Building a killer brand with Liquid Death

Andy Pearson: I’ve realized there’s kind of almost like a danger to the ideas that we have, where someone sees it and goes like, can a brand do that?”  

I like that kind of deconstructive, deconstructed ad idea because we’re breaking it down and we’re...we’re kind of like laying a lot of…like the ad advertising and marketing industry bear a little bit and saying, ‘‘What if we just tried to entertain you in the first place and then, you know, let, [let] you get out with your life?’’ And I think that’s why people like what Liquid Death is doing. 

Heather Stern: The water industry is worth over $300 billion. It’s one of the most saturated markets in the world. And up until five years ago, every brand looked the same. That is, until Liquid Death came along. Named for murdering your thirst and death to plastic, Liquid Death is the antithesis to standard packaged water with its recyclable aluminum cans all adorned with a provocative skull. It’s very rock and roll. 

But it’s not just their branding that has attracted a cult-like following. It’s their edgy and often humorous marketing campaigns and unexpected partnerships that have helped catapult them to their current valuation of $1.4 billion. Today, I’m sitting down with Andy:—writer, director, ultra-marathon runner, and VP of creative at Liquid Death. It’s been said that Andy blows every other creative out of the water, no pun intended. So I’m excited to dig into it all, the vision behind the Liquid Death brand, the power of subversive marketing, and the inspiration behind some brilliant campaigns and activations from Sell Your Soul to the Adventures of Murder Man. Welcome, Andy. 

Andy: Thank you so much for having me. 

Heather: So let’s just start with the tough question. What’s the hardest job? Being an ultra-marathon runner, a marketer, or a dad? 

Andy: Dad for sure. Definitely the most tiring and frustrating, I would say, of the three. 

Heather: Amazing how these little creatures just can take so much out of us and have so much control over our lives, but hopefully the most difficult but the most rewarding at the end of the day, right?  

So, you had been quoted as saying, “At some point in our careers, we all inevitably stop for a brief moment, look around and wonder what the actual fuck we’re doing. That’s what led me to Liquid Death.” 

So tell me about that and what was going through your mind and what attracted you to the brand. 

Andy: Well, I guess, I mean, what attracted to me to it. I remember, years ago, seeing Mike, our Founder and CEO, [when,] when he launched it. I knew him from, we kind of crisscrossed paths or just missed at a bunch of different agencies at Crispin and Humanaut. And I helped…did some work for him when he was [at] Vayner and donor. And I remember him launching it and seeing it. I was like, “Wow, he’s really, he’s going for this thing.” And was just so, so impressed to see such a kind of a clear vision of a creative idea expressed in such a seemingly counterintuitive and bold way. And so I just kind of watched from afar. 

But prior to that, I think Mike also kind of hit a fuck-it moment along his career as well. And that’s kind of what led him to creating the brand. And for me, it was kind of more a slow burn where I was…at a lot of, you know, I had an awesome career. I was very happy and excited and very lucky to be at a lot of great shops and at one point I was—that moment in particular that you’re referencing—I was on the Pizza Hut account, which I found very difficult, just kind of a tough situation for a lot of people. And actually since writing that article, I’ve had many, many, many people reach out and tell similar stories about that. And so I think I’m gonna start a Pizza Hut ex-creatives support group.  

But I think the bigger thing was just, we dedicate our lives to making all these ads and all of these things that feel very important and very time-consuming at the time. We’re spending all these late nights and all-nighters and are stressed out about all the stuff that ultimately at the end of the day is like a fricking ad. You know? And I think particularly in that moment, I was like, I realized that it just felt like throwing stuff into the void a little bit. You know, it was like, who am I even trying to help? These people don’t even want my help. And, so I kind of had, you know, a pretty low moment just kind of in my career, I guess, in a sense. And, kind of shortly thereafter, my wife pitched this idea to me of: Hey, what if we just took a whole year off from our jobs? And she had been freelance for a while, but I was much like an agency person. And she was like, what if before we have kids, we just go and travel for a year and see what happens? And so she’s also a creator herself. And so I just did it. I eventually quit that job and we spent a year traveling to Southeast Asia and Europe. And I spent a lot of time in Colorado and just kind of traveling all over the place for a year. And it gave me a lot of perspective about the stuff that’s important and more importantly, the stuff that’s not important. And by seeing inside of a lot of different agencies, the way that they operate, and you just get a sense of the way that everybody’s doing something by getting to kind of be intimately inside of all these different agencies for a brief period of time or inside of these brands. And eventually through that process, we landed at this agency called Humanaut, run by our friend, David Littlejohn, who he became really good friends with. And he had this perspective that, you know, essentially life is short, we should spend time doing things that we actually enjoy. And that’s not like a crazy epiphany, but when you apply that to your career and to the stuff that you do day to day, it is kind of a radical thought in a way.  

