation of the Will's Jacket—a durable, oil-oiled waxed twill jacket that became a cornerstone of Ship John's offerings. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Will's Jacket symbolizes a blend of traditional materials and modern design, embodying both functionality and style.

"The Will's Jacket is like a big deal to me. I wear the thing all the time and it's a unique thing."
— Marc Maron [04:35]

The jacket's popularity soared, becoming a local favorite in Portland and beyond. Its success was a testament to Mike's commitment to quality and his ability to create pieces that resonate deeply with wearers.

Personal Trials: The Hatchet Attack

Amidst business growth, Mike faced a life-altering challenge. In [minute] 61:27, Mike recounts a harrowing incident where he was violently attacked with a hatchet outside his Ship John store. The assailants attempted to rob him, resulting in severe head injuries that required immediate surgery and the implantation of a metal plate in his skull.

"My wife remembered that one of them threw a soda cup down. They grabbed that for evidence."
— Mike Elias [65:20]

This traumatic event not only impacted Mike physically but also emotionally, leading him to seek therapy to cope with the aftermath and the lingering effects of the injury, such as aphasia.

Resilience and Recovery

Despite the severity of the attack, Mike's resilience shone through. Supported by a strong community and dedicated employees, Ship John continued to thrive. Mike emphasizes the importance of self-acceptance and maintaining a strong foundation, lessons he learned through both personal and professional hardships.

"I'm doing exactly what I've always wanted to do, and I'm doing it exactly the way I want to do it."
— Mike Elias [16:32]

His recovery journey reinforced his commitment to craftsmanship, driving him to innovate and expand Ship John's product line while staying true to its core values.

Philosophy and Business Ethos

Mike's approach to business is deeply rooted in authenticity and quality. He prioritizes creating lasting relationships with collaborators and ensuring that every product reflects meticulous craftsmanship.

"It's the most important thing. We provide a wellbeing opportunity for these people, and that's the most important thing."
— Mike Elias [73:02]

He maintains a hands-on role in design, ensuring that each piece—from jackets and jeans to utility knives and vintage-inspired accessories—embodies the Ship John ethos of durability and timeless style.

Innovations and Future Endeavors

Looking ahead, Mike is focused on refining Ship John's operations and exploring new avenues in metalwork and handcrafted tools. His obsession with Stanley knives and utility tools underscores his dedication to blending traditional techniques with contemporary needs.

"I'm working on more. I just made this little key release."
— Mike Elias [74:42]

Mike envisions a future where Ship John continues to grow organically, maintaining its integrity while expanding its diverse product offerings.

Notable Quotes

• "What are the major components of craftsmanship is how you use your hands and how you apply your intellect to doing something manually."
  — Mike Elias [45:28]

• "Everything up to the point of speech coming out."
  — Mike Elias [63:28]

• "I'm happy. And we try to pay our employees well. I want to continue to improve that trajectory of making sure they're taken care of better and insurance and all that shit."
  — Mike Elias [73:20]

Conclusion

Marc Maron's conversation with Mike Elias offers a deep dive into the life of a dedicated craftsman who turned passion into a thriving business. From humble beginnings in New Jersey to establishing Ship John as a respected brand in Portland, Mike's story is one of resilience, creativity, and unwavering commitment to quality. His experiences, both triumphant and challenging, provide valuable insights into the world of craftsmanship and the personal journey behind creating something truly meaningful.

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This summary captures the essence of Episode 1625, highlighting Mike Elias's journey, the creation and significance of Ship John, personal challenges faced, and his philosophy towards business and craftsmanship.

Transcript

[Marc Maron]

You just heard Bill Burr on this show a few weeks ago and now you can watch him in his natural habitat, the standup stage. Bill is coming to Hulu on March 14th with his Hoolarious standup special, Bill Drop Dead Years. Get Bill's provocative and unfiltered point of view on everything from marriage and parenthood to dating advice. And yes, dropping dead. See the new hilarious standup special Bill Burr, Drop Dead Years, Streaming on Hulu March 14th.

[Mike Elias]

Lock the gift.

[Marc Maron]

All right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers? What the Buddies? What the nicks? What's happening? I'm Marc Maron. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. It's one of the originals. That's what I'm told. I just watched a documentary about myself last night. I'm in Austin, Texas. Hopefully I'll be home. I guess it will be today. When you hear about this. I've been on the road for a week and that doesn't sound like a lot, but every day is at least two to three days in road years. When you're out here and I'm ready to get home, I get a little isolated, a little strangely lonely out here. But here's what's going on. Let me tell you what's going on today. A couple of things. My special taping has been announced. I'll be doing two shows at the BAM Harvey Theater in Brooklyn on Saturday, May 10th, 7pm and 9:30pm There's a pre sale going on today from 10am to 10pm Eastern Time. Pre sale code is is all in all caps, one word. Tickets are on sale to the general public tomorrow, Friday, March 14th. So first off, let's go into who's on the show today because this is an interesting episode of wtf Because I talked to a guy. He's not the kind of guy I usually talk to. I mean, he's as a person, he is, but he's not in entertainment. He's not in music. He's not a writer. But he is a guy. I would. What would you call him? A craftsman. A craftsman of clothing, of accessories. He makes things he wants to make out of brass and out of fabric and out of leather. His name is Mike Elias and he is the proprietor and creator and designer for a place called Ship John that is up in Portland, Oregon. I've mentioned it before because I wear his stuff all the time and it's not because I have to. It just fits me and it suits me. But he's got an interesting story. This is sort of delray Dean Delray turned me on to Ship John years ago. Dean's kind of a fashion plate. Dean is a guy who's always see of a certain type. I mean, it's not for everybody. But there's a world that Dean exists in that has to do with boots, watches, jackets and eyeglass frames, I would say are the primary things guitars as well. He knows about. He knows about a lot of things. T shirts. But one time we were up in Portland and he was opening for me and he knew this guy that had a little workshop and a very small little workshop store, and he designed jackets. I was kind of into the jacket idea. It was a jacket that Dean had. He did some shirts. But I was already on, on board with Filson from many years ago, from probably 20, 25 years ago. And this guy was in the same zone as that. I wouldn't call it work clothes. Some of it is sort of work oriented. But he made this jacket called the Will's Jacket. And it's a very specific and unique design and. And it's fucking awesome. And oddly, Mike Ship John himself designed that jacket 10 years ago. It's the 10th anniversary of the Will's Jacket tomorrow and a lot of you are like, who cares? What is that? What does that mean? It's some guy who makes a jacket. Well, you know, to all of us, no matter what we do, when there are sort of markers of our life, of our career, of our art or whatever it is, it's a big deal. And this jacket is sort of a big deal. And I'll validate that. I will say it's a big deal to me. I wear the thing all the time and it's a unique thing, but ultimately it leads to a bigger conversation. He also gave me an oil oiled tin cloth shirt that I wore on Colbert that was way too hot. It was really not that kind of shirt. But since then, like, there's a I'm wearing Ship John stuff most of the time, whether it's the shirt or the jacket, occasionally a hat. He just sent me the Ship John version of a utility knife, of a Stanley knife, which he has an obsession with, which we'll talk to. But the story is interesting because he didn't set out to do this, you know, he comes from an oyster fisherman family in New Jersey. And the story is great and he's a real, like, he had to learn this craft, not unlike anybody who has to do something creative or that they're possessed to do. And the arc of the story is pretty fucking interesting. And I deal with them all the time. We exchange records, we, you know, we hang out when I'm in Portland or he's down here and you know, there's a lot of stuff that he's involved with. Like I've always been a little, I've always felt like a little bit of a fraud when I wear, you know, boots and jackets that are sort of meant for, you know, hard work, which is sort of why he created the jackets. But, but there is a look to it and it's just something I've landed on. I'm not going to feel too guilty about it any more than I feel about my personality in general in terms of, of being a fraud. I mean it's a, it's a tricky thing and after just seeing that documentary, I've got, I've got some answers about me and they're, they're not the easiest to sort of take. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a lot on their plate right now. If you're also trying to manage the many things you've got going. One way to simplify everything is to put the experts at SimpliSafe in charge of your home security. We've been using SimpliSafe for almost a decade and not only do they give us peace of mind, they always provide the best, most up to date methods for protecting your home. For example, Simplisafe's Active Guard Outdoor protection can help prevent break ins before they happen. They use state of the art AI powered cameras with live professional monitoring agents watching your property to detect suspicious activity. They can also activate spotlights, contact the police, even talk directly to people on your property. Hey buddy, get away from the door. I see ya all before anyone has the chance to get inside your home. Plans start at just a dollar a day with no long term contracts or cancellation fees. Right now head to SimpliSafe.com WTF to get the best value in home security. WTF? Listeners can get 50% off their new Simplisafe system with professional monitoring and their first month [e-mail] WTF that's simplisafe.com WTF for 50% off. There is no safe like SimpliSafe. So identity, self, who you think you are, who you really are. Look, clothes have a lot to do with that. Haircuts have a lot to do with that. But that's sort of the same with personality too. This is sort of, it was kind of a heavy few days out here in Austin. Steve Fine Arts Premiered the documentary about my life, focusing a lot on the loss of Lynn Shelton to everybody that loved her, including me. And sort of, you know who I am and I have ideas about who I am and sometimes those don't really match up with reality. I would say that's probably true most of the time. And I kind of talked about how my first viewing of the doc was a humbling experience, but to see it again was even more humbling and sad and entertaining. I mean, I could see it was funny and how it would be funny and touching to people, but to me, kind of re engaging with the grief and re engaging with, you know, what I was going through and re engaging with. Building a comedy set from that was heavy. But I gotta be honest with you, the stuff that had the most impact on me and I imagine some people, certainly the newer generations have experience with this, but we didn't. I mean, I'm 61 years old and there was a period in time when I started doing comedy in the 80s where there were VHS of me that were existing. They existed, I had them, I had not looked at them in many years. And there was stuff I shot at my house with the family's home video camera. And that to me was really oddly the most disturbing stuff to watch in a kind of cringy way. The emotional stuff that I'd gone through in the past four years or five years was not. I could re engage with that. But all the early stuff of me trying to figure out who I was on stage and really trying to figure out who I was as a person is a little tough to watch because the truth is, and I speak to specific people who are either self aware of this or suspect it. If you didn't grow up in an emotionally grounded household that was relatively healthy, where you were, you know, enabled to kind of complete yourself, you know, it's a rough go and you know, you try on a lot of personality pieces, you try on a lot of jackets and shirts and boots, you try a lot of haircuts, you try a lot of glasses frames, you try a lot of music. You read books about like how to be who you are. It's a very specific type. I don't think it's a unusual and I don't think it's unusual in my audience, but. But it's a real thing. So to see myself at different stages in age, but also at different stages in trying to find a voice as a comic, it was a little much and it really kind of fucked with me. While I was watching the show. Because when I'm watching this whole thing and I'm like, you know, I. Am I. Am I still doing that? Am I. Have I landed in me? I mean, I would hope so. And the truth is I have, and it's not great. I know your experience of me is what it is, and I give you as much of myself as I can, which is not nothing. It's an awful lot. Seeing how I am from an outside perspective was really. It was kind of daunting because many of, you know, over the years of listening to me, you know, my need to. Or propensity or compulsion to compare myself to other comics to. To think that, you know, you know, why. Why am I not more popular in a broader way? And the thing is, I never really set out to do that, and I always was kind of against it. So what was interesting about watching this thing is I'm exactly really what I set out to be. But there's always this other part of you that judges your it's not even a grass is greener kind of thing. It's more like that guy seems to have his shit together on all levels. And look at him presenting himself and being broadly popular and making a fortune and being good at what he does. Why am I not that guy? So that's not really a Grass is Greener in the sort of traditional sense. It's just sort of like, why can't I be a whole person that seems to be in control of their being? Why? Why. Why am I always falling horizontally? Why is my brain on fire all the time? Why am I always catastrophizing and thinking the worst of myself? Why? I have answers to these questions, some of them that I've talked about on this show. I have frameworks that I've used over time, psychological and recovery stuff. But. But it's still kind of. It kind of eats at me, you know, like, you know, what. What? I think I'm for everybody on some level, but the truth is, is I'm not. So what was kind of revelatory about watching this documentary about me is that, you know, I'm turning into this. I wouldn't say eccentric character, but a character nonetheless. And I've always noticed, particularly with presidents who start out young and then get old, that there is a turning point somewhere between 55 and 65, where they become the phase before the end form. Not old, old, but, like, this is the beginning of old. I can see it in their disposition, their hair, the wrinkles on their face. And you notice this with actors and Everything else, but it's sort of hard to notice for yourself. But like, I'm like on the outside of middle age here and I'm watching this movie and some things haven't changed, but some things aren't going to change. And at a certain point, some things, you know, you're going to have to just accept about who you are. It is a whole package. And it's been sort of like that way for a while. So I think the big lesson for me was like, all right, well, whatever I thought I was going to be and whatever, on occasion I still think I could be or still still think I should be, is. Is. Is not relevant to the fact that I. I am who I am for better or for worse, and that I think that getting to that point sooner than later with yourself is probably a good thing to kind of like give yourself a break a little bit. The fact is, I'm doing exactly what I've always wanted to do, and I'm doing it exactly the way I want to do it. And so. And there is really no other way yet that voice persists. So removing that guy from the equation means that there's some radical self acceptance that has to happen. And I guess it happened. I think it happened because of this doc. And it's such a weird, emotional documentary portrait of me that when it was over, you kind of get that feeling like, well, it's sad this guy died. You know, when I had to go up on stage, you know, with Stephen after the movie, I got up and I'm like, this guy's still alive. There was a moment where I'm like, I'm still alive. This is not one of those docs where you're like, God, I wish I. I'm glad I've been introduced to his work, but it's sad that he's gone. No, I'm here and I'm walking up to the stage right now. So it was an exciting weekend and I was wearing a Ship John shirt when I got up on the stage because it seems that the. The Ship John shirts seem to fit the. The me who I am currently and presently, and it seems to be pretty much all of me. And the guy who designed that shirt is on the show today. So it is, as I said before, Tomorrow, March 14th is the 10th anniversary of the Ship John Will's jacket. And Chip John is releasing a special decade edition of the jacket tomorrow. You can check it out at shipjohn Us. It might not be easy to get one, and you might have to wait for It. But let's get into the life of Mike now. This is me talking to Mike Elias in the garage. This is an outlier type of talk for me. But the truth is, is that I wear all your clothes.

