The Rise of Drifter Shoots
Twelve months ago, Isaac “Drift” Wright a.k.a. Drifter Shoots hadn’t heard of NFTs — he was in jail and fighting for his freedom.
Fast forward 12 months and Drifter Shoots is now one of the most well known NFT photographers in the world. His “Where My Vans Go” collection has traded over $5M worth of volume and the current floor price for the collection of 117 individual pieces is~$100K. The photos jump out at you and after a few minutes viewing the collection you quickly recognize that not many NFT collections vibe harder than WMVG.
While Drift’s photos speak for themselves, his journey from growing up in Cincinnati to joining Special Forces in the U.S. Army to urban exploration to jail to the NFT space is even more remarkable. I recently sat down with him to discuss his rise:
Nick: I’m pumped to connect.
Drift: Yeah, it’s super good to connect and when you brought this up, I was like, let me think, ’cause this week, towards the end of last week, there was just like, can we do a meeting Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday? And I feel like everything was filling up super fast in the matter of one day, like the same day you asked. So I’m really glad we had the time to do it.
Nick: I’d imagine before things started to go crazy for you, you weren’t much of a meeting person.
Drift: I mean last year was so different ’cause the first half of the year was really me being incarcerated or almost the first half. And then I get out and then I’m selling a little bit of work. The New York Times article comes out. Still selling a little bit of work, then it blew up, blew up. I’d say August through the end of the year and then we made it through the crux of all the legal stuff in November. And then I’ve just kind of fallen back and taken some time the rest of November and December. And then now I’m back to work — now, we get to focus on things that are cool, like a documentary or a movie and things like that. And that’s like stuff that’s like coming up now and takes my time now.
Nick: Do you have people that are working with you that are helping manage stuff too?
Drift: I do. My friend, Andrew, who worked on my case with me in crisis communication. He has extensive background in film and television. He’s helping work with me on this as well. It’s good because we already have that foundation of trust. He came into my life when I was incarcerated. During the days. And then we became like super, super, good friends. So it became a personal relationship that was birthed out of a professional one. He was there at like the worst of the worst moments, we crafted everything to the New York times and stuff like that. I sat down and did the meeting, but I was freshly getting out and Andrew helped me with all of that and a lot of other things.
Nick: That’s amazing. How did he even learn about your story when you were incarcerated?
Drift: Let’s see. So when I was incarcerated, I used to ask myself every single day, what does work look like for me? And how can I win this situation? When I was incarcerated in Arizona for two months with no bond, I had an hour out a day, for a long, long time. And they had already gone on the news and put out a false narrative and put out a false narrative to other jurisdictions. That’s when I realized the only way I’m going to win this or get a very good outcome is if I can flip the narrative, if I can get the truth out to people and it’s only gonna come through the use of social media and, or mainstream media. So I started calling as many friends as I could. I didn’t even want people to know what was going on because my urban exploring community they weren’t very supportive during all of it. A lot of them disagreed with how I shared work on social media and I was doing — what is in our eyes, some of the biggest spots and best spots in the country. But then I was also openly sharing them. I wasn’t gonna hide my work for five years and then release it. That’s what some people do. I always wanted more for my work. To do that, I have to build a foundation. So I’m not gonna hide all my work. I’m gonna share it. I just didn’t want people to know what was going on because I was already getting slandered enough and then ended up getting slandered more and it was okay.
But then the right people came. I talked to a friend who happened to have an upstairs neighbor who worked for the New York Times. And they were like, would you just mention this to someone at the Times and see if they’re even interested in looking into it. So Dave Philipps, he’s a multiple Pulitzer Prize winning writer, he got wind, reached out to my lawyer, and my lawyer and him were back and forth for a month or two. I was back in Ohio now in February, March and April and they were gonna interview me while I was in there ’cause there was no clear way if we could get me out. At this time they had already gotten me charged in three states, total, including Ohio.
At one point I couldn’t pay the bond in Ohio ’cause they jacked my bond up to almost a half a million dollars and it was wild. Then I got out and a day later sat down with the New York Times and then two months later the story would come out. That was a huge turning point because all the shit that had been done in the dark and all the different ways that they were treating me, the stuff they said in court — they used my military background against me. It was like no longer could they do any more of that. I don’t know what changed. I don’t know who made the call to tell them to stop coming and trying to arrest me and get me charged in other cities. But it stopped. It stopped in July.
Nick: That’s crazy. The New York Times article had that big of an impact on just everything to do with the situation?
Drift: It was huge because, well, here’s why. Because we basically told them without telling them, like we had 60 Minutes, ABC, it was every major news channel wanted to sit down and interview me at this point. And we were just like look you guys know you’re gonna lose this fight because you can’t hide anymore. There’s shit on the record, we can pull the court documents and have you saying this, we can go to the officers in these states and have record of what you told them in order to portray me as a violent criminal and someone that needs to be — every time I was arrested at gunpoint, which was three times, the narrative that was put out was that — first in Arizona was that I was wanted for armed robbery that I had kidnapped my friend that I was in the car with. I was sitting in the passenger seat, he was driving. That I have extensive military background, special operations, which is true, but I don’t have a criminal record. I’ve never hurt anybody.
And so basically they put this narrative out after I got out too to the Kentucky state police and told him that, he essentially told them that I escaped from incarceration. He didn’t tell ’em that like the judge let me out. And it was crazy, man. It was, it was super, super wild. And all of that ended, I think, started to end at least with the New York Times article, ’cause after that there was too much visibility. The article really boomed and then the New York Times reposted it at the end of 2021 as their top story that you might have missed for the year. And so that brought a second wave of people through to read the story and whatnot, but it was just a visibility thing ’cause like me, so many other people was just getting stepped on and I didn’t have money to pay my bond so they could just keep stacking cases on me with the same narrative.
