First week of April, I sat down with the King of the entrepreneurs John Huntington.  I learned a lot from this surfer by day, turned businessman by night.  He has a very interesting story, whether is working at a club resort or being kicked out of school for not wanting to wear shoes, its definitely worth reading all the way through.

John was kind enough to invite us down to his girlfriends equestrian show in Mission Viejo, Ca.  It was the perfect day to be outside too.  Not to hot, but there was a light ocean breeze to keep you at just the right temperature.  I had no idea he was even into horses, turns out, he has been around them for a very long time.  Now, I am not talking about the kind of horses you see in Mexico.  You know which ones I am talking about, the ones you can’t tell if it’s a mule or a horse or maybe even both!  I am talking about horses that are over hundreds of thousands of dollars, some even a million or two.  A massive animal, John is 6’4 but when he stands next to his girls horse Prada, he looks like a smurf (minus the blue tan).  Do not worry; I most definitely took pictures of that!

We did the day right; we provided the carne asada, while John made fresh homemade salsa (which was delicious by the way).  John had some of his good friends down to join us for the day, which made it very casual and friendly.  Although between all of us I think we were out numbered by all of our dogs.  The show was amazing.  I have never actually seen for myself just how high these horses can jump.  It is insane!   I am talking almost 7 feet!  What was even more interesting is how small some of the women were that were riding these huge expensive horses. As a woman, I can’t think of anything more liberating than to have that kind of power between your legs.  Ha!  Anyway, overall it was a great day but it’s always a great day when you are OBSCENE!

In addition, I want to remind everyone to be on the look out for John’s new reality show.  Not sure, the network it will be on but I am sure it will have a lot of buzz around it.  So keep you eyes peeled, it’s definitely worth “Tivo-ing”.  I know I will be!

Obscene: So let us start out with you telling the Obscene readers a little bit about your early years and what you were like growing up.
Huntington: I was actually a pretty good kid.  I grew up playing water polo, swam most my life, and surfed.  So the biggest stuff that I’ve done wrong was that I didn’t go to school.  I was pretty bored.  I mean I really didn’t dig school to much.  Um, I actually got threw it pretty easily.  I was able to test out of classes and stuff.  I just was pretty much bored unless it was Spanish or something to do with history or something like that I wasn’t into it.  To a point to where finally in my senior year, just to keep me eligible I literally had bowling first period and um I was out of school by eleven thirty just to keep me eligible for water polo so that I wouldn’t fail out.  I think I graduated with a whopping 1.6 or something!

Obscene:  Wait; did you just say bowling first period?!
Huntington: Oh yeah! I had bowling first period, well I mean because they knew I was gonna go surf anyways so they knew they had to give me something that I could skip and they could still get me an A in.  So, yeah pretty much that they had to give me a class that they knew I would miss, it would be ok, and they could control the grade.  It pretty much went the same way with college. They did everything they could to pull me in and keep me eligible.  I think I lasted a whopping one semester at Cal State Fullerton.  Played water polo then I got the boot because I refused to wear shoes to school, so they kicked me out.  It was over!  That was the end of my college career!

Obscene: Ok, Bowling!  That’s a good one!  So, now what were some of the jobs you had that might have had an impact on where you are today?
Huntington: Well, I mean I started washing dishes at fifteen and a half at a local restaurant.  I have been working since I was a kid.  My dad and my mom were very much about me learning how to be my own man, even though I was raised with money and stuff, it wasn’t mine!  My dad pretty much put a car in the driveway at sixteen, cause its impossible for a kid to buy a car at sixteen, so I could make practice and stuff so he didn’t have to drive me to morning work outs anymore at four thirty and said “If you want to see it move mow a lawn”.  That’s pretty much where it started.  So I started hitch hiking to the beach, cause I refused to mow a lawn!  Then I found out that isn’t gonna work.  So yeah at fifteen and a half I started washing dishes and I literally worked my way up from that  into restaurants then into night clubs, then I skied professionally for awhile and stuff like that. But um yeah, I mean I have been working solid.

I love working it’s my thing.  Then I worked for Club Med.  That’s where I fell in love with ya know the whole dance thing.  I met a girl from Amsterdam, and then I moved to Amsterdam with her and ran a nightclub for a year and a half.  That’s where I really fell in love with house music and brought it back to the 21 and older crowd.  Met Damian. Me and Damian partnered up and that is Rubber.

Obscene: I love it!  That’s exactly where I was going with that too because I read somewhere that you ended up in Holland.
Huntington: Yeah!

