Episode 217 has Alan Johnson telling stories, his true passion.

Our very own people person, Alan Johnson, has spent a lifetime helping people. With good listening and great photography skills, Alan is a storyteller. I’m proud to call him my friend. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

4:03 – my dad took typing because that’s where the pretty girls were; he claims typing saved his life. 

10:32 – I really wanted to be on the radio, so I showed up at 16 with my FCC disc jockey license and played country music             

14:43 – I had my life all planned out, then I fell asleep driving home and broke my face

23:03 – Just because someone has a leadership role or not, doesn’t mean they’re better or worse than you. Every role is important. 

31:36 – That’s always my MO at work, start at entry level, work hard, prove who you are, and then move up rapidly.

39:59 – That’s when I discovered my first Jeep, it was basically a motorcycle, but with a roll cage.

48:01 – who’s the one person on your team who never puts their phone down, won’t shut up and can’t build anything?  They all laughed and pointed at me!

56:02 – I started working with promoters because my job was to help tell the story of something I was passionate about and loved.

1:07:47 – Imagine life as a piece of paper, most people fill it from top to bottom, left to right, there’s not a blank space anywhere – but life happens in the margins

Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

[00:00:00.200] - 

Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.

[00:00:46.560] - 

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[00:01:13.030] - 

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[00:01:39.630] - Big Rich Klein

On this episode of Conversations is a guy that went from Band Camp to Hammer Town. With many stops in between. That's right. I welcome Alan Johnson. Alan, how are you doing today?

[00:01:52.040] - Alan Johnson

Well, this one time at Band Camp, I'm doing really good. Excellent. I'm doing really good, Rich.

[00:01:57.800] - Big Rich Klein

Well, cool. Let's Let's talk about the very beginning. Where were you born and raised?

[00:02:03.740] - Alan Johnson

I was actually born in Anaheim, California. What? I lived there until I was seven. Then my parents, in their infinite wisdom, decided the late '70s in California was not where they wanted to raise kids and moved me to Arkansas, which is what I consider home. So I grew up in Arkansas. I was born in Anaheim.

[00:02:22.130] - Big Rich Klein

I thought you were Arkansas all the way.

[00:02:27.140] - Alan Johnson

Okay. It's interesting, though, because the high school I went to. You can walk down the halls. You can see my parents' graduation pictures, my grandparents' graduation pictures. So again, Arkansas is home. But yeah, I went to California.

[00:02:40.900] - Big Rich Klein

So your parents started in Arkansas, went to California, You were born there, and then you guys moved back.

[00:02:49.230] - Alan Johnson

Exactly. And that's where I'm at now, actually. Life has a way of bringing you all the way back around. So I am back in Arkansas these days.

[00:02:55.880] - Big Rich Klein

Well, I can tell you I will not be going back to my hometown, but I am in my home state right now. But not forever.

[00:03:07.440] - Alan Johnson

I got you. No, it's just funny how where you grow up imprints you to a certain extent. Our My kids grew up in Arizona. That's actually where you and I met, Rich, when I was in Arizona. But they'd heard so many stories about Arkansas that Ivan ended up going to the University of Arkansas, and Kate graduated university here, too. So both my kids claim Arkansas, even though they grew up in Arizona. It's just funny how it shaped you.

[00:03:32.830] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, my neighborhood that I grew up in is no longer like it was when I grew up. It's San Francisco Bay Area, and there's been a lot of immigrants into the area. Not saying that that's a bad thing, but it's completely changed from when I was a kid. Just driving through the area, you can really tell the difference.

[00:03:57.150] - Alan Johnson

Absolutely.

[00:03:58.990] - Big Rich Klein

What drove How do you get your parents to go from Arkansas to California?

[00:04:03.460] - Alan Johnson

Well, have you ever flown into John Wayne International, Orange County? Yes. There's a Chevron station right across the street that my grandpa opened in '68. When my dad graduated high school, he wanted him to come out and run the gas station with him. They got out there in late '60s. It's funny, a lot of what I do is on the computer these days, whether it's social media or graphic design or whatever. In high school, my dad took typing because that's where all the pretty girls were. Really sound life plan. When he got drafted in '70 for Vietnam, he could type 74 words a minute. They'd put him in radio teletype and send him to Germany. To this day, he claimed typing saved his life. When we were in high school, he made us take typing, and then computers came along and all that type of stuff. But yeah, I was actually almost born in Germany. My mom got back to the States about three weeks before I was born. But yeah, they were out there '68 to '78. In '79, we moved back to Arkansas. I was very impressed. I was allowed to play on the grass back in Arkansas.

[00:05:14.550] - Alan Johnson

That was a big no-no in SoCal in the mid '70s.

[00:05:18.390] - Big Rich Klein

Why was that?

[00:05:20.860] - Alan Johnson

I don't know. I think people were a lot more up tight. You couldn't get on people's grass. Neighbors were way different.

[00:05:27.480] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, neighbors, yes. Okay.

[00:05:28.740] - Alan Johnson

Yeah. Haven't grown up in the south as the kid, your whole backyard is just a creek and woods and fields. And so that was just a whole fascinating world for me to go from, again, Southern California to the country. And it was magic.

[00:05:45.830] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, because you went from city or suburbia, probably, to the country. Absolutely. The forests are brambles, too.

[00:05:56.910] - Alan Johnson

Oh, yeah. No, it was the greatest thing in the world for a kid, though, especially with a kid with an overactive imagination such as myself. We weren't around a lot of people, but you could have any adventure you wanted. You built forts. It's interesting because those feelings as a kid are part of what got me into off-roading as an adult because you can be out running a trail and it's new to you. You know darn well, a thousand people have been down that trail, but it's the first time for you. I feel like I'm a 10-year-old exploring again. What's down What's over there? It's just a sense of wonder every time I go out that I do trace back to those early childhood days where everything was just a sense of wonder. It was amazing to grow up in the country.

[00:06:42.170] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I have to agree with that. Like I said, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, suburbia of San Francisco. But we had a large, well, it's not a large city park, but the city park transitioned into a county park. The county park was pretty large. We were able to... I mean, it was... If you wanted to play Daniel Boon and Davy Crocket. Yes, sir. Or Cowboys and Indians or whatever you wanted to do, the exploring up there was awesome. Going all the rabbit trails and the deer trails and following the creek and just figuring out where every little climbable tree was at. Looking for caves, even though the caves were culverts.

[00:07:32.900] - Alan Johnson

I know, but they were caves to a kid. I remember there was a tree that had fallen over and it had a split in it. So it was just a stump at that point. But we had turned that into our fort into castles, into spaceships, all kinds of stuff. My brother and I went back and saw it probably 10 years ago, and it's probably even up to our waist. It's this itty-bitty little stump. But to us, it was frigging huge back in the day, and we're like, That We didn't age well, but it was pretty magic when we were kids.

[00:08:03.530] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, Shelley and I talked about that when we visit places that we spent time in our youth. There's a little town in South Dakota called Woonsocket, and they have a... Their central area of the city is actually a pond. I remember it more like a lake with a swimming platform that you swim out to and hang out on and that stuff. We drove through and I was talking about, Oh, yeah, it's really cool. We get there, and I swear to God, it was so small. I was like... I was I was there when I was in eighth grade, and I was like, This is... I mean, they shrunk it. The town swallowed the pond. What the hell happened?