Heather: As is taking a year off of work, right? I mean, to me, that is something that somehow should be designed into the way that careers are run. And obviously, you know, people don’t have the ability to do that, the means to do that. But when you’re in it, and particularly in the industry that you were in, you can’t gain any perspective. It just seems normal. And this is what we do. And so, yeah, this idea of finding meaning in your work, I think, is really critically important.  

Andy: Yeah, no, I mean, nothing will give you a perspective like literally, you know, ending your cell phone contract, subletting your apartment, putting, you know, a couple T-shirts in a backpack and going to Cambodia for a month and seeing what that’s like, you know, in the middle of your career. It was a really eye-opening experience. It was awesome. And it just kind of set me up to think more critically about the choices we’re making. And I think that was kind of David’s perspective at Humanaut as well…is like, “What if we just actually decided to take control of what we do and the stuff we put our time against?” And, like I said, Mike Cesario, our founder also was at Humanaut before I was there. And, part of some of the ideas that Humanaut had went into what eventually became Liquid Death as well.  

And so, I think we were kind of kindred spirits in that sense. And, I saw Mike doing this thing that he genuinely loved and cared about and had a real mission behind, and was doing it in a way that was really creatively fulfilling. And so, he reached out to me as the brand was beginning to kind of take off and grow a little bit and needed help to continue to build on kind of the creative foundation that he already put in place. 

Heather: Describe to me what is within your role as VP of Creative? What do you lead and oversee? And what are you working on right now? Obviously not sharing anything proprietary. What have you just launched that you’re really proud of? 

Andy: Yeah. So, we have a pretty tight-knit team, that we all work really hand-in-hand across, you know, [our,] our VP level marketing folks. So I have my own creative team, but then also kind of above and beyond that. The marketing department is a very collaborative space where we all approach things in a way that’s not siloed. We’re all in the same room together once a week, really kind of just hashing through ideas and working through stuff in a very organic way. So, I’m kind of specifically responsible for is, you know, the, all the crazy celebrity or brand collab products that we might come up with, any of the scripts for the videos, we all write those. And then, oftentimes, now I’m actually directing the videos myself codirecting with our Executive Producer here. We have our own internal production company. We basically realized we could do things, faster, cheaper, and better if we did it all ourselves. So we’ve moved all the production in-house as well. And then we’ve even realized we could do it faster, cheaper, and better if we just maybe started directing all of it ourselves as well. So, I’ve taken on part of that responsibility as well. But then beyond that, I work closely with our social team for all of our posts that go out on a weekly basis. I work with, you know, CRM, whether that’s editing, writing, or editing the emails that go out. You know, we have a partnership with Live Nation so we do some experiential stuff. So I help design those experiences with the team. So, I mean, kind of anything that you see in the world from Liquid Death, besides the product design itself, is under my purview at some point. 

And then in terms of stuff that we’ve done, that we’re doing, we just launched our big Liquid Death jet giveaway program a couple of weeks ago. So, there was a large beverage company back in the ’90s, who promised that someone could win a jet through a point system that they had and it did not deliver. So, there’s a big great documentary on Netflix about that. We kind of took inspiration from that and said, what if we started out with the actual intent to actually give away a jet in the first place? So, this summer, anyone who buys a can of Liquid Death in store, and then, texts us a receipt of that purchase has an entry. One can is one entry, so if you buy an eight-pack, you have eight entries. And someone at the end of the summer is going to win an actual, Aero L-39 jet.  

Heather: Wow. 

Andy: So, that’s kind of the latest thing, but we have stuff launching constantly. We have stuff coming out almost every other week this summer. So we’re on a crazy treadmill this summer. 

