By all rights, the cheesecake should be an abomination. Who would think that combining sugar, vanilla, eggs and cheese could create such a tasty treat? Not me at least. For years I avoided cheesecake, thinking it would make me vomit. Now I love it! I eat up all kinds of delicious cheesy treats. I even found one that you make with Oreos. If you’ve looked at the title of this piece you’re probably wondering what the hell is this guy talking about, and WTF does cheesecake have to do with In4mation and Jun Jo? Well, Jun Jo and In4mation are both cheesecakes; made of unlikely ingredients, but similarly yielding impressive results.

“I was born in Miyazaki Japan.” Jun informed me the other night, while chatting on Skype. “My Japanese grand-father was a professor, so he sent my dad to Tennessee for college where he met my mom. Moms was born in the Bronx, she was from a Russian Jewish family. She lived in the Bronx for a while, then Florida where her dad was a photographer for NASA. Eventually she moved to do school in Tennessee. It was the 70s so you can imagine a white girl dating a Japanese dude in the south. Anyway, they moved to Japan to have me. Dad got into some real estate stuff, moved to Tokyo and then eventually we moved to Hawaii where they had my other two brothers. From there we lived all over the island of Oahu.”

See what I mean by a cheesecake?

Eventually Jun and his family settled on the east side of Oahu, in a town called Waimanalo, which according to Jun was “a full Hawaiian homestead town with only a few regular homes around, a little rough around the edges, but a place where respect reigns.”

To fill in time Jun took up boxing, but was soon drawn to the ocean with his friends. It changed his life forever. “We first started bodysurfing, then stealing the McDonald’s trays using those to go faster, then body boarding and soon surfing. I would find myself surfing more than boxing, then pretty much it was all just about surfing, not sleeping at night, just laying there thinking about it.”

It was the all consuming nature of surfing that helped curb Jun away from what could have been a harder road. “Man a lot of my friends from back then are in jail or not in a good place right now. It’s crazy to see what path we all took because a lot of them are probably the best, truest friends I will ever have, but the game they live in made them go the other route. I just loved to surf that much, where all the other shit never mattered, all you needed was your thumb to hitch a ride, a surfboard and shorts.”

So Jun kept surfing. Eventually a few people took notice when he was about 17. “I met the most famous surfer ever in Japan at the time, this guy Shuji Kasuya, he was like larger than life there, 80s and 90s surf super hero. I met him in Hawaii just sitting on the beach at a contest. Soon I would see him at every spot randomly. He just took me under his wing eventually. I moved to Japan as I had citizenship, surfed a few contests and it all clicked all of a sudden. I don’t know what it was, but it all just popped. I started to win a few events then eventually winning the tour there for a few years. I never had a sponsor before that, so it’s so weird how it all happened, no hype nothing, just luck of some sort.”

As luck would also have it, Jun was a part of the ‘Momentum Generation’, a bunch of freakish surfers, who Taylor Steele turned into super stars through his ground breaking films. “They were just my friends before they got famous, almost all of them. Conan Hayes, who started RVCA, we would just hang out when he would come to Oahu, Ross Williams, Shane Dorian, we just all traveled together in between when I would be in Japan. Kelly of course being the ringleader, but the most important person was Todd Chesser, he was the glue. I think when he passed everyone realized how important he was to all of our lives. He was a generation older than us, but Todd would just take us out to surf the craziest waves, we would go out with him at night, he would show us the funnest stuff to do, the dude planned everyone’s outfits for Halloween, he was just the best. He was the big wave hell guy before all the Red Bull bullshit.”

Speaking to Jun, I get the feeling that his surf career was much more about ‘family’, friends and actually just going surfing, than becoming a star. It’s even more evident when you find out that at the age of 26 he took a break from pro surfing because things were ‘getting weird.’ I pressed for some freaky details, but unfortunately didn’t get too much; no panties getting thrown at him on the street or night stalker tales. “Just autographs, people making up stories, maybe some unusual hook ups, just funny shit. The Japanese are a crazy bunch when it comes to even a millimeter of fame, you know how it is, it’s uncomfortable.”

After a couple of years out of the lime-light, Jun finally returned to Hawaii, where two companies laid out offers on the table to join their surf teams. “Volcom and Alphanueric approached me. I took Alpha, because I liked the guys behind the brand, I liked the team, we felt like family, which is rare even then and even more rare nowadays. I also liked that it wasnt a ‘surf’ company.”

If you know your surf industry history you’ll know that the Alphanumeric dream didn’t last long. “Shit hit the fan with Alphanumeric. There were differences with the core crew at Alpha and the owners of the brand, it all built up to a huge blow out. Me, being the trustworthy guy, forgot where I put my contract and soon on their end it mysteriously got lost. So pretty much I went from making nearly 6 figures a year to where I had nothing.”

