ep102 – Charlie Price

Welcome to Headcases. Today’s guest is one of the most recognizable faces in the salon industry. He is a celebrated platform artist and educator, known for mixing fun, irreverence, and incredible skill in his teaching. His work has been published worldwide, and he has collaborated with top brands like Aveda, Revlon Professional, TIGI, Rusk, and Scruples.

A two-time NAHA Hairstylist of the Year and the first-ever NAHA People’s Choice Award winner, he boasts an astounding 27 NAHA nominations. He’s also winner of the Canadian Mirror Awards International Hairstylist of the Year. He trained under runway legends like Guido Palau and Eugene Souleiman for shows like Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, and Calvin Klein.

He’s been a lead stylist for New York Fashion Week, co-founded Denver Fashion Week, and even starred as the infamous villain on Shear Genius 2. He’s the founder of Beauty Underground Magazine and two major awards platforms: the Southwest Hairstyling Awards and the Hair USA Awards. Oh, and Denver named a day after him!

Let’s get into this week’s Headcase — the one and only Charlie Price!

• 2:44 Charlie Price’s early career
• 9:32 Charlie’s Photography Process
• 18:24 Charlie’s Fashion Shows and Beauty Underground
• 28:50 Charlie’s Studio and Model Connections
• 28:50 Charlie’s Studio and Model Connections
• 39:50 Thoughts on the Industry and Social Media

Complete Transcript

Chris Baran 0:00
How great would it be to get up close and personal with the beauty industry heroes we love and admire, and to ask them, How did you learn to do what you do? I’m Chris Baran, a hairstylist and educator for 40 plus years, and I’m inviting all our heroes to chat and share the secrets of their success.

I Well, welcome to this week’s episode of head cases, and today’s guest, I must admit, is probably one of the most recognizable faces in the North American salon industry. He’s a popular platform artist, and he’s an educator, and I love the fact that he mixes teaching fun and he also adds in a little touch of irreverence. His photo work has been published worldwide, and he has collaborated with hair care manufacturers such as Aveda REVLON PROFESSIONAL TG, Roo ru Rusk and scruples hair care. He is a two times Naha North American hairstylist of the year, wit award winner. He is the first ever Naha People’s Choice Award winner with a career total of catch this 27

Naha nominations, and he was named Canadian mirror awards international hairstylist of the year. He trained under Runway Hair masters, Guido Palau, Serge Norman and Eugene Solomon on fashion shows such as Dolce and Gabbana, Prada, mew, mew, DK NY Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs. He also went on to be lead hairstylist at New York Fashion Week for designers such as Peter som Jeremy Scott, Imitation of Christ Catherine melendrino and many others. He’s the co founder of den of Denver Fashion Week, and he has also made a memorable appearance as the villain on sheer genius two for Bravo TV, which aired in 22 countries. I’m sure that’s a big giveaway for you. He is the founder of beauty underground magazine, the Southwest hair styling awards, and co founder of the hair USA awards. Denver named him, named a day after him. So let’s get into this week’s head case, and like the mayor of Denver, head cases also proclaims today, Charlie price day,

Mr. Charlie price, it is an absolute pleasure and honor to have you on here. I have to say, my friend, that we’re just talking about that just before we went live here is that I think the last time that you and I had chatted together had to be at least minimum of four years ago, backstage at Naha, and we were in the, I don’t know, quasi green room, or whatever we called it at the time, but it was just it was a pleasure talking to you there, and what I loved about it is you always have so much concern for everybody else in our industry. So welcome, and it’s great to have you on here. Thank you. I appreciate it. I can’t wait. I love being interviewed. It’s so much fun. Yeah, no, we’re gonna have fun here. So this is one thing that I find everybody wants to know. I mean, first of all, I’m sure the majority of people in here know you know of you, have seen you on stage, heard of you and and beauty underground, etc. But what’s your it’s always interesting to find out, what’s your hair story like, was hair the always the thing that you got into? Did you get into it? Was there other jobs? What’s What’s the gig?

Charlie Price 3:30
Well, I was, I always told my parents that I wanted to be an architect or a famous painter like Julian Schnabel or Basquiat or somebody or a hairdresser. And my dad was like, you can’t be a hairdresser because they’re gay. And I was like, Oh, this poor man.

He doesn’t know what he’s in for.

Chris Baran 3:55
Oh, that’s too funny. You caught me by surprise on that one. That’s so I went. But I went in

Charlie Price 4:02
high school, I went to a vocational school in Denver, Colorado, and when we were in school, they all of the big companies were in their heyday, like red can, matrix, Aveda, Tony and guy, all these companies, and they would come in, and I ended up going to an Aveda class right after I got out of school, and then I worked with Aveda right away, pretty much as soon as I got a little bit of training, and then I got a whole bunch more training from then, and I became an educator in Denver, and Just went all the way to the top of ADA at the structure that they had at the time. So I left as a guest artist, which was the highest thing you could do, besides being artistic director. But I knew that would probably never happen to anyone that was within the organization, and it hasn’t they brought. They would always.

People from outside, fancy European people, right, right? So now I want to just jump back a bit. First of all, I mean that that was a meteoric rise that you had there, but where were you? Was that was there a salon that you were in? Did you? Yeah, I was a, I was a booth renter, weirdly, at the beginning, because it was the first well, you know, there’s always these cycles, and there was a big cycle through in Denver of booth rent, but I was an assistant and everything for a couple years before I became a booth runner, and then when I opened my own salon, it was, this is all within two years, wow. I opened a salon, and

then I started working for AVEDA, but

Chris Baran 5:42
that is wild and you like, because I know that you were, you know, the you’ve had a lot of influence in the arts and everything in your community as well. Like, has that always been something that that you’ve been, you’ve been drawn to? Yeah, I had, I had my first art show in high school, like at this punk rock little place called Cafe 13. So I always have done art, and the whole reason for me being a hairdresser was creativity. Anything that I wanted to do was based on creativity, and that’s still the same, because I just didn’t want to be a corporate drone like my parents were, and because they weren’t happy doing it, really. I mean, there were things about their jobs that they liked, but they weren’t fulfilling any kind of dream or or bliss, or whatever cliche we want to use. Yeah, that was it. That’s interesting. So it’s, it’s so you got that kind of the art bug when you’re in school, like, what was it? You know, was it when? What form of art. Was it like sculpting, drawing? What was the drawing painting I just posted on my Instagram today, some drawings that I did that are, it’s a German art website and magazine. So if you want to see my drawings, they’re on my Instagram page. Yeah, I’m going. I wish I would have went on there before this. But, you know, I would say this, if anything, guys go, if you’re listening or watching, go onto his website and see it, and particularly your work. Because do you find that the art background helped you when it came to the art that you create in your photographs?

