Ric Drasin Interview: Sex, Drugs, & Gold's Gym | Iron Cinema

well Rick was very excited to talk to you because you're a legend in the sport is it that I mean when you're a legend that you're dead no you're a living legend okay wait a minute yeah I think I'm still alive is it true that you've designed G gym logo as a matter of fact that's it right there so what's the story behind what year was it and how did you actually you know come about doing it a lot of people know this but I was training with Arnold and Ken Waller and the guys and I've always doodled on napkins when we go to eat I'm making caricatures of people and in high school I do t-shirt designs for some of the groups there so uh they asked me they said look we need a t-shirt design because none of the gyms have t-shirt except for Vince's and up said Vince's gym there's no design can you draw something so I said yeah I guess so I drew this guy this little baldheaded guy Drew him on a napkin in a deli and they took it over to uh a printer and they print up a dozen shirts and put them in the gym and they were sold the first hour so we did another few dozen another few dozen and from that point on it it carried over to three different owners and it became a trademark and it became the largest iconic logo sold in the world today that Mi Mouse I believe Joe gold had sold the gym and he became a Merchant Marine which he was and he came back in 76 and he said um I'm going to open another gym because I want my gym back but he had sold his name and he he says I need a logo can you draw me something I said what would you like he said I'd like a gorilla so I also do the World Gym gorilla too which I have a World Gym sht not the gorilla I have both both logos which ties me to both gyms Golds and World Joe gold had built his gym in 1965 on the beaches of Venice uh back in those days you could buy property beachfront property for five or $6,000 I mean like really cheap and you own property all over Venice and Santa Monica and they all trained Outdoors Muscle Beach was an outdoor gym Steve Reeves all the old guys from the 50s and weather conditions they'd close the gyms down certain the year so he decided to build a cinder block building in 65 and brought all the guys inside in bad weather where they could train he buil all his own equipment he had one shower he had a heater in the ceiling that didn't work but still it was a gym and uh the equipment was fantastic you charged 40 bucks a year if you didn't have any money he didn't charge you so that gym went on and then the 69 when Arnold came over I moved in there Franco came in Joe weer would come down and take photos of everybody training him he put him in the magazine people around the world would see this magazine and they see the Go's gym where all the Champions train and thought well this has got to be the place to go not realizing it was probably no more than 2 or 3,000 square fet building but it became the mecca bodybuilding became very very popular with Joe weer and Joe gold and then as time moved on they graduated to different buildings and now it's on Hampton and Venice that's the fourth owner I believe omin the hotels who really aren't interested in bodybuilding just interested in making money and the gym is changing the funny thing is I was down at Gold's this Sunday and the Sunday before to take my girl from The Lax and I stopped by just to say hi none of the people are there anymore it's all new group all young group uh if you asked him who Joel gold was they don't know I mean if it hadn't been for him and me and the logo there' be no gym today or no bodybuilding like that so it's kind of funny how things evolve and and Things become forgotten after a while do you have like a craziest story from Gold's Gym in that time period well a lot of things stick in my mind the thing is that that was a man's gym it was all men because women didn't go to a bodybuilding gym they went to like a spa like Jack Lan there were a couple of women that joined the gym they with the guys the problem being is he only had one bathroom he had one shower and one toilet so if the women wanted to shower they had the shower in the men's shower so there would be times I'd be in the shower showering and someone turn around say can you hand me the soap because he kept soaping the dishes it'd be a girl hand her the soap or they'd be using the toilet without a door on it I mean this is it we got used to it it wasn't a big deal because the 70s was kind of like that you had a sauna down below and some guys would pick girls off the street and they bring them in and do them in the sauna while you're sitting in there there's it was a it was a strange lifestyle but that's menz beach in the 70s that's just how it was um no one ever thought any different so Rick you've been involved in professional wrestling and bodybuilding in your career yeah why do you think professional wrestling became so hugely popular and bodybuilding is still an such a niche sport well bodybuilding is popular I mean it's around the world everybody's involved in that um wrestling and I'll tell you why because bodybuilding is is not publicly known on TV like a network for example wrestling was not either when I got into wrestling I was looked on as a freak in my hometown why would you want to do a thing like that we're all farmers and we sell cars and and we work in oil fields but I was a guitarist in the band I had a good deal with