[00:08:57.480] - Alan Johnson

Emotions and memories make things bigger, and that's, I think, part of the magic of emotions and memories. I wouldn't trade that for the world. But yeah, you go back later in adulthood, and they took the shrink rate to it, and it's like, well, that's weird.

[00:09:13.990] - Big Rich Klein

Being seven years old, the transition was probably pretty easy but exciting, going from suburbia to the woods. But what was it like going to school in Arkansas?

[00:09:30.670] - Alan Johnson

There's a lot of tradition, actually. Again, as I had mentioned, you could walk down Senior Hall and see a picture of my dad and all his brothers and sisters, my grandparents, all my great uncles and aunts. It was a very small school. I think a lot of people can relate to rural schools where you had the same friends from second grade all the way through graduation. I think they took it for granted, but it was just normal. It was small town life in the south, more churches and gas stations than stoplights. It It was great. I loved it. I was close to my grandparents on both sides of the family. School was challenging. You've known me well enough to know that I'm a talker and I won't shut up. I early got the Alan won't shut up in school moniker. So the teachers all talk to each other. But about fifth grade, they discovered if they would give me a book, I would shut up. I was pretty good at reading and remembering. And a lot of early school is just reading and remembering. You're not doing a lot of reasoning or thought at the time.

[00:10:32.860] - Alan Johnson

You're just memorizing facts. So they let me go to the library, and I'd go. And so this became a voracious reader. And of course, at the time, it was the Hardy Boys books and all the serial things that are really cool to a 10, 11, 12-year-old, but I loved it. So most of my school was reading, and that naturally led to things like the creative side. It was in a photography class. I really wanted to be on the radio. I 14, so they wouldn't let me. And the guy told me, Hey, when you're 16, come back with your license. I showed up at 16 with my FCC disk jockey license and played country music. I don't know. It was a really comforting small town environment that I'm sure, just like your pond or my stump, isn't nearly as romantic as I remember it. But growing up, it was pretty special. It really was.

[00:11:23.530] - Big Rich Klein

Well, that's great because that probably molded you to who you are today. I know that at some point, you got into music yourself, and you were, like we said, band camp. When did you pick up the musical? Yeah.

[00:11:43.830] - Alan Johnson

Again, I'm a big believer that you catch your values from your parents. It was interesting because growing up in the South, there can be prejudice and bias, and the clichés are there for a reason. But living Southern California, mom and dad knew everybody and all different types of people. I grew up in a house where people were just people. Music was a central part of that. My dad played guitar. My earliest memories were going to sleep with the window cracked and dad sitting out on the back porch playing Neil Young songs. That was a little bit ruined because I grew up thinking Neil Young and Bob Dylan were good singers, and so that has absolutely... But They were passionate and they were unique. Started piano lessons in second grade. And about eighth grade, I played fear release so many times. I was just ready to die. And my dad brings out this book of Neil Young music, songs I'd grown up on. He says, Okay, you know the songs, read the guitar cords at the top and just play with me. Don't worry about the music. It doesn't have to be classical. Just play another light bulb.

[00:12:58.100] - Alan Johnson

It was one of those things where that just really ignited a passion. I was good at music, but that's where I became passionate about music. We'd play old hippie songs and new stuff, and then I got into keyboards. I thought I was a basketball player, but there's a reason why I'm called the Dusty Gnome for a reason. I'm not exactly tall enough to play basketball. So band and music became my family. I was such a nerd. I was a drum major. I was like the king of the nerds. But it was It was family. It was fantastic. Band Camp was really interesting. I know we joke about it, but growing up in a small town, it's hard to outgrow who you were in fourth grade. And by the time you're in ninth or 10th grade, you're becoming your own person, but you almost have this character of what everyone's known about you for the last 10 years. So things like going to boys states or going to band camp or church camp, those were reasons to get out of town and learn who you were. I have a lot of really good memories from band camp because I got to learn who I was at that point in life.

[00:14:08.680] - Alan Johnson

Yes, I was an extrovert. Yes, I liked people, but it was about the experiences. I remember the people a lot more than I remember the music from Band Camp because I'm still friends with those people from sophomore year in high school because we had shared experiences. Now, the piano inside, though, is what really took me places. We I ended up in Nashville. That was one of my favorite places to live. You know how it is. You're going to college. Tomorrow is actually my 33rd wedding anniversary, by the way. So this is germane to the story.

[00:14:42.270] - Big Rich Klein

Congratulations. I got to- Congratulations.

[00:14:43.900] - Alan Johnson

Thank you, sir. I I got to... I was originally really big into military. I had a Marine Corps ROTC, and I had been accepted to Boston University. And you got to remember, this is late '80s. And so my hero was Michael P. Keaton from Family Ties, and I wanted to be an investment banker and all that type of crap. Totally went the opposite direction. But in between my junior and senior year, coming back from band camp, I fell asleep driving. Just ran off the road, wasn't going fast. I broke my nose, my my pocket, my cheekbone, my lower jaw, went all through the front windshield and had my jaw wired for 10 weeks. Literally the quietest I have ever been in my entire life. It took wiring my jaws together to there. But again, that's an area where a band came together. But the Marine Corps doesn't want someone with a broken face. You can't jump and do stuff. So last minute, I ended up going to Memphis State on a music scholarship because I was good at that and had an academic scholarship. Gosh, met Jennifer the first couple of weeks there, known her three months and proposed, and we'd known each other eight months when we got married.

[00:15:55.370] - Alan Johnson

That was really fun to come back and tell mom and dad, Hey, I met a girl in college. Oh, yeah, we're engaged. They're like, Excuse me? What did we miss a year or two there? But yeah, just love it. She and I were laughing this morning about how we were 18 and 19 at the time. It just turned 19 and 20 when we got married, and we literally grew up together. So a lot of these adventures, going to Nashville, going to Phoenix, all of that stuff, we've been able to do together. We're very different people. But again, those differences complement each other, and we've had a lot of fun doing life together.

[00:16:30.580] - Big Rich Klein

That's pretty cool. I thought that you guys grew up together. I mean, through high school and stuff.

[00:16:38.560] - Alan Johnson

No, had never met until freshman year of college. Wow. Okay. We were playing cards. This is a warning to all young people. Be careful going out and playing cards and falling in love because next thing you know, you're married for 30 plus years. It happens.

[00:16:53.730] - Big Rich Klein

What card game were you playing?

[00:16:57.580] - Alan Johnson

I was big into spades at the time, but she was a big hearts player, and her dad, I love her dad to death. He's 82 now, engineer, played hearts every day at his job. She grew up with basically a professional hearts player. I had no idea the buzz saw I was walking into. It didn't help that we were 18 and you had to take a drink every time you got the queen, and she gave me the queen five times in a row. I was a little inebriated and Twitterpated all at the same time by the end of that card game.

[00:17:31.050] - Big Rich Klein

There you go. Let's talk about that accident, because I know that was pretty life-changing for you, correct? It was huge.

