Grind Hard Plumbing Co on Going Viral From Their First Video, How They Got Their Name, & Strategy vs Luck
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One week and every single comment, you copied the Seaboy. Did you guys get on Jay Leno with that? The Idaho state government forces us to be insured as plumbers. No way. No, I was on a unicycle. Sometimes safety is not first. Or third. Because I had to take the truck topper off my truck to fit the go-kart. Your house. That's my house. I was like, it's full commitment now.

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north idaho is not an easy place for anything i mean it works well for you guys because you get four seasons you get to live out in the middle of the woods dude yeah you've got to be the only youtubers out there i'd imagine uh surprisingly not there's actually one um probably less than 10 miles from us oh wow yeah they're they're called ambition strikes and they do like off-grid stuff i don't i haven't watched any of their content but they're in north idaho yeah

10 miles down the road and you haven't even watched our video yet? I don't watch anyone's videos. Ethan legit does not watch YouTube. Well, you make up for it. Dude, you've got to watch more YouTube than anyone else I know. I'll be watching like a random music video and I'll see a Grind Hard Plumbing Co. comment underneath it. I'm like, what is going on? Like on our podcast, on our videos, like early on. And I'm like, man, dude.

Edwin is just on it. I used to watch probably like six hours of YouTube a day, and then now I have probably watched like three and then more like six on weekends. Even all my podcasts I get on YouTube too because it's like...

I don't know. I just feel part of that world even before we started the channel or anything. Wow, that's crazy. Six hours a day. Oh my gosh. Well, I guess it's kind of just doing research. Being that you're a YouTuber, it's easy to justify. Yeah, it is. Well, anyway. All right, guys. So we've got on Ethan and Edwin from Grind Hard Plumbing Co.'s YouTube channel. You guys have got just over 2 million subscribers. You make build-type content, but kind of like us, you guys build very abstract content.

that should not be built and you guys bring to life, but you've kind of been doing it. You were doing it before we were doing it. You were doing it kind of before any YouTube channel got on the concept of weird builds do better than just normal things. I remember the first time that we met you guys was what, four years ago when we came out to Coeur d'Alene? Something like that, yeah. You guys is filming compound...

my house ethan's house in the middle like people think that we're in the middle of nowhere you guys are actually in the middle of nowhere like trees woods surrounding everywhere like you would think that it's like kind of like you would think like a serial killer would come out of your guys area like i think of like ted in the shed like that's what it reminds me of i mean back when i was back when i was dating like yeah it was definitely uh you know people were a little concerned

They're wondering where he's going. They're like, I'm going to let somebody know where I'm going before I come over. Jump out of the car halfway there. I think I'll walk. Just make sure you text them at the bottom of the mountain because you lose cell service. Exactly.

But no, you guys, when we first came out there, you guys had just finished up the Colonel Senders. Yep. So you guys took the Jeep Power Wheels platform and then just made it an actual drivable, full-grown vehicle. And you were the first ones to do something like that. I just remember showing up to your compound and seeing all these different vehicles that were just weird, abstract buildings.

builds and be like dude this is like entertainment right here this is what people want the crazy crazy things like that so anyway tip my hat to you guys and uh what you guys have built thank you yeah i can't take like or we can't take all the credit for that because one of the first things i saw was um boosted boy kyle and his shopping cart oh yeah he

Had really good videos, like making really fast civics and stuff and like gapping Ferraris and Lamborghinis on the highway and stuff. And still that shopping cart video did better than those videos. And I remember watching that and being like,

Holy smokes. That is what I saw as the first person to make like a goofy thing that shouldn't exist, be more popular than these like more common things. So yeah, that was definitely a lot of inspiration just seeing that project. So how did you guys come together? Like explain to me kind of your start, like...

Is that what inspired you to get into YouTube? Or, like, what's the story behind this? How long have you guys known each other? Well, Ethan had viral videos way before GrindHardy should take that one. Really? Sure, yeah. You were YouTubing before being a YouTuber, huh? Yeah, I mean, kind of by accident. Like, I...

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

like three subscribers it got i don't know 12 or 20 000 views or something i was like oh this is cool i'm a youtuber now yeah it's not like an igloo it had multiple rooms and like yeah with candles yeah we slept 10 people in it yeah it was it was a solid snow cave so how did you have time to do that when you're not a youtuber you spent a whole week digging a snow cave just for fun yeah pretty much i had just uh gotten out of college i well i have two years of college so

I went to local community college for photography and I got my associates. And then I was kind of trying to figure out what I wanted to do next. And I had a trip planned to go to Ireland and some of Europe. And there was just kind of a gap in between that where I was kind of

just at my mom's place, which is now, which is now my place. But so yeah, I was just kind of, you know, didn't have anything better to do, built a snow cave for a week. Um, but yeah, then after that, like the next year or something, I was just working for local people doing, you know, construction and whatnot and had the inspiration to build a tree house. Um,

I built a small tree house when I was a kid. You were going to do a big this time. Yeah, I was like, you're an adult now. So yeah, I was 22 and I was staying at my mom's house, not indefinitely, just kind of trying to figure out what I was doing next. And then I was like, you know what? I could just build like a little tree house to sleep in. So I have my own room. So I did that. And then because I like doing weird things that are different, I built a bicycle elevator to get into it.

because stairs and ladders suck and the treehouse is like 25 feet in the air. This is not a normal treehouse. This is like the Mac Daddy of all treehouses. That's what I thought too. The time we went in it, it was dark and riding that bicycle elevator up and then walking across the rope bridge, I was like, dude, this guy is not afraid of heights.

There's no way I could have built that, dude. Well, dude, when you were walking across the rope bridge that has the ropes on the side, but you weren't touching the ropes on the side, and you just walked across like it was just like you were in the mall. And then when I got up there, I just watched you do it, and then I get in there and it's shaking back and forth, and I'm like terrified.

I'm not afraid of heights, but that was like, I was easily the most scared I've ever been that high off the ground. Like how high generally? How many feet? It's around 20, 25 feet. High enough that you would severely hurt yourself. You don't even get to see the ground for when you're going to hit it. But yeah, so long story short, the bicycle elevator, I made a really crappy little video, like 60 seconds long of just riding.

riding up and down it and that went super viral. I mean, considering I had on YouTube. Yeah, on YouTube. Well, actually everywhere. It was one of those videos that like went way outside of YouTube. What year was this roughly? 13, 2013. So like early days. Yeah. So it went super viral. It went, it got about a million views on YouTube and then CNN aired it and

Really? Like just everyone. Yeah. Like, um, was it in a national geographic children's book? Yup. Yeah. I have, I still, I kept the pay stub cause like as a kid, my dream job was to be a national geographic photographer. And technically I am because I sold national geographic pictures of my tree house to put in their book for kids. Can you tell how much they were, they bought them for? I was like a hundred bucks. Damn.

It was nothing, but it was awesome. Yeah. It was the pay stub that mattered. Um, but yeah, it was in like, uh, I got interviewed for like a radio broadcast in Germany, uh, a TV show in Japan. Um, it was in a children's book in Turkey. Like it was everywhere. It was wild. So globally viral. Oh yeah. Super, super global tree house heard around the world. Right. So yeah. And then, I mean, I made a few more videos with that. Um,

Um, you know a few videos with a million views here and there some of them not monetized because like I didn't know how to find rights for music and stuff Right. Um, but yeah And then I ended up building a few tree houses because of that for like local people that heard about me and were like Hey, can you build me a tree house? And one of those ended up being a really nice tree house Like if you saw mine and thought that was the mac daddy like the one that I built, uh, it was on the lake like

In a tree. In a tree on the lake, yeah. And you just walk into it from ground level because it's on a super steep slope. So it's only like 15. That's badass. Like from the base of the tree house to the ground at the tree that it's around, it's only like six feet or something or eight feet maybe. But because it's a big...

big tree house it's i think the total square footage including the porch is like 300 square feet what god damn that's a mansion of tree house yeah it's not is it funny how everyone like loves the idea of a tree house until you actually are like in a tree house and you're like this is kind of inconvenient yeah if you need anything you gotta like crawl back right so this one was designed wanted a tree house right so this one was designed to you're good this one was designed to be

Like you just walked in on a bridge from ground level, like right in front of this nice house. Anyway, I did a full time lapse of that build. Like I actually wore out the shutter on my DSLR taking photos for it. Hundreds of thousands of frames. Anyway, actually probably millions, but did a full time lapse on that. And I filmed a few clips here and there. So it was just like a time lapse edited to music with a few random clips.

And that one for a long time was actually, until maybe very recently, I haven't checked, honestly. It had more views than any Grind Hard video we've ever done. It had like, I don't know, 8 million views or something. But... Especially back in the day, those are huge numbers. Yeah, yeah. That one was later. And then I ended up being on a TV show called

on history channel and as like a treehouse builder no uh as like an imaginary character that lives in a treehouse survivalist style and like classic tv type of yeah they made you they made you kind of like oh yeah yeah it was a hundred percent made up yeah we've filmed one of those one time too yeah every pilot episode yeah it was yeah so i was on a series of that that was it was a cool experience to do it once i would never do it again never recommend it to anyone

it to anyone. Yeah, I think Ben's name was going to be Doogie. Yeah, they wanted to name him Doogie. Yeah, Ben was not good enough. Doogie was a better name. He was going to be known as Doogie. Can you imagine if that would have like actually caught on? Yeah. And then that's just my name. Doogie! Doogie!

Yeah, it was some genius script writing. So then what? So you do this TV show. How long does that go for? They only did one season because it was terrible. Oh, really? What were you going to say, Edwin? Oh, I just had an antidote for what type of show it was. It wasn't Ethan. He probably wouldn't have let the producers make them do this. But in one of the episodes...

These guys hunt elk with dynamite. That's how bad it was. Oh, my gosh. Is that even legal? That's not at all. What if you would have got one? Also, they're just pretending. Like, we're setting up traps under these rocks with dynamite. And when the elk goes by, we're going to ignite the dynamite because we don't have any other way to hunt elk. And then we're going to pick up the meat. Only dynamite. Yeah, we don't have weapons.

That is a crazy video. I had to pretend to fish, but they weren't going to wait around to actually catch a fish. Also, it was a creek they're not supposed to be fishing in. So they bought a trout from Safeway and put it on the hook, and I had to

pretend to catch a fish that was dead. This is why TV is dying. Yes, it is. This is why TV is dying. And this was 10 years ago, so it's way worse now. Well, my question is, why does anyone give these producers that come up with these terrible ideas any kind of credibility to be able to continue to come up with these terrible ideas? I think there's some that are great, but a lot that are bad. We've had a lot of experience, only experience with bad ones.