Heather: You’ve, talked about the importance of...well, first, I think you’re, I guess, skepticism around a lot of advertising, but then also the kind of desire to really entertain people. Tell me about that and how that inspires the things you decide to do. And what’s something that you think you’ve launched out in the world that was just one of the most outlandish ideas you had and ended up being really successful. 

Andy: Yeah, I talk about being kind of skeptical of, of our jobs, right? I think, if you ask 99.9 % of people, would you like to be marketed to or not marketed to, they’re going to say, I do not want to, please do not market to me. And, I think a lot of times as marketers, we’re, we kind of like plug our ears and go, la, la, la, la, la, and think that we can ignore what we’re doing, ignore the fact that, you know, people…there are real people and they have real tastes and maybe they don’t want to have another terrible, you know, cell phone service map blasted in front of them while they’re trying to watch a basketball game or whatever.  

And so I think it’s really just more about being honest and about treating people with [uh with] some, like, respect and kind of humanity and so that’s our approach is like hey, let’s actually do something that’s additive to people’s lives. Let’s make something that people want to seek out. In our case, making entertainment, not marketing. Making, specifically, you know, we’re choosing humor, using that as a vehicle to entertain people. Making stuff that people want to seek out instead of making something that someone’s forced to see that they hate in the first place. And, again, it’s not like a mind-blowing idea, but it’s kind of radical [if you,] if you put it in the context of our entire industry, I think. And I think that’s why people like what Liquid Death is doing because a lot of times we’re doing these ideas that don’t feel like marketing or, even better, feel like they’re taking the piss out of marketing in the first place. I’ve realized there’s kind of almost like a danger to the ideas that we have where someone sees it and goes like, can a brand do that? Is that even an ad? Is that how that’s supposed to work? And I like that deconstructed ad idea because we’re breaking it down and we’re laying a lot of the ad advertising and marketing industry bear a little bit and saying what if we just tried to entertain you in the first place and then, let you get out with your life.  

Heather: It’s a completely different starting point, right? Like if you put everything that you’re doing through that filter, you’re going to come out with very different things, but actually building a relationship with the consumer hopefully in which they just like you. I think that’s really interesting. And yeah, I think also the idea of like, there are no rules really. I mean, obviously if you work for regulated industries and things like that, but just to be able to say like, we could do whatever we want is also kind of fun and exciting. 

Andy: Well, the other thing that I think is interesting is I’ve seen this a lot lately from people that are like, ‘the brand is just so authentic.’ You, like, see the A word getting thrown around and it’s very funny to me because, you know, I feel like that was such a buzzword for so many years. It was like, we gotta have an authentic tone of voice. And what, interestingly, what happened was you had all these brands, which at the time was kind of revolutionary thought was like, “Hey, [what if,] what if we spoke like real people?” Right. And I remember even the first time I heard that it was like, you know, as a writer, I was told, right. Like there’s someone on the other side of the copy. And, you know, that was kind of a mind-blowing thought to me as a young writer. And, I think you have all these brands trying to be like real authentic and talk to you, like you’re a person. And the funny thing is what we do a lot of times with Liquid Death is we make it so fucking corporate [and,] and, like, impersonal and make it about us, you know, hell-bent on global domination or you know, talk about, like, our marketing robots are gonna turn you into flesh batteries or whatever. And we’ve like flipped that whole thing to make it like so anti-authentic, I guess, you know, quote unquote. But because it’s parroting and satirizing what brands are really trying to do. It’s like, we’re saying the stuff that brands are actually kind of trying to do, but we’re just saying it out loud and very directly sometimes and that in some crazy upside-down world ends up feeling more authentic because we’re skewering these like, you know, quote-unquote authentic things that are actually not really that authentic. 

Heather: Yeah, it does. It’s kind of a meta concept, but I get it. And I think that’s also where the humor comes in because it’s so not what Liquid Death is about. And yet, it is because you’re putting in everybody’s face so plainly how kind of insane some of the things that go out in the world are. I also think, and we talk a lot about this in the work we do with just creating and evolving brands, but the humanity, so to speak, or the authenticity, to use the buzzword, can come from really thinking about the brand as a character, like as a person, so to speak. How would you describe the Liquid Death character? And if he or she were to be going to their next concert, what would they be seeing? 

Andy: Oh man, the character. I don’t know how do you describe like a person? It’s hard.  

