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Roger T. Pipe Damn. I chose the wrong line of work.
Gregg Alan You’re doing fine for yourself.
Roger T. Pipe Yeah well. We are here with Gregg Alan, the owner of Diabolic video.
Gregg Alan Actually I am co-owner of both Anabolic and Diabolic. Chris and I are partners.
Roger T. Pipe So are the companies separate?
Gregg Alan They are separate companies, but we co-own them both.
Roger T. Pipe That way you avoid the whole competition thing.
Gregg Alan That’s right.
Roger T. Pipe How did you start out in the industry?
Gregg Alan I have known people in this business since I was fourteen years old. I started out working in the warehouse at Zane while I was still in college. That’s when I first met Chris. When he first started Anabolic, he shipped out of that warehouse.
Roger T. Pipe To give us a timeline, what year was this?
Gregg Alan This was 1991.
Roger T. Pipe Chris had already been a performer in the industry for a while.
Gregg Alan He was a trench man yes. He had started Anabolic and had a few titles out.
Roger T. Pipe And you were in college.
Gregg Alan Yes, I went to college to become a stockbroker. I got my series 7 license, majored in econ minored in finance and accounting. I was definitely not going towards porndom. I had planned to go to New York as soon as I was finished with school and become a stockbroker. Chris and I became good friends and he asked me if I wanted to help him get this (Anabolic) started while I was still here. I did that and after six months it was going very well. At that point he told me that he would like me to stay. That’s how it started.
Roger T. Pipe You went from helping him start the company to co-owner very quickly, how did that happen?
Gregg Alan Chris is a very unique individual. He is a guy who appreciates everything. In eleven years we have never had a single argument. We have had discussions, but it’s just like I’m talking to you now. He makes a suggestion, I make a suggestion, it’s very calm. He started out as a two hundred dollar a scene actor, was selling scenes for five hundred or whatever and once he started doing better, he gave me a lot of the credit. He was doing most of the production and I was doing most of the day to day business side. What makes him unique is that whatever he achieved, he felt that I should have also. That’s extremely unique and quite special. It’s amazing to find that in any person, but especially in this industry. From day one, it was all about us and not about him. He is my best friend, his wife is one of my best friends and that is so rare. One day he just walked up and said “you no longer work for me, we’re partners.” He had never treated me like I worked for him, but that was how it happened.
Roger T. Pipe Could you have imagined that it would have become this big?
Gregg Alan No way. I saw potential obviously, but even with my background I couldn’t have imagined the success we have today.
Roger T. Pipe Were you doing the sales work in the early days of Anabolic?
Gregg Alan I still do. I do all the sales for the companies.
Roger T. Pipe But now you guys have such name recognition and such quality product that stores need your movies.
Gregg Alan Need, want and ask. It’s a good position to be in.
Roger T. Pipe In the beginning, it had to be tougher.
Gregg Alan It was tough. At that time I had very little sales experience. My parents owned a sporting goods store and I worked there as a kid. That’s not a lot of sales experience. When I worked as a shipper, I got to know all of the customers and I was blessed by something fortunate. No one in the industry seemed to like the guy that Chris had doing his sales, so the first time I went to sell a movie I sold six hundred more pieces than he did. They were just happy to talk to a guy who wasn’t treating them like shit. It has always been common in this industry to have a new title at full price go to catalog in three months and be two bucks. We never did that. It took a while for people to figure it out, but now they know that we don’t do that. There really isn’t a lot of sales work domestically now. Most of my sales work is foreign because they are all new customers. When I started Diabolic, even though it was coming from the same people, I did have to do some sales again.
Roger T. Pipe It is fairly common in this industry for a company to split off and have the product not be the same.
Gregg Alan Yes it is, but that’s because of the unhappy partner. We didn’t have that.
Roger T. Pipe There are also the companies that break off and produce cheaper product than the parent company.
Gregg Alan That’s something else we had to fight. Now that we have established Diabolic, the two go hand in hand. My customers know that and the fans know that.
Roger T. Pipe You built the company up fairly quickly. When did you start Diabolic?
