Brimstone is a serial entertainment entrepreneur boasting a successful and rewarding career spanning well over three decades; participating in numerous entertainment fields such as pro wrestling, radio, and acting. We talk about his experience running multiple businesses, entrepreneurship in the entertainment industry, and the life of a pro wrestler.
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Build Your Dream and Build Your Legacy with Brimstone
Our guest is Brimstone, who is a serial entertainment entrepreneur, you might recognize him he is also a horror model, so hopefully you won’t scare our listeners too much today, and he is also a comic book, a children’s book, and a video game hero. So here is our one-of-a-kind brimstone. Welcome to the show.
Steve, let me tell you, it is an honor and a privilege to be here. I’ve been waiting for this moment for you and I to get into the nitty gritty of everything and have a great time. So I’m super excited to be here today. And thank you so much for having me on. I want to thank you straight off the bat because I know that you have a really, really cool show and I’m super honored to be here.
Thank you for that. I’m very excited because you are really a different types of entrepreneur that have been on the show recently. So I want to really get into understanding what makes you tick and how you operate in the entertainment business, which is a special type of business. So tell me a little bit, how does one become an entertainment entrepreneur? How does it even happen?
Well, first and foremost, you said, what makes me tick? That’s a scary place to go, my friend. Very scary place to go. I know. You know, an entertainment entrepreneur, here it is, is people miss the fact that entertainers are entrepreneurs. They’re one in the same. And people forget that entertainment, whether it’s pro wrestling, music, art, actors, you know, voice actors, you know, models, it’s still a business. You’re running a business, you’re running a brand and a brand is very important to make sure you treat it as a business because it can do many things.
You know, the Brimstone brand, outside of just me as a person has many legs and you know, it can go in many different directions. So in terms of how does somebody come an entertainment entrepreneur, basically you’re in entertainment and you know, you do everything you can to continuously build your brand and built upon your brand. You know, in terms of Brimstone, Brimstone is a brand, it is a business. And then there are businesses within the business.
You know what I mean? So now you’re talking about, aside from Brimstone, the character, the person, the persona, and the personality, you know, I have the Grindhouse Radio. I have Hound Comics, Hound Entertainment Group. I have my sauces and seasonings. I have my old coffee line. I had a cologne line. I had toys. You know what I mean? Animated stuff, children’s books, comic books. So everything underneath that, you know what I mean, is it’s a business and each one, you know, there’s a difference, you know, different needs have to be met for each one.
So part of becoming an entrepreneur in general is one, believing in yourself, two, wanting to put something forward into the world that one may not have been in the world prior, or two, something that you just want to do because you know, hell, you want to have some fun. You don’t wanna be the person who sits back and forgets about their dreams. I’m here to build my dreams and leave a legacy. So for me, entrepreneurism, the marketing, sales, relationships, everything’s about relationships. Whether it’s when you’re talking about the business business side of things or the general entertainment side of things, it all meshes together, you know what I mean? So I hope I’m making sense to you.
Believe in yourself, put something forward into the world, and don't forget about your dreams. Share on XAbsolutely. And I’m taking copious notes here. It’s a very inspiring message to my ear, being an entrepreneur myself. So tell me, when was the moment when you realized that you’re not just an employee of someone else and being entertaining on account of other people, but you actually have your own brand, so to say, perhaps, or maybe you want to take charge of your own career and you want to take the steering wheel over and you want to drive it yourself.
First of all, I like being my own boss. That’s first and foremost. Why build somebody else’s dream when you can build your own? That’s an obvious reason. You know what I mean? Look, a lot of people, they’re built that way. They want to work a nine to five. There’s nothing wrong with that. A lot of people, they want that security, but to be completely honest, you’re building someone else’s business, their dreams, and there is no security because you can work for a place, a nine to five, and you can work that place for 10 years, and all of a sudden they decide, well, we’re closing down. Thank you for your service, and you’re out.
Or you missed a fax one day, and then all of a sudden the boss is pissed off at you and you’re out. And these things happen way too often. So you’re investing in somebody else’s business by them investing in you and giving you your salary. So if you want that life and you wanna live that life, there’s nothing wrong with that. For me, I can’t do that. Have I done it? Of course I’ve done it. You know what I mean? I’ve been in the business world in terms of marketing, advertising, sales.
I’ve worked for some of the biggest publications in New York, as well as have built other companies. You know what I mean? So it’s nothing new to me, but when it’s your own and it’s your own baby, you tend to, or you should tend to want to give it a little extra love. You should be giving it 200% instead of 100%. And for me, it started a long time ago, you know, I, I was in entertainment. I’ve been in entertainment for 41 years. I’m 46. I started at five. I was on Sesame street and romper room as a child actor.