At the end of the day, no one should care that much about someone climbing a structure and taking a photo. I didn’t hurt anybody. I didn’t steal anything. They tried to say that in court,”Oh, Isaac was stealing, he was damaging our cameras.” They said a whole bunch of shit and then had no evidence to back it up, which is why at the end of the day, we settled on — I go and see my judge once a month, but I didn’t get convicted of anything. 20 something charges — 30, if you count all the other states and no convictions. And it’s like, I went through this whole year just for us to settle on this when we could have done this shit from the get-go and had to go through extreme psychological trauma and just the whole extent.
Nick: You mentioned the urban exploring community that you’ve kind of been a part of for many years. Has anything like this ever happened ?
Drift: No, never. And that’s what Dave Philipps brought up in the New York Times article, it’s never happened. There were questions about race because I’m one of the very few African American explorers out there in the community, it’s a 99% white male dominated space. I’ve seen my friends get caught on structures. I didn’t get caught on a building or a bridge or anything. I’ve seen them get caught on structures and walk away with like, “Oh, they’ll go down to the precinct.” And then when they get to court, it gets dismissed or they get community service. But when it’s me and I don’t even get caught on a structure, I get hunted down based off my background and demographics. Dude, this is fucking wild. So no, and nothing like this has ever happened. And I don’t wanna say it never will again, but I just don’t, I just can’t see it. I feel like I was the right concoction of different things for them to make this story kind of stick to people’s minds.
Nick: It’s also crazy how much power the New York Times has, right? That they can write something that just kind of changes the narrative completely. And thankfully in this case it was a good thing. I think there’s also cases when it’s a bad thing too, right?
Drift: Right. Yeah. I mean you just never really know. Like in this case, Dave is a very level headed writer. So while the New York Times is a very left leaning organization, Dave wrote a very balanced article. He didn’t come right out and be like, “yeah, the lead detectives, a piece of shit. And this is a clear race issue and there’s veterans issues here and this is profiling.” No, he just wrote the facts and he let people decide for themselves. I think it was the response that it elicited, I think more than, it being the New York Times that wrote it. It was the response that it elicited because people were able to draw their own conclusions and people from all backgrounds were coming to the same conclusion of this makes no fucking sense. And why is this going on and how do we stop it? And I think that’s why if it would’ve escalated further from there and we had it was like, “okay, if this doesn’t work, then we will just go on national television and have Drift tell the whole story.” And if you want that to be the way that it’s gonna be, then — I was ready to go. ’Cause at that point I’m like, dude, I don’t have, I have nothing to lose.
That’s the same reason why I came out and I got into NFTs and stuff. My lawyers were like “don’t sell your work. The prosecution could use that against you.” And I’m like here with five of just amazing lawyers. And I’m basically like with all due respect, go fuck yourself. I’m gonna do what I have to do because A) you need to get paid and I don’t have any money. And B) It was more personal for me. I’m not gonna let these people step on who I am and take my identity. You see so many people that go through things like this and they’re just scared for the rest of their life or they’re just whatever. While I definitely have gone through and still have a lot to work through mentally from this whole experience, it was like, look, I’ve in the courtroom while I was locked not taken the easy way out this entire time.
Nick: And you knew at the end of the day, you had a sense for yourself of what was right. It’s funny, you mentioned that about the lawyers too, ’cause I have similar discussions with founders where there’s some founders that just listen to what a lawyer says and let that dictate business and that’s the best way for you to not have your business grow. Particularly in crypto where things have been so gray area for so long in crypto, you kind of have to understand the risks. But at the end of the day make your own decision. And obviously that has paid off for you in a big way.
So when did you first start selling NFTs? My understanding is you didn’t really even know about NFTs as well until mid ’21, right?
Drift: Yeah. May, June. I learned when I was incarcerated. My friend Christian, who was managing my phone and is now working with me to design a shoe, he calls me, he’s like, “Dude, I’m just out here. There’s these things called NFTs.” And of course he tried to explain it and I’m like, what the fuck is that? ’Cause when I went into incarceration, none of this shit was real. I was on photo Twitter, we would share our work and like whatever. But I have no idea what you’re talking about. And then I get out and I see it. I get back on Twitter and everything had been waiting for me and I was super excited and I had like 9,000 followers at the time. I just hopped straight in.
It clicked right away because I started selling them in May, end of April, beginning of May. It just clicked because it was like my work’s illegal. If I approach a typical gallery with my story / my work, it doesn’t matter how good my work is, a lot of them are gonna be like “I don’t know” and “you don’t have the experience.” But then I see NFTs and it’s like, look, everything rises and falls on me. So I was like, oh, I already know what I’ve been through. I know where I’m going. I know what I want to build. And so it was like, oh, you’re telling me, all I have to do is build the framework, the support system and the collector base. I can do that. I can do that because I know my work’s good enough, but more than that, I know myself, I know what I’ve been through. I know where I’m going. I know what it’s taken for me to get here. So I just dove right in.
