It was the final stop for The Smashing Pumpkins and Jane’s Addiction. There’d been a few bumps in the tour, but it all ended with splendid rock and a whole lot of Perry Farrell quotes we couldn’t get enough of hearing, pondering, and wondering, how can we get high with Perry Farrell one day?

“Let’s Go Motherfuckers!” – Mr. Farrell 

The two iconic rock groups delivered more than trips down nostalgia lane together. Yes, “Jane Says” or “Tonight, Tonight” ignited a flood of feel-good memories of bright summer afternoons or lazy school days. However, even the band’s classics are gifts that keep on giving in the present. The two bands gave their fans more fond memories that’ll hit them like soft bricks when their songs hit the radio or, more accurately, Spotify in the future. 

Poppy set the tone for the night well—a mixture of rock and comedy. She’s got a lovely voice, especially when she screams, “Fuck the world, it’ll just fuck you back!” She followed that song with a brief silence and a pleasant, soft-spoken, “Thank you,” which had me howling. She just radiates rock—an artist just doing her own thing.

“Wine, weed, can’t stop, can’t stop.” – You Know Who

Once Poppy left the stage, it was Jane’s Addiction time. Queens of the Stone Age’s guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen filled in for Dave Navarro, while original bassist Eric Avery was welcomed back with love and Stephen Perkins kept the energy high on drums. Everyone on stage was playing at an 11, but Farrell, he’s just from another planet, isn’t he? 

Farrell was happy to be back home in Hollywood. The city was equally as delighted to have him back. He is a showman of his own making, although his infectious joy on stage did call David Lee Roth. Just an energizer bunny with a graceful voice to compliment his high-wired movements. 

He is almost always on the move. 

Now, I could go on and on about everything Farrell said in between songs, because really, what other frontman says during a show at the Hollywood Bowl: “It’s a good day when you have a fucking hard-on.” The memorable quotes kept on coming, but his voice was just as entertaining. 

Farrell’s voice always had a hypnotic effect.There’s a gentleness to it, kind of an innocence that can clash with or compliment his more hard-edged songs in a way that’s rich in dynamicism. That voice along with the rest of the band can send you down a nice lazy river with “Summertime Rolls,” which I really wish they played, or a rollercoaster of rock, like “Three Days.” It’s a voice and band that knows how to tell a story. 

On the last night of the tour, Perry’s voice sounded practiced, not tired. He was in lockstep with the band. The group kept the electricity on full blast. It was a show. “What goes good with wine?” Farrell asked. “Sex.” He shared this around the time Ferell’s collaborator, wife, and vocalist, the one and only Etty Lau Farrell, danced and rocked back and forth on a plastic horse. The presentation and dancers match some of Jane’s sexually charged lyrics, but there’s also romance there! It was sweet watching a couple create art together and go nuts for one another. 

By the end of Jane’s Addiction loaded one-hour set, Farrell had a bottle of wine in hand and didn’t want to leave from the look of it. The band behind one of the all-time great rock albums Nothing’s Shocking was warmly embraced. As they deserved.

“You guys like spanking? Come see me after the show.” – P.F.

Billy Corgan reminded us all that the band is now about 35 years old. There was a collective sense of, holy shit, it’s been that long? After over three decades, Corgan keeps exploring new pathways with The Smashing Pumpkins. The Pumpkins recently released ATUM – Act 1, part one of a three-part rock opera that is… divisive. Instead of delivering more of the same, why not polarize, right? Flaws and all, at least the Pumpkins are still exploring.

The band isn’t completely focused on the past when they play live, either, but of course, songs from Gish, Siamese Dream, and Mellon Collie And the Infinite Sadness completely rock and sometimes even wreck—in a good way—the crowd. Together, Corgan and guitarist James Iha, who could barely move on stage and yet was so charismatic, do a version of “Tonight, Tonight” on two acoustic guitars that, I’ll say, was moving. 

The Pumpkins are now a well-oiled machine live. The setlists are tight and flow organically. The band knows when to go quiet or, often in spectacular fashion, go big. Whenever Corgan’s voice wailed and Jimmy Chamberlin gracefully bashed the shit out of his drums, the crowd was on their feet. Such a treat watching Chamberlin at work, as well as seeing Corgan, Chamberlin, and Iha together after years apart. It’s special, and Corgan recognized that when he thanked the crowd. 

One Last Word from Perry Farrell

If it’s not obvious by now, I want to walk down the corridors of this man’s mind with a joint and, just in case for protection, a wiffleball bat. Half-kidding aside, Farrell wasn’t all jokes when he wasn’t singing. In fact, at one point he showed more support for the women of Iran than far too many public officials in the United States. Farrell for 2024, am I right?  

“Our hearts go out to them,” Ferell said. “I just want to let you all know, if you look at the world as a paradox, this is a sign. A sign that the Iranian people they’re not going to take that shit anymore. They’re going to go to the streets. One day, I hope we can meet at God’s mountain and celebrate life and humanity.” 

The post An Ode to the Edible King, Perry Farrell appeared first on High Times.

Recently, the duo told us how they work with companies to not let restrictions hamstring creativity, as well as their incredible work on the Grateful Dead-themed Scarlet Fire Cannabis Co. 

High Times: How did everything with SevenPoint Interiors begin?

Randy: To take a step back, our parent company is called Visual Elements. The primary focus there is high-end retail manufacturing. So we build stores for clients like Nordstrom, Coach, Louis Vuitton, Kate Spade, Hermes, right? My dad actually started the business, and he’s been doing it for 30-plus years. And we started Visual Elements, I think, in 2010. I guess over the years I’ve been working for my dad since I was a teenager. Des and I have been friends for a really long time and we have this amazing manufacturing facility, so we thought, how do we utilize it to do something a little bit more creative and a little bit more direct-to-consumer facing? So that’s when we started the COFO brand, which was targeted to highlight emerging designers locally in Toronto.

With the cannabis side, SevenPoint Interiors started in 2017. With the legalization federally in Canada, it became legal all at once and we wanted to be able to offer our design and manufacturing services to that industry. But understanding that the customers are not our typical… They don’t have retail experience. They don’t necessarily know what it is to operate a retail store, but they won the lottery and they want to open a dispensary as fast as possible, right? So we kind of grabbed that opportunity by the horns and started SevenPoint Interiors, so that we were super focused on cannabis and there was no question about what we did.

Desmond: It was an odd rush because it was a lottery system here in Canada where X amount of licenses were handed out by month. Everyone was just like, when can we open as soon as possible? That led to a modular system that we’ve created to help with quick turnarounds. So, it’s a pre-engineered store fixture system that’s modular, it can expand, it can contract and accommodate retail spaces of many different sizes. All while, really we have a lens on creating a fixture that was specific to the cannabis industry. So everything that came from, what’s your experience when you’re looking at flower? We created our flower global system. We have our capsule, which again, it’s magnifying.

Randy: Yeah, when we realized how quick these turnarounds were, we were like, “You know what? We need a fixture system to support all of these projects.” Because we can’t design brand new fixtures for every client who comes to the door, who needs to open in 12 weeks or whatever it is, right? So that fixture system has been great. It’s budget-friendly. Because we’re vertically integrated, not only are we providing the interior design piece of things, but we’re also managing the budget. I think that’s where we actually have a leg up because we’re vertical. We manufacture for other design firms too, but sometimes a design firm doesn’t necessarily know what it costs to build the thing that they designed.

So a lot of times by the time the design is done and it comes time to price the store, that’s when the client realizes, “Oh shit, I actually can’t afford this. What can we do to value-engineer it?” And so, that’s sort of something we do too, right? Offer other options that try to bring the same aesthetic and design language but in a more cost-effective way.

Desmond: Our leg up is pretty much, we design towards a budget. So if you came to us and said you had a hundred thousand dollars to spend on store fixtures, we can work towards that budget because we build it in-house. We have a team of engineers. The whole production team is here, estimating and everything. We all share our thoughts and build and get a budget that works.

HT: Is that a draw for companies, that it’s more in-house? There’s more quality control?

Randy: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it’s a bit of a smoother process between the design and to manufacturing because we’re handing it off internally from our design team to our estimating team, to our engineers, to our production staff.

Desmond: We’re all under one roof, which makes things easier.

HT: Now having that experience of knowing how to go fast without sacrificing quality, when it comes to working on stores for Chicago, what are some lessons learned you want to bring to that city? For example, how to handle regulations?

Randy: Oh, a hundred percent. Even just living and working through the last five years of legalization in Canada, when it first started. A lot of the rules and regulations that you’re seeing roll out in the States that have now almost come and gone in a way, when dispensaries started opening in Toronto, it was like, okay, we need a barrier to entry. So, you can’t see anything from the street. We don’t want to see any product or any transactions. Every store either frosted their windows or put some sort of divider wall at the entrance and a check-in desk that’s dedicated for a security person to stand there and check IDs all day. 

Reality is, now most of the check-in desks are empty because they don’t want to pay for an employee to sit there all day to just check IDs. Now, there’s a sign that says if you’re under 21 you must show your ID. And then it’s up to the budtenders inside to make that judgment call of whether they’re going to check you or not.

But it started as a very hard and strict rule that everyone was being very careful to follow. And now, you can see it’s relaxed a little bit. As it should. I think some of the regulations were a little over the top. But now, for example, we’re working on some projects in Ohio and they want man-traps for entrances and exits that are—

Desmond: Yeah. From the waiting room to even the sales floor. And then we’ve seen all this happen, all these regulations that are just over the top. I mean with Canada being federal, it is a lot easier because everyone has mostly the same regulations, but state-by-state is different.

Randy: County-by-county is different.