Obscene: So I was just going to ask you what that was all about?
Huntington: Holland was bananas!  I mean I went there like I said I met this Dutch girl at Club Med an um literally she was there on a week vacation and I met her got her a job and moved her in.  Ironically enough she ran all the horses.  So I had been into riding horses back then, we each had our own horse and we would ride bare back every sunset down the beach to the other hotels, in Sonora Bay Mexico.  We tide up to the post, ate chips and salsa and had cocktails until the sunset!

Obscene: What a life!
Huntington: Yeah! It was bananas!  Then she was fired for doing something, I don’t know.  They pretty much said I could stay or I could leave with her.  So I peaced out and moved to Amsterdam.  I went there and got a job running a club in Roterdam called the “Baja Beach Club”, and broke up with her right away because there were way too many hot chicks, and ran it for like a year an a half!  It was a great time man.  I always knew from day one that at thirty years old was when I was going to get serious.  I knew that for a fact, you know.  So at thirty is when (I was literally 29 two months from being thirty) I moved back from Amsterdam back home.  Then I went and hunted down Damian because Damian was I mean huge back then.  He was the number one snowboarder in the world.

Obscene: So you met Damian where?
Huntington: Damian and I actually met back in the day in Huntington Beach.  Like back in the day in the hood.  He was still he number one snowboarder in the world at the time and I was doing my thing.  I went looking for him.  Him and I actually had a few run-ins when I was running a club in Huntington called 5902, and it would be these crazy ass old school parties till like four in the morning you would see people f***ing on the stage and just all kinds of madness that I would have to go up and bust up all the time.  Damian Sanders is a f***ing freak! You can quote me on that!  “Sanders is a f***ing freak!”. 

Back in the day he was!  It was great.  He and I hit it off. Then we brought in Joey Bag of Donuts, back then.  I went and got the Galaxy and made sure that we owned it, so nobody else would own it.  I went to a Black Flies party there once and then I went back and signed it.  That was our big thing was contracts, I just locked it down, nobody else could do anything there.

Obscene: Okay, so my next question for you was, what was it like to create Club Rubber and then watch it grow to the “King of Clubs”?  I have to say I am a fan of Club Rubber…
Huntington: It was you know, to tell you the truth, and I was actually talking to my girl about this like a little while ago.  The first ten years that I have had my club, I never really stopped and paused to really enjoy the moment.  I really didn’t even know what I created.  One time I brought my mom and dad to a “Pimp N Ho” at the Mandalay Bay arena.  Back in the day, it must have been five or eight years ago and first, I sent my security.  This is when it was like ten thousand people sold out three weeks before. So I send my security up to get my mom and dad.  

They surround them.  They don’t even understand because as we are walking people are trying to grab us, they just didn’t understand it, you know.  You know how you walk through those little tunnels out into the main arena.  They have no idea, they walk out, and all of a sudden, they see ten thousand people, our stages and all the madness that Damian created.  My mom started crying, my dad looked at me with a tear in his eye and shook my hand and said, “Son you have made it and I don’t have to worry about you anymore”.  It was the most monumental time in my life because I was adopted.  So I was really into having my parents be proud of me because I was such a f*** up as far as with school.  They wanted me to be a college grad and all these things and I was testing out of class just so I could surf and taking classes like bowling, you know what I mean?  All I cared about was being a fish.  I just wanted to play water polo or surf.  So, as far as like Club Rubber, I mean, it was amazing.  I owned a futon, a table, like a little wood table that I bought at IKEA; I mean I remember my bedroom. I rented a room for three hundred dollars a month on the east side of Costa Mesa; I think it was, when I created it with Damian. Then literally, a week later we were making three thousand dollars a week.  

Then we started Rubber in Long beach on Saturday nights, Gotham at the old Julian’s.  Then we started making five, six, seven to eight thousand dollars a week like that, like over night!  I went from having a beat up old freaking Cadillac to being able to by a new car, actually having my own place.  From there I moved from Costa Mesa down to PCH and 19th street in like a two thousand dollar a month condo, you know. It was just bananas!  I mean those days, if I told you the sh*t that went on in the V.I.P. room, on the roof of the club.  It was absolute mayhem!  A lot of it was a blur.  Finally, after my parents did that, I actually started taking time.  Like the last one we just did with Vince Neil, I took time to go out on stage and thank everybody and stood up on stage and was like “what’s up Vegas?”.  The whole crowd just screamed and I actually just stood out there for a minute and listened to them scream with the mic in my hand and vibed on it.  It was radical!  I mean when Vince Neil from Motley Crue gets off the stage and goes “Dude this is f***ing huge!” My sh*t is huge!  It was a pretty big deal.