[Mike Elias]

You got a bunch of them, but I wear like.

[Marc Maron]

I. They're like, in terms of on stage. I've been wearing this tour. I wear that shirt that you got on, but doesn't look like that. So you did that on purpose?

[Mike Elias]

Well, I've been. I just been wearing this non stop for the last two and a half years.

[Marc Maron]

And you wash it?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, yeah, I just wash my. When it's stinky.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And then it just fades out like that.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Now, what is that fabric called?

[Mike Elias]

Sashiko Ori. It's kind of the. If you look at Japanese Kendo Gi. It's the fabric they made for that. Okay.

[Marc Maron]

So now an idea like that. Now that's like a fairly traditional western cut shirt. And you get hip to this fabric because of. You got people in Japan.

[Mike Elias]

I got some people in Japan. And I fell in love with a shirt in Japan that was made out of this.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Bought it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

It was a small company over there, bought the shirt and then got back here. And you could only find a really thin version of this that's here.

[Marc Maron]

Made in America.

[Mike Elias]

The fabric is not made in America.

[Marc Maron]

Right. But it's. The idea of the fabric is supposed to be that fabric. But the fabric that you found here was not made in Japan either.

[Mike Elias]

It was made in Thailand, I think. Some knockoff of this.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And really accessible. And it. You know that if you. A lot of the shirts you see made like this are made out of that kind of cheaper version.

[Marc Maron]

Right. But this one's heavy, man.

[Mike Elias]

It's heavy. And I. Once I set my sights on kind of what I want to make something out of, I just need to do that. I can't cut the corners and get the shitty version.

[Marc Maron]

So for this vision of this particular shirt, you've got to track down a manufacturer in Japan.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And you found a guy.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, found a guy. They still make it the traditional way.

[Marc Maron]

What do you mean? Like they. They grind the stuff to make the dye and then they like. I've watched like Instagram reels of things that are either Chinese or Japanese where they start with, like, rocks.

[Mike Elias]

This starts with a plant. It's indigo. However, I don't know the exact process.

[Marc Maron]

They spin the yarn. Yeah. It's like crazy to watch it.

[Mike Elias]

It is insane. And you know, this is a machine made. It's not Somebody hand making this. Yeah, but it is. It's a special version of it in that. It's. It's the thick actual.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it's heavy, man. Like, I. When I pack that shirt, it takes up, you know, a lot of room.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, you gotta. You gotta make way for it in the suitcase.

[Marc Maron]

Like I bring. I bring that shirt on the road now. And I also perform in the. The moleskin. That green moleskin western that you make with the brass buttons. Those are the two. The two performing shirts for this tour.

[Mike Elias]

I'm glad they're with you, Ben.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, they're the Ship John specials. And then I got the Wills jacket. And I guess you just got my booking agent, one Joe. He got one Joe Schwartz.

[Mike Elias]

No shit.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, he just ordered it regularly. I didn't hook you up, but I guess he got it shortened a little bit. And he said, yeah, it seemed really long. I'm like, that's because Mike cuts everything to fit him. Everything's gonna be a little long.

[Mike Elias]

I mean, the whole basis of the brand is just shit that I want. Yeah, that's right. Everything I've ever designed is something that I see.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Missing in the world or existed. But they don't make it the same way anymore. So I'll just.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You know, this shirt is the. It's not. It's not a complete copy, but the old US made wrangler shirts, okay. They were cut, trim, they were denim. They were good denim. At a certain point they started making them elsewhere and made. Made him out of shitty denim.

[Marc Maron]

And then it just turns to garbage.

[Mike Elias]

So I was like, those are. Those are now missing in the world because I stopped making good ones. So that's when I started making my version.

[Marc Maron]

Well, this. I think this shirt's a pre sellout. Filson.

[Mike Elias]

Gotcha. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that. The. The history of that company, the tragedy.

[Marc Maron]

Of that company, it's.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, I stop. Sure. I mean, but the history. There's so much good history in film. It's an inspiration for a small little brand like me. Like what they've done over the years.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, well, I mean, like. Well, so where does it start, though? I mean, because I know, I know you're just a Jersey guy.

[Mike Elias]

Yep, yep.

[Marc Maron]

But like, not. Not North Jersey. I come from North Jersey.

[Mike Elias]

I come from. I always say, I don't come from Jersey, I come from Jersey.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You know where Divide and Cricket's called? It's a little small town in the. The closest town people seem to know is Vineland. Yeah, that's it.

[Marc Maron]

I Don't, man. I mean, I know. Here's what I know. I know Bergen county, and I know the Jersey Shore, and I know Jersey City. So I know, you know, Patterson, Wayne, Pompton Lakes, Haskell Butler, up where my grandparents were, and I know Jersey City, and then I know, like, Monmouth County.

[Mike Elias]

Gotcha. Yeah. See, I'm two and a half hours.

[Marc Maron]

Which way? South of Monmouth.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. Well, where's Mammoth? Is that Central?

[Marc Maron]

It's on the. It's a beach. It's like. It's on the water. It's by Asbury.

[Mike Elias]

Oh, okay. Yeah. So, yeah, at least an hour and a half to. From there. You know where Cape May is? All the way down the bottom.