Charlie Price 7:20
Absolutely. I mean, the one of the main things that I wanted to do as a hairdresser was do photo shoots of hair. That’s one of the the primary things, because my dad had really beautiful hair. My mom was really into hair, and we would go to salons all the time. And it’s weird because I don’t have hair, and I haven’t first since I was about like 19, but I was really into my hair, and I loved the books in the salon when you would go in and see the book. So I kind of even knew who Tony and guy and Robert Lobetta, sort of kind of were, um, based on pictures I had seen just sitting waiting for my parents to get their hair done, or while I was getting my hair done. So I always wanted to do that. Definitely creativity more than even. I mean, I love the salon. Like I thought they smelled good, the people were cool. You know this, your, your, your job changes every 45 minutes or hour or whatever. So I like that, but the creativity is the most important. Yeah, and does that? Does that follow through? Like, is like, what do you do to me, I finally, I love the creativity too. But there’s things times I have to have my downtime. Is there anything that you do that’s just like, what do you do just to either to turn it off so that you can recharge? What do you do on those moments? Well, I guess if I need to turn off, it would be like movies and magazines and

it’s entertainment too. I mean, everything that I do is kind of hooked together, so it’s still, if I’m unhooked from actually doing something creative, I’m probably watching or doing something that’s going to give me inspiration when I go back to whatever creative thing.

Chris Baran 8:56
Yeah, it’s interesting that you say that, because I, you know, people always ask me if I have a if I have a hobby, you know? And I’ve always said, Well, my hobby is hair, or anything that has to do with hair. So, and I find like, you could pick underwater spoon bending, or you can go and braid hair for hours on end. And to me, that’s my therapy. So I totally get it.

Do you? Do you do that as well? I mean, I know your work. So I know how long it takes to put into one of those heads, not only for the research that you have to put into it, but but actually making the piece and making it come to life. What’s your like when you come up with an idea, when you when you’re talking looking at new images that you’re creating? What’s your process?

Charlie Price 9:40
It’s kind of a storyboard thing, but I don’t I used to have, before we had our cell phone, our iPhones, and everything’s in there, like a Pinterest type thing. I had magazines, and I would just keep journals of things I liked. And Ray chevello taught me how to do this thing where.

Throw things on the ground, and you make a storyboard with them, like, okay, these are makeup things I like, or, or you just take your top ones and make a line, and then you go back through and anything that goes under the line, and it creates stories. I used to do that, but right now, a story can start from

anything. Like, I just did a story called spice market that was kind of an AI thing, and it was based on just one of the prompts they have, and then mixing in my photos. But I never just give the prompt that if I’m doing an AI, first of all, it has to start from a real photo, right, that I’ve done, and then, and generally, there are things that I’ve photographed to those are the best ones. And then I will use some prompts and Photoshop. So it’s a mixture of a bunch of different things. So nobody can tell precisely what I’ve done, because I don’t want, like templates, right? So, but so things like that, Spice Market, whatever you know, it can be anything. Do you and with your art background?

Chris Baran 10:59
Do you? Do you sketch it out beforehand? Do you,

Charlie Price 11:02
yeah, if I’m, well, if I’m doing a proper hair collection, 100% I sketch them. I mean, for for a, like, a Naha collection or something, I always sketch them, because it’s so much about the composition of the photo, right? Like, based on how big or small the hair is, or how close up, how far away, all that stuff.

Chris Baran 11:20
You know, you just, you just said something else that was magical there that I think that so many people, when they’re just getting into photography, don’t realize, because you said how big or how small it is, and they don’t realize that how, how, when you do something in real life, how it can look super small In a photograph, or how one little piece of hair that’s extended, you know, might be a half inch from the head, or an inch from the head, you go, Oh, my God, that’s craziness. And yet, on a photograph, it disappears. And so you gotta be what’s your, what’s your? Is there any things that you find like that that you would to help other people with a photograph that you would say, here’s here’s a few things that you must do, either beforehand or during. It’s sort of like the

Charlie Price 12:10
the way that in a when you’re doing hair on a person in front of the mirror, you have to step back from your work and look at it in the mirror. You got to do that when you’re doing a photo shoot, too, and stop what you’re doing and look at the screen or the or the if the person isn’t tethering, you have to look at the camera, which is difficult, but to make sure you’re getting the right shapes and but since the advent of having tethering, it’s so much better, because I would just go back and forth and back and forth and really look at the picture and a bunch of different ways and decide which direction I want to go, because sometimes it’s just absolutely not working. And you just do one, you turn a corner, and it’s like, oh, God, we can spare this, or this is so much better than what we’re doing. Whatever it is.

Chris Baran 12:52
Yeah, do you ever have I mean, I don’t know about you because, I mean, I think you’re way better at this than I am. But you know, if I was shooting for three looks, I would always do, like, four or five, because I knew one was going to be absolute crap, you know. And no matter how good I thought I wanted it, it was one. Turns out crap on you.

Charlie Price 13:10
That’s definitely something that I didn’t always do. But yeah, you it’s so much better to shoot more than you need absolutely and then mix and match and see, because you don’t necessarily know what you’re going to like until you see them together, and then it just clicks, right? Um, so yeah, definitely shoot more than you need, for sure, have you. And I just want to jump back for a second when you’re saying tethering, you mean just like seeing the senior look on a screen looking at a camera where, when you’re the photographer’s taking a picture, or you’re taking a picture, it shows up on a screen somewhere in the studio, and then just going back and looking at it a lot. Yeah, you know it’s it’s really hard to do it without, although sometimes for these purists who don’t like the technology piece of it, it’s nice to have the Russian roulette of going back to film or not having tethering, right? It’s like,you know, bareback, yeah, it’s fun, you know.