Gregg Alan January 15th, 1998 was my first release. We are coming up on four years.
Roger T. Pipe That’s a lot to accomplish in a short time. It took Anabolic a long time to get to this level.
Gregg Alan It did, but all of the money that was made early on, was put right back into the production. That really lead to our success and now we are reaping the benefits. We were talking the other day about the new administration and what it might mean for companies like ours. The potential trouble because we are in that gray area. Finally we are here where we can actually do well for ourselves and now we have this potential problem. Knock on wood, we haven’t had any problems. It’s been eleven years of hard work and it can all go in an instant.
Roger T. Pipe Why did you want to start Diabolic?
Gregg Alan Originally I wanted something that was mine and Chris wanted something that was his. After a while we realized that this was crazy. It was ours. Everything we do is ours. We are partners, so the intent changed quickly. It allowed us to release more stuff with a different name. We thought that five titles from one company was a lot. We’ve since learned that it really isn’t. Other companies in our genre, Elegant, Evil Angel and the like are doing eight to ten. We also had a number of great performers who wanted a shot at directing. At that time Chris was making two movies a month and there wasn’t a lot of room for someone else. We decided to start Diabolic and give the performers a chance to direct.
Roger T. Pipe At that time you were doing camera work as well.
Gregg Alan Yes I was.
Roger T. Pipe I’ve gotten pretty familiar with you guys over the years and it strikes me that most people who work for you do a little bit of everything.
Gregg Alan We really consider it a team. I do shoot camera and I consider it a nice break from what I do for a living. I direct Gang Bang Auditions and it’s a nice get away. I don’t have the time or desire to do too much more than I do. It’s not where I am going to make the most money which is how I can provide money for the budgets to let other directors make the best movies possible. I know where my strength is, but it’s a nice side thing.
Roger T. Pipe Just a hobby.
Gregg Alan Exactly, a little hobby.
Roger T. Pipe Have a girl over, invite five guys to fuck the shit out of her, just a hobby.
Gregg Alan It’s just a nice little romantic scene with some double A.
Roger T. Pipe Was Gang Bang Auditions the first movie you directed?
Gregg Alan Yes it was. I had been on a lot of sets. That movie was early on, the second Diabolic release. It was before Mike John, who I think is God in this industry now.
Roger T. Pipe Who was shooting most of the camera then?
Gregg Alan It was Chris, his wife Suzanne and myself. We had Jean-Yves LeCastel and Sean Michaels directing for us as well.
Roger T. Pipe And now who does it?
Gregg Alan Now it’s Mike John, Chris, Lex and Erik Everhard. Mike is my second camera on the Auditions.
Roger T. Pipe How did Mike come into the picture?
Gregg Alan We were shooting World Sex Tour in Costa Rica. We were having a hard time finding talent. We were going into massage parlors and bars and they told us about this guy from the US who lived down there. They said he was a big fan of our company and sent us to talk to him. He was living down there, surfing every day and dealing with the girls because he’s a sick pervert. Mike and I clicked right away. He is one of my dearest friends and it was an instant connection. He was from Venice, living in Costa Rica, he knows all about our product already and he had contacts with the local girls. He helped us and we told him to look us up when he got back to town. When he came back, Mike started shooting camera for Sean Michaels. They hit it off as well. It’s funny because he was nowhere near to level he is today. I joke with him because I taught him how to turn a camera on. He has taken it to a whole new level.
Roger T. Pipe Diabolic gave Mike his first line right?
Gregg Alan Yes. I am a big fan of Latin women. Mike had already been shooting scenes for himself down there. They were things he had planed to watch when he is sixty years old to remember the fun he had. He wasn’t looking to be a director or anything. There was no one shooting Latin woman with any kind of quality talent. I told him not to shoot them just for himself, but to let me pay you to do it and we will distribute it. The whole thing came about while we were just talking in the parking lot. In ten minutes he had his own line and I had a new director.
Roger T. Pipe Now he is one of the most respected shooters in the business.
Gregg Alan He has developed quite a fan base. The feedback we get on his stuff is unbelievable.