How do those ones continue to keep doing it is my question. I think there's a person at the top of the food chain that gets pitched normal ideas every day. The day is long. And so you make something stand out. These

these guys with beards down to their bellies are hunting elk with dynamite in Alaska. And then that person at the top of the food chain doesn't know anything. That is pretty crazy. Like, I want to see that. Like, they don't, I think that at that far, it's so far detached, they don't even know that it's not real. That's some savage behavior. Like, I don't know.

That's the only justification I have for you. How would the TV show pay if you don't mind me asking? Uh, I mean at the time it was really not bad. What year was it? 2014. Okay. I mean compared to the money I was making doing anything else at the time. Um, I think we filmed for a little over a month and I made like 12 grand or something. So like, yeah, I mean at the time it was great. I think our, our, our official rate was like a $1,200 an episode. And then, um,

But it was filmed all in one block of time, basically. And then we got, we made some other money here because we also built the tree house and we charged them for some of that. Like we built the second, you know, you saw the rotating one. That's the one we built on that, on that show. And like you say, it was the start. So something to get you into it. Yeah. It's just, you know, something to do. But yeah. When you think back at that though, it's like these TV networks kind of are just like preying on people. Oh, absolutely. They made a lot more money than,

that they have a name for it it's called hicksploitation like the producers that's what they call it that makes sense you find a guy yeah it's true they call it hicksploitation because they go around the country and find people who don't know what their time is worth and what their entertainment value is worth and a lot of them they don't pay at all like a lot of reality tv shows do not pay people that are on them the people are just doing it because they're like i'm gonna be famous

yeah i'm gonna make a million dollars because of something you know yeah i remember when we were getting pitched when i asked how much we were going to get paid and it was like in like 2018 2019 and it was not much at all yeah i was like that's not worth our time we could make way more just doing youtube but obviously if you don't have a a platform you then can get risen to fame yeah so that is honestly what it's worth right i mean uh

Which, I mean, obviously, yeah, you're not getting paid probably what you are worth for your time, but you do get put onto a platform that hopefully you can then cross over. But nowadays, you got YouTube. Yep. And also, the thing is, a lot of these shows don't... Your character on the show is so far removed from reality. Yeah, it's tough that you can cross over. Like, my character on the show didn't know that computers exist, pretty much. Like...

Like I, I lived in a tree and had no access to society. Like how is, how do you capitalize on that as a character? You know, you're doing engineering on a computer, right? You know, it's not that you couldn't, but it wouldn't be like direct, like for example, um, heavy D they got lucky. Well, yeah. And his crossover, exactly. His, his character on that show is a very marketable character and very marketable products and stuff. So like, yeah. And,

And it was close to probably somewhat close to who he is, you know? Right. Because that was his whole thing with YouTube is he was going to just be real because they were sick of doing the whole shit, you know? The fake reality stuff, yeah. But... Did you pitch the networks at all? Like, hey, I...

I can do a bunch of other things too. Do you want to film me actually living my life and doing these? There was a couple other. That show wasn't the only one that approached me. I had pitched another one where they wanted us to go around building tree houses for people. I kind of came up with a pitch for them, but that didn't go anywhere. That would have been a better show than the one that sounds like you did. Oh, yeah. Almost anything would have been better than that. Custom tree house building show would have gone off.

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

you know, do this. So, so you came into the picture cause you were the YouTube guy watching 14 hours of YouTube back there. Every video. Well, I was definitely doing that. And like, I was making music when my space was big. Like I was making weird, like Lady Gaga remixes and stuff. And,

You remind me so much of Mike. Same. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I just can't. You look like Mike right now. The things you do are totally things Mike does. Oh, man. We're going to have to talk music later. Speaking about the MySpace error, I missed out on that too. It was fun. How old are you? 26. My mom wouldn't let me get one.

Ah, yeah. Smart. Yeah. It was a waste of time. I mean, I was in elementary school when it was popping, but... Yeah, yeah. It was a lot of fun. It was cool, but I was making YouTube videos. Like, I hope it's not on the internet anymore, but one of my first one was Santa Claus versus the Easter Bunny, where we, like, dressed up and fought each other. But that was in, like, high school. But, yeah, I was always making videos, and I never really, like...

Did you not hear Will's drift funk?

No, I didn't. Oh, yeah. Edwin wrote Will a song about Subarus. Really? I'd love to hear it. Yeah. We'll play it for you later. You'll hit us with a copyright claim. No, it's not a claim. Anyone can use it. It's all good. There you go. More rights for music for your videos. There we go. And that was kind of a beginner song. Like, we got a serious song coming. Okay. Music video and all. Okay.

Yeah, we have some ideas for music videos. For sure. Yeah. We're going to do a rock song too that's like a Mad Max themed music video. With like samples of all the shop sounds. That would actually be very fitting for you guys. Like different tool noises and like banging on different stuff and like engine noises that are like tuned to different. Yeah, it'll be cool. Wow. And Steven, our camera guy, he's an incredibly good piano player.

Oh, like phenomenal. Genius level will blow your mind. So we're going to do kind of that whole, you know, in Fury Road, there's the guitarist on the front of the truck. We're going to get like a piano on one of our trucks and really go for it. It's going to be nice. Stay tuned for that. Hyping up the music video. Promoting the music video.

I mean, we have no idea when it's going to happen. So it's not really a great idea to promote it yet. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be sick though. But when I seriously kind of, my first serious channel was trying to promote my music and then I started doing music tutorials and then I kind of had this website that had like presets for synthesizers. And so around that time I just got kind of burnt out on music and I realized that I liked the process of making music.

the videos more. And so then I started kind of a lifestyle brand with one of my friends. It was kind of like when Red Bull was getting into Red Bull Media House and Art of Flight came out and we were doing like really cinematic surfing videos. And we filmed like a couple breakdance competitions for Red Bull and stuff like that. And what year would this be? Like 2017? Somewhere around there. Yeah, it was right after Steele Rafferty got his first gold medal in the X Games. So it would have been like

Around there, I think. Because we started Grindpart in the spring. What an interesting way to keep time. Well, I kind of knew what I was like. Was it pre-Gold Medal Steel Rafferty next game? I guess I just assumed you guys followed Wakeport. I got to see your boats. How old is he? Oh, he's 14 months after Steel got his...

But it would have been somewhere like 16 and 17 because we started. It was actually seriously accurate. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, yeah. And then. I just wanted to give a time for the listener. I've kind of blown away that you like dialed that in like that. But yeah, then I moved back to Idaho and we hung out before then. Yeah, quite a few times. Yeah. Yeah. But not a whole lot. But our mutual friend, Steven, who's now our filmer, was hanging out with both of us all kinds of a lot. Yeah.

And so after that lifestyle brand didn't go anywhere, I was just like kind of traveling and surfing and I was filming documentaries and stuff and commercials for travel companies and things like that that were like cool gigs, filming weddings, you know, pay the bills. And then I was kind of like simultaneously starting

a wedding filming company at the same time as I was like, I'd rather just film whatever I want since I'd been serially watching YouTube for so long. I was like thinking ideas like what's really fun, what would give a lot of cool creative control and stuff.

building weird things. Like I've always been really into dirt bikes and been dirt biking my whole life and missed it because I didn't have a dirt bike in Florida. I mean, you see where Ethan lives. Like I lived even further in the woods. Oh wow. He did. Yeah. I dirt bike to high school. It was awesome. I didn't even want a dirt bike in Florida. Cause I was like, where am I going to ride? Like,

There's not even any hills here. You go to Miami and join the 12 o'clock boys. He really wants to do that. That's my dream. We want to do a video doing that too. We probably go to Philly. But Evan, he's our wheelie guy, right? And even he's like, I don't know. I mean, think of all the things I could go wrong.

He's kind of nervous about getting in the pack. I'm not really interested in that at all. You guys can all hold 12 o'clock wheelies just fine, it seems. On a pit bike, I can. I'm not a full-size bike. Oh, okay. We'd probably get left in the dust. I think I was just going to be more filming it. But I figured we have a few friends that are in that scene. They could get us in the door. But the idea got kind of scrapped because YouTube's buckling down on...

riding on the street stuff like that really yeah that sucks those are some of the coolest channels i know i that's what i used to watch like 2016 2015 i just watched like you know running from the cops on dirt bikes and stuff and like we could see the influence on the uh shifter cart on the street yeah yeah some of your first like major viral videos were those that was actually our very first one but yeah you that's actually a really good connection that's

I just saw those videos were popping and like they'd have, you know, two, 3 million views. So I just kind of stationed it that way. And that's where the title came from, but not to mention how much fun they were having doing it. Yeah. Right. That was such a different time though for, for making videos. But, uh, it was like one of the first times I'd ever sat down and watched YouTube. I was at your house and,

We were watching it on your big computer downstairs, and you were like, check this out, because we were getting into dirt bikes at the time. Look at these guys that would just ride wheelies in the streets. We were just mind-blown, because we were so nervous about getting pulled over by the local sheriffs and stuff.

So, like, we felt like we were outlaws, but these guys are doing it on a whole other level, you know, running from the cops just, like, blatantly, like, just the disrespect. But anyways, yeah, back to you guys. So when you were moving back or even when you were in Florida and you heard about Ethan filming this TV show, were you like, oh, local kid kind of, like, makes it big with his TV show and, like, wanted to –

be a part of that world somehow or were you like yo check out this tv show i didn't see it ethan wasn't really proud of the tv show you weren't going around marketing it no yeah not really i mean yeah like i probably made like one post about it on facebook like i was like hey look i'm on a tv show like it was it was so embarrassing how fake it was i was just like yeah like

Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't anything like that. I don't think I even knew about it until I came home. And then. Yeah. Cause we didn't, we barely knew each other at the time. Yeah. We'd only hung out a couple of times when I was filming a TV show. Like,

after that is when we started hanging out more and getting to know each other more. Yeah. Because we were like the parkour kind of slack line unicycle. I was going to say that's something both you guys, you just have tried so many different things that, you know, have this like experience and, you know, you can use to work. And that really is the parkour is ultimately the connection that we know each other at all because we,

Rusty Clark, an Army and Air Force veteran, needed treatment at a VA hospital. Meet his wife, Juanita. We live above Borgentown, West Virginia. It would take us about seven hours to get here. And I was prepared to sleep on the hospital floor beside of Mr. Clark.

But the Fisher House opened up that door. We had a lovely suite to stay in. We had food to eat. We didn't have to worry about that because the Fisher House, the foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher took care of all that years ago, following their dream to make our reality that we were together and we could be treated here. It's a great blessing.

