DANGER JONES CREATING ART NOT COMMERCE

By Louise May

Danger Jones sees itself as a creative brand with a different way of doing things, based on its beliefs and values. They care about making art rather than just selling stuff and while other companies focus on what sells, Danger Jones is all about making things they love, making their products more genuine and appreciated by others.

They also put a lot of emphasis on building a community of artists and believe that working together and supporting each other makes everyone better.

In the hair industry, they wanted to shake things up and are big on relationships, valuing people over profits believing in being honest, fair, and treating everyone with respect.

Overall, they are optimists who believe in looking on the bright side of life.

Danger Jones was founded by David and Alexis Thurston, original founders of Pulp Riot, and like a breath of fresh air has recently been introduced and is now available here in Australia.

Hair Biz Editor Louise May chats with David & Alexis in the USA about the brand story, and how it all came to life.

What inspired you both to venture into the hairy industry and what motivated you to create Danger Jones after the huge success of Pulp Riot?

After Pulp Riot, we took some much needed time off. And making more space and time in our lives unlocked our inventive minds and creative ideas started to flow in. Also, taking time away helped us realize some of the things that are most valuable to us.

Can you share a bit about the journey from founding Pulp Riot to launching Danger Jones and how did your experiences influence the development of the brand?

For example, we realized that we love the creation process of creating cool things with interesting people. We also realised how important it is to be part of a community. So, with Danger Jones, we’re here to create cool things with interesting people and build a global community of artists, labs, and distribution partners. We’re not just the creators of the community, we’re members of the community, and it’s full of people we choose to spend our time with.

Let’s start with the notion that there would be no Danger Jones if it weren’t for Pulp Riot. That was a necessary step on our journey to where we are now. Pulp Riot was a reflection of who we were 8 years ago, and Danger Jones is a reflection of us now. We left Pulp Riot when we had accomplished everything we’d set out to do, so we took time off and found new inspiration. We saw there was a hole in the market and in the artist's community that we could fill.

Danger Jones has a strong emphasis on creating art rather than just commerce. Could you elaborate on how this philosophy drives your brand’s identity and products?

Most companies approach the creative process differently than we do. Most companies think in terms of “here is an audience, let’s try to create something they will love.” That’s commerce.

And that’s okay to take that approach, but at Danger Jones we’ve decided on a different approach. We’re just going to create what we love, and if other people love it… great. That’s not commerce, that’s art.

What we’re finding is that when you’re only focusing on creating something you love, and don’t focus at all on competitors, the art you create resonates deeply with the artist community. It’s like when you hear a song on the radio, and you can tell the ones that are written to be the next hit single. And then there’s the first time you ever heard Nirvana. It was clear they were just creating what they love without a complete focus on commercial mainstream success.

Community seems to be a central focus for Danger Jones. How do you nurture and engage with your hair artist community, and how has it contributed to the brand’s growth and success?

Yes, community is the reason we exist. We have a Facebook Group called Danger Jones Asylum where artists around the world can connect and share their work.

More importantly, we connect directly with our community frequently through education, like our Danger Jones University events and also at an annual retreat we call Danger Fest. This year, 100 stylists attended Danger Fest in Cancun Mexico where we brought in some amazing keynote speakers that were there to level up the artists lives and careers. At Danger Fest we find that some of the most valuable time is spent just making friends with others in the community.

Most hair color companies outsource the management of their social media pages. But we believe that having hundreds of daily conversations on social media with artists makes our brand better. We inspire our community, and they inspire us in return. Even though David is the CEO of a global brand, he is the person that runs our Instagram page. It allows him to see trends, make deep connections, and discover the up-and-coming artists.

As the creative team behind Danger Jones, we also feel it’s really important for us to show up at events and work with artists, and this includes internationally as well, like coming to Australia for Hair Festival, to connect with local artists and provide opportunities for artists to shine.

Could you discuss the importance of relationships over business transactions and how this principle is reflected in the way Danger Jones operates?

Most of the product companies in our industry are owned by publicly traded companies, which means they exist to make a good return for their shareholders. These companies are focused on short-term quarterly results.

Unfortunately, this can lead to making decisions that impact the brand equity long-term and can be detrimental to people. When we created Danger Jones, we decided that we would always value people above profits. It’s the foundation that we built our company on top of.

You mentioned that Danger Jones aims to disrupt the status quo in the industry. What do you believe needs to be disrupted, and how does Danger Jones approach this disruption?

Right now, most of the other color companies are hyper-focused on cutting costs. They stopped investing in the beauty community of artists. For example, most of them stopped going to beauty industry trade shows. They haven’t pivoted away from digital education to in-person education. They aren’t giving back to the community that has supported them. At Danger Jones we’re not focused on cutting costs, we’re focused on adding quality to everything we do.

Alexis, as Chief Product Officer, how do you approach product development at Danger Jones, and what sets your products apart in the market?

Being a hairstylist for over 30 years and having almost a decade of experience creating products, there’s so much I’ve learned when it comes to formulation and performance. I believe it’s our creative process that makes our products better. If I owned a restaurant and wanted to create a new menu item, I would ask the chef to do it. With Danger Jones, it’s the stylists at our salon in Los Angeles (Butterfly Loft) that helps create and test all of our products.

Danger Jones is quite new to Australia and going to be featuring at Hair Festival 2024! This is super exciting! Can you please tell us about this, who is the session for and what will be seeing?

Yes, please join us on Sunday, June 30th at 1:45 pm in room C2.6 where we’ll be joined by Danger Jones international educators Jessica Powers (@jessicapowerspaints), Mary Ott (@maryh.ott), Holly Sharpe (@hollysharpe.hair), Kate McFarlane (@katelsmac), Lexie Shay (@thelexieshay), and myself Alexis Thurston (@alexisthurston). This session is for all levels of stylists and salon owners who want to be entertained and inspired while levelling up their skills at www.dangerjonescreative.com

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