I made a few, 1 of 1 sales on Foundation in May like, 1.5eth, and it was a little starting point. But then a lot started changing. I’d say like June heading into July. 888 collected one of my pieces and then, Where My Vans Go, came out and a lot of big collectors didn’t get in on the first drop. We sold out really fast and a lot of photographers weren’t doing collections then either. And I didn’t even know about Twin Flames. I had no idea about Justin’s Twin Flames. I had so much stuff going on in my own life. I had already been rearrested twice at this point. It’s been another week and some change locked up and then got back up and had a New York Times article. All I knew was this space held great potential. And then the second drop comes out in August or late August, beginning of September. And it was just like lots of big people buying in. It went really, really well. Like 888 bought up a bunch of pieces then like VincentVanDough bought in. Then it was like, okay, we could really do something. And then we started getting huge secondary sales and it was like, man, okay, and it made me money between the first and second drop. I was like, I can pay my — I can take care of my case now. And I pay my lawyers, take care of my family.
Nick: A lot of those early sales actually went to fund…
Drift: My legal defense.
Nick: Wow.
Drift: Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t start enjoying the fruit of Where My Vans Go until the final drop, which was crazy because we sold all 40 pieces in the final drop at 10eth, and on primary and the seven auction pieces all went above 20eth all the way up to 55. But like no one in the photo community had done a drop like that. Yeah. Where they’re like, I’m charging — like the second drop 0.5eth, the first drop .25 eth. But the floor had gone up to 20 and I came in, like I had been built, I waited two months before final drop and I just was like, look, and I did three auction pieces, leading into it before I did the final drop. And then I was like, okay, I’m gonna drop the last 40 pieces. And I had a bunch of people tell me, “dude, you’re crazy. There’s no way you’re gonna get 10eth.” I was like, why the floor’s 20? The floor’s 20? Why would I not? Why would I charge like 3eth now? And just have people quit flipping my shit for the rest of my life. That’s why a lot of collections have shorted out. They’ve shorted out because either people have dumped all the pieces at once or they’ve not built something. And I was like, I want you to look at what we’re building. Everything can’t be a Twin Flames framework, how that worked. And because it was so early, it’s not gonna work like that ever again. What works for one person doesn’t work for another person.
Nick: That’s a great way to think. I don’t fully understand Twin Flames and why the floor of Twin Flames is like, what a 100eth or something.
Drift: Um, yeah, this is actually a really great discussion. ’Cause like you’ve got Twin Flames and then you’ve got Where My Vans Go, but I mean it’s night and day like Justin is 3000eth ahead volume traded in front of Where My Vans Go. It’s a long, long road, you know, but I think we’re gonna get there in time.
Nick: I do too, by the way. I mean the story and the work — to me, it just hits different than like any photo collection, but obviously people love Twin Flames too. What do you think Justin did well there? Why are the dynamics the way they are there?
Drift: Well, I know Justin, I’m friends with Justin. I can tell you this 1. he was early. So Twin Flames is your Crypto Punks of photo collections. 2. He got big players into this space, into his collection, early — Gmoney, some of these other people who back then were running the punks discord and like we’re running the punks community. And he got into discord — and the collection really wasn’t booming like that. He gets into the discord, into the punks discord and he starts selling the collection. Like how, what would take to get you involved? And then the big turning point was this — Sotheby’s was asking the NFT community to vote a project in as the best community. And Justin went and got everyone to vote Twin Flames into Sotheby’s. And so when it got voted into Sotheby’s at that point, all the big money in the space jumped on board, started buying up Twin Flames. Down the line, you know, in the fall Gmoney and some other people helped get it into Christie’s and the rest is history. I mean by that time they were already selling, you know, for 70, 80, a 100eth plus, you know? So, it is definitely one of those — like Justin is a great community builder. Like people could look at Twin Flames and other collections and be, like, I don’t understand why this collection isn’t doing whatever — Justin is a great community builder he is that and he’s extremely, extremely intelligent. He knows exactly how to bring people together, he knows what he is building. He’s a great people person. He is, you know.
This is one of the things I don’t wanna say I missed out on, but it was like with everything that was happening last year, I didn’t have time to dedicate to a grind of trying to find who’s the right person who do I need to get behind this? It was like, yeah, this is my story. And this is my work. And I think we’re building something really awesome. And I’m taking the secondary sales and putting them aside for the nonprofit I’m building. Let’s just, let’s just build, you know? And we’ve been able to build something so amazing, but I feel like with Where My Vans Go, I feel we’re on the cusp of it really blowing the top off. And there’s, you know, lots of different — it’s coming, you know.
Nick: I personally like the more grass root approach. Where you’re not relying on some big brand to legitimize it or something like that. But yeah, there’s certainly value in the big brands as well.
Drift: It’s just optics really, you know, like people, people attach, I mean, would it be cool for me to be like yeah, a year ago I was incarcerated now a year later I’m in Sotheby’s or Christie’s, yeah, that would be really amazing. You know, that’s more for me, like, something I’ve seen, but at the end of the day, I’m gonna get this collection there with, or without anybody. I know myself and I know how much it means to me.
Nick: So you mentioned the community aspect, which, I mean, that hits for me. It’s like a lot of people think it’s just about the artwork, the visual, right. And clearly NFTs are, you know, equally about community. And you said, you haven’t been focused on that just ’cause you’ve been focused on other things, in the past year really, but it, it seems like recently, you recognize that and also are kind of emphasizing it more, would you say?
