Artistry Unleashed: Jeffrey Everett's Design Journey in DC

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Rob Lee
Welcome to the truth in this art. I am your host, Rob Lee. Lee. Rob Lee. The great Rob Lee showered me your adulation. Today, I have the privilege of being in conversation with the designer, illustrator and author working outside of Washington, DC. He's had the pleasure of designing and illustrating for a wide variety of entertainment, corporate and nonprofit clients.

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Rob Lee
Please welcome Jeffrey Everett. Welcome to the podcast.

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Jeff Everett
Hello. Wonderful to meet you.

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Rob Lee
Wonderful to meet you as well. We just started talking.

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Jeff Everett
Oh, yeah. Yeah. That that other half an hour of really entertaining stuff is that that never happened. That was all the best stuff right there.

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Rob Lee
That was for us, though. That's for us.

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Jeff Everett
Okay.

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Rob Lee
So, you know, as we kind of get started here, you know, again, thank you for coming on. I want to, you know, peel the onion back a little bit and I want you to share the Jeffrey ever story. Ultimately, how did you get here? Where's the story begin? How long have you been in the industry? Let's let's start off there.

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Jeff Everett
So when you're saying peel the onion back, you want to see a grown man cry.

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Speaker 4
Okay, you get it?

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Jeff Everett
Wow. So I am 46 years old. I had been running a version of my own company called Rockets or Red for the last 20 years. I got my MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and I'm a trained designer. Like, I like working with clients. I like working with a purpose. I have that wonderful, nagging doubt that I am not interesting and so nobody wants to see my deep personal thoughts displayed on canvas.

00;01;52;20 - 00;02;20;09
Jeff Everett
So I love working with bands. I love working with clients. So when I was taking the screen printing class at 8:00 in the morning on a Saturday in New York with art students, it was like me and the teacher and like that was it. And the teacher would go into the corner and basically fall asleep and he would say, Just print something and then I'll tell you how you're doing it wrong.

00;02;20;22 - 00;02;43;02
Jeff Everett
And so I just started reaching out to bands and doing screen printed posters for them. And then when I moved back to DC, I got a wonderful job that fired me four months later, the day before my wedding.

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Speaker 4
That was. Oh.

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Jeff Everett
Oh, yeah. And so I just said at that point, like, screw it, I'm going to just do this full time and see if I can make a run at it. Now, in that 20 years I've worked at other design firms. Currently, I am a senior designer at the National Institutes of Health. And so I can tell you about dealing with Q and non people versatility versus dealing with punkers.

00;03;18;07 - 00;03;30;12
Jeff Everett
Which one's worse? Q And on people. But yeah, so I mean, I've had a really varied career. Yeah. Yeah. So let's get. What else do you want to know?

00;03;30;20 - 00;03;41;13
Rob Lee
No, no, no, no, no. So I got two more bullet points in there. They're going to hold up cause I got a whole slew of questions. You're very interesting and also good on user. I did not get 46. I did not get 46.

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Jeff Everett
Oh, really? Do I look older or younger?

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Speaker 4
Younger?

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Jeff Everett
Okay, good.

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Speaker 4
Yeah, I don't know. How do I know? How old do I look?

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Jeff Everett
See, like, that's a trick question now.

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Rob Lee
Yeah, I know.

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Jeff Everett
I'm going to go with you. Look like a distinguished, sophisticated 35.

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Rob Lee
37.

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Speaker 4
All right. Yeah, well, I did pretty well. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

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Jeff Everett
Have that swagger to you with that confidence that the thirties come with when you know, when you hit the forties, you have that, you know, internal despair and like, what the fuck am I doing with my life? I literally I am literally arguing with Mike Ness from Social Distortion about the type of tow truck we're using in a poster.

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Jeff Everett
And you're just like, I can't. Like, like, what the fuck, dude?

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Speaker 4
No one.

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Jeff Everett
Cares. It's a fuckin tow truck.

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Rob Lee
The look. That was that. That's. It's funny. So you mentioned, you know, working with punk bands and working with. But the National Health Club.

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Jeff Everett
The National Institutes of Health.

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Rob Lee
So NIH.

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Jeff Everett
So all that stuff, you know, about COVID, I probably touched it.

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Rob Lee
Well, my day and my day job is in is in a public health place.

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Speaker 4
So they talk a lot.

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Jeff Everett
Yeah, you probably you probably hate me on some level. You just don't know it yet. Like every every place I go, like. So I love to travel. So, like, when I was at Seattle and I went into a bathroom and there was like a poster I did about like COVID and like, wash your hands, you know, basically like don't be a dick stuff.

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Jeff Everett
And like on it was like, fuck this.

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Speaker 4
You know, like, excuse me.

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Jeff Everett
And my kids walked into the bathroom and looked at that, looked at that, and they were like, You decide that Dad, right. Was like, Yep, she did.

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Rob Lee
The bathroom.

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Speaker 4
And everything.

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Jeff Everett
Yeah. Yeah. So.

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Rob Lee
So tell me about some of the, the the influences, the inspiration. Does that kind of work theirselves into your your work, your esthetic or what have you? Like what sort of like art design when you were like coming up and going into this sort of industry, going into this industry really like resonated with you? Like, for instance, I really like pop art.

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Rob Lee
So if I ask someone to design something like my business cards, I have, it definitely has this local art and it has this.

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Jeff Everett
So you froze.

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Rob Lee
It has that local, you know, has this this art, has this local artist and it has this sort of like pop, pop art sensibility attached to it. So for you, like, what do you what did you grow up looking at? What did you grow up that really like resonated with you, that maybe finds itself in to your your eye, your esthetic?

