Coming soon look for Laura
on the same shoot with Real Deal

LAURA LITTLE

Images: Jaymz Eberly / Ian Young

Words: Ian Young

            “That Girl”.  There is only one way to describe “That Girl”. That girl is the girl you can’t have and is the single most enticing fascination in your entire world. She’s that damn near make-believe thing that’s right there but so far out of reach that it’s frustrating well beyond comprehension. You wanna know why she’s so unattainable? Because for one, that girl always has a man and you gotta know that that’s just how it goes in reality. And two, she doesn’t even exist … there’s just no way. There’s no way there’s actually a beautiful girl that’s not only a vision but also she’s no punk. She’ll be right there with you … ride or die … right or wrong. She’s got beauty and backbone … everything you want. Not to mention she’s a genius and a successful businesswoman. That’s just unreal right? Laura Little of Snap Dragons Incorporated is that girl. Sure she’s a model but she’s not your average pin-up girl. She’s that girl who if you saw her on your calendar would give you a feeling like you couldn’t have her if she didn’t want you. It’s not a given. She’s desirable yes, but in the back of your mind you can’t help think that she might turn you down if she actually existed … just because she can. No ego … just fact.

Laura Little is in fact real and met with us in today in full-fledged rockabilly mode. A stunning black dress, leopard skin high heels, a red rose in her midnight black hair, matching lipstick and two full-sleeve tattooed arms proudly announcing her presence.  This woman is dynamite. Dynamite right in your face … so you might want to back up and give her some room.

Lowrider Pimps: Alright it’s your partner in crime, Ian Young here from Lowrider Pimps back again. Today were here with the beautiful and very humble Laura Little of Snap Dragons Inc.

Laura Little: Who said I was humble?

Lowrider Pimps: I appreciate you meeting with us today.

Laura Little: Thank you.

Lowrider Pimps: So tell me a little bit about Snap Dragons Incorporated. How did that come about?

Laura Little: Snap Dragons Incorporated started actually about eight or nine years ago. Inspired back when I used to work for a record label. I just got really into music and I decided I wanted to manage some bands. Y-know, solo artists first … did that … was really successful but I had a little boy that I had to think about so the nightlife wasn’t exactly the best.  So I left it for a little while and I met my best friend … my partner Katrina. We decided to take it up last August and we just … we hit the ground running. We’ve taken off like crazy. And so now it changed from management to P.R.

Lowrider Pimps: Wow, so you guys not only promote artist and models … (you also do a lot of P.R.)?

Laura Little: Public relations, that’s mainly what we do. We try to help people network. As well as get the word out to the publications ... you know the magazines, the industries, the radio stations, record labels. (We help) the up and coming artists that have been working really hard that need that exposure.

Lowrider Pimps: …that jumpstart.

Laura Little: A jumpstart, exactly.

Lowrider Pimps: Me, I’m a Cadillac man myself so I totally love the name of your events the Coup De Ville … is there any history behind that?

Laura Little: Well, as everybody knows, Coupe De Ville means two. So because there’s  two of us we though that would be really cool to name it Coupe De Ville. It kind of adds a little spice to it and if we do car shows we can move it to Coupe De Ville car shows so… So we kinda wanted to have a name that would not just incorporate just music shows but we could do cars shows also and move on from there.

Lowrider Pimps: That’s awesome ... really well thought out. I had no idea what that meant.

Laura Little: (laughing) A lot of people don’t. But since it’s Kat and I doing it, we’re like … we’re the Coup.

Lowrider Pimps: So how long have you been interested in the whole Rockabilly, pin-up style?

Laura Little: Probably all my life. My uncle was a Greaser … and always drove old cars.

LP: Greaser … that’s with the greased hair …

LL: The greased – back hair, was always listening to Elvis.  Since I can remember, It was always like fifties music in the house, some Doo-Wop. Y-know … Buddy Holly … Elvis and then my mom is half – English too so that’s were my punk roots came in. So you mix the two and you get me (laughing).

LP: Ok … ok. I mean those two really go hand in hand huh … Rockabilly and Pin-Up?

LL: They totally do. I mean the gorgeous pin-ups I mean … they’re cute, there sexy; but they’re not trashy and that’s what’s really cool is that these girls … they’re cheesecake, they’re fun and they’re not slutty and where we wanna stand.

LP: What’s Cheesecake?

LL: Cheesecake, you know it means like … man how do you explain cheesecake  … it’s sort of like fun … it’s teasing with out being sexual.

LP: Ok … So what attracts you to the Rockabilly style?

LL: Well, like I said, It’s classy …  it’s cute and it’s sexy without being over-the-top. The girls just have this real classy look to them. Everybody gets dressed up. It’s different from like grunge rock or something. I mean, that’s cool too but pin-up girls have been around since World War II y-know? The women just get dressed up and they look great … but now-a-days you see girls just get … y-know they’re not …

LP: Kinda raunchy huh?