Drift: Yeah, it’s not even that I wasn’t like — I was definitely focused on community. It’s just, it is more of there are politics, there are politics. That’s what it really is when it comes to. You start to realize before between like 10 to 20eth floors, huge difference 20 to 30, 30 to 40, and then everything above that is a lot of money for someone to spend on one NFT. Right? So the community’s always been there, people rally behind Where My Vans Go to get it to where it is now. But what Justin was able to do is identify who pulls the strings for like whales and DAOs in the space. And that kind of stuff. That’s the stuff that takes this to — who is dropping — people that are dropping know a 100eth on a PFP project. And can do it 10 more times, 20 more times. And what is going to convince them to buy a photograph? That is what I’ve come into this year trying to figure out. ’Cause we ended the year having sales, went through that bear market — had secondary sales all through the bear market. But in the past week of selling like five or six pieces, it’s been me, rallying our community and now I’m getting a discord manager to really build the discord. But also it was — I’m like out here actively talking to people that have shown interest or even haven’t. And I’m like what will it take? What would you like? Cause I, all the time I get “I love the work.” Like Beanie DMs me all the time. And he is like, “oh, I love it.” He’s like, yeah, “your work’s incredible.” I’m like, Beanie, why don’t you buy one? You know, but he won’t, he won’t do it. He’s just like “I’m a collectibles guy,” you know? So there’s a ton of people like that. Or like Gary V. Gary Vee came and stopped me and was like — you know, like him and his brother, they were like, “we’re we were trying to get in. We were kicking ourselves. Why didn’t we get in earlier?” I’m like you bought up Twin Flames at like 80 something eth, dude, you can buy in now. But I think they’re waiting to see like a lot of those people, they will buy in at 50 or 60 after they see their friends buy in. But the question is, like other photographers, they don’t have this issue. Like it’s really just kind of me and Justin who have built collections to where now you’re asking crazy amount of eth for pieces. You have to find people that can buy those. And so you know where to look in the space, not just for capability, but for interest, you know? And that’s where I’m at right now.
Nick: Well look, I mean, it’s obviously a very long term game too, right. And you’re focused on Where My Vans Go to be top kind of in the long term. And it’s only, it’s been, the truth is it’s been less than a year.
Drift: Yeah, dude, this is a long, long term game. Like I’m not — and I’ve had to stop myself coming into this year and be like, Drift, what happened to you last year from like experiencing like the full spectrum of human experience of complete misery and no money and then wealth and then — I mean like all and just blowing up, it’s not normal. Yeah. And you have to slow down and reassess that this year’s not going to be the same, you know, and how you build over time is really it, you know, and that’s the goal. So I’m just, uh, yeah. I’m thinking about the long term, you know, but now, like I have a goal of like month to month. I wanna move the floor from here to here, or I wanna sell these pieces, you know what I mean? Like it’s just small things. Yeah. Small things.
Nick: How are you thinking about making Drifter’s more accessible too, right? ’Cause like there’s Where My Vans Go, which is, you know, I think most would agree is like a grail photography NFT collection, but most people, can’t get into that. I imagine you’re thinking about how to grow the overall collector base and not just the whales?
Drift: Yes, exactly. So I did my first edition piece back in October. And it was like, it was a 200 piece edition piece that 0.25. And, uh, like it’s sold out instantly and the floor now is like 1.2. So it’s, it’s been there and it’s created value. It’s the best selling edition piece of any photographers and the value’s been there and I just did it. I did it to broaden my collector base because there’s not as many people that can’t afford it. I will probably do one to two edition drops a year, just for people to — there’s been this huge debate lately with photographers. They’re like, “Hmm.” Like are additional drops, just a cash grab. And I was like, I don’t really look at it that way. I look at it as this is how I broaden my collector base, you know. It’s not like I’m throwing out a ton of 1 of 1’s. My 1 of 1 supply will probably cut — not probably, definitely cut in half this year. When I got on foundation, I think I sold 10 or 11 art pieces on Foundation, and then I’ve sold 10 on SuperRare. And then you’ve got the 1 of 1 and Where My Vans Go, which is gonna be their own separate entity, but I’m not doing another collection anytime soon. So it’s like this year I might put out 10 pieces on SuperRare. I’m like, that’s it? You know? And then just focus on Where My Vans Go, you know. If it moons, it will just raise the value of all my other work anyways. Especially if there’s not a lot of it available. I mean, I’m just doing, like, I would probably do edition drops once or twice a year, there’s no need to over saturate, but I want to give people a chance. I have a Nifty Gateway drop coming up this week.
Nick: Yeah. And, what’s the number and price on that?
Drift: There’s a range auction of 15. There is an edition of 30, it’s a drawing of 30 that’s, that’s $1499. And then there’s a 1 of 1. And this all came from this bridge I climbed that was also a big part of my case. And this bridge authority they’re suing me for 1.3 million and they just continue to lose in every court case. And so I don’t know.
Nick: Is that in Cincinnati?
Drift: It’s the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan. I won the criminal case when I was incarcerated. There was no evidence of me on the bridge. I then won the first amendment issue in the civil case to be able to share and sell the work. And now, instead of just being like, “hey” — and I offered to fix their security too. I was like, look, if you guys let me photograph what I like on top of the bridge, I’ll fix your security. You won’t have to worry about anybody else climbing on it. I guess two other people tried to climb it and they got caught and it was like, you can’t blame me for that. You can’t blame me for photos being taken, your guys sucks, and I can fix it. But instead of like working with me, they’re like, fuck you. Now we’re gonna Sue you for 1.3 million in damages when I have never damaged their bridge.