Capital Records I knew entertainment was what I wanted so I trained for I was training for body building but I also trained for wrestling in 65 because it just a different thing so I made the TV I made Channel 5 I made Channel 13 I was seen in Hollywood because of that I was asked to do movies and commercials um because I was seeing on TV not because of bodybuilding because of wrestling but the fact that I was a bodybuilder it lent itself to the fact I was in good shape now years I believe it was in the 80s um uh Vince McMahon took over WWE which was originally NWA from his dad passed away and he was able to get Hulk Hogan and Cindy loer on Saturday Night Live National TV show on Saturday night they became popular he was able to work his way in once a month and run wrestling on that that time slot which became worldwide so all of the smaller federations of wrestling started to bow out because they couldn't compete with the national level of wrestling and they couldn't get Hulk Hogan once that took off and it became a national thing on TV like it is now the popularity just went to the top because of the exposure you don't see anything about bodybuilding on TV and so it's not going to rise like wrestling did you know that somebody had a a national bodybuilding network but what are you going to do with sets and Reps 247 you know you have to have the the conflicts that they have on wrestling good versus evil and bodybuilding you don't have that now Rick what do you think about the popularity of such guys like CC Fletcher Rich Piana well rich is a really good friend of mine I've known him for 30 years I know his mother I know him what I I got him on a commercial with me one day we did a Dr Pepper commercial before he had any tattoos and they wanted a wrestler and there's all these guys in the wedding room I said come in with me Rich I'll show you a couple of holes we'll go through it we'll both book The Spot and we did so we did the commercial and then we did something else together and something else and then he started going extreme with what he's doing now um he's got a he's got a me to his Madness and he's creating an audience a huge audience because they they he's so abnormal the tattoos and the thickness of the muscle and all that he's got followers and he knows he's capitalizing on it I don't think it's going to go forever I think he's going to end up hurting himself because he's getting too big and he's gained another 20 30 pounds he's over 300 it's not healthy on the heart something's going to give something has to give you blow something up big enough something's going to bust but that's how he promotes himself he can't compete anymore he can't even do TV commercials anymore because tattoos they're not going to hire him I guess what I'm trying to say is the guys that have personality often times more they have more following than necessarily the people that are on top of the sport you know what I'm saying no question about it take a look in your own friends and and who has the personality who's getting all the girls and who's having the good time because they have a personality take a look at bodybuilding back in the 70s why did Arnold get as far as he did because he had Charisma he had a personality he knew how to talk to people Frank Zayn didn't Frank Zayn was dead Pann didn't talk to anybody so therefore he never got anything and today he's bitter about it he just what didn't project himself Arnold was friends with everybody he knew how to work his way in this guy comes from a foreign country he becomes the best bodybuilder in the world he becomes the biggest box office and he becomes the governor of California why because he's got a personality and he's smart so that's what it takes people try to follow I want to be like Arnold well being big like Arnold isn't the answer but being smart like Arnold and having the Charisma is what the answer is and uh so many guys don't they depend on their body to be their calling card and once you get past the body they have nothing to offer and I've had a lot of women tell me that I want this guy and that guy has nothing to talk about all he talks about is training and diet and and eggs and protein and farting and whatever and that's the end of it it's true so you've got to have you got to have a personality in anything you do even talk shows or this type of thing if you don't generate a personality in Charisma people aren't going to watch you or listen to you it's it's just the way of life acting the same way in a recent um month I've spoken to Sean Ray Dorian Yates all the guys that were competing in the '90s and all of them unanimously say that they don't respect today's bodybuilders pretty much I guess the same way you're looking at right it seems like the old generation older generation doesn't really respect the new generation would you agree I think so um yeah I think so I you look at the guys okay it does take a lot of work hands hats off to them it takes a lot of work to get big but so many of them look alike the delts and the arms and all that they're huge and they're ripped they all look alike so you know they're all on something really unique to get that size we had size back in those days but we didn't have it like that it's just gone way extreme and the minute they go off everything drops down these guys you just talked about look at their size now compared to when they were on they're like half the size you know