I was in the Army Guard, and then I went into the Air Force, and then I met Juanita. Because of family's love. It's good medicine.

Our friend Steven was super into parkour and so was Edwin. And I was like surface level into parkour. I like, I'm really bad at being upside down and knowing where I am, but going downstairs, like on the last one, you'd rip a three 60. No, no. I was on a unicycle.

Unicycle parkour. Basically. Goddamn, dude. You just got to take it to the next level every time. But it was a weird sport, so I'd like hang out with the, like. Yeah. Yeah, I'd imagine there's not a lot of unicycle parkour guys to hang around. Right, exactly. There's no other unicyclists at all. And I met Steven because I was also into slacklining, so I did unicycling. I was known as the unicycle guy at college. Yeah, we had one of those at our college, too. Yeah, I think they all do. Yeah, yeah.

Every guy was a unicycle. I was also into slacklining and one day I just went into the like student union building and I was like, yo, anybody want to go slacklining? And Steven, who was like, I don't know, whatever, like six years younger than me or something. And so he was this like super shy little 16 year old kid with like a

fro of curly black hair. He's just like, Oh, that sounds like fun. Yeah, I'll join you. And then like no one else did. So it was just him and I out there slacklining in the rain for a while. And so that's how we got to know each other. And then he was into parkour. So I just started hanging out with him, unicycling with the parkour guys. And then that's how that's how we met. And then when I was trying to think of the wedding video business, I was like, I know I can do it, but I don't know if it's going to be as

like rewarding to my soul is just being creative and I was missing that aspect of making music already. So then it was like trying to find a way to like do YouTube with like drift cars and dirt bikes and stuff. And so you knew you wanted to be a YouTuber. Yeah, for sure. For sure. It was, it was kind of like planned like that from the beginning. I was like, I'll give YouTube a solid go for a year while I'm setting up this wedding business. And if it doesn't work up, I'll just take

the wedding business as far as I can, you know, I don't know where the idea came from specifically, but I was like, man, a dirt bike engine, a little pink Mustang would be awesome. Cause I was seeing people make really good drifting videos, really good dirt bike videos that weren't getting any traction. And like, no one knows who I am. So it's like, if you were already famous at the time and then you built a drift car on YouTube, people seem to care. Like if you were on TV or something like that. And I'm like, okay, no one's going to care about me learning how to build cars. You know, it was kind of what I was thinking.

So like this would be insanely cool. So I went on like marketplace and bought like a really crappy go cart and a really like you

- Beyond crappy go-karts. I mean, it is so much worse than you can imagine. - You're like, come on man. - We're not talking like a shifter cart that's all beat up. No, this was like a kid's go-kart from like probably the 70s or 80s that had been mutilated by so many people that didn't know how to weld. It had refrigerator water line for the brake line. - Oh my. - It had a two cylinder Honda street bike engine from like the 70s in the back that had no power at all, barely ran.

And it had like a sort of roll cage made out of just like two by two quarter inch thick angle wire. It was sketchy. Just like it was sketchy. It was, they're calling it death track. Terrible. Yes. It was. Yeah. Just to paint a picture of how bad this go-kart was. So it had an engine and,

And we really tried to look at, like, whether we could use that engine, but it was just not going to work. Did you guys know how to weld and manufacture at the time? That's why I reached out to him. So I was living in my truck, and I had, like, a truck topper, and I made this, like, cedar kind of slide-out drawer thing, and I was just, like, climbing and surfing and being a bum. So I didn't have any money. So I spent my last money on the go-kart and this pink Power Wheels. Wow.

And when I went to the guy's house to buy the little pink Mustang, he was like, hey, I also have this Barbie kitchen set if you're interested. And I was like, oh, no, this is for me. Like, I'm going to make a go-kart. And he was like, eee. Like, it was so awkward. But I had to, it was full commitment. You're walking out, you're like, well, I guess I'll take the Barbie kitchen set too. Exactly. It was full commitment because I had to take the,

truck topper off my truck to fit the go-kart and i was like all right your house that's my house i was like it's full commitment now well then and then he just moved into my tree house so yeah it worked out it worked out i was gonna like buy a welder and just try to figure out how to do it but then i was snowmobiling with ethan and i had the mustang in the car and in your mom's uh yeah tahoe or something yeah and i was like what do you think about this yep and he was like just

Just bring it by my house. Yeah. No, I was like, yeah, just, just bring it over sometime and we'll like look at it and figure it out. I was like, yeah, I'm sure we can. And at the time you were talking about putting like just a predator engine in it because that was, you know, much more attainable and easy and built in gas tank. I wouldn't have to figure out all that stuff. And I didn't have no idea.

I was just watching welding tutorials. Cause like, I'm no, I'm going to need to do this. Yeah. You know, cut up that go cart that I bought and do it. And then Ethan was like, it was the craziest thing I'd ever seen before. Because like,

I mean, you guys know, like if you're a kid with a dirt bike, your dirt bike is all you have. It's like your pride and joy. It's your baby. It's like actually all you have. So Ethan gets this crappy go-kart I bought running in like a day and it's terrible. And he's like, this engine isn't going to fit. We should do, we should put a dirt bike engine in there. And he just pulls out his dirt bike and rips out the engine right in front of me. And I was so nervous. I was like, oh, that's your dirt bike.

man you're pulling out the engine that's crazy what if it doesn't work you know and then also the plan was always actually to just put the engine back in the dirt bike I was like we'll just throw it in this build it have some fun with it and then like just throw the engine back in the dirt bike it's fine

- That's fine. - We always think that we're gonna do that too. - Oh, yeah, it never worked out that way for us. - Yeah, perfect. And then we'll just put this into the next build or something like that. Never happens. - No, no, of course not. - Yeah. - Gotta keep building. - That's like the eight years and then we'll come back. But that's one of the coolest things and one of the things I tell everybody about you guys, that everything is built just in what's in your yard.

You might have an old car that was from another project and you just have half of it there. Like it's nothing to anybody. And you're like, okay, I can use, you know, a piece off of that to manufacture another piece for this. Everything you guys do is so resourceful. And it's pretty incredible to see in an area like that. You know, you're like, I'm not just going to run to the store. That's going to take two hours. Exactly. And I have to make it work. That's why I, you know, develop that skill set. Because like, I mean, I also grew up without...

any extra money so like but it also just being there like to run to the store it's like an hour and a half round trip or something and it's faster to just figure it out with what i have and so that's that's where that kind of mentality came from and then also i just kind of enjoy it i like kind of repurposing things and yeah it's interesting is we keep it up too because now we could go on like ebay and buy that's what i mean exact part we need but i don't know there's something that's like more fun and more entertaining about just figuring it out like will and i

bought this, the cheapest electric car and like try to do this hundred mile challenge and it failed. So now we're building it up better. - Dude, you guys love that electric car. - We really do. - You guys have gotten your money's worth out of that thing. - You have no idea how much they love it. - I've heard faith. - We actually seriously disturb Ethan all the time.

I think people think we're messing with them, but Will and I just get teary. I still don't know, honestly. I still think you're messing with me with the places you can't even walk. It's 100% genuine passion. We love this little electric car. What's it called? The Changwang or something? Chang...

Yeah, the Chang Wang. That's what I'm going to call it now. The Chang Lee. The Chang Lee. The Chang Lee. I love... Wait a second. The Chang Lee. Yeah. When you guys drop a YouTube video or an Instagram reel of it and you're just like so hyped on it, I'm like...

I literally think every time I see it, I go, man, these guys just fucking love that electric car. I love it more than I've ever loved anything. It's just like pure joy. Careful, your wife is probably listening. Yeah. Well, she's not a thing. She's a person. That's very good. That's a very good point. Exactly. But yeah, I mean, when we went to SEMA, we went to like dream racing and, you know, we drove a Ferrari around the track or whatever. And it's fun.

But that Chang Li just off-road going one mile an hour. Are you guys getting paid right now? No, we're not. You got China in your pocket, don't you? Hang on, though. The distributor of Chang Li tried to sell the business to Will. The U.S.

the US importer of the of the Chang Lees that we got it from they like sent a text to Edwin that somehow they thought was Will and we're like hey would you like to buy our business of importing Chang Lees did you do it well we just got that text yesterday you gotta do it it's like they've been so invested and then send us one yeah let's see what the let's see what it's all about yeah let's see what it's all

Or you guys should drive your Chang Wing to us. There's no chance of that. It's also way more than 500 miles. Will and I do want to drive it from coast to coast. We'll just drive two. We'll drop one off at you if we buy the business and then we'll just keep rolling. It's like the slowest gumball rally ever. Yeah.

Gumball? You mean cannonball? Cannonball, sorry. Gumball is the European one. Oh, okay. Ryan's European. Yeah. Clearly. You can tell from the jean shorts and the Florida t-shirt. Yeah, exactly. What do tourists wear? How to be Florida. With the Changli, it sat in Ethan's yard for three months. Will and I never even looked at it or sat in it or anything.

And then one day we were just like, let's drive that thing 100 miles off road. And we just drove it through Ethan's woods for like 10 minutes, just grinning ear to ear. Like, this is the best thing ever. Well, the thing is, they had asked for us, like they didn't ask much when they sent it to us. They're like, just make a couple posts about it on Instagram. And we'd had it for three months and hadn't done that. So they were like, hey, and that's why you guys started driving it. You're like, oh, we need to film some stuff for them. And then they were out there driving it for like three hours. Just...

Literally from across the property because it's they put the cameras down they were still driving. Oh, absolutely It's electric. So it's quiet and from across the property you just hear oh

And then a bunch of laughing. There couldn't be a worse machine. But that makes it so much fun to try to get it to go over a little tiny bump. Because everything is a challenge. That's how we were when we first got the smart cars. And then again when we got the mini trucks. Oh, the mini trucks are so good. The mini trucks are legitimately just so much fun. They're just workhorses, man. They're the best. They don't stop. So when you guys first made...

The Mustang, the dirt bike swap Mustang, or I guess Mustang swap derp.

Yeah. Whichever way it goes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was like the first video that got traction. Didn't you guys get on like Jay Leno with that? It was like a couple years later that we were on Jay Leno, but yeah. How was he? We didn't really interact with him much. It was just right on camera. It was just film and then kind of, yeah. I mean, he was cool, but like it was just kind of a... There was a lot of other people there too. He was busy all day pretty much. Yeah, he's super chill and like he's not...

or... I'd love to meet Jay Leno. He still wears the denim off camera. He just walks up to you and starts chatting. He just doesn't act like a famous person at all. He's so famous, but...