Most people would be twisted to bitterness at this, but not Jun. He remains very philosophical about it. “For some strange reason I’ve never fretted over it, even when I was broke from it all I wasn’t bummed. It’s all good, I think with out that happening

I probably would still be a Volcom bro dude, maybe have a name in surfing and probably still be getting paid well, but I wouldn’t have ended up with In4mation if I chose Volcom.”

When the Alphanumeric sponsorship collapsed, Jun took some money he’d saved and traveled around a bit. He lived in New York for half a year, and became more drawn to things not related to surfing. Soon Inf4mation was born. ” I started to see cool fashion and scenes that Hawaii didn’t have, so when I moved back there was only a handful of like minded people. My boys had a store previously but it was for the Japanese dude that was straight grey marketing shit. I would hang out at the store , talk shit all day and then it all hit me. Why wouldn’t we just start our own shop? I had some money left over from Japan and we opened In4mation. It was myself, Rhandy Tambio, who did the art, Todd Shimabuku who played a lot of music and just had real good business sense and Ryan Arakaki, a real good skater that is super precise with numbers. So a good crew, yeah family man. The idea was easy as that!”

The In4mation shop opened soon after the idea was spawned and started to do well right away. Their own merchandise also began getting attention. “We were printing our own tees which just caught on, other shops were asking to sell them. So we just went fuck it! Todd went to China to find a factory to make our stuff and we took the leap into cut n sew, which did well. Soon we had offers from many people, asking to help us take the brand to the next level, we knew we couldn’t do ourselves. Again we got lucky and met the right guys, that were just as much of an idiotic bunch as us and here we are. They help us set up our NYC office and get a good design team.

We got Elska Sandor, who started rookie skateboards back in the day. Also Saviour Sanquice, who has deep deep roots with the graph crews in NYC. They got our design in the office, they also helped us get our production people into place in the office and accounting. Here in Hawaii we do the marketing and run the shops.”

So in a nut shell; In4mation is a Street Fashion brand, run but a surfer, a skater, a musician and an artist. It is designed and developed in New York, marketed out of Hawaii and it is pumps out absolutely banging product. Like I said, it’s a cheesecake.

To mix things up even more, Jun and the boys decided to throw one last ingredient in the mix. “With In4mation the brand growing worldwide we wanted to keep rooted with something in Hawaii, so we had the concept of Aloha Army into play from almost the very beginning. The brand was growing to the point of not being a Hawaii brand anymore, so the timing was right to do something Hawaii. It’s off of the lifestyle of Hawaii: fishing, surfing, just hanging island style, not too serious, but something that someone not from Hawaii can take home and still be hyped on it.”

Just like his surfing career, the In4mation project is more about ‘ohana’ than getting rich fast. The In4mation stores stock plenty of brands other than their own, and they’re not shy of a collaboration. G-Shock, Gravis, Stussy and Brixton are just a few of companies the In4mant’s have worked with.  They have even teamed up with rapper Raekwon and local Hawaiian strip joint, Empire Gentlemen’s Club, for a CD launch.

“It’s kinda funny how it all works with collaborations. From day one its always been friends that we have either grew up with or friends that we have met along the way. It’s all happened in a very natural way. Timing has always been a factor not like thinking in depth like ‘right now I think we should do a project with Vans’. It’s more like just running into a friend, hanging out surfing or just having a shitload of drinks or whatever. It just happens, never forced just super natural which I think it should always be done. I think people can read right through the companies now that just force projects to happen. ‘Oh we have to do the Metallica boardshorts or we should do Red Hot Chili Pepper tee.’ That shit’s publicly traded companies trying to cash in on the subculture that most of us reading this have created. The bottom line is they aint living it so why support it?”

This friend oriented approach to business has paid strong dividends for In4mation. Their collaboration efforts have not only been good for the books, but have lent a great deal of credibility to their brand worldwide. In4mation started out selling to 20 doors and now are selling to over a 150 doors in countries such as Japan, Australia, Canada and the USA. While their business continues to grow steadily, it has been a conscious choice on the directors’ end not to let the brand explode too quickly. “We just want to keep it growing at a nice pace, pick up more and more like minded people along the way.  Hopefully this is something that a lot of people worldwide can live off of, have homes and raise families. Just take care of everyone involved.”

For Jun, the In4mation brand is all about sticking together. Even the name and logo reflect that philosophy. According to the In4mation website: “The concept of the name In4mation was from a popular cartoon VOLTRON, in which unique characters assembled to become one indestructible machine. The name In4mation and the “plus” logo mark symbolize a unique bond and signify In4mation’s positive outlook and welcoming attitudes attained by exploring varied paths of life. In4mation’s motto, ” I SHALL PROCEED…AND CONTINUE” is a catch phrase taken from an influential hip-hop band that serves as a reminder to follow our chosen paths and to keep on moving forward.”

So as things move forward, Jun Jo moves with them. From Japan, to Hawaii to New York. From surf to street, family and friends, all the ingredients are bubbling along to make one tasty treat of a life. Cheesecake anyone??

Check a little vid of Jun below from surfing in Japan which kicks back to the cover up above – 2nd wave in.