[00:17:39.900] - Alan Johnson

I went really dark after that. There was a part of me, and I know people... I literally got accused six months ago of being toxically optimistic. Most people know me as the optimist or cheerful, but my whole life had changed. I had it laid out where I was going to school had changed. My relationship with my parents had changed. I thought they were holding on too tight as a parent. They nearly lost their kid. I see exactly where they were coming from at this point. Just went hard core. I was playing in bands, Partied a lot, almost had the mentality that I shouldn't have lived. This is all borrowed time. So what does it matter? And so that age 20, 21, 22, playing in bands, rock and roll lifestyle. I've discovered some pharmaceuticals and such, and it was just a very dynamic time that I'm grateful I survived. And gosh, I was in North Dakota. This is the weird stuff you used to do back then. Got in the car and started driving north. Slept in a cornfield in Iowa one night, got to Grand Forks, North Dakota, went into the Kinkos there and said, Hey, I work at the Kinkos in Little Rock.

[00:18:56.880] - Alan Johnson

Can I stay somewhere? And of course, they put me up. And so I spent a couple of weeks there and just really thought about life. I'm like, I'm going to die really soon. I've got a wife who loves me, who I'm not treating well. I'm just getting through day to day what's really important to me. A couple of those afternoons and just sitting out. You've been North Dakota. It's nothing for miles. This is at a flat part. To just be in the middle of nowhere to reconnect with that whole sense of adventure, but to do it in the context of your life, That was huge. Got in the car, drove all the way back to Arkansas, apologized to my wife, started trying to make some changes in my life, and have been much, much happier since then. Got involved in church a couple of years later, which helped a lot also as far as just structure and guidance and community, and then had kids, and the rest is history. But yeah, I don't know how I made it through those first three or four years because post-wreck, I was just a mess. I didn't know who I was or what I was supposed to do.

[00:20:00.720] - Big Rich Klein

Did you grow up in the church?

[00:20:03.390] - Alan Johnson

Yeah. My grandpa Ivan, who my son Ivan is named after, was a general Baptist preacher. I mean, ran gas stations and drove concrete trucks during the week with his brothers and then had a literally traditional white single steeple country church with about seven families in it that I grew up in. He would be the church camp. That was some of my, again, adventure memories. He was the church camp director, and so we would go through a week of camp with him, and then we would stay all weekend at camp until the junior high camp came. You remember the old three-wheeler death machines?

[00:20:38.470] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah.

[00:20:39.510] - Alan Johnson

Oh, yeah. That's what he had. These were the days where he would just send his 13-year-old grandson out on a death machine and say, be back by dark. I would just go out and explore cow pastures and woods and all kinds of amazing things, be back in time for dinner. It was good. Church for me was just something you grew up in. I will say, emotionally, because I read so much, I got pretty good at just regurgitating the answers. I never had what today they would call a personal relationship with Christ or whatever phrase you want to use from some of the more touchy feely churches, but it was just a fact and not a lifestyle. As I outgrew that, it didn't really have a lot to do with my life. But as I got older and had some changes and learned more about a relationship and different aspects in the fire and brimstone, don't do this, don't do that, judgmental side of church I grew up with. It really changed my heart in my life and really has positively impacted my family and my kids. But yeah, it was drastically different than the church background I grew up with.

[00:21:47.240] - Big Rich Klein

Interesting. Okay. Then when you were in college, what was your field of study?

[00:21:56.500] - Alan Johnson

Well, freshman year was commercial music, which was good, but I sucked at the math. I'm really bad at math. They had Weeder classes such as calculus and advanced calculus and things like that. I quickly switched to history for my sophomore year. That was easier, right? Read stuff, remember it, draw parallels, make projections so you don't repeat it. That was much easier. But remember, I've been married a year at this point. Jennifer was getting a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting. She knew exactly what she wanted to do, and I didn't. I was good at working. My first job was 12 years old working at the gas station with my dad. Through high school, I literally had a full-time job from 5:00 to 10:00 PM as a country music DJ, then work weekends at my dad's station. So after my sophomore year, I just went to work to support a family. And we were very strategic. I was delivering pizza. She was working part time at Walmart and part time in a movie theater. So as a 20 year old couple, a couple who was 20 years old, we had free food, discounts at Walmart, and free movies.

[00:23:03.440] - Alan Johnson

It was very strategic in where we worked. But yeah, just started doing that. That's what I was always good at. I grew up with, again, a family with a super strong work ethic that was really impressed upon me. And also this sense of every job is important. Just because someone has a leadership role or not doesn't mean they're better or worse than you. Every role in a job is important. I just threw myself into that. And then started, I was playing music with a bunch of band. My wife and all my bandmates graduated college. That's when we moved to Nashville and literally gave it a good solid three year run of trying to be musicians. Did albums, worked regular day jobs, didn't have a family yet. It was pretty exciting in your 20s to go pursue all those dreams and all those passions and do things that you can't always get to do when you have a family or a career or things like that. Nashville was absolutely a blast. It was the culmination of all of that creative stuff. The band was doing well. Jennifer was selling artwork. At the time, this was mid '90s, Branson had taken over as a country music capital of the world.

[00:24:16.910] - Alan Johnson

Nashville was in process of rebranding as Music City USA. We were like a college alt rock band. They were very open to all types of musicians, not just country. That was period in time where '90s country music was changing, the industry was changing, and a college rock band could actually flourish in a town like Nashville. It was really, really cool.

[00:24:41.580] - Big Rich Klein

So you played a lot of gigs?

[00:24:44.320] - Alan Johnson

Played a lot of gigs. I actually got it to do some studio work, too, which was really fun. Again, I had classical training, but living in Nashville is where I learned Nashville notes and shape music and all the little shorthand that the traditional Bluegrass players knew. There were a lot better piano players than me out there, but I'd fallen in love with the organ, Hammond B3 organ, living in Memphis like I did, got into blues, jazz, all that type of good stuff. So I'd get called in to play. If you're listening to some bluesy old song, and there's that ham and organ warbling in the background. There's a good chance that was one of the players on that in the mid '90s because I just loved it. You got to meet different musicians, got to be creative. It was an indoor adventure, if you will, but it It was different all the time. Best part about Nashville, though, quite frankly, was the non-famous musicians. You're familiar with In the Round, when people play In the Round?

[00:25:40.260] - Big Rich Klein

I've heard of it, yes.

[00:25:42.340] - Alan Johnson

Yeah. Oh, it was cool. You go over to someone's house and I'm going to pick up a guitar and they just pass it around the circle. You know what? Everyone would play or sing something and join in. Some of the absolute best songwriters and musicians I've ever met in my life, we would never know their names. They were just studio musicians. They were sessing musicians. But man, these guys were skilled and they were fun. It was neat to just sit back and be in awe of other musicians. That was definitely a time period where I was able to just enjoy high levels of creativity, but more importantly, exceedingly high levels of skill. These guys were really good. I was more of an entertainer than a virtuoso, so don't think I'm putting myself on the pedestal with those guys, but sometimes Sometimes you can be cool by association, and I had some cool friends back then.

[00:26:34.160] - Big Rich Klein

That's pretty awesome. I have one experience with Memphis, and that was the Beale Street Music Festival. A friend of mine was playing in it, and he said, Come on down and hang out with us. And that was really a trip to be on stage or on the edge of the stage, you might say, because I didn't play an instrument, couldn't carry a note 10-gallon bucket. And just being in that atmosphere with four stages and all the stuff going on. And then after they'd play, we'd head up and hang out at B. B. King's and some of the other clubs in there and be celebrities because you had your passes on.

[00:27:25.490] - Alan Johnson

To be honest, most musicians aren't celebrities in real life. It was fun to play being famous for a minute because most of us were in the band hall back in high school. You know what I mean? It was the band camp joke, but here you are being honored.