Then I toured the world in music. I toured the world in pro wrestling. And then, you know, I, I stopped. I had, you know, personal things going on in my life. I took a step back. And when I took a step back, I said, you know what, I’m going to, you know, work a regular job for a little while. And, you know, just kind of get myself out of the entertainment mindset for a hot minute because I just needed to take a break. And, you know, this is little known, I don’t talk about it often.
And when I did that, you know, I wound up getting into bed with, you know, a company that, you know, had a lot of chutzpah, they did, you know, it was a good, it was a good company. And I wound up, you know, working with them for quite some time. But, you know, one of the people that I dealt with there, who was one of the owners, even though I had a piece of what I was doing, it was, it was no respect there. It was very disrespectful. You know what I mean?
You know, it was like I was working against myself. You know what I mean? Like, you know, working for somebody else. And one day I just had an epiphany and I said to my wife, I go, listen, you know what? I gotta go back into entertainment. I’m sick of this. You know, they used to joke around and, oh, you know, oh, you know, oh, brimstones of the has been or whatever, you know, just, just being stupid because I’m cut from a different cloth. I have long hair. I had goatee at the time. I have earrings. I’m unapologetically myself. I’m unapologetically authentic, you know?
So like, you know, people, you know, when they’re cut from the cloth of, you know, I need to wear a shirt and tie every single day and you should have a short haircut. And, you know, and then what do you call it? This is how you should look. This is how you should act and what you should be. That’s not me. You know what I mean? So the fact that I was better than people that, you know, were working in this company and, you know, I posed a threat, I wound up becoming the, you know, the mark of, you know, hey, this, you know, he let’s make fun of him or let’s, you know, talk smack or, you know, just a little of the stuff that he was doing that I’d done in the past, in terms of wrestling and so forth.
And I was like, you know what? I’m making money, I’m doing good, I’m doing well. I’m not touring, I’m home, I’m with my family, but you know what? I need to get back into the entertainment. That was when I had the epiphany. I said, you know what? Forget this. And I said, I can do all this and I can do it on my own and I can be 10 times more successful. And I was sick of just being under somebody’s thumb. And I basically told him, I said, you know what, look, I’m done. It was a big problem because I was a big player.
So they were gonna lose a hell of a lot of money when I left. And that being said, I told him, see ya, and told my wife, I’m gonna be very busy for the next couple of months. And I wound up getting back in. So I made a couple of calls and I started doing appearances in red carpets in Manhattan again. And I was doing like three, four, five, sometimes even six a night, where I would be hopping from one to the next, the next, you know, and just rebuilding my brand. I just had to rebuild my brand, not as a pro wrestler per se, not as a former musician or child actor per se, but Brimstone as a personality.
A lot of people, they don’t know how to play the game. I knew how to play the game. I just needed to take a break from the game. You know what I mean? It’s like, you know, you play in a good game of Monopoly, but you know, it gets heated, you need to step away for a minute, you know, but so it’s the same type of concept except, you know, on a much bigger scale and once that happened. And once I started doing that, I really, I got back into the swing of things and started, you know, rubbing shoulders with the people that I had been prior as well as people that I had not known prior.
And, you know, my career just started really moving in the right direction. From there, you know, I had started the comic book, what do you call it, and the publishing company because I was doing publishing for this other person. And I had already been in publishing for many years, you know, before I was, you know, I was touring in pro wrestling and, and working for a major publication making six figures at the time. You know what I’m saying? Like, so I, you know, I kind of knew the ropes, but now I was doing it all for myself. You know what I mean? And that was the start. If you want to pinpoint the position where I was like, you know what, I’m just going to pick up and I’m just doing this full time and it’s brimstone full time and that’s it. And I never looked back, you know what I mean?
So what is the brimstone brand about?
Brimstone brand in a nutshell is, you know, I am, I am a personality. I am a personality that does many different things depending on what industry I’m sitting in. I’m dealing in is where I would kind of prime, you know, anything kind of go into like from the comic book industry. Well, Brimstone is, is a comic book character, animated character, kids book character. What do you call it? A video game character. We’re toys the whole nine yards. So Brimstone is the, the, the character is a spin on the former pro wrestling character that I portrayed. I own the character, I own the trademark, the whole nine yards on that. So, you know, I took that and I spun it into the comic book and the series and so forth. And basically it is the character, you know, that was in the ring, but tuned up a notch. You know what I’m saying? So, you know, you…
A larger than life kind of character?
