I caught up with John Varvatos at a trailer in the back of his store during Fashion Week. Spin magazine was looking for the world’s best unsigned band. Rock celebrities like Perry Farrell and Mick Rock were hanging around. I wrote about the event back then, but I wanted to talk to John find out about him and run this after the hype had receded. John took over the old CBGB's space and made it his Bowery store. This transition has been seen by many as an end of an era. There was much talk of sacrilege and disrespect. John Varvatos has answered those questions by paying homage to the legend. CBGB's was really gone by the time he got it. For many years, it was one of those chickens that keeps running even after its head had been cut off. The punk era that grew out of the place and all the bands that ever played there are honored by his actions. He has saved some of the relics, the graffiti, and the vibe of the legendary club, and now hosts events that rekindle that nostalgia into a new heat. The essence of CBGB's, its DNA, has been cloned, and it's a new creature now -- part venue, part museum, part store, and all rock 'n roll.

Tell me about this event and why you’re hosting it. It’s something that we came up with a while ago, and we call it “Free the Noise.” And you know when I was growing up, there used to be something called “battle of the bands.” Now the record companies really only want commercial pop bands, or rap, or whatever it is. They’re not looking for true rock ‘n roll bands right now, unless they’re independent labels. And it’s tough for young bands to get out in front of people. It’s tough for them to get on the road; they don’t have the backing. So, since we opened this space, we’ve taken all the profits from this store, and we put them into supporting young music. 100% of the profits go to supporting young music. So we do shows here, the first Thursday of every month ... we do something called “Thursday Night Live.” Free show, guaranteed. We’ll be out the front door, packed to the walls, with free drinks and everything included. And we’re promoting up-and-coming bands. And then we do other shows. We had the New York Dolls play here.

I was talking to one of the guys from Spin magazine, and he was telling me he’s been to all of our shows and loves the space, and I was telling him about the "battle of the bands" concept. He said, “We’re launching this site called SPIN Earth ... it’s a site that young bands, or any band, can upload a video, either a produced video or a live video of their performance ... kind of like the Youtube for music. We should do something together with it.” So we got together and we came up with a concept, and we came up with a name: “Free the Noise.” I called a friend of mine over at Island Records, Mark Didia, in Island Deaf Jam. He was in the meeting for like two minutes. He said, “We’re in. We’re totally in.” We put together this global search for the next great rock ‘n roll band, and we got entries from 32 countries. Hundreds of people, all over the world, are entering this thing. The winner gets a recording deal with Island Deaf Jam, and they get to be in our next ad campaign for our other brand that we do, John Varvatos Star U.S.A. We went through these hundreds of people, we edited it down to about 30, we gave it to all the judges, everybody got it down to ten, and then we had a final run-through of everything. And we actually got it down to four bands, and one of the bands couldn’t make it here because they couldn’t get a visa -- they’re out of Lebanon. So we have a band out of Santiago, Chile -- they’re called The Hollers. We have a band out of Calgary, Canada. And we have a band from New York City.

What happens to Number Two and Number Three? There’s a winner. Then Number Two and Number Three ... Well, they get great exposure. We’re gonna talk to them about doing other projects with them, but there’s not a deal for them. But Island does have a right to negotiate with them as well.

Plus they get to play under pressure ... there’s nothing like that. Yeah. We had a dinner for them all last night, everybody involved with it. They had all just come in, except for the New York guys. I said to ‘em, “Here’s the deal -- tomorrow night, you should be playing like it’s the biggest gig of your entire life.” And I told the New York guys, “You guys have the hardest deal because you’re in your home turf; you’re laid back; you do gigs here all the time. And you gotta raise your bar here tonight.” Each one of ‘em, I was saying, “You gotta fuckin’ really kick ass here tonight.”

This is really exciting. I’m an old rock ‘n roller. We’re right around the corner from where I hung out, which is the Ramones’ loft. I was friends with the Ramones. My dog is named Arturo, after Arturo Vega, who you have befriended. Yeah, I love Arturo.