[00:27:41.740] - Big Rich Klein

It was pretty cool. I was wearing my We Rock security shirt, and I was helping move equipment. Our band was called Allison Hefner Band, and She had been a background singer or backup singer, one of the female singers for Leonard Skinnard at one time. Her husband was the guy that started Atlanta Rhythm Section. No way. Yeah, the drummer. My buddy Fergie, he had been one of Bob Seeger's who was in the Silver Bullet Band at one time. There was a whole group of guys that came together that had played professionally, but they were an unsigned band. To get in the festival, they won a Battle of the Bands contest, which, hands down, nobody stood a chance against them. They were all real good pros. But their last to set up on because their music, they're playing first. So as soon as they're done, their equipment peels off real quick, and then the next band is already up there. So we're getting ready for sound checks. We're setting up all the equipment, and I'm wearing this security shirt, but I'm the only one that doesn't have any credentials. And this security guy walks up to Fergie and goes, Hey, who is that guy over there?

[00:29:30.700] - Big Rich Klein

And Fergie, who was always quick on his feet, and did denouncing for us in Dayton, Tennessee, in our rock calls. Jim Hallegrens, his name. He looks over and he goes, You're Security, and you don't know who Big Rich from We Rock Security is? And the guy goes, Oh, that's Big Rich? Oh, yeah, I've heard of him. And this is the head of security. And this guy is seven foot tall, looked like a professional a football player or something.

[00:30:01.290] - Alan Johnson

Big guy.

[00:30:01.960] - Big Rich Klein

And he comes over to me and he goes, hey, let me get you your credentials. And he hands me this all access credentials. And he goes, let me take you around to the different stages and introduce you to my group. And so he's taking me around like I'm somebody, and I'm like, Absolutely nobody, right? But it was so fun being able to go anywhere I wanted to because they thought I was a bigwig security guy that did rock bands and stuff like that. It was hilarious.

[00:30:32.580] - Alan Johnson

I've named Rock Big Rich, too. I mean, hey, that's like the magic passkey sometimes.

[00:30:38.030] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, right.

[00:30:40.640] - Alan Johnson

You know who I know.

[00:30:44.870] - Big Rich Klein

My daughter did that one time at an event. She was with a couple of the people, judges and an announcer, and they got pulled over. We were outside of Jellico, Tennessee, and we were doing our event there. The Sheriff pulls them over, and I don't know if they were in Kentucky at that point or if they were in Tennessee. But my daughter goes, You can't pull us over. Do you know who my dad is? And everybody else in the car is like, Megan, shut up. He doesn't care.

[00:31:23.420] - Alan Johnson

Or he should care.

[00:31:24.720] - Big Rich Klein

They got a ticket.

[00:31:25.830] - Alan Johnson

To get two tickets. Yeah, exactly. That's great.

[00:31:30.270] - Big Rich Klein

The music scene, how long did that last?

[00:31:36.730] - Alan Johnson

Well, gosh, probably '96, '97. And at that point, we'd given it a good five-year run semi-professionally. In any career, you know you're going to make it or you're not. So at that point, that wasn't my future. I wasn't going to be a famous rock star. I still played. I played last week. In fact, I picked up an my acoustic bass two months ago to teach myself a new instrument and learn new songs, but from the perspective of a bass player. So music is something you do your entire life. But career-wise, it was pretty evident around age 26 or 27 that that wasn't going to be my future. Jennifer and I were just starting to talk about how I had a family at the time, and so I transitioned to working. Again, I was always really good at that Hollywood video back in the day. Kinkos, I probably worked for six and started as the overnight guy and eventually became a district manager. That's always been my MO at work. Start at entry level, work hard, prove who you are, and then be able to move up pretty rapidly. But on the flip side, from a leadership perspective, I knew how to do all the roles.

[00:32:48.660] - Alan Johnson

I had paid my dues. I had come up through the channels. I don't know, it was just a really good formula that worked for me. The difference, though, when we moved to North Little Rock. This is funny. You'll get a kick out of this. In your head, you're this famous Nashville musician, and they need a piano player at church. I'm like, Okay, I could do that. I mean, come on. They're like, Well, you have to audition. I'm all kinds of like, What do you mean I have to audition? I know Big Rich. Do you not know who Big Rich is? Why are you making me audition? To be able to go that route. But again, in my arrogant little ass, it's like, I'll show them. I sequence background music and this type of stuff and show up. I swear, I went to play and it's like I had feet for hands. It was like I had never seen a piano before in my life. It was terrible. A train wreck. We get done, they're looking at me and they're like, Well, we can always use help in our kids' department. But that was perfect because I started playing.

[00:33:54.380] - Alan Johnson

A, it was very humbling, but B, it helped me understand music usually isn't about you. It's about others and creating an environment and creating somewhere where other people can have adventures. That's what music always was to me. Very close to off-roading, quite frankly. I know they're very different skill sets, but the rush I get from them are the same. You're alone, you're experiencing something. Only you can really internalize what you're feeling while it's going on. You can try to tell stories. No one's ever going to know what taking the green flag at Hammers feels like until they take the green flag at Hammers. No one's going to know what playing music at a 14-year-old's funeral is going to feel like until you played music at a 14-year-old's funeral. There was just a lot of growth there. I spent about 10 years playing in churches. By the end, we were at one of the big mega churches in Phoenix, Christ Church of the Valley. Really, really good church, focused on families and growth. But we'd play five services over the weekend, and there would be 4,000 people per service. You're playing for 20, 25,000 people over the weekend, but in church, in context of helping people worship.

[00:35:03.710] - Alan Johnson

That was great. I enjoyed that, too. Then as the kids got older and I started getting into off-roading, it's hard to have more than one all-consuming hobby at a time. We still go. I still play regularly, but around 2008, 2009 was when I stopped playing in groups publicly, whether church or private.

[00:35:28.190] - Big Rich Klein

The transition from Arkansas to Arizona, how did that come about?

[00:35:37.970] - Alan Johnson

Oh, gosh. I had never even been to Arizona until two weeks before I started my job out there. Because, again, like I said, I was in retail for about 10 years, out playing golf from a buddy from church who said, You talk a lot. Have you considered sales? No, but I'm getting a little tired of working every holiday and every weekend. Let's see what this is about. They owned a computer company, and they were selling dental software. Rich, I'd barely even gone to a dentist myself, much less understood that profession, but it was a challenge. It was something new. I've been in dentistry 24 years now since then, so obviously it stuck. It was something good for me, but it was the technology side. I got to learn all about computers and networks. But more importantly, I got to learn about people and get into what I call consultative selling. It was a very natural extension of how I grew up, of just wanting to help people. You'd listen to them and then you'd match your products to what they needed. I enjoyed it, but starting at zero every single month on commission sales is a hard way to live.

[00:36:40.880] - Alan Johnson

And my kids were three and five at the time, and I got an opportunity to work for a consulting firm, so I was able to take my business background and my dental background and be salaried, not be on commission sales. They had several different offices all across the US. They had in Seattle and Chicago and Atlanta and Phoenix and Santa Barbara. Jennifer and I are like, You know what? The kids are three and five. If we're going to make a move for work, this is the time to do it before they're too entrenched. Seattle was too rainy, Chicago was too cold, Atlanta was too humid. We just randomly went, Phoenix sounds nice. Interviewed, got the job, moved out to Phoenix, and then just fell in love. We spent 12 years out in Phoenix. That's where the kids helped grow up. Still, my best friends in the world are all in Phoenix and the Arizona area. But yeah, it was just... I have heard when you move to Phoenix in the summer, for people who show up for school and stuff, and it's a million degrees. You hate it forever. But we moved in February, so we got slow heated into it.