Chris Baran 14:08
And I was talking and I noticed Babeck, I think he shot some of your stuff, whether it was your stuff or shot you, because I saw that on your site where you had Babeck logo underneath your picture. But I remember talking to him and and I he said something that was really interesting when people are talking about Photoshop and and when they’re talking about that it should be eliminated, or whatever. And he just said, he said something that really stuck to me. He said, You know, the interest why you have to have Photoshop is that if you want to get the the colors or the thing, the camera will never give you exactly what you shot, right, so color wise, or whatever, so you you have to use Photoshop to get the color in the photograph, so it is what you actually shot. So what do you? What’s your what’s your take on when people talk about photo?

Charlie Price 15:00
Shop and use or not, or I don’t have any problem with Photoshop. I love it all. And I recently posted something that had absolutely no Photoshop, just because some people were giving me shit about it, about AI, and because I’m so off now with my Instagram, what I do now is I’ll do art. I’ll do things that are fashioned. There’ll be no hair in the pictures at all. Yeah, it doesn’t even matter to me anymore, because I’m not entering competitions, really anymore, or if I do, it’s rarely

so to me, all of it is just tools. I’m creating art. I don’t care what it is. But for the purity of Naha, I mean, we would go around and round and round, when I was on that committee about it, and I’m like, Look, we all know the people, for the most part, that are using the expensive photographers, and we know what’s happening. Yeah, and I think that we all know when something’s pretty much digitally created, it’s pretty obvious. Or at the time when I was doing it, it was pretty obvious when it’s completely computer driven. But if you look at the British hairdressing awards, they’re totally retouched. I mean, there’s so much retouching. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I really don’t care about it.

Chris Baran 16:06
Yeah, I’m with you on it. I think that there’s, it really is, is there’s things that you can do. I mean, let’s face it, I mean, I’m, you know, when I first started in hair photography, I can remember in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, doing a collection. And my, my buddy was a photographer, and his name Gene Hattori, and his his wife, Judy, would do all the retouching by hand, you know, like with a paintbrush, with like, one or two hair. And it was just fascinating to watch. But so whether or not you were doing there was no Photoshop at the time, but they did it all by hand. They would take out or add in hair and or it was just fascinating to watch. Yeah, and actually, the first Naha piece that I won with was, I believe it was the metaphor metamorphosis one where we had to, it was all based on the butterfly, like that’s never been done before. But the point was, is, there’s one photograph in there that I actually hand painted. She taught me how to do it. We shot it on, we think, we shot it on,

on. We shot it black and white. And then she showed me how to how to hand paint, and we actually painted everything in by hand. So that was been the same thing as using Photoshop, except it was done. Yeah, you know, that’s why

Charlie Price 17:33
there’s no such thing as, I mean, it’s sort of like, where do you stop? Yeah, because you can’t create an image with your hands. No, it’s a drawing. So anytime you pick up a camera, it’s a machine. So like, where do you where do you draw the line of like, what’s acceptable as a tool and what’s not acceptable. It’s, to me, it’s just a silly conversation. It’s just like, whatever you want to do, and if it’s a competition, the key is just that it has to be judged the right way, and the rules have to be followed, yeah, yeah, there you go. That’s, that’s all. I mean, everybody has to agree to the rules of it or and that’s constitutes the competition. Otherwise, none of it matters at all.

Chris Baran 18:14
Yeah. And that gives me a great segue in here, because, you know, you, you know so many artists that are out there that that do what you do, you know, you do seminars, you do shows, you teach, etc, but you’re one of the few that actually, I mean, you actually put together shows and awards, and that encompasses all the hair and putting it together In incredible venues. You did one at an airplane hangar and all that together, so many there’s so few people that are out there that that can get into it that deep. So what, first of all, number one I got, there’s a whole series I like to chat with in here about but your awards and the shows you put on. What’s it? What is it like? I mean, to jump out of that and to say, I’m going to do a show at an airport hangar, and I’m going to try to figure out how to do that on my own. What was that like?

Charlie Price 19:12
Well, it didn’t just start with that, but what happened was I loved fashion shows from the first time I did one which was at um, in Aspen, actually, when I was like, 18 years old. And that was in like 1988 and it was John Franco, for a who went on to become the first non French person to be at a couture house. And it was right after that, and I did makeup. I didn’t do hair on that particular show because there wasn’t enough makeup artists. And I love doing makeup too. And I just loved the whole fashion show. And once I saw any footage of a really great, world class fashion show, as I was obsessed, and I began to do fashion shows for the mall here because they got a night. We got a nice, small and. Environment. So I went and begged all of the big stores to let me do hair for their fashion shows. And then ultimately, I was in New York Fashion Week and all the stuff. So I wanted to produce my own shows. Because, you know, as a hairdresser, we produce our own segments for hair shows all the time, yeah, because generally, there isn’t anyone else to do it but us, right? And so it’s just another discipline. I mean, I’m a frustrated fashion stylist, I’m a frustrated fashion designer. I’m a frustrated, you know, photographer, all these things. I just like all of that, putting it all together. So what do you do to compensate for the frustration? Then, is it drink? Yes, except I’m on blood thinners now, so I can’t drink. No, me too well, I’m on blood thrones, but I still drink anyway. What the hell that’s?

Chris Baran 20:41
Right, I’m not giving up. I I have, I figured, I look at I give it up. I’m drinking instead of coffee. I’m drinking green tea so I can deserve booze in there somewhere along the line. Oh, so. So when you’re like, when with your your awards, do you? Do? You have a team that works around with you and that you have people that help you with that. How much of that is on your own?