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Jeff Everett
So I grew up in like a very small town. I grew up in the town where Mary had a little lamb was written and yeah, and like legitimately I had no neighbors. It was like farm country. And so there was a biker bar next door and they had feral chickens that would attack my dog. And that was about the closest to neighbors I had.

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Jeff Everett
So I would bike like about ten miles to the we only had one convenience store and I would bike there and it was so low rent, they didn't have X-Men.

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Speaker 4
Comics.

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Jeff Everett
Or uncanny X-Men. They only had classic X-Men, which even then those were like a year behind like everywhere else. So me or my dad would give me a few bucks every day during the summer, you know, I'd mow the three acres of lawn bike down there, get a sandwich, buy a comic book. So callbacks were like the thing that really got me into art took that.

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Jeff Everett
And so my parents were Baptists. So we had like illustrated Bibles. And so, of course, revelations was like the coolest.

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Speaker 4
Because the armor.

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Jeff Everett
And all of it was, you know, thick lines, flat color, because it's easy to print like that. And that totally inspired all of me, you know, everything that I still do to this day. You know, I used to read John Blair books and Edward Gorey would do all the illustrations. And so, oh, I can do that. Like I have pens and I would do like pen and ink work.

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Jeff Everett
Yeah, well, I would do like 18 by 20 for pen and ink pieces. And to this day I have like terrible tendonitis. You can't see it. I'm wearing like a huge arm, elbow brace right now because I blew out my wrist. I blew out my elbow. Oh, no. Cause no one told me that when he did those, he was doing like four by six size.

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Jeff Everett
Yeah. Instead of like doing 18 by 24. So I completely ruined my wrist doing all that. But like, that was what I had when I was really young. It was like the sun Comics, comic books, you know, the Bible and then like, you know, whatever else I could scrounge up. But when I got older and would start driving into Boston, I would go on Newbury Street where all the punk store and you'd be like, Oh, like photocopy machines.

00;09;41;03 - 00;10;05;08
Jeff Everett
You could just photocopy stuff and that's cool. You can rip up, you know, textbooks and use that. It was like this huge kind of swell of like DIY culture and just kind of like you can do crappy cartoons, you can take old paintings and mess them up, you can do collages. You don't need to have fancy typefaces. You can do it yourself.

00;10;05;16 - 00;10;15;12
Jeff Everett
You can do ransom note style. And that for me was like, Oh, I'm kind of shitty as an artist, but I can at least do this, right?

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Speaker 4
Right, right. You could just.

00;10;16;23 - 00;10;23;21
Jeff Everett
Kind of have it get me through now where I'm like, Yeah, and I of suck, but you know, I can at least fake.

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Speaker 4
It.

00;10;25;26 - 00;10;46;11
Rob Lee
So tell me about how you kind of develop and pick up like the skills to add to your the way that you go about your work. Like obviously you're not a crappy artist. You're, you're have to be, you know, you're doing good work or what have you. And like, I dig your work, I, I've been on there. I was exploding through the page.

00;10;46;20 - 00;11;14;13
Rob Lee
Yeah, I do some internet stalking. I'll put it and but tell me about some of the skills that, that you pick up, you know, off of your sort of like foundation. Because I'll say, like when I'm doing this, I'm self-taught doing this for like 14 years. And, you know, it's like I can use multiple different ways to get sound, whether it's through having a small little pocket recorder and doing some manipulated editing, or I can use any of the really nice expensive software or even the freeware.

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Rob Lee
And those are just different skills that I'm picking up and layering and all of this sort of like idea of I can get sound with this and I could do something with it. So based in like your foundation in art, design and illustration, like what skills do you try to like add to it like as you go along?

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Rob Lee
Like what's with something that you've learned recently?

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Jeff Everett
Recently I've been learning how to use like half tone swatches, learning how to use like premade brushes and downloading them and really being able to like layer color. It's like when I first started my first poster I ever designed was black ink with a black varnish on top with no registration whatsoever. And I think I kind of peaked at that first one.

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Jeff Everett
I really.

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Speaker 4
There was like.

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Jeff Everett
Two of my favorite bands of all time, did a decent poster. I should have just stopped, you know, gone out on a thousand. But like for years it was just how much space could I take up using just flat color because like I didn't know how to, you know, layer colors. I didn't know how to mix them well so I could get more of a rainbow.

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Jeff Everett
And so now it's like I'm doing a lot of like half toning. I'm doing a lot of blends and things like that. And I still think it relates to my earlier work, but it's just kind of another little trick that I have. But honestly, like, like you were saying, I think most of this stuff just comes by repetition.

00;13;14;03 - 00;13;37;18
Jeff Everett
And then after a while you go, Oh yeah, this is how I do things now, you know, it's just I mean, I was talking to somebody, I'm putting out a book right now and there's like it's only concert posters and there's like at least 350 posters in there. Wow. And the person was like, Oh, well, you know, what's the process like?

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Jeff Everett
And digital? And I'm like, Yeah, the posters I did on day one aren't that much different than the posters I'm doing now. This, you know, the technique is different, but the spirit is still there. But I do think, like, I'm not a trained illustrator, like I'm a trained designer. And I think probably in the last ten years I've really started to go from using clip art to drawing my own pieces.

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Jeff Everett
And with that developing this idea of like doing the poster should be a story. And I think that's one of the things I've really picked up is more concept in talking about the work and really doing like individualized work for bands.

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Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah.

00;14;35;18 - 00;14;36;18
Jeff Everett
If that makes sense.

00;14;36;19 - 00;14;59;11
Rob Lee
No, it does. It does. Okay. So, so tell me about the cadence. Like because, you know, I'm a crazy person. I'm recording 3 to 4 interviews a day and living the dream. That's what I was describing earlier when we first started. That's good. Well, busy and having that with the day job or what have you, we're not all not at that spot where it's like, man, I'm doing my own thing.