[Marc Maron]

No, but, like, what's the bottom of Jersey?

[Mike Elias]

That little dingle that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, sure.

[Mike Elias]

So that's Cape May.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

I'm on the Delaware Bay side, half hour north of there.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Mike Elias]

On the bay.

[Marc Maron]

So that's barely Jersey.

[Mike Elias]

No, it's. That's actually Jersey.

[Marc Maron]

So we can have an argument about what's real Jersey. It's not where Bruce Springsteen comes from, man.

[Mike Elias]

No, it's not. It's not.

[Marc Maron]

But what is it Right up against Delaware, then the Delaware Bay.

[Mike Elias]

So if you cross the bay from where I'm at, you'll hit Delaware.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. You know, so what do you. What do you. Are you. You're on the water, then?

[Mike Elias]

On the water. My dad's an oysterman. Crab commercial fisherman.

[Marc Maron]

Oyster guy?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, oyster guy.

[Marc Maron]

So you grew up with oysters?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, my first job was on an oyster boat. Really?

[Marc Maron]

Is that where Ship John comes from?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, Ship John is a lighthouse right in the middle of the Delaware Bay called Ship John Shoal. And that was kind of a point of reference when we're fishing as a young kid or working. We're south of Ship John today, north of Ship John. You know, that kind of thing.

[Marc Maron]

So wait, this is before oyster farms.

[Mike Elias]

They're farmed?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, they are. You know, but even back then, they.

[Mike Elias]

Do it differently out there where they'll. They'll dump the shells on the ground and then dredge the oysters. Whereas on the west coast, like on the Willapa Bay, the tide will go down and they actually string the shells up and pick the oysters in some instances.

[Marc Maron]

So the hipsters figure out a way to pick oysters.

[Mike Elias]

The hipsters do kind of.

[Marc Maron]

I just know that when you go up the coast outside in Northern California and stuff, and up into Washington, you get all the different kinds of oysters. It just seems like someone got the idea to breed these things and Then them on strings so you could pick them off.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, yeah. You just go out there and pick them like tomatoes.

[Marc Maron]

But that's not the old school way.

[Mike Elias]

I mean, old, old school. They would tong them. They'd have these long tongs where they, you know, I think 12, 15 foot tongs. They just reach down there and pull as.

[Marc Maron]

As many as they could. So this is more efficient.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, the dredges are more efficient.

[Marc Maron]

Right, Because Jersey, like. Are they the big oysters?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, medium, not giant, but yeah, because.

[Marc Maron]

Like there's some like. And then you got all the clamming. No clamming in the family.

[Mike Elias]

There's a little bit of not. Not in our family history. Maybe my dad's grandpa or something like that would clam.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. None of those big cohogs or steamers. What are the steamers? Those little ones, little necks.

[Mike Elias]

They're good.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, that's what I remember about the Jersey store. The Jersey shores go getting those bucket of steamers.

[Mike Elias]

Melted butter on these things.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, just pull the thing off the tongue.

[Mike Elias]

You eat. Do you still eat shellfish?

[Marc Maron]

I haven't eaten. I haven't eaten any of the. Any of the meats of sea or land.

[Mike Elias]

What do you get? A cantis two years.

[Marc Maron]

They actually make it now? Well, yeah, I mean, it's only been a couple years, but they make a vegan Ruben there. That's awesome.

[Mike Elias]

No.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Okay.

[Marc Maron]

Some companies doing a. Like a vegan corned beef facsimile.

[Mike Elias]

Gotcha.

[Marc Maron]

Which is just the, with the spices and then you can get, you know, the sauerkraut, vegan Russian dressing. Avocado instead of cheese. They grill it. It's fine.

[Mike Elias]

I bet it's good.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know. I don't miss the meat. What am I gonna tell you?

[Mike Elias]

You don't have to.

[Marc Maron]

So how'd you avoid becoming a fisherman?

[Mike Elias]

I moved to Philadelphia.

[Marc Maron]

But what was the insight? You got brothers and sisters?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, they're all still kind of around that zone. They're not fishermen. Brothers work at their labors. They work on the highways. They fix the roads up and down New Jersey.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Bridges and like that.

[Marc Maron]

And your dad's still around or no?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, he's still around. He's still working on boats.

[Marc Maron]

He's still on the boat?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, he's. He. He won't quit.

[Marc Maron]

So oysters and what else?

[Mike Elias]

Crabs. He used to go out and scallop boats every once in a while. That was like maybe two weeks out in the ocean.

[Marc Maron]

So he's like a bottom feeder guy?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, he's he gets what we want from the bottom of the bay.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah. So he's. Get those Delaware crabs.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. The Blue Point.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Or not blue.

[Marc Maron]

Sorry.

[Mike Elias]

Blue crab.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah. Blue crab.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What are those other ones that the. The bigger ones? Dungeness Dungeon.

[Mike Elias]

That's West Coast.

[Marc Maron]

That's up by. Up by. Near. You are by Washington. Right.

[Mike Elias]

So damn good.

[Marc Maron]

They are good.

[Mike Elias]

One of them.

[Marc Maron]

And then with those ones down in Florida, like Joe's crabs, those bigger there. Those. There's another type of crab down there where it's kind of like a Dungeness.

[Mike Elias]

I never eat crabs in Florida.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, well, you got to go to Joe's Crab Shack or whatever.

[Mike Elias]

I'll make it a big deal. It's a big deal.

[Marc Maron]

Those crabs, like.

[Mike Elias]

I've heard of it, but I never. I never realized what. What kind of crabs they do have down there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So you're. So you basically are in a family of fishermen.

[Mike Elias]

Yep.

[Marc Maron]

And everyone's kind of hanging out and what makes you want to get the. Out of there?

[Mike Elias]

I just. I just didn't quite. I. I love the way I grew up. Yeah, we grew up, you know, rabbit hunting, deer hunting, fishing, all the. All that kind of. It's the woods.

[Marc Maron]

From bow hunting or gun hunting?

[Mike Elias]

A little both.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So you can. You can handle a bow?

[Mike Elias]

I can handle a bow. It's been a long time.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And what you guys do, shoot like one deer a year nowadays.

[Mike Elias]

They're. I don't want to give. Give out any secrets on how to do this. They. They fill the freezer up.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And that's pretty much all the meat.

[Marc Maron]

They'Re eating for the year or for six months.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, for the. I mean, for the year.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Oh, really?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Same with. Well, rabbits too.

[Mike Elias]

We'd eat rabbits sometimes. We'd give them to, like, some of the poor families around. We kind of did it for sport. They never went to waste.

[Marc Maron]

So. Grew up. You grew up shooting Those guns? Yeah, yeah. 22 shotguns. Big ones.

[Mike Elias]

Shotguns. Rifle. Some rifles.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Handguns. For fun.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You know.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Gun shot in the hand one time with a.22.

[Marc Maron]

What'd that do to you?

[Mike Elias]

It just. It's. I think there's a little shard of it still in there, but it wasn't. My buddy sprayed the shell sitting there with a. You know, the hairspray torch. Yeah, he sprayed a shell that was sitting there and it shot me in the hand like a dumb. Dumb.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that's some fun kid stuff.

[Mike Elias]

Fun kid.

[Marc Maron]

What do you Think was gonna happen.

[Mike Elias]

I don't know if he did think.

[Marc Maron]

So. So you really grew up in that, in, in the, in that sort of rugged outdoor, working class world?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, yeah. Just middle of the fucking woods riding dirt bags from when you were a kid. Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Because like, there's something about Ship John like there. And it's always been the way with me in certain clothing in that I know I'm not living the life that the clothing honors. So I've got to temper my, my, my purchases to acknowledge the fashion and not come off as a poser of any kind.

[Mike Elias]

I don't really buy into any of that. I just think if somebody wants to wear something, wear it. The thing about it is, is like, I didn't come from the fashion world.

[Marc Maron]

No I know. At all.

[Mike Elias]

So it's just like these are the clothes that I think are nice and will last a long time, whoever wants to wear them, you know. Now the, the like, workwear fashion is kind of a big thing.

[Marc Maron]

It's been one for a little while.

[Mike Elias]

And then we have people who our. And actually beat the hell out of it, you know.

[Marc Maron]

So for real, for the work.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I think Filson's the same way. But like, I just remember I used to do a joke a million years ago when, you know, shirts, you know, work shirts were getting popular back the first time when I was in college, these guys would get these shirts with like someone's name on it. And I had a joke about like, yeah, that must have belonged to somebody who had a job.

[Mike Elias]

Well, you got a job kind of. It didn't, you know.

[Marc Maron]

Well, you know, I'm just careful. Like I had an experience where. And I've told this story before, but not too many times where, you know, I was in, in Boston and one of the, the DJs who used to show up at comedy shows to kind of promote him, he always had these amazing leather jackets and Vansen leathers.

[Mike Elias]

Oh, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Was in Quincy. So I'm like, well, I asked him, I said, where you get it? And he's like, you gotta go out to Quincy to Vanson. So I'm like, I'm going out there. I'm gonna go to the source, you know. And I remember, you know, trying on a jacket and a guy like, fitting me, like, who was there. He's. He says, he says, you know, well, if you're going to be traveling pretty high speeds, you're probably going to want something that fits a little snugger than this. I'm like, I'm Looking for something, a sweater will fit in. I'm going to be doing a lot of walking in this.

[Mike Elias]

Did you feel like you were appropriating motorcycle culture with that thing on or. Of course, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But, like, I. And I. Like there was one I wore a lot, but I always have a problem with sweat. I think Dino ended up with Delray, ended up with both of those. I think I just gave them to him. If you wanted to sort of move them or sell them. Because the one I really liked, like, I sweat through. So now I got to, you know, really, I don't sweat as much as I used to. I'm maybe a more relaxed.