Charlie Price 21:05
Well, I do have a team that create, we create photo shoots together, the beauty underground team. That’s pretty much all we do now is do creative stuff together, whatever that is. We just did a fashion show where I designed the clothes and beauty underground did the hair. It was at that same hanger that you were talking about, the aircraft thing, and I did not produce that show. Oh, we do anything from that. It’s whatever we want to do together. It’s a jam band of hairdressers and whatever we want to do. So, yes, I help them. They help me. But generally we don’t enter the awards anymore, because

I find that I got I went way down, way too far down, a rabbit hole with awards that I felt like, emotionally, I didn’t exist unless I was nominated for something every year. Oh, interesting and it, and I didn’t want to become one of those people that’s needy on social media. That’s like, all they ever post is about the awards, right? It’s like, okay, so you’re kind of like a narcissist, then you just talk about yourself being celebrated every minute of every day, and that’s all you worry about. I’m like, maybe I am that person too, but I don’t want to be so I’m not. I’m stopping that. It’s give. It’s liberated me creatively, because I’m not creating through such a small prism now, of like, what are judges gonna like for this specific season, and this specific thing, like, if I enter the international hairdressing Awards, which I pretty much do every year, I just enter what I have, knowing that they probably, probably won’t fit whatever template that they’re looking for. Because, you know, and I know, and anybody in this world of awards knows that they all have their own flavor, and everything kind of looks the same.

Chris Baran 22:41
Yeah. So the I’m really intrigued by the beauty underground. So how, like, where did that all come from? Where did the beauty underground getting a collective together? Where did that come from?

Charlie Price 22:53
Well, it came from all of us sitting around friends, people you know very well, like Jill lights and Ruth Roach and myself and my friends that worked, we all worked for different product companies. Yeah, I actually was independent. Maybe a couple of us were independent, and we’re like, Okay, well, this one’s too fat, this one’s too sexy, I’m too gay, you’re too this, you’re too that. So let’s just start our own design team and see what happens. Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t really out of even necessarily, any frustration, per se, but it was just about what would happen if we could just do whatever we wanted when that Yeah, and it’s just come gone from there. And it got, it got really, really big, and it was way too many people and very out of control, and I didn’t have enough time or resources or energy or interest in and and managing something that big. So we shut it down for a minute and then relaunched with a lot less people. Yeah, and then, and so do you guys meet regularly? Do you just say, like, what’s the process that you guys go through? Uh, well, two of the people that are in that have started it with me are two of my best friends, one and one’s named Sherina Hansen. She works for Daviness, and we did. We were working on New York Fashion Week together for, like, over 20 years. And then another one is Katie Nielsen, who I met at scruples. And so I talked to them every day, or text them every day. We were just texting before I got on here. And then other people I don’t talk to for months. So it just, you know, but we kind of come together whenever we want. That’s cool thing. So it’s not a, it’s not a mandated thing, nope, because we don’t it’s work for a product line or not, or whatever. And it just doesn’t matter. It’s non denominational, yeah, just so long as you’re creative and fit the gym helps, though, if you’re a serial killer. We I like to work with serial killers.

Chris Baran 24:46
Don’t walk in the woods with them. No, exactly. So okay, let’s jump into like you. Now you get so you did that, and I remember, I’m trying to remember the year, because I remember the first time that you put out the magazine. I. Yeah, the beauty underground. What? No, what? I mean, that’s a serious undertaking. So how did that? How did it come about?

Charlie Price 25:08
Well, it goes back to my desire at the very beginning to to become a hairdresser. Was I loved magazines. I’m obsessed with magazines. I still have a collection of magazines at my garage, and we thought, what would happen if we had a magazine where people could just put whatever they wanted in there, with no ads. There’s no you can just put whatever you want. It can be nudity, it can be smoking, fur. We obviously no racism, no you know, violence against women or children or whatever. You know, nothing immoral in that sense, but freedom to just express. And it sort of became a yearbook, kind of because it looked more like an art book than a than a magazine, and so that was really fun. It’s a lot of work cost. It didn’t cost me tons of money, but it cost me a little bit of money. I used to do two a year. Yeah, and, I mean, Christopher Benson is doing this now. The same thing with his thing called collective ink. It’s fun. I mean, I loved it. I may bring it back. I needed, you know, beauty underground, just I needed to stop everything for a while. It was taking over my life. We had scissors. And we never meant to even, like, it wasn’t like we were going to try to be hakari or somebody, or, you know, Mizutani. It wasn’t like that. It was just like, oh, this is fun to have some merch. Yeah, we had backpacks because one of the women that was in the beauty gun about her husband used to work for TUMI, so he made us these beautiful backpacks. I don’t want to have, like, inventory of stuff. Yeah, I don’t want to have to do, go to these shows and talk this stuff. I mean, I got out of that for a reason, so we just had to have a reboot.

Chris Baran 26:54
You know, like, that’s what I what I found was interesting. And, you know what? Here’s the weirdest part. I was looking through the magazines, and I think the one the magazine I went and I think it was one of the earlier magazines you had on in the digital ones. And you know what? Until you said it right now, I didn’t realize that there was no adverts in there. I was just, it was just page after page after page of fashion and hair and makeup, etc. But what I, we know what, what did strike me was, I was leafing through them, and I there must have been, I don’t know, 190 pages that you had of hair in that one magazine. And I kept thinking, talk about getting value for your money. I thought, I thought it was just that was so much work, such a body of work, into one magazine, I was going No wonder you only do one or two of those years.

Charlie Price 27:47
One of the most the one of the reasons I only did two a year too, is because I would stalk people on Instagram who are famous in other countries. And I really wanted to have as much international representation as possible. So, you know, I would chase them down until they finally let me publish them in our magazine, so that it was really high quality and lots of different styles and points of view. And, you know, of course, I had my old favorites that I wanted, like Damien Carney or Ruth or Shirley Gordon or whoever it was, you know, and asked them to send me stuff regularly, but I was always tracking down the next person that I was interested in. Yeah,

Chris Baran 28:27
yeah. I love it that you just reminded me of a saying that that we had one person that was on on the podcast, and they contacted me and they said, you’re going to be my new best friend, whether you like it or not, that’s kind of what I I came to my brain when you were stalking people saying, this is I want you in my magazine. I’m not going to leave you alone until you give them to me. That’s awesome.

So do you like I looked at a lot of your work on on Instagram in the last while, and and a lot of it is based around what I would was thinking is in a living room, or it’s in a house, etc. Is that your place that you shoot in? Do you have a studio that you bring in stuff?

