COMMUNITY PROFILES
SUNSET PARK — When it comes to cruising up the coast on one of his more than 20 custom, handmade motorcycles, director/master builder Scott Gillen appears the ultimate easy rider.
Like Henry Fonda and Dennis Hopper in the feature film of the same name, Gillen loves nothing more than taking a leisurely ride with a buddy up to Point Mugu, stopping for some lunch, perhaps engaging in a conversation with a drunk lawyer who looks oddly like Jack Nicholson, and then cruising back to his home in Santa Monica, all the while never feeling the need to push the limits.
He’s still got that edge, with his raw vocabulary, dark sunglasses, tattered jeans and intimidating dagger medallion hanging from his neck, but even by his own admission, Gillen isn’t as wild as he used to be.
“It’s not about going fast. It’s about putting down the road and taking it all in, enjoying the day with a couple of buddies,” Gillen said during an interview at his garage, Built By Thugs, where he and his staff design and build custom cars and motorcycles. “You don’t have to ride like an idiot. I won’t even get on my bike if I have a bad feeling about riding. If things start to happen, I forget my helmet or money for gas, I’ll pull the bike back into the garage and that’s it.”
That, coming from a guy who in his youth used to race cars in North Hollywood with his buddies, pushing their muscle cars to the limit as they sped through windy streets like Mulholland Drive. This is also the same adrenaline junkie who joined the stunt-driving world straight out of high school, using his talent for driving fast and his thirst for adrenaline to land gigs on “Dukes of Hazard,” and films like “Heat” and “Speed.”
Stunt work soon turned into stunt coordi-nating, and then eventually directing. Gillen is now one of the top car commercial directors in the world, capturing mesmerizing angles of such brands as Lexus, Ford, Mercedes, along with directing spots for NASCAR and GMC, which aired during the Olympics in Sydney.
What does all of that have to do with Gillen’s philosophy on riding his “toys” on the open road? In short, it means Gillen has something to live for besides setting the record for the world’s most dangerous stunt.
“The reason I don’t ride in the fast lane of the freeway is because I have a wife and a baby,” said Gillen. “It’s that simple.”
Gillen also has a hit reality show on Speed TV called “Build or Bust,” which he films at his Santa Monica garage. The show is an unscripted drama where, each week, an ordinary motorcycle nut is given the chance to build a custom bike from scratch. The only trick is that he or she has to do it in 30 days without any help from master builders, who oversee the work and make suggestions, or sometimes, brutally-honest critiques. If successful, the contestant — known as “The Wrench” — is allowed to keep the bike. If the Wrench loses, he goes home empty-handed.
The show, which airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m., is in the middle of its second season, and Gillen just got word that it’s been renewed for a third.
“I am thrilled by the show’s success and excited about our plans for (another) season …” Gillen said. “’Build or Bust’ is sometimes raw, sometimes a little harsh, but that’s why people love the show.”
At his garage — the location of which Gillen prefers not to disclose for fear that TV viewers will show up and disrupt filming — the Daily Press sat down with Gillen and his crew to discuss the show, bike building, the car industry and what it takes to be a biker.
What was your inspiration for “Build or Bust?”
“Well, I’m a motorcycle nut. I’ve raced cars, built cars, done stunts. I’ve done a lot of things in the automotive arena and I shoot commercials, specifically car commercials. So, I have an eye for what people want to see when it comes to car shots. In watching the (Discovery Channel) program ‘Biker Build- Off,’ they were showing professional builders face-off against one another. I’m looking at these guys, and knowing what I know about filmmaking and storytelling, I knew there’s no way they were not going to make the deadline (of the show). They were going to win every time. So, I lost interest in the show after two episodes. There was no risk there, no downside. No one was going to lose. So I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be great if we took some nobody guy, some regular guy off the street, off the couch at home and put them in the same sort of circumstances, and you let the pro builder or celebrity pro oversee his build and have him try to build a bike in the same time as these pros do it? In the event he built the bike up to par with the professionals, then he can have that bike and it would be worth $60,000 to $70,000. That’s how the concept came about.”