[Mike Elias]

But it's the meat. You got rid of the meat, maybe.

[Marc Maron]

I think I got rid of the stress, too, some of it. In terms of the nerves that made me sweat. But like, with. With leathers, they're porous. So, like in. If. If you sweat through a leather, it'll get that. You know, that. You know that salt stain on it, and it fucks it up. And there's nothing you can. You can't get rid of it.

[Mike Elias]

It wants to stay there.

[Marc Maron]

It's gonna. You're gonna fuck it up.

[Mike Elias]

You can hide it. It'll show its face again.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah. You can't. You can re. Dye it, I guess. But it was just. It bummed me out. But that's why when I got that, I think I got some fabric from you, like the. The most waterproof fabric you had. You just sent me a little piece of it. I don't remember. Because I wanted them to sew armpit things into that suede thing.

[Mike Elias]

Oh, I remember that now.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

That was that jacket in there. The old one.

[Marc Maron]

The Japanese one? No.

[Mike Elias]

Oh, the Japanese.

[Marc Maron]

The Y2.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I had the. A guy, the tailor I know, kind of fabricate some sweat things.

[Mike Elias]

That was a sweat?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. To put it inside it.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Just so. To have a little boundary so I don't. The suede up.

[Mike Elias]

No. All right.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Makes sense now.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, that was a. That was that idea. So, okay, so what do you do in Philadelphia?

[Mike Elias]

Working odd jobs. I was a valet parker.

[Marc Maron]

You just wanted to go to Philly because.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, well, I was into skating and I. I like rollerblading, actually. Not skateboarding. I was in the rollerblading.

[Marc Maron]

Really? That doesn't seem like a man's game.

[Mike Elias]

I thought it was, but I did that when I was a kid.

[Marc Maron]

And you're not doing pools on rollers? No.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, all that.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, you can do them on handrails.

[Mike Elias]

And all that with the rollerblades? Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Okay, but did you. How'd the guys on skateboards look at the rollerbladers?

[Mike Elias]

They didn't like us, if I'm being honest. But I did get. One of the guys who built FDR said I was the only. FDR is a skate park in Philadelphia made by skateboarders.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And I know I knew how to skate concrete, so he noticed that, and he's like, you're the only rollerblader allowed.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really?

[Mike Elias]

So I got a little. Little badge from that.

[Marc Maron]

Who was that skater that I met that knew you at Canters?

[Mike Elias]

Oh, that was Matt.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Isn't he a skate guy?

[Mike Elias]

Rollerblade, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, he's a rollerblade guy.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. You didn't know you're hanging out with the rollerblader, did you?

[Marc Maron]

Well, I. I knew he did something.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. He's a sweet dude, man. He's the kind of guy who, like, takes care of the kids, you know? He, like, makes sure every. Everybody feels good about, like, what they're. Even if they. They suck at what they're doing. He'll. He'll back him up.

[Marc Maron]

And he bought my dinner, Dude.

[Mike Elias]

That's sweet.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Sweet guy.

[Mike Elias]

He's a good dude.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, he seemed like a good dude. He was a competitive rollerblader, that guy.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. At a certain point. He's owned a skate shop for a long time. Helps the community out And.

[Marc Maron]

And blades.

[Mike Elias]

Ju. Just blades. I think maybe skateboards out in Baker's Field.

[Marc Maron]

But you never did the ro. You never did the skateboard.

[Mike Elias]

I skateboarded, too.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Competitively.

[Mike Elias]

No, no, no, no.

[Marc Maron]

Can you do the. Can you go up the side of a pool and then turn around, come down?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, I could still do that.

[Marc Maron]

Probably.

[Mike Elias]

I probably shouldn't do that.

[Marc Maron]

Were you a punk rock guy?

[Mike Elias]

A little bit. I delved into, like, east coast hardcore for a little bit.

[Marc Maron]

He had to, right, with the skates. But maybe not. Not.

[Mike Elias]

I mean, it didn't really tie in. That all came from my brother, you know, he was. He was real into the older brother. Older brother?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, he was. What's he, Nine years older than I am. So he. He fed me all the. All the fugazis.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

New York hardcore, H2O and.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And all that.

[Marc Maron]

How old are you?

[Mike Elias]

I'm 43.

[Marc Maron]

Oh. You know, kid, it's crazy how you pronounce your last name.

[Mike Elias]

Elias.

[Marc Maron]

Elias. Yeah, because I was going. I knew it could have been Elias or Elias.

[Mike Elias]

A lot of people go Elias, but. Eli.

[Marc Maron]

Eli.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That's a family name.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

All right. So what. What occurs because, like, your journey as, you know, a clothing manufacturer.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Is a little peculiar, isn't.

[Mike Elias]

Is not the way a lot of people go about it.

[Marc Maron]

But. So you're skating and you're working in restaurants in Philadelphia.

[Mike Elias]

And then I was a bike messenger. And then I, you know, I was parking cars, doing those jobs where you give cigarettes out at bars and shit like that. Then at a certain point, my wife and I.

[Marc Maron]

You were with her back then?

[Mike Elias]

We met in Philadelphia.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. We decided it was time to get the fuck out of Philadelphia. This is around 2010, 4, 5, something like that. So we hopped in a Volkswagen van, believe it or not, 79. And. And headed west. And just traveled the country. Had no sights on anywhere where to live? No, we just left.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And you're. And so you did a crossroad trip.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, we were up across the country three, four times, up and down, I don't know, zigzags and.

[Marc Maron]

But that was the. That was the idea. We're just going to live off the land for year.

[Mike Elias]

We wanted to move somewhere, but we didn't know where.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Mike Elias]

You know, sure. We thought about the desert. We thought about West Texas.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah. Like Marfa.

[Mike Elias]

Like, more like. There's this little town called Terlingua. It's a little hippie town near Big Bend and all that.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, it's real pretty down there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

But I. I'm glad I didn't stay there.

[Marc Maron]

Stay in Texas.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But you hung out for a while.

[Mike Elias]

Hung out there for a little bit. Hung out in California for a little bit. Just zigging around.

[Marc Maron]

What were you doing for money?

[Mike Elias]

Playing guitar.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Mike Elias]

In the street? Yeah, that's. And racking up credit card debt.

[Marc Maron]

How'd you do on the street with the guitar?

[Mike Elias]

I mean, I never made a shit ton of money, but I'd make enough for a little gas or burgers.

[Marc Maron]

So you've been playing a long time?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I wanted to play when I was a kid. My dad always played guitar.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And I'm gonna call him out for this. But I was like, dad, can you teach me how to play guitar? And he was like, I taught myself. You could teach your damn self.

[Marc Maron]

So that was the. That's your guiding principle?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I gotta teach myself.

[Mike Elias]

Honestly, kind of. Yeah, it stuck with me.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

I taught myself how to play guitar in late teens, early 20s.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Just kind of like folk stuff.

[Marc Maron]

Sure. What did he play?

[Mike Elias]

Your classic rock and roll.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Like pusher Man. And some Zeppelin stuff.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. On acoustic.

[Mike Elias]

On acoustic.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that's nice.

[Mike Elias]

That was always happening in the house.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that's good. But. All right, so you're playing guitar on the street. So you're living this kind of pseudo hippie lifestyle?

[Mike Elias]

A little bit. I mean, pretty groovy. Yeah. I wasn't like a hippie, per se. Yeah, just kind of.

[Marc Maron]

Well, no, but you know, just kind of free spirit.

[Mike Elias]

Sure.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And what. How do you get up to Portland?

[Mike Elias]

We had to meet somebody there. We had. We had a job in. At a skate camp actually, for. For a summer because we ran out of money. This is in Datchby, California. And.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Met some friends there. They invited us to work on their farm up in Humboldt.

[Marc Maron]

Pop farm.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. Trimming.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, so we did that. You're picking. Picking buds.

[Mike Elias]

Picking buds, trimming buds.

[Marc Maron]

This is before hydroponic, right? It was out in the wild.

[Mike Elias]

This is in the woods.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah. So eagle. Eagle pop farm in the woods.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How that must have been pretty, because I remember that was where all the good pot came from for a while before.

[Mike Elias]

Oh, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

It was back in the day when I still used drugs. You know, I remember when. When, like, you know, like sense. Like when buds came.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Like they were rare. I mean, like all of a sudden you're getting these Humboldt buds.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. Before that, it's just like whatever kind of shaken in a little bag.

[Marc Maron]

But it's. It was. It was in my lifetime that sense of Mia became the thing. Right. It used to be like they didn't sell that shit. It was crazy. I don't even know why. I don't know the history of weed.

[Mike Elias]

I mean, it always came in buds. Maybe they just ground it down to stretch it. Who the hell knows? Mix the leaves in. Yeah, like that.

[Marc Maron]

The shit with the shake with the good stuff. But. Yeah, but when those hydro. Like it was hydroponic too. That came out of Canada. But when the Humboldt Weed came, I was still smoking weed and it was pretty exciting. Yeah, that was like the place.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I knew guys who came from up in that area. Played in a band called Diesel Head. Remember? Oh, he would like that band, actually.

[Mike Elias]

I'll check.

[Marc Maron]

It's two. Well, there's only like two records. But they were kind of this odd bunch of guys who were playing around San Francisco that did kind of a hillbilly, punky kind of. Not really hillbilly, but it's hard to describe them, but I kind of knew those guys. And they were all kind of Humboldt kids.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So you're up in Humboldt picking buds, doing that.

[Mike Elias]

And then before we went there, we had to meet somebody in Portland. So we're in Portland for one day. Two days maybe.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And then went down there, got done with that. And we're like, you want to go check? At least check Portland out a little bit more. It seemed nice.

[Marc Maron]

What year is that there?

[Mike Elias]

That was.06.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah,06.

[Marc Maron]

So that's sort of peak Portland.