Arturo came over and called me and said that what you created here was from a place of deep respect. I guess when you took over this space, people were wary. I was saying, “Wow, CBGB’s. a boutique? It had been closed for over a year and a half. I never even thought about it when it closed, ‘cause I loved the space, but I didn’t love what happened to it in the last ten years or so. It really was just a shadow of what it originally was. But it was still a super sad thing to see it close. I just happened to be in the neighborhood walking by one day, and the door was open a crack, and the people who actually took over the master lease on it were in the space, and I stuck my head there. They said to me, “What’s up?” and I’m like, “I’m just checking it out as a fan.” I started talking to the guy, and after I left, I thought, “You know, I should really do something here ... I have no idea what, but I should do something.” There was just something about the Bowery, about the music scene that was happening here. I’m just trying to keep the music alive. And what I loved about CBGB’s is that you would come to see the Talking Heads, but it was one of the opening acts that would blow your mind. So for me, it was like -- we don’t want all old school people playing in the space. We want to turn people onto music. We want to promote up-and-coming bands, as CBGB’s always did over the years.

I remember when the Talking Heads were an opening band. I saw one show, The Police and the Talking Heads, and they opened for the Ramones. These were mostly unknown bands at the time. We were hanging out with Sting ... I think my roommate went home with him that night. Years later, or maybe just a year later, we said, “Oh my God. He’s #38 on the Billboard charts.” And that’s the way things happened down here. Now it's “Joey Ramone Place,” right north of here. You pay great reverence to CBGB’s memory -- there are pieces on the wall, album covers, photos. Every single thing that we could leave that was original of the space. Because you know, they gutted it when they left. They took the stage out, they took they took everything, even the toilets. There was nothing. There wasn’t a light bulb left in the space. So we left the walls where we could intact. The floors were completely collapsing; we had to restructure all of that. But we tried to leave a history so that when people come into the space, they feel something. Like I felt every time. I was walking in here tonight, and I said, “You know, every time I come here, it feels good.” When we do these things, like you walk in there tonight, it feels like a club; it doesn’t feel like a store. We took everything out of there tonight. We took every single thing out. But it’s a very music-centric space. Yes, we do sell clothes. Yes, they’re not inexpensive, but that’s my gig, you know?

That’s what you do. But the other thing is that I’m a rock ‘n roll junkie. And I’m lucky that I’ve been able to marry the two.

Are you a New Yorker? I’ve been here for 25 years, but I’m not from here. I’m from Detroit.

Who’s your favorite band? Of all time, I’d say The Who. They never would’ve played here, but that’s probably my favorite band of all time.

The only cab door I ever opened was for Pete Townshend, as he was leaving Club USA. Hah ... Like you said, I befriended Arturo. He came into the space when we were working on it ...

With an attitude. Yeah, but I understood it. But he got to know me and understood what we were doing, and he’s become a good friend of ours. I think he respects what we do.

He completely respects it. And he was one of the originators in this neighborhood, both living and being part of the club and being part of the Ramones. The music world has also really embraced what we do here. In the neighborhood, originally everybody was kind of cautious. Now they even have the committees wanting me to write letters to the city about keeping things a certain way in the neighborhood. And the musicians are the ones that come out and support us. You know, guys like Perry Farrell here tonight. At our opening show, we had Joan Jett, part of Blondie with Clem Burke and those guys ... we had deGeneration, which was a kind of a super-strong 90’s punk New York band. They had a reunion here. Then we had Slash, Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains, Sen Dog from Cypress Hill. Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine -- all on the stage jamming at one time. Plus, we had Ian Hunter, The Hold Steady ... it went on for seven hours, all these people came out. We’ve had Jimmy Paige jam in the store, we had Ringo Starr play here. We’ve had old school people; we’ve had young people that play. And a lot of the bands that play here come back to jam onstage with the employees, because all of the employees are musicians.

Well, I was a skeptic. When you were starting to build, I was upset. And Arturo called me up when you opened. He said, “Have you seen this, have you come to the store?” I said, “No, I don’t plan to.” But he invited me, and I came with him. I have to congratulate you. What you did was impossible ... you made everyone into a believer. I felt a lot of pressure when I took the space, because I really wanted to do the right thing. And I think a lot of people were skeptical about what the real intentions were. But I knew my intentions. We won’t please everybody. We won’t do what everybody wants, you know? We have a lot of stores now. This is everybody’s favorite -- this is everybody’s passion. When you do something that’s for the passion, not just for the business -- when you do something that’s giving back, it’s much more fun.