Ben Shelton: The Pros and (C)ons of Going Pro

I met Efron initially through Supreme filmmaker Bill Strobeck, who welcomed her into the roster of his new brand and skate team, Violet. Beyond the skate world, Danzig has walked a Marni show, starred in a Calvin Klein campaign, authored a poetry book, and showcased her work with the Daisies series in Paris, Biarritz, New York and Tokyo.

Putting together this 20th anniversary issue with a special focus on New York, Danzig seemed an obvious choice to feature as the exciting and inspiring future of our hometown.

EFRON wears SWEATSHIRT, SKIRT, UNDERWEAR, SHOES by ALEXANDER WANG, SHIRT, SUNGLASSES by BALENCIAGA, BAG by GUCCI

[Originally published in office magazine Issue 20, Fall-Winter 2023. Order your copy here]

Paige Silveria— How are you? What have you been up to? 

Efron Danzig— I’m pretty good. I just started barbacking at a burlesque club; it makes me want to perform. I also assisted this photographer Jimi [Franklin] the other day, just trying to learn what I can from him. I met him on a shoot recently. His photos are really soft. [Shows images by the photographer]

PS— Reminds me of The Panic in Needle Park, the coloring and tone.

ED— Yeah I know exactly what you mean. I want to shoot more like that. It’s nice to be learning since I’m not going to school or anything. 

PS— I think that’s the way to do it. How long have you been in this apartment? 

ED— Since April. I’ve just been subletting it from a friend. It’s fun to have my own apartment. Also cool to have space to make art. I’m about to move spots again soon, but I don’t know where in New York yet. 

PS— It feels a bit like being in a Jarmusch apartment. It’s very old New York and cozy, chaotic in a good way. 

ED— It’s usually not this messy, but I’ve had a lot of people stay with me over the past two weeks. I need to clean that couch. There are clothes all over my room because I’ve been taking a lot of photos of my friends there. I just end up throwing things around and then leaving for the night. Been taking a lot of self-portraits here too. Just setting up lamps and putting clothes over them to make the lighting certain colors. I’ve been watching a lot of movies and trying to emulate the look. I really love Jim Jarmusch’s films, specifically Night on Earth.

PS— I think you’ve definitely achieved that. Tell me about the self-portraits.  

ED— [Showing some images on the computer]. This one I was experimenting with the lighting in the different rooms and the background and trying to see what silhouettes look good. It’s fun to just get high and play dress up. Learn things by trial and error, seeing what works and what doesn’t. I started taking self-portraits out of curiosity. Like, what do I even look like? What happens if I do this? Or that? It’s easy to test things on myself. Here’s photos of this weird dude I saw on the bus and then he played a ukulele on the beach in a cheetah-print speedo.

PS— I love him! Speaking of your trial-and-error navigation, I interviewed this iconic, celebrated photographer who’s in her 70s for a magazine a while back. She was pretty terrifying to speak with actually. But it was interesting to hear that she’d never learned how to properly use her camera. She’d always just winged it and still to this day does. 

ED— Like an outsider artist, I’ve always found that really interesting. I have no idea what I’m doing. So it’s fun to just figure shit out or ask my friends for help — I ask them for help a lot. I’m really inspired by so many of my friends here. I feel like I have a lot to learn from them.

PS— Yeah, I find outsider artwork especially intriguing — what people come up with when they aren’t aware of what’s expected, the rules and what’s come before. Tell me about where you grew up.

ED— I was born and lived in New York City until I was seven. Then my parents split. My mom moved to Philadelphia and my dad stayed here. I went back and forth until I was 10. Then I was mostly in and around Philly until last August, when I moved back to New York, a year ago around this time. 

PS— Were you always so creative?

ED— I wasn’t! I was always a weirdo though. I think I always had ideas but didn’t know how to communicate them until I was much much older. I pretty much only skated from 10 until 12 years old, and then didn’t start again until I was 16. I was just a little dork playing video games all day. I’m still a little dork though. I was super antisocial at that time, then when I was 16 I started going out and making friends, going to shows. The shows really got me out of my shell. But mostly I just skated and didn’t do much else until I got hurt badly the first time when I was 18. Then I had to develop other hobbies. I wanted to find other ways to express myself. So I just tried out stuff to see what I liked. A few have stuck with me over the years.