[00:37:52.040] - Alan Johnson

And just the desert reminded me so much of the wilderness when I was a kid. Because you lose a lot of that as you get You live in urban areas and there are cities and jobs and airports and hotels and all that type of stuff. So being able to just go out in the desert, out of Table Mesa, out of Florence Junction, stuff like that, just became a wonderful escape and a chance to be a kid again, where you're out exploring something because drastically different, the desert versus all the green and blue and water and all the stuff. Plus everything in the desert is trying to kill you. So that added a whole another level. Hey, you see that tree? It has spikes and it's trying to kill you. Hey, you see that cactus? It's jumping at you. That bird in the sky is carrying a snake that's going to drop on you, and then they're both going to eat you. The desert is very much a place of perceived survival and adventure, which, again, when you have an overactive imagination, when you used to be Daniel Boon or Davy Crocket as a kid, it's super easy to fall in love with the Southwest.

[00:38:58.960] - Alan Johnson

We started going to and Zion and Johnson Valley and stuff like that. But some of my absolute favorite times. Frankly, that's where I had the big lifestyle change from music and working to off-roading and then eventually racing, which led me to photography. They all worked together, but Phoenix was just amazing, drastically different than anything Jennifer and I had known. We had no family out there, so it really brought our family close together. We'd go down to Tunestone with the kids You grew up to the Grand Canyon. It had all kinds of activities for families. I don't know. I look back and it was probably one of the best things for bonding our family, was being on our own out in Phoenix and relying on each other.

[00:39:44.910] - Big Rich Klein

When you were a kid, you got some three-wheeler action with your grandfather. Then when you get to Phoenix, you get back into off-road somehow. Was there any off-road in between?

[00:39:59.790] - Alan Johnson

There really wasn't. It was just work. Now, what was in between was a motorcycle. I made the classic mistake of my motorcycle being my primary form of transportation. Coming home from work one day, a little old lady in a Lincoln town car didn't see me. Lincoln town car in a Honda Nighthawk is not a fair contest. Shattered my whole left knee, had to put a whole left kneecap in, stuff like that. Just like I'm a little shy about falling asleep while driving. A little paranoid about motorcycles now. When we moved to Arizona, the weather's perfect. Most of my Gosh, I'm probably used to be 120,000 miles a year on airplanes. I flew everywhere for consulting. That's where I discovered my first Jeep. It was basically a motorcycle, but with a roll cage. It It resonated with me because I could take the top and doors off and all that type of jazz. But I had a harness. I had a roll cage. I didn't feel like even if I got hit, I was going to be back in the hospital again. Of course, you're invincible when you drive a Jeep, so that's very natural. But that's what I started doing.

[00:41:18.100] - Alan Johnson

It was your classic starter Jeep, the really crappy chrome parts on it. You go down the crap island auto zone with a magnet, and that all sticks on your Jeep. It was an old YJ, but I didn't care. It introduced me to that side of things and then just opened up a really amazing group of friends with higher ground 4x4, Michael Daube, who's one of the best photographers I've ever met in my life. A lot of people know Bob McNeely, Fat Bob, Big Beard, just one of the nicest, kindest human beings on the face of the planet, Chris, Daniel. We just had a tight little group. That's where I learned wheel was just going out. This was when 33s were big and one of you, Oh, let's get 35s. We all get 35s. Then we have to get new axles and wouldn't imagine 37s. Only those crazy rock Crawler guys with water in their tires had 40s. But what was so great about it was there was an entry level for anybody. It brought back a lot of that. I'm a 12-year-old on grandpa's three-wheeler again. Exactly how I felt. Just going out and taking trips and spending time with the guys.

[00:42:33.530] - Alan Johnson

Then my Dave Cole screwed everything up for me.

[00:42:38.680] - Big Rich Klein

How do you figured that?

[00:42:40.900] - Alan Johnson

Because he decided to have the Every Man Challenge. That happened to coincide with my 40th birthday. What's better than being a race car driver and having a midlife crisis? I mean, it worked perfectly. It was awesome. That was going to be my 40th birthday party. My birthday is February 17th, so we were out there for hammers. The whole Jeep Club, built our first Jeep together. This was the very first year for the EMC, so no one knew what they were doing. The Rants and I became really good friends through that whole process, and I got addicted. It was absolutely fantastic. Then this other crack dealer company was there named Big Rich and Shelley running Dirt Riot. I knew I didn't have the skill set or the money to run Ultra 4, I fell in love with Dirt Riott. You guys actually are very pivotal to my entire friend base right now because that's where I rediscovered that family, that same family I had when I was playing music, I rediscovered that family in off road. Dirt Riott, for those of you that don't know, was just a fantastic series that was a developmental lead. They were 6-7 mile race courses, but you learned how to race.

[00:43:59.830] - Alan Johnson

You You learned how to be good sportsman. You learned how to prep your team. You got ass and seat time, which is so critical. But guys like Loren Healey were running it at the time, too. Andrew McLaughlin. I mean, it was just really a neat place without having to be all the pressure of king of the hammers, where you can just really lose yourself in this racing community. That in a way, and I don't mean this bad, ruined rec wheeling for me because I got addicted to the go fast part. I got addicted to the suspension. I got addicted to what's the fastest way through this. And I'm still in love with racing. I mean, I've had touches with short course. I've had touches with desert racing. I've had touches with all kinds of things. But my first love is just still that dirt riot, go fast, grassrootsy vibe, because that's what I fell in love with. That's where I met Andrew and the whole let's roll crowd, where I met Charlene. Gosh, I owe a ton in this, too. But I fell in love. That truly became my passion was off-roading there in that 2012, 2013, 2014 time period, just because, again, I had found a family in the dirt at that point.

[00:45:15.520] - Alan Johnson

The racing was almost secondary. That was fun. Don't get me wrong, we really went after it hard core. But as you well know, Ivan was becoming 13, 14 years old at the time. So I take him to the track with me in those road trips to and from Cedar City were probably some of our best times of just bonding his father and son. He's like me. He didn't have a lot of girlfriends, shall we say. I tried my hardest to prop him up as a race car driver during the summer, but even that didn't help him get dates in high school. So it was worth a shot.

[00:45:54.440] - Big Rich Klein

So you went to the Hammers and competed before hooking up with Let's Roll?

[00:45:59.920] - Alan Johnson

Well, it was interesting because I knew of Let's Roll because, again, the Arizona Jeep community is very tight, and there were a lot of crossovers at the time, the Arizona Virtual Jeep Club was the melting pot where you had a little bit of the Venn diagram overlap of the hardcore wheelers. I don't think overlanding was a word yet, but you had your campers and your more recreational people. We knew each other, but we didn't run in the same circles. He was part of the undertakers, which were just- Trail Ninjas. Oh, they're freaking amazing. I love those guys. One of the biggest honors to get to be inducted as a part of the undertakers. So I have my shovel, and I will do whatever needs to be done. But hearing Andrew tell the story is a little funnier than me tell the story, but Let's Roll was still out of his garage. They're at the house. He had run with Chad a couple of times as a co-driving, so Andrew wanted to get into racing, so 4,400. He had one of his customers who wanted to build a stock class car, and I was building a 4,500.