A larger than life. See, here’s the thing is, everything with me is always next natural progression. You talk about blueprints of a career, and I will get to everything if you’d like me to, but the blueprint of my career is the next natural progression. What is the next natural progression of this? How does everything tie into each other? And it’s very important to me that whatever I do makes sense. Everything, even though you might look at it with the naked eye and say, how the hell does this all work together? It all works together, and I can show you.
The blueprint of my career is the next natural progression. Everything has to make sense and tie into each other. Share on XBut specifically, when you’re talking about pro wrestlers, what are they? They’re cartoon characters. They’re comic book characters. They’re larger than life. You know what I mean? They get in the ring. Most of the time, big guys tossing people around, doing high-flying things or powerful moves. These are superheroes. So that was the next natural progression. I said, you know, let’s take Brimstone and let’s flip him into a comic book character.
Let’s make him into an animated character and so forth. And then things rolled from there. You see what I mean? So that is that part of the brand. Brimstone is a brand. I’m a personality and I’m a brand. I can go into any different direction. I’m in the foodie world. I’m in the comic world. I’m in the music world, kind of, sort of, not as much as I was. Pro wrestling world, you know, even though I’m semi-retired. You know, there’s, you know, even in the acting world, I’m slated as Brimstone, you know what I mean?
So, you know, that’s, you know, who I am at this point. Am I a guy from hell? No, it’s a gimmick, people. I’m a nice guy. It’s just a gimmick. What do you call, I’m Jewish, so, you know, we don’t believe in hell. So the whole point behind the Brimstone character in general is it was a joke. It was a joke because I’m playing a guy who guards the entrance to hell, was the wrestling gimmick. So that was a gimmick back when. But the gimmick, I made sure that it was going to be something that would be memorable and marketable later on. So now you’re talking the comic book. It’s not the guardian of hell, but technically he is.
He’s one of the border hounds. Brimstone and his crew of border hounds, this is Brimstone and the Border Hounds, Brimstone and his crew of border hounds are hell’s version of the Border Patrol. Basically, they’re not meant to keep people out, they’re meant to keep people in. And it’s like it goes on from there. And I, you know, so there’s a whole, you know, Bible that’s concerning Brimstone and the Border Hounds and that, you know, specific character of Brimstone, you know, and I hope I’m making sense. I know I’m jumping a little bit here and there, but I’m trying to keep with the flow of the show.
Okay, that’s great. So when you are thinking about how you can harvest your brand or how you can evolve your brand, are you opportunistic about it? So you kind of, you keep your antennas up and whenever there are opportunities, you just latch on to it in an opportunity basis? Or are you intentional? You have like this, this grand plan, this grand design, and you have this vision where you can take your brand over time and you’re putting the bricks on each other. What is your approach?
It’s a great question. And not everybody asks that question. So that’s, it’s a good one. The fact is, is I do a little bit of both. For the most part, I do have a grand scheme and other times things kind of fit in perfectly. You know what I mean? When sometimes even when you least expect it, an opportunity arises and you go, ah, that’ll work. You know, for instance, you know, I was, I started doing years ago when I started doing the comic book again, I decided, you know, I said to my, my director of operations at the time, Eitan Wish, who I’m very close with still.
He said to me, he goes, he goes, well, you know, Brim, you know, I said to him, I’m sorry, I said, Ethan, you know, I don’t want to be out on the road again while I’m supporting the comics and the kids’ books and so forth. I don’t want to go out on the road and I don’t want to see and not see where I’m going. I said, for years, I’ve toured, I’ve done, you know, so many things, I’ve accomplished many feats. But at the end of the day, I’m constantly in trains, planes and automobiles.
I’m in the insides of hotel rooms, I’m in the insides of convention halls and, you know, and so forth. I’m not seeing any of the world, you know, I’m not seeing the world. I said, you know, I want to do something different. He goes, well, what do you want to do? I go, well, I want to, I said, I like to talk. He goes, yeah, we know that, Brim. And I go, and I like to eat. He goes, we sure as hell know that too. I said, hey, watch yourself, man, watch.
No, but anyway, so I said, let’s do something in the foodie world. So then we put together a show. We started doing the show called Food Hound Tidbits, which we did for three seasons. We took people from the convention floor to the tabletop, you know, at anywhere from five-star restaurants to mom and pop hot dog shops. So we started a series and that was before, you know, everybody was doing like foodie stuff on YouTube and on social media and so forth. You know, we were one of the first that was doing that. So we were on that, we were on FoodTube, we were doing a whole bunch of different things.