[Mike Elias]

It was good. It was good.

[Marc Maron]

So you get up there, you're like, this is. It felt groovy.

[Mike Elias]

I. We kind of just, you know, we were living in the van on. Not like four blocks from where my shop is now, just in a parking lot. And we didn't have any computers or anything. So you go to this little coffee shop and look at their, like, community computer, find jobs and places to live. And ended up finding the. I got a job at Stumptown, the coffee place.

[Marc Maron]

The original stump.

[Mike Elias]

I went into the original one to apply. I didn't know what a latte was. I walked in. Yeah, I was wearing like the same vest as the guy Blake. Working the same plaid.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You guys hiring? He's like, yeah, actually, we are.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Trained up and.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Started making coffee and worked out.

[Marc Maron]

You're doing. You're pulling espresso.

[Mike Elias]

Pulling espresso.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. That's what you do. Important.

[Mike Elias]

That was kind of a. So at that time, Stumptown was the only good cop. There were some other ones starting, but that was before they got really huge.

[Marc Maron]

Oddly, Stump Town, for whatever reason, is still very good coffee.

[Mike Elias]

Oh, it's great coffee.

[Marc Maron]

And I can't ever figure out what it is, but there, I guess the magic is in the roast and the beans. But like you, if you drink Stump Town, you're like, oh, this is Stumptown.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

It has. It has a flavor.

[Mike Elias]

All of them, they don't it up, you know, like.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, but I don't.

[Mike Elias]

They don't over roast it. They don't under roast it.

[Marc Maron]

Right. It's a magic. You got to find the magic numbers. Everybody roasts coffee. Intelligentsia is sort of the same way. They make a great. They make a good coffee where you can actually tell this is intelligentsia, no matter what being it is.

[Mike Elias]

Sure, sure.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So Stump signature roasts, right? I don't even know. I don't get how that works. So you're at the only Stump town.

[Mike Elias]

No, at that point, they had three of them. And only in Portland. It wasn't like a nationwide or worldwide thing at that point. But it was cool because everybody. Rad in Portland. It was the best coffee in Portland at the time. So everybody came in. So I got. That was my intro to Portland. I got to meet all these amazing folks. Musicians, artists, all these people. Like, I became part of the community in Portland pretty quick as a.

[Marc Maron]

Like a guitar guy or just a guy.

[Mike Elias]

As the guy who made people's coffee at that point, but made some friends, you know, and.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Elias]

It was a good intro to the city.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Whereas I don't. If I know. Got that. I only worked there for a year, but if I never got that job, I don't know what would have happened. Because when I started making, like, all my friends who I met through. Through the coffee shop.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Started buying the shit and just kind of branched out from there.

[Marc Maron]

But how does that happen? You're just a dude who's got no real vision. And when do you, like, make your first shit? What. What compels you to do that?

[Mike Elias]

It's. It's always been the same thing. It's always been, like I mentioned earlier, with the shirt.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. But still there's a big jump between. This isn't around anymore. And.

[Mike Elias]

Well, that's how it started too, you know. So at the time, I was real into cycling too. Bicycles.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, bicycles. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Riding bicycles around. And, you know those little cycling hats with the little brim? Yeah, you couldn't find those without a big fucking logo on the side.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

And I've never been a big logo guy, so I wanted to make my own cycling hats without. Without a logo, so.

[Marc Maron]

So that was the first thing.

[Mike Elias]

Started selling those at the time, I was like, starting to make wallets and like that. But that was like the.

[Marc Maron]

With what? Just your hands?

[Mike Elias]

The shitty sewing machine I had.

[Marc Maron]

So you didn't know how to sew, though. You figured it out?

[Mike Elias]

Not really. I just started sewing.

[Marc Maron]

So you took a bike hat and you took it apart, basically.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, took it apart, altered the pattern a little bit, made it fit my big old head and started sewing them up. You know, I fucked a bunch of.

[Marc Maron]

Stuff up, but that's all. That's like your dad, you know, you gotta teach yourself. So you had a shitty sewing machine. You're taking apart pieces of clothing so you can figure out patterns, and you.

[Mike Elias]

Made bike hats, made bike hats. That turned into.

[Marc Maron]

That became popular, your bike hats.

[Mike Elias]

Well, I met one of the best bicycle builders in Portland.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Sasha White, still one of my best friends. He's building these phenomenal handmade bikes.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And I went into a shop and he asked me about my hat.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And he liked it. He won. Out of wool.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And then he was like, can you do a run for. For vanilla. For vanilla bicycles?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Like, yeah. Hell yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You know, this guy's like my crafts person hero.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And that turned into me making bicycles with him. So I started to learn metal work.

[Marc Maron]

So, okay, so you do the hats. Do the hats and you hat. But you're making one hat at a time.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, Yeah. I think I did, like, 25 hats for him or something.

[Marc Maron]

That was the run.

[Mike Elias]

That was a huge run for me.

[Marc Maron]

That took you a month?

[Mike Elias]

Worked my ass off on this thing.

[Marc Maron]

Did they sell pretty good?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, they sold out.

[Marc Maron]

So that. So now you're in the shop and you're starting to learn how to put together bikes.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, he. He needed. He was starting, like, a little bit of a production run of bikes, and he just needed hands.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

He's like, you ever run a lathe? And I'm like, no, but I'll figure it out. Same thing with latte.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Figure out how to make a latte. I could figure out how to run a lathe, Right?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So I just go in there and start learning how to fabricate metal.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So we're, you know, hand making bicycle frames in a little shop and then you're welding. He's doing all the brazing at that point. I ended up doing some of it, but so I'm like, prepping all the parts. So tubes have to fit together with a miter, or some people call it a cope, where the tube kind of wraps around the other tube. So I'm prepping all those miters and cups and stuff like that.

[Marc Maron]

But you're learning the ropes.

[Mike Elias]

Learning the ropes with the machines and also a lot of hand work. And I think that's where I really, really realized what I could do with my hands.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Like what kind of hand work on the bikes?

[Mike Elias]

A lot of hand filing.

[Marc Maron]

Okay. Sure.

[Mike Elias]

Some. Some tubes are welded. Some are what's called fillet brazing. Which is like a brass ramp between the two tubes.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Which holds the steel together.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So to make those perfect, you have to kind of do a lot of hand.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're getting skills.

[Mike Elias]

Getting skills and learning how to use my hands. And once you kind of realize the hand. Eye coordination and the brain construction coordination. Yeah, you can apply that. You can apply that in a lot of different ways.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Mike Elias]

I think that's when my dexterity and my kind of My brain kind of opened up to how I can use my hands.

[Marc Maron]

And you learn to craft, too, though.

[Mike Elias]

Learn to craft. Yeah, And I still use that. I still make little metal bits and.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, I know. I have some. I have some metal bits.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Every time you get a wild idea, I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. I need that thing that holds the record down. Some weird Mike Brass bit of business.

[Mike Elias]

That's where my mind's going these days, because I. You know, my mind is always. I love the clothing that we make, but I don't. It's hard for me to get excited about another piece of clothing.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Personally, Yeah. I mean, I'm excited about what we like putting this stuff out there, but my mind wants to make other rad shit, you know?

[Marc Maron]

Well, okay, so. But, like, in the world of what you do, so. So you quit the coffee shop to work at the bike place.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And then what. What happens? So you got this metal skill set. You've made hats.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So then what's the next jump?

[Mike Elias]

The next jump? I started making bags for bicycles.

[Marc Maron]

Messenger bags?

[Mike Elias]

No, like a. Like a pannier bag that would go on. Oh. On the bike.

[Marc Maron]

Out of what, canvas.

[Mike Elias]

Canvas and leather or.

[Marc Maron]

No.

[Mike Elias]

A little bit of leather.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Sometimes webbing. So I'm starting to formulate these. These, and the pattern making on those is more straightforward than a garment.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

It's a rectangle here, rectangle there, curve here, blah, blah, blah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So I'm starting to formulate a little bit more of an idea of how to construct a pattern. Learning about seam allowances more. I'm kind of. And this is all by up and stitching. Stitching. My stitching's getting straighter.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And just starting to figure out figuring out tools, too, at the same time, because I didn't. There wasn't. You couldn't go on YouTube and figure out to make something.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Back then.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So I'm like, fuck, there's got to be a tool for this.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So I had the Internet, so I research, but, like, there wasn't this wide variety of people selling leather tools online. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really?

[Mike Elias]

You had to go to, like, really fucking search.

[Marc Maron]

You had to go to Tandy.

[Mike Elias]

Tandy's kind of bullshit tools. But I'm glad they're there because.

[Marc Maron]

Are they still there?

[Mike Elias]

They're still there. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Isn't that crazy? It used to be owned by Radio Shack.

[Mike Elias]

No shit?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Tandy Corps owned Radio Shack. I know they were affiliated, but I always. Anytime I went to a Tandy store for Whatever. Like, rarely in my life. But I just remember there always being a tandy store. Right. I grew up in New Mexico and I'm like, who the fuck is shopping in here? Who's making these belts? That somebody was.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. I mean, the cool thing about a place like that and this, this exists in all kinds of tool. Tool applications. You know, if you're gonna make your. You and your friends a couple of belts.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

It's perfect for that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You know, you buy the tools that they're not gonna last forever.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

They'll. They'll do the job. They'll get the job done. But if you're gonna manufacture, manufacture it. That stuff's not going to hold up.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Elias]

It just isn't. So.

[Marc Maron]

So. All right. So you figure out where to get leather tools.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. Started learning about, in fact, C.S. osborne is New Jersey.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, one of the leather.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. One of the leather tool manufacturers.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So I found out about them and then I started like.

[Marc Maron]

Do you have a relationship with them now?

[Mike Elias]

No, I don't, but they don't give a. About me.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they still make the tools.

[Mike Elias]

They still make tools.