[00:47:11.540] - Alan Johnson

This is before legends or the side-by-side classes all came in. It was early days of evolving out past 4,400.

[00:47:19.150] - Big Rich Klein

Was that Shawn Passmore?

[00:47:20.990] - Alan Johnson

Yeah, Shawn Passmore. You remember Sean. So Andrew just reached out saying, Hey, you are going to be racing the 4,500 class. I would like for my shop to field a team in multiple classes. I think that would be good for my business. Do you want to join forces? I'm like, Hey, that'd be great because I'll say it here loud and clear and proud. I'm a musician, a photographer, a computer guy. I'm not a fabricator. If your life depended upon it, do not give me a welder. I probably could not buy a cigarette with fire from one.

[00:47:59.310] - Big Rich Klein

You and I are in the same boat.

[00:48:01.640] - Alan Johnson

I am just in awe that these guys that can take metal and pipe and build it and make things just beautiful because I don't have that skillset. The engineering, the craftsmanship. This was a whole new world for me to get introduced to fabrication shops. That's where I met 30 PAC Matt, got introduced to Shannon Campbell, a lot of my heroes and stuff I met through Andrew. In a way, was just a rounded out. I was hooked, he was hooked, Sean Passmore was hooked. We decided we were going to race Dirt Riott that year. The first race after Hammers, again, my very first time to ever take a green flag was King of the Hammers. Gosh, how I'm not dead, I don't know. But it was down in Tucson, and this was 2013. Charlene was teaching these marketing classes for your drivers, which again, I thought was brilliant. Part of the joy Dirt Riant, was you not only got to race, but you got to learn and network and do it in a place where the stage wasn't so big. It was make or break every time. She was in a room with all of us, and she's like, Okay, who's the one person on your team who never puts their phone down, won't shut up, and can't build anything.

[00:49:18.490] - Alan Johnson

They all laughed and pointed to me, and I'm like, I roll with it. I've got a pretty good self-depreciating sense of humor. She goes, You're calling the most important person on your team. They were all like, What? She goes, You guys can do everything you want to do, but if no one tells your story, how are they going to know? If you want to be racing, there's a lot more to it. There's two sides of it. She really invested in me, invested in Andrew. I remember once we were prepping cars and I was underneath the Jeep and I heard one of the guys in the shop talk about why is Alan this? Why is Alan that? Andrew, God bless him, didn't know I was down there. He goes, Guys, he's the one who works with our sponsors. He's the one who tells our stories. He's one of the most parts of why we get to race and why it's funded. He may not have your skill set, you don't have his, but we're all a team. That made me feel so valued and so not an outsider because, again, everyone here can well build and do gear ratios and just all kinds of amazing things I can't.

[00:50:20.010] - Alan Johnson

And that was the first time I really felt valued for the skill set I did have in the off-road industry now, but at the time on a team. So I give a lot of that. I always acknowledge Charlene as the one that opened doors for me, both emotionally, but helped put me in an environment with the Let's Roll team where I could grow. Now, of course, in those early days, it was hysterical because unless you won the race or your last name was Campbell, you never got any pictures. Michael Daube from Higher Ground would take some pictures of us racing. But after a while, that was bad to keep asking your friends to come out for free and take pictures. I asked them to teach me. I would go out, I'd run 4,500. We'd have these epic battles. I'd hop out of the car, grab my camera, and then go out and shoot 4,400 class. We would have some content for our newsletters and the social media pages and stuff like that. People, oftentimes, particularly as they get older, like I'm getting, you back on golden ages and stuff. But that 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, for me, that was my golden age because I was racing, I was discovering off road, I was getting introduced to just absolute legends like Bob Bauer and others who I didn't have the history to know who they were.

[00:51:49.740] - Alan Johnson

I got introduced to them as Bob and then got to know them. I'm like, Oh, my God, I'm hanging out with freaking legends. I was at the Ormhoff event last last year for their gala and was surprised how many people I knew in the room, but I knew them because they were out in the desert with the rest of us. It has always amazed me, and comparing and contrasting this to the musical world. If you were a musician, you could hang with other musicians. That was pretty good. But there wasn't a lot of crossover between the super famous bands and just regular musicians. But in off-roading, everyone was dirty and around the campfire and hanging out and telling stories. You could literally be next to a legend and not even know it because just so genuine, so down to earth. Then someone else come up going, Do you realize who you were just talking to? Yeah. Shannon. Who's in Gilbert? He's the greatest. Okay, I love him. But I don't know. It was just really neat, maybe because I was older, maybe because I had experienced a couple of different things. But I just instantly connected to the people side of the adventure.

[00:53:00.170] - Alan Johnson

I love the racing. This is my chance to say for the kids out there, I was Dirt Riott National champion two years in a row. Thank you very much in the 4500 class. My stories begin with once upon a time instead of back in the day. But I still have my Dirt Riott National Championship trophies and some of that other types of stuff because, again, it was just fun. It was a escape. We work all week long. I'm raising kids, I'm married. Rich, you've been married a long time, too. I wouldn't trade it for the world, but every day not puppy dogs and rainbows. You have to work at your relationship. Racing and off-roading in general and just that entire community really provided strong friendships and a foundation and an escape where I could still be me and not be defined by my work role or my spousal role or my parental role. It was pretty awesome, and it led to a lot of opportunities when I got done racing.

[00:53:57.040] - Big Rich Klein

Since you You ended it there with how you did, how did that transition go from racer to working with the promoters?

[00:54:11.900] - Alan Johnson

It was pretty interesting. At my day job, which again was at Mercer Advisors at the time, they used to have this class during the summer called Young and Motivated that was geared towards 13 to 17-year-olds. They come in, they teach them out investing money, geometric progression, things that You didn't know what compounding interest was at 15, but you know what? If you learned, it helped make you good life decisions. And very vividly remember them always asking, Hey, okay, who here wants to be a professional athlete? Half the room would go up. They're like, Well, maybe one of you are going to be a professional athlete. You're like, Well, that's awfully depressing. Why are you guys being assholes like that? They're like, But just because you can't be a professional baseball player doesn't mean you can't be involved in professional baseball. Consider sports medicine, consider sports writing, this that. It was a connection for me that you can be engaged in your passion in different roles. During the time period when I was racing actively, in between you and me, my opinion, and no one could change my mind, races are one or lost in between the races.

[00:55:16.900] - Alan Johnson

It's all about the prep. It's about getting your vehicle ready. It's about getting your mind ready. I was just too busy to prep in between races, and so I was starting to DNFs, and DNFs were not fun. Off-roading was supposed to be fun. My transition was, sold a race car, but because I've been doing photography and because I tell stories, driving line picked me up. I got to go to all the races, see all my friends, take pictures and tell stories. I actually made money. I remember my wife was shocked the first time I came back from an event and didn't have 6 to $10,000 worth of repairs. It's like, Wait a minute. You could have been making money this whole time? I'm like, I know. Who knew?

[00:55:56.680] - Big Rich Klein

Still, you started driving the Toyota, the FJ. But anyway, that's a different story.