Roger T. Pipe I was just watching a World Sex Tour DVD and it has this horrible footage of you and Vince in the hospital, can we touch on that a bit.
Gregg Alan Sure, I haven’t seen that footage in a while.
Roger T. Pipe You guys were in serious trouble.
Gregg Alan I grew up in a pretty rough environment and I had been in situations like that before. I’m not proud of that. It’s been a while since I’ve told the story.
Roger T. Pipe Would you mind telling it again for those who may not have heard it?
Gregg Alan For you? No, not at all Rog.
Roger T. Pipe How long ago was it?
Gregg Alan September 8th was three years.
Roger T. Pipe And this was an incident involving you and Vince while you were shooting in Budapest.
Gregg Alan Yes. It was really a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s kind of amusing to me because I’ve always been in pretty good shape, but if you look at Vince he looks like a man in perfect shape. I remember that night distinctly. I drank and smoked ungodly amounts of cigarettes. Vince wouldn’t smoke a cigarette and he didn’t really drink much. I remember him starting a fight with a big guy. He seemed to be getting the better of the guy so I just stayed out of it. I have never been the kind of person to gang up on someone. When I saw the guy reach into his pocket and pull out the knife, I immediately punched and kicked him. He was obviously on some sort of drugs. I’ve been in kickboxing since I was eight years old. When I kick someone, I know what it does to them. I had boots on and it didn’t even faze him. I pulled Vince away from him and started running. As I was pulling him away he took a swipe at me. I saw the blood, but initially I thought I had just been sliced a little. Later we found out that it went in six inches and missed my heart by an eighth of an inch. Vince started running and I was following him. Eventually I passed him and we turned down a street. I heard a car screeching and reversed. The next thing I know, I’m passing Vince again. I heard Vince call for help and turned around. There were three guys on him. One guy had stayed by the car, but the other three were kicking and stabbing him. I ran back towards them. One guy came at me, I ducked him. Another guy came and I punched him. I hit another guy and as I was about to kick him in the head, the guy with the knife came up and stabbed me. Now both of us were in deep shit. Vince was unconscious, I thought he was dead. I had been stabbed in the leg and there was no more fight in me. Thank God, but for whatever reason they left. The guy probably thought they had just killed Vince. I remember seeing a lot of blood coming across his neck. I was sure they had cut his throat. I ripped his shirt open and saw that the blood was coming from his shoulder. That’s when I knew that I was in trouble. I bent over and saw blood shooting out of my chest. I picked Vince up and carried him to the main street. Thank God he came to after about twenty steps. We went to a cab driver and asked him to take us to the hospital. He wouldn’t and we had to fight with him to get him to call an ambulance. That was when I realized that we were both in really bad shape. We left an amazing amount of blood on that street. I said to myself at that moment that all I wanted was to be at home with my wife and kids. I felt if I passed out, that I wouldn’t wake up. I fell back and went out for a split second. As soon as my head hit the concrete, I woke back up and stayed up for two and a half days.
Roger T. Pipe Wow, that had to be terrifying. Have you been back to Budapest?
Gregg Alan I have been back once.
Roger T. Pipe Do a lot of late night drinking?
Gregg Alan That could have been avoided. We had some miscommunication and went out alone. As long as you know where to go things will be fine. We just found ourselves in the wrong situation.
Roger T. Pipe We’re glad you’re OK. Just don’t watch the footage. That hospital didn’t exactly look like a state of the art medical facility.
Gregg Alan When they carried me in from the ambulance, I had lost half the blood in my body. I refused to have a transfusion though. I said if I am going to die, give me blood, otherwise don’t give me blood. The first thing they wanted to do was open my chest up. When they wheeled me in, the operating room was right near the front door. There were no doors on the operating room and the front doors were constantly open to the outside. You know that the OR wasn’t as sanitary as it should have been. When they lifted me from the gurney, the guy at my feet had a cigarette in his mouth with a two inch ash hanging from the tip. No one spoke English so I had no idea how much trouble I was in. They could have been saying anything for all I know. They stuck this thing in my chest and started opening me up. I was looking at the inside of my chest and they hadn’t given me any pain medication. I started screaming and they reacted. The next day I had about thirty bruises from where they stuck the needles in me to kill the pain. They thought I had been given medication in the ambulance. I swear the place was like a World War II ward. They gave us bread and water. When they moved us to our room, we had twenty four hour cops watching us. We had our beds stacked up next to each other and a cop by each bed. Where did they think we were going? It’s not like we were going to run out of there. Then I saw a rat and that was it. Chris came to visit us. I asked him if we were being held there or were under arrest. He said no and I told him that I was walking the fuck out in exactly one hour. We got out of there.