Heather: Yeah. 

Andy: I mean like, I could try to describe my wife, but I probably wouldn’t, like, fully be able to, you know, like capture all of all of that in there. I think it’s more like, hey, it’s someone who was raised by watching a lot of SNL and Adult Swim and listened to George Carlin standups growing up. And also probably watched a lot of Jackass and skated but also, you know, they’re kind of, you know, they’re very thoughtful and have a great love of design and product design, and care about sustainability, and maybe they eat, try to eat cleaner than, the people around them. It’s hard to describe the character of Liquid Death and that I’m more almost describing some of the people that make it. And I think that’s also part of what we do is the brand is like just really a lot of us just kind of cranked up and put out in the world. And that’s what I think is interesting about it. We’re not trying to look at the market research and say like, well, if you know, the opportunity lies in this white space over here, right? So we’re going to make sure that our brand is, you know, does this and talks this way. And, you know, we align with this. It’s kind of like organically built from the stuff that we like and the things that we think are funny. And we have friends and we like to make them laugh. And, now we’ve just kind of like taken that out and extrapolated it and put it into the rest of the world. And hopefully there’s a lot of other people out there [that,] that have our similar sense of humor. And you know, of course, I’m generalizing this and we do lots of smart, demographic research and we do all kinds of smart stuff. But I think at like a very base level, we’re building something that’s more just like a reflection of real people. And I think that’s why it feels different and it feels compelling and it feels complex. 

Heather: Yeah. I mean, we’ve kind of brushed over this. And I guess it’s part of the whole point of what attracted you. But there is a real commitment to sustainability and a lot of the ethos around like death to plastic, you know, 80% of plastic water bottles end up in landfills and take thousands of years to decompose. And so, talk to me more about the role even of, like, educating people and convincing them to change behavior and I guess other things beyond the way the product is designed that you all are doing to further that cause. 

Andy: It’s funny ’cause when we started, we would hear it’s like, people will never drink [out of] water out of an aluminum can. And then you’re like, well, why isn’t that? Well, it’s because the, basically the bottled water industry is really just a plastic bottle industry. And it’s really, really cheap to make plastic bottles. And it’s very expensive to recycle them. And that’s why it makes zero economic sense. Right. But there are all kinds of economic forces at play in our world that are hidden from consumers. And I think what we’re trying to do is simply illuminate one small corner of that. Right. And we’ve picked a very specific lane. And we’re, you know, trying to educate people and allow them to give them an option to make a different choice if they want. And we’re doing it by, we’ve all been told over the years to recycle or, you know, to donate to this cause or whatever. The way that all of that stuff has been done is often very kind of aggressively; and make you feel bad for it or very…maybe it’s appealing to your eco side that we think that, you know, is deep down inside of everybody. There’s been all these different ways to do it, but no one’s really attacked it with humor. And in our case, a lot of times very dark humor, the way we go about it. And, I think that’s sort of the Trojan horse in a way, because, humor is based on truth. You can’t have comedy without agreeing with the person that the thing that we’re both laughing at and looking at is true. Right. I think like when you’re able to make somebody laugh, you’re both meeting together and agreeing to something essentially. You know, part of our approach is, is can we make someone laugh? And then we’ve already said that like, hey, we, there’s this kind of exchange of…I’m getting super heady, so forgive me. But there’s like this exchange of truth back and forth. And so that’s [that’s] a great way for us to actually make a connection with people. And then, kind of slip in some education around recycling aluminum versus plastic recycling or something like that. And I think the cool thing is we’ve taken that presentation of sustainability away from…just as I always say, like the Whole Foods/NPR crowd, which I am very much deeply a part of. So [I’m,] I’m throwing myself in that camp. But that’s where the kind of eco message has always lived. We’re taking it out of that and making it accessible to everyone. And so the cool thing that I see is, you know, we’re as successful in Whole Foods as we are at Walmart or 7/11. We have like car mechanics, making videos about death to plastic, about crushing cans, and making videos, like people that you just generally wouldn’t think, or normally be represented under this umbrella of people who care about sustainability.  

