Greg Minnig and his business partner Jenn Dixon of Deth Killers have attracted the attention of magazines from Nylon to The New York Times. Deth Killers brand clothing have graced the bodies of Kate Moss, Jake Gyllenhaal, Mickey Rourke, and David Bowie. You can see the latest Deth Killers work here. This interview shows that often the tougher a guy looks…the more generous.

Hoyle: Were you given a lot of direction when asked to design for David Bowie?

Minnig: I don’t know, ask Jenn. I think he just liked our aesthetic and would  have probably liked whatever we made for him, but we certainly went  into it knowing the bar was about as high as it could get so we didn’t hold anything back….

Hoyle: Can one portray toughness through clothes?

Minnig: This is how I’d answer that question. Imagine you are  walking down a street and you see a guy or a bunch of guys who look  like they are just looking for someone to jump. I’m sure most people have had that experience. There are a million different variables  which can decide whether or not you will become a meat sandwich in this situation.

One thing that can protect you in this situation isn’t necessarily your clothes, but your style can certainly play a hand  in making you look like less of a target. That’s all around style, not just your clothes and haircut but the way you carry yourself, the way you walk, where you look when you walk, the expression on your face, etc. BUT I also believe that just the right clothes can make someone shift their attitude and the way they carry themselves, just by feeling really good in what you’re wearing. Looking really scary helps too, but I guess that’s a situation people in Brooklyn may find themselves in where it would benefit them to look and feel tough.

Hoyle: How would you like someone to feel when wearing Deth Killers clothing?

Minnig: Tough. And certainly lots of people will come up to you and ask you about your shirt. It always seems to happen, at least to us. And then we feel popular, like people like us. When they really just like our shirt.

Hoyle: What’s more fun, riding in the city, or riding in the country?

Minnig: Funny you should ask this question cause I find myself answering a  version of this question often. Riding in NYC is a very specific and challenging style of riding because of the traffic, the road surface and the police. The traffic is obviously very dense and “predictably unpredictable”. The road  surface is incredibly inconsistent, which forces us [the deth killers and motorcyclists in general] to memorize potholes and other various asphalt inconsistencies around the city. And the police really make the city a fun place to ride because there is essentially no way to get pulled over, provided you have the huevos to not stop for them. Their cars can’t fit through tight spaces like our bikes can so we almost always slip away easily.

Comparitively, while riding on freshly-paved country roads is also a bit of a sport in itself, it is a much more relaxing and fluid one, provided the road is free of debris. It’s more akin to riding at a track day, though there still is the concern of oncoming traffic. Track days and racing are the ideal as traffic is a non-issue, there  is little to collide with and there are no speed limits. And while crashes at the track tend to result in fewer injuries, they happen far more frequently at the track than on the street.

I guess it all adds up to riding everywhere has it’s pros and cons. Mostly I just like doing wheelies and bridges and parking lots are the best for doing those…

Hoyle: Who is Randolph M. Jones?

Minnig: We call him Randy and he is Jenn’s brother-in-law who owns a bike shop  near Baltimore. He builds race bikes and stunt bikes and and sponsors  a stunt team whose wheelies put jesus’s wheelies to shame.

Hoyle: Can you give According to Hoyle readers any special insight into what is coming down the road with your brand?

Minnig: We’re developing a video game based on some fictional and non-fictional aspects of our brand and lifestyle. I can’t give too much away here but basically it’s the whole reason we made DES KIRAZ, our latest line of t-shirts. Because we REALLY wanted to make a video game, but we don’t know how to make video games, we only know how to  make clothes, so we made the best game on a t-shirt we possibly could…

Writer: Hoyle