Charlie Price 29:11
I used to have a photo studio. It was my dream space. After I stopped owning salons, I worked because I was we were traveling a lot with beauty underground, and so I was working very part time in a booth, rent salon, and I and I put feelers out to all my friends. And I said, if you guys know of anybody who owns an industrial building and a client that I could rent like out of the back, like I could have a garage door or whatever. And I found a place that used to be an old photo studio, and that was amazing. We used to do so many things there, and then they shut it down to build a school there was kind of crazy, but then COVID happened, so I have the salon in my house. So now the salon is my studio. A lot of it is in the house or in my garage or around my house if we’re outside, because it’s easier, I just have, I have, like, probably 400 outfits, you know. Have so many things, and it’s all now in my garage because I don’t have a wardrobe closet like I did at the studio, and I had to get rid of a lot of it. I got rid of a whole dumpster full of stuff right before COVID, because I had to vacate the space. But I still have quite a lot.

Chris Baran 30:17
I bet we have something in common. I have this love hate relationship. I hate paying for something that I’m not using. I hate working in a small, cramped box, yet I love working in a cool salon that impresses my clients, and I love the culture and synergy of a team while enjoying the freedom of being my own boss. You too. What if all that was available to you at the salon you rent from meet artist on go, a game changing way to rent salon space. With artist on go, you only pay for the time you’re behind the chair. You can choose a salon that fits your vibe, location and amenities. With artist on go, you’re a part of a stylist community, not hustling alone. Plus you get to enjoy perks like clean towels and back bar supplies. Check out. Artist on go, built for stylists serious about their clients and growing their brand without the hassles of managing a space. Here’s the kicker, you can save more than 50% on your rent to find out more. Go to B, I T, dot L y slash. Artist on go, C, B, that’s B, I T, dot L y slash, artist on go, C, B, CB,

yeah. So do you

your connection to sell? So anybody that’s listening and they say, I want to, I want to be like Charlie one day. I want to be able to shoot the stuff as I need it. What? What’s your connection that you have? Like, do you? Do you have connections with a modeling house, with a because Denver’s got a lot of great models, etc. So how do you get the connection with the models, and how often do you shoot?

Charlie Price 32:06
Well, what have what? What has happened for me is I started way back, like I said, with the mall, and I got involved in a modeling agency, a few of them, and I was doing hair for free for their models to trade. And so I’ve just really worked hard to stay connected to the scene here in Denver. I would not call it an industry. We don’t have a fashion industry in Denver, Colorado, not that it’s bad. We just don’t it’s if we do have an industry, it’s like sports clubs and skiing, you know, so but I’ve made, made pain, taken pains, to make myself available and known and network with people, whether it’s photographers or boutique owners or models. And I was one of the founders of Denver Fashion Week, and I hate I never liked that name. I begged him not to call it Fashion Week, but he caught whatever. Now everybody has a fashion week in the world, you know, but that got really big, and I stopped working with them. But I met tons of people then, so I have a lot of connections with my favorite are people that are wild, that like wild hair, and are, you know, I do work with proper professional models when they occasion calls for it, but I have a sort of, they be, you know, they become your friends. I have a bunch of wild girls that I like to do their hair for free, and they’re just my friends. And we go to dinner, wine after and whatever, and I we do a shoot, you know.

So, yeah, it’s like a little, little, you know, click, or whatever, of people. And I think that’s very natural for a lot of hairdressers anyway, yeah, so, and probably the same as most people, but the difference is, is I really have worked on perpetuating it, because I, I produce a lot of pictures, yeah, how? Well, okay, so, how? If you said I produce a lot of pictures, and there’s somebody else that might be out there saying, Well, I produce a lot of pictures too, because I, I produce six or seven, you know, shoots a year, etc, but you do a whole lot more than that. So how often are you shooting, and what, and what, what brings them on at least once a month. And there’s times when I’ll shoot, like three times a month. But what I’ve been doing with my the friends at beauty underground, as I say, and we also have ebony underground too, which is my colleagues that I was trained by a black hair stylist and a Latino hairstylist. And the guy that trained me that’s black is still one of my best friends now, and he started ebony underground, which is focusing on black hair, and so we’re always doing shoots with all of us. And he lives in Denver still, too. So we do a creative week. So I try to get everybody together and we shoot for like, five days straight. Wow. That happens usually twice a year, but I’ll shoot. I shoot at least once or twice a month, wow. But what I’ve been doing lately is, because I’ve been into photography, is I go back to my.

Archive, and I change things with Photoshop, and it becomes more about art and less about actually producing a fresh shoot for a hairstyle or an outfit that’s really fun to me now, as creating it more of like an art thing, as opposed to like something that I I’m using for the hair industry in any way. So do you do you do your own photography? I have a lot of I have some friends that are photographers that I absolutely love working with because I can focus on just doing the hair. I love that. It’s very luxurious to me. But I’m really into doing photography, and I do it all on my iPhone. Oh, really, that is everything’s on my iPhone. I do. I have started buying lights, and I’m teaching, I’m, you know, focusing more on the light now, and stuff, but, yeah, I do it all with my iPhone. That’s wild. That is absolutely crazy. You know, when you figure out how many people have got, like, $100,000 camera and all the light systems, etc, and you, and you’re doing this, and you’re getting this similar quality with your iPhone, That’s craziness. I mean, don’t ask the photographers. They will say, No, it’s not as good. But I don’t know. I just had an art show this summer with my iPhone pictures, and we blew them up to be like, three feet by four feet, and they looked pretty good to me? Yeah, well, I can honestly say I don’t think I have any of that with my stuff, so I, I take my hat off to you on that one. That’s, that’s, that’s absolutely wild. I don’t know if I should ask you for permission, if I can go here, but,

Chris Baran 36:35
oh, you can ask me anything. Okay, good, okay, good. So what Sheer Genious 2. I’m sure you do get a lot of people asking you about that, but what, number one, what was it like?