On that whole shoot, I was surprised because I thought he'd have people doing everything for him. There was this little booth with a cooler. He came down off the racetrack after a racing and just grabbed a water and sat next to me. Grabbed his own water and just sat with us. Not like a director's booth or anything like that. Then what really struck out to me is he got on the phone himself.

And I guess someone just got this kind of rare Lamborghini type deal, like a really fancy car that was like a limited colorway or something. And he called him up himself and he was like, hey, I heard you got that new car. Like, we'd love to stop by and just get a clip for the show. You know, just be in and out 30 minutes, like asking him himself. Yeah. And I thought that was really cool. I got mad respect for him in that. I was like, that's cool that he's still like...

chasing it through passion. He doesn't have to be doing that. Yeah, for sure. He could definitely have someone else make the phone call. But he genuinely wants to see the car. He doesn't have to make TV shows anymore. He just literally loves cars. Yeah, it's so cool. I do think that he looked at the things that we brought and was just like,

He didn't want to add it to his collection? No. You can tell when he's really interested in something. And ours, he was just like, what is this now? Yeah, he definitely wasn't excited about that. Well, it's pretty hard to process looking at it. You've got to wonder what you're looking at. Yeah, I think we shocked Ben a little bit with the Colonel because, Ben, you were the first one to drive it, right? Yeah. I think you were probably the first one outside of us. He hopped in and just gave it a little blip, and he was like, what?

whoa, this thing is serious. You know, like you really, like if you were just looking at it, you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. It's like a toy, but like definitely a sketchy toy. But then you get in it and you're just like, holy smokes. This is a full blown race car without any safety equipment. Yeah. I was going to say pretty much everything you guys build is full blown performance and

Little safety. It's not so much that I'm against safety. It's just that the aesthetics matters. Yeah. A lot. Absolutely. Because that's, I mean, we're, it matters a lot to me personally, but also matters a lot for like, you know, YouTube and thumbnails and everything else. You just can't put, you can't put a, everybody's like, you got to put a roll bar on it. You got to put, it wouldn't look like what it is. It would just be a ugly pile of crap with a plastic body on it. You know, you know, sometimes, sometimes safety is not first. Yeah.

or third you know I think that was something about the first video was just how cool and unique the first Mustang looked because it was like a brand new channel from complete zero like my other YouTube endeavors didn't have any audience whatsoever and we built it before we posted anything and

And so we made the decision. We're like, we have to post the video of it just done ripping first. Otherwise, like how are we going to package our vision? And we don't have any trust. Like now we can do that. Like build as we go and show it on YouTube because people know that we're going to finish it and it's going to be good.

deliver but then we were like you know that was kind of like one little strategic move that i think really paid off we're like all right it's done it looks cool it's like we unload it from a truck drifted around this little pull out in the lake and that was our very first video what was crazy is is now you hear it all the time but even then you hear it all the time like oh like you just need to like grind for years and years but that first one really did go pretty viral and

and since we didn't have monetization or anything, we like viral hog type deals that like license your footage for you. And so they licensed it and it was like in the news in like 15 countries, like our very first thing. And it's probably still the most viral thing we ever did except maybe the Barbie Jeep right thereafter. Yeah, in terms of like reaching outside of YouTube? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it was crazy. I mean, I think the chopper is probably... I was going to say this monster chopper is going to break the internet.

It's insane. It already has. It already has broken outside of YouTube for sure. And then once it's done, it definitely might not. I think there's a lot of people waiting to see if it actually works. Right. Because there's so many people who don't think it will. But when it does. I think that's the craziest thing you guys have built. Without question. I have a bunch of questions on that one. But I remember when you guys first dropped that video and I saw it on YouTube. You guys maybe had like 500 subscribers.

Like when I saw that, because I saw the video pop up and I was like, wow, this is a really good video. Like well put together. And then I saw you guys had like no subscribers. I was like, wow, this doesn't really make sense. And then sure enough, time caught up. Yeah, I remember when we had still only posted that one video. I remember we were sitting up in the treehouse, which...

Edwin was living in at the time. He just actually came and lived in my tree house. But we were just sitting up there because there was slightly better cell phone service to use as a hotspot for the computer to have internet access. That's how we uploaded it. Yep.

I was going to wonder, I've always wondered, how do you guys upload your videos out in the middle of nowhere? It just takes days. He uploads from his house now, and he lives in town. But back then, you used to... Or we'd go to town and just go to a coffee shop and upload. But most of them, like the first ones, just...

Hot spot from the treehouse. And at night, it was a little bit better reception for some reason. So yeah, hot spot from the treehouse did it. Gotta be one of the only videos ever uploaded in a treehouse. Of any significance. But yeah, the point was, I remember we were just sitting up there watching the subscriber numbers tick over to the first thousand so that we could apply for monetization. But at that time, YouTube was for some reason super backlogged.

And so it took like a couple months to get approved. So we had millions of views that could have been making money but weren't. And that's why we did that. Like you said, I think it was like Storyful or something like that. They just licensed the video and then gave us a percentage of the revenue, which of course normally is a really terrible deal. But it's better than no revenue because we couldn't monetize it. Man, that I think is a really good lesson to a lot of other people that are trying to...

make it on YouTube or they're just starting out or, you know, they're doing it and it's not working. Do you guys, uh,

applied that strategy to it because like it is so much more than just making you know grinding and eventually getting lucky like you got to have a little bit of strategy to for when you do get that to go and i'm sure that video wouldn't have gone as viral if it if it would have just been you know those little parts right but uh yeah i mean it's obviously no mistake on how you guys became successful also just your guys's love for adventure and the

lack of fear of trying new things as I it seems that you know you can just tell from listening to you guys' stories but no that's that's a that's a great lesson for anyone that's trying to become a YouTuber so it was no mistake yeah and people kind of ask that like oh was it you know luck or it is like I mean there's a little bit we did get lucky in the sense that it actually worked but

It was planned. It was very intentional. It takes more than just luck. You got to have everything else aligned. Right. And you see it more and more now that YouTube's algorithm is getting better at just showing you what videos are the best. Like people coming out of nowhere with just a really cool idea and it just takes...

takes off yeah good ideas always prevail and stories yeah even the idea is almost a little more important because you could have the best story but if it doesn't look right or have something that catches you then it like i mean it's a full package yeah title thumbnail it's a full circle i mean i i have a chart i could run through but don't need to but uh

That's something also that played into our advantage is we got lucky in the fact that the third video got some traction. And I mean, I'm not saying it blew up, but when you have seven subscribers and then it gets 1,000 views and then 10,000 and 30,000, whatever, that really puts some gasoline on the fire and then makes you want to keep going. I'm sure it's very hard where you've posted videos

50 videos and you're you're actually trying and you're not getting anywhere and also if you have one early on that gets those views it gives you a direction like you can you can go oh this works yeah do more of this whereas like yeah like you said if you're getting just you know 40 45 50 you know if you're just slowly building the views for each video you don't have any indication of what is better than anything else because it's just this like really slow build whereas if you it was enough motivation for us to be like this could definitely be something

let's just not work for six months and just do this and see what happens. Yeah, and we just kind of would, both of us were lucky in that we were self-employed at the time he was doing filming, I was doing construction. And so we could just like work a week here and then take a few weeks off. And like, you know, you had a trip planned or something. So like while you were on that trip, I was...

I built a shed for somebody and made some money and paid the bills. And then we came back and then, yeah. So we started in April and like, I think the first time we made enough money to like cash a check was what, like September, October of that year. Yeah. And that was crazy. Yeah. Like, cause that's, I mean, I had a friend in high school who was one of the first monetized YouTubers. Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Who was it? What was his name? You know, Des and Nate? I don't think I do. Okay. They were like early comedians on YouTube. Yeah. And he had this like really viral joke that got memed. Those like guns don't kill people. People with mustaches do. I don't know if you've heard it, but like...

It was like mad viral. It was like, I mean, most of the like big YouTubers you think of now, like this was before that. Right. Like even a million views on YouTube when there's not that many people using the platform. That's hard to do. Yeah. Very hard. Yeah. So I saw that and I was like, that is the coolest thing ever. But it seemed like very unobtainable at the same time because at that time it was all pranks and comedy that were the only things getting that kind of views besides your occasional cat video. But like,

I knew it was possible. Ethan had viral videos. He knew it was possible. So we were like, when we had that little blimp of success, we were like, all right, let's just go for it. You know, it was,

It kind of made that decision pretty easy. Like it seemed like a no brainer to us at the time. That's cool. Were either of you guys plumbers? How'd we land on Grand Heart Plumbing? That's definitely a story for Edwin. But to answer your first question, no, neither of us were ever plumbers. I have been paid to do plumbing, but I was not a licensed plumber. Not certified. Not certified. No, I'm not a licensed plumber. It's like...

I thought it'd be so funny because I was thinking that these like kind of little goofy projects would get us to the point where we're building like full-on race cars sooner. But then the goofy projects ended up being so much fun. I was like, well, I don't even want a race car. We can't use them in Idaho. Yeah. Like I want little buggies. Yeah. Like when we first got the Barbie car running, like I think we both thought that it'd be kind of fun and like it'd look really cool. But when we first started driving it up and down the driveway at my house, we were like, this is...

so much more fun than a dirt bike. The dirt bike that I took the engine out of was not like a race bike. It was a CRF 230, which was perfect because it was air cooled and electric start. But like as a bike, it was really not exciting. As a bike, it felt slow. As a go-kart, it was like,

the most terrifyingly fast thing you can imagine. Yeah. And so I thought, when I still thought, okay, the end goal is for a plumbing company to be on a race car is hilarious. Let alone like, because I see these YouTuber garages like full of race cars. I'm like, if they all had plumbing company logos on it, that's so funny. Imagine you guys actually doing it. You're like, well, we did it. Well,

Well, we did last night. We achieved that dream. Oh my God. Full circle. We had a race car in an actual official race that, that said grind hard plumbing co on the side of it. So let me tell you, you're a reckless racer. Dude, you were driving like a maniac out there. You were taking people out, hitting people. I'm I'm I was Cletus mad at you at one point. I think Cletus is an expert entertainer. He,

- Because you guys were under caution, he kind of like hit you. - Yeah, no, he slammed into me from behind and then pit maneuvered me. But he pulled up next to me and then like gave me a thumbs up and was like, "Hey, I was just doing that for fun. Like, you're good." - You're like, "My neck." - Yeah, I was like, "Oh, yeah, thanks, good one, buddy." - That's good, yeah, I saw that. I was like, "Ooh." - At first though, I thought he was actually pissed and I was like, "Oh, no." - You're like, "I'm not getting an invite back." - Exactly.