Desmond: County-by-county is different now in the U.S. So yeah, we’re just learning all this on the medical side. We have one client in Ohio. Anyone that receives their license, they have to be open before, I think … February 23rd. And so, everyone’s rushing to get the design in the works, but then a lot of times it’s just educating our clients to say, “Hey, you know what? Design takes time and isn’t a push of a button.” And then production time is this, build the work back, we got to set weekly meetings. We need to hit certain milestones, we need to have certain decisions made, otherwise everything gets delayed.

HT: Do you guys ever find some of those regulations or restrictions creatively limiting, or do you think of them as chances to get more creative and find solutions to them?

Randy: I think a little bit of both. Working inside a box is always, I don’t know, it comes with its pros and cons. One example we can give you, I don’t know if you saw the Project Scarlet Fire—

HT: For the Grateful Dead theme store. Great work.

Randy: You probably saw the photos of that tunnel, that series of walls. So that store, we didn’t frost the windows. We did create some dividing walls, but through that tunnel from the outside of the store, you can see all the way to the back of the store. You can see people move between the panels but you don’t see the product and you don’t see any transactions. It was a way for us to create some visual interest from the exterior but also working within that box of hiding the sight lines.

Desmond: And when you’re in front of the store, you have to see it in person because it automatically wants to attract you and it looks like an optical illusion of some sort. Or people that are like, “Is that a mirror or something happening?” It makes you just draw clients in to experience the space.

HT: How did that design for that store come about?

Desmond: Every client is different, but Dave in particular, being the deadhead that he is, he is a passionate Grateful Dead lover. He goes and travels far distances to go to the shows and he wanted to have fun with it. We sort of agree, you’re selling weed, why not take the opportunity to up that retail experience because you can?

HT: What would you say are some usual essentials for a retail experience? 

Desmond: Well, lockable fixtures. You definitely need to have lockable fixtures. If you’re showcasing any cannabis products on the floor, they can’t be open shelves so that people can take them or anything like that. Efficiency at point of sale. So at the cash desk, something that we have established as how we plan the space is so that usually the vault is right behind the POS … And we’ve created this pass-through system where you can drop, from the vault, your product in, close the drawer and then from the sales floor side, open up the drawer, grab the product, turn around, give it to your client. It’s just quick during rush hour and things like that. But lockable cases are one key thing. A lot of people want to see the experience. Some people want to see the actual flower. Depending on the client, a few like the whole deli-style kind of look where you can open up your mason jar and let your client select the nugget they want.

Randy: And that’s state-by-state too. Not all states allow that. In Canada, there’s no open-sell in Canada. Everything’s packaged and it’s got a government seal on it, right?

HT: What are some common aesthetic choices you or your clients respond to?

Randy: Our first step when we approach a new client is we send out a questionnaire. It’s a detailed questionnaire. It forces the customer to think about some questions that they probably hadn’t thought … about before reading the questionnaire. But the first thing we hit on is your brand. What’s your brand about? What’s your brand story? What’s your identity? Because the aesthetics are all driven by that. Who you are and who your target audience is and what’s your aesthetic as a brand.

Where are they at right now, if they’re an existing brand? And where would they like to go or where would they like to be? We really want to convey that message, what their strengths are as a brand. Definitely carry through their brand story and color story. So that really dictates it. For example, we have one client that’s called Lake Effect. They’re out in Michigan. Their store is currently blue. So blue is definitely a heavy color within the space that we redesigned for them. 

Desmond: They also wanted 1500 SKUs or something like that.

Randy: So based on the way those questions are answered, we know we’re going to need a lot of shelving. We know from a brand standpoint it’s going to be a lot of blue and then Des pulls together a mood board of different materials that complement each other. It all depends on the brand. I don’t know that there’s an aesthetic that we necessarily lean toward. 

Desmond: We’re definitely kept in-the-know with a lot of forecast resources that we look into. So we know what’s, for example, we know what colors are trending 2023, ’24, ’25. Really, it’s just paying attention to what’s happening, I guess, globally and following market research. Resources to think, okay, you know what? To build a store that’s kind of future-proof, right? That’s an important factor for us. Timeless. Something that’s trending right now, but it’s going to be timeless for the next couple of years. 

HT: Creatively, how does cannabis help the both of you in creating?

Randy: Obviously during working hours, if we’re at the office, we stay away from it. But we definitely, both Des and I like to smoke some weed, put our heads down, get creative, and just problem-solve. It’ll help me zone in on one thing. 

Desmond: [The] ideation phase, I think for both of us, is smoking weed. We start thinking about ideas. Then when we sober back down, it’s, “Let’s get her done.” We tally up what we’ve explored and then put it to work. But for me, it’s been my lifetime with smoking. It’s always been part of my creative process, and I think for Randy as well.

HT: Before we wrap up, any subjects you want to stress the importance of for the both of you, the company, and your general field?

Randy: We covered the module system, which we continue to expand on. The importance of branding, we can’t talk about that enough. There are so many clients that come to the table. Not that it should, but obviously if someone comes to the table who’s got their branding figured out, it just makes, we know the process is going to be smoother.

Desmond: And not only that, but in Canada here, the cannabis stores are extremely oversaturated. Our government just kind of gave free reign. Whoever wants to open up a cannabis store can go ahead. And we’re seeing many close now.

Desmond: That didn’t pull up their socks to do their work on how to operate a cannabis store, we’re seeing it, right? But that also shined a light on how important brand placement is in the cannabis industry. Education is key.

Randy: Yeah, customer service.

Desmond: Customer service and education. You want to walk into a store and you want to talk to somebody that not just knows what they like to smoke, but what’s good for you, for whatever effect you need, be it for health reasons or for recreation. That’s such a key, important factor, we’ve noticed, with the oversaturation of all these different stores here. The ones that are succeeding are… It’s either a price war, if not that, then it’s education, customer service. It’s like once you find your hairstylist, you kind of stick with it, right?

The post Desmond Chan, Randy Simmen Want To Make Timeless Dispensaries appeared first on High Times.

For anyone not in The Roxy Music party, the English band released its self-titled debut album on June 16th, 1972. It introduced a funky new voice and sound. The band once featured Brian Eno and gained popularity in the U.K., but it wasn’t until their final album and masterpiece Avalon that the band caught on in the United States and elsewhere.

Ferry always wanted to write music that reached the soul. Fifty years later, Roxy Music still works its magic on a crowd who’ve only grown more passionate over the years. While there is no caboose in every seat, Roxy Music and its fans pack the house with vitality and passion that continues to define the band.

Everything starts right on this tour when St. Vincent opens for the band. She’s a musician with a range and artistic curiosity similar to the headliner. She’s funk, rock, and pop and produces music that doesn’t always fit tidy in a box. If any of the more, let’s say, elderly attendees were unfamiliar with her work, they left with a newfound appreciation of Annie Clark and her rocking band.

As a St. Vincent fan, she’s always a thrill to watch on stage. Whether it’s a whole set or an opening act, it doesn’t matter; she delivers. She was spot on for the tour, given her most recent album, the electrifying glam rock throwback Daddy’s Home feels right at home in the world of Roxy Music. The only bummer is she doesn’t play “Live in the Dream,” but she does get the party started. St. Vincent and her band don’t leave a foot of the stage untouched by dancing shoes.

When Roxy Music takes the stage, they do not mess around. They open with the tranquil “India” before pumping up the energy with “Re-Make/Re-Model” and a personal favorite, “Out of the Blue.” “The Bogus Man” is a perfect cleanup hitter as tune number four. It is a playful and haunting number accompanied by suitably low-key nightmarish imagery. With the first four songs alone, Roxy Music reminds the audience of why they fell in love with the band in the first place.

The band’s music is often surreal but always accessible. When “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” plays, you can hear a pin drop. With Ferry’s haunting voice and the band’s sinister instrumentals, it’s a slow burn of a song that explodes. It’s always a highlight when Ferry sings that song, and his band rips and roars through the end of it when Ferry briefly leaves the stage and lets his fellow bandmates take the limelight.

When Ferry is front and center, pardon my language, he is one suave motherfucker. With a warm smile that beams with appreciation, he moves and croons with grace and a classiness that’s defined him since his days as a fashion icon. Yes, he’s still slick, but there’s a beating heart to the slickness of it all. Ferry is a frontman who can remain seated and still project charisma.

Every artist’s voice changes. It grows, evolves, and sometimes even alters the meaning of the songs. With Ferry, there’s a new beauty there. The lead singer’s voice now brings unique, compelling qualities to old songs about heartache, love, and living bungalow ranch style. Ferry croons with half a century of music and life experience. There’s a new depth there, a richness to the musical storytelling. There’s a sense of reflection.

At one point, I overheard, “Who didn’t hook up to Roxy Music in college?” and, “When a guy would put on ‘Avalon,’ you knew what that meant.” Well, the band hasn’t lost its touch when setting a mood. Couples dressed to impress swayed and embraced each other when Roxy Music played their more romantic tunes.

As Bryan Ferry sings, “Dance away the heartache,” I know I was. Sometimes we attend shows, see a movie, or experience a piece of art at a strange stage in life, and it hits a bit harder. That was the case for me at the Roxy Music show at Chicago’s United Center.

I treat my depression with cannabis. I also treat it with soul-soothing music, but I am someone who smokes to ease a bit of stress and pain. At the Roxy Music concert, I was feeling both. Life had taken a sharp turn into a ditch I hadn’t expected, and I was lost. I struggled to have fun, to be in the moment. For two hours, though, Roxy Music, and yes, a bit of THC, brought joy back into my life.

Sometimes you need to see or hear something beautiful to get your mindset back on the road towards a brighter destination. For me, it was Roxy Music’s 50th-anniversary tour. I needed a relaxing high and the sight and sound of music that, for a long time, has kept me warm and happy.

I went to Roxy Music’s concert in the dumps, but a night of singing, dancing, and screaming, “YEAH, Bryan!” eased the heartache Ferry and the band has always captured with their lyrics and instrumentals, both relatable and dreamlike.

The post Bring a Little Joy Into Your Life With Roxy Music appeared first on High Times.

