VÁCLAV BEDNÁŘ ART

Out of Control

Out of Control

How did the Out of Control brand come about? The first pieces of clothing I painted on were old shirts left after my grandfather. Whenever I finished painting something, there were always some colors left on the palette that I would either wash off or wipe into a rag. That seemed a shame, so I used them on whatever I had at hand, and gradually I started painting my own clothing and sharing it on Facebook — I’d take a photo of myself next to a painting so people would get a sense of its size. Over time people began sharing photos of my T-shirts more and more, in various fan groups, until marketing managers and the Stones themselves took notice. I never offered them anywhere in my life. People would add me as a friend and write to me themselves saying they’d like a shirt. It made me happy, and I loved looking on the map to see all the places around the world where people were walking around in shirts I had painted. At first I sent them for free, and the people I’d given them to urged me that everyone who sees them wants one, that I had to charge at least 100 dollars apiece — that I was a proper madman if I kept giving them away when I could barely afford paint. So from then on I sent each customer, along with the shirt, a note saying that if they wanted, they could pay me 100 dollars or 100 euros. That’s actually how it started.

And how did the connection with the Rolling Stones come about? I was sending shirts all over the world, but above all to America. I sent them as registered letters, because a shirt in a pizza box fits within the weight limit. Once I was sending a shirt to Texas, and two weeks later an enthusiastic letter arrived in my mailbox with 300 dollars inside. So I sent two more. The sender was a man named Vaughn Donaldson. By return I received from him a large parcel with a rare leather jacket — the RS Voodoo Lounge Tour ’95, the kind Keith Richards wore — and other gifts, with a letter: "We’re flying to Prague with the whole crew when the Stones play. Will you make us thirty of those shirts? I’ll write down the names and sizes."

The Stones, and the group of die-hard fans and friends who fly with them to every concert and have done countless tours, were staying in Prague at the Four Seasons and the Hotel Paříž. I traveled to Prague by bus with two big hand-painted suitcases stuffed with shirts in pizza boxes, and I had no idea what awaited me. When I arrived at the hotel, I felt as if I were in a fairy tale. I had never experienced anything like it. A reservation was waiting at reception, the porter grabbed my suitcase and escorted me to the central suite right at the front of a beautiful Art Nouveau staircase you can’t miss. I immediately called Kačenka to come, telling her we had a five-star hotel paid for. And for a whole week!

When she arrived later with our friend Eva, they jumped on the enormous hotel bed like Kevin in Home Alone. Meanwhile the aforementioned Vaughn Donaldson arrived — a Texan from Midland who had ordered the suitcase full of shirts — and brought into my suite a crowd of about thirty friends the shirts were meant for. Vaughn himself wore tank tops, because his arms were completely tattooed. On one, the Rolling Stones logo with the names of all the tours he’d been on; on the other, Rolling Stones logos, each with a flag on its stuck-out tongue for a country he’d visited over his years of travel with the band. Everyone was overjoyed with the shirts, and we enjoyed the Stones and Prague. Before they flew off, they asked me how many concerts I’d come to in America the next year for the next tour. I say: "I can’t afford to fly across the ocean just for a concert…" Everyone started laughing and then said: "For those shirts we’ll pay your hotel, and if you offer a shirt for a ticket, we’ll fight over who buys you the best one. Deal?" Of course I took it! And they flew off to Warsaw for the next show.

Meanwhile I was working so diligently that they blocked my PayPal on suspicion that I was supporting terrorism — because small amounts were coming into my account from all over the world, and that’s apparently suspicious. So people couldn’t pay me for the shirts, but everyone knew I’d be flying to New York and wanted to meet there. A year later I bought the tickets and flew over with suitcases full of shirts. I had a Hilton paid for. At the concert another surprise was waiting. It was my first time in America; I didn’t expect to run into anyone I knew in a public place. I hadn’t considered that on Facebook I have five thousand friends — that’s the limit — and the others can be followers. There were a hundred and twenty thousand people at that concert. I had no idea. I’m standing there in the rags I’d painted myself, and I hear: "Václav! Václav!" Well, they say "Vahklav." (smiles) Crowds of people wanted photos with me; many were stuffing dollars into my pockets. One rushes up and shoves 200 dollars at me. Another, 100 dollars. They were people who had the shirts but couldn’t send me the money because of the account block. They took photos with me, pulled me into those fan groups that drive out two days before the concert with a grill onto a concrete parking lot and wait. Madmen, but good people. I left the concert stuffed with dollars like a Martinmas goose, and an enormous bus of Argentine fans with Rolling Stones banners drove me to the hotel. At the hotel, Michael Santoro and Rob Fraboni were already waiting — both close to the Rolling Stones, and on top of that Keith Richards’s neighbors in Weston, Connecticut, and in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Rob Fraboni is a major American producer who has produced not only the Rolling Stones but many other music stars. In the end I stayed in America about a month, and it wasn’t even half a year before I flew there again — this time for Christmas, but that’s another adventure…

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