But then when I jumped the car or when I got crashed and went airborne, like, yeah, I saw that picture in his, I was like, all right, we might get another invite. Yeah. Yeah. That was legendary. At the end of the day, it's all about entertainment. You were the only guy that went in the air out there that night. Yeah. And I kind of did it twice. Cause the other time I got pinched between two cars, my front end, like went up between them. Yeah.

You are so funny. Did you guys have a little run in? Yeah, we did, dude. So I was like next to you and I was like, all right, we got a podcast with them tomorrow. I'm not trying to piss them off, you know, like whatever. And then you came in and it was just boom. It was the hardest I got hit the whole race. I don't even remember that, honestly. Exactly. You were just blacked out. Ethan just blacked out, yeah. But you just...

wailed into me and i was like behind or uh from the side i think i was kind of running in the middle and then you were trying to go low and we were just right next to each other just boom and i was like all right game on dude i do remember that but there's multiple red cars out there so i didn't know it was you i thought that was because the muscle was behind me keaton he was behind me for a bunch of the race so when i did that i thought it was him that i had but it's so funny that you two were next to each other like the entire

Yeah. I felt he was always right by me. Yeah. It's funny because we call Ryan's car the red Etni because Evan wears red Etnis. Well, he used to until he trashed them, but yeah. And there were two of them, so there's two little red Etnis running around. Yeah.

Yeah. You guys were on like polar opposites of the driving spectrum. You were almost debatably demo derby out there. And Ryan was not trying to piss anyone off. He didn't want to piss you off because you were coming on the podcast tomorrow. He didn't want to piss Cletus off because it was his race. He didn't want to hit Heavy D because he's our friend. But I did. But I did. He ran into you, Ryan. Yeah, you're right. And you apologized to him. You're like, I'm sorry. Yeah.

But, yeah, Ryan was just being so nice out there, and you were just out for blood. Just trying to avoid the crashes. Yeah, well, apparently I was still being too nice because every time we were under caution... You were getting passed. People just whipped around me. Yeah, that was bullshit. Yeah, what was up with that? Because at the driver's meeting, they said, you cannot pass under caution except when we do the lane split thing. Yep. And...

No one paid attention to that rule. And then one time they came over the comms and said, hey, driver such and such, get in behind so-and-so, you're out of position. And so I thought they were gonna do that anytime it happened. And just every time people were just whipping by and not... They had that outside rule where if you were on the inside and there's two lanes...

and say there's two cars on the outside and you're like number six, you could jump up to number three on the outside lane, which I was- Well, that was part of the explainables. But I mean, I'm talking like as soon as we go yellow, I was like caution staying behind the car and people would just-

whip by me while they're saying, you know, caution, caution, caution. And then somebody just goes and passes four cars and no one did anything. You got to look at it. There's a helicopter on the line. If you're not cheating, are you really trying? Yeah. If you're not cheating, you're not racing. Right. At the driver's meeting, I took the rules as rules and everybody else took them as suggestions. So next time I know to be a little more...

aggressive that's the thing a lot of those guys had like eight races under their belts exactly so they've been racing also their whole life whereas you guys like this is your first i feel a lot better like if i went if we raced today i would do a lot better today because i now understand you got so much better as the race went on like you could just tell you were getting confidence and then you were you know figuring out the one thing that we were lacking as a team

that we did not do any service to Ryan on is he didn't have a right mirror. His car had no mirror on the right side, which is pretty important. I mean, like, you'd be nice to see who's coming up. And everyone else had these, like, intercom things, like a spotter up in the stands. Did you guys do that? No, I was out there running raw. That would have been huge because, like, we could have been able to be like, Ryan, scoot to the outside. Yep.

every time there was a caution, you would go from, let's say you're at one point you were in seventh place. You went back to like 11th. Yeah. That would have just been huge. So next time we're bringing an intercom system, maybe we'll bring like Haley Deegan and have her be the spotter and just be like telling. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Turn, turn left. Yeah.

That was a hell of an event, though. Did you... Ryan, it was great. It was hard to finish. Yeah, it was. Did you ever use your NOS? I did, yes. I forgot it existed. Oh, yeah, it helps. You feel it. But also, I was definitely going to save it for the end. Yeah. And, like, I just never... It didn't make it to the end. No, it didn't make it to the end, exactly. So I was saving it for the end, and then also I just forgot about it entirely because I was just focused 100% on it. I had a lot more than I thought. I figured I had, like, 10 uses, and I started using it with, like, lap 80. I was like...

screw it. I'm just going to try to get up close to the front. We'll see what happens. Like, you know, everybody is like, you'll be able to go from the back to the front and five laps. I don't know how to, like, that's not true. So I was like, I'm going to try to fight my way up. And I had a lot more, I had more to go.

when my car died. Yeah. Abruptly. Next time I'll have to remember the NOS button. Yeah. There was, my car also had, um, Derek from vice grip looked at it and he knows everything about all of the cars and he's like, Oh yeah, this one's this and it has a three Oh eight limited slip differential. So, so,

Apparently, I had like the highest gear differential there, which means higher top speed, but that's irrelevant on the track. Yeah, because you're not topping it off. Exactly. And so I had less acceleration. And I could see it every time we pulled out of caution. I used to just get left behind. Same with him. That's mine too, dude. I don't know.

we might have both had that i'd hit the gas and everybody else would move and i'd even try to jump like i'd lay back yeah and then be like all right and wait to kind of like come up on people and every time someone would just dip on the ground and then pull by me even even whistling came up after and was like yo like your car was like really slow out there he wasn't saying like you were driving slow but he was like no like seriously like

We'd be, like, next to each other, and I would just go right past you, like, on the straightaway. Dude, I don't know how the frick he's finding that many Crown Vicks. Like, that dude's got a heck of an event going on. Yeah. It's impressive. None of them can go to the auctions anymore. They have to send, like, new people each time because the auctions know, and they'll up the prices. They'll jack the prices up. They'll be like, oh, it's Cletus. The price is triple. Wow. So he sends, like, people that are not even, like, affiliated with him. Yeah, right. That event is...

is every time i go i am mind-blowing like just to put that event on it's insane and let alone like the fact that he's facilitating it and then he's got an intercom in his in his helmet and he's talking to the people in the crowd as he's racing like they're like tune into cleatus see what he has to say he's like yeah it's pretty gnarly out here

You know, but, like, no, honestly. And then the fireworks show. He just knows how to put on a hell of a show. It is so fun every time we go. It was surreal. Like, I was thinking about watching Cletus's videos, like, before we were doing anything, just, like, from...

iPhones and burnouts on YouTube to what we saw last night, the first ever sold out Freedom 500. The execution of the ideas, but also just what YouTube is enabling people to do is insane. It would have taken all these teams and you would have had to get permission from all these gatekeepers. You would have had to have investors and you would have had a board of people that make decisions. The people at this top of the production company never would have given Cletus a shot. Like, oh, what do you do? You just build...

Drag racing cars. Yeah, that's not a show. Like, yeah, maybe if you were, you know, half rat person, then we'd make that into a show.

that into a show or something. - Yeah, I think. - But it's like, that's the power of YouTube and it's just so cool. That's why I'm so obsessed with it. It's just the democratization of media business in general. Like it's so cool. - To make it to that level of success on YouTube is extremely hard to do. That if you can do that, you can do pretty much anything. Like I think it just shows that you have the willpower and what you set your mind to.

if you put that into anything, you'll be able to accomplish. Yeah, and we were talking earlier about luck and stuff, and I think that there's very little luck involved with Cletus's whole story operation. He knows what he's doing. Like I was saying about the entertainment and him bumping me in the crowd, he 100% knows what people want to see. He's just trying to be awesome. He's an entertainer in every sense of the word. He just knows how to entertain people perfectly.

No matter how he's doing it. And that's why people will watch his content even if he's flying RC airplanes. It has nothing to do with anything he built his channel on, but he knows how to entertain people to a greater extent than a lot of other, you know,

I was thinking about that last night. I was laying in bed and I was like, man, that was so crazy. I can't believe I did that. And I was thinking for all like the people at home that are watching how lucky we are as people who watch it to like be alive in this time and watch him do something like that. That's never been done before. Like that's completely uncharted territory that he's like putting his brain to and making it happen. And people will do things like it probably forever now, but for him to reinvent what it is to be, uh,

And online, I'd be a YouTuber, you know, that's pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, we're still in such an early stage of all this. Like, I mean, I'd say all of us are, are kind of pioneering something, this path in a sense. And to reinvent yourself constantly, like,

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

Try to keep it pretty high. Yeah, but that reinvention is getting... It's more fun to make, it's more fun to do, and it's more fun for the viewer. So this kind of highly competitive YouTube world is making things better, which is really cool. I don't know if I'd say that we reinvented. I'd say we evolved. That's probably maybe a better word for us. We just keep evolving and trying to just make everything better. Right now, we've been really focusing on...

building the back end of our team, you know, the support of what we are doing because it takes so much, as you guys know. Right. Just to do this week after week after week after week. We're coming on eight years of doing this. Right.

and uh you know just to make it more sustainable building that back end support like getting our fabricators because we're not we don't know how to build like you you guys do and you know just all the people on our team a lot of people used to always be like whoa you got so many people on your channel like i remember back in uh like 20 like 18 2019 and now it's like

every big YouTube channel has a team around them. Oh yeah. You know, like it used to be like, why don't you all just have your own or, you know, how are you going to make that work? But now it's like, if you don't have a team, it's like, you're not even, I think the biggest thing for us too is,

uh, being from Minnesota and having no YouTubers around us, like there's no one to really talk to. And like, you know, for the longest time we had never even met another YouTuber to like bounce ideas off of or, or be like, so how does this work for you? And so we just had to figure it out, like trial and error for the first, like five years before, like, you know, kind of get some insider information, but so small, you can't really contact anyone. And

I mean, we had the same thing. Yeah, exactly. In the middle of nowhere. Just kind of figure out what works for you. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's definitely the biggest thing for us though, is trying to like build out the team. Cause we want to do this, you know, for a long time. Right. The runway should be super, super long as long as we can continue to make good videos, which at the end of the day is the only thing that matters. But like,

trying to avoid burnout by, you know, just like running ourselves into the ground just because it is so taxing and, you know, for sure, especially on the builds, like not trying to burn out our fabricators of like these crazy timelines and,

Trying to just like make that clear too. If we like miss a video upload on a, on a Thursday, we upload every Thursday. And if we miss people are like, yo, you got a slack and all, you're just like taking a vacation. Lazy. Lazy. Yeah. No idea. It's like, no, we're, we're trying to make a bigger and a better video. And sometimes that takes more than seven days, but I know you guys are on the schedule too every Friday. So you, you know, the grind of it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and it's hard too because sometimes it's like, okay, we set up a video for this is the first time we start this project. Like we just released the first start of the Monster Chopper. We're planning on it being a first test drive, but we couldn't get it in time, you know? So it's like things like that are really hard and you can't plan for it. And if you have that deadline and it's like weird, we're never really ahead.