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Rob Lee
So I want to be there though. So so tell me about your cadence like, how often are you working? Like, I really want to know some of those sort of like rituals. I don't know if it's this book that was out there, this creative's, like what their rituals are and I remember like the whole Andy Warhol thing, I'll get up and, you know, have a couple of eggs and then I'm going to go here and then kind of mess around for a bit.

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Rob Lee
I might actually start working at like 9 p.m. for like an hour. That's my work for the day. What is what is your kind of like cadence look like? What does a typical day look like for you when it comes to your work?

00;15;33;05 - 00;16;10;09
Jeff Everett
I am. Excuse me. I still have that wonderful covered cough. Oh, no, I am actually fairly rigid on what my day looks like. It has taken me about 20 years to figure out how I work best. So I get up early, like I'm out, you know, 6:00 kids are taking care of and out the door. I am downstairs working usually by 630, 730 latest.

00;16;11;21 - 00;16;37;15
Jeff Everett
I take medication for ADHD, which I've only started doing in the last year and it's fucking amazing how much more work I can get done now. But legitimately I. I do all of my work between seven and noon to 2:00 every day.

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Speaker 4
Yeah.

00;16;38;22 - 00;17;06;06
Jeff Everett
That said, I'm thinking about work all the other times of the day. Yup. So when I work with clients, I say it'll take me about two weeks to get the concept out. Once I get the concept, it'll take me about a week to do it. And sometimes the concept takes longer and longer and longer. So like, I know how to work my machine.

00;17;06;12 - 00;17;42;23
Jeff Everett
I know where all of my color libraries that I've developed over the years are my library of textures, all of that. So I work really quickly now, but it's the coming up with like what do I want to do? And it's hard to explain to people like, you know, you think about what you're saying about Andy Warhol. He may be walking around the city all day and reading newspapers and books and having milkshakes, but he's thinking about work the entire time.

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Speaker 4
100%.

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Jeff Everett
And, you know, I read I read this story once about I believe it's like samurai calligraphers back like centuries ago. And there was like a documentary film about them. And it was just the guys staring at the canvas and staring and staring and staring and staring for what seemed like hours. And then he just picks up the brush, does a few flicks of the wrist, and there's like this beautiful piece, right?

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Jeff Everett
So if you look at the time expenditure to actually do it, oh, it was 30 seconds, but it took 10 hours to figure out the five slips of the wrist. Yeah. To get it perfect. And I feel like that's how I am, you know, or at least that's my, my bullshit excuse when my boss goes. Why do you keep looking out the window?

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Jeff Everett
What are we talking about? These samurai calligraphers?

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Speaker 4
You.

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Rob Lee
No, but I think that though, like, you know, one of the things that's like doing this sort of the conversation and having questions as a framework to try to like guide the storytelling easier. I like to look at what I do is facilitating someone's story versus telling us, I'm not telling your story, you're telling your own story, but I'm facilitating it through this sort of lens.

00;19;02;02 - 00;19;26;27
Rob Lee
Right? And I find that, you know, a lot of the things that go into me coming up with a question or coming up with the direction I want to take on it, it comes from me being exposed to different art books, being exposed to different audio books and listening to listening to the podcast. All of these different things that in including the research that I'm doing as well on the guest and it's like there are multiple out esthetics to frame it this way.

00;19;27;13 - 00;19;38;26
Rob Lee
One of my buddies and he's asking me like, Think about your work as a system. How many hours are you putting in to produce that finished podcast? And it's like it might be, you know, two.

00;19;38;26 - 00;19;39;05
Jeff Everett
To three.

00;19;39;05 - 00;19;53;19
Rob Lee
Hours, you know, that I'm putting in or what have you. And I'm just thinking like purely in like research and that's like really looking at how can I refine it? But still the questions because I want to be unique. I want to get one of the things that makes me feel really good. When someone says, That's a good question.

00;19;53;19 - 00;20;14;28
Rob Lee
It's like, you'll have an answer. Do you? Or I've never been asked that before. And I'm like, That's what I'm aiming for. I'm aiming to have that that one. That's like, no one's ever asked me that question. And I'm literally asking it not to do a gotcha sort of thing, but really to get underneath it. I really want to get into the nitty gritty as to why someone creates the way that they do, what goes into it.

00;20;14;28 - 00;20;36;16
Rob Lee
And because it is something interesting here that I think listeners and myself obviously having that curiosity, but I think listeners can get out of it as well like that. So this is how Jeffrey creates this is how he's doing his work or what have you. And maybe it inspires, but also give somebody a little juice, get somebody a little used to maybe take their approach in a certain way.

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Rob Lee
You know what people know about, oh, trucks and what?

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Speaker 4
Oh, yeah.

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Jeff Everett
I tell somebody stories and I forget them. But like, I can tell, like I've done podcasts where the person I'm speaking to clearly has never looked at my.

00;20;55;13 - 00;20;55;21
Speaker 4
Work.

00;20;57;27 - 00;21;17;12
Jeff Everett
And it would kind of be like, Yeah, oh, you did work for RTI. Oh, he did work for that. And I'm just like, You've never looked at my work because like the effect is nice, but it's not representative of, of what I do. So you're literally on my website right now.

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Speaker 4
Oh.

00;21;18;24 - 00;21;26;24
Jeff Everett
Like click click in the illustration thing. And you know, with that you're on a website I haven't updated in like three years.

00;21;26;24 - 00;21;29;20
Rob Lee
I notice that by the way, I was like, What is this?

00;21;31;06 - 00;21;31;26
Speaker 4
Sorry.

