In part two of our three part interview with Rick Williams and Roland Coit of Burn Rubber, the two explain to WHUTUPDOE! some of their family anecdotes and the things they’ve had to endure in the professional world before they took over Burn Rubber.

WHUTUPDOE!: Going back to when you got started in this Ro, at the time where you got married, I remember hearing a story where you two drove to New York to pick up some shoes from the Bape store to wear in the wedding. What was your wife thinking when all of y’all walked down the aisle wearing Bapes?

Ro: She was down. My wife is cool, man. She’s not like a nagging, clingy wife or anything like that you know. When I first told her I wanna wear sneakers in my wedding she was like, “Hell naw!”

*laughs*

The first thing she said was, “Hell naw!” Then she said, “Well that’s you. If anybody I know can do it and can pull it off, it’s gonna be you.” And then when I told her I was spending $200 on a pair of sneakers, at that time, it wasn’t going down. $200 Bapes off rip, before taxes, you know what I’m sayin’? It was like, “Dang, you spending a lot of money on a pair of shoes.” But it got to a point like [spending] $200 [on a pair of shoes] was like $50 to us.

Rick: It was like a point in our lives where I was like, “Man, what are we doing [spending all this money on shoes].” *laughs*

I had like 8 pairs of Bapes. I had to get rid of them boys before they depreciated. *laughs*

Ro: Yeah, we were out there buying 3, 4 pair of shoes. A hoodie [for] $275.

Rick: I had my boy going to Japan. My boy, he works for Nissan, so I thought I was getting a deal for $150 or something like that. But they came from the real Bape store.

Ro: But her first reaction was like, “Nah, that’s not gonna go down,” but after that she was pretty much down for it.

I finished school and felt like what I was doing wasn’t a return on my investment. – Rick Williams

WHUTUPDOE!: So it’s safe to say that she’s always been supportive of your dreams and goals. What kind of support system did you guys have when you wanted to go from the comfort of your regular lives to taking a risk like this?

Rick: [My wife] wasn’t that comfortable to me. *laughs*

Ro: She was the first person [that understood]. I got the Heineken’s right? Now Heineken’s are like $800 brand new, or maybe even more now. But when I got them right after they came out, I think it was 03, they were going for like $150. I was on the internet [searching for shoes], nobody really like told me about this. I just saw a pair of shoes on the internet [that I liked]. I’m like I have to find out about those and it just so happened to be that. So I found somebody in East Lansing at Michigan State and they said $150. I was like, “Oh wow, that’s a lot of money for a pair of dunks.” And at the time I was working at Enterprise Rent-A-Car cleaning cars. I wasn’t even on the inside sellin’, I was like bussin’ cars basically. This is when [my wife and I] were going together. We weren’t even married yet. She was like, “Babe, you work every day open to close. You work hard. You may be getting like $6-7 an hour but you work hard every day. You deserve to do something nice for yourself.” And from that point on I was like, “Yeah, I do!”

*laughs*

From that point on she created a monster, you know what I mean?

*laughs*

I work hard, I’m gonna buy me a Gucci belt if I want it. But I’m not gonna do nothing super stupid like go buy a Gucci belt and not pay my rent or car note or something. So the support was always there from day one. Both of our wives know we’re young. We’re 27, 28, 29 years old so the more we hustle and the more we grind now, when we turn 35-36 we’ll be financially free in the sense that we might still have the store but we’ll be able to go to our son’s basketball game or go to my daughter’s cheerleading event or go to this [and that]. Because we might not be like super in there like right now. Of course we do as much as we can right now but we might not be there right now to change every diaper, to get every bottle, to wash every bath tub you know?

Rick: At the same time, right now we’re able to do a lot more diapers and bottles than a lot of people. If I was at the other job, it wouldn’t be going down like this. So you can already see positive changes. Like I said, it wasn’t comfortable. My wife was like, “Something’s gotta give. Let’s go! If you gon’ do something, do something that you love.” And at the same time, my grandfather believed in me. He was somebody I looked up to. So she looked at it the same way.

WHUTUPDOE!: So what did you do before Burn Rubber?

Rick: I was working at like a call center RIGHT before Burn Rubber. So when we started negotiations, all my calls and everything went downhill. ‘Cause I felt like we’re about to get a store. Like it wasn’t even guaranteed until February 14 [the day we signed the paperwork]. I was sitting [at work] like, “Yo, this sucks!” I would call this dude on my break. I hope this goes down. You know what I’m saying? And then before that I was the manager at Finish Line. It was all bad. *laughs*

Ro: I was working for Chrysler Financial. I didn’t graduate from college, you know what I’m saying? At Chrysler it was one side for people who didn’t have degrees, and they got a certain rate. And the other side, basically, were the people that would call you like pay your bill and just nag you like that. So they got paid a little more. But it was still decent or whatever, you know? It was something. I told myself I can’t work in a cubicle for the rest of my life. It’s like that and the music thing, and the DJing. That was kinda like always on the side. But it was just… it was terrible man. I was like falling asleep. Every day I was eating candy bars and drinking like three Mountain Dews just to [stay awake]. I could go to sleep at like 9:00pm and it still be just like… that boring. I just hate bosses and managers that power trip and act like they own the company.

WHUTUPDOE.COM!: Kinda like Office Space.

Ro: You know what I mean? *laughs*

Rick: It is like that. *laughs*

Ro: It’s exactly like that. I used to say that while I was there like, “You act like you’re Mr. Chrysler or something.” *laughs*

But the crazy thing is when I went in there for our training class, the UAW representative came in there to talk to us and he said, “One thing you have at this job is job security.” He told us that the first day we came in. “One thing you don’t have to worry about… you don’t have to worry about getting laid off, unless you do something stupid. You don’t have to worry about getting fired, ‘cause we gon’ fight for you.” I swear 6, 7 months after I left, everybody started getting laid off. Everybody started getting let go. They started with the upper management. All the managers and the CSM’s [got laid off]. They just started letting them go. It’s noting guaranteed in life. But they want you to put your life and soul into it but in a couple months they could [let you go]. People in there 17 years don’t get nothing off the back end of it.

Rick: I finished school and felt like what I was doing wasn’t a return on my investment. I still encourage people to go to school and I feel like now I’m using my degree in marketing to actually help with our business, but prior to that I wasn’t even using [my degree]. So, basically it felt like it was a waste of time. That was another reason I was like, “Yo, I wanna get out here. I wanna do this so I can apply the things that I learned and I can do it for my own benefit.” We’re our own boss. The only person I answer to is him and vice versa. So if we don’t agree on it, it don’t happen.

Check out the final installment of our three part interview with Rick Williams and Roland Coit – of Burn Rubber – next Monday!

Check out part one of our interview with Rick Williams and Roland Coit of Burn Rubber here!

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