[00:56:03.290] - Alan Johnson

The FJ death trap is a whole different conversation. Again, I'm on, I think, life number eight. There's a part of me that's being more cautious because I've burned through my first three, four, five, six, seven lives without really thinking about it. I'm going to be a little more careful these days, but it was fun. That's where I started working more with the promoters because my job was to help tell the story of something I was passionate about and loved. Part Part of that was from the driver perspective. Part of that was from the organization perspective. Part of that was just because I like telling stories. The race results, you could go read online, but the struggle to get there or the family stories or the guy who brought his dad out for a race and he ended up podiuming them and to be able to see the look on the dad's face as they're lifting Dizy up on his shoulders and riding them around. I just fell in love with that. I was able to keep all the good parts of the racing community, which was the friendships and the relationship and still be involved.

[00:57:07.750] - Alan Johnson

Now, I did that for probably three or four years, and ironically, was in San Diego for a business trip and got a call from Dave Cole who said that Shannon had left and he wanted to talk to me because I always volunteered. I've talked about several of my heroes in Charlene. Shannon Welch was another one that really poured into me early because I was a volunteer and she could see that I loved what I was doing. Then Emily Miller is just the pinnacle to me. I just am in awe of her professionalism, her creativity. She would run the media tent at Hammers. I wanted to be to that level. I would study what she would do. She was well-prepared. She always had the press releases going out. She had a team. You could tell she was passionate about it, but she was actually very professional at it as well. When Dave called and said that Shannon had left, would I have been interested in helping Ultra 4 part-time with the communication and marketing side? I'm like, Dude, I'm an hour and a half south of you. I'll be at your house in 2 hours. I got a rental car, drove up to Temecula, I met with Dave, and in a way, got my dream job there for a while, which was doing the marketing and social media and promotion for Ultra Did that part-time for three years and then did it full-time for a year.

[00:58:34.980] - Alan Johnson

Finally left my dental background and really got to do that. That was really neat because, again, it combined everything I loved, telling stories, helping people off road adventure. Got to go to Europe a couple of times for Ultra 4 Europe. And so had become friends with Jim Marston and Mike Robertson and all those guys who have come over for hammers. So when I would go over to the UK, I got to stay at Jim's house. Mike Robertson would let me stay with him and his wife, and they would drive me around. And how does a kid from Arkansas get to go to London and get paid for it, except through off road and telling stories and friendships? Again, I go back, and so many of my life ventures, go back to getting into racing and making international friends and people with different lifestyles and just being connected to the community. That really, really energizes me.

[00:59:33.000] - Big Rich Klein

Now you're back into the dental world?

[00:59:39.480] - Alan Johnson

Now I'm a mess, Rich. I'm 52. My body's falling apart. I don't know what I want in life. No. Ended up getting recruited back to dental. I'm really good at that, frankly. I've spent two decades in understanding business, dental software, something that changed in that industry. Again, I know I'm a little bit of a nerd here, but remember, band camp, so what's to be expected. Group practices started emerging. Instead of the traditional family dentists that was just a dentist and maybe their kids got out of school and then father and son or father and daughter ran it, started seeing a consolidation in the business there in the early 2000s. So groups of doctors will get together and form a dental company to get better pricing. Then it grew and it grew and it grew. Now you've got Heartland Dental, for instance, has over 3,000 dental practices in their organization. Well, that created a whole new economic landscape when it came to software. And again, typing saved my dad's life. Having to take typing and learn computers has really shaped my life, I was on the leading edge of helping build cloud-based practice management software. It's not terribly exciting.

[01:00:53.260] - Alan Johnson

When you go to the dentists, they're typing on their computer and they do your appointment, they file your insurance. Well, someone has to build and sell and train that software. And so I really had a tremendous opportunity to help build a new type of software for an industry. Wasn't nearly as cool as off-roading, but I still got to travel a lot and got to meet a lot of different people in the industry. So just like I'm not a welder and you don't want me welding in the off-road industry, I'm not a dentist. You do not want me working on your teeth. You will get the same result as if I tried to build your cage, man. Someone's going to die. But But there's a lot of parallels. And so it was like getting paid to go to college. I was learning all kinds of new things about networking, cloud developments. But really, I was solving real life problems with how can technology make life easier. So again, it resonated back on that core theme in my life of, how can I help? How can I make things better? How can I be a positive impact?

[01:01:55.120] - Alan Johnson

And I know it's weird. It's just dental industry and it's just software. But I loved it. I really did. Of course, it was very good to the family. There's no way you're going to compare off-road photographer with vice president of marketing and communication for a multi-billion dollar company. They're two different economic statuses. Through church, we got really connected with Dave Ramsey and his philosophies of being debt free and not being a slave to debt. It took us years to get in debt. But those corporate jobs allowed us to pay off our debt and money away and pay cash for cars and pay cash for the kids' schools. As I mentioned earlier, tomorrow is our anniversary. We owe probably about $4,000 left on our home, and we're going to pay off our home for our 33rd wedding anniversary. We have absolutely zero debt. Well, dentistry helped make that happen. But it was also a flexible enough job that while I was doing that, I could go to all the ultra four races. I could go to We Rock, I could go to Nora, which we did in 2014, which, God, I'm still just in love with Baja.

[01:03:03.860] - Alan Johnson

That is such a magical place. I think that's my next out in the woods of my grandpa's three-wheeler, to use that analogy. There's so much in Baja that I got a taste of. I can't wait till life gets me to a point where I can explore that the same way I got to explore Arizona or I got to explore California. I'm quite smitten with the Baja bug right from the adventure and the unknown aspect. I know zillion people have been down there, but I haven't. And that's part of that inner child is your Daniel Boon or Davy Crocket again, and you're getting to explore where no one's been before. And I'm thrilled by that.

[01:03:45.050] - Big Rich Klein

Sounds like you need a raptor.

[01:03:47.620] - Alan Johnson

I do. I do, Rich. You know that? But hey, it's funny. When the gladiators came out, and again, I'm a big fan of you do you. That's part of where you catch your values at home. I've got my preferences and things that I like and don't like. I've got my beliefs and my faith and decisions that we have made as a family, but that's us. And you do you. But there was one point in my life, because I'm a Jeep guy, hands down, That's what I got started in this. I love that it's an adult tinker toy, and I can take the top off and the doors off and put it back on, it can figure. I can have a badass Crawler, or I can have stuff from the junk aisle at Autozone. It doesn't matter. It's your thing. But I was driving a Toyota FJ Cruiser at the time. Better gas mileage, IFS. I was doing photography. Fj Cruiser is a great photographer, Rick. You can grab several buddies, put all your gear in the back, go bombing through the desert, stay in front of the race cars. It was a very intentional decision.

[01:04:50.950] - Alan Johnson

But at the time, Ultra 4 had brought on Ford, and they were launching the Bronco. Here I am, a Jeep guy driving a Toyota promoting Broncos. It was the most conflicted I ever was in my life. Now that I have more choices, I'm back to a Jeep gladiator, and all is right with the world, and my chakra is aligned because I'm a Jeep guy who drives a Jeep.

[01:05:13.530] - Big Rich Klein

There you go.

[01:05:14.170] - Alan Johnson

That's where I'm at. I love the Raptors. The Bronco Raptors are amazing. The F-150 raptors. I mean, that's the other thing. The nerd in me has just absolutely been blown away with how technology has partnered with good solid mechanical skill sets and fabrication to create these hybrid vehicles that are just mind-blowing. They just are the active shock technology I'm fascinated by. I realize it's not the day where you can just go take your raptor out under the shade tree and work on it like you could with a late '70s Ford, but it does a lot more than a late '70s Ford. So you take the good with the bad, and those raptors are just absolutely amazing. That being said, I'm hounding- The older you get and the more you hurt, the raptor is a great vehicle.

