AltPorn Feature: Sean Adamz LazerBunny

We’ve been checking out Sean Adamz’ LazerBunny altporn site a bunch lately and we’ve been entertained by some of the things the outspoken Mr. Adamz has had to say, so in honor of their one year anniversary, we thought it would be fun to ask the bunny master a few questions about his site, his creative work, etc. All in all, I must say that I enjoy his site. It has some areas ripe for growth, but he does manage to integrate some of the social features with the content and he doesn’t seem to forget that his members joined to see hot sexy photos and video of interesting and varied girls. I particularly enjoy the video featured on the site, but the photo sets are nice too. To be fair, a lot of the credit for this interview really should also go to KittyTwo. She helped with a lot of the questions and should share credit on the by line. We’d also like to thank Sean for taking the time to enlighten us and here is what he had to say:

I like how well organized the internal structure of the LazerBunny site is and the social features like member profiles and some really enjoyable member blogs give it a nice friendly atmosphere. Was that a challenge to set up?

The community features of lazerbunny, aside from billing and adult website business legalities, were ultimately the hardest to create. Once i had conquered all of that it was on to the wonderful struggle of encouraging the models to consistently use these features. After listening to the girls say it was ‘very important’ to have those blogs and community features (and agreeing), it was frustrating to have to constantly push smart, witty, outspoken people to be smart, witty and outspoken. I’m not the kind of person who really enjoys blogging but I do what needs to be done to make the site happen and sometimes that means writing a blog about a sandwich and a Fugazi song.

You have some interesting features like a magazine style section featuring a handful of movie and music reviews, along with interviews and other entertaining bits. Is this an area you plan on building up a lot more? How popular is this sort of content with your members?

The ‘magazine’ section of the site comes from my old-skool days when ‘zines were really popular forms of counter-culture and erotica for weirdos and punk rockers, alt kids, losers, whatever you want to call them. They raised questions about what was going on, and regardless of the content, it felt more personal and more relevant than the nightlife section of some popular magazine that anyone in the world could read.. ‘Zines were often mailed out by hand and written by a handful of people that likely knew each other and the ‘scene’ they represented.. I was always around a lot of punk rockers and industrial/goth types, always the black sheep of both groups, but a good friend of mine had a very popular ‘zine called Psychotic Episode and I helped him out with that sometimes and always kind of mixed it all up without the boundaries of social cliche.

Many of the photo sets featured on the LazerBunny site are really creative from a lighting and environment perspective, not to mention the really sexy sexy subjects, but I noticed that a lot of them are fairly soft core topless style and such. Not that there is anything wrong with that, they are very enjoyable, but we’ve seen you rant about ‘bland pinup photography’ that doesn’t admit it’s pornography. These photo sets seem to contrast with your unabashed ‘hardcore’ sex videos, which are also enjoyable but not nearly as soft. Do you see a difference between good altporn video vs. good altporn photography, from the perspective of trying to create good pornography?

I see a lot of websites calling themselves ‘pornography’ or alt-porn… this is not the case if you are attempting ‘artistic nudes’ or fetish photography. All three are completely different, just like punk is not new wave and hardcore is not emo. I do what I do in the same style, and that plays a huge role at lazerbunny.com primarily because I DO everything on the site. I do not have assistants who edit, or financial backing from larger companies. I’ll shoot a photo set of a model with the same amount of thought that goes into shooting a video. The only difference is that one has ‘action’. I like a lot of different kinds of art; I own an art gallery and an extensive art collection that primarily features deviant artists of the early 1900’s when things were strange in the same ways. On one hand people were very glamorous and on the other hand life was very dirty and a lot of decadence and perversion was happening both openly and behind closed doors. On that note, I am a big fan of the original Bizarre Magazine published by Taschen at that time.

You’ve expressed disgust with people who fail to create pornography. What do you feel makes your work porn and what is good about porn?

I only feel disgust towards people that lie to the public about their product. I’m entitled to my opinion, and it pisses me off. I also feel that the people who do create an expensive and time-consuming product deserve respect regardless of their industry. People that work for our government are responsible for countless murders and even genocide , and they receive a lot of praise and a huge paycheck. Creating pornography was my decision to stand up for something in [duh]merica. Let’s get right to the point: pornography is our right as Americans. We can look at it, we can make it, we can do anything we want as long as its remains within the law. In sexually restrictive countries exists a higher rate of rape, murder, political unrest and sexism…Clearly that exists here as well, but I think that freedoms allow for a tolerance that maybe we stopped appreciating a long time ago, because we only use 10% of our liddo brainz. Wake up please, everyone, alarm clock time.

How did you get into shooting video and photos? Do you consider yourself more of a photo guy or a video guy?