And so we’re reaching people. That’s what gets me amped up. If you get people to think more critically about the choices they have as consumers, you know, again, as, like, an individual. Recycling one thing is probably not going to make a difference. But if you have a lot of individuals who, who over time, demand change and change grows and it goes up the supply chain and suddenly you see, choices being made from the top-down that are coming from the bottom-up. That’s where that gets exciting. And I think it’s beyond just, you know, plastic bottles, but if you can make someone think critically about one choice—I saw this when I joined—you start thinking critically about all your choices. And now you’ve made a way more informed consumer [who is,] who is kind of… can become a kind of a lazy activist, I guess, in a way using their pocketbook to make choices. So, that’s what gets me excited about [what,] what we’re kind of doing behind the scenes with the brand. 

Heather: Let’s talk about partnerships because you’ve done a lot of brand collaborations. On the surface, many of them feel quite divergent in a way from one another. What do you look for in a partner and do you have any kind of dream collaborators out there that you would want to appeal to? 

Andy: Yeah, I mean, for the partnerships, I think generally, they fall into two camps. One is like, yeah, that makes sense that we would do something with them. You know, we’ve done stuff with…burned snowboards. We’ve done all kinds of, like, stuff that you’re like, yeah, that makes sense for [for] Liquid Death to kind of get involved in. And then the other side of that is stuff that makes no sense for us to do. That’s where that also gets really exciting, because there are a lot of brand collabs in the world. That’s certainly not anything that we ever invented. I think if anything, we’re just gonna continue to see more and more because it kind of becomes internet fodder. But there’s many of them that feel like kind of head-scratchers to me a little bit sometimes. And what I like about the way that we approach it is usually we try to find, really with everything we do, I always talk about Liquid Death logic, which is like starting from a really dumb premise and then trying to prove that it’s a really good idea. 

So a lot of the work, if you see, it’s like, we make very sort of sensible A to B arguments about, you know, why we’re doing something, but the starting place is so stupid that the argument itself, it just is totally asinine. A lot of times, like even, I think even the logic itself that we build into these partnerships are inherently fun. I don’t know, that’s the kind of idea I like where even the thought behind it or the logic that we’ve imbued in it is the entertainment itself. Like the idea is fun to think about. That’s how we will kind of approach a lot of that stuff is like, can we make a product that maybe shouldn’t exist, but we’re going to make a really, a really strong case for why it’s a great idea that this dumb product exists in the first place.  

We did the collaboration with e.l.f. recently back in February, that was really successful. That was kind of successful beyond expectations. I think we felt good about it but Liquid Death partnering with e.l.f. Cosmetics, there’s not a lot of overlap there. And that’s why I like some of these partnerships, is, because I always say the farther apart some of the brands are, the easier it becomes because there’s a Venn diagram and there’s, like, one little tiny sliver of overlap and you have to figure out what that little overlap is. And it kind of means that there’s like a right answer to it. So for us, it was very quick. It was like, we’re talking to an e.l.f. I was like, I think we’d just make corpse paint. Like that was the first idea. I was like, it was like, well, I mean, if we were going to make makeup, we should just make corpse paint. And then you kind of unravel that and you’re like, that’s kind of a funny thought because corpse paint is this thing by all these black metal dudes. And they’re actually putting makeup on all the time. So these guys that look like they’re in super scary bands are actually maybe some of the world’s foremost makeup experts because they’re painting their entire faces constantly with makeup. Right? So, there’s like kind of some fun logic to be baked into that, that we then, you know, spooled out into this whole coffin, this kit that you could buy and do corpse paint at home. And the whole idea was like, imagine a world where corpse paint was just like the hottest new look of the spring. So again, we kind of started with that dumb premise of like, corpse paint is the hot new look that everyone wants. And then you just act like that thing is realistic. And then you really, like, spool that out and then you make a really kind of funny, nostalgic trench commercial [that,] that fell out of that. So, that one was crazy because that one just, it really blew up and took a life on its own and was like, kind of overtook TikTok for a while. There was a lot of this controversy back and forth with people making videos. And, it was great. That was really, it was kind of a perfect example of finding like, there’s a right idea and this is what we should do and just kind of barreling through it and doing that whole thing. 

Heather: It’s so cool to hear about the way you think about these ideas and almost starting from the opposite place that people might imagine you starting from. And I think people are always like, what’s the key to the creative process? And I think it’s really difficult to encapsulate that. But I think I have heard you compare it to the show, “The Bear,” which I love. 