And we’re very popular and we would bring on other celebrity friends of mine that would come and they would come out and dine with us. So they would come from the convention, we’d go and do it and have fun. Now, where I’m going with this was that was a start of that plan and that business. And now the Food Hounds, since I was doing that, I’ve always been one of those guys that I am, my mom raised me right, seasoning, sauce, you know what I mean? I am a sauce boss and I’ve always wanted to have my own sauce and seasoning, I always did. I always put together stuff in my own kitchen.
So I was in Ohio and it just like everything presented itself in such a perfect way and I was so busy. I had a lot of people that came to see me and what do you call it, I was signing at the convention center in Wizard World and I needed to take a break. And one of my people from that area had said, you know, if you want to take a break, right across the way is this place called the, what was it, oh my god, I can’t believe I just blanked, Central Market, something market, I can’t believe I just blanked out on it, but unimportant.
So right across, it was like a market, it was like a little bit of everything, it was like foodie heaven, okay? So, but they were like, you know, there’s a lot of cool places in there. So I went in, I went and I found this popcorn place, Popcorn Pam, I remember her. And, you know, she had had these caramel apples with hot, you know, popcorn wrapped around it. And I was like, hot damn, I said, this is so good, you know, and blah, blah, blah, and everything’s good.
And I said, you know, I’d love to do a Food Hound tidbit here, you know? So we wound up going there after hours and we did the food hound thing. And I got to talking about the hot seasoning and she’s like, yeah, my buddy, my buddy, you know, John over at K John’s helped me with that. He put it together and hooked me up with that. I was like, K John’s, what’s that? Turns out that K John, John Hart is the, what do you call it? Like the godfather of hot sauce. And what do you call it? He’s like a multi award winner of every one of the sauces and seasonings. And he’s very well respected in the industry.
So long story longer, I’m going to try to cut it shorter for the sake of time. And I’m sorry, I could talk forever. But what do you call it? She introduced me to them. And I got on the phone with John. I was heading back from from tour and we wound up since I had a long time ahead of me because we were driving to the next city, because it was like towards the tail end of the tour, I wound up being on with him for about an hour, two hours, whatever it was. And we were just sitting and yapping back and forth. And you know, myself and my buddy Bumblefoot, who he was lead guitarist of Guns N’ Roses at the time, Guns N’ Roses at the time, and you know, he does, it’s an amazing one of the top guitarists in the world.
And he always is always looking for the hottest hot sauce, you know what I mean, the hottest thing and I was like, I will find it, I will find whatever is going to be the hottest thing for you to taste. I’m going to find it for you. And I did and I did by finding John. But uh, but I said to John, I go, you know, would you be interested in doing, you know, kind of working with myself and Bumble will do, you know, to do a couple of celebrity brands through K-John’s. And, you know, he’s like, I would love it.
So between all three of us, we came up with our schedules. We figured it out. We had two days, two days in Ohio that we sat down and we played mad scientist and actually came up with all of our flavors and, you know, all of our sauces and seasonings, which became, you know, all award-winning sauces and seasonings. And, you know, and that is how my seasoning, next natural progression from the food show is the food products.
From there, next natural progression, I had candy and then I had, what do you call it? Chocolate bars. I had coffee line, you know, now the way that it all links together and Steve, you may or may not find this interesting, but it’s all like internal marketing, is that inside the comic book, all right, now mind you, I’m signing at all the conventions, people know about Food Hound tidbits, they know about this, they know about that.
Now, inside the comic book, there is a place in the comic where all of the main characters go to hang out. It’s kind of like in Friends where they go to the diner, or I’m sorry, the coffee shop, or in Seinfeld, they go to the diner you know what I mean so they went to a place called heaven right smack dab in the middle of hell get the get the joke there and uh complete with stairway stairway to heaven I always throw it in there but we go so uh but in there you have you know just like any other bar they have like little things up on the on the the bar so one of those things is grub munchies and other stuff well that’s my candy line in real life.
And then what do you call it when you were talking about the, they’ll talk about sweet heat treat wings or grindhouse burgers. Those are all grindhouse seasoning, sweet heat treat sauce. You see what I’m saying? Awesome sauce. So all this stuff was all in the comic book as well. So it’s all marketing, you see what I mean, within the actual comic. So you didn’t have to be, you know, if you were a fan of the comic, you know, now you know about the product lines and you can actually make this stuff in real life.
And if you’re not a fan of the comic, you could still enjoy the products because they’re real products. And on the flip, if you recall, I said the Grindhouse seasoning, Grindhouse radio, see how it all ties together. Everything is tied together in one way, shape or form, some more in depth than others. And that is, so the sauce and seasonings, get back to the original question, that was an opportunity. I had thought about it in the past, but it was an opportunity that came up.