00;21;32;24 - 00;21;36;29
Jeff Everett
I'm like trying to update it now and I'm just like.

00;21;36;29 - 00;21;37;07
Speaker 4
Do.

00;21;37;07 - 00;21;46;21
Jeff Everett
People like, do people use websites? Don't they just go to their social media these days? You know, I'm old.

00;21;46;21 - 00;21;47;22
Speaker 4
Like I.

00;21;47;22 - 00;21;56;14
Jeff Everett
Don't go to people's websites anymore. The worse is when you go to someone's website and they have like the news or the blog and that.

00;21;56;24 - 00;21;57;29
Speaker 4
Is the social media really.

00;21;58;08 - 00;22;06;04
Jeff Everett
Clearly hasn't been updated for like a year and a half. And you're like, do you just take it down? Take it down?

00;22;06;04 - 00;22;10;15
Rob Lee
It's like it's like that bit like The Simpsons. It's like, Oh, trouble in Mazara.

00;22;10;18 - 00;22;12;21
Speaker 4
It's like, Oh, we had this weird.

00;22;12;21 - 00;22;15;17
Rob Lee
Call, this like, what date is oh 2019.

00;22;15;18 - 00;22;18;06
Speaker 4
I Yeah, yeah.

00;22;18;16 - 00;22;50;15
Rob Lee
So, so you're working in a nice cross section as we talked about. You've worked with folks in entertainment. We were talking about off Mike about, you know, doing some work for wrestlers and you've done work for musicians, you know, corporate and nonprofit and things of that sort. How do they compare to, like, you know, is a corporate client for for sake of argument, more in generalities, obviously, but as a corporate client, more rigid than an entertainment client or a nonprofit client, you know, does one have a better I was one more brand conscious.

00;22;50;15 - 00;22;53;06
Rob Lee
Make sure you get those colors right. You know, tell me about that.

00;22;53;11 - 00;23;24;21
Jeff Everett
I, I had a friend pull me into a job and it was a big one, huge budget. They paid me like a stupid amount of money, but it was very. You have to use the brand colors. Mm hmm. We. We need this in a week. We need. And then they would keep adding stuff to the project, and I'd be like, Yeah, like, you need this in a week.

00;23;24;21 - 00;24;03;19
Jeff Everett
Like, you're not. You're not understanding how much work this is or what you're asking me. And at the end of the day, when, when you work with certain, like larger companies, they really do miss all of the details and they don't necessarily get the story or get the passion or, you know, get the feelings behind what you're trying to do.

00;24;03;19 - 00;24;40;03
Jeff Everett
It's kind of like, all right, we've all seen American Psycho and we all know the business card scene, right? Yes. And how everyone's like, oh, oh, it's off White Vermeil, you know, whatever. The thing that always made me laugh was that on every card, the word acquisition is spelled incorrectly. And that's how it feels. When I work with a lot of, like, corporate clients, you really care about certain things, but you don't always care about the most obvious things, you know?

00;24;40;03 - 00;25;00;17
Jeff Everett
Like so when I did this big project, my friend sent me pictures and he was like, Isn't this really cool? And I was like, No, it wasn't like, I'm really glad that I did this. The paycheck was great. It was fun working with my friend, but I was like, I never going to show this to anybody, you know?

00;25;00;17 - 00;25;14;03
Jeff Everett
Like, my name's not on it. I don't want people to see it. They spent a tremendous amount of money to have it be up for like three days and then it disappeared. And I just was like, Yeah, that works. That's cool.

00;25;14;09 - 00;25;16;27
Speaker 4
Fantastic. Yeah, the check cashed.

00;25;17;26 - 00;25;53;25
Jeff Everett
But then like, I'll, I will work with bands and you know, I will work with some bands where it's like, Cool. You're one of like 80 posters that we're doing on this tour. Just, just do whatever you want. We don't care. The band name will sell it, right? And that's and that's discouraging. But then we'll do the post like, you know, they'll do like the online sale after the tour and mine won't be a part of it.

00;25;53;25 - 00;26;19;05
Jeff Everett
And I'll be like, Yo, like, what happened? Why aren't my posters up? And they'll be like, Oh, they sold out that night. And and part of me goes, Yeah, because I didn't just throw a skull on top of an ice cream cone. And that's supposed to represent emo music, you know, or that's supposed to represent, you know, how my heart got broken.

00;26;19;24 - 00;27;07;22
Jeff Everett
Like, I really will work hard for my clients in, like, what you're saying. Like, I will try to understand my client not only what the band wants, but I think what's more, more frustrating, what do what do the fans want? And then trying to make those two things work because they don't always work together, you know, you're having to convince a manager and a merch manager and someone working the, you know, the table or the lead singer, the bitter drummer, all of them to why this will work and everyone can go, yeah, skulls are cool.

00;27;07;22 - 00;27;29;02
Jeff Everett
Or, you know, for the long time, for the longest time it was, you know, just through a hot girl with tattoos on there. The poster will sell. And that definitely worked for a long time for me. But after a while, you're just like, How many times can I do this? And then not just come off like a scumbag?

00;27;29;02 - 00;28;02;18
Jeff Everett
You know, I think for me, working with small bands are actually the toughest because for them this is like the encapsulation of like a year of work for them. Sure. And the money that they're paying me, even if I give them a deal, is like a lot of money to them. And so I always do like the I'm going to show you a rough sketch.

00;28;03;14 - 00;28;28;08
Jeff Everett
It's basically going to be a stick figure. I'm going to do it. You get to rounds of edits, small edits, and then that's it. And it'll always be well. We showed this to our 15 friends. Here's the edits they want you to make. Can we completely redesign it? Can we make the name bigger? Can we do this and this and this and this and this.