It's hard because you almost need to reinvent the video on the last day. Like, all right, now this video is about the first start, even though there's a bunch of clips of us talking about, okay, to get it running, we got to fix the brakes, this and that.

And then your audience like loves that. That's what they, they want to see is you guys building it and figuring it out. And yeah. Yeah. And that's, I mean, a lot of them are really there for the, you know, the realism of it. Like the people, when you show your mistakes and stuff, like some people don't show that at all. And we always get comments when we do, you know, when I like, I build something that totally doesn't work and I have to redo it. They're like, wow, that's awesome. Like, it's cool. Yeah. It makes it, you know, keeps it relatable and,

Yeah. I'm sure you get the opposite though of like, oh, you idiot. You should have done it like this. Oh, every time. Every day. There's somebody smarter than you. Oh, yeah. Every day. Especially the chopper builders. Like every video has about a thousand experts that know why it's not going to work and how to do it better. Of course. You know, you just can't really listen to those. Well, the thing is, is they're seeing a final product of it.

not in that something is easy or easier to replicate. Yeah. So at the end, yeah, it makes sense to anybody. Like even with the steering thing, you did hydraulic for a while. I looked down and went, Oh, that doesn't work because it's too slow. But you had to think and make all that happen. And then at the end of it, you go, that's too slow. I have to figure out how to make it better now. Like exactly. It's, it's easy in hindsight when you see the full thing to go, Oh, it's much better this way. But when you're standing there in the garage, you're,

after 15 hours of breathing you know welding dust and all that and you're like how the heck does this all have to go together right you know it'd still be hard to replicate even if you look like i'd like to see any of these comment warriors replicate you can even like give them everything the dimensions i'd love to see them build it yeah right like good luck man yeah unless you you know just yeah i mean everyone talks big in the comments it's probably going to be a thousand hours by the time it's done yeah

like i'm not keeping track but it's i i would be surprised if we showed on the next big build yeah that would be actually really interesting stat we kind of did on the kernel uh keep track because we just kept track of days at that time you were edwin was edwin was marking each day in the video it could be like the first episode you know day one two three and so we actually had like a pretty good estimate of days and then we kind of got an hour estimate from there this one i just like i know it's been six months or something of like

most of every week working on it aside from when we're on trips like this but yeah I would assume it's going to be close to a thousand hours and like not to say that there aren't other people out there that could do it but you have to have like six different skill sets to just to build like there's 50 parts on that 50 plus parts that are machined on the mill and the lathe or you know one or the other and

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

But then on top of that, you're talking to the camera, trying to make an entertaining video. Yeah, put on a smile when you're stressed out. That makes it even harder in a sense. Doing wrenching on your vehicle is... Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's hard. But...

wrenching on your vehicle with a camera and you're trying to like make a, make it entertaining. At least for us, it's, it pretty much doubles the workload, especially the amount of time it takes. Yeah. You got to wait. He's going to pull apart the tank. And Steve and I are like, wait, like it takes us a while. Like we got the motion time-lapse slider and like lights and like, you know, we're setting up and Ethan's just sitting there. Yeah.

Hey, let's go. Let's go. I want to get this done today, you know, but every time it's, it's honestly kind of fun getting the comments like this will never work because every time we read them, Ethan's like, like one day I just came up in the morning and he was like showing me like these, like, he was like, I don't think it won't work for that reason. He's like, if this works at all, I'm going to drive it to Sturgis.

I was like, let's go. What is the final idea? I mean, the idea is just to make it work, you know, like it's, we'll be able to drive it down. You want to be able to do like trails with it? No, I mean, trails is completely out of the question. It's probably going to be over a thousand pounds. Like you're not going to ride a thousand pound bike on a trail, but I mean, I'm just guessing wildly guessing, but each tire probably weighs over 200. So,

You're starting at that. It would fit in so nicely at Sturgis. They would actually really appreciate it. Well, they actually, yeah. Somebody from Sturgis like reached out to us through, through somebody else. And they were like, Hey,

What can we do to help you get here? So you're aiming for this summer then, Sturgis? Yeah. Dude, the bike's mostly finished. We should go to Sturgis too. Yeah, let's do it. We don't need to jump on your guys' video, but we would just meet up with you guys down there and hang because I've always wanted to go to Sturgis. Maybe get some wild hogs, a couple choppers. Maybe Ken will get a trike.

I could see him on a trike or maybe we do like a sidecar on Evan's bike and Mike rides in the sidecar. I could see that. With his laptop on the sidecar. I could see it. Let's do it. That'd be fun to do together too. That would be a blast. And then Will built his CBR 1000 swapped Honda Ruckus which is like a scooter. But,

But that was that perceived down there in Sturgis. Like if I showed up on my R6, would I get my ass kicked? I don't think so. It's just, I think it's just bikes. Everything's bikes. Like we did, uh, Will and I were here for an event and we happened to be in Daytona at bike week.

And there was all kinds of crotch rockets and there's a bunch of custom ruckuses, like the ones with like the bags and stuff. And like, it was mostly Harleys and baggers and choppers. I think motorcycle people just love motorcycles. Like there's like maybe kind of clicky areas of bike week. And I assume Sturgis is similar. Like maybe there's a bar where it's like only sportsters or

No, there wouldn't be a bar for that because early guys call sports. There's the girl girls. If you, if you ride a sports or heart, like hardcore Harley guys think you're an amateur. They're like, yeah, you don't even talk to that beginner bike. Yeah. Yeah.

So that's the weenie hut junior. I'd probably have to get a Harley. Just if we're going to Sturgis, I don't think I'd have the nuts to drive my R six down there. Yeah. You should just half track the R six, put a tire in the front, leave the track in the back, ride that around. Oh my God. I,

I don't think you'd be able to go to Sturgis though. The track would burn up in about the first 20 miles. You'd have to trailer it there. Yeah. And probably like get one of those tracks for like snowmobiles that race on grass kind of a thing. That would be kind of cool. Put bogey wheels instead of high packs and you'd be fine. We could do that on the Harley, like the snow bike Harley. Yeah, there you go. A half-tracked Harley at Sturgis. You guys ever been to Sturgis? I asked that. No, no, not at all. I don't claim to know that the chopper is going to be that rideable. I just know that if it's,

If I'm capable of riding it, I will. I don't doubt that one bit. I know it's possible to ride it to some extent. I don't know if it's possible to ride it that far or that fast, but I'll try. Maybe you're not cornering at 60, but I think it will work enough to ride to town or...

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

our bikes, well, our street bikes that are now snow bikes. You talked about a competitive nature of YouTube, but it is kind of cool that,

I feel like a rising tide raises all boats. We did the R6. You guys did the Hayabusa snow bike in like the same time frame. Although we're friends, we didn't talk about it. No, I had no idea. It's really funny because yours, your R6 video dropped like a week before ours, but I was already building the boost. Like I was, obviously, you know how the time frames work. Like, yeah, but the funny thing is like one week and every single comment you copied the Seaboys. Yeah, totally. Dude, we were getting that. We copied the Seaboys.

beat you. You guys did it after us and we were like, we can't do anything nowadays without being a copycat. But it's funny because like, yeah, okay, sure. I watched your video and in one week I drove to Seattle, bought a Hayabusa, brought it home, got a Timber Slug kit, put it on it, and filmed the video. I know. It doesn't make sense. Just because you wanted to copy us. Yeah, just because I was like, wow, that's a good idea. It'll be really good to post that next week. Also, like, if we're talking copying people, like, freaking Stunt Freaks team did a

Jixxer 1000 Snowbike like 10 years ago.

10 years ago. Exactly. Like we're all copying someone. Exactly. No one's the first. You feel like an artist. Yeah. But I think that's, it's kind of funny how that thing, how things like that work. It's hilarious. Do you read Austin Kleon? Do you like an artist? I just know of it from, I haven't read. Oh, okay. He doesn't even know how to read. He's tried. They make audio books. Yo, I should do that. I'm tired of hearing too a little bit. Well, you said that title and it's funny because I read,

all of his books every month. Really? How do you have time? Yeah, I'm trying to figure it out. He doesn't sleep a lot. He also doesn't sleep a whole lot. Do you not sleep much or what? How many hours of sleep a night are you getting? I don't know. Typically. Well, because I grew up with insomnia and I didn't really know it. And then when I was DJing, I was like making music all day and DJing all night. So like maybe like three, four hours, I don't know. A night? But then like now I sleep like a baby, but just every little free...

free time I have, I just cram in. I'm either like working on YouTube, editing all night, reading creative books. It's just pretty much the world that I live in and I like don't stray out of that world. But now I probably sleep like six hours a night pretty well. That's pretty good. Yeah. And we kind of have like a somewhat of a nine to five structure. Yeah. So you know, for personal development out of it, you know, even though it is probably watching YouTube, it's figuring out what you're going to do. But yeah, I mean, you were, you were talking earlier about like

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

instead of just like, if you're just doing it nonstop, like you're gonna get burnt out. And we love what we're doing so much. Except Cletus, apparently he just lives and sleeps and dreams and just never stops. Like Thursday when we got here for practice, like,

he was just literally running all day. Like he was running away from me and like, he was like running and jump over a fence. And I was like, do you ever stop running? And he's like, occasionally. Yeah. Not this weekend. Yeah. But anyway. Yeah. That is wild. I think too. We love it so much. It doesn't feel like burnout. Like, cause there are some times where we work like,

three weeks straight, you know, stay up all night editing videos and stuff. And then the next day I just wake up and start again. Like, I don't even think like, Oh, I'm tired. All this is exhausting. Like, I mean, I could speak for myself. I'm such a big YouTube nerd. I like just don't think about anything else. So like sometimes if, if Ethan's gone for a week or if we don't have something to do for a day, I'll just like,

make a video and upload it on my personal channel. Really? That's what I want to do. I can't stop it. I drive my wife crazy. We're in Italy and I'm like, I bet you could make a YouTube channel with a camera on a tripod filming the ocean for three hours and upload that and people would love it. I just can't turn it off. That's insane. It's part of the insanity of why it works. Why are you guys doing works? Obviously, in my...