Now, the host of the podcast BS with Brian Simpson is delivering tightly structured, hilarious sets on his Short Wide Neck Tour. He finds fresh angles in the familiar. Recently, Simpson told us about how he crafts his material and how to raise the bar for yourself.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

When did you do your first gig?

I did my first standup comedy in February 2011. It first became an idea for me when all my friends and shit started telling me that I was funny all of a sudden. So I started learning that I could make people laugh when I was complaining about stuff.

How different was your material back in 2011? Or was it pretty similar to now?

I mean the first joke I ever wrote, I still use, but most of it was… It wasn’t garbage, but it was just basic. Everybody starts out with jokes about fucking, and pissing, and shitting, because that’s the most relatable subject. It’s just bodily functions. I think everybody starts out kind of in that vein, or you try to be an edge-lord, and say, “The Holocaust didn’t happen,” or something stupid like that. I was the guy that was doing basic shit.

What were some of the first clubs you performed at?

Well, it was two places, really. One was called the Mad House Comedy Club in San Diego. And this other place was called Queen Bee’s Art and Cultural Center, and they had an open mic there once a week. Those are my two main places where I first started at. I got the most stage time in those places, so that’s where I put most of my time in.

Were they good experiences?

As good as they can be. Yeah. I mean, what experience is all good? I guess that’s what makes you a comedian. I look at any experience and tell you what’s fucked up about it. I’ll be at a wedding, just scowling: “Oh, this is such a waste of money.”

[Laughs] Do you still feel that way?

Yeah. I’m not a big fan of pageantry, or things just for show. They just get under my skin so bad. I don’t want to be in a parade. I don’t want to be at any kind of ceremony if I can help it.

You look very comfortable on a stage in front of a crowd.

Oh, yeah. See, that’s different though. Being in front of a crowd and being in the crowd are two different things. Being in front of the crowd is only scary if you don’t know what you’re doing. But being in a crowd is scary all the time. Anything can go wrong. Maybe that’s not a reasonable fear. It might just be crippling social anxiety.

You have a great 30 minute set in [Netflix’s] The Standups Season 3. How’d you prepare?

I think I might have run the set maybe 20 times. But in truth, it was more than that because at first I was running an hour, and I found out it was 30 minutes. And so, it was just a half hour of that, and deciding what comes in and goes out. All of those little meticulous things, which you don’t really have to do. Some people wing it, but it makes me feel comfortable because it’s absolutely the thing that I’m not lazy about. I’ll do all the little tricks and measuring, and recording, and whiteboard, and all of these things to try to make it better. Oh, and weed.

How does weed help when you’re writing?

Well, what happens is when I’m trying to joke for the first time, I like to be high. I don’t like to be high on stage a lot of times, but when I’m trying a joke for the first time, I like to be high. For some reason it just puts you in that creative headspace. You do that on stage with something with a structure to it, and your mind just goes places. And that’s what you need.

You need the tension of the moment and your mind going places that it doesn’t normally go, bam. Because it’s like once you have an idea, you try to find all the angles. You know what I’m saying? It’s like a video game. Some of those angles are hidden behind the weed key. Some of those, you need the mushroom key to unlock. So when it’s all said and done, I try to do every joke in every mindset, to see what I left on the bone.

Needing “the tension of the moment,” that’s a nice way to describe overthinking or paranoia.

Oh, yeah. You know, that mentality has helped me. Edibles used to knock me on my ass. Or I would get so high and just wish I wasn’t that high. But then knowing that, “Oh, this is just me overthinking being high. I’m okay.” You know what I mean?

Yeah. Usually I also try to say to myself, “Things will be okay.”

Yeah, yeah. Or I listen to music. It gives me something to focus on, other than how high I am. Yeah, it’s the best.

You said you don’t perform much while high, right?

Oh, well I do, but only when I’m doing new stuff. The thing is I don’t mind being high on stage in other circumstances, and I’ve certainly done it. But what I hate is if I show up high and go up on stage, that’s fine, but I won’t get high before I go on stage, because what happens is if it kicks in while you’re on stage, it throws all the energy off. It’s almost like your brain’s clicking into another mode, but that split second between the modes, it’s like a hard reset.

I think you feel it more because when you’re on stage, your adrenaline is pumping so high. Even if you’re chill, your adrenaline is up. And so, I think you just feel that weed hit different, and it just stops everything for just a split second, but the crowd can tell. They’re like, “Something’s up.” This is just me. I don’t know about everybody else. But when the weed hit me on stage, I have a problem. If I’m already high before I go up, that’s perfectly fine.

It’s funny you said how with comedy, it’s the one thing you’re not lazy at, but I find that ironic considering your past in the Marine Corps. I imagine that requires an incredible amount of discipline and hard work.

No.

No?

It’s just like anything else. It requires an incredible amount of discipline and hard work to be good at it, not to be there. It takes a minimum amount of work to be there. It takes a lot of work to excel.

That’s a very good distinction. Did you get a lot of material from your days in the Marines?

No. Well, no, that’s not true. Yeah, I would just say the way I see the world was very shaped by that experience. And so a lot of my observations of… All the things I know about white people, I learned in the military. I didn’t necessarily write that joke back then though. It’s not even really in a military setting. I guess it has to be because I set it up that way.

You mentioned using chalkboards, and just really nailing the structure … When do you know the structure’s just right for a set, like for the The Standups set?

Oh, see, I didn’t nail it though.

Why not?

That’s why I can’t even watch it. I can’t even watch it. No man, well, I left a lot of pet words in there, a lot of ums and uhs and mm-hmm. Would’ve been perfect. There were probably 27 of them. That keeps it from being perfect. I mean, perfectly as I want it.

Do you always feel that way after you perform, thinking about what maybe didn’t work instead of what did work?

It’s torture. Yeah, I think a lot of comics think that way too. It’s not good. I think it makes it difficult to enjoy your victories, because your mind is so used to going there. Even after you triumph, your mind is used to going, “Right. Okay. Well, what was fucked up about it?”

Have you ever walked off stage and thought, “That went as good as it could have gone”? Do you ever feel that way?

Oh, yeah, yeah. I felt that before, that’s rare though. That’s rare. People like to throw around the term “killing” and “destroying” a lot, but that’s so rare. Even the best in the world don’t fucking kill, don’t destroy every set. You know what I mean? It might be more often for them that they kill, but it’s still, it’s not even more than half. Most comics, we do really, really, really well, but that’s not killing. Killing is everybody’s dead. They done. They laugh so much, they finish.

I know it can be hard to pinpoint, but was there a moment where you thought, this is my voice and this is my style on stage?

I mean, there was a point, but I don’t remember exactly what that moment was. But I remember several times just being like, “Oh man, I leveled up. I leveled up. I just did something I wasn’t capable of doing before.” And see, and that’s the other thing. Killing changes with… Because when you start and you go from no laughs to some chuckles, that feels like killing.

So it’s like the funnier you get, the higher you raise the bar for what’s killing. So that’s why it might feel like you killed, but you didn’t kill. You don’t know that until you go watch somebody actually kill, and you go, “Oh, okay.” Does that ever happen to you? You see a comic that’s so much better than you, that you’re just like, “Oh wow. I thought I was killing it. I got to go back and write.” You know?

Oh, yeah. I’ll think, maybe I’m doing fine, but then I’ll read something fantastic and feel down, like, “Ah, I’m not doing as well as I thought I was.”

No, but you need that. It’s necessary. I mean, that’s why everyone moves here to L.A. or to New York. Once you’re the big dog wherever you at, you need to get the fuck out of there. I’m saying every second you waste around in rooms where you’re the best comic, you’re wasting your time. You need to be around people that make you sharp. And with people every night [that] make you go, “Holy shit. I need to rewrite some shit.” You want that every day, to see somebody that’s better than you.

So, when do you know you’re leveling up exactly? Is it just based on the laughs?

I guess there’s no way to quantify getting better at comedy, but people close to you can tell. “Oh man, you’re better now.” And when you get that … you tell your jokes differently. I mean most of the time it means you’re telling them better, but I’m sure if I listen to that same exact joke with the same exact wording from five years ago, it’ll sound different.

The post Comedian Brian Simpson Doesn’t Want To Kill It appeared first on High Times.

HT: When you put a special out into the world, do you pay much attention to the response?

Byer: I mean, everybody has their own opinion about everything. You hope that the opinions are nice and that people liked it. But there are people in the world who don’t like you. And that’s fine. I think it was like RuPaul, who was like, call me whatever you want as long as you’re talking about me. I’m from that school. Talk about me negatively, positively. Hopefully, there are more positives than negatives.

I think Eddie Murphy had the best response to any criticism, “The check cleared, so it was a success.”

Yeah. Really, say whatever you want. My checks, I’m doing all right. I’m doing enough that I don’t have to talk about you. You know what I’m saying? It’s like, “Yeah. My bank account is nice to look at.”

[Laughs] So, when do you know your hour of material is ready for a special?

Well, for me, personally, I worked backwards with stand-up. So I was doing improv and sketch to begin with. And then I got Girl Code, and then colleges were like, “These college kids fucking love you. Come do stand-up at our fucking schools or whatever.” And I was like, “I need new characters.” And my manager at the time was like, “No, you’re not bringing wigs in a suitcase. No. Learn how to do stand-up.” And I was like, “Oh, okay. I guess I’ll learn.” Then I learned and the first show was at Rutgers and I had to do, I think, they only asked me to do a half hour and I had never done a half hour. I’d done sets that were 10 minutes long. And Emily Heller was there, she’s an accomplished stand-up. She’s so funny. And I was like, “You go last. You headline. You are good.”

And she’s like, “They’re here to see you.” And I was bummed. And then they laughed at some stuff that genuinely wasn’t funny. I was like, “Oh, shit. I think I have a little bit of leeway, because I’m on television.” And then I was like, “But that’s going to wear off. I better learn how to do stand-up.”