00;28;28;20 - 00;28;33;24
Jeff Everett
And I always kind of go, you know, you came to me for a reason. Just just trust me.

00;28;33;25 - 00;28;34;17
Speaker 4
Yeah, but.

00;28;34;24 - 00;29;09;14
Jeff Everett
That that never happens. I worked with one guy, and all it was was a picture of a woman not naked. And I had to change the face eight times. Well, because first it was she was too pretty, and then it was, you know, not pretty enough. And then it was even though we're using like a alternate color, does it look too ethnic?

00;29;09;14 - 00;29;16;08
Jeff Everett
Does it not look ethnic enough? Should we put glasses on or it looks too much like Hillary Clinton.

00;29;16;19 - 00;29;18;03
Speaker 4
You know.

00;29;18;03 - 00;29;27;00
Jeff Everett
So, yeah, we did like ten I did like ten faces to get like the I don't know, the most generic pretty but not too pretty.

00;29;27;21 - 00;29;29;00
Rob Lee
Ethnic but not too ethnic.

00;29;29;00 - 00;29;30;18
Speaker 4
Just yeah, it's like.

00;29;30;18 - 00;29;34;00
Jeff Everett
Oh, come on. So, yeah.

00;29;34;09 - 00;29;36;02
Rob Lee
It just turns to American food, you know.

00;29;36;19 - 00;29;38;28
Speaker 4
Yeah.

00;29;38;28 - 00;29;45;05
Jeff Everett
Just put mayonnaise on everything. It's bland. So. Yeah, answer your question.

00;29;45;05 - 00;29;47;02
Speaker 4
No, it did. No. Yeah.

00;29;47;02 - 00;29;48;09
Jeff Everett
Time my rambling. No, no, no.

00;29;48;09 - 00;30;02;19
Rob Lee
No, no. That definitely helps. Gives us that that sort of what, what does that experience look like and working with clients and that's what I was looking for there. So what is like so I got two more real questions for you and before I had those rapid fire ones with you.

00;30;02;27 - 00;30;04;16
Jeff Everett
Compared to fake questions.

00;30;04;16 - 00;30;09;08
Rob Lee
Yes, yes, fake questions. So in Rapid Fire, was it just goofy questions, you know? Yeah.

00;30;10;11 - 00;30;12;24
Speaker 4
So what would you how.

00;30;12;24 - 00;30;31;08
Rob Lee
Would you define success like, you know, for for you like, you know, is it like kind of booking that huge client or what have you, a band that you're really into or doing a project that you're like, you know, the paycheck is a certain thing or being very selective about who you decide to like work with or you know.

00;30;31;08 - 00;30;45;13
Rob Lee
And with that, what has been a highlight for you in your career? Like, you know, you touched on a few things, I think, before we started, but, you know, tell me about that. Like House is success defined for you and what is a highlight of your career thus far?

00;30;45;13 - 00;31;27;15
Jeff Everett
Success for me is knowing that I still want to do what I want to do after 25 years of having other people tell me I suck, I still love to come down to my studio. I still love sending stuff out to print. I still love having people in Japan and Australia and Germany, the UK, South America, Idaho and Ohio and all those places.

00;31;27;15 - 00;32;06;19
Jeff Everett
Buy my shit that that blows my mind that someone's willing to spend $45 plus $15 to ship it for a piece of paper with ink on it. It blows my mind that to me is success. I really feel like longevity in in what I'm doing is like the pinnacle, like, you know, still doing something new and not writing off of the accomplishments of when I was young.

00;32;07;08 - 00;32;43;26
Jeff Everett
That makes sense. It was like, I don't have glory days, you know? Like, I'm sure you're a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. I and so he has that song Glory Days. Yes. And I can lecture on this for an hour and a half. But the the if you listen to the song, he's always talking to other people and they're talking about their glory days and Bruce will kind of like go, Oh yeah, we talked about this and we talked about that.

00;32;44;12 - 00;33;06;01
Jeff Everett
But he never says that he's in hit, you know, he has glory days. Why? Because he's Bruce fucking Springsteen. Right. And he's still riding that crest, you know what I mean? Like the dudes going on tour, doing sold out shows for a ridiculous amounts of money and selling out arenas. So he's not looking back, going, Oh, wasn't it better way back then?

00;33;06;03 - 00;33;36;02
Jeff Everett
Yeah, now he's still fucking doing it. And that's kind of how I feel like I'm not playing arenas, I'm not in huge books, I'm doing wonderful podcast such as this and that and that, you know, makes me happy and I have yet to go. It was really cool when I did X, Y, Z, because I'm really excited for my next gallery show.

00;33;36;08 - 00;33;59;12
Jeff Everett
I'm excited to be doing a book tour. I'm excited that I'm putting out a book. I'm excited I already have another book planned after that. Now granted, I also fully am aware and pick it up $30,000 of my saved money and throwing it out the window, you know, printing a book in Italy that like three people that I'm related to will probably buy.

00;33;59;23 - 00;34;04;12
Jeff Everett
But, you know, fuck it, you know how many people put out books?

00;34;04;13 - 00;34;06;00
Speaker 4
This is true. This is true. Yeah.

00;34;06;15 - 00;34;28;10
Jeff Everett
Well, like I said, I had a friend and she was going through a divorce and she was like, Hey, like, what are you doing today? And I was like, Oh, I'm doing a podcast. You know, I'm getting printer quotes from my book. You know, I just I'm doing some work for Social Distortion, like we just did, like a four poster series.

00;34;28;20 - 00;34;55;17
Jeff Everett
I have a gallery, like, I'm just kind of listing all this shit, and she just goes, Man, you make it sound so normal. And I was like, Well, you know, like, this is just my life. And she goes, Yeah, like, my husband never did any of that stuff, you know? And you know, like not many people go on podcast, the fact that you have a podcast that, you know, granted I'm the low point in it.

