Yeah, you've heard the name before. Dannyboy O' Connor. Formerly of 90s rap sensation, House of Pain.

This season, Dannyboy was appointed to design Stussy's ultra-exclusive Customade line alongside well-reputed graffiti artist Slick. From an outsider's perspective, it may seem like an unlikely union. So how exactly did it happen? For the rest of the who, where, what, when, and why, read on...


So how did the Customade project come about?

Through Eddie Cruz. I've known Eddie for a good 15 years.   Graphic art is my first love, from graffiti to doin' graphics for my own House of Pain, I used to do all that shit...in-house graphics.   I had a few little clothing lines, did the Weedwear Clothing Line way back in the day, putting the weed-leaf on the hat.   Original Weedwear.   In '91, I went to the tradeshow and made $170,000 worth of hats and t-shirts with the same logo.   Cypress used to wear it, we used to wear em,... Funkdoobiest.

I dabbled here and there, did a lot of shit for overseas clients and lots of different bands, and then I cut it out for a long time.   But in the last couple years, a lot of the do-it-yourself type, Jamie Reed, punk-rock type artwork started appealing to me again.   'Cuz I was tired of all the Photoshop wizards and computers... everyone seems to be a graphic designer nowadays.   So I took it back to the old school cut n' paste, hand-styles.

So I had told Eddie for years "lemme get down," but I'd always forget, get caught up, so finally I had some time, I brought some samples in and he was like "Yo, let's do this."   With my boy Slick, the graffiti writer, we did 4 shirts each for this season.

It was apropos because the designs I did were early '90s, mixtape, House of Pain inspired, head-nod type shit.   So I was like lets get this little House of Pain shot off, I know that all that early '90s shit is what's good right now.   Everyone wants to return to that style of flow and straightforward hip-hop shit so I was like I'm gonna mix it up with some early punk-rock and some 90s hip-hop shit.   So that's how I ended up with these...

Are you using computers at all?

That's where Slick comes in. I'll hand-lay it out and I'll just cut-n-paste and Slick will scan it in and lay it out.   Obviously, scaling it and all that kinda shit... the computer is a great tool, know what I mean?   Unfortunately, a lot of people abused it, using the same old typeface, stock images, whateves.   That's great but I don't have that technical ability nor is it something I'm looking to have. I'm more of an IDEAS man, so I cut/paste everything, Xerox it, usually black-and-white graphics oversized and big. That's another '90s flavor, with the oversized print.   I like lots of funky colors too, but these are really straightforward - the ones I did on this run.  

It was a great opportunity, you know?   I've been a Stussy fan from day one, and what got me up on Stussy was that it was a Newport Beach surf company, but it embraced the hip-hop shit with the Stussy Posse, and all those early ads with Dante Ross and Jewels the DJ, the Beastie Boys up in Stussy ads with the Raybans, letterman jackets, flipped-up ballcaps, in b-boy poses.   Stussy was one of the first companies that embraced surf, skate, and street culture.   Now it's couture, as far as I'm concerned. It's ghetto couture, I love it.   I'm a longtime Stussy fan, so for me, just to be able to put some House of Pain-inspired, Dannyboy/Stussy things together was a dream come true.

What other graphic work have you been working on?

I get odd jobs here and there.   In Japan, me and my boy Kaves from Lords of Brooklyn have a line called Saints and Sinners.   It's a little bit of jewelry, some cut n sew, some letterman jackets, ballcaps, t-shirts, printables.   I designed some t-shirts for Bounty Hunter this season..

I was recently in Taiwan and saw your face all over sneaker-shop windows for your collabo with Westmill shoes?

Yeah I did the Blood Money ones.   The dollar bills with the bloodsplats on em. That's kinda the going theme right now. I made the New York City Police target (Customade graphic) with the bloodsplats on it.   I just did a new series of shoes with the Gucci stripe, real-clean Hamptons-type kicks for Westmill. I like what Westmill is doing.   They're a good startup company.   They're not Nike or Adidas, but that's how Nike and Adidas started.   I like how they're pullin' the real heads to do collabos instead of the usual suspects... same cats, different job!   I'm more for like the outlaw type shit then just the regular...

To watch Dannyboy explain the detail behind his graphics, click the "arrow" below...

 



STUSSY CUSTOMADE