LL: Yeah exactly. I mean that’s cool if that’s your style, I accept everybody. I’m so not trashing that either but I’d prefer to get dressed up and wear the red lipstick and do my hair … y-know?

LP: We had an interview with another pin-up model Miss Julie the Bully and she was saying something similar that anybody can get into pin-up you know … like its for everybody.

LL: Oh yeah … totally.  Yeah.

LP photgrapher Jaymz: Lowrider Pimps is about class (laughing)

LL: Yeah … exactly.

LP: So how do you describe your personal style I mean, what should everybody know about Laura Little?

LL: I’m Goofy (laughing). No, I mean … my personal style y-know … I think I have more of the punk rock mentality. It’s pretty much I wake up and it’s whatever I feel like that day. And not saying like, poser-wise because I’m totally not a poser I just mean …

LP: … free spirit…

LL: Very free spirit.  I don’t let people push me around. I don’t let people tell me “no”. And if they do say “no” I figure out a different way to open that door.

LP: I love that ... I love that.

LL: (laughing) 

LP: I love your tattoos y-know sort of tough and strong, yet elegant and sophisticated.

LL: Thank you.

LP: Have you ever gotten caught up in any of the politics of the business? Like, has anybody ever categorized you incorrectly or judged you without really getting to know you?

LL: Oh all the time … all the time. It’s really sad because people will look at me funny or automatically think I have no education or I don’t pay my bills, that I couldn’t possibly be a responsible mother.  And here they are not knowing I have a degree from UCSD, that I do work corporate, I do have my own business, I have a thirteen-year-old. 

LP: And they’re so wrong…

LL: They’re completely wrong.

LP: I kind-of like that thought … y-know like sort of catching people off guard.

LL: You know what … I do too. It makes me work harder because I want people to not see me as just this chick with tattoos or whatever.  I want people to know that I work hard and I am intelligent and that should supersede what I look like.

LP: So I know you’ve worked with some pretty heavy-hitters in the entertainment business like Gene Simmons to NWA to James Brown …

LL: James Brown!!!!  (laughing)

LP: So what was it like working with those guys … especially James Brown?

LL: You know, I learned so much.  James Brown was such a professional. This guy was all about … perfection. He was a hard-working man, even up until his dying days. I mean, the dude worked hard. And he expected everybody to work hard because he gave 110% … and he expected it back.

LP: He was like that with his band too, he was real hard on his band.

LL: He was. And he was always real respectful to me I mean, I worked with him for a year. I was twenty years old and he always about, “Miss Laura, Miss Laura” and was never disrespectful. He was so cool.  Um, working with Yella from NWA was the same way. I mean, you expect … it’s the same thing we talked about …

LP: The preconceived notion …

LL: Yeah, the preconceived notion of like, OK here’s a guy, he’s a gangster. He’s gonna walk in … he’s gonna like, talk to the point where I don’t understand what he’s saying y-know…

LP: (laughing)

LL: …dude walked in, knew his business, knew what he wanted to do, was so intelligent …had bright ideas. I had mad respect for him, mad respect for him. And um, Gene Simmons, that was actually kind-of funny. I was actually walking down the street on Sunset and um, he was shooting a video in the next week or so and he wanted me to be the like “Video Vixen”. And I did that and it was pretty cool. It was very different (laughing) very, very different. But ah, he was cool I mean; he’s a part of history so you can’t deny that.

LP: So have you ever been featured in any magazines or publications like that?

LL: I actually was on the cover of Skin & Ink magazine in 2005 an that was pretty cool because one of my friends actually saw me on the newsstand in Amsterdam and called me and said “I see Laura Little on the newsstands, I cant get away from you”.

LP: Your so much more than a model, you know you’re a really powerful woman …

LL: Oh, well I never considered myself a model…ever. Ever, ever,ever.  I’ve always wanted to work behind the scenes.

LP: I mean, I see you’re a hardworking, church-going professional. Also a businesswoman … So, I’m sure you’re a big inspiration to a lot of people out there who want to do what you do.  Plus, you’ve been doing this for while so if their was a person out there who was juggling their lives and their jobs and families or what- not, but has the dream of starting a business of their own or doing some sort of independent venture of that nature what advice would you have to give them?

LL: You know what?  No matter how big your dream is, if you work hard and you’re honest (is what counts).  The one thing I have to say is never screw anybody over because you never know. It always comes full-circle. I truly believe that. If you’re honest about it, I don’t think you can go wrong. Like I mentioned before, if the door closes, don’t be discouraged. You just gotta figure out a way to open that door a different way, the back way, the side way, it doesn’t matter, just figure out a different way. Y-know, just keep going.