I'd rather stay a little bit uh uh smaller and stay a little bit healthier and still look good in my clothes than to be another 40 50 pounds heavier and look ridiculous because the general public doesn't accept it anyway they think look at that freak we were looked upon as freaks in the 70s but we started getting movie work and and TV and being seen more and more than when Arnold got on The Tonight Show and he started doing Conan it became more accepted than they realized how bright he was that he wasn't stupid then it became more accepted because if you go back to the 40s and 50s a bodybuilder was thinking as a muscle head and he just had no brains and that was the concept of bodybuilding narcissist and he looked in the mirror and had no brains now you mentioned the drugs Rick but you know even in those days when you were at um Go's gym with Arnold I mean those guys those bodybuilders were using were using drugs obviously right yeah they were they were using very simple drugs I mean today it's gotten really elaborate with elaborate with the insulin and the growth hormones and all that kind of stuff all we had basically was testosterone Diana ball and uh at minimal at that and so um I got my hands on it when I was 18 just dball and I really grew with it the stuff was good it was real but today there's so much fake bogus stuff that when you inject something in your body it could be salad oil you don't even know you're paying a guy for something he oh it's great and then you you inject something wrong and you get sick from it so I'm not big on that also you have to realize you know we all have we all go through life and we grow up a little bit as we mature we hope and now looking back on things that I had done uh I never was extreme on anything but today I definitely wouldn't be because um I go to a Cardiologist I get physicals I know I'm in good health there's always an issue of something with your heart I've heard of so many of my friends dying Lately from heart attacks that it scares me when I think of what they're putting in their body that they don't think about the outcome it could have a bad heart Anything could happen so you got to be a little cautious about what you do just to be big is not the answer to be in shape and look healthy and look good that's the answer now Rick what do you think about this weird uh thing that's happening now which is use of Synthol or some kind of or that people injected themselves to to basically build fake muscle I don't know what that is even what do you think about that uh there's guys in my gym that use it there's one in particular he he injects his traps his delts his bicep tricep everywhere he can and all of a sudden he comes to the gym and he's sick he's got a bad infection he has an abscess and it started to fester in his arm and it was oozing puss all over the machines and all over the floor he injected the stuff and it got infected went to the doctor he almost died they said no more you can't do this anymore put him on antibiotics and now he's off of it so you got to be careful because it's a it's a fat it's it's a thick oil that goes into the muscle and it just blows out like a balloon wood but as it dissipates and comes down it's got to go somewhere so it's going to go through your bloodstream what if it goes through your bloodstream and clogs your heart you get a you know like a clot or something like that from the stuff people don't think about the side effects going up is one thing coming down is another so it's not the most pleasing thing and it doesn't look great I mean I see guys they big biceps and triceps small forearms or they do a delt they forget another body part if you take one thing and make it too big everything else has to go along with it so pretty soon you're injecting everything you can't just inject one body part and say okay I'm I'm fine because they're not satisfied with that I hear now Rick thank you so much sir I really appreciate it it was great talking to you Rick thank you can I just plug one thing what's that I want to plug my website rick.com absolutely and my show Rick's Corner which has a lot of Legends of bodybuilding I have a lot of people on I shoot two to three shows a week I have uh I have the original goals gy t-shirts for sale of my signature and creation original.com I also have four new designs on bodybuilding.com and if you go to my website you'll see what I have for sale along with the the logo as well so that's how you find me and also on my Facebook go there and sign me on you know YouTube has kind of given us that platform it's like you don't have to be on MTV right now you can just be yourself and start your own show put it on YouTube you know and it'll it'll get out there and you know I just started saying the things that were on my mind and um you know I would talk to other coaches and strangers and stuff at the gym they were like you know you should put these like on video and I was like nobody's going to watch these things they don't care you know and I did a couple and then it really started to blow up [Music] and

Channel: Generation Iron Fitness & Bodybuilding Network

Views: 156,967

Keywords: Generation Iron, Iron Cinema, Bodybuilding, Ric Drasin, Weight Training, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gold's Gym, Mecca of Bodybuilding, Fitness, Physical Fitness

Id: 6NJGjB5ZAHA

Length: 13min 18sec (798 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2016