Charlie Price 36:46
I loved every second of it, even when I hated it. I loved it. It was, what did you hate about it? I’ve ever had. What did you hate about it? I hated stupid challenges, like where they made me do a dog’s hair and I was supposed to make the person look like a dog. I thought it was kind of demeaning, and they sabotage you. Like, for instance, I got a male dog that was white, and it was like a Latina lady, and I’m supposed to admit, I’m like, well, they’re not anything alike, so I made them, like, a couple, you know, it’s just dumb. It’s just stupid. Yeah, stuff like that made me mad. But, or, like, where, you know, we would do the challenge, and they would stop it, and then the models would be waiting for three hours and be outside in the wind, smoking and their hair is torn up, and they only give you, like, two minutes to fix it, wow, stuff like that. Because that was they would purposely sabotage to get the emotions going, anything to make you

off guard, upset, uncomfortable, frail, sort of like, sort of like, hairdressing, Big Brothers, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Now, what do you think are when in those in the reality shows are, did you feel you were cast to be a part on there? Do they cast people? They figured this person’s going to be this genre, or this person or this here’s the hero, here’s the heroine, here’s the villain. I know you self admitted. Lee said that you were cast as, I’m not cast as but seen as the villain on there was that is that I cast myself as the villain. Oh, I said to them, and when they were casting me, if I’m not the villain, I don’t want to be on the show. Oh, really, that’s awesome, because I love it. They say

she was season one, and I was like, I’m the Tabitha or I don’t want to be on the show.

Oh, cool. Except I was too scary. So people didn’t like me as much as they like Tabitha. They loved her and were scared of me. Oh, really, when you say they, do you mean the audience, or do you mean the contest? A lot of crazy reactions. Listen, it did exactly. I went on this show for a very specific reason, and it was perfect for what I wanted it for, which was to get out from a VEDA. I had just quit a VEDA, and I wanted to move into the just mainstream, which I already had done a little bit, but I wanted to blow up my my profile in hairdressing circles at the big trade shows, and it was perfect. Yeah, and reinvent myself like Madonna, yeah, who’s, who’s who you love, right? Yeah, but I’m, I’m, I’m, she’s so she’s, I don’t like what she’s doing now. I’ll love her always, but she’s a train wreck to me right now. Who do you love now,

I’m trying not to be an old gay and just stick with the people from my generation. So I like, I love Billie Eilish. I love God. Now I’m not going to think of who I love right now, Rodrigo, Olivia. Rodrigo, I love. You know, there’s I’ll probably think of it the minute. We’ve changed the subject, of course, but I try to always find new people that I love, I like, I.

Ah, who is it that I Oh, Miley Cyrus. I always say when there’s a new engineer, singer, like when they discover high fashion, is when I will absolutely love them. So Miley, I liked her, um, when she was in her pizza phase and sticking out her tongue, but now I think she’s amazing. Well, you know, she’s probably not even considered new anymore, and I try to get the newest people possible. But the problem is, I’m on Pandora, and I don’t always look at who they are, right? So I’ll put on, like, Billie Eilish station or whatever, and there’s all these people, but I don’t generally know who they are, but I just think it’s like, kind of and I’m very guilty of this, so I’m I do the same thing that bothers me. I go back to the same well of music all the time, and I’m trying to just have new music too. But style icons, yeah, I love, I love all those girls that I mentioned, and I love Lenny Kravitz still. Oh yeah, like, perfect, Yeah, amazing style music. Everything does, does music. So, I mean, well, yeah, but he looks 40, you know,

Chris Baran 41:19
the the does, I know that art is really inspires you. Does music have any influence on you in what you create?

Charlie Price 41:28
I can’t do a photo shoot without music going so I put the music that goes with the shoot that we’re doing interesting. So if it’s goth, or if it’s electronic, or if it’s whatever it is, I it has to fit heavy metal, you know, whatever heavy metal. I mean, it’s, it’s a little hard to work to heavy metal. It’s a little crazy, but, well, it especially for an extended period of time.

Chris Baran 41:58
Yes, it, you know, I mean, I’m sure there’s, this is one. I mean, I think this is a kind of a difficult question, but I don’t think so for you, because you know, when you’re on stage all the time or doing photographs, etc, you acquire fans and and then if your fans, if your fans, if we had to go up to one of your fans and say, tell us about Charlie. What would what would they say?

Charlie Price 42:24
They would say, I tell it like it is, and I say things that most people are scared to say, Ah, interesting. So just what speaking your mind or saying, Here’s what it is, yeah, yeah. I just, I don’t have a i, I can be very diplomatic when I want to be, but I can also be

brutally frank. Like my idols are Joan Rivers, Sarah Silverman and Sandra Barnhart, very caustic Jewish comedians. Yeah. So that’s I’m the gay male version of that, the goy version of that, non Jewish. Yeah, it’s interesting, though, how, you know, I think that being Canadian sarcasm is really big in in our culture as well. I mean, it’s gentle. You guys aren’t mean like we are. Americans are so much meaner.

Chris Baran 43:19
Well, I think that’s the part, is what we call it, taking the piss and, and you only, you only take the piss out of people that you really like, and, but you would, you would, I would never say, Charlie, you know, I love you man. But you know, I you, if you’re somebody who’s your friend, you you just bug the hell out of them, yeah, you know. And you’re always taken, that’s fine, yeah. So it’s, and it’s, that’s one thing I do find and here, but don’t you find is different from one coast to the other. Like, if you can go, you can go to the east coast at least, and I, and it might be just my canadianism showing here, but you go to the east coast and and you go to New York, and they either won’t talk to you or whatever, but you go to the go to LA or whatever, and people always talk to you, but it doesn’t mean that they’re gonna you’re gonna get you’re gonna be homeboys with them. Yes, everybody, yeah. We definitely are regional,

Charlie Price 44:12
and I’m definitely a citizen of the West, although people never look at maps and they don’t know where Colorado is. Sometimes they think it’s the Midwest, but it’s it absolutely is not the Midwest where one stayed away from Mexico and one from California, and you’re right about me, yeah, in Arizona, yeah. So, so yes. I mean, yes, it’s true. But the thing about New Yorkers being not nice, I think it’s the opposite. I think people in LA are meaner and people in New York are nicer.