LP: …your so awesome (all laugh). How do you stay motivated to keep moving in a positive direction? What … or who is your inspiration?

LL: My son. My son is my inspiration. He’s the only thing I can really leave behind in this world. Someone’s gonna say “You know what, she raised a good man”. That’s just gonna be a reflection of who I am. I can leave behind money or I can leave behind a big house but if my son grows up to be disrespectful than that’s gonna reflect on me.   I want to make sure that when I leave this world that he’s proud of his mom. Like she did something good, she worked with charities ... y-know, that kind of thing.

LP: How could you not be I mean, you’ve done so much.  But what do you think of the sort-of classic pin-up style we’re trying to bring back into the way lowriding is portrayed?

LL: Y-know I’ve never actually pictured pin-ups with lowriding because the two have never been married before. You kind of see the girl in the daisy dukes on the magazines and so when Jaymz approached me and gave me the background that you guys wanted to portray, you-know hard-working women in a classy style, I mean, that’s really cool. I mean, pin-up and cars have always gone together so why not pin-ups and lowriders? Like I said, Im not putting down any girl that wants to put on a pair of daisy dukes, if it looks good that great. But that’s not my style per say. And to see pin-up with lowriders, that’s really cool, I mean that’s how it should have been this whole time. (laughing)

LP: You guys (SnapDragons Inc.) are doing so much for the Rockabilly and Pin-Up culture … and with that being such a real classic and vintage thing, where do you see that it going in the future?

LL: What were trying to do is really build our name. Of course we want a big and strong stand in Rockabilly with the pin-up and the car culture and even punk. We’d love to some how mix all of that in and bring it into the charities … I don’t think people give back enough. That’s kind of what Coupe De Ville is all about. It’s not just about booking the well-know acts and guaranteeing the big night moneymaker. What we like to do is book one big act and we try to bring in acts from like Orange County or Riverside and give those people a chance to have some Los Angeles exposure with those big acts. Y-know no body really takes that chance.  So we do that, and we mix it in with the pin-up, we mix it in with the vendors and it gives people the chance that cant make it to those big events in Vegas or cant make it those big events in the O.C. to have a little piece of it in L.A. So with that, we want to bring that into doing charities and hopefully people will give back and give kids music lessons or give kids an opportunity to work on lowriders or learn how to pinstripe … that kind of thing.

LP: Sort of make it achievable.

LL: Exactly, so it’s attainable. So no one gets discouraged. So they know they can do it. And even if they don’t have the money, there’s people out there that believe in them.

LP: Just like you were saying, if you give that good aura or that respect ... you get it back.  Do you have anybody out there that you’d like to say hello to or give a shout out to?

LL: I wanna give a shout out to uh … wow there’s a lot of people I want to shout out. I cant hold back. (laughing)  I wanna shout out the people that really gave us our start … The Derby. They really let Katrina and I just flourish with our events, we do have an event coming up June 15^th. We do open bar for the first hour. We have Charley Horse … thank you, thank you, thank you for taking a chance on us girls and The Southerners and the Gravesite Rockers, um gotta give a shout out to my girl Daisy DeVine who is our pin-up emcee who is another hard-working girl that owns her own business, and a single mom too. I have to give another shout out to SKRATCH from SKRATCHES Garage my pin-striper that we rep going back to the PR stuff.  What’s cool about him is that he didn’t want to go full corporate. He wanted somebody who had the roots. Who knew the people…

LP: … someone authentic …

LL: Exactly, honest … let’s get back to honest … to represent him. Because he easily could have gone somewhere corporate since he’s doing shows now.  He didn’t need us y-know but he wanted to have girls that actually are submerged into the culture. Not somebody who wears a suit and tie that doesn’t know the people or music or have the love for the subculture.

LP: Well I just wanted to tell you how much of an honor it was to interview you... 

LL: Oh my honor (laughing).

LP: …such a beautiful and powerful woman such as yourself and we wish you all the success in the future and keep up the great work.

LL: Thank you, thank you. I wish you guys much success. I know you guys’ll definitely; do it.

Laura Little is one of those rare people that your glad you‘ve had the chance to meet. And just so all of you out there know, that’s putting it lightly. It seems unreal that a person can have so much character and still be as down to earth as she is. But hey, that just goes to show you that when and if you get the chance to meet Laura, it’s important to remember two things. One is that you’re not dealing with your average person.  And two, you just might want to pay attention to the road because you just might be dreaming.  This is Ian Young signing off … keep it slow and low. We’ll see you fools on the boulevard. . .

Coming soon look for Laura
on the same shoot with Real Deal
::

If you like this Article check out: Miss Julie the Bully

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