When Discovery came to me with the Cadillac idea, I treated the project as a competition from day one. My team at the time consisted of Brendon, Vinnie, Cody, and Peter, plus Joe working with Rachael in the office. Since four of us were former OCC employees, there was no lack of motivation.
Cadillac gave us the freedom to choose which car would be the inspiration for our builds, and we both chose the high-performance CTS-V. To me, that is Cadillac’s coolest model.
I knew from the start that I would have to nail the rear section of the bike. Historically, Cadillac is known for its taillights. We brought in a Cadillac and removed the taillights, modified them, and scaled them down into the rear section.
We were halfway finished with the bike when we set up our first meeting with Cadillac officials to talk about the creative process. While OCC had to submit drawings for Cadillac’s approval before moving forward, I told Cadillac not to expect any drawings from me because I don’t do drawings for my builds. The head designer of the CTS-V said, “No problem. I just want to see what you come up with.”
We have worked without drawings on every project, and I like to think that trust is the equity we have built up with clients that distinguishes our company from other custom builders. I don’t take that creative freedom for granted; in fact, it causes me to push even harder to deliver jaw-dropping bikes. I believe we have always, without fail, exceeded the expectations of our clients, and that is a blessing.
The Cadillac unveil took place in Warren, Michigan. My father rode his bike out and stopped in front of the crowd, and people were clapping for him. Then I brought our bike out.
We built the bike without a kickstand; a button let the air out of the air ride car shock and the bike dropped to sit on its frame so that instead of being parked at an angle, it sat more vertical like a car. So I stopped the bike and pushed the button, and the bike didn’t lower. All those people were standing around watching in anticipation, and I thought, I can’t get off this bike because there’s no kickstand! I pushed the button again. Still nothing. My heart started pounding.
After about thirty seconds that felt more like an hour, I looked over at Vinnie. He suddenly remembered the safety. He mouthed to me, “Put it in neutral.” I had forgotten that we designed the bike with a neutral safety. That way, the rider wouldn’t go to turn on a blinker and accidentally hit the air button. If that happened, the bike would flip over, because once the frame hits the ground, the rider is done.
I put the bike in neutral and pushed the air button again, and then as designed, the bike eased down onto its frame. As I got off the bike and it sat straight up, the crowd released a collective gasp. I stepped away from the bike and took a look to see it sitting stout and low—just like the CTS-V sits.
When the show aired, the scene played out so dramatically it was ridiculous. It appeared that I had intentionally dragged out the drama. My mistake made for a theatrical unveil.
Although the Cadillac build was not billed as a competition—ahem—Discovery posted an online poll to allow viewers to pick their favorite bike. The votes started pouring in and heavily favored the PJD team. It wasn’t long until the poll was quickly removed from the website. Vinnie, Cody, Brendon, Peter, and I felt great about our bike and the viewers’ response. I think that, collaboratively, we killed it.
THE BUILD-OFF
In midsummer 2011, I was approached about a three-way build-off with OCC and Jesse James that would culminate with a live competition at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
I declined to participate. The build-off was not part of our contract, so there was no obligation to take part. The lawsuit between my father and me was still hanging over our heads, and I had a lot going on at the time. Jesse called to try to talk me into the build-off.
“I don’t want to do it,” I told him.
“I don’t care if you don’t,” he shot back in typical Jesse fashion.
“Then why are you calling me?” I asked.
Eventually, however, I decided to sign up. We negotiated contracts with Discovery, but I balked at the proposal to give our bikes away after the build-off. With the Cadillac bikes, my father and I had agreed to have the bikes auctioned to benefit CureDuchenne, a nonprofit that works to find a cure for a form of muscular dystrophy. My bike drew one bid that I knew of for at least $112,000, but funds weren’t being verified during the bidding and the auction winner was not able to purchase the bike. They then had to work their way down the list of bids, and I later learned that the bike wound up going for something like $60,000. That still makes me sick. If I had known that was the case, I would have bought the bike myself and given the money to charity.
Because of that experience, when we were negotiating on the three-way build-off, I insisted that the bike remain mine. That added three weeks to the negotiations, but Discovery allowed me to keep my bike.
We knew Jesse and OCC would try to make something big, and we were all-in on winning the competition. With the World War II P-51 Mustang fighter as a model, I decided we would build an aluminum riveted bike with oversized thirty-inch wheels. It turned out to be one of the hardest bikes we’ve ever built. It took two weeks of really long hours just to build the gas tank. We were not going to lose the competition, and that made for a super-intense build.
The three sides had a lot of in-show trash talk leading up to the live build. Jesse likes to mix things up, and there was the lawsuit fallout, so I wasn’t sure how things would go when we arrived in Vegas to prepare for the show.
During the rehearsal the day before the live event, we skipped parts of the show that the Discovery folks wanted to be live and raw instead of rehearsed.
