Keith Richardson was friends with my soccer coach growing up. I knew he was making clothes in LA and I wanted to learn to do the same, so I connected with him. After we met up and spoke about what was possible, Keith offered me a job. After a couple of months, I dropped out of school to focus on working for and learning from him. I worked as a production manager for Keith’s brand, Corpus. Keith now owns and designs the brand Mr. Completely. He is one of my oldest friends and is the reason I was able to make clothes at such an early age.

I officially moved to LA when I was 19 years old and I spent lots of time going out. I befriended club promoters and owners through working for Corpus, and they would let me in—even though I was underage. That era in LA was really cool because celebrities, artists, designers, skaters, musicians and average people like myself were all blended together in the same room. Nobody had cameras on their cell phones so people could be themselves freely.

The clubs were where people would go to discover new music. I used to go out to see DJ AM, Sam Ronson and many other legendary club DJs in their prime. They were so advanced and connected to other artists in the industry. The DJs would premier unreleased tracks months before the radio stations, which kept everyone coming back week after week.

I discovered artists like Bloc Party, Daft Punk and Junior Boys, as well as older electronic and industrial music like Kraftwerk and Berlin. It was also when I really discovered the classics like The Smiths and David Bowie—all the girls I wanted to hang out with loved that music.

I met my wife, Jennifer, for the first time at a club I was DJing at in LA on the night of her birthday in 2003.

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