Honestly, I am an artist. That’s it. I’ve toured the country playing in a rock band. I’ve held exhibitions of some of the most renowned artists in the world in my gallery, I’ve had photo shows, and made music videos for other bands. and I’ve had books of my writing published. Sometimes I’m a makeup artist when girls don’t like doing their own makeup. I can do anything it doesn’t matter what it is..’LazerBunnyMansion’ had no plumbing when i got the place..I did that too, while coding the website at the same time….whatever, you do what you want if you want to.

It seems like the role of ‘model’ has changed in the recent years, especially in the world of alt-modeling . In some cases, their expectations of what they are going to get out of a shoot seem very high these days. How do you handle it when a model expects you to work extra-hard to make her look more than perfect these days?

Mostly, I would like to introduce a lot of people to the word and conceptual reality of something called ex foliation… I’m not working for a major publication, so for me the key is do my job, and do it well. I should not have to work “extra hard” to make a model look good, isn’t that the models job? What does a model’s job consist of? 1. Show up on time. 2. Look good and know how to look good A LOT. 3. Wait there is no 3 which also cancels out 4.

What inspired you to start shooting? To start a site?

Well, like I said I have done a lot in the entertainment industry, so after deciding that I wanted to take a break from playing music after 10 years of doing it for a living, it seemed easy to contact a lot of my friends that I knew were ok with that kind of thing, i.e. groupies, strippers, gogo dancers.. . I’ve known Stoya since around the time she had just turned 18 from hanging around Philly and she was the first person I talked to about the site. At the time it was just an idea, and that was well before she had done anything nude in terms of photographs. She was actually turning down great photographers for nude shoots because she was doing more fashion. We collaborated over the years on ideas, and a lot of the original lazerbunnyz are mutual friends and acquaintances. From there it has been really a lot of determination and being kind of generally pissed off that most of the pornography out there is really really DUMB.

You have an interesting collection of talent on your site. What characteristics make you want to shoot a girl?

Each lazerbunny is different, amazing and unique. I noticed early on that alot of things are the same about ‘brands’ of porn.. the girls on the site are similar, the movies are similar, alot of the same stuff being churned out, which is good if you are making cars, because there are performance standards, but when you are dealing with really real hot models in really fake movies about real sex, you hit a conceptual wall that does not allow you to photoshoppe the same thing into every single background or cast the same exact girls as the other sites. I have in fact cast some girls that appear on other sites, and sometimes ALOT of other sites, but there’s always some way that they each represent the best of their ‘type’ of girl. For instance, Pinky Lee is the best 50’s looking retro pinup girl..She also gets more hardcore in alot of videos than some people realize. Stoya is clearly the ultimate supermodel of altporn, Kate Hate is well…Kate Hate..Astrid is a bitchy redheaded dominant girl who makes fun of people in videos about their cock being too small to find, and the list goes on. Each model has her spot in the spectrum of odd girls and mean girls and punk girls etc.

You created some of my favorite content of Stoya. How do you feel about her signing to Digital Playground?

Thanks, I really love all the sets of Stoya, because i know her personally i feel like a lot of personallity shows through in her sets… that’s something I really pride in my photographs. I was and still am extremely supportive of Stoya in her move to DP, mostly because that was the plan all along, to find a good place for her to have a job doing something that she actually enjoys (being a pervert or pervin out as she would call it) I can’t say for sure if S.bot actually ‘enjoys’ making porn all day sometimes. I also don’t think that football players want to train half the year and then go to play games for the rest of the year. It’s all a lot of work, achieving goals that go beyond the status quo. It’s like getting a record deal. If DP was Geffen Records, and I was SubPop, then Stoya would be Nirvana. 😉

What do you think about the way the talent pool has changed since altporn became, as you posted, more corporate?

I have to be totally honest with you on this one, it’s probably become more professional… No different than bands sounding better once they get into a REAL studio to record after signing with a decent label and going on tour for a year, you’re just better. Amateur is cool, but that’s not alternative, and any industry should be professional.

Does it bother you when models and performers you shoot work with other people or are you happy for them getting credits, whether or not they come back to shoot more with you afterwards? How do you feel about exclusivity contracts?

How do I feel about exclusivity contracts…well I touched on this point earlier a bit actually. In the entertainment industry (which includes Altporn AND the price is right and MTV, etc, etc, etc), there are these amazing things called contracts which have existed forever and can also entail “getting signed.” This means you have a JOB. Jobs are good when you have bills. Remember that, kids. If the contract that you are signing will be a bad one, don’t sign it. If it will be beneficial to both parties, then outline the terms of the agreement and stick to it. It’s amazing how people sign contracts (especially non-compete clauses) and think that the words in the contracts they’ve signed don’t mean anything; it’s completely ridiculous. Personally, I don’t use exclusivity contracts for all of my models. I do work exclusively with some models, but that’s their personal choice.