The day of the show, we had another walk-through with the show’s host, Mike Catherwood. My father and Jesse had apparently become pretty good friends preparing for the show, and after the walk-through, they were hanging out with others connected to the show behind the stage, which was dark. Jesse was to my father’s right. I walked to the left of my father and crossed my arms. My father shaved the back of his arms, and I was standing so close to him that I could feel the bristles of the hair on the back of his left arm. He gave no indication that he knew I was standing there.
My father started talking to Jesse about me like I was a punk, saying I’d never earned anything and how I’d had everything given to me all my life. It was the same line of crap I’d been hearing since I was twelve. My heart was in my throat. Feelings I hadn’t had in a long time, from our early days of arguing, came rushing back at me.
Then the producer came over to Jesse’s right and told him, “I need you to go after Junior with everything you’ve got.”
“Junior’s right there,” Jesse said softly, nodding toward me.
The producer quickly disappeared.
My father, evidently not hearing what Jesse told the producer, said to Jesse, “Yeah, go after him with all you got. He’ll s--- his pants.”
I just walked away, heading back upstairs to the dressing room. I got all worked up as I recounted for the PJD team what had happened. My team started freaking out.
I had done “live” television on the Letterman and Leno shows, but for those we filmed in the late afternoon and the show aired late at night. But this truly was live television, where anything crazy could happen. On top of that, it was an ultracompetitive situation, with weeks of hard work and long hours leading up to viewers voting for a winner. Reputations were on the line. Pride and product rode on the outcome. This was the Super Bowl of custom motorcycle building. And then I found out that the show and my father wanted Jesse to come after me for the sake of creating drama. I believe God allowed me to hear that conversation so I would know the secret game plan awaiting me.
The three of us rode our bikes onto the stage, and then my father and I sat on stools for an interview with the host.
A clip of the blowup when my father fired me was shown to us and the audience, and Mike asked the “Are the fights real?” question. My father and I
talked for a couple of minutes about our history of differences and the lawsuit, and I expressed my belief that the biggest problem with my father was his constant negativity. I added that in my heart, I loved my father, but it wasn’t healthy for me to work with him. After I was asked if the separation had been good for me professionally, Mike revisited my previous statement about loving my father.
“You said that you definitely love your father,” Mike began, “and you’re saying it to me—you’re saying it to the audience here and at home. Why don’t you look at him in the eyes right now? Is there anything we can do right here, right now? Say something to him. Maybe we can get some wounds mended.”
I noticed Mike choking up.
“Are you getting a little emotional?” I asked him.
He admitted he was, and then my dad made a funny crack at him that necessitated a few bleeps.
The host started to say something, and I interrupted him and turned to my father.
“Dad,” I said, “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said.
“I do,” I said for emphasis.
“I really do,” he said.
“I really do,” I said.
Then we put our arms around each other. That wasn’t enough, though. I stood from my stool and embraced my father as he patted me on the back with his right hand.
That was a heavy moment, man. Discovery wanted raw, and they got it. “The hug,” as it became known, was as real as all our fights. The live moment—not any kind of script—called for us to embrace, and we did. In spite of all the negatives and difficulties, I love my father because he is my father.
The studio audience roared its approval, and the atmosphere onstage immediately took a 180-degree turn. Jesse had been watching backstage, and when he came out barely able to talk because of the emotion, he couldn’t come after me like he was supposed to. He did make some half-hearted attempts, but it was apparent the hug had caused him to dial it back.
Our fan base loved the exchange between my father and me. The powers that be, not so much. They wanted fireworks. Instead, they got an “I love you” and a hug. After the show, I bumped into cast members from Sister Wives, who were backstage near some of our show’s bigwigs during the hug, and they told us the execs were mad.
I think what I said and did during the interview was an extension of the grace my heavenly Father has given me. God’s grace was in my heart, and that’s what came out of me. Hearing my father ripping me to Jesse hurt bad, because there was no reason for him to talk like that about me—other than it was in his heart to do so. After all those years, he was telling Jesse the same things he’d said about me when I was young. Sometimes people speak harshly out of anger, and others say hurtful things because it’s an overflow of what’s in their heart. Hearing what he said before the show made me feel like it was really in my father’s heart to speak that way about me, and that is a sad part of our relationship.
AND THE WINNER IS…
The night culminated with the results of the voting. Third place was announced first, for my father. Mike then said, “The builder of the best bike, and the winner of American Chopper Live: The Build-Off is…” Mike paused for what seemed like close to the same amount of time we worked on the bike in the shop before bringing it to Vegas, and then shouted, “Junior!” I had about forty people with me in the audience that night including Rachael, Mikey, the PJD team, family members, friends, and attorneys. Almost half of them ran onto the stage to celebrate with me. My father came over to shake my hand and congratulate me.
Winning was such a freaking good feeling. There is no way to create that kind of situation, with the way the endorphins rushed through my body as my name was announced. Everything—starting PJD, all the turmoil, the back-and-forths—was worth it in that moment.
Winning was a team effort in every sense. Vinnie, Brendon, Cody, and Peter made for a strong team. Everyone was level headed, got along, and maintained good attitudes through all the late nights. It was a positive, “I’ve got your back” team effort I hadn’t experienced since I played high school football.