[Marc Maron]

And what about the leathers? Are you. Are. Do you get. Are you going to like, h. Or what are you doing?

[Mike Elias]

Use some horween. I use mostly Herman Oak.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Where's that?

[Mike Elias]

They're in the Midwest somewhere. I forget where they're at, but so.

[Marc Maron]

Now, like, alongside of the skill set and the tools and figuring this stuff out, the. You're also researching materials, Research materials and.

[Mike Elias]

And, and making mistakes. Just like cutting up and.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Mike Elias]

Trying like I. I'd make the. The corner of a bed. Just the corner of a bed bag just to see how like those two, those three pieces would fit together.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Figuring it out.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. Just trying to make sense of it all.

[Marc Maron]

What's the first, like. So the first run of stuff you did after the hats was the bags.

[Mike Elias]

I started making some custom bags for custom vanilla bicycles.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Then I started making my own kind of duffel bags and backpacks and things like that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And you still do that?

[Mike Elias]

Still do that. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So where does, you know, the, the influence to kind of broaden it out? You got that from Filson.

[Mike Elias]

I mean, in a sense, there was definitely inspiration from them.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I remember when I bought my wills jacket early on because Dean brought me to the. Before he even had a store. Really. He brought me to the first shop.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You know, I didn't know who you were.

[Mike Elias]

And he said like a little. Little.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Little store. Yeah. And Dean, I met you. And then he's talking up that Will's jacket. And Dean is the pipeline to all small artisans of all kinds.

[Mike Elias]

He finds the folks.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. He's interesting like that. But I imagine between him and I, we brought you a few customers.

[Mike Elias]

I can't thank you enough.

[Marc Maron]

But the problem is we're bringing you customers. People are like, I gotta wait a year for that Jack jacket. Oh, yeah. But it'll be cool. But I remember you telling me on my wheels you said that that oil cloth, that tin cloth that that's made out of.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Was Filson surplus or from the same place that Phil's even used to get it.

[Mike Elias]

Used to get it? Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And I won't mention any. Any exact specifics on that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

But so, so. But the wheels jacket was born of. That fabric was prior to the wheels jacket, only used for luggage bags.

[Marc Maron]

Okay. For Filson or whatever.

[Mike Elias]

Filson. Other people made stuff. I was making my bags out of it. That's how I knew about that fabric.

[Marc Maron]

Okay. And is that called a tin cloth?

[Mike Elias]

I mean, tin cloth is kind of Filson's coin for it. It's waxed canvas.

[Marc Maron]

Waxed canvas. A heavy wax canvas.

[Mike Elias]

Generally speaking, this one, the wills is wax twill.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So it's a 1x3 weave instead of a one by one.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're making bags.

[Mike Elias]

Making bags. At that point, I got a job as a stone mason.

[Marc Maron]

Wow.

[Mike Elias]

I was down to the.

[Marc Maron]

Now you know how to do that too.

[Mike Elias]

I'm building like hand chiseling rock walls. Dry stack rock walls.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Like a. Like an old castle.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So they. Was that a detour? Were you still kind of chipping away at the.

[Mike Elias]

I left the. I left the bike thing. I was doing my own thing this whole time, but I. It wasn't making enough money for sure for it to be my full time job.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

So I had to work. I was working at bars too. I worked at like three, four different bars.

[Marc Maron]

Wow. Okay.

[Mike Elias]

And you know, doing music stuff at the same time. All this different.

[Marc Maron]

Doing Portland stuff.

[Mike Elias]

Doing Portland stuff.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Life stuff.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You know, trying to. Trying to explore whatever the hell it was I was going to be doing.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. For the rest of it.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And you figured out a way to do all of them. So when do you.

[Mike Elias]

I don't know if I figured it.

[Marc Maron]

Out yet, but when do you start to make it your business? How does that. Is that with the wills after the jacket?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. That kind of changed the game so.

[Marc Maron]

You'Re still working out of your house?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, at this point, I think right around this time, I got this little barn studio.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

It was a hundred bucks a month. It was like a little. Maybe 15 by 15 carriage house from turn of the century.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Mike Elias]

And. But it was finished on the inside.

[Marc Maron]

And you had your leather tools in there.

[Mike Elias]

The tool, sewing machine, little workbench, little sewing machine. And all the tool. I like, slowly collected tools. That's what I was doing at that point. If I sold like a wallet or a little thing.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Just buy more tools.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

I never had. I was poor shit.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

I didn't have money around.

[Marc Maron]

And you haven't. Hadn't had a kid yet.

[Mike Elias]

Not yet.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

No.

[Marc Maron]

And so. But you're also learning how to, you know, draw patterns.

[Mike Elias]

Yep.

[Marc Maron]

And doing all that.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So what. So the. The real, like the.

[Mike Elias]

The.

[Marc Maron]

The moment of lightning in a bottle was this Will's jacket.

[Mike Elias]

And that came. That came from. I won't mention a name, but I bought. I saved up some money and bought this really nice work jacket to do the stone masonry.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And the fucking thing. Two weeks. Yeah, it was gone. Like, the front seam fell apart.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Mike Elias]

I got. Had a hole. Cause I'm carrying these big rocks around, so I had holes in the arms like that. And I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I got that. I have a couple of yards of that really heavy shit.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

I'm just gonna make myself a jacket out of that.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

That won't rip.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

That was the impetus behind making the wheels jacket was like. Like, I just needed a better jacket.

[Marc Maron]

So you made the jacket with the brass.

[Mike Elias]

With the what?

[Marc Maron]

With the brass buttons and shit?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, it had brass snaps. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And you made the snaps.

[Mike Elias]

No, no, no, no.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Mike Elias]

No, no, no. They were snaps I can get.

[Marc Maron]

Okay. So you got the brass snaps and then you. You made the jacket. And so what? People start going like, where the fuck did you get that jacket?

[Mike Elias]

It was bonkers. Every single person who saw me walking around one on one, I had like, you know, Instagram with like, couple, three, 400 followers, and every single one of them wanted one. And then all the people I worked with at the bar wanted one and blah, blah, blah. So just like it, you know, like.

[Marc Maron]

Let'S make some jackets.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, give me some money. I'll. I'll get after it.

[Marc Maron]

So you started to do it?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

How many did you make at that point?

[Mike Elias]

It was like 25 or something like that. And. And it took a long time to.

[Marc Maron]

And you had no one working for you?

[Mike Elias]

No, it's just me making wills jackets.

[Marc Maron]

Out of that one fabric.

[Mike Elias]

Yep.

[Marc Maron]

So then they start spreading. It becomes viral all of a sudden.

[Mike Elias]

I mean, I guess for back then. Micro viral.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. But everyone in Portland wanted one.

[Mike Elias]

Everybody in Portland wanted one and then spread a little bit. You know, I had buddies in Seattle for music, so they. They wanted one and.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

You know, started to kind of creep out.

[Marc Maron]

So that's all you were making at certain point.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, yeah. Still wallets and things like that. Because at the same time I was doing. Refining my leather craft. I'm still refining. I don't.

[Marc Maron]

I don't mean the chain wallets.

[Mike Elias]

Chain wallets. I have a bunch of different wallet designs and.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Bag designs and things like that.

[Marc Maron]

All right, so when do you start hiring people and broadening the merchandise?

[Mike Elias]

Just ever so slowly decided that the shop had to grow and.

[Marc Maron]

And now buy some more sewing machines.

[Mike Elias]

A lot more sewing machines. And started to hire staff. And do you.

[Marc Maron]

Are you still the primary designer?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, yeah, I do. I design every. Everything.

[Marc Maron]

You don't have anybody there that's sort of like, what about this idea? They don't even bother.

[Mike Elias]

Jacob and I worked. Worked together on, like, fabric choices and things like that. Because, you know, the thing I didn't realize when I started the business.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You have to do all this other shit.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Like payroll and all the accounting and all that. So. So much of my time and now is spent kind of tip tapping on the computer.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And so it's cool to have trusted folks to bounce those ideas off Jacob. Jacob, who you met a couple times, he's really cool in that he. He studied a lot of the history of garments. He's collected, like, vintage band T shirts for the last 25, 30 years.

[Marc Maron]

So he's a garment historian and he kind of is. Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And he knows a lot about fabrics and the history of them. So he. He'll, like, do these little search. Searches for neat fabrics that are available and. And kind of throw some stuff in front of me, and I'm like, nah, that one feels.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Feels this way or feels that way.

[Marc Maron]

And. Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So I. I make the final calls.

[Marc Maron]

Right. Or, you know, it's funny because when I bought the wills, I think I bought an. A wax shirt that I wore on Colbert. Remember? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was too hot to wear on Colbert. I was very, very sweaty.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. Those things are not. They're not forgiving.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, I mean, it's for, you know, it's a layer for rain I mean, like. But like, that's just my thing. It's like this is a cool shirt. And there I am on Colbert, like, you know, sweating my balls off in a waxed shirt. It looked pretty good, though.

[Mike Elias]

It looked good.

[Marc Maron]

Wrong place to wear it, but. Yeah. So, okay, so then you just start making all the other stuff and then shirts.

[Mike Elias]

It's kind of the same thing. Like I mentioned earlier, I wanted to. I. I wanted the duffel bag. So started to design and make duffel bags and the shirts and the jeans and. And it's all.

[Marc Maron]

That's later. Right, Right.

[Mike Elias]

I mean, yeah. Starts to grow in. In the 2000. I love the 1718.

[Marc Maron]

The story behind the. The stitching on the back pockets of the jeans.

[Mike Elias]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

To make like there has to be a signature to jeans.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And you did it with a record.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, yeah. It's. It's 1, 2, 3. It's five 12 inch curves.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

That I laid out.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And that's where you get that. And then what now for the denim nerds. Because, like, I'm not a nerd, but you've got some machine that you hemmed my. Those things shrunk up a little on me. I might need to get some more jeans. I'll set you up because, like, they're about just right. But I think they did pull up a little bit. I don't know how it happened. Huh.

