It's an outfit he was wearing on a recent weekday morning, when he was enjoying a rare moment of near solitude doing what he likes to do best: working by himself, moving from lathe to grinder to drill, finessing a piece of metal in his shop.
"When am I happiest besides when I'm going really fast or smashing [things]? Setting stuff on fire. This," he said with a piece of pipe in his hand, standing midway between a pinstriped Snap-On Tools cabinet and his welder.
The piece of pipe was for a bumper extension on his pickup. The next day James was headed to El Mirage to flog his Honda XR650 on the dry lakebed -- practice for an upcoming motocross race for his Spike TV show. In the previous two weeks, James had put 1,000 miles on the bike and traveled back and forth to the desert so often that he'd blown up the transmission on one truck, which is why he was working to extend the bumper on his backup.
But the fittings for the gate extension were a little off. By how much?
"Two-thousandths of an inch," he smiled.
Job well done
Anyone who's seen the artistry and craftsmanship of a West Coast Chopper knows James is a perfectionist. From the arc and weld of his bikes' frames to their paint and elegant, edgy profiles, James' machines are well-honed rolling sculptures. A working-class aesthete, James brings that same sense of quality to everything he does -- whether it's devising a trans-fat-free menu for his solar-powered burger joint, sourcing high-quality fabrics for his American-made clothing line or, as he's been doing for the last few months, practicing stunts for TV.
Though James says he doesn't "get along too good" with his dad, it was his father who taught him the value of an honest day's work and the pride of a job well done as the two worked side by side at an antique auction furniture business in the '70s. It was his grandmother, with whom he used to sell Limoge glass at the Rose Bowl, who taught him the value of "customer service and being nice to people."
In person, James is indeed nice -- with a twist. In fact, he's exactly like he appears on TV. A quick wit who's liberal in his use of expletives, his manner is methodical, his words blunt though soft-spoken. Considering the number and breadth of his projects -- and the barrage of requests they generate -- he's remarkably calm and focused.
When an underling asks how to handle a Polish motorcycle dealer asking to be a West Coast Choppers annex, James suggests he just build the owner a bike.