They’re saying, because I’ve made money off of — they called my NFT, me selling my work as NFTs and like my art collection and selling it, they called it a criminal enterprise. They said, “Wright is running a criminal empire where he has sold millions of dollars of pictures that were obtained illegally.” I was like, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m in court and they’re like, “Wrights work is like child pornography, your honor, because it’s only valuable because it’s illegal and people don’t have access to it.” A prosecutor said that verbatim. And I was like, this is wild dude. Like the reaching. So wild. But so they’re gonna lose all in all, but it’s just having to take the time to even go through this nonsense. You know, but at the end of the day, it’s like, you know what, NFTs have made that possible. So I will fight through this and with this smile on my face and still sell the work in the process.
Nick: I love it. We’ve jumped into what’s happened in the past year, but maybe talk a little bit out before that. Obviously you were in Special Forces and then you got out and I don’t think you were doing any urban exploring. Maybe you didn’t even know what urban exploring was before, but I’d love to just hear your journey into that world.
Drift: Yeah, I joined the Army in 2014 and I always knew I wanted to do like, be the best, just be the best of the best at whatever I did. I joined the Army because I really just wanted to continue taking care of myself. I’d already been working and doing a large majority of fulfilling my own needs since I was a teenager. And it was just like, okay, this makes sense.
Nick: Did you join around 19 or so?
Drift: I was 18. 18. Yeah.
Nick: Did you graduate from high school?
Drift: Yeah. Yeah. I graduated high school and I went like a month later.
Nick: Did you even consider another path, like going to college?
Drift : I did, man. I was a really great athlete.
Nick: What sports?
Drift: Football, basketball, baseball. Football and baseball, especially like super, super good. And had offers to play at the collegiate level and just didn’t wanna stay local. I didn’t want to go to school. None of it sounded appealing to me. And I don’t know, I had this dream of being an Army Ranger and I had that stuck in my head, so off I went.
I did really well. I was promoted ahead of peers my entire career. I deployed in 2016, uh, 2018. I was going through a really, really tough time. I lost my long term partner. I had lost a friend of mine in Afghanistan. I lost two friends to suicide. And now I had just moved to a new base. I moved from Fort Bragg, North Carolina in special operations to a light infantry battalion at Fort Polk, Louisiana, which we endearingly nicknamed “the asshole of the Army” ’cause it’s a shitty base. And it’s in the middle of nowhere. Like truly, it’s not like New Orleans, Louisiana. It’s like the other side of the state in this town called Leesville. So I just remember like I was struggling. I was struggling hard and I joined this new unit and I remember thinking like, I can either sit here and just complain about being here. And now at this point too, I was starting to have kind of a shift where consciously, I could not consciously, I was not as — when I first came into the military, I didn’t know a lot more about myself and my history, my heritage than I did by the time I was 21, 22. So when I, so at this point I kind of wanted out of the Army because I didn’t feel like I fit there anymore. I had promoted really well and I had done really well and I’ve gone through all these amazing courses and like, you know, I just, but I felt consciously like I couldn’t support it anymore.
Being a black man in America, seeing America’s treatment of black men and then going and fighting for that same country. I felt like we had our own issues here in the United States at home. And this was following two very life changing experiences with police and like experiencing racism in the south while I was also serving in the United States military. And so there was a lot that was really changing my mindset and things that I hadn’t blatantly recognized when I was living in Ohio and growing up. But now my eyes were starting to open a lot.
But also during that time, the unit I joined was returning from a deployment in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria. And at the time I was in charge of basically talking to a lot of soldiers as they were working through issues, getting them connected with mental health providers and chaplains, like with the issues that they were facing. A lot of them were suicidal. I mean, this is from the lowest ranks up to even majors, you know, field grade officers like coming in and talking to me. That summer we ended up losing three soldiers to suicide and one of them was attached to us from another unit and two other ones were in our unit. This was my job to where I know that summer, I saw so many, even when I was off duty on the weekends, I was visiting the soldiers, calling them, texting them, like Fort Polk has one of the highest suicide rates of any base in the army after Fort Hood. It’s just so isolating and there’s nothing to do out there, soldiers drink and then they don’t do anything. And, you know, they get in their heads.
Nick: I’m curious, how connected to the internet and like what’s going on the internet were you at that time?
Drift: I was not. I mean, like I had an Instagram, I had a Twitter, but I didn’t start photographing until 2018, May of 2018. So it’s been three and a half years. And I started exploring and stuff in May of 2018 while I was in the Army on active duty, like a big risk. I just, I don’t know, I needed a release honestly, and I didn’t know it at the time, but I started exploring and I just fell in love with it. I was like, I don’t want to do anything else. You know? And knowing that, like, it was August of 2018 where I — 220 Central Park South is now a, almost a thousand foot tall luxury condo skyscraper on the edge of billionaire’s row, along Central Park. And at that time it was a construction site and I climbed it. And at sunrise I was standing on the balcony of one of these luxury condos. It was under construction still. And I’m just looking out at Central Park and I was like, whatever this is I just wanna do this for life.
Nick: Wow. This was when you were still in the Army?
Drift: Yeah. And I had, I would be getting out of the Army if — I got medically retired because I got injured, but I would be getting out this may of 2022. I had a long way to go. I had reenlisted when I deployed and I thought I was gonna be in the Army for life. But yeah. So then like every weekend dude, I was driving two hours or three hours to Houston or four hours to New Orleans. Or if it was a four day weekend, I’d save my money. I sold my car that I had at the time. And then I got like a junk one was just driving that around. I started gearing all my entire life towards photography, you know? And I just loved it. I mean, I just started traveling, climbing, climbed all over Houston, you know ’cause it was the closest city and me and my friend that I met there in New Orleans. Houston, New Orleans, climbing all over and just shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting.