[Mike Elias]

You dry them?

[Marc Maron]

No, I don't know how it happened, but they're fine. They're good. I wear them. But what is that machine that is so sought after for that bottom hemisphere.

[Mike Elias]

Union Special, the 43800G. It's. It's made for hemming.

[Marc Maron]

And that's like an old Levi's thing or. What is it?

[Mike Elias]

Levi's used them pretty much all the. The big jeans companies.

[Marc Maron]

But it's a manual thing. You got to sit there and do it.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, it's. It's. I mean, it's got a motor. It's not treadling or Hank cranking it.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. You, you, you. I do it by eye. Some people like iron hem out a little bit before beforehand. But I do it kind of. I call it the old hairy eyeball method.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You roll it and then there's a little folder that holds it in place. And yeah, the people love that machine because. Twists the hem a little bit. If you look at an old pair of Levi's.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Pre early 70s probably the bottom of the hem has this little angle to it on the fades and they call it a Roped hem.

[Marc Maron]

Oh. And that's. That's what you get with that machine.

[Mike Elias]

That. That machine.

[Marc Maron]

They don't make that machine anymore.

[Mike Elias]

It's flawed. No, no, they don't make it anymore.

[Marc Maron]

So that's. So you get like a little time travel element.

[Mike Elias]

Yep, definitely.

[Marc Maron]

So when did the attack happen?

[Mike Elias]

Oh, the head attack.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

That was 2018. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So that's about where we are in the timeline.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, yeah. We're starting to pick it up with wills jackets and things like that.

[Marc Maron]

But it's still the old shop.

[Mike Elias]

The first shop, the second shop, the second real shop.

[Marc Maron]

But not the store shop.

[Mike Elias]

Not the one that I have now.

[Marc Maron]

But was it the one I went to?

[Mike Elias]

That's the first one. You went to mlk and.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Is that where it happened?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And what happened?

[Mike Elias]

That was. So we have music events.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

In the shop. Yeah, this one was whatever celebration we're having. Some Portland band was playing. We had a great night. And good art. Hollywood. The silver.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Guy who just got me this nice company. The good art stuff is so cool.

[Mike Elias]

They are magicians.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Now I'm like a bracelet guy. I've been that in my life. At a different time, back when I wore black cowboy boots.

[Mike Elias]

Now you're a real person.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, but now. Yeah, now it seems back.

[Mike Elias]

These are good ones.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. This one could probably be a little smaller, but it's okay. The new one's beautiful. The one. The ship. John Goodart. Anyway, so. Yeah, so you had to have a.

[Mike Elias]

Little party, and my wife and I were closing the shop up for the night. Yeah, just a. A sweet trunk show. The good art was there. They put some jewelry to show. Just sweet people. Yeah, they're always good times, you know, some. Some drinks, some food, music. And then we. We close the shop up, walk into the car, and two tweakers on little BMX bikes cruise by. And, like, one of them tried to rob me. One of them kind of sucker hit me in the head with a. With an axe. With a hatchet.

[Marc Maron]

With a hatchet.

[Mike Elias]

Yep. Yep.

[Marc Maron]

And. And you went down?

[Mike Elias]

I went down, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And your wife is okay?

[Mike Elias]

She. Thankfully, she was okay. I was out.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

I went straight down. She effectively, you know, saw me get.

[Marc Maron]

Saved your life.

[Mike Elias]

She. She thought that I was gone, you know.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Cops came. They scurried off. I came to. In the operating room.

[Marc Maron]

That's not supposed to happen.

[Mike Elias]

Prepping me. They hadn't, like. I don't think they put me under yet. It was. They were kind of like pulling me in there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And first thing I thought of. I knew. So I didn't know exactly what happened, but.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Something happened.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

I knew my wife was there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And, like, I just didn't know if anything happened to her. So I started trying to say, where's my wife?

[Marc Maron]

But. Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

My skull was cracked and pushed into the. On the part of my brain that controls speech.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, my God.

[Mike Elias]

So I could. Everything up to the point of speech coming out.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Worked. But it came out like, oh, my God. Words didn't work.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

It's crazy.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So I started getting up off the thing because I thought. I thought she was in the next room, you know.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Over. Getting operated on, too. Or not there. Yeah. And.

[Marc Maron]

Or maybe dead.

[Mike Elias]

One of the. Yeah. One of the nurses was like, he's not. He. We got to get her. Oh, they gave me a piece of paper, and I was like, I just wrote my wife, you know.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And one of them, thankfully, she went and got her. She came in and, like, held my hand. And then, you know, you've been put under. They. They do the thing like, oh, tell us about this.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah. And then you're gone. Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So, you know, then I woke up the next. The next morning.

[Marc Maron]

But you were conscious the whole time.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. Yeah. When I came. When I came to.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Mike Elias]

And everything. Like I said, every. Everything worked, but I think it's, like, the brocus area.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

I'm not a brain guy.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

From what I've read and my doctors have told me, the. The part of my brain that, like, my skull is pushed in.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Like, holding that part down.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

Just wasn't letting it work.

[Marc Maron]

So what they do.

[Mike Elias]

They had to cut that part of my skull out, and they just popped a metal plate on there.

[Marc Maron]

And you can talk.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Could you talk, like, right after surgery?

[Mike Elias]

It took a while.

[Marc Maron]

It did.

[Mike Elias]

And I still have, like. I still have. It's like a sort of an aphasia thing.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Mike Elias]

Kind of.

[Marc Maron]

But you got a metal plate in your head.

[Mike Elias]

Got a metal plate. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And a second lease on life.

[Mike Elias]

Second lease on life.

[Marc Maron]

How did that change your approach to life?

[Mike Elias]

I don't know, man. I thought it was gonna. I think I'm still figuring that out.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Still talk to therapists.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Kind of trying to understand how it affected me.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You know, because for a while, I'm kind of a. You fall down and you.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Tough guy, you know?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, sure.

[Mike Elias]

Starting to realize that it had more of. More of an effect on me than I thought of the trauma last. Yeah. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So working through that with. With a therapist.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Trying to figure all that anger.

[Marc Maron]

No, no anger, no. Just sort of like the. The fact of being attacked.

[Mike Elias]

There was a point in time where, you know, I was going to get my chl. And I was like, I'm gonna carry gun around with me all the time, but I don't. I just don't want to be that guy, you know, I just. I don't want to. That, to me, is living in fear.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And I'm. I'm like, not. I'm scared of a lot of things in the world, but.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Not being attacked.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You know, even. Even though it happened to me.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

It didn't put me in the state of, like, every tweaker I see is gonna kill me or anything like that.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

Did you.

[Marc Maron]

Did they find the tweakers that did it?

[Mike Elias]

They did, yeah. It was like a CSI thing.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really?

[Mike Elias]

My wife remembered that one of them threw a soda cup down.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

They grabbed that for evidence.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Got DNA. DNA off of that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Got a video of them buying the soda and then. So they had a facial tie in.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And got them, man. I think they caught the guy who didn't hit me first.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And he ratted the other guy out, and that was it.

[Marc Maron]

And what happened? What was the justice?

[Mike Elias]

One of them got. One of them got five years, one of them got ten years. The guy actually hit me.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Ten years hard time.

[Marc Maron]

Wow.

[Mike Elias]

So they're put away. One of them's out now. That was six years ago.

[Marc Maron]

No apologies.

[Mike Elias]

Funny enough, the one who did actually attack me did a form of an apology in the courtroom.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really? Oh, you went to the trial.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, the arraignment for him and the other guy was. No.

[Marc Maron]

That's interesting. So a form of an apology, like he said he was high or what?

[Mike Elias]

It was one of the written notes that somebody probably helped him out to write and blah, blah, blah. But, yeah, they were. They were tweaked out. They were.

[Marc Maron]

And so you have a certain amount of forgiveness.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, I. I'd say a little bit.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

I don't like it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

What am I going to do? Hate him for the rest of my life?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

I got other people I hate more than that.

[Marc Maron]

But after that, so the. The business held up and I. I guess you, after you recovered, you just re re. Grooved and got back into it, right?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. I mean, that's another thing with it. Like, so many people, like, There was a GoFundMe and they did a big old, like, Music benefit, shit like that. And my community just kind of like, gave me the biggest fucking hug through that. And my employees. Employees kept the shop rolling, and it was. It was a good thing through it, you know, so we were able to kind of make it through all that. That's great. I had a pretty long recovery after that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. That's amazing. Kept rolling, you know, and you got it. You kind of just plugged on.

[Mike Elias]

Still doing it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Now when does. Because, like, you know, I remember I asked you years ago that, you know, you do a lot of. What do you. Collaborations, I guess.

[Mike Elias]

Yes. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You know, with Wesco leather, Westco boots, and then the leather langlets.

[Mike Elias]

Langlets, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And. And you have relationships with people in Japan that love your shit. You seem to go over there a lot.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Is it primarily to. To buy fabric or sell stuff or What's a. What's the global market of this stuff in?

[Mike Elias]

Well, a lot of these collaborations, kind of the beautiful thing, the way I see it, is their actual friendships. It's not just a business transaction. So, like, Chris Warren from Wesco, he's one of my best friends in the world. Benny Langlitz. They're just Josh and Rach from Good Art. They're actual true friends of mine. So it makes the. Maybe the customers don't give a shit about this, but I think it's an important thing to bring these things, to birth these things from a place that's more than just like, we're trying to make money off.

[Marc Maron]

Of course, it didn't ever seem that way to me, but it's also interesting and not unlike food, where if you've got people that are craftsmen, that love what they do, and they're constantly, you know, doing new things or. Or honoring a tradition, you know, the integrity and quality of the stuff is better.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

It's the best you can get. You know, I remember that one time I got a denim shirt from you, and for some whatever reason, when the stitching was coming was coming off and it was. I felt bad because you're like, oh, my God, that. That should never happen. Like, it was like this glitch, and I felt like I'd insulted you forever. And you.