[01:06:02.890] - Big Rich Klein

Isn't that the truth? It's like driving a Cadillac.

[01:06:06.660] - Alan Johnson

It's okay being old. I don't mind driving a couch with a four-wheel drive. There you go. But it's interesting. Back to Emily Miller. Again, she has continued to just be a mentor through all these different phases. She was always someone that I could call or talk to or give me advice, good, bad, and ugly. That's part of the beauty of Emily. She speaks truth and love, but she speaks truth. I believe I may have the privilege of joining you this fall being a media driver for the Rebell Rally.

[01:06:38.180] - Big Rich Klein

That would be awesome.

[01:06:40.100] - Alan Johnson

Dude, that has been a dream of mine ever since I heard it, but I had my own race schedules, both with Ultra 4, and then eventually with the mid-American stuff, or I was still going to trade shows in jazz, and this is bringing it back around. I'm back in dental now, but for the first time, I'm not on the selling side. I don't work for one of the dental companies. I actually work for one of the dental organizations. Imagine Dental Partner. They're based actually out of Scottsdale. It goes way back to a lot of friends and people I knew when I was doing consulting. But I'm now actually on the business side of things, not the vendor side of things. There you go. Not only has it been fascinating to look at life through the, Oh, my God, did I used to do that to people as a sales guy? But I've got regular hours, and I'm not on demand of when I get a sales call or something blows up. I'm really looking forward to... Well, I'm going to go back and use an analogy that our pastor at CCV used to use. He said, Imagine life as a piece of paper, and most people fill it from top to bottom, left to right.

[01:07:47.690] - Alan Johnson

There's not a blank space anywhere. He goes, But life happens in the margins. You have to leave some space in your life for things to happen. That just really resonated with me because I was always so freaking busy, even though it was fun. I mean, gosh, you lived life on the road, putting on events. You got done with one, you barely got a chance to enjoy it before you were already moving to the next one and promoting one three months down the road and making plans for next year. There was a lot of stuff I did that I don't feel I got a chance to enjoy as much as when it wasn't my full-time gig. Things like being able to be a media driver for the Rebell Rally, to have that choice. I'm still working really hard to to talk her into letting me do it. She hasn't said yes yet, but I can be persistent. That's what I'm really loving about off-road now, getting to pick and choose the event, still have the family, still have the sense of adventure and amazement and all that I had when I first got in it. But now I've got some more margin in my life.

[01:08:49.570] - Alan Johnson

I'm not busy from dust till dawn, Sunday through Saturday. I can pick and choose to go do things that I enjoy. I've always wanted to be a part of the Rebell.

[01:09:00.600] - Big Rich Klein

So your future, you hope, is getting time spent in Baja, being on the Rebell, and what else?

[01:09:11.900] - Alan Johnson

Taking pictures, man. It's a joke, but you lived through this, too, right? So I would shoot pictures with you at Dirtriate and stuff, and I was very proud of them. I'm learning my skillset. Again, God bless my amazing wife. She said it as only a loving wife can say. I'm showing her all my pictures. Look what I did. She pats me on the shoulder and she's like, Honey, I love you. And nothing good happens from the condescending pat and Honey, I love you conversation. She's like, After about the third car, they all look the same to me. It's just not her gig. That's not what she does. She doesn't know the people. So I'm getting all excited about IFS versus solid Axel and look at this. And she's like, Yeah, that's nice. But then she happened to see, actually, it was a picture of Shelle. She goes, Oh, who's that? I'm like, Oh, that's Shelle. That's Big Rich's Oh, you talk about her all the time. Then I started taking people pics. It's amazing that that's become the little niche that I have fallen into, partially because I love it. I'm looking for people and I want really authentic, not posed, just in the moment pictures because there's so much emotion in off road.

[01:10:22.510] - Alan Johnson

Some of it's elation, some of it's just absolutely crushed because you prepped for this and you made it two miles and now your car is out of the race and six months of your life is gone. I started taking people pics, and that became one of my absolute favorites. I joked with Barbra Raine. Again, just another absolute legend that I never would have gotten to meet if I wasn't in this ecosystem. She was asking me once, What do I want to be as a photographer? I said, you know what? Everything you do with the Off-Road Motors Sports Hall of Fame, I love the old pictures and stuff that come up, especially the people pics. That's my goal, Rich. Fifty years from now, people are looking back on all the stuff we do. I want them to find some of the old Allen pictures of people and have a glimpse into what the culture was really like, what the experience was really like. I think Jane Boyd is really good at that, too. Jane is one of my heroes. I think Will Gentile tells great stories, but just the pictures, the exhaustion, the smile, the elation, the when we were younger.

[01:11:28.440] - Alan Johnson

Even I am looking at those pictures going, Shit, I didn't have nearly as much gray back then. Now I'm fur and silver. I think that's part of what I want to do is still go to events, still travel, still have that sense of adventure, whether it's Baha or local events or the Well, I just want to tell those stories. I want other people to get a glimpse into what I love so much so that maybe it inspires them. They don't have to be a professional rock Crawler. They don't have to be a professional racer. They can get in their raptor and a raptor, get together and create community and family and go running dirt roads and have just as great a time as someone in a million dollar trophy truck. It's just different degrees of adventure. I like telling those stories. That's what I want to do. If I ever get to the point to where I'm fully retired, I just want to travel and tell stories, specifically around racing and off road. But life happens in the margins, and those are the stories I want to tell.

[01:12:28.300] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. That's been awesome. That's great. You're a hell of a storyteller.

[01:12:37.430] - Alan Johnson

Oh, that's my dream. And in between, both kids are finally in serious relationships right now, so that could be completely derailed if I end up with a couple of weddings in the next year or two and grandkids. But isn't that the fun of off-roading or of life? You don't really know what's over the next hill, and so let's go find out. Life is very similar like that. So I'm enjoying the journey. Racing was certainly a strong part of it, just like music was, just like everything else. But that a common theme is just people and adventure and community, and that's the future for me.

[01:13:16.530] - Big Rich Klein

That is awesome. Alan, I want to say thank you for being a friend all these years. You were always someone that was easy to talk to and always had great insight. And That's why you were sought out by people like you have been. It's been an honor to consider you and call you a friend.

[01:13:41.390] - Alan Johnson

That means a lot, Rich. You and Shelley both are near and dear friends, and you've helped shape my life as well. So thanks for having me tell a little bit of my story. I look forward to seeing you again soon, and hopefully we'll both drive media around this fall.

[01:13:55.620] - Big Rich Klein

Well, you'll get to drive media. I get to be course crew. Oh, God. Gosh. I know. I get to drag the course afterwards to make sure everybody gets back to camp.

[01:14:05.710] - Alan Johnson

Well, I'll try to save you a cold one when you get there.

[01:14:07.850] - Big Rich Klein

I appreciate it. No promises. Hey, Allen, thank you so much for spending the time on this conversation, and it was definitely my pleasure.

[01:14:20.680] - Alan Johnson

It was my pleasure, Rich. Thank you so much. Have a great day, man.

[01:14:23.400] - Big Rich Klein

All right, you too. Bye-bye. Bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you would think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.