I learned how to do stand-up on the road. I’ve been doing it long enough. I was like, “In 2020, I’d like to do a special.” So I was touring, touring, touring, touring, almost every fucking weekend of 2019 going into 2020. And then COVID hit. I had a tape that I was showing people. I was proud of the work. And I was like, “I want to shoot this special.” And then going to do stand-up for eight months. And then the world is different. My material is different. I’m different. So then, I did a deal with Netflix and then was like, “Fuck. I know I’ll have it, but I have to figure out what it is.”

And then I went back out on the road and I’ve been doing outdoor shows in L.A. And then it all came together in this way where it was a celebration of my material that I had worked on for so long and perfected along with some new stuff. And then my new stuff was also peppered with old jokes that I hadn’t done anymore, but fit in this new world.

It was really just exhausting and a fun jigsaw puzzle. It felt good. It felt [like] everything came together the way I wanted it to come together from the opening to the show. I did an encore joke that didn’t make it into the special that went really well at the second show. It was just a really magical thing.

That exhaustion, all that hard work, is why it turned out so well, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I had fun. The second show was funny because [comedian] Sasheer [Zamata] had seen that show in New York at, I think, Union Hall. She saw the first show and then she was like, “Nicole, the second show, you had so much fucking fun. You were doing shit I hadn’t seen before.” And I was like, “Yeah, because I knew the first show was good enough to be the special.” The second show was like, “Let’s have fun. Let’s have fun.” And then that’s what we used for the special. I think we maybe cut one joke from the first show there. But I don’t think we did. I don’t remember. It was a lot of editing, a lot of back and forth, a lot of notes.

You mentioned an encore joke that was cut. What was that one?

Oh, so it’s a pedophile joke.

Okay.

The premise is why you shouldn’t fuck a kid, because I don’t understand why you want to, but it’s the way I word things that make people really upset. And the joke is two minutes of a rollercoaster and people going, “Oh. Ah.” And then laughing and then getting off court. It’s people getting on and off of a rocking boat.

They’re like, “I feel safe. I don’t feel safe. I feel safe. I don’t feel safe.” [Comedian] Matteo Lane, one of my best friends, and Sasheer were watching in the wings dying and I could hear them. It was just perfect. Again, special because the only people who heard that joke were the people who were in that audience. And the people who were operating the cameras or whatnot. I have a cut of it, but it’s safe with me.

[Laughs] It sounds like a good joke.

It’s my favorite joke I think I’ve ever written. And the best part is, I told Sasheer the premise and a couple of the punchlines while we were in Costa Rica, waiting in the water, the sun was setting and she was like, “I really think you should tell that joke. It’s so funny.” And I said, “You know what? You’re right.” And then I went to Hot Tub, Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler‘s Show at the Virgil. I started the joke and a woman’s audience went, “No.” And I was like, “Oh, they hate it.” And then I tried to keep going and I have never had that reaction to any joke I’ve ever told, people pissed really being like, “I hate it.” And I was like, “Oh, no. God. Sasheer, she told me to tell it.” I threw her right under the bus.

And then she worked with Kristen Schaal on something, Kristen was like, “You told Nicole to tell that horrific joke?” And she was like, “What? She said that?” And then I had to tell her, I was like, “Yeah. I said it when we’re on stage. I’m sorry.” And then Marcella Arguello has a show called Women Crush Wednesdays. I had done the show, got off stage and I was like, “Dang, I forgot to tell my pedophile joke.” She said, “Come back next week and only tell that joke.” And I said, “Okay.”

I went back and I only told that joke and it crushed. I figured out how to tell it. The way I have to tell it is like, “Do you guys want to hear a joke nobody likes?” And everyone’s like, “Yeah, I feel cool.” And I had a Def Jam comedy moment at that show, because a woman in the back was running around screaming. She loved it so much. It’s my favorite joke. It’s so dumb. Maybe it’ll go on to the next one. Probably not. I’ll just have it with me and tell it every now and again.

Do you have some material like that where it’s just like, “Ah, this is just for me or my friends?”

I was trying to write jokes based on memes during other tragedies in the world, and that got pretty dark. Because it was like, “What if the internet was around during other horrific things in the world?” How like some of the COVID memes are really fucking funny, but people died. So it’s like, “What would it be like during slavery or World War II?”

You can have such a fun, playful delivery that only a minute or two later you realize, “Wow, that was dark.”

Then you’re like, “Uh-oh. Whoopsie-daisy.”

You have a very good bit on J.K. Rowling. She’s rightfully ridiculed on the internet, but you found a fresh angle.

Thank you. I wrote that joke after I watched that documentary. I was just like, “Wait a minute. This truly sounds like Harry Potter. This is literally nuts.” And then I was looking at the Harry Potter Wikipedia page and the KKK Wikipedia page. And I was like, “This is wild. There are so many similarities.” And then I did that joke [at] The Improv and then an executive from, I think, Universal, was like, “You’re closer than what people think, because people compare it to Nazi Germany or whatever.” And she’s like, “No. It’s closer to the KKK I think than that.” And I was like, “Okay. So I’m on the right track. It’s been confirmed.” I don’t know if she’s actually an executive. It could have been just an audience member fucking with me. But, I mean, yeah. Grand wizards, wizards. Come on now.

I also thought your play on her name [JKKK Rowling] was terrific.

That was during a show. Sometimes you write a joke and it’s solid, and then you start playing with the audience, and then that just rolled off my tongue. And I was like, “I have to remember to say that, that’s funny.”

Do you always write your material down after moments like that?

I have to write everything down. I have ADHD. So the mind is a prison. I’ll say things and then someone will be like, “Repeat what you just said,” and I’ll be like, “Hmm. That’s gone.” So if I say something funny, I’ll try to write it down. I have a little notepad in the shower where I write shower thoughts down. It’s a waterproof pad and a pencil that a friend got me to help me remember stuff.

Say, in the special, what were some of the jokes or bits that maybe took longer than others just to get them right?

Let’s see. What took a minute? The Black Lives Matter joke worked in audiences where there were Black people. And then I went to Portland.

At the Helium Club?

Yeah. And I was like, “Oh.” I love Helium. And there are Black people in Portland and they did come out to see me, but it was a little, “Oh.” I think that’s when I came up with Pack Up Your White Guilt, that was the second show, maybe, people were gasping. I was like, “What the fuck?” And then the Pack Up Your White Guilt came from that. But, yeah, that was the thing where it worked.

And then I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. And I was like, “Oh, because there’s literal white guilt,” and people who are sitting here looking at me going, “I literally did what she just said. I texted my Black friends to be like, ‘How are you doing? Is the trauma getting to you?’” I was like, “We didn’t need any of that.” And they’re reckoning with it and I’m making fun of them to their face. So, that was a thing I had to figure out.

I’m in Portland right now, and I’ve heard from a few comedians that some audience members here don’t have the best sense of humor about themselves.

Yeah. Especially, when you’re like, “You did this. You know you did this.”

What are some clubs around the country that you love performing at?

The DC Improv is electric. Denver Comedy Works, again, electric. Just so fucking… Every single show I did at those two clubs was like, I can’t even describe to you how good it felt. Also, Helium in Portland is also really great. The time before the last time I was there, I sold out. We had to add two extra shows. I did seven shows that weekend. That was 2019, the end of 2019. I also really like the Wilbur Theater in Boston. Boston goes hard. Boston drinks. Boston’s a great fucking crowd. Also, ironically enough, Oklahoma City. I think it’s a Helium in Oklahoma city. I had the best time there.

I’m from DC, so it’s always nice to hear comedians talk about how great it is performing there.

It’s great. The room is solid. Also, they’re accommodating. I had a sign language interpreter on stage with me during one show who was so fucking hot that I was like, “You are the distraction because of your face, honey. I see that you sign away, but the face, my God.”

[Laughs] Since you started off in sketch and improv, when you’re on stage, do you find yourself going off script quite a bit or do you stick very closely to what you’ve written?

I was touring a ton in 2019, I got a little burnt. So I was like, “We stick to this script. Let me just get through my fucking jokes. Don’t yell at me.” Now, I had a little bit of a break. I’m having more fun. Now, it’s like if you yell something at me, I will talk to you. I will respond. I won’t bug out.

I did a show in Houston where I asked if there was anyone in the audience who would fuck me. And the student was like, “Yes.” And then that derailed the show. And it was just very fun. And I had such a good time. My Houston shows were really great the last time I was there. So I’ve just been having more fun because it’s like, “Why are you doing it? Why are you getting on stage to just perform the same jokes?” No, you need something from them, from the audience and the audience needs something from you. So let’s have fun. Otherwise, stay at home.

I imagine it was a ton of fun roasting the [unruly drunk] white woman on her birthday in Wisconsin, especially since you got to use that story in your special.

Mm-hmm. I mean, that was not fun for her because she did cry. And then I loved it because I really hated Appleton, Wisconsin. I don’t fucking know how to fucking pronounce it. At one point at one of the shows, someone in the audience screamed, “Smile. We can’t see you,” and nobody on that fucking staff did anything. I was livid. I truly walked into the crowd and was like, “What the fuck is wrong with you people?” I ended the show early, because I asked them to stop screaming “nailed it” at me and they would not. In the middle of a joke, it was like, “Nailed it.”

I said, “Fuck all of you, none of you deserve to hear the rest of this joke. I hate it here. Nobody here is nice or good.” And then I literally got off stage. Everyone was like, “Oh, what a poor sport.” And I was like, “Poor sport?” A lot of the people in that crowd were racist and unkind and unruly. I was like, “I am not a substitute teacher. I’m not trying to fucking rally children.” I hate it. I will never go back there.

It’s so strange that some people never learned not to talk to someone when they’re performing or don’t know better.