Andy: Well, not so much like that show, but more like the process of just writing on any show. Right. I talk like “Breaking Bad” a lot, too, or whatever, but like, but the idea is, you know, as you said, it’s like, you know, if we think of Liquid Death as a character, all we’re doing is we’re sitting in a writer’s room, writing this sort of crazy live three-dimensional TV show starring Liquid Death that is in the real world. And, so, again it’s like whether you’re writing on “The Bear” and the episode…the cousin gets evicted from his apartment and has to sleep in the restaurant or whatever. Like, even you, as a viewer, you’re like, okay, I kind of almost know what’s going to happen. As a writer, you have to really intimately know the character and you go, okay, yeah, this is what’s going to happen. He would say this, that he would react this way. He would do this. And I think that’s just the way that we approach the brand where, it’s almost reactionary. Like again, the e.l.f. example is…you’re like, oh yeah, we would make corpse paint. Like that’s the obvious thing the character would do.  

And it becomes a very, it’s not like so subjective, you know, I think like a lot of times [in,] in creative industries and like this, it’s, there’s so many subjective ideas on what it could be and opinions and all this stuff. And I think we look at it and we’re just like, well, what would Liquid Death do? Like, what would that character do in any given situation? And you just answer that question and it’s like, cool, there’s our idea. That’s what we should do. And so it takes some of the kind of, like, and I don’t mean this in like a dispassionate way. It, like, takes the kind of…some of the…that subjectivity away from it and everyone could go like, yeah, that’s what Liquid Death would do. So it allows us to get to ideas very quickly. It allows us to decide on them, be decisive, and move quickly and not have all this kind of built-up angst that often happens in the creative and strategic process on what’s the…right, you know…what’s the right direction or what’s the right idea. 

Heather: I don’t think you answered where Liquid Death, the character, is going next in terms of the next show.  

Andy: Oh man. Maybe first it’s going to cannibal corpse, but then it’s probably headed to like, I don’t know, the Adele residency in Vegas or something. You know, I think that’s the fun part is like, when you imagine that again, like a character has all these different facets to them. Right. And then you’re like, oh that’s a funny…interesting place for it to go. I didn’t expect that, but I can see it. And so now we’re kind of entering a new space, right? 

Heather: Yeah. So we talked a little bit about your career in terms of being at a place that you did want to take stock and take a break and pivot, but you know, you’ve worked at some incredible agencies. You’ve mentioned Humanaut and Crispin and Widen and others. And obviously we pick up things as we go through our career. Some things that we decide that’s not how we want to engage or behave and some things that stick with us. Is there anything from those years that either, through a mentor or a partner or just a process that has stuck with you, that you kind of go back to as a creative? 

Andy: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, I was just thinking about this this morning, actually. I think a lot of the stuff that we do, you’re kind of waltzing through your career, and you may not know it at the time, but you’re picking up all of these little tips and tricks and things that feel, you go, that feels like the way it’s supposed to work. Or that feels like something that feels real. And you also obviously deal with a lot of stuff that you’re like, that’s just fluff or unnecessary, or I don’t agree with that. I’ve been lucky to be at a lot of places where there’s a very strong sense of what makes great work, which I think that is so supremely important at an agency or, you know, or brand or wherever [that,] that people can articulate what it is we’re all trying to do. Because I’ve been at places that have that. And then I’ve been at places that don’t have that. And there’s just a world of difference when someone has a real opinion and you know, there can be multiple right answers. There doesn’t, you know, there’s not like, this is the, this is the only way to do things, but there can be like, this is our way to do things and this is what we believe makes great work. And so, yeah, I mean, some of those places you named…was very lucky to work under people or work with an entire agency. I mean, Crispin is a great example. Everyone there understood what we were doing and was all pointed in the same direction and all from, and I always say this, like the most unsung heroes at that place were the account people. They [they] were the ones that were fighting for great work, working with clients. They helped make that place possible. Not the, I mean, also the creatives and also the strategist and all this other stuff, but the account people so strongly understood what we were all trying to do. And were always on the side of championing great work. And in fact, even there, interestingly, like, I think sometimes titles are goofy. Like goofy titles don’t make sense, but they were, instead of account people, they were called Content Managers. And I think that was just a great shift where people understood, like, and this is before the word “content” meant what it meant now, but they understood that they were there to help make the work great at every step of the process. And they were part of that process. And they weren’t account people, which account says that you service the client that is paying us money. Right. I think like, there’s all kinds of lessons along your career that you have to, you can kind of pick up from the way that places operate. And then hopefully what happens at a certain point is you get to step back and like with a place like Liquid Death or your own agency or somewhere that you work and you get to kind of collect all of those thoughts and really apply them and make your space into the [into the] image of all those little lessons that you’ve picked up along the way. And so I think there’s all kinds of DNA mixed in from Crispin for sure, from Humanaut, from VaynerMedia, from all these places that some of us have worked. We’ve picked up on all the little pieces and we’ve kind of sewn it back together into this crazy Frankenstein that’s Liquid Death, using all those little kind of truths, I guess that we’ve picked up along the way. 