Chris Baran 44:40
Yeah, somebody told me the other day, they said that you you’re, how did they put it, that if you go to New York, because everybody was saying that people aren’t nice in New York, they’re there, they are, but they’re just in a hurry and but the way that this person put it, I’m going to mess this up, but they said, if you go to New York. People are. They’re not necessarily nice, but they’re kind, meaning that you’re not going to stop and just run around. But if somebody stops you, you’ll help somebody till the end of the earth. But if you go to they their words, not mine, is that in LA or etc, if you go, the more west you go, that people will say, We got to get together. We’ll do this, but that they have no intention of of ever getting it together with you. It’s just things to say, as opposed to That’s true. Yeah, interesting.

Charlie Price 45:30
So I don’t think Denver’s pretty. I love Denver, and I don’t mean to talk badly about my hometown, but I don’t think it’s a friendly city. Oh, really, we’re kind of, like, crazy wild west here, like anything goes. We were the first ones to have pot, yeah. And we’re very schizophrenic, you know, like, politically, it’s very right wing on one side of the mountains and very much more liberal on the east side of the mountains where I live. And, you know, we’re, we have, we seem to be connected to every hot button thing that happens, whether it’s school shootings or we invented cable TV here in Denver, like all kinds of weird things. But I would say that it’s not a warm, friendly walk down the street instead of having everybody kind of place.

Chris Baran 46:18
Got it. I guess my experience is just like this. I I’ve never spent a lot of time in Denver other than maybe doing a show and then leaving town. But people that I know like like you and Jill, and other people that I know from that Denver area are always really nice people that will sit down and have a great conversation with you. So that’s my that’s why I believe mean

Charlie Price 46:42
over friendly, like in the grocery store, or it’s not like in the south, where they’re like, Hi. Y’all say hi to your mama. I’ll see you at church. We don’t really like, I don’t even know my neighbors. I don’t know their names. Yeah. Wow, that’s interesting. Yeah. So Okay, let’s talk a little bit about about you and your growth. Do you I talked to a lot of people on this in this podcast, and the one thing that always comes up is about imposter syndrome. Do you ever suffer from that? I think everybody should suffer from imposter syndrome, because if you don’t, you’re a sociopath. Yeah, interesting. There’s something about this now, this whole movement of like imposter syndrome and anxiety and no, of course, we have a mental health epidemic, and it can be connected to social media and all kinds of other stuff. But just, you know, anxiety is good because it lets you know something’s wrong and you can adjust it. Yeah, so it’s, it’s kind of like your body’s alarm for something being wrong. And imposter syndrome is good because you should be nervous sometimes, or, you know, you should feel and not, I don’t want to say inadequate, but if you’re just completely supremely confident, you’re probably kind of an asshole. You know, that’s how they describe people that are overly confident. Is that cocky, arrogant asshole? So having imposter syndrome, but also people use it as a way to fish for compliments. Too, true, true. And it’s, I can’t deal with that. Yeah, yeah, no. It’s, it’s true, because really, imposter syndrome is feeling it You’re a fraud, on occasion and so on, right? But, you know, it’s sometimes interesting that people will will speak negatively about themselves, just so that other people will bolster them back up again. That’s interesting.

Chris Baran 48:35
What pushes you

Unknown Speaker 48:38
right now? What I’m 55 I’ve been doing hair for almost 40 years. So right now what I want to do is I want to be liberated in my creativity, and I have paid my dues. So now I just want to do things that I really, really enjoy, and travel and spend time with my family and my spouse and spend time in my house. I don’t want to push too hard. Yeah? I want to. I want to enjoy my life before I’m really old, because I do want to live to be really old. So when I have a long time of having fun, yeah, good.

Chris Baran 49:15
I like I like that, I’m going to write that down, and I’m going to adopt that the so but to that not a lot of times on this, I want to make sure that people know that people like you, that that have risen to the top of the game, that it wasn’t always fun and roses. Because I always feel that everybody looks at people that have made it in our industry and they think, Oh, it must have been easy. They rose to the trop. They’ve got all they’ve got all the things on their side. Everything happened. It’ll never happen to me and and, but was there, was there difficult times in your rise up? Was there things that that hit you and were tough on you on the rise? So many things, so many things, I will say in.

Charlie Price 49:59
Not so much in the salon. I didn’t find the salon life particularly challenging, other than just to get get good skill wise and to learn how to talk to people and stuff like that. But that was, you know, kind of fun. I didn’t I really hated managing people when I owned salons. I really hated it, and I don’t think I was a very good manager. I think I created a lot of really great opportunities for people, and I gave them an opportunity to make a lot of money, which most of them didn’t take advantage of. But things that happened to me outside of the salon were much harder. Like doing New York Fashion Week was really, really brutal that people would expect things, but not communicate. We’re just not nice, like, very, very mean. I just would say mean, and it’s okay. I mean, I still would go. I mean, I really cherish those experiences of working backstage on really major fashion shows, and I did it for many years, but even when I was the lead, not assisting, working with fashion designers and sponsoring shows, was really difficult. It’s not a nice world. The fashion world is not, is very beyond bitchy, like just this really abusive. I would call it abusive. I just wanted it so bad that I’m like, you can’t hurt me, but they did, but I don’t, but I don’t, like, want to be a victim or act like I was traumatized. I wouldn’t call it trauma, because I kept going back, yeah, you know, yeah. But I can tell you stories, and I think I’ve been treated pretty poorly by a lot of people in the industry. You know, some of the best of them have treated me like shit. So I’ve got real I got really strong from

Yeah, strong is like, thick skin.

I don’t know if I would have thick skin, but I could survive it, I guess is what I would say. Because it always, you know, whenever you’re treated poorly by somebody, it hurts, yeah, but I was like, I was like, I would not give them the satisfaction of destroying me, yeah, or seeing you hurt, yeah? And also, I would say, really hard thing in the hair industry, for me was the abuse of gay people in the higher end of product, yeah, world and distribution and stuff, there’s a lot of really not nice straight men, yeah, religious right wing straight men that don’t like gay people, and they let you know of it, that’s sad, and I don’t like that, and I let them know I didn’t like it. For you, that’s why I kind of work at corporations. I don’t, I don’t deal with, I don’t deal with anything like that.