Roger T. Pipe How long did you stay?
Gregg Alan We couldn’t fly right away, so we went back to work. The day after we got out of the hospital, I was shooting camera and Vince was fucking. Chris had to watch out for me. I had lost so much blood that I was a little shaky on my feet. That was an experience I will never forget. I hope everyone enjoyed the movie because we sacrificed a lot for that one.
Roger T. Pipe Thank you for that story. Let’s move on to a more positive subject. Back to the early days of Anabolic, It seems that the Gang Bang Girl became the signature line.
Gregg Alan Absolutely, Chris pioneered the gang bang genre. That is what we are most known for along with the World Sex Tour.
Roger T. Pipe You guys are also one of the only companies where interracial sex isn’t done just for the sake of being interracial sex.
Gregg Alan Some companies market their product that way, but we don’t. A lot of people don’t like the way we do things, but we only have faith in a handful of guys. For a long time, it has been Vince Vouyer, Erik Everhard, Mr. Marcus, Mark Davis and Lexington Steele. If we’re going to shoot a three way, we’re going to call two of our guys it really doesn’t matter who. By most people’s standards, we are an interracial company because we shoot them almost all the time. For us, we are using the best guys in the business.
Roger T. Pipe But it’s just using the best talent rather than using interracial as a marketing tool?
Gregg Alan That’s it. It’s just about using the best. I’ve heard from people that male talent considers us the pinnacle. When you can work for us, then you have reached the top.
Roger T. Pipe The same is true for your directors.
Gregg Alan We really have grown as a team. Our early stuff was good, probably better than a lot of what was being made at the time, but it’s so far from what we’re doing now.
Roger T. Pipe How many of the lines were your idea?
Gregg Alan I came up with Gang Bang Auditions.
Roger T. Pipe What were you going for with that?
Gregg Alan I was looking for something to play off the success of the Gang Bang Girl line. No one was shooting 5 on 1s at the time. We figured if we used fewer guys then there would be less fighting over the girl. We could turn the guys loose a little more and we could find out if the girl could take being a Gang Bang Girl. People love it.
Roger T. Pipe There are a lot of fans who think that even in a well shot gang bang, that there is a whole lot of guy footage.
Gregg Alan There is a whole lot of guy footage because there are a whole lot of guys.
Roger T. Pipe Too much man-ass
Gregg Alan Lots of man-ass and stroking dick. In the 5 on 1 you can see more of the girl.
Roger T. Pipe What about the other lines?
Gregg Alan A lot of the lines I came up with along with Mike. I’ve always been a fan of Latin women. My wife is Latin and to me they are the most beautiful women in the world. Mike agrees, so Panochitas was a natural. We are also both big fans of swallowing. If a woman is going to want you to fuck her for an hour, the whole point of that is so you can pull out and cum down her throat. That’s the whole reason we sweat on top of them like pigs. They have to eat the cum, hence Down the Hatch. Mike will not let any girl get away with out that. It’s always something I have believed in, but he is more extreme about it than I am. So some of the lines come from things we like. We also listen to feedback. Fans write us and we actually read them. You have to stay in tune with the people watching your product. We also read what reviewers have to say. They watch movies from a lot more companies than we do and can often point things out that we can improve on. It’s nice to get an opinion from someone who watches all kinds of porn. I would say that almost every one of these lines were mostly thought up with input from me, Mike, Chris, Suzanne and everyone talking around the office. Everything with us is truly a team effort.
Roger T. Pipe We should probably at least hit on the Rough Sex videos. Whose idea was that?