Heather: It’s so exciting to think about this brand, this movement, this stream of entertainment that’s been coming out of Liquid Death. And I do think that in a pretty short time, you know, the brand has become iconic on its own. And I like to close our discussions that I have on this show with a question that people answer in very different ways, but do you have an icon? 

Andy: Yeah, the one example I always give, I guess is, do you know who Andrew W.K. is? It’s okay if you don’t.  

Heather: I do, yes. Yes, I do. 

Andy: You do. Excellent. I love everything about whatever the hell that is. I think, for those of you listening who don’t know, Andrew W.K. is a, I guess you’d describe it like party metal artist, musician. Came out with his first album in 2002 and had just like this crazy picture of him with his face smashed in and like bleeding on the front, like stringy, greasy, long hair. I’ve actually, side note, I’ve gone to, he’s my go to lazy Halloween costume when I have long hair. I just like put on a white t -shirt and put some blood on my nose.  

Heather: That’s perfect. You get the light dirty white T-shirt. Yeah. Yeah. 

Andy: But what I love about that is when that stuff came out, one, you talk about iconic, like it’s a pretty great original image that they’ve kind of used throughout his kind of career. But it was like, is this a joke or this guy, is this guy real? Like there’s four songs on this album that have the word party in the title. Like this, I can’t tell if this is a joke or real. And then you kind of dig in and I could talk a long time about this, but there’s a whole conspiracy theory about like, is it just this giant art project and the original Andrew W.K. was replaced by a different one in subsequent years. But he’s gone on to do all these like really interesting…like, he set the world record for drumming at one point for drumming for 24 hours straight. Is like a motivational speaker.  

Heather: Yeah, I did read that. 

Andy: He spoke at like my Little Pony Con or something. And it’s fun because it takes all these assumptions in the same way, a lot of stuff that we’re doing, it like takes all these assumptions and then it kind of like flips it on its head. And then also makes you go like, is this real or is it not? And there’s some kind of fun in that blurring of reality and deconstruction that makes it kind of feel like this really interesting art project in a way. And then, and then on a very base level, the music is just fucking fun. And I’ve went, I’ve seen him live before and back in college. And, it was like one of the most fun shows I’ve ever been to. So you can also appreciate it on just like a dumb, like, hey, this is this really fun thing level, but then there’s all these really kind of silly things when you dive in deeper that are kind of again, like this idea of a deconstructed artist and is this real or performance art or what is this? So I don’t know that I always pointed at him. I think. Like, I think that is the kind of deep humor and art that really speaks to me in some kind of twisted way, I guess. 

Heather: I mean, it goes back to that idea of character and like, how do you even define that, right? And I think that maybe is what attracts you to him in that there’s just a juxtaposition of so many different things and yet it makes sense and it kind of makes you think and it’s entertaining and it’s fun and it’s a little subversive. Like, you know, I can definitely see him drinking Liquid Death.  

Andy: Hopefully one day. 

Heather: Well, listen, yeah, thank you so much for joining us and, kind of shameless plug for everyone to go to a physical store and buy as much Liquid Death as they can.  

Andy: Yes, yes, up to 400 cans. 

Heather: Okay, maximum of 400 so that they can possibly win a jet. And keep doing cool stuff and putting great content out there and,  

again, on the higher order, helping people play a role in sustainability, which is, I think above all, kind of what this is about. So thank you so much.  

Andy: Awesome. Thanks so much for having me. It was really fun.