Nick: And pretty early on in that were you starting to share on social?
Drift: Yeah, I started in 2018. Um, but like my work sucked. I mean, I just started photographing. I don’t feel like I honestly — like I took some good photographs in 2019, but I did not feel I got good, good ’til 2020, which was also, you know, the year I would get arrested. It was the year I got out of the Army, April 2020, but then what happened was eight straight months of traveling, shooting, like a blitz of just exploring all over the country, city, this city, that city, this city, that city, whatever. And I had taken some good photos before, but I felt like during this time I took my best work. I, you know, climbed bridges on the border of the United States and Canada and the Mackinac, like all these different places, right. And I was doing it by myself too largely, you know, it was just, it had always just been like my own sense of like therapy.
And then of course, with time and practice, with anything you just get better, your eye gets better. You know, everything just kind of gets, it just becomes instinctual, honestly, you know? So I just explore and create off of a feeling of like, this is where I should go. This is the picture I should take. This is like, you know, it just kind of, it just feels right.
So at the end of 2020 November, I’m coming back to my home city of Cincinnati where I did the climb that would change my life forever and climbed our tallest building. And there’s a giant crown on top, that’s extremely difficult to climb, but I climbed it. I photographed it. I, whatever. That night they sent 20 officers, 5 bomb dogs and some people into the building to capture me because they saw me on a security camera on the top floor. I had to cross over the top floor to get into the other stairwell. Unbeknownst to me, I’m up on the crown of the building shooting it, didn’t know there’s an army of police officers in the building trying to arrest me. I get out of the building. I go back in, I walk down, I walk out, never saw the police the whole time they were all on different floors.
Then beyond that is when this detective identifies me, gets wind into my military background, puts out this nationwide warrant and this crazy narrative about me. And then I get arrested in Arizona on my way to Las Vegas ’cause I just kept traveling. I just kept traveling and shooting. I was like, well, I’m pretty much done with Cincinnati. I shot the things I wanted to shoot, shot the Red’s stadium, I shot a couple different towers there. And I was on the bridge and I was like, I feel like I’m pretty much like I’ve done a lot. I can come back and do more anytime. So, yeah, I was arrested and then held without bond for two months in Arizona, brought back to Ohio, finally told what I was being charged with. They arrested me with my GoPro footage. I traveled with all of my stuff ’cause I was building a video project, arrested me with my GoPro footage, took that footage to every single jurisdiction possible 65 to 70 jurisdictions tried to get me charged in every single one of them. And that was all while I was incarcerated.
I was extradited back to Ohio, was supposed to get out, the detective on my case calls me down to talk to me. And it was like, I just want you know — we’ve only had one conversation ever in our entire life. We’ve seen each other in the courtroom. We, whatever he was part of my final rearrest when I was arrested for the third time in my dad’s apartment — minting my second NFT, by the way — he was part of that arrest, but we’ve never talked to each other ever since. He calls me down. He is like,” you know, this is Detective Rubert I want to talk to you.” And I was like, my lawyer’s not here. I’m not gonna talk to you. And then he does the old, like trying to scare me like, “well, I just want you to know you’re never getting out.” Like this was his word verbatim. So I want you to know. He’s like, “I know you have arraignment tomorrow and you think you’re getting out”. Because I was finally back in Ohio, I was like, oh, I can get bond now. I’m not a fugitive. He was like “but I just want you to know you’re never getting out.” And he was like “I got the papers signed in Michigan, a warrant in Michigan today and so you’re gonna have a holder tomorrow.” And he was like, “and by the time you can take care of Ohio, Michigan there’ll be other cities.” And it was like, and it’s just gonna pile on and pile on. And eventually down the road, you’re gonna get sentenced and spend years in prison. And so I just look’em in the eye and I’m like, can you take me back? Can I go back to my cell now? I don’t have anything to say to you. But that’s the day that I knew I was in for a huge, huge fight, you know?
Nick: And you were able to stay pretty calm through this? I mean, were there times when…?
Drift: Oh dude there were moments where of course. I mean, if you’re in my shoes and you’re being discriminated against and you’re being fucking stepped on and then you get in court and you watch like people that are supposed to uphold the law and have never served in the military, sit there and speculate about how you’re fucking lethal weapon 10 and like are gonna hurt everybody and escape the country if you get out, like, yeah, if you’re in my shoes, like you’re fucking pissed. You know? Here’s something that should work for me. You know? With me being not just serving in the Army, but being a three time volunteer, you know, and serving at the highest levels of the military, you know, losing friends, watching friends die, coming home with PTSD and then that’s used against me in open court, like the biggest slap in the face ever.
And it’s not like it surprised me, it’s America, it’s not like racism or any of these things surprised me, you know, or their narrative they put out on the news of me, the picture they put up of me was not me and my military uniform. It was me in civilian clothes when I was on active duty, holding a handgun, looking like a menace to everybody. I had seen it a million times, but this time it was happening to me. So like, yeah. I mean, there were times where I could — but here’s the thing — I couldn’t afford to lose focus. Because if I even once in court I had an outburst or I said something wrong or I popped off on a CO or his detective or whatever, then I, I give them everything they need. I give them everything that they’re trying to say that I was, so it was like, if I do this, then I am now violent and crazy and whatever. I’m like, look, I’m not a violent person, but I take care of me and I take care of mine and you’re not gonna fucking step on me and think that I, that I’m not gonna fucking step back.