When Vinnie came back to work for me, we picked up right where we’d left off at OCC. I always took Vinnie’s incredible abilities into account in designing bikes. Brendon came in from California to work as my sheet-metal guy. Not only could he pull off my ideas, but he also had creative ideas of his own. We collaborated to build great products. Cody—I still considered him a kid, even though he wasn’t anymore—could pretty much do anything with fab and assembly. Then Peter was our right-hand guy keeping the shop in order and pitching in anywhere he could. They were smart problem solvers and brilliantly talented in their own areas of strength.
DODGEBALL, SHOCK PENS, AND SPITBALLS
We definitely had our fun times working around the OCC shop. We tended to be a little rough around the edges, so pranks were commonplace. The viewers loved our pranks because the goofiness brought balance to all the tension on the show.
I don’t watch episodes of the show now, although it probably won’t be long until I start watching them with my son. I do, however, watch video clips that have been posted on sites like YouTube. The pranks still crack me up.
There’s one in particular that I laugh at every time. We were playing dodgeball, and Mikey hit my father in the groin. It wasn’t intentional, but Mikey whaled him good.
Another time, we had a shock pen and handed it to my father, and he shocked himself when he started to sign a paper. He got mad at us. Then we got him again with the same pen.
One of my all-time favorites involved Vinnie getting me good. We had a one-way glass in the shop through which the film crew could see us. It looked like a mirror inside the shop.
We liked to shoot firecrackers out of an air gun, or shoot ball bearings at each other through a tube on the end of an air hose. There was a hole in the one-way glass, maybe BB to straw sized. A camera was filming me while I was welding, and when I stopped and lifted my helmet, I heard a tssst whistle past.
I had no idea what the heck it was. I looked in the direction from which the object appeared to come, and all I saw was the one-way glass. I resumed welding and felt something hit me. I looked back toward the glass and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. That routine kept going until I realized that Vinnie was on the other side of the glass shooting spitballs at me through that little hole.
I laugh every time I watch that clip.
We also broke a lot of doors filming the show. Door busting became such a routine that we had a supply of replacements on hand. The doors were made of light balsa wood, and we’d kick them down, lower a shoulder and bust through them, or take a swing at them with an ax.
I loved those times. When the show ended, a lot of that goofing around stopped, and I missed it. Those were great times.
With the four of us, I felt there wasn’t anything we couldn’t do. The key in leading a team is to push your players to go a little further than they think they can go. Although I wasn’t one of those bosses who came up with big ideas and left the workers to figure out how to make them happen—I couldn’t imagine not being a part of the creative and troubleshooting processes—I challenged the guys to figure out how to make things happen. I did that for three reasons: to give them ownership in the project, to allow them to feel a sense of accomplishment when the project was complete, and to push them to become better at what they do. We always went above and beyond to do what needed to be done, and the build-off proved that.
After a late night of celebrating with our group, Rachael and I reflected on what had been a five-month ordeal to reach the live show. We’d had to work on our regular episodes throughout the process, and the wonky time frame for building the bikes made it impossible to determine if one builder was being given more time than the others. Everything that went into that one show, that one bike, created a longer period of sustained stress than any other project I had worked on.
“Never again,” Rachael told me.
&nbs
p; I couldn’t go back to working for my father. After the third season of Senior vs. Junior, Discovery asked if I intended to work with my father again. I didn’t. I had worked hard to become independent from my father’s company, and I told them there was no going back.
Discovery told me the decision had been made to cancel the show.
My response: “It’s time.”
The Senior vs. Junior concept bought the show three more seasons it probably wouldn’t otherwise have had. But it also created problems because with my father at one site and me at another, two film crews were needed. It was like filming two shows but ending up with only one episode. That made the process more expensive. If my father and I could have worked under one roof and required only one film crew, I think the show would have continued past its tenth season. But that wasn’t going to happen.
So we went into the summer of 2012 knowing that fall’s episodes would be the end.
Not surprisingly, Discovery wanted to stage another live build-off in Las Vegas because the execs had loved the ratings of the first build-off. This time, they wanted to add a fourth competitor, the Gas Monkey Garage guys from a new show.
Again, I initially said no.
Again, I changed my mind.
So much for Rachael’s “never again.”
Everyone else was eager, but I was not so quick to jump. After a series of negotiations—hello, this is a business after all—we agreed to move forward.
Although we had the experience of the first build-off to help us, for me the stress of the second build-off was equal to the first. I didn’t think the others had anything to lose, and we could lose the title of best custom-bike builder.
The idea for that build came later than usual in the creative process. The first build-off bike had been overwhelmingly creative and labor intensive because it was all copper and aluminum. Now we wondered where we could go next with a build. The frame had been sitting on the lift for a couple of days when it came to me that the others in the competition had one interest in common: cars. I was the only one who did not collect or build cars at the time, and I thought, What better theme for this bike than a car? Let’s meet them where they are! I chose a hot-rod theme.
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