00;34;55;25 - 00;34;56;21
Speaker 4
And so like.

00;34;57;15 - 00;35;26;08
Jeff Everett
You know, like Rogan James Spooner was on it. He's so fucking rad. It's so like, you know, people I think they think of success as working for these really huge bands. And it's like, you know, I, I have worked for really huge bands. They don't pay that much money. You know, you get to go, I worked with this band that, you know, did Wembley Stadium.

00;35;26;09 - 00;35;32;17
Jeff Everett
I've I've done posters for bands that have sold out Wembley Stadium, right. And they were and they were dicks.

00;35;33;00 - 00;35;33;28
Speaker 4
You know.

00;35;33;28 - 00;35;52;06
Jeff Everett
And their manager, their manager made it. So I had a nervous breakdown because they were so shitty. And then I've worked with bands that haven't sold out. The club is not a big club and those are my favorite posters. Yeah.

00;35;52;09 - 00;36;15;05
Rob Lee
So now I dig it, I dig it. They are instances. And in doing this, when we peel back the curtain, you know, about what it is to, to work with clients or my instance guests and so on. And, you know, some of the things that that I hear, I get weird things that feel like, you know, personal attacks, that people have no problems.

00;36;15;05 - 00;36;37;12
Rob Lee
And and to me in email and if I wasn't, you know, who I am and believe, like, well, that happened behind the scenes. I'm not going to put it out there. It could cost them some real issues. And, you know, people taking really weird personal attacks with no information really of like, you know, if you have to reschedule for sake of argument, we're still in the midst of COVID, you know what I mean?

00;36;37;12 - 00;36;59;11
Rob Lee
And anything could happen. Well, you know, I don't really do reschedule since they can't call or asking for an obscene amount of money for an honorarium, you know, to to be on here. And it's like, I don't know if that's the case, like going to your thing. And you said, Jane, sooner, I had him on and we just chopped it up and he was like, Yeah, let's do it.

00;36;59;23 - 00;37;23;02
Rob Lee
Versus someone who is more emergent and trying to develop and kind of, you know, Hey, if you want me to be on here, you know, you got to pay me $400 for a 30 minute interview and those are those are things that are there. And at the same time, I don't have friends in you know, I've been pretty much riding this wave of interviews, you know, for months at this point.

00;37;23;13 - 00;37;40;00
Rob Lee
And I'm and I'm still just like I get satisfied in peaks, but really it's just like this is normal, you know, kind of what you were told, you know, and I'll talk to Buddy and it's like, Man, I'm mad because I'm trying to move to whatever the next thing is, not move away from this, but actually do this in a richer way.

00;37;40;22 - 00;37;56;07
Rob Lee
And I almost feel like I should always hear. Yes. And when I don't get that, because I know what work I'm putting in, I know the quality of the content and so on, and I know the guests that I say yes to and people reach out. I'm like, No, no, I'm picking good guess. I'm good conversations with people.

00;37;56;18 - 00;38;18;20
Rob Lee
How can I get that trust to take this to that next spot and, you know, feeling fortunate enough that I'm in a spot where I can just, you know, at least have the possibility of I want to do a calendar, I want to do a book, I want to have and you may find is interesting. At one point, this is kind of like the rack because I guess the rapid fire questions after this.

00;38;19;00 - 00;38;40;21
Rob Lee
But I remember I was talking with the guests and I do these live podcasts I want to do like the band poster, but from the locations that I want to like, you had to have been there to get this poster not being sold anywhere else, having that sort of exclusive experience sort of creation. And I remember when I was a little while back, I'd have an idea like that.

00;38;40;21 - 00;38;47;11
Rob Lee
Someone would tell me it was stupid. Now it's just like, No, that's a good idea. That's a really good idea. I was like, I know, but like, these are the same types of ideas I'm having.

00;38;48;15 - 00;39;26;15
Jeff Everett
Well, there's I mean, bring back to wrestling. I mean, Paul Heyman said about CW, you're going to put stuff out there and you'll either turn on or you'll turn people off. And the idea is to turn more people on. I have been told that what I do is not legitimate design, that I have tried to go on some podcasts like the big design podcasts and been told straight up, you're not a real designer.

00;39;28;09 - 00;39;56;13
Jeff Everett
And then I turn around and go, Hey, mother fucker, how many people have your work tattooed on them? Zero. Yeah. How many people have your work for Pepsi-Cola? Framed it on their wall. Right. You know how many people have taken your work into a you know, into a mosh pit, swung it around like a baseball bat.

00;39;56;23 - 00;39;57;01
Speaker 4
That.

00;39;57;23 - 00;40;21;26
Jeff Everett
Literally have blood on it, and then they get it framed, you know, in like a really expensive frame, you know, the problem with, like, social media and everything is that there's always comparisons. And, you know, I went and saw a band play a sold out show at the anthem a couple of weeks ago, and I went and watched them.

00;40;21;26 - 00;40;40;21
Jeff Everett
Is it? I'm not going to say the band was, but it was like a reunion kind of show. And I remember sitting there in my VIP seats and I remember looking at this band going, Oh, this is like meeting that girl that you had a crush on in high school.

00;40;41;15 - 00;40;41;18
Speaker 4
And.

00;40;41;21 - 00;40;47;10
Jeff Everett
Years later. And you're like, What the face like, why did I ever like.

00;40;47;10 - 00;40;48;08
Speaker 4
This class now?

