PrintLiberty Boots' Tony Benattar
If you don’t see the connection between the perfect three-chord rock song and a pair of killer cowboy boots, you need to spend a few minutes with Tony Benattar. The Toronto-based founder of Liberty Boot Co. has it bad for both boots and rock-and-roll — an organic brew of the two has been his sustenance for decades. Now his pricey pointy-toe creations are seen on everyone from Taylor Swift and Madonna to Bruce Springsteen and Ralph Lauren models.
But that wasn’t the life path the Montreal-born Benattar had in mind when he left for college in Ontario with his guitar and his dreams of being in a band. In school he was introduced to country music and bluegrass, but he was less-acquainted with books. “I didn’t study music in school,” Benattar says. “In fact, I didn’t study — I rocked out.” When he went to Toronto to see about making it in the music business, he quickly “lost [his] ambition to starve to death” and had to come up with another idea for the future. “I put my guitar down and I started my boot business,” says Benattar, who learned his craft in Léon, Mexico, eventually launching Liberty Boot Co. in 1993. “It was rocking and fun. I remember thinking that it was better than rock-and-roll.”These days Benattar’s finding time to make boots and music. We caught up with the bass-playing bootmaker at Liberty Boot Co.’s Toronto headquarters to talk about making high-end handmade boots, gigging with the Rattlesnake Choir, what to wear with your Liberty Killaz boots, and Toronto’s hip country music scene.
Cowboys & Indians: What are you wearing on your feet right now?
Tony Benattar: Liberty’s Leon boots. They’re black and red with inlaid lions and Chinese lettering in a funky font. They’ve got sterling buttons on the pulls — pretty rock-and-roll. This pair is very worn-in and filthy. I use them. These have been bushwhacking recently.
I’m happy to have got some land near my grandfather and grandmother’s place near Toronto. I wanted to buy their very same place I used to go to as a kid, but a 93-year-old lady lives there and she’s not selling yet. I ended up buying a few miles away on the same creek where I fished for trout as a kid. It’s a 50-acre wooded lot in a World Biosphere reserve. These boots have been checking out beaver ponds and clearing out dead wood. They’re so muddy.
C&I: Nature, boots, music — your creative holy trinity?
Benattar: I’ve always been inspired by music in my design. Three chords make some of the best rock. Think it might get boring? Listen to Chuck Berry. It’s the same with boots: You’ve got three basic parts: toe, heel, shaft. Three basic elements, but so much can be done building on the foundation of a beautifully made boot. My iconography is very rock, but the construction is traditional cowboy boots with modern rock styling. It’s the lifestyle I live. It’s like Ed Adler, a great artist out of New York who does pop-art cowboy paintings, told me: “The trick is not putting more value on one thing than the other.” Both music and boots are really important in my life. I need to do those, walk my dog, spend time with friends and family. The connection between art, music, boots is organic; it comes from a natural place. Musicians and regular folks want to rock out.
C&I: How’s the music part going?
Benattar: I had put my guitar down for about 15 years and casually got back into music in ’98, when I picked up the bass. I’ve played over a thousand gigs since then and done some recordings. I was with the Cameron Family Singers doing a gig a week, packing them in playing pure country music. When that started winding down after about 13 years, the Rattlesnake Choir started getting together in my living room. Now we’ve got a music special coming up on Canadian CMT, we’ve opened for Feist and Blue Rodeo, got a CD called Live Music on iTunes and our website , and are about to record our second record.
The Rattlesnake Choir
C&I: So music inspires your boot design, and your boots inspire ...
Benattar: Rock is our currency and language — we all grew up with the same music. When I brought out the Killaz, Brody Rocks, etc. in 2002, it was the first time I let myself be uncensored in my design. I didn’t think it would be successful. But it changed my life. It bought me my house after 15 years in the business. It brought me in touch with people all over the world — nurses, bankers dig this. Those who dig it want to talk about it. If you wear your Killaz around, you’re going to make some friends. You might alienate some people, too — but they weren’t going to be people you’d want to hang with anyway.
C&I: One of the people who dig your stuff is Ralph Lauren. ...
Benattar: I’d only been in business in the States for eight months and I decided I’d call up Ralph and ask for a meeting. I was told no way. I said, “I’d like to know who this is that’s standing in the way of my making this meeting happen.” I had a meeting an hour later with his second-in-command and half his staff and made a relationship. My boots have been in his ads and runway shows. I’ve made a lot of boots over the years for both the famous and regular folks — Jean Paul Gaultier, Dolce & Gabbana, maybe you and your son ... .
C&I: Speaking of friends in high places, you’ve also got a connection to Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico.