The same thing with my chocolate bars, now they’re defunct because Sweet Hollywood went out of business. But Sweet Hollywood in California, I did my stuff there. Why? Because I worked with Stan Lee and Stan and his candy bars there. So they had a whole brimstone shrine in there, which was fantastic. So some things happen with opportunity and with name value. Other things happen because I seek them out, like eSport backpacks. Those backpacks were sold in Walmarts all around the world. They were also on the Big Bang Theory. And this is how things work.
So some things present themselves, other things you gotta work for. But let’s make no mistake, you’re working for everything. You see what I mean? Like, even if they’re presented to you, you’re still working, you’re still going through business plans, you’re still building, you know, out, you know, you know, everything you need to make sure that that specific aspect of your business is well put together. Am I making sense? I hope I’m making sense.
So some things present themselves, other things you gotta work for. But let's make no mistake, you're working for everything. Share on XSo how do you make sure that when you have all these different products and platform and media and everything, that you keep them growing and you don’t diffuse yourself too much, you don’t spread yourself too thin. Because sometimes, I don’t know, for example, your spices, okay, it’s in the comic book, but the comic book is like a niche audience, so you should read comic books. You can’t rely on that driving the sales for your seasonings. So essentially it’s a different business. And if you are doing too many different businesses, how do you keep it all together and how do you keep them all growing and how do you fuel your brand?
Great question. One, time management is a huge and very important thing. Calendars are an amazing thing. My wife is an amazing woman, and my assistant is an amazing person. So I’m very, very well organized for the most part in terms of time management and making sure that I give everything its due amount of time. So in terms of the sauces and seasonings, see the cool thing about the sauces and seasonings is not only do, you know, forget about just being in the comics, when I’m doing appearances at any events, I’m doing conventions, if I’m doing foodie events, they’re there with me. I have them out, so they’re out to sample and purchase.
Time management is a huge and very important thing. Share on XYou see what I mean? So, I’m marketing while I’m out promoting, you know, and doing my own thing and signing for fans. So, that’s the key in that type of situation where I was able to do that. I did a lot of interviews. I did a lot of people requesting the product for samples. You know what I mean, to do reviews. If you go to my official website, you can see one of my new sauces that’s out. It’s called Torchstone Thai, which is sold very, very well. There’s a ton of different reviews. That also helps with the sale of things where, you know what, if people are interested, they’re going to find it.
They’re going to look it up and they’re going to say, oh, wow, look at this. And these are all reputable people that are all in the industry. Then I know, because I’ve gone, I’ve put the time in. I’ve made sure that when I’m doing my regular tour at the Comic-Cons, guess what? All right, well, there’s a hot sauce convention here, a hot sauce festival there, you know what I mean, a foodie thing here. And now I’m wrapped into that world as well. So now that is in my normal tour schedule. So, you know, in a week I might be doing, you know, a Comic-Con, then a foodie event, then a business event, then a podcasting event. You see what I mean? Because it all works at the schedule on different days.
So, keep to the different parts. You keep to expose to different audiences. And then you can cross sell those audiences through your brand, the other products and services. It’s a very fascinating business model.
It’s very different. It’s original. You know, there are a couple other people that do stuff like that. Like you got Gene Simmons, who puts his face on everything. You know what I mean? Who’s very impressive. And he’s one guy that I’d love to sit in corner in a room and have an hour conversation with. But you know, in terms of building and branding, I’m a little bit of everything, which also makes it, the one thing that it does do that makes it a little difficult is when people are not as familiar with me and they’re not necessarily in my fan base, what do you call it, and they’re kind of looking at me, they don’t know where to look first.
You know what I mean? That’s the only thing that there’s an issue, and people look at me and go, okay, wait, where do I start? And that’s okay, you know what I mean? That’s okay, because I’m here to leave a legacy. I want to leave, you know, behind something that, you know, people are going to remember, and I want to leave behind something for generations, and I want to leave behind something that’s going to take care of my family for, you know, for decades, you know what I mean, if not for generations, you know what I mean? So that’s what I’m doing.
What is the legacy that you want to leave behind?
I want to leave behind, you know, you’ve got the great people in the world that, you know, some that I happen to look up to and happen to have been friends of mine. Somebody like a Stan Lee, you know, who everybody and their mother knows who Stan Lee is. Stan is, he put, you know, good out into the world. He taught lessons in his work. And that’s the same type of thing that I’d like to do, is to be remembered for years and years and years to come, and have my body of work looked at and admired for years to come, and to inspire. I aspire to inspire. My thing is I like people.