00;40;48;20 - 00;41;28;01
Jeff Everett
You know, like, she's not as cute. She's definitely not as smart. She's certainly not funny. What did I ever what I ever liked about this person? And then, like, a week later, Girls Against Boys played the black cat, and I was pumped because I did posters for the show. Yeah, okay. And they're my favorite band. Rockets are Red are named after one of their songs because when I was 20 years old, walking through D.C. with my girlfriend, who then became my wife, she goes, Hey, do you ever want to open a design firm?

00;41;28;08 - 00;41;56;25
Jeff Everett
I said, Yeah, what would you name it? And we are coming from a Girls Against Boys show. And I said, Rockets are red. So I saw Girls Against Boys played to I know three quarters of the venue was for and they fucking slayed, you know, Eli, Jenny, all of them are in their fifties and they're jumping around stage swinging the double bass guitar players going off.

00;41;56;25 - 00;42;34;14
Jeff Everett
The drummer's amazing, you know? And I just was like, I haven't seen them play in years. And they destroyed that band I saw last week. Right, who are all maybe in their late thirties, early forties, who didn't take a step on stage, but like Eli, Jane is like ripping it up, you know? So it's like, yeah, sometimes you don't have a hundred thousand followers on Instagram, but you know, I have friends who have 100,000 on Instagram who can't pay the rent.

00;42;35;04 - 00;42;47;10
Jeff Everett
You know, I have just over 9000 followers and I as long as 50 people are willing to buy a print, I'm doing pretty well. That's all I.

00;42;47;10 - 00;43;07;21
Rob Lee
Need. That's literally the thing. It's like that. The 1000 true fans thing or whatever that number might be, and, you know, getting people to buy in, that's really cultivating and curating an audience. And, you know, those are the people that, you know, actually, the people that you're speaking to and they're going to write with you with whatever you're doing.

00;43;07;21 - 00;43;16;22
Rob Lee
And I think that's the thing. That's an indication of success. And also that's that's where we're going to stop it before we get to these rapid fire questions.

00;43;17;09 - 00;43;22;12
Jeff Everett
Because Jeff does not shut the fuck up. He takes too long. It's a 30 minute podcast.

00;43;22;13 - 00;43;34;04
Rob Lee
No, Jeff has been great. Jeff has been great. So now right now here, brevity is key here that. All right, here's the first question. What is something you wish someone told you when you first started out?

00;43;34;28 - 00;43;43;26
Jeff Everett
Never show the sketch that you're not 100% jazzed about doing, because that's the fucking sketch that the client will pick.

00;43;44;28 - 00;43;45;10
Speaker 4
That's great.

00;43;46;06 - 00;43;52;18
Rob Lee
You mentioned traveling earlier. What's your favorite place you've traveled in the last, let's say, five years?

00;43;52;18 - 00;44;03;24
Jeff Everett
Asheville, North Carolina. Okay. They had vegan donuts on every corner. Yeah. And they have really good music venues there.

00;44;04;06 - 00;44;05;25
Rob Lee
Cue the FDR theme. Yeah.

00;44;06;08 - 00;44;10;21
Speaker 4
Yeah. How would you would.

00;44;11;19 - 00;44;18;16
Rob Lee
Okay. In terms of a through line, what would be three words you would use to describe your your style of art?

00;44;18;16 - 00;44;18;28
Speaker 4
Oh.

00;44;19;09 - 00;44;22;06
Rob Lee
I know, I know.

00;44;22;06 - 00;44;33;25
Jeff Everett
Stuck. You know me. I don't say anything briefly. Um, I would say bold. I would say colorful, emotional.

00;44;34;15 - 00;44;37;03
Speaker 4
Look, fucking. No, no, no, no.

00;44;37;03 - 00;44;37;17
Rob Lee
It was a good.

00;44;37;19 - 00;44;38;00
Speaker 4
It was good.

00;44;38;12 - 00;44;47;12
Jeff Everett
My kids would say it sucks. So be like it sucks. Exclamation point.

00;44;47;12 - 00;44;55;16
Rob Lee
No, this one is. See these last two? I think they're going to they're going to catch you. If you could be one fictional character, who would it be?

00;44;55;16 - 00;44;57;00
Jeff Everett
One fictional character?

00;44;57;17 - 00;44;59;03
Speaker 4
Um.

00;44;59;03 - 00;45;01;16
Jeff Everett
Oh, motherfucker. You should send these to me earlier.

00;45;01;25 - 00;45;07;19
Rob Lee
But I am a fictional character. That would be amazing.

00;45;08;02 - 00;45;10;13
Jeff Everett
You know what I'm going to say, Captain America.

00;45;10;25 - 00;45;11;13
Speaker 4
Okay, but.

00;45;12;03 - 00;45;42;18
Jeff Everett
I either Captain America or Spider-Man now Captain America, because he's, you know, he's on that government money. So unless I'm going to say have I got a I have a firm I'm going to tell you why. So I worked with Fred Rogers, you know, Mister Rogers and, you know, Captain America is Steve Rogers. So like my religion is called the two Rogers in it and it works really well.

00;45;42;18 - 00;45;45;22
Jeff Everett
So yeah, I'm going to go with and we'll go Captain America.

00;45;46;01 - 00;45;57;25
Rob Lee
I'm here for it. But this is the last question I got for you. We talked about wrestling before and a little bit in the actual. So I must ask, who's your favorite nineties wrestler?

00;45;58;17 - 00;46;06;02
Jeff Everett
Oh, okay. So I didn't get into wrestle Lean until the 2000.

00;46;06;21 - 00;46;07;23
Rob Lee
Favorite 2000.

00;46;07;24 - 00;46;12;29
Speaker 4
The Wrestler.