So then I had to ask myself, what does fighting back look like? I can’t beat them in this sense. Like, I can’t, you know after being rearrested twice, they took my phones, they took my car, they illegally seized it without a warrant. They were doing a bunch of fucked up shit before that New York Times article came out. And the whole time I was locked up though, it was like, how do I win? How do I win? How do I win? How do I win? And I was like, I just have to keep telling my story because every time they throw fuel on the fire, eventually that fire will turn around and burn them once people know.
Nick: And now you’re winning big, right? So now I’d imagine some of that, you know, you just used to fuel you to keep winning even bigger.
Drift: Oh, actually I have not even scratched the surface by the way. I chose to stay in Cincinnati, you know, I would gladly move out to New York or somewhere like that, where I could climb around a lot more and whatnot. But the thing is, now it’s personal. It’s personal, it’s personal in the sense of like, my family’s here and my friends are here, but also going through this system and like watching how fucking corrupt it all is.
And then it just made me wanna change Cincinnati in general. And I will do that. I will do that strictly based out of my art. Like my art will make the money to fuel investments. My investments will make the money to fuel businesses, which will fuel nonprofits and other things that I wanna do. And eventually, they won’t know the pushback from all of this. They won’t know what it looks like for years, but every year it will evolve more.
Nick: You could argue Drifter Shoots is the hottest thing happening in Cincinnati right now. What else?
Drift: Bengals making the playoffs, whatever, man, they’re gonna fucking lose anyways. But one could argue that, but they do not care. So I don’t know, my thing has always been too was like look, this is my struggle, my story. Part of my work for me at every stage of this, I’ve been like, what is work? I’ve gotta build, yeah, there’s been building, building my social network and building the collector base and whatever. But it’s like, all of that is a means to an end. You know what? I am always thinking, what do I want to do with the money earned? Well, what do I wanna do? Well now it’s like, I’m building, you know, like I’m helping my family invest. I’m helping my friends invest. My cellmate has a whole new life. Like he’s a convicted felon, but he is not coming home to like scraps. He has basic needs and necessities. So he doesn’t get involved in a lifestyle that’s gonna land him back in prison. Another one of my friends, Where My Vans Go has funded whole new lives for them. And not just that, but like, I can be there to help show them, we can work together on things. If I take my crypto profits and then diversify into physical investments, they can help me run ’em they can help me manage them.
Nick: That’s so cool man. I see you gave your brother an ape also.
Drift: Yeah. I bought my apes back in the summertime, like with the foresight then, and that’s the thing too. Artists, you never see artists — I’m not gonna say you never do, but you don’t see a lot of artists reinvesting wisely in this space. And I get it, not every artist is trying to be an investor. They just wanna make money and then use that to go make more art, which is what I wanna do too. But like, I’m multidimensional in the way of, I wanna own businesses. Run businesses. I wanna run nonprofits. I wanna run Cincinnati one day. I can see it now. In my head, that’s where my head’s at. Do I love being in the punks community and the cats and apes, yeah, I do. It’s awesome. I love the NFT space, but I would get bored if all I did was just, you know, flip all these things and I never — there’s a purpose behind it, you know? And like, my art has been for my own freedom, but now it gets its chance to be for the freedom of other people. And I just can’t wait to see what it looks like in three to five years. Because by that time, if everything keeps going the way it is now, I’ll have physical businesses and I’ll have my own nonprofit that I’m building right now. And like, all of this stuff will be right here in Cincinnati and so like everywhere they go, they’re gonna fucking see my shit. You know? I’m a little vindictive in that sense, but I haven’t taken my anger or my justifiable anger and sadness, and like pain out on anybody else.
Nick: You’re fostering it positively, right. You’re bringing shit that people want to the world. And thats the ultimate, fuck you, right.
Drift: Yeah. It, it, it is, especially for so many people that tried to defame my character and for so many people that tried to defame who I was, but it’s also, it’s bigger than that too. It’s like a fuck you to my exploring community because it was here. I am doing more, doing bigger spots, taking better pictures than a lot of you guys, but I never had your support when I was locked up. Well, that’s fine. I don’t need it. You know? But now it’s like, I’m in the fine arts world. I’m in the NFT world. I’m stepping into being a business owner. If I want to go explore wherever I want in the world, I fucking can go, tomorrow. You know? Every single step of this way, it’s like, it’s okay if the world’s not paying attention yet, I will make them pay attention. That’s been my mentality the whole time every bit of how much this has hurt. I just use it to drive me to rise above.
Even now, people are looking at what’s happened this past year. I was like, turn that page and keep it there ’cause I’m telling you, it’s not even close to like what’s coming, you know? And I know that because every step of the way I’ve felt I could feel different milestones inside me. Like, okay, I’m arriving here. I can tell you the day where I knew no more bad shit was gonna happen to me, August 5th. I felt it. I felt it on the inside. I was like, the pay age is turning. I’m now on the other side of this thing. And that’s exactly when Where My Vans Go blew up. And from there on it’s been better. I’m on the other side now.
So I’m focused on building, building, building, building, building, you know? And, and I want people to see the why behind all of it. It’s great to stack ETH and make money. And all this stuff is wonderful. And people deserve, artists deserve to have good lives, but I’ve always wanted to be a lot more than just the artists, you know? Or I feel like artists, there’s way more to it. I want to be the architect behind things that are extreme, extreme pillars of change in my city. I want my city to be like what’s the word…I want people to be able to look at Cincinnati as an example of like different changes and stuff in the future.