YouTube killed it because [you] see those videos where it’s “Heckler Owned!” So people are like, “Oh, someone’s going to get owned during this show. And it’s going to end up on YouTube.” Where it’s like, “No. You just shut the fuck up, you’ll hear a really great show.” You’ll go home and you’ll have something nice to talk about.

I did one show, I think, it was the Irvine Improv. I had fun there, too. I told the white woman joke and then this Black woman was like, “It’s my birthday.” And I was like, “Oh, are you trying to prove that Black women could be just as awful as white women?” She’s like, “Yes.” I was like, “Well, you did it. I guess I’ll be nice to you. Happy birthday. How are you?” She’s like, “Good.” I was like, “All right. What do you do for a living since you need this?”

She’s like, “I’m a lawyer.” Oh, my God. It was funny. She just needed it. We were having a nice banter. And then I can’t remember what I said, and it was harsh. And then the whole crowd was like, “You are the bad one, Nicole.” And I was like, “Oh, I’m not going to fucking win them over even though this woman interrupted my show. All right. Here we go.” And then the rest of the show was like, “Are you okay? Do you need more attention?” She’s like, “No, I got it.” I was like, “Okay.”

Being from High Times, I wanted to ask, and I may be wrong, but did you tell Conan O’Brien you quit smoking or were trying?

That wasn’t weed. I think that was a cigarette. I quit smoking cigarettes on January 3rd. I haven’t had one since. So that’s hard.

Congratulations, though.

Thank you. But weed? Weed, I like an edible every now and again, but I don’t smoke as much as I used to. I used to smoke every day in high school. And then in my early 20s, I smoked a ton and ate a lot of edibles. And then sometimes to clear my head I’ll smoke and go for a drive. So I mean, it is a little bit less. She’s still getting a bit stony.

[Laughs] Do edibles ever help with writing material or is that just to relax?

Not at all. You think something’s real funny and then you write it down and you look at it sober and you go, “What the fuck is this? What the fuck is this?”

The post Nicole Byer Laughs at Her Own Jokes—and You Can’t Blame Her appeared first on High Times.

Ever since her remarkable debut, Songs in a Minor, Keys been nothing if not consistent. She’s produced plenty of hits full of emotions and stories, not only hooks and catchiness, but it’s her albums that keep us coming back. In the last two years, she’s released three, Alicia, Keys, and Keys II, all damn fine additions to her body-of-work. On her World Tour, she continues her 20-year hot streak of mellowing us all out.

That’s what Alicia Keys means to me. She produces music that’s almost like a shoulder to rest your head on, relax, and as Keys says, “Let go.” Many a nights I’ve popped a gummy or delighted in a joint, only to unwind to her debut album or The Diary of Alicia Keys, The Element of Freedom, or most recently, Alicia. These albums flow with a dreaminess and realism that gels well with bud and helps you let go.

High or not, they’re just inspiring works of art from an artiste who can compose, produce, write, and sing the hell and heaven out of these tunes. Keys has always been an artist and a star. During her long-awaited World Tour, she shows her artistry and star power with grand intimacy. When Keys takes the stage, she reminds the audience it’s just us and her band tonight. It’s a few thousand people, give or take, but she makes everyone believe it and feel it.

To start the performance, the screen on stage parts. There’s a silhouette. Keys strikes a pose that gently screams, get ready, and she begins singing “Nat King Cole.” Without any backup vocals, Keys’ voice fills the arena with tranquility. The superstar silhouette pose Keys begins and ends the show encapsulates the World Tour. A more than fitting opening and finale.

There’s a fine, sometimes hard-to-read line between calculated and prepared. We’ve all seen concerts go through the motions, hit the marks, and deliver the expected, often at high quality levels, too. With Keys, everything about her performance is prepared, but also, authentic and natural. There is both wonderful staging and spontaneity.

Even with her young but already classic songs, there’s no hint of, Yes, I’ve sung this a thousand times already. It’s happening right there and now. She knows these songs inside and out, of course, but she makes them sound as fresh and new, as if the crowd is hearing them in a whole new light.

She’s not deviating from her recordings, although there’s one unique bit of experimentation with a few recent tracks, but she’s enlivening them. Yes, that’s the point of live music, but that’s not what we always hear and see in-person, is it? Keys not only plays her songs live; she celebrates them, loves them, and shares them with a crowd as passionate as her performance.

Never before have I seen such a gleeful performance, either. Even when songs confront despair or melancholy, Keys adds an intense joy to them. She beams with authentic positivity. When she sings “Everything’s gonna be alright” from “No One,” you believe her. Why? Partly because positivity isn’t a brand for Keys; it’s a truth.

Is it blaringly obvious yet I just love Alicia Keys’ work? I was primed and ready to vibe with her show, especially after waiting many years to see it, but everything about her work that’s admirable and feel-good turns up to an 11 when sung live. For me, her music is the soundtrack of good high times and much-needed escapes during rocky times, but to see her gift that solace to fans in-person, it’s… beautiful. Truly awesome, soul-warming beauty.

Being in an arena full of strangers, all knowing she’s there for them, that she’s as inspired by the crowd as they are by her, it’s a treasure I won’t forget. It may sound a little syrupy and post-concert hyperbole, but Alicia Keys music is about vulnerability, and unsurprisingly, so are her concerts. They’re full of love, and I’m happy to say it, everyone there experiences it with her.

The craft is every bit as impressive as the undeniable warmth of it all. At one point, Keys offers the crowd a choice. She plays snippets of two different versions of recent songs. One version is more spare, the other more for a party. Often, the crowd calls for the party, and what a party they get. Whether Keys stands and plays softly behind a piano or pumps up the volume behind something of a DJ set, she gets the crowd moving. Keys knows how to time her songs, when to make the audience reflect or rise to dance. Just like her albums, the show flows.

Pink Sweat$ strikes a similar tone and flow as the opening act. It’s just him and a guitarist, which is appropriate for Alicia Keys’ World Tour. It’s not bells and whistles, just art and love. We could all use some more of that in our lives, right? Keys, who’s very in tune with her audience and band, is aware of that much-needed desire.

The post Alicia Keys Wants Us To Let Go appeared first on High Times.

On the second night of Dead & Company’s tour stop at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, the atmosphere of glee was palpable hours before the show began. Old and new fans gathered in and around the stadium early, wasting no time when it came to having a good time. Sure, one or two people maybe partied too hard before the real party began around 6:45, but mostly, everyone was relaxed and ready when the band—including guitarists John Mayer and Bob Weir, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, bassist Oteil Burbridge, and drummers Mickey Hart and Jay Lane—took the stage and rocked the city of Chicago’s socks off.

The band delivered four hours of relaxation. The show ebbed and flowed with such grace. When Dead & Company hit the stage, they weren’t only playing music; they were telling a story. The band transitions masterfully from one song to the next, tying together a plethora of emotions, themes, and protest, rightfully calling out the Supreme Court for the disastrous decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The nearly-four hour show zipped along while taking its sweet time. Nobody was constantly looking at their watch and few people were looking through their phones, except maybe to call fellow Deadheads to let them hear the show.

“It was voodoo magic, man!” a man exclaimed.

Speaking of Deadheads, goddamn they are friendly people. As someone relatively new to Dead & Company experiences, some of the kindest music lovers on Earth gather at these shows. In contrast, the previous week, I saw The Rolling Stones play and, good Lord, those fans are no picnic. Only speaking from what I’ve witnessed, there’s none of that poor, entitled behavior at the Dead & Company shows, despite the notable level of intoxication.

I hate to compare bands and fans, as well as artists, but having been to enough shows with questionable etiquette, the audiences at Dead & Company are heavenly. They not only bring drugs for friends, family, and strangers, but they look out for one another, almost always with a smile. If a man goes down, people get that man back up on his feet. People care about not only their experience at a Dead & Company show, but also the fans around them. The crowd alone made me comfortable to sway to the music with ease.

“I think he had a heart attack,” a stranger said. “Maybe.”

Dead & Company shows are the place to let one’s hair down and fly. When you’re surrounded by so many people, especially in a stadium show, it can take time to get comfortable, ditch any insecurities, and dance the night away. It takes hardly any time to at these concerts. Nobody is too cool for school at Dead & Company gigs. However, after the band takes a break in the middle of the show and everyone has loosened up even more, that’s when the party turned up.

Looking around Wrigley Field, especially when the band played “Casey Jones” and “Help on the Way,” the stadium was a massive wave to the eyes. Just constant movement. Everyone was feeling it, together. Even in large stadiums, Dead & Company have this rare, special talent to make these experiences intimate, no matter where one is seated.

The drugs aren’t creating those power sensations, but they sure as hell help. Dead & Company is, no hyperbole, the most beautiful smelling concert. The greatest air freshener in the world is always present: cannabis. It’s everywhere.

Not only that, people are generous with their bud, vapes, and gummies. Shoutout to Dave in section R, row 10, for bringing a brigade of well-rolled joints to unwind the surrounding area. Your parents, your grandparents, and your great grandparents should be proud, Dave.

“I need a miracle!” many fans shouted.

Let’s talk about psychedelics. The man who screamed, “I’m on acid!,” obviously was far from the only person partaking in such activities. Around the two-hour mark, a friend handed me a mushroom. Now, taking a shroom at a Dead & Company concert, is it a cliche? Maybe. Is it fantastic? Abso–certain-lutley. The lighting at these shows encourages the ingestion of psychedelics. Colors were warm and infectious.

The mushrooms kicked in when Lane and Hart took the crowd on a fantastical magical carpet ride with “Drums.” It was 14 or so minutes of overpowering, psychedelic sound accompanied by fitting visuals. It was… intense with the music practically coursing through the veins. It was the exact right and wrong time for the shrooms to reach their full battery power; it was otherworldly and overwhelming. The audience was entranced and had good vibrations all around. A little microdose goes a long way at these concerts.