00;46;12;29 - 00;46;42;09
Jeff Everett
It's going to be a two parter because they are a tag team. Sabu and Rob van Dam, my man, because when I lived in New York and I would go to Kim's Mondo to get videos and the guy was like, Dude, you need to check out ICW. I got that tape and I saw them doing splashes through tables and I went, I have like, What the fuck is this?

00;46;42;28 - 00;47;01;11
Jeff Everett
Is that renewed my love of wrestling? Yeah. I mean, it goes right back to it. I mean, SBW went out of business, but it still means so much to people. And I think that's the legacy that you want to have.

00;47;01;21 - 00;47;22;14
Rob Lee
Yeah, yeah. When I when I go up there to Philly, I've gone to see the most wrestling shows that I've gone to see and a probably seen like less than ten wrestling shows in person. I've seen probably four in South Philly at the ICW Arena and maybe three. And all three of them were New Japan pro wrestling events.

00;47;22;23 - 00;47;44;17
Rob Lee
But in Cali, when they've come here for like Long Beach and things of that nature. So yeah, I mean like it's definitely a part of it. And then seeing some of the scene that is like almost a loss era in some regards where we're not getting that crazy, you know, on occasion you get like, you know, some CW and they get to the blood and guts sorts of matches or as they call it, garbage matches.

00;47;44;26 - 00;47;54;28
Rob Lee
But yeah, I mean, those like Rob van Dam and and Sabu, absolutely 100%. And Rob needs to really cut his hair because it is burning in the back.

00;47;54;28 - 00;48;09;25
Jeff Everett
That shelf it's getting sad. Like, I mean, like I have long hair that I tell you back, but I'm not I'm not bald and I don't have like, the weird like he does like the shaved now. He doesn't go all the way up. He kind of is like, yeah, it's just.

00;48;10;21 - 00;48;12;12
Rob Lee
It's like Shawn Michaels hair going on.

00;48;12;25 - 00;48;19;00
Jeff Everett
I love Rob, but man, come on, get with the times. All right, give me the times. Now, have you seen Sabu?

00;48;19;14 - 00;48;22;15
Rob Lee
He's not looking great. No, it's not good.

00;48;23;09 - 00;48;41;25
Jeff Everett
He's one of those people where you're just like like, what do you do next? You know what I mean? Like and it's like what I know with, like, punk bands, it's like, you are famous to a certain amount of people, but like, what do you do afterwards? You know, like there.

00;48;41;25 - 00;48;44;12
Rob Lee
Are companies.

00;48;44;12 - 00;49;06;27
Jeff Everett
There are, but like, okay, so I don't know if this is true or not, but like I read how Tito Santana opened like a hair salon when he retired. And like, I really respect the hell out of that of just like, I need to make money, I'm going to cut hair of old women, you know, because.

00;49;07;02 - 00;49;26;24
Rob Lee
This notion of going out there and saying, Oh, I'm just going to sign autographs and toys and such, and it's like, you can do that. But what is your actual day like? I think Scott Steiner has like a zaxby's or something in Atlanta, and I think Rick Steiner was like a politician or something. He was like, okay, you actually did a thing.

00;49;27;09 - 00;49;31;10
Jeff Everett
Yeah, well, and like, who is it? Shane Douglas.

00;49;32;13 - 00;49;32;23
Speaker 4
Either.

00;49;32;23 - 00;49;54;23
Jeff Everett
Worked at or still works at Target. You know, like, can you imagine going there and being like, Hey, where's the stationery store? Like, how can you can you show me the fluffiest sheets? You know, like, it's weird, like when you meet people that you've absolutely loved.

00;49;55;11 - 00;49;55;24
Speaker 4
In, like.

00;49;55;24 - 00;50;17;19
Jeff Everett
Really pedestrian settings and like, that has happened to me. Like, there is a band I love called Restorations. They're from Philly. And I went to like get breakfast at this diner called The Tasty and he was working there.

00;50;18;13 - 00;50;19;04
Speaker 4
It's just one of.

00;50;19;04 - 00;50;30;07
Jeff Everett
Those things of like, I don't know if I say anything. I feel really like, do I make like, can I tell him to take the sour cream off? Like, I don't know what to do because this guy's amazing.

00;50;30;25 - 00;50;31;08
Speaker 4
You know?

00;50;31;24 - 00;50;49;15
Rob Lee
So, so, so I want to wrap up here and thank you for being on the podcast. This has been a treat. It's been been great to chat with you. And I want to invite and encourage you to tell the fine folks to listeners where they can check you out, your work, your website, all of that good stuff. The floor is yours.

00;50;50;07 - 00;51;22;13
Jeff Everett
All right. So my main website is rockets are red, such rockets hyphen three hyphen red dot com. My book is coming out hopefully in January. We're doing the Kickstarter for that and that's let it bleed dot com so it's hyphen it hyphen bleed dot com because I like to make everything as difficult as possible. All the good dcoms have been bought.

00;51;22;13 - 00;51;48;05
Jeff Everett
You can find me on Instagram at Rocket to Red. No hyphen and yeah, that's it. You know, shoot me emails, shoot me, DMS, nothing that's going to make me say put some clothing on and yeah, that happens more than you think. I get a lot of like, could you put me on a poster? And I'm like.

00;51;48;15 - 00;51;52;12
Speaker 4
I know. No, no.

00;51;52;28 - 00;51;58;13
Jeff Everett
I want to. I want to talk to you about some stuff going on in your life. Why are you doing this to an old man?

00;51;58;20 - 00;51;59;02
Speaker 4
Let's talk.

00;51;59;02 - 00;52;22;28
Rob Lee
Boundaries. Yeah. So so with that again, thank you for being on this podcast. And I want to say that for Jeffrey Everett, I'm broadly saying that there is art, culture, design illustration in around your neck of the woods. You just got to look for it.