What do you see as the pros and cons for working for a site like LazerBunny vs a corporation like Digital Playground?

The major benefit of working for a smaller company is that you always have some idea of who you are working with and for. Unfortunately this can often lead to theft, personality conflicts, “he said she said” situations, and a lot more drama than working for a corporation. (They just send you to human resources.) I assume that working for a bigger company like DP allows for more job security and less stress.

Who do you work with besides your own site LazerBunny (sites, magazines, video companies, etc.)

I only work for lazerbunny.com, although I do have other artistic projects underway, including a book publishing deal for my erotic and more ‘abstract’ photography. I’m going to be exhibiting in the first deviant art show held in Prague in a few months, and I deal in art and artist management , primarily visual arts. I am also the artistic director of lazertown art collective which is a selective group of artists like the dada group.

I saw that you admitted on your site that it costs more to run than it makes and that you are clearly not doing it for the money, as a matter of fact if you were doing it for the money you’d be doing something else. What are your goals for doing the site?

Well, there’s not much to admit there, as in most business you should expect to be in the red for a year or sometimes even two to three with high-risk businesses as the amount of cash flow is often time very hard to recoup from just one shoot, even when you are paying less than the mainstream industry standard. Funny thing is I just put that blog up about 3 minutes before you read it, probably because there were no blogs posted, so I had to think of something to write about. In the blog I basically say a lot of the same things that I am saying here in this interview, but maybe differently with more confusing metaphors. Even I don’t get where I’m going half the time, and that is exactly how I got here. It’s magical.

You voiced some pretty strong comments about the disappointing outcome of the SuicideGirls vs Lithium Picnic lawsuit. How would you summarize your current opinion of what went down there?

Meh, lolpr0n is funnier than that debacle. I had an initial reaction to it as I am sure a lot of people, models, and industry people had on different levels. As an artist I am ashamed to have someone that is well-respected by their fans make such obviously terrible decisions about where to ‘work’ . But you know, I talk to artists a lot, and almost every artist I work with or for is encouraged by me to own their own work. If LP Studios were independent of SG even after the drama started, I would have supported him in his work. But alas, I do not support people who work for wal-mart just because they need a job.. I don’t have anything against them, but I’m not going to give them the spare change from my pocket that I worked for as they complain about the choice they made to work for wal-mart. That just SEEMS like a rip-off… and it is. I hate to break it to everyone but if all your favorite bands and artists came crying about it and ‘fundraising’ every time they got sued by a record company or movie studio you would never even have known about the situation. Get over it.

Where are you from and were are you located now?

I was born on the banks of a river, raised in New Orleans, and I live in Philadelphia now.

Have you ever appeared on camera?

I’ve been on camera alot, I took a lot of band photos and appeared in a lot of videos and stuff for music. OH OH OH, you mean in porn? Heh, thats a mystery…no one really knows, not even me, one time i woke up in a bathtub filled with ice in warehouse ..with no spleen and Stoya was there smiling ..i’m not sure if there was a camera involved or not, but that was pretty altporn if you ask me.

What should people look for from Sean Adamz and LazerBunny in the near future?

Get used to me fuckers, cuz I’m not leavin’ . More of the same..A LOT more of the different, and also some interesting collaborations with great models..and other photographers…every now and then you can catch a set shot by Bob from CrazyBabe on my site, or a set from bunnymansion on his site….I am releasing my first DVD of lazerbunny scenes which will be part compilation and part full length move called “WE’VE CUM FOR YOUR DAUGHTERS” vol. 5 (we’re gonna skip the first 4)

I have 2 full-length DVD’s coming out after this summer, and A LOT more great photo-sets of Stoya, Pinky Lee, Ariel Adore and all the lazerbunnyz. Currently I am at about 15 thousand photos. There are currently 15 official lazerbunnyz…The idea is to have 13 lazerbunnyz per year 1 per month and a featured ‘upcoming’ star of the year, so look out for her and lazerbunny, and me, Sean Adamz all over the underbelly of the internet.

How do you define AltPorn? What is good about AltPorn? What is bad about AltPorn?

I define altporn as anything that gets the weirdo’z off. what is bad about altporn is the same thing thats bad about alot of things..HUMANS fuck it up. If pornicorns ( unicorns of porn) were flying around with rainbows shooting out of their asses then the world would be such an amazing peaceful altporn heaven, but theyre not …so deal with it fuckers.

KTHXbyeeeeez. SEAN ADAMZ