Gregg Alan That was the brainchild of a very good friend of ours. He is someone from outside the industry and is a well respected person in society. He didn’t need the money, but he lives that lifestyle. He came to the office and we started talking. That’s how things get done at our company.
Roger T. Pipe Two were made. Did you see the first movie before you gave a green light to the second?
Gregg Alan Yes.
Roger T. Pipe So you knew what you had on your hands. The feedback was instantaneous and severe. Most people felt that it was way too much?
Gregg Alan Yes. One of the biggest problems we had with that movie was our title integrity. We call it what it is. Had we called it something else, people might not have noticed. Let’s face, it there are things out there that are much rougher than Rough Sex, but the title drew a lot of attention.
Roger T. Pipe The combination of bondage and hard core sex has always been a line you don’t cross.
Gregg Alan And we did push the envelope with that.
Roger T. Pipe There are a lot of fans of those movies and I know from talking to store owners that the line would have made you guys a lot of money.
Gregg Alan That’s true.
Roger T. Pipe Then why cancel it?
Gregg Alan I do a lot of the sales work so I saw the benefit of the movies. Rough sex, smacking a woman, choking a woman, it’s not my thing. Everyone should be allowed to express themselves sexually though. All of the girls who were in the movies live that lifestyle to an extent. That line was breaking new ground. We were doing something that the industry wasn’t ready for.
Roger T. Pipe Any plans to bring it back?
Gregg Alan It’s dead forever. I would like to bring it back. It woke me up and showed me things I had never seen before. Here is the thing. Chris and I have a lot of people that depend on us, that we provide income for. You get a lawsuit over something like this, it could really hurt. For the well being of the company and the people who bust their ass every day for us, we have killed it. The benefits don’t outweigh the risk.
Roger T. Pipe One last thing and then I’ll let you go. Did you green light Perverted Point of View.
Gregg Alan Yes I did.
Roger T. Pipe How the hell did Mike convince you to pay him to pay girls to fuck him?
Gregg Alan (He laughs) If you will reflect on some of the things we talked about, it was a team effort. There are a lot of people shooting point of view stuff now. The guy who started it was Rodney Moore. We like to improve on anything we do. The whole point is that Mike is so good with the camera. Originally I didn’t care for the idea because it’s so hard to shoot those. I told him to go ahead and shoot a few scenes and when I saw them, it was clear we had something great.
Roger T. Pipe But still, what an idea to sell the boss.
Gregg Alan He really should be paying me to let him shoot it, but he works hard and immediately people were attracted to it. It makes people feel like they have the potential to achieve this sort of thing. That’s how the Dirty Debutante guy sells tapes, he’s a regular guy fucking hot chicks.
Roger T. Pipe Isn’t that the only reason to do porn?
Gregg Alan I always tell the guys here, I’m married and I can’t do shoot like they do, but if I did it would be a no brainer. If I’m Lex or Erik and there is a room full of girls for the movie, there should be no question who is fucking the hottest chick. You’re righting the damn check here. Whatever want you want to hit, that’s the one you should have. Mike took that to the extreme and kept all of them for himself.
Roger T. Pipe Thanks to you he has the greatest job in the world so I hope he sent you a nice Christmas card.
Gregg Alan He thanks me by making great movies.
Roger T. Pipe Is there anything you want to say to the fans before I let you go?
Gregg Alan I would like to thank the fans for the overwhelmingly positive feedback we get. I would like to really thank you for providing the unbiased reviews you give us. They are generally favorable, but when we do something you don’t agree with, you’re quick to point it out. I respect that because most guys review tapes without actually watching them. That’s frustrating and we try not to send them review tapes. We don’t do a lot of media stuff, but you’ve always been fair and we love dealing with you.
Roger T. Pipe I do want to plug this in quickly. This is a very rare interview and I appreciate it on behalf of my readers and myself.
Gregg Alan Rare, yeah. I did a brief interview with you a couple of years ago. Other than that, this is the first interview I’ve ever given and I wouldn’t have given it to anyone else.
Roger T. Pipe Again, thank you. Congratulations on the success.
Gregg Alan None of it would be possible without the fans. Thank you all.
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