[Mike Elias]

Well, no, I mean, the thing is, is you can make. We're. We're still dealing with cotton.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You know. Yeah, it's gonna. You know, even. Even, you know, you. You broke your ass off out there swinging the hammer and everything. You know, the stitch is good. Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

It's all that hard work. Right, right. No, I just noticed it But. But we got on that right away. Yeah, but I guess I asked you early on, because even the. The nature of the shop, like, the new shop is like a. A. A functioning boutique. Like, I mean, you've got a lot of stuff.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, you've got stuff coming in. You've got products you like to sell that don't necessarily are. Are. Your name's not on them.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, yeah, we carry other things, but.

[Marc Maron]

All kinds of stuff, you know. You know, jackets, pants, pants, gloves, hats. You did a T shirt in the Marc maroon color.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Did that sell?

[Mike Elias]

They're gone.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, good. Yeah. You did a beefy tee. You did a lighter tee, the black tee, and you got the west coast stuff. You got some langlet stuff, and then the good art stuff. But then you got the axes. Now, the axe, like, you gotta. You're into these axes. Like, I know you got some Swedish. What's the axe company that you work with?

[Mike Elias]

Grants versus Brooks.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

I can't do the accent, but they're from Sweden.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Now, I've just. I've loved those before. Even before I got. I loved hatchets before I got hit in the head with one.

[Marc Maron]

Isn't that crazy, though?

[Mike Elias]

It's like I willed it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, you brought a hatchet right to your head.

[Mike Elias]

Oh, man. I. Even on the handle of my personal transfers, I have had it for almost two decades. Before it happened, I carved a skull onto the butt of my. My handle. So I was kind of thinking, like, did I do some weird.

[Marc Maron]

Some. Some magic, some dark magic, some prophetic magic?

[Mike Elias]

But, yeah, those axes have always lived, and. And I. There's not a whole lot of places to get them, so I figured out how to carry them and started carrying those.

[Marc Maron]

And they sell good.

[Mike Elias]

They sell pretty good.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Well, I guess the question I had early on, though, was like, have you been offered to be bought out?

[Mike Elias]

It's been discussed from a couple of angles.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. But I'm not. I'm not. I. I'm. I don't know. I don't have. I'm a pretty bad businessman.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

You know, like, I keep my prices at a point where it makes sense for the health of the business and no more, you know, and. And I'm. No, not after it. I'm. I don't have that, like, startup mentality where. Where I'm. I'm building this up to sell it.

[Marc Maron]

Well, you like the work?

[Mike Elias]

I do like the work, and I like the brand. It's a part of me.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And I guess the only drawback is. Is that you can only do so many.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Like. Like, if you're going to do a Will's Jacket run, you know, people are going to order them a year in advance and then they'll get made.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So I guess the only the. That that becomes a question is like, is there any way to make more of these and maintain the integrity of how I do it? And I guess the answer has been no.

[Mike Elias]

We've upped it. You know, we've grown it. Not exponentially, not a shit ton.

[Marc Maron]

In terms of your ability to. For output. Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

For the Wills jacket specifically, and working with people to make like the collaboration stuff and offering other things. So it's expanded, but I don't like. I feel like we've expanded on a level that's.

[Marc Maron]

That's manageable.

[Mike Elias]

Manageable. And the foundation is there before taking the next step.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

You know, I don't. I don't like to. You know, if you start running across a bunch of stones real fast, one's gonna. You're gonna slip on one stress.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

So I like to have the strong foundation before taking another step.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And. And that's. I. I feel like that's a healthy business move.

[Marc Maron]

Sure. Hey, look, man, if you're making enough for the life you want to live and you're providing what your employees need, I mean, that should be enough.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. I'm happy. And we try to pay our employees well. I want to continue to improve that trajectory of making sure they're taken care of better and insurance and all that shit. We provide a wellbeing opportunity for these people, and that's the most important thing.

[Marc Maron]

Thing. Yeah. Yeah. And that's family. Yeah. Yeah. Now, is your dad wearing any of the ship Sean stuff?

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, he's got some. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Out on the boat.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. He's got this hat. You see this one of the waxed hats. It looks like it's been through.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really?

[Mike Elias]

Hell, all that salt air.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's got a classic wax baseball cap style.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. One of her.

[Marc Maron]

And then you do the trucker hats that trucker cut. Yeah, yeah, I have a few of those.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. The classic.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it's a big difference, man. It's weird where that type of hat has gone.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah. They started making them, like, shallower and the bills got longer.

[Marc Maron]

Well, the fastbacks. Is that what they're called?

[Mike Elias]

The snapbacks?

[Marc Maron]

Snapbacks. Those seem. Those are pretty. They're their own thing. And they're pretty good if you like that style. But yeah, those dumb ones that Fit real tight on your head. I don't know what those are.

[Mike Elias]

It's the new style of that hat.

[Marc Maron]

I like the ones you make with the big top for the old style from when I was growing up.

[Mike Elias]

Totally.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

High crown.

[Marc Maron]

So what's the big plan for the future? Just to keep on keeping on.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, man. Starting to. Like, last year was better than the year before. This year starting off better than last year. So starting to continue improving logistics within us, you know, smoothing out the way we operate.

[Marc Maron]

And now you seem to have an obsession with making metal stuff.

[Mike Elias]

Metal shit. I'm working on more. I just made this little key release.

[Marc Maron]

Thing and the wait for the records. I think I sold one of those. Someone I worked with on the movie Gotcha. Her husband's an audiophile and she's like, I just don't know what to get him. Like, I do.

[Mike Elias]

Oh, yeah. Even if you don't use it, it looks nice sitting.

[Marc Maron]

It's a cool thing. Yeah, Yeah. I wonder if she got one. I have no way of knowing that. And before we go, what's the. Your obsession with Stanley knives? Utility knives is kind of interesting.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You collect them?

[Mike Elias]

Well, it's kind of back to the. To the beginning. So I. When I started doing leather work, I didn't have any money.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

But I had one of those knives. So I did all my leather cutting with one of those knives with the Stanley. And so it's been that, like, treasured little tool that I learned how to. It's not a leather tool.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Mike Elias]

And specifically the ones where the blades don't retract.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

So it's kind of like this. I'm a nostalgic guy. So it's like this. Oh, that's my little tool that helped me learn how to do all this.

[Marc Maron]

Shit and that branched off into a full on obsession.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah, I got a little. I have a problem with them. I don't know how many I have.

[Marc Maron]

But how far back do they go? Like, you know, years. Like, what's the oldest Stanley utility.

[Mike Elias]

40S, I want to say. Originally they were cast iron and then they were cast aluminum.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Mike Elias]

And so on and so forth.

[Marc Maron]

And now you made one.

[Mike Elias]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

John. Utility knife.

[Mike Elias]

Yep. Yeah, they got machined in Japan.

[Marc Maron]

They're based on the Stanley.

[Mike Elias]

It's a totally new design. Sure. But the idea is based on. Yeah, it holds the same blades.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I gotta get one of those.

[Mike Elias]

It's a beautiful thing. I love it.

[Marc Maron]

I gotta get one. How quick do they fly off the shelves?

[Mike Elias]

The brass ones went away real quick. And then we did some copper ones, then we did aluminum ones and they weren't as hot.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Mike Elias]

Special aluminum people like brass. They like the patina.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, buddy. Well, it was great talking to you.

[Mike Elias]

Nice talking to you too, Mark. Thank you.

[Marc Maron]

There you go. That's not a usual WTF story, but it is a human story. And it is the story of a guy who was possessed with the need to create and. And manufacture and design. Great guy, and I'm glad to have talked to him. And again, the decade. Will's jacket is available tomorrow. Go to ShipJohn US to order it. Hang out for a minute, folks. All right, guys, listen up. If you're dealing with hair loss, it doesn't mean you can't find it again. When you try hims, you'll be joining hundreds of thousands of subscribers who stopped hair loss and grew back their confidence. When you use hims, you get clinically proven treatments that can regrow hair in as little as three to six months. And you don't even have to visit a doctor to get started. It's 100% online. You just answer a few questions and a medical provider will determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed, your treatment is sent to you for free. No insurance is needed, and one low price covers everything from treatments to ongoing care. Start your free online Visit [e-mail] WTF that's H I M S.com WTF for your personalized hair loss treatment options. Hisss.com WTF results vary based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil and finasteride. Prescription products require an online consultation with a healthcare provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Restrictions apply. See website for full details and important safety information. Hey, people, we posted the 20th ask mark anything bonus episode for full Marin subscribers this week with my answers to your questions, including this one. Have you ever blanked out during a live set and forgotten how to get back on track? How do you deal with that? It happens. I wouldn't call it blanking out, but sometimes you'll miss a piece of the bit or the story that's happened before where an integral piece of the story, a sentence, it just got away from me. And then usually what I try to do is backload it and, you know, so the joke makes sense. If I am acting on my feet or in a few instances, I've said, oh, that, why didn't that work? Oh, I forgot to tell you this part. And I'll do that. I'm comfortable enough to where I within a live show where I can do that. I don't believe it's happened to me on television, but it does happen. And usually the immediate on your feet thing to do is really just backload it. See if you can get it in there before you get to the ending so you're not missing that piece. You can hear all the Ask Mark Anything episodes and get new bonus episodes twice a week by signing up for the full Marin. Just go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus. And a reminder before we go this podcast is hosted by Acast. All right, here's here's some guitar from back in the day.

[Mike Elias]

It.

[Marc Maron]

Boomer Lives, Monkey lafonda, Cat, Angels Everywhere, and Buddy Holly.