I want people to look at me and say, if he did that, I can do that. You know what I mean? I’m all for it. I give back all the time in terms of time and charity and so forth, and I want other people to do the same thing. I want to be remembered as a good person and a person who really did a lot and accomplished a lot.
Okay, that makes sense. So, if you look back on your career and your entrepreneurial career, what is it that you would have done differently had you known what you know now, had you known it better? What would you have approached differently?
There are a couple of things that I can talk about, other things I can’t. One thing that I certainly would not have done, there’s a couple of people that I brought in on partnership sides, you know, of businesses that I’ve owned that I really should not have brought in. They were the wrong person and they wound up being very detrimental to the business as well as my personal, you know, mental health and so forth, you know, like, so there in anything you do, there’s going to be somebody that’s going to come around and sometimes it’s hard to sniff them out because they’re very good at being deceiving.
And you know the fact of the matter is sometimes it could be a cancer and if you don’t catch that cancer early it spreads and it spreads and it spreads and it causes a major major issue. So I’ve had I trust way too easily or I should say I did trust way too easily years ago and that’s one thing I would have changed. I would have had a very I would have had a stronger vetting process of the people that I worked with. And not all the time, just on a couple of occasions. There’s a couple of key people that I just, it was a big problem. And that’s really it.
Everything else, you know what? I like to make mistakes. I accept failure. Because if you don’t make mistakes, and you don’t fail, those are the key elements and the key ingredients to success. You can’t succeed if you don’t fail. You can’t do better if you don’t make mistakes. You need to continuously learn. Anybody who thinks they know it all, they’re a fool and you’ve already lost. Fact of the matter is, you’re always learning.
Anytime I go into a new arena, I don’t know anything about what I’m doing. I learn it. I go in and I want to learn about it. I want to grow in that industry and figure things out and see how it ticks, you know? And for me, that’s part of the interest, you know what I mean, in getting into these things. Because people, sometimes they do things just because they think they have to do them. You know what I mean? I don’t wanna be that guy.
I wanna do things, I wanna be adventurous, I wanna try new things, I wanna put things forth into the world, and I wanna learn, I wanna be a wealth of knowledge. So when I do have a conversation, whether it’s a business interview or an entertainment interview or this, I have answers to kind of give and that might help other people. You know what I mean? However, everybody needs to make their own mistakes. Everybody has to go through. So as a mentor, as somebody who mentors people, you know, I think it’s a very good, good to have that wealth of knowledge to kind of give to people in different creative type of positions.
There aren’t enough creative mentors out there. Everybody, there’s a lot of business mentors. You know, you have score, you have this, you have that, and the next thing, but they’re not necessarily, they’re all cookie cutter. You know what I mean? They feel that everything is a cookie cutter type of business. In entertainment, or even specifically entrepreneurship in entertaining, entertainment or creative style businesses, it’s not all cookie cutter. And they need somebody that can help guide them to make the right decisions, even though it is important for them to fail and it’s important for them to make mistakes.
So, talking about cookie cutter, were there any business frameworks that you used in building your brand and your business, or did you model your business in any way on someone else that you sold was doing something that you liked and they did, and you thought, maybe I can do that, maybe I can grow my business, my brand in that way and build it up like that person.
You want to hear the silly thing about this? I had no idea what I was doing. I did it all by myself and I said, you know, like there are certain things that like inspired me here and there but every single time I got into something new I learned it along the way. You know, and some of them were happy accidents. Hound Comics Inc. Hound Entertainment Group. You know how that happened? I sat with one of my friends, Marcello Carnivali, who was with me in pro wrestling, and I said to him, I go, look, I would like to turn, you know, Brimstone into a comic book. And he was the person I sat with because he was a writer. He did writing.
And we sat down for a cup of coffee. Should have been an hour. Five hours later, we had a Bible, you know what I mean? And written. And we started promoting and doing the comic. And I said, so like Marvel and DC Comics, Image Comics, the big ones, were all in Borders Books and Barnes and Noble. So I said, well, so I guess modeling after them, yeah. In order to show how big of a deal you are, you need to be in these places. So yes, I put more effort into marketing and advertising so that I could afford to then go and put them into Borders.
And then when Borders was closing down, we pulled it. Went into all the Barnes and Nobles and B. Dalton’s in the country just to show that we could play ball. And we were the only independently owned and operated comic in every single one of these locations. So we were playing ball with the big boys. So when I was out and I was promoting this at the conventions, I’m gonna tell you exactly how this happened. It was bizarre because I had no idea what I was doing, Steve, no idea.