How do you pick guys for the show? “Fortunately, we have thousands of thousands of guys on our Web site, about 70,000 members. By the time it gets to me from production staff, I’m looking at five to seven people. They all have to be able to weld … They’re supposed to be here to build a bike to the extreme. I mean, they’re here to get a free bike, but the reality is, forget the free bike for a second, come over here and show some respect and build a bike that’s worth building. Don’t just throw some nuts and bolts together. Build something crazy, something you’ve never seen before.”
How did you get into designing motorcycles?
“I don’t know. I just started doing it 12 years ago or so. I’ve always been into cars though. I had my first when I was 15. Cars came first. I raced when I was younger at Saugus Speedway. I did a lot of stunts, a lot of racing. I grew up in North Hollywood, so every night after school we’d race. We’d go up to Mulholland (Drive). We did all that kind of stuff. Everyone had dreams of becoming actors, and all I wanted to do was race cars.”
What is it about motorcycles that attract people?
“Well, I don’t know what others’ opinion of this is, but my personal style is, I like things small and tight and simple. There’s nothing on my bikes that don’t need to be there. I like rigid, which means there’s no shocks. I like rigids because I like to feel the road I’m riding on. That doesn’t mean I like hitting every bump in the road, it just means I want to feel that connection to the road when I’m riding down the highway. It’s nice to ride with a couple of buddies, stop along the road somewhere and have lunch. I don’t like riding with a hundred guys because they all act like fools, someone starts playing games and someone ends up getting hurt. I think that four bikes is probably the max, better if it’s just two. I don’t like to ride in the city, only the open road, maybe go up to Point Mugu or Ventura, those are nice rides. There are so many bikes out there, I like to have some individuality in what I’m riding.”
Do you have to have a certain personality to ride a bike?
“I don’t think so. I guess it fits with what you think your own personality is. My brother rides a bike and he has absolutely no personality at all. I think personality is what you think you are and that can be anything. I don’t think you have to look a certain way or act a certain way. There’s no cross-traffic. I don’t ride in the fast lane. The minute you ride stupid, something bad can happen … If you look at all the guys who are trying to look like they’re riders, with all the chaps. They’re just f-----g lame. A lot of people get all dressed up to ride, which is ridiculous. I wear tennis shoes when I ride.”
Is there a stereotype that surrounds bikers?
“There used to be, but not anymore. You don’t know who’s on bikes nowadays. Brad Pitt’s buying all kinds of bikes, so you just never know.”
What accessory is crucial when owning a bike?
“You’ve got to have a cool helmet.”
What are your thoughts on the American auto industry today, as far as it being competitive with foreign automakers?
“Well, I don’t know much about profitability, but this past year in Detroit, when the big three automakers unleashed their new lines, what took the show were the muscle cars. Ford’s New Cobra Mustang, Pontiac bringing the GTO back, the Camaro’s back, all the Hemi engines, so the muscle cars won big. I think that if these dealers would stick to what is American, American made, American muscle, USC, apple pie, I think they’d win. They’re too busy trying to chase the foreign car market, which is a mistake. I just know what I like. Would you buy a Toyota or a new Camaro?”
Does it depend on how many miles per gallon you get?
“I don’t know if everyone thinks that way. Did you fill up your car this week? Do you remember how much it cost? People will fill up regardless because they have to. It’s all a racket. In the end, I think people buy what they want, not what they need. You can’t motivate people to buy out of fear.”
Your gas tanks look pretty small. What’s the minimum you can have for a bike?