Chris Baran 52:37
Yeah, yeah. It’s, you know, it’s just sad, especially now. There’s such a turnaround with that right now as well, that people are sort of, well, sort of, kind of let, well, let’s hope it’s a beginning then, right?

Charlie Price 52:50
Weird, because it’s like in a small world, yeah, it’s like in the small in the in the larger sense, yes, it’s super. I mean, Ulta has got people in drag, on their stages, and Instagram and totally, they’re all gay all the time, but they’re not necessarily running the companies now. I mean, you know, like Shane at Aveda is gay. And then there’s lots of like, Ruben coronaza, one of the big executives of all time, of the hair industry, gay. So there’s gay people around, yeah, but I don’t know corporate you know whether they’re gay or not corporate people, and I’m not. I’m not referring to those two people, but

corporations, by by the nature, want to control people, because they want to control their product, right? So it’s not all bad. I don’t mean every corporation is bad. So I want to be clear, and I say that I loved my relationship working at a founder, a lot of people in the networks that were nasty, yeah, yeah.

Chris Baran 53:47
But, and hopefully it’ll, it’ll, it’ll, sooner or later, everything will kind of even out, you know, where I just think that, you know, when they had that you have the people that are negative in that way, and then, and then people that are good within the organization, try to make it so here we’re going to make some inroads,

and eventually it’s got to even out. It might take, well, hopefully it’s not going to take decades, but whether it’s years or whatever, you’ve got to have a change of mindset where people are just much more open and willing and accepting.

Charlie Price 54:19
You know, they’ll always be people that are picked on. I mean, that’s just human nature. There’s always going to be somebody and the left, the left people, you know, I get really, I get in trouble with the liberals all the time, because we’re not a monolith. And if I don’t agree with something, I say, I don’t agree with it, and then they get really mad at me. So I don’t really care. I don’t care about them either.

Chris Baran 54:40
I think what I think, and that’s it, you know, yeah, well, and maybe that’s what world needs more of, is just people telling them what do they think, rather than just agreeing

Charlie Price 54:47
with everything? Yeah, so. But also not fighting. I don’t, I don’t really want to fight with people either. That’s I’m tired of that too. Social media and stuff. Fighting is just really boring now.

Chris Baran 55:00
Yeah, well, but don’t you, wouldn’t you agree that that’s the one thing about social media, etc, or anytime that you don’t have a direct face to face contact with somebody, that’s where you can, you can get that passive aggressiveness just comes out. And everybody just feels that they can say anything that they want to, just because there’s no repercussion, you know? So that’s, it. That’s the downside of what I see in there.

Charlie Price 55:24
But there’s lots of that. That’s why I just block people. I’m definitely a big I believe in blocking, yeah, yeah. And there’s been lots of that lately, believe me, jeez.

Chris Baran 55:35
Anyway, we can kind of this rapid, rapid fire segment, and I have to say, this has been just two tons of fun on here. Yes, but on this, quick questions, quick answers,

what turns you on in the creative process,

Charlie Price 55:51
creating an image

Chris Baran 55:53
and what stifles the creativity

Charlie Price 55:57
not being prepared

Chris Baran 56:01
in life in general, what do you love the most?

Charlie Price 56:05
Honesty

Chris Baran 56:07
and what do you dislike the most

Charlie Price 56:09
bigotry.

Chris Baran 56:12
‘What’sthe thing that you love most about our industry?

Charlie Price 56:16
Creativity

Chris Baran 56:17
and what do you dislike about it?

Charlie Price 56:22
Salon, suites,

Chris Baran 56:26
a person that you admire the most,

Charlie Price 56:31
probably my husband,

Chris Baran 56:34
most prized possession,

Charlie Price 56:36
my health, a

Chris Baran 56:39
person you wish you could meet

Charlie Price 56:45
Barack Obama.

Chris Baran 56:48
We’re putting that out there. Now, yes, I know when, when, when Barack Obama listens to my podcast and he has a lot of free time. Now, yes, he does, yes,

something that people don’t know about you,

Charlie Price 57:05
that I’m nice.

Chris Baran 57:06
Ah, there you go. I could have told him that

a month off, where would you go and what would you do?

Charlie Price 57:13
I would go to Europe and just eat and rest and take a lot of pictures.

Chris Baran 57:22
Love it, something you’re terrified of heights. Me too. Me too. Favorite curse word, Bucha. Favorite comfort food, spaghetti,

something in the industry that you haven’t done but you want to. I two

Charlie Price 57:45
more collaborations, just with people that I haven’t collaborated with. Love it.

Chris Baran 57:50
If you had one do over one thing, you could change do it over again. What would that be?

Charlie Price 57:56
Nothing, nothing.

Chris Baran 57:58
Love it tomorrow, you couldn’t do hair or anything to do with the hair industry. What would you do

Charlie Price 58:04
photography?

Chris Baran 58:07
So I’ve got one more question for you, but I just wanted to say this first,, is that it’s been an absolute pleasure on you, on having you on the program. Next time that I’m in Denver, we’re going to have a cocktail together and go and take this a lot deeper. But for those people that are listening and watching right watching right now, if you guys, we’d love it. If you guys could you know whatever medium that you’re on, if you could just give us a comment or a like or, even better, still subscribe to it, just so we can get more people that will more connection, that can get to incredible podcasts, just like we had with Mr. Charlie. That’s on here right now. And I last thing, Charlie, if you had one wish for our industry, what would it be?

Charlie Price 58:59
I want, I want people to understand that they have the power. Hairdressers have the power no one else. It’s not we love product companies. We love all of that. I love products, but we have the power. The hairdresser has the power. Love it. Love it. Charlie,

Chris Baran 59:16
it’s been a real blast on here. I love it. I love that you have that bit of irreverence about you and that you are a kind person as well. So thank you so much for being on here. So much fun. Thank you.

head cases is produced by cut action media, with Marjorie Phillips doing the planning parts, Lee Baran on the video bits, and Adrian Taverner mixing the audio jazz you.