Although “Drums” almost whisked the crowd into a land of unexplainable fantasy, what’s great about Dead & Company shows is they’re grounding. Sounds hippie dippie, but it’s impossible not to feel present at these concerts, not only for the music but the people. There’s a sense of community at Dead & Company shows. During a breezy night in Chicago and tough times, four-hours of inspiring behavior and music was just what the doctor ordered.

The post Drums, Shrooms, and Good Vibrations: Dead & Company at Wrigley Field appeared first on High Times.

The artist and businessman’s career started with a school assignment and a High Times magazine. “My first weed brand I made, I made a collage from a High Times magazine when I was 16 years old,” he recalled. “I printed this on a t-shirt. I spelled out the words ‘gone crazy,’ ransom style. I built my first weed company in 1996 out of a High Times magazine. Yeah, the whole fucking brand off of it. It leads to where I’m at, which is doing over $5 million a year in weed branding and now moving into a whole other space with NFT.”

Pechetti’s first product, the weed t-shirt, began as a school assignment. It wasn’t well-received by a teacher, but it was by everyone else. “I got the nastiest letter from my art teacher,” he shared. “The letter said, ‘If you’re going to choose to make this your focus, it’s going to be hard to be successful.’ The next assignment she gives us is a silkscreen shirt. Again, I came back with my weed project. I printed one shirt. I walked out of class that day, and everyone had to have that shirt. I already had a little crew of dudes I was running with, artists or rappers or little businessmen, hustlers. The t-shirt ends up evolving into a sweatshirt. I got 100 kids, parents writing me a $40 check to pre-order the hoodie.”

For the next few years, Pechetti continued to make sales with his team of determined hustlers. “The group dissipated around 2000, but we made a lot of progress,” he added. “I co-founded another company called Chubby Greens at that time. Chubby Greens was based around nightlife promotions, art, and music. I was 20 years old. We had a building, a business logo, t-shirts and jackets for a whole new company.”

When the new business boomed, he met his wife-turned-business partner, Lesley Van Dalsem. It was another key building block in everything that led to Sticker Farmer. “I changed my focus, and I go learn the sign business,” he said. “I worked at Fast Signs, and I worked at Signarama. I work at these other independent graphic shops. I’m learning about these machines and their resources. At one point, I’m having a hard time with one of my employers, because I’ve always had that challenge, being a good employee.”

Pechetti gives credit where credit is due with his success, such as his wife and his mother. “My mom comes to me and she says, ‘I know you’re having a hard time with that company,’” he recalled. “‘If you want to take a loan, I’ll help you get a loan to start a business.’ This is 2008. My mom puts up $14,000. She helps me get a business loan for $50,000. I buy two or three basic machines. These machines are capable of doing signs, graphics, banners, universal stuff. From 2008 until about 2015, I ran your average sign shop business [called Big League Printing]. I was living in a warehouse for five years with my wife, which is now Sticker Farmer’s headquarters.”

Big League Printing involved corporate gigs and another company, Hustleheads, which Ben started with artist Miguel Lopez. Ben finally returned to his roots, working with the street scene. “It was successful,” the self-described Bay Area guy told us. “I was dedicated to the Warriors and the Raiders. I’m making money in the parking lots. I told myself, I’m going to try for two years on Hustleheads. I killed it. I went to every Raiders game. We hand-cut the products until we could afford to get the machines to cut them. Through that process, I ended up getting myself into a lawsuit with one of the biggest companies in the world.”

It wasn’t all bad news, though, as Ben had developed a strong following. Out of the ashes of his previous hustle, Sticker Farmer was born. “I had an Instagram for one year named Sticker Farmer that I didn’t use,” he said. “I made it in the middle of Hustleheads because I was starting to get weed customers. I looked at my wife that day, and I said, we’re gonna start doing Sticker Farmer. We already have a printing shop. We already had the branding. I already had the network. I activated Sticker Farmer, because everyone was like, this is the dude that did Hustleheads, right? It leads to where we are today. I went on a crazy run with Sticker Farmer, doing [designs for] Lemon Tree and Golden State Banana.”

2017 was the year the company started rocking, making a name for itself and cannabis brands. It didn’t take long for Ben to leave his own personal stamp on the industry, either. “I cut a sticker and put it on a fucking 14 by 16 Mylar bag,” he said. “I made the pound bag with a sticker on it. I came up with that. It changed the game. Every fucking rap video right now. It was so fucking corny to me when I first did it. I now have 30 employees and have five locations in California. All of them are up and running and fucking successful. I’m evolving into this crypto NFT now.”

Throughout Sticker Farmer’s success, he has had the ideal partner in Lesley Van Dalsem. “She’s a big fucking deal,” he said. “Her and I are both graphic designers. We are together curating this entire NFT collection. She’s doing the most intricate details on this NFT project, the things that are going to separate us from other projects.”

Together, the partners intend to build a community for artists to connect, sell, and grow their businesses. “I’m building a networking community, full of resources for people who want to build brands,” he said. “That’s specifically what it is, but it’s going to entail a lot more. There’s gonna be a bunch of people who own silkscreen shops, a bunch of people who are graphic designers. I’m doing an art contest right now. I’m giving away $10,000 to artists to basically participate in my art contests and put their art in my Discord. We’re giving out NFTs to artists for joining our art contests. I’m trying to pull this sick ass conglomerate of artists and dope people.”

For Pechetti, Sticker Farmer is about uniqueness, but the business is also about loyalty. The artist believes in his projects, like his first deep-dive into the world of NFT, because he knows his aim always has been and always will be true. “I keep it 100 all the time,” he concluded. “And that’s the reason that I’m still out here doing this is because I’m a solid motherfucker. If I was a fucking piece of shit, you can’t do business with the amount of motherfuckers that I do business with, and the type of people I do business with, unless you’re on fucking point.”

The post Sticker Farmer’s Ben Pechetti Is One Solid Motherfucker appeared first on High Times.

In 2018, after a long journey that’s only getting started, Tucky finally created Blunts and Moore, which is the first equity owned cannabis retail facility. Since opening its doors, the company has prided itself on bolstering the community, as well as providing one of the Bay Area’s largest selection of top shelf cannabis products.

How’s a Wednesday like today at the store?

Man, Wednesday so far is good. I haven’t been into the store today. I had some stuff to do at home, but so far, so good. I haven’t heard no complaints. I’ll be in there tomorrow, though. After I finish class, got to go down there.

What’s the class?

I’m teaching Dispensary Operations for the Harrington Institute.

How’s that going?

It’s actually been dope. I’m in week four of six. I got picked to do another six weeks, and to go from trapping, to Oaksterdam, to owning the store, to now teaching it, is amazing. It’s pretty cool. 

When it comes to teaching, are you hoping to help open doors for others? Show others the path you’ve gone down and that it can be done?

Exactly, and to also show the good and the bad. A lot of people only talk about the good that they can see. Everybody thinks everything is cookies, and people don’t understand that behind the scenes, everything’s not cookies, especially in California. It’s just good to be able to help people figure out how they want to move in this space, and to have a voice that people trust is crazy. I’m just taking it all in as it comes.

What’s the bad side?

Just to make sure you’re educated to come in this space, picking your partners. Knowing that you need SOPs. A lot of us get a license in this space and have no business acumen at all. So to jump into a space that’s a billion dollar space and only a dollar worth of knowledge, you can run into some problems. Bad partnerships, predatory lending practices, over taxation in California, so it’s just letting people know what they getting into and what to expect from what I’ve seen in the four years I’ve been on the legal side. So just dealing with the pros and cons. I love being an equity owner. I love having a store, but if I knew, coming in, what I know now, I would’ve done things differently. I’ll put it like that.

What would you have done differently?

For one, found a different partner, but it was good that I met them because I wouldn’t be here. They were put in my path in order for me to get the dispensary, and then they can go about their business, so it worked out. It’s just a lot of us that I talk to, a lot of the inboxes that I get, everybody is all, “I want to sell weed and grow weed,” and it’s like, “Okay, well, do you have $3 to $5 million that you can just waste right now and not get back for three to five years? If you can do that, jump on in.”

But if you can’t really afford that, let’s look at some other options of other things you can do to get in this space, and not have to worry about the taxation. So it’s just exploring all options, and being able to share all options for people to get in this space, because everybody that wants to get into this space, just want to grow and sell. That’s all they want to do, and it’s like, there’s so much more you can do.

So, what about the good side you teach?

Being able to be a store owner, and talk to my team, talk to my customers, and not be up in an office somewhere, being actually on the floor, budtending. I budtend at my store. You know what I’m saying? Being an inspiration to people that you’ve never met before, but are inspired by you, that is something I will take with me to my grave. I’m only used to inspiring my kids or my wife, but I’m inspiring people I’ve never met before, and I’m also putting people in my store in position to do better in the space. 

You’re doing something for your community, you’re giving back. I’m hosting expungement clinics at my store. I have a bunch of food trucks that I have at my store every day, that I don’t charge a dime, and let them make as much money as they can. Just being able to do stuff like that and share my space, those are the good things I look forward to doing every day. I like that. It’s a lot. It’s a lot.

There are a lot of people, whatever the industry, that get to where they are without much help, but when they get there, to choose to give the help and give back? That’s a great thing.

Yes, sir. I think that’s what you have to do. I tell people all the time, “I didn’t sign up for this.” I sold weed since ’96, I got arrested for it. Tried to open a store in like, ’03, ’04, didn’t work out, and just kept grinding, but to be in a position now, to be able to help people when, like you said, I didn’t have that type of help, man, and I would be doing disservice if I didn’t do that.

For me to be the first of what I’m doing, to not help other people come along behind me would be stupid. It’d be like a slap in the face. You know what I mean? I have to do that, and I think that’s missing a lot from this space, because a lot of the people, a lot of the newbies, in the space, don’t understand what the plant is supposed to do. The plant is about compassion. It’s supposed to bring people together, and we’re missing that. It’s a lot of separation in the space right now, and it shouldn’t be like that. 

