We were lucky to catch up with Morgan Febrey recently and have shared our conversation below.

Morgan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I’ve been a graphic designer since the 90s. One day I was working on something stupid for some boring-ass client. You know, it paid so… Suddenly the lord slapped me in the face with an idea. He said, “Why you working on this half-baked shtuff for other people when you can be crankin’ out the fully baked goods for yourself?” He was right. I started thinking.

This was 08, right at the time Obama was heading to Denver for the DNC. The town was hyped. Everyone was happy and fringe politics were just that, on the fringes. Here I am meandering through the crowds downtown and it hits me. Obama was good for the country and you know what else is really good for the whole country? Broccoli. Barack and Broccoli. BOOM! Baraccoli, Good for the Country.

That was my first shirt idea for @IdiotCult. I went home, knocked out the design, bought some iron-on printer paper and tees. Made 40 shirts. Walked down to 16th St and sold them for $20 a pop. Three hours later I have $800 in my hand. Well, it was actually in my pocket, cause 16th St has always freakin’ been 16th St.

Along the way, Rolling Stone mag snapped my pic and the shirt made it in a printed issue. Pisses me off because I can’t find it anymore. This was a different time. Before the internet had your life indexed.

The Baraccoli design was O’s face with broccoli behind him. Anyway, as I’m walking around touting my wares that day, someone yells, “That’s racist!”. I stop and turn around. Two black women are staring at me. One friend slapped the other on the shoulder and said it wasn’t. We ended up talking for a minute. I assured them it was simply a stupid pun and the best visual I could come up with. Thirty seconds into the conversation, we’re all laughing. Good vibes quickly returned. They ended up buying two of the shirts.

@IdiotCult has been around since 2008, showed in Denver Fashion Week (2019), sold on Dolls Kill, Inked Mag, Rebel Circus and locally at (my old alma mater) Twist & Shout. I need to go say hi to Paul soon. Anyway, I can’t believe you’re still reading this. That’s how I started my clothing biz.

Morgan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve lived three lives. It’s like LOTR but where the movies are nearly completely unrelated. Long story long, this phase of life boils down to my friend Alexa while we were at CU Boulder. I was frustrated with film school at the time and she had just graduated. She was heading to art school in Denver for some animation classes. She showed me her class schedule. I read it. Blah blah blah, some more blah, another blah, then THERE IT WAS! A class freakin called “Video Games”. WTF?? A college class for video games? I wasn’t and have never even been a gamer. BUT the idea of a video game class was so absurd to me that I decided to transfer schools there on the spot. F this reputable university, I’m going gaming!

My degree ended up being Multimedia. In a nutshell it’s everything from graphic design to coding. Post-graduation I started out writing code for the Air Force. Then made video games for Larry the Cable Guy, helped launch a crypto company that raised $250M, and now I’m into augmented reality. I have a metal/punk band, @SoundsLikeWords, that doesn’t sound like most bands today. And I make stupid shirt designs under the name @IdiotCult.

This is a lot of me talking about myself. Sucks to be you. Anyway, there is a point behind me spouting off all that stuff outside of [pure] braggadocio. What sets me apart from most people doing the things that I do, is that I’m not about trying to be successful. I’m clearly not one of those hyper-focused people that wins. My success comes from making something, the act (and reward) of creating. I’ve never focused on financial success or popularity… which is probably a huge detriment to where I “should be”.

So what separates me from others?? My brand is just more and more ideas. Restless Mind Syndrome. I can’t just make one thing and hope it brings success. It IS a numbers game. It’s like Mike Skinner said, “Let’s push things forward”. Thought of a new shirt design in this process: Free Content. I should be dropping more links to my own entities in my responses just get some of that sweet sweet SEO love.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

My sense of humor is brash. Since my brand is an extension thereof, I had to identify an audience in which that humor would resonate. Enter tattoo culture. I reached out to a few very popular tattooed models to help with @IdiotCult shoots. Two months later we were carried by three of the biggest “inked” retailers. It’s been a while since we had a shoot. It’s time for some new new. We’ll see where the bottle stops spinning this time.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Everyone’s gonna have a different take on this. What pool do you drop a line in for new clients? For me, it’s just about variety. One week it’s a heavy metal reference, the next it’s a literary pun, the next some innuendo. There’s no secret sauce in my recipe, just tell 100 jokes, and one’s bound to be funny enough to convert new customers.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://morganfebrey.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idiotcult/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soundslikewords/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morganfebrey/

Image Credits
DFW Photos: JJ Constantine Models: Kate Nelson, Janelle Tejan, and Rikki Gee HMUA: Swank Salon