you know, court of what we do. Like it's the same thing. I, my wife is in the army and she's been stationed in El Paso for the last most of three years. So I go down there to visit her periodically, you know, whenever, whenever I can and I'll be there for like a week. And the whole time I'm there, I'm like either like imagining a build or like sometimes I'll take the laptop and do CAD. Like, like I don't know how to not be thinking about that. Like even when I'm not physically do it, I'm still, you know, planning builds, thinking up ideas, like,

It's just always there. I mean, we can relate to that. Yeah. But I'm definitely not making YouTube videos and posting them on a second channel. True, yeah. But it's probably really hard for the listener to understand where we're coming from. But there just is something when you're doing creative...

that burnout can occur. Oh yeah, absolutely. And to be honest, I, for a couple of years there, like I was off and on feeling very burnt out and all along, I knew that part of it is like dealing with a long-term or long distance relationship through that as well, like living alone and all of that. But yeah,

Then I got on antidepressants and realized that I was actually just depressed. Not really. As soon as I switched that, I was like, oh, yeah, I have all the motivation again. It wasn't really... I mean, obviously, there's always moments where you feel burnt out when things aren't going well or whatever. But yeah, that changed a lot for me. And I always try to talk about it whenever it comes up because...

mental health is super important and and what we do i think is really not the best for your mental health like for anyone terrible yeah it's terrible right it's like it's just you're non-stop in the spotlight like you know reading all the comments and like we all try to like not take them to heart but you can't read a negative comment and not feel it and like that and they're just the non-stop pressure to one-up yourself and and just keep getting more and more and it's just like it's

it's kind of an inherently unsustainable concept really. So like trying to make it sustainable, but it's like how far, how long can you keep doing it? Right. That's why we're doing this backend thing. Exactly. And there's, there's soup, there's totally ways to make it sustainable, but like just that, just sort of the nature of trying to always expand exponentially. It's like that,

that there's very few things in reality that actually happened that way. And so, but yeah, anyway, our last video was our shop tour. Like it was Wednesday and we were kind of wrapping up on filming. We had been working, like cleaning it, getting everything like still, we were still trying to get it done. Cause we had planned for that Thursday. Cause we needed to have it done. So the following week we could actually film in there and do this build that we're trying. Yeah. And like, Oh, I was like, you know, Wednesday I'm like nervous. I'm like, God, like I,

I really hope this video turns out. Like I was like worried. I'm like, God, is this even going to be good? Like, does anyone want to watch this? Like we got, we got a million people that are for sure going to tune into this. I do not want to let them down, you know? And then, uh,

Ends up turning out great. But, uh, right. But yeah, there's always that loved it, but no, for sure. Like I feel you on that. Like it is, it is very taxing as far as that goes. It's a lot of responsibility for like just a handful of people to, to tackle, you know? Cause if you've got like a really big ad campaign with a big business and you got a hundred people working on it, part of that responsibility is divided up to make it, but also if it is good or not.

Right. Like if one of our videos flop, if one of your videos flop, it's a hundred percent. Cause you didn't make a good enough video. And that's a lot to like, yeah. It's like, wow, that video was like not good. Yeah. Or, or like, or if you build like for me as a builder, like if I build something and it just totally doesn't work or breaks like the first time, or especially if we're going to an event, like,

This one, obviously, we didn't bring anything to Cletus's Freedom 500. We didn't bring anything because he provides the cars for that and we didn't have anything for burnouts and whatever. But we've done events like race things or going to King of the Hammers or something like that or driving all the way to Moab. And you get it out on the trail and it just immediately breaks. And it's like, well, now what? Not only did your thing just break, but what are you going to do for the video? Exactly. More so for the video. It's like we got all the way here and now...

what's the video you know when we've had that the schedule is what creates that though like exactly it's that worry it's it's that that's the the choke yep 100 do you guys have any like creative differences as far as when you're like going through making a video because you're the builder you're the filmer and editor like two completely different worlds that have to collab to make it work

Not very often. Yeah, I don't think so. There's times where there's like parts that I leave out of the video or put in the incorrect order. And Ethan's very... I'm very linear. I like things to be like very accurate. Yeah, and sometimes I'll like describe something and like it just didn't work in the video or it made too big of a lull, you know? And I'm...

I'm like, okay, I gotta get around this. And then sometimes Ethan's like, oh, you didn't put the part of me explaining this thing or like- - And then that didn't make sense. - Yeah. - Or you showed the handlebars before you showed that, even though I did that first and I did that first for a reason. - Right. - Yeah. - And like, I'm with him. Like the people watching our videos do wanna learn about building, I think. - Right.

at the same time, it's like, it would have been much less entertaining to do that way. So I think like that's probably our biggest creative differences is I've no problem like rearranging the order a little bit to like make it a little more entertaining. And I've also learned that that's like over time, I've also kind of realized that that's like, that's more important than sometimes.

sometimes it doesn't matter. I mean, it still bugs me internally, but I don't like, I don't let it like be an issue because I'm just like, well, whatever. I mean, sometimes Edwin will come up with an idea for a build and I'll be like, yeah, I don't want to build that. But, you know, or, or like, I don't think that's possible or whatever, but, but,

But I mean, that's just the creative process and stuff. One of the guys said it a while back, and I can't remember, but the mutual understanding of that whatever decision you make or you make is for the betterment of the team. You're not doing it. You're not taking stuff out of the video because you don't want to put him in it. You just want to make it better. And that mutual understanding, no matter how our videos play out, that that decision's made with the group's best intent always seems to win overall. In this point of...

I guess you could say contention. Will fills in that gap perfectly. Because Will's the newest guy on our channel, the newest member of the team, and he's full-time with us now.

And so my really stupid ideas that Ethan doesn't want to do, that he doesn't want anything to do with, like the Chang Li, Will is, like, so easy to get hyped on that. It's a nice tiebreaker. It is a nice tiebreaker. It's like our Evan. Yeah. And it gives Ethan time to work on the harder stuff. It's not even a tiebreaker because then I'm just like, sure, do what you want. Like, it gives me time to work on what I want to work on. Exactly. And, like, keeps us going with content. Yeah.

I've noticed that you guys have done that, especially the bigger builds that you're doing. You need more time. Some of those chopper videos were four weeks of labor, like three, four weeks of me working on it for one video. You got to pick it up, man. Just do it all in one week and get that video out on Thursday and then do it all the next week and Fridays for when you post. I think sometimes because Ethan's extremely resourceful and...

builds things right from the get-go so i think sometimes it bothers him if a

we call it swindle brother project because Will and I are just goofy. We call them, Will and Edwin are the swindle brothers. They're not brothers in reality, but like they have the same kind of energy and attitude. And Will brought the word swindly to us. And it's just, I don't know if that's a good word to describe yourself. Where's my wallet? I'm gonna keep it away from that guy. It doesn't mean like literal swindling in terms of like stealing things or, or conning. It's just like a,

It's kind of hard to describe. It's just a general chaotic nature definition on everything. The word premium could mean good or bad or something not even that. Swindley's the same way, but with Will, I think that some of the projects are maybe more wasteful or less resourceful than you would like. So he's like, that is just...

No, and then he'll just walk away and work on his own thing. But then we make our video, we have fun, we build a cool little weird contraption, and it works out normally. There was one that was so bad that we couldn't even show it on YouTube.

Yeah, that one was really bad, and I'm really glad it didn't get shown. What was it? I was going to really be firm in my opinion that it should not be shown had that not been a group decision. I would have been like, I'm not okay with this. Well, like Ethan said, his wife is on base in Texas, and so he'll leave like a week, a month pretty much.

Lately it's been like every other month, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes if we have an idea that we know is like not Ethan approved, we'll do it. That's like Mike and F dude. Yeah. Frost. Yeah. Actually come up with something. Yeah. And so this one will showed me this picture of this like kid on like a homemade raft of

of like plumbing pipes and he was like wouldn't it be funny if we made an amphibious go-kart with like plumbing pipes and i was like yeah that'd be awesome because you've been talking it's actually a really good idea yeah you're like finally plumbing pipes yes how do we bring this back to the name guys yeah exactly edmund had been talking about an amphibious go-kart for a while so like they'd been yeah will brought in the idea of the plumbing pipes yeah for sure and

And I was like, okay, what if we do it with only supplies from Home Depot? It's like building a go-kart that's amphibious. And parts we had laying around. With all parts from the Home Depot parking lot. And we're going to buy one of those clear kiddie pools and put it in front of the Home Depot and take the thumbnail actually in front of Home Depot with our golf cart or go-kart. We were all hyped on it. I had to do some editing, so I was gone for a couple days afterwards.

after starting the go-kart with Will and it turned into a complete disaster. He got super stressed out and demotivated. Will is really hyped at the beginning of a project, but then sometimes if he hits a certain point where he realizes it's not the result he wants, it just completely flips and he just wants to get it done as fast as possible and it just is a downward spiral because as soon as he loses motivation and gets stressed out, he just starts doing worse and worse

And then he hates it more and more. It's just like, yeah, it's not a good, at the end of the day, it turned into a thing that had the front end of a

a Banshee and the rear end of like a custom go-kart type thing with like a bunch of smaller than there should be Home Depot pipes. Only two of them actually. Only two. Oh wow. Three inch, three inch ABS, like drain pipe with caps on it. And only two of those. It wouldn't have floated. With the frame bolted through the pipes. So like they weren't even really watertight. Yeah. It looked, it looked terrible. It didn't function at all. And we were. And it had a knockoff Honda Grom engine in it.

that barely ran being the lowest point on the thing. So like the engine, you know, it's a horizontal engine. That's how they're designed. But it was like under the seat in the middle and like,

The whole engine would have been submerged immediately. So you had to scrap it, huh? Yeah. Yeah. That was the only thing that we built. That's a pretty good idea though. Like actually doing it completely out of people, like just replace all the metal with PVC. I guess you couldn't. Yeah. Like there is a way that it could be done. That wasn't it. Yeah. As a channel that makes like quality builds, you were like, I can't let this happen. Well, they got to work. I mean,

I mean, at this point, people know that we'll build stuff different than I do. But like at the same time, it's a channel that we've built together. And like, there's this, my name is still associated with it. And like something that bad. I was like, I don't even want it. It's got a function. Yeah. Yeah. But there later, like maybe like four or five months later, this video went pretty viral. I'd say.