And a lot of people who get into the business are so unfamiliar with cannabis, where they just think, “This is booming. We should get in on this.” It’s often not coming from just a passion for it.

They don’t care. I mean, just be honest. I mean, they’re getting in it because of the money that they see in it, and that’s great. Don’t get me wrong, I like to make money, too, but I’m coming from a place of, cannabis has been in my life forever. I’ve always looked at selling cannabis as a profession. So to actually have that as a profession, I want that to be explored by other people. 

So you tried to open a store, back in around ’03, and then 15 years later, you did it. What was going on between those 15 years?

So from the time I initially tried to open the store, until 2017, when I found out about the equity program, I stayed in the environment of the cannabis clubs. I worked at a bunch of different clubs, grew weed for clubs, managed clubs, but never could get to the ownership level, and it kind of bothered me a lot because I felt like, “Why can’t I do this?” But I kept working, I always had a job. I kept hustling, but I wanted to own a store, but I just realized after ’03, ’04, based on what had been going on, it wasn’t going to happen. At least it wasn’t going to happen then. I did kind of get discouraged, because I was at the point of, “I’ve been trapping since ’96, I’m tired of trapping.”

I’ve always approached it as a business. I’m still trapping it like it is a business, but I kind of reached the ceiling. You know what I mean? What else can I do? Kept doing my music, kept doing my promotions, kept doing my parties, kept doing my work, met my wife. It was just a whole lot going in, went to Oaksterdam. Oaksterdam opened my eyes up to a lot. I graduated from there in ’08. I was in their third class, I think, in Oakland. So that was pretty eye opening to see that they had a school that was teaching us how to move correct in the cannabis space. I had never heard of that before.

I just kept doing that, stayed on it, and then, quite honestly, bro, in 2017, by then, I had gave up on opening store. I kind of gave up around 2013 and retired completely. I retired from my job, took my 401k, or whatever, and I put all that money into my auto detail business, and I just went full into my auto detail, stopped selling weed. I would only keep weed around for my friends and family, but I stopped, and everything was going good.

Tesla reached out to me in 2017, and I thought it was a joke. I thought it was spam. They hit me on LinkedIn, and was like, “Yeah, we want to bring you in to come teach people how to detail cars,” and I’m like, “Whatever.” I ignored it. About three months later, they hit me back and was like, “Hello, can you come talk to us?” I’m like, “Sure, what do y’all want from me? Is this like you want me to come detail the cars? I own a detail business; what do you want from me?” They’re like, “No, we want you to teach people how to detail cars, but we don’t even have the position created. Can you create a position for us?” So I created a position. I’m the first Certified Detail Trainer in Tesla history.

Congratulations on that.

Thank you. Created the position, going great. I had a good two months in. Everything was on point, and then the guy who interviewed me and hired me, tried to fight me, because basically, I was doing my job, and it was making his job look bad, and instead of him just approaching me like a business saying, “Hey bro, slow down a little bit. You moving too fast. I appreciate your work, but it’s making me…” We could have talked. He didn’t want to talk. He tried to literally fight me, and in the midst of him charging at me, I just politely stood back, and told him, “If you get any closer, I’m going to beat your ass.”

The witness to this conversation was one of his friends, who just so happened to be another supervisor, and being that I was the lowest on the totem pole, I got fired. It was hard, because I had good benefits, good position. I went from detail on the street, making good money. I was making $5k a month, but I went to a position making $85K a year, gone. Completely gone, and I was at a rough patch. It was like, what do you do? Like, “Okay, I can go back to detailing. I could go back and get a job, but what do you do?”

I get a call from Mike Marshall, who’s the voice of “I Got 5 On It.” The guy that’s actually singing, “I got 5,” that’s him. He called me, and was like, “Hey, Tuck, have you ever caught a weed case in Oakland?” And I was like, “Yeah,” hella random, “Yeah, I’ve caught a weed case, why?” He was like, “Man, they got a program giving people opportunities to own in the cannabis space if you had a case. You got to fit certain criteria.” I’m like, “Well, what is it?” He said, “A social equity program.” I pull up my laptop, the laptop that I got from Tesla, crazy, and I’m searching the equity program, and it pop up. I see it, I see what they’re talking about. I see the requirements.

He was like, “I got two people out of Atlanta. They moved to Denver, and then they moved to Oakland, and they’re looking to partner with somebody that fits the criteria, so they can open a store.” I was like, “What they want from me?” He was like, “Nothing. They just want to sit down with you. If you fit the criteria, y’all can come up with whatever agreement y’all come up with, and y’all go from there.” 

I met my previous partner in ’17. We applied for the license in December of ’17. We won the license in January of 2018, and then we opened the store in November of ’18. Literally that fast, just met them, got in bed with them, opened the store, had a good year run, and then all hell broke loose. So that’s kind of, in a nutshell, how it went from me wanting to open a store, and being told I couldn’t, to opening the store 15, 16 years later.

I’m always interested in expectations versus reality. How’d they compare?

So day one expectations was initially, “I’m going to have a thousand people in the store.” I didn’t know no different. I thought, “That’s a good number, we can do it.” So coming in, we didn’t know we were going to be the first. So when we were doing all this stuff to open, I didn’t anticipate being the first social equity store to open. It just happened that way. I didn’t anticipate that. I anticipated having a good outing. I knew my name was good in the streets of Oakland and the Bay Area. I knew I could bring the crowd. I knew I could bring support, because people always supported me. I knew I had that. 

Let’s get back to another expectation. I expected I had a good partner. I expected that they were going to teach me the things I didn’t know in this space, and we were going to build together and build a future. Reality, that wasn’t the case. Reality, we did have a good first year. 2018, we’re not going to count, because we opened in November, so it was only two months, but 2019, we had close to a $3 million year. It was reported that we did a $5 million year, but my previous partner reported it incorrectly, in order to gain some other money to run off and open her dispensary. 

The overall expectation versus reality, I had high expectations. The reality is I’m overtaxed. I was underprotected in the sense of the police helping me when robberies happened, but that has, since I yelled at them, has greatly changed. I have a good relationship with OPD now, but reality is, I’m overtaxed, I had a shitty partner, if I can just be frank.

Of course.

And the obstacles that were in front of me were a lot to overcome, but if we talking a revamp of when we restarted in March of last year, when I reopened, after being closed for the robberies, I got robbed twice. George Floyd murder, I was robbed, and my whole store was cleaned out. 

How’s insurance in those cases?

You can file a claim all you want. They’re not going to give you the majority of it, and they’re going to overrate you, and then you won’t be able to get insurance with anyone else. So insurance has become, and this is something I’ve told to New York Times, and whoever wants to listen, insurance really needs to be looked at in cannabis, because they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do. So out of the $1 million loss I took in June of 2020, I got $126,000 back total, and that was for loss of business. I never got anything for my product. I got a little bit of loss of business, and it paid for my TVs that was in the store. That’s it. That’s it, nothing else.

Then we got hit in November. Recently, we got hit in November. That was about a $60K loss. We’re not even filing a claim for it, because if we file a claim, we’re going to get kicked off the policy, and then I have to file with someone else. Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s crazy what they’re doing with insurance. Insurance in California is a scam for cannabis businesses, a true scam. 

To go through all of that, to go through the bad partner, to go through the learning experience, because I took that as a learning experience. I was mad at her and her mom, initially. That’s the initial action you want to have, but in all honesty, I had to take that on the chin, and realize that was a lesson I had to learn. That was a lesson to me. Read your contracts better, read your operating agreements better, know what these terms mean. Even if it’s the same thing over and over on 15 different pages, make sure you understand what it means on each different page. So I can’t fault them, they got over on me. It happens.

How do you move up from that? You know what I mean? I got a good partner now, who ended up being my landlord, previously, Grizzly Peak Farms. We’re doing good things together. They actually just launched a brand with Soulja Boy, so they’re doing things with him now. They did Cannabis Talk One-on-One, I think yesterday, but I’m just a resilient person. 

I’m a solution based person. You give me the problem. Okay, yeah, it was a problem, but how do we fix it? How do we come out on top? I think that’s why I’m still in the position I am, because I have that attitude. When we did get robbed, we put on a concert, me, Berner, Weedmaps, and some others. It was called “I Got 5 On It,” as crazy as it would sound, and we raised money for dispensaries and other cannabis businesses that were affected when the George Floyd murder happened.

Out of all the money we raised, I or Berner never took a dime for our respective brands. We gave it to the others, and I did it, for one, because I felt like that’s what I should do. I feel like Blunts and Moore would be cool, would be able to recover. I didn’t know we didn’t have good insurance, because my previous partner changed the insurance. 

My heart was, “Give,” and it worked out. My whole testimony to whatever’s been going on is, my expectations are, “Man, Blunts and Moore should be all over the world. We should be a brand that everybody should know about,” but reality is, “Yeah, they know about it, but now it’s just time to expand on it.” 

That’s something I respect about Oakland, that sense of community. You can give back, not expect anything, and get back so much more.

Yes, bro, we’re planning another “I Got 5 On It” live, too, and then we’re planning on doing it in Oakland, at the Oakland Coliseum next 4/20. We’re working on that now. I believe what cannabis can do for Oakland is mind blowing. Cannabis has the potential to make Oakland really a real life Oaksterdam, and really have people coming into Oakland for cannabis, and I want to be a part of that. I’m really, really, really, really, really from Oakland. You understand what I’m saying? 

To be able to have something in Oakland and represent Oakland the right way, I’m all for it. I’ve talked to the people that I need to talk to in Oakland. I’m basically trying to get a seat at the table to talk to who I need to talk to. They’re like, “Dude, you are the table. We need to be talking to you.” I’m like, “Well, I don’t know.”

I’m still trying to be as humble as I can with all the stuff that’s going on, but from what I’m gathered, they’re like, “No dude, you’re the one that we need to be talking to.” So I’m just trying to keep my presence good, and just attack. 