EFRON wears UNDERWEAR by ARAKS, BELT by DIESEL 

PS— Wait, to quickly go back to video games; have you seen how gamers’ bodies are supposed to deform over time? There was some prediction about how their heads will have a dent from the headphones and their backs are supposed to be all crooked from leaning towards the computer, etc? And some gamers actually buzzed their heads and found the dents! So fucking disturbing. 

ED— Wow. I’m thankful I avoided that phase. 

PS— Lol, right? Tell me about your experience with modeling and the fashion world. 

ED— Oh my god. About two years ago, this casting director DMed me and asked me to do a shoot. I didn’t respond for a bit then hit him back and he asked me to send him a picture of me in my underwear. And so I asked if he wanted me to wear a bra and he was like, “Why would you do that?” Like, “Because I have boobs.” He didn’t realize I was trans. He was like, “Oh my god. I’m so sorry” … Side note, I didn’t grow up thinking I’d be doing this; it wasn’t in the cards for me. So I’m like, “Why the fuck is this dude hitting me up? Is he even a real casting director? Like, what the fuck is a casting director?” Anyways, the first real experience I had with modeling was when Rachel [Chandler] hit me up for a shoot with Jim Goldberg. That was the best. I met a lot of people on that shoot, Zara [Mirkin] and Bobby at Supreme — people I’d get to know over the next few years. I didn’t understand how interconnected everything was in New York. But, yeah, overall I’ve had a good experience in that world. It’s a fun job and I’ve got people I trust looking out for me. 

PS— I’m really happy to hear you have a good support system. It’s pretty wild sometimes to realize how interconnected things really are. Someone could be an asshole to you one day and 10 years later they’re the person in charge of a big project you’re working on. You never know. You have to keep your head. Striking that balance is key. 

ED— I’ve had to bite my tongue, but I’ve gotten a lot better at sticking up for myself recently. 

PS— That’s good. You also walked Marni recently! That’s so exciting. 

ED— It’s pretty trippy. I’m lucky to be able to do it. I like to be a character in somebody’s world. The creative director has cool ideas. When I used to play music I would get the same rush, the same kick out of it. Right before I go, I get butterflies and I can’t talk. But then after, it's a release and it feels really good. 

PS— You made music?

ED— I used to be in a few bands in Philly. Nowadays, I just finger pick on the guitar by myself. I used to do this thing too sometimes where I read poetry and my friend played upright bass over it. I want to bring that back. 

PS— The DIY/punk scene here is pretty quiet these days. There used to be so many more experimental venues, a thriving community.

ED— Yeah, it’s hard for cool spaces to last here. Chaos Computer just closed and there are only so many other community-run spaces. But they exist and shows happen a lot. Like, there's been some pretty sick shows recently.

PS— Tell me again about the speech impediment you had when you were young and how your mum just happens to be a therapist and helped heal you?

ED— When I was really young, my mom was the speech pathologist at my school. I would do all these mouth exercises for my speech impediment. I couldn't say “sh” or “r” or “L”. Like if I said “really”, it would sound like “weewee.”

PS— I ran into Bill [Strobeck] the other night and told me to ask you some weird questions. I had no idea what to ask you, that's weird. 

ED— The only example I gave Bill was like fucking …

PS— [Laughs] Do you want to talk about fucking?

ED— Actually no, that’s just kind of a joke! I don’t know, I wanted it to be raunchy haha. I’ve only done so many interviews, but I regret doing them all. You’re just always in the present and maybe I just want to exist as that present self. Sometimes you read stuff you said before and it’s funny to have your honest answers out there that maybe have changed. 

PS— I get that for sure. But some of the most inspiring things I’ve come across have been Q&As, no matter how long ago they were done. People, when they’re deep in a good conversation, can lend some really pivotal advice, perspectives. It’s cool to contribute for others to take from.

ED— You're right. 

PS— Tell me a fun story.

ED— There was a reading at William Burroughs’ bunker a few weeks ago and my friends and I snuck into what I believe to be Mark Rothko’s old studio. We just danced around and filmed silly videos. The walls had paint splattered all over. It was really cute — wait didn’t Burroughs kill somebody?

PS— Yeah, he shot his wife Joan Vollmer in the head accidentally. 