I knew publishing, I had a career in publishing, so I knew a lot about it, but I was like, I’m self-publishing the book. I’m doing Hound Comics, it’s just gonna be the Brimstone comic and anything else we decide to put out. I’m sitting and as I told you, I was getting back into the conventions, doing appearances, and so forth. So I did an appearance, and I’m with some old friends of mine, Peter and Angie Mayhew. Now, you guys might not know it by the name, but Peter Mayhew is Chewbacca from Star Wars. So these are good old friends of mine.
And now Pete and Angie, Angie says to me, she goes, you know, Brim, I love what you’re doing with the comics and the kids’ books and so forth. Well, you know, Pete wants to put out a couple of his kids books, and we have permission from Lucasfilms to use the Chewbacca character. We don’t, you know, we were dealing with somebody, we weren’t sure what to do. So I said, well, you know, I started giving them some of my ideas and some, you know, pointers. And she goes, Brim, you know, like, would you just be interested in publishing us? And I’m like, well, I guess it’s time to open a publishing company.
So I opened Hound Comics Inc. And as soon as I did that, I had friends of mine from Disney and from Nickelodeon and other people that wanted me to put their stuff out for them, because I was putting it out, and we were doing it in a really nice way. But I had to make it up as I went. I had to make all these new connections with the printer. I have a long-term printer I deal with now, and make sure that the quality was going to be upstanding. I had to figure out all the distribution. I was just thrown into it, but it happened by mistake. I didn’t expect to do that.
I expected to do my own thing. And then all of a sudden, it turns into this ginormous beast of a creature. And now I’m doing this, and I’m doing that. So it all, but had that not happened, I wouldn’t have done a bunch of other things that I’ve done. So each thing kind of pays tribute to the next. Some things happen by happy accident. Some things happen because I wanted to do it. But I did publishing before. I did a business called the Entertainment Journal. You know what I mean? I’m sorry, the Employment Journal. So the Employment Journal was a publication. It was what do you call it? I built it from the ground up. It was all about for employers seeking employees.
I had well over 100 pages in there of different, you know, major companies, everything you could possibly think of, you know, that were advertising in it. And I made really good money. Then I flipped that into career fairs and I was doing career fairs with it, you know, and I was doing that on the side while I was doing other stuff, you know what I mean? So the publishing aspect, the events, you know, coordination, I already knew about this stuff. So just kind of tweaking it and, you know, like kind of putting it and putting my own spin on it. That’s how Hound Comics was born, Hound Publishing was born, Hound Kids was born. And, you know, I took it and I branched out from there.
Okay, that’s pretty cool. So what is your advice for people who want to get into the entertainment business and they want to develop it like a business, they want to build a brand, what would you advise to a young person, talented person in that field, how should they go about it?
First of all, I want to make sure that everybody understands that, you know, there’s a, don’t be deceived by what you see on television, what you hear on the radio, what you see, you know what I mean? There’s a lot of work that goes into being in entertainment. It is a full-time job and you should treat it as such if you’re really serious about doing it. You should get an education. If you can go to school, make sure you go to school. Strive to get the better grades.
Strive to get that degree because it will only help you later on. You know what I mean? And I always tell people, entertainment can get you very, very far if you take the right path, if you work hard. First and foremost, you’ve got to believe in yourself because if you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else is going to believe in you. Just like if you, what do you call it, if you’re putting out a new product, you know what I mean, if you don’t believe in the product, who the hell else is going to buy your product, right? So, you know, I say always believe in yourself, always put in 200%, because 100% just ain’t good enough.
You know, make sure that you take notes and speak to people that can mentor you and give you a good idea of a direction to go. Any which way you slice it, you need somebody to kind of teach you the ropes. That’s part of going to school, pro wrestling. What do you do? You go to school to become a pro wrestler. If you’re an artist, you go to school sometimes. You go and you’re taught music. Sometimes you’ll teach yourself at home, but you also need to learn how to dissect a song and music. You see, there’s so much more intricacy that goes into each one of these different businesses.
Make sure that you take notes and speak to people that can mentor you and give you a good idea of a direction to go. Any which way you slice it, you need somebody to kind of teach you the ropes. Share on XYou have to put your 10,000 hours in. So tell me, I mean, this is kind of a side question before we wrap it up. So I don’t want to give me all the details, but just help me. I always wondered about pro wrestling. What makes someone an outstanding success? It’s clearly, it’s not being able to beat someone else better, right? It’s about something about building your character. But how do you get the promoters to say, okay, this guy, we’re going to make this guy win this fight. So what is it? What is the magic ingredient there?