It was like a fishing raft houseboat that was made 100% out of these pipes, but it had just a car kind of chassis underneath it. And it had these little flaps that rolled out when you were in the water. So as you turned the wheels of the car, they flapped and propelled the boat forward. And he had like a little fishing cooler and fished off of this little boat. And it was with like an electric thing with a solar panel. It's super sick.

And it was like, I don't know, someone who wasn't speaking English, but he made like a montage for English speakers that were like just the building and no talking. Interesting. And it got like...

7 million views in a couple weeks and I was like you're like kind of onto something I could see that popping off it really wasn't a problem of like of inspiration it was a problem with execution yeah right that's what I was gonna say one day if it ever comes down to like where you find out a way to execute right that's a banger

So, you know, for anyone listening, if the Seaboys suddenly release a video of an amphibious go-kart. Maybe they did copy us. Can we get that out next week? Did you ever see our Hummer pontoon? Yeah, that was pretty hilarious. That was awesome. That one actually worked a lot better than we had ever thought it was going to. Like, we took it out multiple times, took it to the sandbar. That was like a mile away. So a mile there, a mile back. I think really we only made it back in...

on pure luck. Like watching how everything was starting to bend, like the pontoons would fold down so you could drive it down the highway. And one of the bolts like broke on the end. So it was starting to flip up. Oh, you think so? Ideally, it would have still floated because they would have still been attached. Right.

But it would have been like... Yeah, the weld on the thing, on the hinge crack. So, like, we were losing structural integrity fast. I forgot about that. We'll have to have big wrench. Just tidy it up a little bit. Yeah, that thing is awesome. It looked like you guys had a great time. Oh, we did, dude. That thing was so fun. We have a great idea for this summer. We'll tell you off camera. It actually potentially could be...

The best thing we've ever done. Okay. So far. Okay. So far. This vehicle that we're buying, arguably the best vehicle we could ever buy. And then what we're going to do with it. Oh, it's so good. Oh, okay. It's so good. I'm getting excited just thinking about it. Yeah. Have you guys ever gotten serious trouble for any of like your water issues?

I feel like people are so protective over water and registering boats. Well, we registered the Hummer pontoon. And you were fine? Yeah, we registered it as a custom pontoon. So no one gave you any crap for that video? I don't even want to put that out there.

out there. Well, some of, some of the stuff, like, especially with like waterways, like we really want to do like, uh, drive the high boost of snow bike across the lake, you know? But then we're like, okay, but if we fall and that like pollutes the lake one that is like on us, like that's a crappy thing to do. But two, like, I feel like you'd get in a lot of trouble for something like that. To answer your question though, we try not to

impede on like people's lives or like property or, you know, just be an, uh, inconvenience, inconvenience, right? Like just inconvenience anyone by us doing our thing. And, uh, it might seem that way in the videos, but most time we're very cautious. Um,

Yeah. Of other people's time and just lives and their property and whatever. So if you're pranking someone, you're pranking someone like in the family, like, yeah, you're never in like random people's faces or like trying to cause a stir with the police. Normally, normally if we prank someone, it's like us looking stupid and them just being like, this guy's a fucking idiot. Like we're not trying to make them. We're not ruining their day, you know, for the most part. What else? What have we done? That was bad. I don't know.

I don't know about that. I mean, we made those valet drivers drive the shitty-ass Lambos, but he was chopping it up afterwards, and we gave him a good tip, and he would pump. He was like, you guys can stay here all day. Didn't care. I think maybe when we had Grandpa Ron pretend that my Lamborghini was his and that people were stealing it.

That one Asian guy, he got it pretty good. The rest of the people thought it was funny, though. Yeah. It was a joke. It was a joke. Yeah, he was pretty not happy about it. But it was already done at that point. What was done was done. Yeah. Well, if you know someone's going to be bothered that easy, it's probably a good thing you bothered them. That's the way I see it, too. Yeah, I mean, he thought that he just helped the guy steal everything. Yeah.

That was funny. That was funny. Well, how long we been going? I mean, you guys got anything else? That's solid. It was cool getting our story out in one place. Yeah. I don't think we've really done that before. So thank you guys for sharing. Okay. I think we kind of got off track when you were finishing up, but Grind Hard Plumbing. Where does that, where's the Grind Hard Plumbing come from? Oh, you wanted to put it on a funny to be on a bunch of race cars, the plumbing. And then my friend just had Grind Hard tattooed across his stomach.

Damn. Not me, to be clear. Not me. Like with the curve around his belly button? Yeah, kind of. Grind hard. All the way across, yeah. Was he just in the club one day and he's like, I should put grind hard on there? I'm not sure what the motivation there was. Okay, so you saw his tattoo and you were like, is it cool if I... Well...

They were talking about starting a channel before I got involved. And this friend is why Edwin got into drift cars. Yeah, he got me into drift cars. And he's like, yo, check this out. And I'm like, oh, I'm into this. And he was like, grind hard. And I'm like, well, if you just Google that, the SEO is going to be a nightmare. And so grind hard, work hard. There's already a record label called Grind Hard.

naming it after a plumbing company I wouldn't advise people to do. Because we still get in a lot of like the Idaho state government is still like forces us to be insured as plumbers. No way. Because they refuse to understand that you don't do plumbing. They're still working on it. Wait, what? They just don't get it. They're like, no, you're a plumbing company. You said you're a plumbing company. What?

even though we're registered as an entertainment company yeah they just don't get it dude they're just so confused that's a thing that happens though like in our state we don't have a problem but I've heard of other YouTubers in you know different states where like they can't get a loan as a and they're a successful YouTube channel with over like a million subscribers and they can't get a loan because the bank doesn't see them as like a legitimate business right yeah that was just a little ridiculous they're like look into it they're like wow like you have the loan the bank looks at your finances and like wow like

this is like a really interesting profit loss statement for a plumbing company. And it's like, yeah, you sell a lot of t-shirts for a plumbing company. It's like, no, no, no. It's like, this is like an entertainment company. They think something else, you know? And they're like, oh, like, like you're a TikToker. And I'm like, oh, oh no. I was like, oh no. Oh, like Tik Tok? You're like, no.

Yeah, I do plumbing TikToks. Yeah, but every time, like business insurance, nightmare. We still can't get our business properly insured. Damn. Because of the name. Because of the name and because it's a YouTube what we do. And Idaho has one insurer that they made legal to insure anybody. So this insurer cannot deny you. And it's the only insurance that we can get.

Because they're so confused on what we actually do. The name isn't like, yeah, insuring Ethan would be hard, right? He's like racing around Barbie Jeeps and stuff. And we have been denied for that reason. Like the insurance people are like, oh yeah, no problem. No problem. Be this much a month. And then they'll call me up before they write the policy. Yeah. We watched your videos now. Really? So yeah, seriously. Yeah. For real. They're like, yeah, we saw this video specifically where, uh,

At the time, we had one of our friends part-time helping us weld some stuff. Like, yeah, this person was underneath a truck welding without the safety stuff. They just saw it on YouTube, and they were like, no. So Mike, Ken, and I bought a house together. On our first move-in video, Ben went and put farm animals and stuff in it. Anyways...

We were like trying to get, uh, wait, could you say that again for me? Like you put like farm animals in it. So like, like I didn't know and nor did Ken or Mike, but it was like my birthday going in to go move in. Got like my family like coming to come see it. They're all proud, you know, that I pulled my money together and bought this house with two other guys. But, uh,

Walk in, there's Benin's overalls with a pitchfork, and there's hay everywhere. I had chickens in my room. One laid an egg. That was so good. And then in Kendram, there was goats and...

Yeah, it smelled terrible. It smelled like a barn in this house. It was like a fairly nice house. Yeah, it was a lot. I thought it was hilarious. CJ and Ken gave great reaction, obviously, as you would walking into your new house with the farm animals in it. But his girlfriend started crying. His mom, who's my aunt, was so mad at me. I think she might have even started crying. I just tore the family apart. I think they were just...

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

which rightfully so she deserved it i felt bad i felt bad that due to your dating me you get you know roped in with these idiots and and you know your hard work just went down the drain and that's what my mom was sad about i think she and i was bummed too uh it was you know not not the best birthday present but it was a great video and so my point uh we were trying to get our our home insurance our home insurance dropped us right there so we

So we had to go and get like a new, they were like, we're not insuring. Yeah. So we had to go and just offer some farm animals being in your house. I was like, we're not insuring you guys unless you're a farm. Oh,

I'm sorry. You have to get farm insurance? You're like, no, no, we're not a farm. But yeah, they dropped us. Wow. So yeah, similar. How do you think of those content creator houses in like LA where like 12 TikTokers will live in and like do stunts all the time? Yeah, they're like all super young. Yeah, and they probably lose their insurance and like, it's not like if you get away with it, then no one knows you did it. Like,

if you put farm animals in your house, the insurance would never know, but you put it on internet for millions of people to see, and then you lose your insurance. You know, like there's,

There are some real repercussions for some of these things and hopefully your insurance ended up being too much more, but there's a given a take. Yeah, for sure. You got to do what you got to do. Pretty committed to this. So yeah. Yep. Yeah. That's a funny one. I did not know that you guys did. I'm going to have to dig that up. Yeah, man. We got, we got some gems that are very low view counts. Oh, you know, like,

Did that one not even do well? I mean, it's probably got like a million views now. I think it's like I put barn animals in my friend's house. Something like that. You know what you're getting. It's a classic. Yeah, man. This has been fun, though. Getting to chop it up with you guys. For sure. And like I said...

it's no surprise uh the success i mean just because of your guys's love for adventure you have no fear in trying something new and and just with that you've been able to take all these little things from all these different avenues and then put it all together and and use it to build this awesome channel and business so thank you yeah it's just it's cool to see and i think a lot

that people listening can take from that. So, yeah. Oh, thanks guys. And, and next time we got to get you on the scent and bent podcast. I really want to see you guys talk to Will and see what happens. Oh yeah. That'll be hilarious. Will and Evan.

doesn't like us or what? No, you just never know. Will likes you guys. He's just goofy as heck. We get Will, Evan, and Micah together and I just want to know what that would look like. Just watch their brains work. Let's do it. Sounds like a plan. Subscribe to Grind Hard Plumbing Co. if you haven't already. We'll see you guys next week. Some interesting plumbing content is out there. Thanks for having us.

One week and every single comment, you copied the Seaboyz. Didn't you guys get on like Jay Leno with that? The Idaho state government forces us to be insured as plumbers, like even as camera guys. No way. No, I was on a unicycle. Sometimes safety is not first. Or third. Because I had to take the truck topper off my truck to fit the go-kart. Your house. That's my house. I was like, it's full commitment now.