Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

IIIIoro XXX'S Jordan Bums By Matt FreeIllan he first time I saw Jordan Burns was at the premiere of Moto XXX in Mammoth Mountain, California, in the summer of '96. Jordan and his punkrock band Strung Out were at the Mammoth Mountain Motocross to promote the video, and promote they did. In the basement of a little Mexican restaurant, which doubled as the establishment's bar, Moto XXX played on three television screens to a full house. At the back door and even at the windows were underage kids trying to sneak in so they too could check out the new film. Some of them got in and some of them got thrown out. The ones who di~ end up back in the parking lot missed out on one hell of a video and show. After the video, Strung Out took to the small stage and played a set. Trying to see the band, I pulled up a chair and stood on it in the corner of the room. They played hard, they played fast, I fell off the chair and spilled my beer on Kawasaki off-road racer Dave Ondas. He didn't care, though; he was into the music. Later that night the friends that I came with, Cameron and Kim, returned to our room, but I decided to stay because a fellow desert racer (his name I can't remember) was buying drinks on his plastic. I should have left earlier. In the freezing Mammoth night, I stumbled back to our hotel and made it as far as the bathroom floor, where I slept all night. The entire thing was a true punk show experience with a killer motocross video thrown in for good measure. I saw Strung Out about a year after that in a place in Riverside, California, that doesn't even exist anymore called the Barn. Since then, Jordan and company had put out another Moto XXX video and formed a Supercross/motocross team. Then, just before the '99 Supercross series started, Moto XXX 3 debuted at the Palace in Hollywood, a far cry from the first video's debut. The Palace was packed that night and not only did Strung Out play, but so did NOFX. Punk rock and motorcycles - how could you go wrong with two of my favorite things? T Musicians, film make Haller are in for the I rs, team owners Erik Sand" just a box van. ong Supercross and mot In, JOrdan Burns and k rt ocross haUl be it " u. , In a semi or Japanese motocross circuit, Kyle Lewis will be the lone rider to represent one of the most unknown and infamous privateer teams in the professional pits. As for another installment of the video that introduced '90s punk rock into the motocross world - Moto XXX 4 is due out early this year, but it's been a tough row to hoe. The first time I actually met Jordan face to face Start from the beginning. was at the ESPN X-Games in San Francisco last year. We were both there to judge the freestyle The way Moto XXX started was me and Erik Sandin from NOFX had this idea that we wanted to make a motocross video after we -saw a bunch of other cheesy videos. This was before we knew anything about Crusty Demons of Dirt or anything. We started filming and we thought we knew what we were doing, but then I met up with Kurt Haller, who had been a friend of mine and I knew he had been doing snowboard videos and we told him what we're doing. He got involved with it and he basically took over the show because he knew what was up and he had already made a couple videos. We spent about two years working on the first movie before it came out. Once it came out, we were like the third movie of this kind to come out. I think Crusty and Terrafirma came out before us. motocross event, but I think I may have had a better time than Jordan. Right when he got there, he learned that one of the Moto XXX box vans had burned to the ground while traveling with the Vans Warped Tour. Bikes, equipment, CDs, stickers, you name it. It all went up in smoke. Despite Moto XXX's loss, Jordan and company are fielding a one-man Supercross/motocross team for '00. Phil Lawrence was set to return a second year in a row, but just days before the series opener Factory Phil left to fill the void that an injured Jeff Emig left on the new Strategic 3 Motorsports Team. Lawrence, however will represent his old team by sporting Moto XXX stickers on his new YZ250 and on the Strategic 3 Motorsports semi. Fresh from the 18 JANUARY 19, 2000' cue I e n e vv s When you and Erik were shooting stuff. were you shoot· ing with home video cameras? A We were shooting with piece-of-junk VHS video ' " ' cameras. I had always done a lot of filming at races that I would go to just for fun, so that's why I was even thinking about making a video. I just always liked to shoot footage. Uttle did I know that I really knew nothing about shooting. Kurt showed me everything that I know. Erik and I do all the video shooting now, and Kurt shoots all the 16mm film stuff. We ended up getting the video out. We sold a lot of copies and had a lot of success with the video, and that's when we decided that we were going to start a racing team. We decided to take all the money we made from the video and reinvest it back into the sport. Show some support for the riders and stuff like that. y.Je got Brian Deegan and Brian Swink and we started our team, which ended up doing really well. QSo. Kurt is a third partner? A Actuall Y Kurt is the main man of Moto XXX because Erik and I, between our bands, we're gone on tour so much we don't have a ton of

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