Do you want to franchise?

I need to franchise. I believe that that model will work for me, and I’m taking a note out of Berner’s book. I don’t want to own all the stores. I just want to sell the licensing to the Blunts and Moore. Pay me for the licensing; give me my licensing fee, and 5% of the ownership, I’m out your hair. I don’t want to run 38 stores. No, I have kids, a wife, a life. I like traveling, but I can take 5% of 38 stores. If they all making $3 million a piece, you do the math. 

What else are you planning for the future?

I definitely want to work on more speaking engagements. I have five kids. My youngest daughter’s in the eighth grade. She came home about a month ago, and they’re doing a debate in her class about cannabis legalization. Eighth grade.

So, for me, it triggered, “I need to start going to schools now. I need to reach out to these schools, and these colleges, and go talk to them.” Not just about weed, but about the business of weed, you know what I mean? So just to know that they’re doing that, for me, I want to get, like I said, more speaking engagements, more teaching. 

I want to do whatever I can do to spread the word about this plant, that doesn’t have to be overtaxed. We call it ancillary. I’m trying to build up my ancillary job game. Yes, I’m now a dispensary owner. Yes, I want a franchise. That’s all great, but what else could I do besides opening stores? How could I give back to my community? How can I give back to other people, who may not want to own stores? You know what I’m saying?

I’m also doing some stuff with Redman. He has a cannabis political party, a lot of people don’t realize. It’s been up a year. It’s called the National Cannabis Party. I’m working on being a part of that, and then I’m on the NCIA board, I’m on Minorities for Medical Marijuana. I’m tapping into all the resources. I’m doing all the interviews, I’m promoting, I’m traveling all around the country on my own dime, making sure people know about Blunts and Moore. 

I do want to circle back to ’96 when you were starting to sell cannabis.

Yep.

How did it compare to running the store?

This is legal trapping. Real talk, the cannabis industry right now is legal trapping. There’s no difference. The only difference is, with me and what I was doing back then in ’96, I was in control, and I mean, I’m in control of my store, but I can’t control the taxes, I can’t control the police. When I was in the streets, all I needed was my pistol, you know what I’m saying? I didn’t need nothing else. I have to have insurance. I have to worry about my staff, but the comparisons to the street, as far as just selling weed, selling weed is selling weed. 

What I have to worry about, aside from just selling weed, is the key difference. The things that people don’t see. The staff I have to worry about if they’re going to make it home at night, because people are going to want to follow them home. The security, I have to worry about, wondering if they’re secure. My family, I got to worry about. I don’t own a key to my store. I don’t have any of the passwords to the safe, all because I don’t want anyone to jump me, and then take me to the store, thinking they can unlock stuff. 

I didn’t have to worry about that on the streets, and for me, that’s a key difference. I was safer on the streets, to be totally honest with you. You only knew I was selling weed if I wanted you to know I was selling weed. Now, you know I’m selling weed, because everyone knows I’m selling weed. It’s a little different. The same, but different.

Anything else you want to say about Blunts and Moore as we wrap up?

Blunts and Moore is a cannabis company, a cannabis brand, that just so happens to be black-owned. We here to stay. I’m not going anywhere. I want people to come. When they come to Oakland, to know that they want to go to Blunts and Moore, to come check out the vibe. Our colors are orange for a reason. Orange makes people happy.

The post Talking Cannabis and Oakland Roots with Alphonso Tucky Blunt Jr. appeared first on High Times.

While Bronstein’s full-time job is as the founder and CEO of Fyllo, he wears many hats as the executive chairman and co-founder of WeSana and the chairman of Tyson 2.0, which he co-founded with Mike Tyson. As head of Fyllo, his main day-to-day gig, there are already over 4,500 brands employing their services and buying data on a daily basis. 

Fyllo Knows Data

Fyllo’s reach is extensive in the cannabis industry. The company is assisting cannabis supply chains with compliance-first solutions to handle the industry’s regulatory environment, as well as opening their eyes to their customers’ true interests. “That’s what we’re able to tell brands now,” Bronstein said. “This customer has a different attribute that you’re not targeting, different behaviors that you don’t know just by his typical behaviors, and that’s what we do.”

Given that the cannabis industry is constantly evolving, Fyllo wants to keep companies up to speed. “The key is the markets change all the time and local jurisdictions are ever-changing, and it’s hard to stay afloat with what’s going on in those local jurisdictions,” Bronstein said. “What we’ve been able to do is have real time automation that allows the top MSOs, SSOs and brands to stay ahead of what’s going on in the global markets.”

Bronstein is not an entrepreneur in the cannabis space who’s all talk. He always backs himself up with the facts and the stats. “And we’ve done it—you see New York, New Jersey and Connecticut come on board, we are prepared for it,” he added. “Now a lot of the law firms are using our platform as new states come on board. And so, I think that’s what the market likes about us; we make it easier for them to be able to stay on top of all the regulations.”

Ensuring Brand Synergy and Skyrocketing Sales

Bronstein sees his company as a “flywheel,” doing a bit of everything with the simple goal of making business simpler for its partners. “Columbia Care, for example, they work with us for compliance, they work with us for SMS and MMS, because of 10 DLC,” he added. “They work with us for advertising, driving sales into their stores, and they work with us for compliance. The biggest thing that when we started Fyllo was, to solve fragmentation, not to have to use multiple different platforms for different things. Our whole premise of Fyllo is to make it more synergistic. We are building a full-scale flywheel that makes cannabis operations easier.”

To make operations easier, Fyllo aims to expand companies’ brand, reach, and of course, sales. “We work with all the major MSOs, SSOs and brands, because as we know, cannabis is a very performance-driven space, and we’re showing that [in that] the space we’re able to drive within sales,” Bronstein said. “I think that now brands are starting to realize, and MSOs, that brand equity matters, and you can have a big presence in the Midwest, but in the West Coast, you don’t have that presence. Brands are starting to realize they have to actually start to even advertise that top of the funnel, because in cannabis, mostly everything is lower funnel. Let’s drive sales; everything’s monetary. Now they’re starting to realize, okay, we need to really build brand equity across the region, so people know when they’re walking into California, that they’re getting the same product that they walk in to get in Illinois.”

Building Top Brands

Fyllo has created plenty of goodwill and opportunities for Bronstein in the cannabis industry. The company led to his partnering with Mike Tyson and WeSana, which is a life science company focused on treating traumatic brain injury and mental illness through psychedelics. “Tyson 2.0 is something that stemmed from Fyllo and WeSana when I met Mike,” Bronstein recalled, “And because of my relationships in the cannabis space, I was able to really structure and create a good brand around Tyson 2.0.”

The brand had a successful launch in Colorado, and by January, will expand to 17 markets, including California. “The key for me is finding really good CEOs, so that if I start a company, that I have a good operator run it, and I was able to find that for Tyson 2.0,” Bronstein added. “And then me and Daniel partnered on WeSana, and we just have really good teams in place.”

“Daniel” is none other than the two-time Stanley Cup winner, Daniel Carcillo, who played for the Chicago Blackhawks. WeSana now does positive, not only successful, work with the World Boxing Council and The University of South Carolina. “The story is that Carcillo reached out to me on LinkedIn and said, ‘I see what you’re doing at Fyllo, I’d like to talk to you about what I’m doing in CBD and psychedelics,’” Bronstein said. “I fell in love with the story. I wanted to jump on that train, because I knew a lot about psychedelics and invested in it.”

Bronstein was moved by Carcillo’s story, which involved treating a series of concussions and 164 fights with the treatment of psychedelics. “We said, ‘fuck it, what’s another challenge to go into destigmatizing something?’” Bronstein added. “I was passionate about Daniel’s story, and how he cured himself with it. I asked Aristotle Loumis, who’s also a part of Fyllo and a couple other people, ‘Hey, you want to come help when I build this with Daniel?’ And they said, yes, and so we put some resources together and got up-and-running.”

Bronstein’s goal isn’t only to expand in the world of sports, but to also ensure progress in the study and treatment of trauma through psychedelics. “The passion that Daniel had was to help not just athletes, but also women of domestic abuse, veterans, properly prepare for injury or treatment afterwards so that they’re optimizing their brain health,” Bronstein said. “I think that at the end of the day, we’re trying to expand. I would say NASCAR is another one where in the racing world, we’ll expand to. NFL, I can’t speak on their behalf yet, but that’s something obviously we would like to pursue. It probably needs this level of treatment and, like we said, destigmatizing, that’s why we partnered with Mike, the World Boxing Council, and other groups that are willing to be more proactive to bring this kind of care.”

The Ultimate Bronstein Key to Success

It goes without saying, but Bronstein has plenty on his plate to manage on any given day. The entrepreneur never has a typical workweek or workday. Every day is an exciting new challenge. “I couldn’t be here without my investors and my team,” he said. “I think when people ask me this question a lot, ‘Chad, are you focused? Do you have enough time to do all the things you do?’ And my answer is I do, and I am focused, because I have a good team behind me to delegate and execute, and investors that support us.”

Not only do those investors support Fyllo, but they also trust the company leadership. “When you look at the synergies between companies, all the same investors invested in each company, which means that they believe in our recipe for success,” Bronstein added. “They believe that I do have the time to focus, and that we have the right team behind us to execute. I think that’s the key to my success, is building the team and having the right players behind me that believe in what we’re doing and that are along for the ride.”

Always surround yourself with the best, as they say. Bronstein, who studied sociology in college and originally didn’t imagine a career in the cannabis industry, is as much of a driven teambuilder as he is a businessman. “My passion is working with people and building teams,” Bronstein concluded, “and that’s why I was able to start other companies as well as Fyllo, because it’s all about the person that runs the team that I’m behind that person, and so that’s my skill set.” With the right team behind him, once again, Chad Bronstein is only just getting started. 

Read this story originally published in High Times February 2022 Issue in our archive.

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