Obscene: Why don’t you tell us about some of the other concerts you have promoted, like Grammy nominated Levi’s Mammoth Mountain concert series?
Huntington: Back then, I was doing a lot of shows, a lot of traveling shows and stuff too. Then Mammoth Mountain approached me about doing a concert series up there. So I went up, I met with them, and I created the Mammoth Mountain Concert series.  Then I went to Levi’s and they actually ended up buying it from me.  So it became the Levi’s Mammoth Mountain concert series.  We had everyone from Dance Hall Crashers to the Aqua Bats, (I have a really, funny story about that) Penny wise, The Vandals, I had Blink 182; I mean I had a lot of bands up there.  The funny part was that, a great story this was that actually in the Aqua Bats back in those days Travis Barker was the drummer for them.  I remember him coming up to me, I was running the show and they were opening up for Pennywise.  He came up and he called me “Mr. Huntington”.  He said “Mr. Huntington can I stay and watch the Vandals and Pennywise after I get off stage?” and that’s how little, and look at where Travis is now! He’s a monster!  Him and I are talking about some stuff and yeah, that ages me right there boy!  That was back in the day. What they did was Fox did a whole news thing about it. Then that’s when it got nominated for a Grammy.  So I actually was supposed to go to the Grammies, they had all the things up, they ran the clips of everything, and of course I didn’t know anything about it because I was surfing.  I didn’t even go to the Grammies when I was nominated.  Didn’t go because I was surfing!  Everyone was tripping on that.  Even my agent.

Obscene: Now to the tough stuff.  Let’s talk about your split with your partner Carey Hart.  What made you have a change of “Hart”?  So to speak.
Huntington: Carey and I, I mean, we were best friends for six years.  He and I were brothers.  You know like I said, things change.  Money changes things and you know him and I had difference of opinion on things.  I had an opportunity in Costa Rica to open my restaurant and my nightclub is down there and I had built the shop with him and created the T.V. show and did all that.  I decided to step away, go to Costa Rica, and buy my stuff.  I cashed out with Hart and Huntington and went and bought my stuff down there and that was that.  It just is what it is.  Now I am doing Huntington Ink, he is doing his own thing, and I wish him well, you know whatever.  I it what it is.  I mean we will never be friends again.  It’s just not going to happen.

Obscene: Well then, on a lighter note.  You speak very highly of Mixed Martial Arts.  When did you become so involved and what do you take from all of your training?
Huntington: I became involved in Martial Arts back in the day before I got married.  I was heavily into the club thing and I had a couple scares with some gangs trying to nail me for money and stuff.  My ex wife at the time had a very young daughter so I decide to start training Ju Jitsu.  My best friend Clint Dahl talked me into training Ju Jitsu.  So I went down, met with Joe Moreira in those days, and started training with Joe.  Then I met my actual sensei Paul.  I trained with him for a while.  After I fell in love with it, like everything else, once I start doing it, just like this horse thing now, I am looking at a way to money at it and nitch it.  John Lewis approached me, he and I created “The World Fighting Alliance”, and that was the big thing where fight club meets a nightclub.  What we basically did was a big fight show that had a nightclub production around it, go go's, DJ's the whole thing that I brought back in the day in 2000 and 2001.  We did three shows, two at the Hard Rock and one at the Aladdin.  Sold them all out, crushed it and then we sold it to the UFC.  So that’s how I started in Martial Arts.  During that time, Chuck Lidel and I went to Amsterdam with John Lewis and they were doing some training over there.  Teaching Dutch people Ju Jitsu and stuff, Chuck and I just became homeboys.  Came back with him and started throwing all his after parties and then we basically created all the after parties thing after all the fights.  

That was like eight years ago when Chuck wasn’t even fighting for a championship, he was jus fighting, you know. His first championship I was there when he beat Tito and we were just like “Wow”. It was unbelievable.  Martial Arts changed my life because I was on such a high with my clubs and all that stuff and I thought I was “Gods Gift” and the Martial Arts really taught me that I am not.  There is going to be guys that are half my size that could kill me and that made me love it.  I got really into it and trained. I trained Moi Tai with Kit and those guys.  Even to this day, I still get in a roll, I trained with John Lewis for a while, and I am actually going to start training with him again and get in as much as I can.  It’s hard with my schedule but I do as much as I can get in.  It really changed my life and made me really get into Buddhism and getting into being Honorable and trying to live just a really good clean life as much as I can.