ED— Oh yeah, I had a vague memory of reading that on Wikipedia. When I first started reading poetry I was like 17 and my first books I liked were Jack Kerouac’s Scattered Poems and Mexico City Blues. I’m not into that stuff much anymore, but was super inspired by that because they were the only poetry books I had, plus Richard Hell and Patti Smith early on. I still want to get “YOU MAKE ME _____” tattooed even though it’s kinda, ya know … It would be good, right on my rib. Kind of sexy. 

PS— You should do it. 

ED— So, I met this person in a poetry class before I dropped out. We would hang out all the time and write together. They would critique my poems. It was awesome. They showed me a lot of the poets I’m still really into today. Oh, speaking of, I saw Eileen Myles biking down 7th Street the other day. I was biking the wrong way down the street and I needed to get in and she let me. As I did, I saw who she was and was like, “Oh my god! I am such a big fan!” She kept on biking and yelled back, “Thank ya!” I biked for maybe 30 feet more and then stopped my bike and just started crying. I’d just read an interview with her from Butt Magazine a few days before. Seeing her in person after, just existing, I don’t know why I cried. I couldn’t contain myself. The only celebrity — celebrity to me — that I’ve ever fanned out on like that. 

PS— I interviewed Lydia Lunch a while back. We met at a bar and spoke for a few hours. That was really trippy. Back to the Beat Generation, it’s cool that you’re into it. I feel like youth appreciation for that era is waning. 

ED— People who write, they probably know who a lot of those people are, but most people probably have no idea. Not that it matters. 

PS— Why do you think that is? 

ED— I think people don’t read as many books. So they’re not going to know a writer over a TikToker. 

EFRON wears COAT, SHOES by RICK OWENS, BIKINI by HEAVEN BY MARC JACOBS

EFRON wears BRA by CHRIS HABANA, PANTS by STELLA MCCARTNEY, SHOES by GIANVITO ROSSI

PS— Same with great filmmakers. 

ED— Yeah, but there definitely are a lot of people who know who Wong Kar-wai and Jim Jarmusch are. I’m just into movies because I’ve been injured a lot and my old roommate was a film major, and so was this guy who I used to see. So they were always putting on really good films. Especially now, people are only shown what their algorithm provides. Some people forget that there’s more media to take in than what’s on the Internet. You can read a book; you can go see a film. 

PS— Yeah, or even just go down a Wikipedia hole. 

ED— Literally I’ll be up at five in the morning, on Wikipedia reading about some random person. You can just nerd out on some poet. It’s fun to look up someone you’re influenced by and read all of their interviews too. But yeah, I need to get away from the computer though. I don’t go in nature nearly enough. I need to clear my head. 

PS— I’ve been spending a lot of this summer in the woods. I love taking mushrooms outside, around trees. 

ED— I like taking mushrooms, but I just want to feel them — I don’t like to take too much or I get paranoid. Maybe if I take them in the woods I’ll have a better time. I don’t know why I always have them in a party setting. 

PS— I want to hear more about the poetry you write.

ED— I actually made a little poetry book recently. My friend Maya [Greenberg] did all the drawings in it. I wanted to make something to put out into the world. Poems just sit there, might as well do something with them. 

PS— What do you write about?

ED— Well I never used to write love poems, and I used to not like them. I wanted to read other shit. But this book is all love poems. I’m more romantic now than I used to be … Well I’m also kind of smitten right now and I just upped my estrogen. So super lovey dovey in my feels. 

PS— Ah, I love! How’s dating been? 

ED— I’m such a romantic. I don’t know. Up and down. I love a gentleman, kinda messy. It’s so hot, so sexy. I know a few good gentlemen … Have you listened to old Beastie Boys, when they were a hardcore band? 

PS— No!

ED— They were so sick. [Puts it on] The punk scene is pretty cool here, all across the east coast there are sick bands. I miss playing music. My friend asked me to sing in a band recently. We have to get things together and write some songs. But I do want to just skate a lot right now. Music you can do forever — not that I’m old, but skating you can’t do forever. I got hurt initially two years ago and it took 11 months to heal. And then I could only skate for seven months before I got hurt again. I had a second surgery the day after this shoot and now I’m pretty much healed. I haven’t really been able to skate much these past two years. So I’m excited to do that. And there’s a really cute queer skate scene in Oakland. I want to go there again soon and skate.