I would like — I’m big into prison abolition and building a future where we create an environment where people are well taken care of and not completely stepped on. I believe in capitalism without stepping on other people. I believe in capitalism where people are rewarded for what they do and the hard work they put in, but they also give back as they go and they help build up other people. I want to see what that looks like. I wanna design that and see if we can have self-sustaining communities like that in Cincinnati. This is decades down the line.
Nick: So you’ve got a lot of love for the people of Cincinnati it sounds like. And kind of where you come from right?
Drift: Love for people in general. Just people, you know.
Nick: I’m the same way, but I care about people on the internet more than I do people in the real world I would say. It sounds like you have a lot of love for where you came from and want lift that up, which I’m jealous of ’cause I just don’t really have that.
Drift: But you know what the thing was is like I didn’t have it until I went through this whole thing. I was like, I will never live in Cincinnati. I left Cincinnati at 18. Was like never moving back. Never whatever. I chose to stay here because I am going through this. I already knew the bigger picture, right. But it’s different when you got skin in the game, like it’s different when you’ve gone through it yourself. You’ve stood up to the system yourself and beat them. You’ve gone through being incarcerated. You’ve gone through being that poor person with no money. You’ve gone through being portrayed to the media in this sense. And I went through all this and I have watched my father go to prison. It’s different now because — maybe it’s just for me truthfully, like on the inside where I’m like, I’m gonna be the biggest fuck you to all you guys ever, you know, but it is definitely — I just care about people. And I think that we are so used to seeing America being built to where it’s like people’s success comes at like the demise of other people and don’t think it has to be that way. I think that’s kind of a disease that we’ve perpetuated in American culture.
Nick: It’s zero sum versus positive sum, right. That’s what’s so great about crypto in general, I would say it’s very positive sum. Personally, before I got into crypto, it felt like society in the US was very zero sum, but crypto is very much, I think for the next even decades still a positive sum game.
Drift: I think so too. And that, that’s why, I am heavily exposed to crypto and web 3.0 and in the NFT space right now is because I see the positive so much, you know? And after taking care of myself and paying off my case and building my home, it was like, what do I do? I guess I could just travel all the time, take pictures and climb all the time. And I would love that, but I always felt like I’ve had much bigger of a purpose. So now I wanna see if I take 10 like-minded people here in Cincinnati and we start with a portfolio or I can get them all to, basically like a DAO, all come in and we start investing together. I just wanna see what we can do? What can we do in three months, six months, a year? And then what can we turn around and build in the physical world here? Like maybe we take some profits and we build this business or we build whatever.
Nick: Well, I wanna talk, we’ve got like a couple more minutes, but I did want to talk a little bit about that. ’Cause sneakers that’s an obvious business for you, right? Whether it’s with vans, I’ve heard you talk a little bit about creating your own sneaker company.
Drift: I’m gonna create my own regardless. I’m in the process right now. I’m not waiting on Vans ’cause Vans had their chance and if they were gonna do it, they would’ve done it by now. We’ve talked, we’ve emailed, we’ve you know. Plus like I’m big on ownership. I’m huge on ownership. Like I don’t wait on anyone, my work and what I chose to do, like after getting out was my way of saying, fuck you to everyone, to my lawyers, to the judge, to like the police. I was like, I’m not waiting on you to be successful. Or to keep me in your good graces and I’m not thanking you for not sending me to prison. You knew you were wrong. And you know that I’m right. And the world knows that my artwork has a place here. So I’m not apologizing for anything.
I’m huge on ownership by owning your identity, owning your truth and then building out of that. You know? Like I don’t — like I built the project Where My Vans Go, ’cause I always explored in Vans. Doesn’t mean like I couldn’t build my own shoe and go make a whole another collection. And maybe it comes out and it’s all international work and it’s Where My Drifts Go. You know what and I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I don’t care. You know? I’m so with it, like, I may never drop another collection until then, you know, and just take six months, a year and go shoot around the world and come back with the craziest shit anybody’s ever seen. You know, like that might be what I do, but I wanna build my own businesses, my own name, my own legacy. If Vans wants to get involved and partner, we can partner, but I will still build my own shoe.
Nick: I like it. Well, keep, keep me in the loop. I’d love to help. Anyway, I can on that and anything else you’re doing. And obviously we’re now part of the family of collectors and want to continue to help. I mean we treat the artists that we invest in just like we treat the founders that we invest in from a company perspective. So, definitely let’s stay linked up and I would love to talk again soon.
Drift: Absolutely. I’m so thankful for today. And yeah, I mean, just looking towards the future, I think right now it is just expanding the collector base, expanding what we’re trying to build here at Where My Vans Go. And as I get my nonprofit up and off the ground in the next three to six months it’ll be a lot more evident because then I can show people this is what I’ve been building all along. Well, I didn’t have time to build it when I was fighting for my own life. I just didn’t. So now I have more time and, you know, focused here at home and when I’m not out shooting, that’s what I want to do. I want people to be able to see what’s being built. You know, ’cause it’s always been something where I’ve wanted to be like way beyond where I am and what I’m doing.
Nick: Cool, man. Alright Drift. Well, great to see you. Great chatting and let’s talk again soon.
Drift: Sounds good, Nick. Thank you so much, man.
About 1confirmation: High conviction investors in authentic projects like Coinbase, OpenSea, SuperRare, dYdX, Nexus Mutual and more. Started in 2017 with $5M, now $1B+ in AUM.