Benattar: It’s been a long time since I’ve hung with him. When I first went to Mexico, I was a 25-year-old waiter with a college degree. It was a little rough. I felt like I had ideas and I could do better than that. Down in Mexico, I met Vicente Fox. Back then he was running the family cowboy boot factory, Botas Fox. I told him I wanted to make rock-and-roll cowboy boots and he listened. I had found somebody older than me who believed in me. And he had gravitas. I stayed in touch with his family; I was better friends with his brother. It’s a great thing to watch someone you know become president of a country.
C&I: Since we’re talking about the early days, tell me about your fateful road trip across America.
Benattar: My wife Robyn died of lung cancer in 2001. The summer she was ill, we spent together in palliative care. After she died, and with the band taking summers off, the idea of being alone ... I didn’t want to do that. She was my partner. We’d been together for 17 years. I didn’t know how life would be without her.
I had this idea I’d go visit my great clients — Cry Baby Ranch, Back at the Ranch, Boot Star — and I’d do it like a rock tour. Instead of flying, I decided to do it overland in a convertible Mustang. The boots would ship ahead of me, and I’d roar into town in that black lowered ’stang with a skull head shifter — an evil rock-and-roll car. I had T-shirts that looked like band-tour T-shirts: “We’re coming to your town. We’ll help you cowboy boot it down.” On the back were all the towns I was going to. My first stop was Nashville. My first client was Manuel. I got to spend time with all my clients. After Nashville, there was Santa Fe, Salt Lake [City], etc.
When I got back, my business had doubled. I had set out to try to get away from a memory and start life again. I hadn’t set out to grow the business. But that road trip across the States brought my business up to a new level. The fun was back. It was a great decision, a way to move on in life. The other thing I did was to pick up the dobro. It’s a complicated instrument. I bought one four days after burying Robyn. The traveling and the instrument were a way toward healing. It put me on a path for the rest of my life.
C&I: Now you’re happily remarried and rockin’ again. ...
Benattar: I got remarried in March 2009 to the beautiful, wonderful Sandra Mason. She works for Canada’s Globe and Mail. I’m a newspaper junkie, so it really works. And she wears my boots beautifully.
C&I: Your boots do wear beautifully. How do you decide on how they’ll be presented in your ads?
Benattar: I love that — presenting that stuff. The boots themselves are always the stars, so I’ve never had models. We use popular song titles or refrains. That’s how it starts. Like the Bad Kitty boots — they came from “Cat Scratch Fever.” I’ll sit down with my creative; we’ll drink some tequila and riff on ideas. Maybe I want the boots in this ad to be like the rock stars onstage. Maybe I want it to look like a Thin Lizzy concert from the ’70s. Irreverent fun — that’s the idea. I clip and save anything that inspires. Then we’ll sit down and brainstorm it out.
C&I: How about ideas for the boots themselves?
Benattar: With the boot design, I clip and save ideas. Then I sit down with modelists at the factory and work through with the different leathers, letting it all come out in a rush. I typically travel to Mexico four to six times a year. I’m probably playing with the band till 2 a.m. at the Dakota Tavern on a Monday, catching a plane to Léon first thing in the morning, doing my thing at the factory, then heading back for a weekend gig. For 13 years I’ve been planning my boots around my gigs.
C&I: And the connection continues. Now you’re into guitar-making. …
Benattar: Liberty/Shyboy Guitars is a project I started with my luthier friend Brad Keogan. He had approached me about putting my boot designs on guitars because he was looking for an edge. If you take my design off a boot and put it on a T-shirt, there goes all the life. It’s kind of a yin yang thing. Down-and-dirty rock imagery works on a high-end boot. It also works on a great guitar handmade of Fender parts you would have gotten if you’d bought the guitar in the ’50s. The first guitar we produced from the boots was the 62 Muertos design because there was a bunch of guys touring America in those boots. We had Daughtry topping the charts; he has the 62 Muertos boots.
C&I: Not a bad life, cool boots and rock-and-roll ...
Benattar: I get e-mails all the time from people who love Liberty Boots. I’ll hear from traveling musicians looking for boots. I don’t do freebies, but I tell them to come check out my band, have a beer. It’s put me in touch with like-minded rock-and-rollers and people who enjoy fashion. It’s a godsend. the benattar lookâ¨We asked Tony Benattar for his idea of best looks with boots. Here’s what he said.
“You know me. I’m not into being a Saturday transwestite. I go for a classic look: Cowboy boots go well with jeans, T-shirt, and a jean jacket or suit jacket. It doesn’t require a whole outfit. I always wear my skull ring and a nice watch. For ladies in summer, they were wearing cowboy boots with short shorts — that was a beauty thing. Western buckles and trophy buckles are always good. If you stay with the simple formula — tee, jeans, boots — it’s hard to go wrong. If you’re dressing up, switch out the tee for a nice shirt with a good jacket. Boots are standard for men who don’t want to wear loafers or running shoes. I don’t believe in men tucking their jeans into their boots. I will issue a summons to men who do. Yes, some fancy stuff should be where it can’t be seen. It’s like lingerie — special-access only.”
Issue: January 2010