They have to believe in you. They have to believe in the character or the persona that you’re portraying. They have to know that you’re gonna put asses in seats. And that’s what it comes down to. So they’re, you know, like in the independent circuit, it’s not like WWE or TNA or AEW, stuff like that, which are the bigger promotions, where they’re investing money into pushing you and pushing the brand and seeing where you go. The smaller independents are looking to see how many assets you’re putting in seats. You know what I mean?
And can you cut an interview? Can you do this? Can you do that? What do you call it? And how much effort are you putting into the promotion and in your work ethic? And if you’re over with the crowd, being over with the crowd means, you’re either getting cheers or you’re getting booze. If you’re getting no reaction whatsoever, they’re not gonna bring you back because you’re not doing your job. You know? So, and now you’ve got the bigger promotions like a WWE who they invest in and they feel, all right, well, this guy has a good look or this girl has a good look.
And they have some great moves and they can talk on the stick and they could do a lot of different things. But so now we’re going to start investing more time into them. We’re going to do vignettes. We’re going to do more backstage interviews. We’re going to put them over in this match, see how the crowd reacts. We’re going to have them work the crowd. And then it’s development. It’s character development and so forth. And a little bit part of acting goes into that. And there’s a lot that kind of goes into it. You know, that’s why you’ve got guys like The Rock, you know, who’s absolutely tremendous and amazing. You got John Cena, you know what I mean? You’ve got people like that, that Stone Cold Steve Austin, that have gone on to do bigger and better things. Kevin Nash, you know what I mean? Outside of just pro wrestling. Because they’re built into brands and built into businesses. So, you know.
That’s cool.
Businesses within the business.
So Brimstone, this has been all fascinating stuff. So people, you would like to learn more, would like to check out your products, check out your brands, where do they find you? And what’s the next thing that they should be looking out for that’s coming out, that you’re bringing out?
So what do you call it? Anybody that wants to find out anything about me, you can go to therealbrimstone.com. Everything’s there, all my social media is there. Please, if you’re on social media, I’m very, very active on my Instagram, at therealbrimstone. I’m verified there, you know it’s me. I’m the only one that handles my social media. It’s me talking to you. If you engage with me, I will respond and we will have a great conversation. I’m very, very interested in meeting everybody, as long as you’re respectful.
All my social media, like I said, is on my official website. You can catch me every single week on a bunch of different shows, but my main show is The Grindhouse Radio, 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, on iHeart and every other network known to man. We’re on like 30 networks syndicated worldwide. So, you can find us anywhere, but thegrindhouseradio.com is a lot of fun. It’s what he called a pop culture talk. And you can see me in my element.
And coming up, I have a couple of films coming out that I can’t talk about that are NDA’d, a couple of voice acting things that just popped. I have a new video game that I did, one of the lead roles in for Viking Vengeance, which just launched on Steam at the beginning of this month, which is a big game. The animated series, I don’t want to take up all the time, but you know, again, I, you know, I’m out there. So you can find so many things up on my official site and my social media, and that’s the best way to catch me.
Okay.
Or at a con when the world opens up.
I’ll check you out more. And I’ve seen a bunch of stuff already, but definitely a lot to check out. And if you, dear listener, if you want to get into the entertainment business, then it’s a great model. Try to emulate Brimstone and see how he does it and what he does and how he gets into these different businesses and cross-sells his products and services. It’s really, really fascinating stuff. So thank you for coming on the show, Brimstone. Any final words of wisdom you want to share with our audience?
It was an honor and privilege to be here, first and foremost. Thank you so much, Steve. It was really, really good time chatting with you. And for everybody out there, the one thing that I ask and request of everyone is just be good to one another. In this state of the world where everything is becoming such a mess and people are sick and dying, without getting political, the fact of the matter is, we could always use a good person and somebody to go out there and help other people.
I’m very big on my charity work and I would like for everybody, if you do one thing, find something that you’re passionate about, whether somebody in your family has been sick with a cancer or terminally ill with something else or birth defect, whatever it is, find a charity that you’re passionate about and give either a little bit, if you can’t give money, give a little bit of time, whether it’s an hour a week, a month, a year, it doesn’t make a difference. Even a little bit, every little bit counts and every one of them can use some help. Doesn’t have to be monetary. Please give back to your fellow human, I want to say, and be good to one another. That’s what I’d like to leave you with.
That’s awesome. Well, thank you. That’s a great way to wrap this up. So dear listeners, please stay tuned. So I’ll keep bringing you people, maybe not as fascinating every week as Brimstone, but I’ll try to get my game up. So stay tuned and look forward to talking to all of you next week. Thank you.