Obscene: So would you consider MMA your hobby or a way of life?
Huntington: It’s absolutely a way of life.  You are either a Martial Artist or you are someone who wants to a Martial Artist.  I think that if you truly feel Martial Arts it changes who you are.  You become more respectful of people.  You just live a different type of life.  That’s even now, to where I am quitting drinking and really trying to focus.  I try to leave everybody with a smile on their face.  I work really hard at that.  I try to forgive everyone that has ever done me wrong and try to find forgiveness in everyone I have ever done wrong.  I am older now and it’s not all about rock and roll and craziness and naked chicks jumping off my balcony.  It’s about other stuff now.

Obscene: On to your current projects.  Very soon, you will have a camera crew that follows you around like a shadow.  Give us the rundown on your upcoming reality show.
Huntington: We are doing this new reality show, that’s basically going to be like Top Chef.  We are taking hot young tattoo artist from all over the country; we are picking ten of them.  We are putting them up in the “Real World Suite” at the Palms.  We are re doing the suite.  Then they are all basically going to be competing and I will be bringing some of my friends as guests like, Mario Bart, Brandon Bond and these tattoo guys that will put them through the ringer.  Whoever comes out on top will win and hundred thousand dollar contract in my shop, a new car and an all expenses paid trip to Cabo San Lucas at the Huntington Ink House.  Not only that but they will be a Celebrity Tattoo Artist, you can’t get any hotter than that right now so.  It’s going to be a really good show and the best part is that I really feel like its going to be multi seasonal because then after this we will do my Dallas shop and then it will be New Orleans and wherever else I build.  So I am pretty excited about the show and I get to take the more of the host end and have to be so much of the victim of the reality show like I was in “Inked”.  When Inked hit back in those days, I mean literally, the night it aired the next morning I went to the airport to go to Costa Rica and people were coming up to me and my life changed. I flew to Costa Rica and they called me while I was there, my agent Hayden Morrow, called me and said “Hey man they are offering you sixteen episodes”.  Back then, I was making twenty grand an episode and I declined it.  I said, “I quit.  I am done.” And I walked away from it.  I just wasn’t into it.  Now I know how to do it better.  I know the roll I want to play on it.  I know I don’t want to be that guy.  So I will play more of the host.  Kind of like that girl on “Top Chef” and let the experts take care of the tattooing.  I am going be more of the marketing person.  I know that I can take someone and make them huge for a fact.  So we are going to do that and there are talking about me hosting other shows.  I think I will also be playing a much bigger T.V role, but I can tell you this, I will have a lot of creative control.  It is what it is.

Obscene: After all that’s said and done, would you go back and do anything differently?
Huntington: In my professional life, I think the only thing I would change, I think it would be to take the time out and really enjoy it.  I am always to busy on the next project that I don’t get to enjoy the current one.  Its true, I mean, its like I said, I see my girl ridding in horse shows and I am like”Oh my God, how can I make money here?” I am going to do a sick booth, its going to be bananas!  Every girl here is going to ride.  Now I sit here and watch all these girls ride and eighty percent of these girls are millionaires.  I am like I know we can do something here!  Everyone is going “Huntington! Slow down! Focus on Huntington Ink.”  I haven’t even got it open yet and I am already on three projects now.  I am building a business with the Niccole’s.  I am doing all kinds of crap!  It would be to breathe.

Obscene: Besides everything you have already mastered, is there anything you have you to accomplish?
Huntington: Financial freedom.  I am just as good at spending money as I am making it.  I have done very well for myself but can I say I could stop and never work again? No. Not yet.  After this next deal, I will though. I am one of those guys if I retire I split to Costa Rica.  I can’t sit still though.  I am that guy.  Like I said, I come to the horse shows to watch my chic ride and I swear to God by this time next year I will have a business at the horse show!  I will figure something out.  I am good at finding the hole.  I don’t know how but that’s just how it ends up.  I like business, it’s my love, and I dig it.  If I could be financially free then that’s my goal, but I am not sweating to get there.

Obscene: Final question.  If you could predict the future, where do you see yourself ten years from now?
Huntington: Wow, with six Tai hookers and, no, I’m just joking.  Ten Years from now?  Hopefully retired and I have found peace and I can just chill, be happy with what I have and not always be looking for the greener pasture.  Don’t see that happening though.  Especially in business, I am always looking for the bigger, better deal.  I am always trying to make my old deals better too.  Ten years from now, I would love to say I will have kids and I will be living on a ranch in Costa Rica with ten horses and be not working anymore.  Surfing all day everyday.  Eating at my restaurant at night don’t see but I don’t know.  I will be in the game somewhere.