“Well, there really isn’t one. There’s this guy out there named Jesse Rook whose tanks are tiny, not even a gallon, but they have this look. He builds a killer bike. He’s an asshole, but he builds a killer bike, but there’s only a gallon. And he gets a lot of flack for it. ‘That’s a great bike, but where are you going to ride it, to the liquor store and back?’ My tanks usually hold about two gallons, but with our motors you can go upwards of 60 to 70 miles. You’re talking about three hours of riding. That’s a good ride. And if you have to fill it up, big f-----g deal.”
What was your first bike? “A ’65 Panhead that I tore apart and restored years ago. Before Harleys were popular, people like Mickey Rourke and Billy Idol were buying stock Harleys and were customizing them. They were taking them apart and we would chrome things, put it back together and that would be a custom bike. We’d spend like $10,000 doing all this extra stuff people wanted, and then that bike would be worth $30,000 and that was a lot of money 12 years ago, give or take. That was a custom motorcycle. Now, it wouldn’t even be considered custom. Here, we build every bike from scratch with our bare hands. We make the framing, do the paint, we make everything on it. We come up with our own designs. That’s bike building now. I did about six bikes and three of them ended up on the cover of ‘Easy Rider.’”
How do you create a bike design? “Well, I don’t weld. I can use wrenches, tools. I can build a bike, I just can’t wire it. What I do is design the bike, visualize a bike, the colors, the look, the frame. I like building with a team because ideas start bouncing back and forth and you get something that you might not have thought of originally, but it’s still pretty cool. When you build a bike, you start with an overall design and then you put some wheels on the frame, step back and look at it and it just starts to develop. It really has a lot to do with who you’re working with. If you don’t have a good relationship, then differences lead to fighting and you never get anything done. It’s really not fun doing it by yourself. There’s no one around to tell you how bitchin’ that looks. It’s just real fun to have that back-and-forth.”
Why open a garage in Santa Monica? “Because I live close and it’s convenient. I’m building a home in Malibu right now, but during the construction my family and I are living here in Santa Monica. It’s a convenient middle ground for our crew.”
Do you sell bikes? “No. My wife wishes I would, but I don’t.”
What advice can you give to drivers about motorcycle riders?
“There’s some disrespectful drivers out there. When they see a bike they think ‘get out of my way. I’m in a car, you’re on a bike.’ If you’re riding the white line, some will try to cut you off because you don’t belong there in the first place. After they hit you they freak out. I’ve never been down on a bike, thank God, knock on wood. But there are a lot of disrespectful drivers out there, which is why I try not to drive in the city or in heavy traffic. Sometimes, if there’s bad traffic, I’ll just park to the side and get off the bike. I don’t really know about advice to drivers, but for riders, I would say, if you get near and asshole, just get away. You’re not going to win that battle. They’re a big hunk of metal and you’re exposed. One wrong move and you’re f---ed.”
So you do the show to help finance this hobby?
“Well, it’s more of a drug than a hobby. You know, we do bikes for the show for background. The shop has to have some integrity for people to buy into the show. If we don’t build bikes then what we say doesn’t stand for anything. The show has to have integrity. This year, I’m driving these guys on the show. Before, we had other builders. We’ve produced some incredible bikes so people know I have an eye for design and they’ll listen to me. I’m not going to bulls---t someone if there’s something I don’t know.”
You’ve done stunts, directed, produced your own show, opened your own garage. What’s your next business venture?
“I don’t do anything for business. We lose our ass on everything. I make s--t. That’s what I do. I won’t do a commercial job that I don’t enjoy and I won’t do anything that doesn’t involve some kind of creativity of some sort. I get bored easily. Sometimes I’ll get offered projects with a lot of money in it, but there’s no interest in it for me. I just can’t do something I’m not interested in. Personally, I don’t want to do anything vanilla. It’s got to be edgy, it’s got to be somewhat extreme. I’m a very aggressive shooter so I shoot very, very aggressive film, like to be on the edge. I’ve found in the last couple of years, that I’m sticking strictly to those things that interest me, which is why I’ve specialized in the automotive arena. I understand cars and what cars can do.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 15, 2006. Read the original PDF.