Steel canvas: The art of Seattle's RedSoul chopper shop

nside RedSoul's 75-foot-square Georgetown garage, you find the standard instruments: hammers, welding torches and grinders. You hear the pounding and hissing and squealing of work getting done. You watch metal get bent, seams welded and gas tanks molded.

Two chopper motorcycles stand on adjoining hoists. One is near-museum quality. The other is but a frame, a skeleton waiting to be dressed.

You also find, rising above all else, a massive neon sign emphatically stating that the one-size-fits-all factory approach is not welcome here. That thinking drives the work inside the garage and the mindset of those who ride choppers on the open road. The bikes aren't so much modes of transportation as they are statements. Matt Adams, who started his two-man fabrication business in a friend's garage two years ago with partner Joe Cooper, wants nothing to do with the assembly line. His company, which goes simply by RedSoul, has built a receptionist's desk, rails for a condo complex, a mixed-martial-arts fighting cage, even many of the tools and machines needed to do its own custom tasks. It also built the swirling red orb sign that Adams designed and that marks the entrance to the workshop on Airport Way South.

But choppers drive Adams' imagination. He views them as rolling architecture or, at the very least, functional art.

On one recent workday morning, Cooper hammered and milled steel so he could shape it around a foam core template and build a gas tank. Adams squatted on one side of a chopper, searching for the perfect hiding spot for spark plugs so he could retain the vehicle's chrome sleekness. Custom work is all about the details, and Adams relishes this particular job because the client has essentially given him license to go free-form.

"It started pretty much with a tank and an idea," he says. "We worked from there, figuring out the seat and then the fender and then whether we could get them to match. When we work on our own bikes, we don't like boundaries. We just want to make them cool."

Adams learned his trade at Lucky's Choppers, which until closing its garage a few months ago operated just a mile or so from RedSoul. Lucky's also is where Adams got the anti-factory sign and the same attitude that works for other chopper builders like Ewing's Kustoms and Felony Flyers.

To most of us, choppers are a chain of exaggerated parts: the steering neck stretched way out in front, the bullet-shaped gas tank painted in garish flames or a skeleton head, and maybe some big old bearded dude squeezed into a finely appointed but rock-hard seat. You know: "Easy Rider."

But aficionados, who know all about "rakes" and "tails" and "ape hangars," see it much differently.

Rex Richards lives in Tukwila and works in construction management. He was building his first chopper about four years ago when he walked into Lucky's and met Adams, who promptly expanded the plan. Adams is now busy modifying the bike he built. Richards says choppers are not only cool to ride, but each also communicates with its owner even when idle.

"If you see your bike in a parking lot, you know it's your bike because you know and understand each piece, from the oil tank to the axle covers," he says. "You understand how the pieces fit and flow together. That separates it from a factory bike. What Matt does so well is taking the vision and putting all the parts together to achieve it."

Adams is an accomplished artist who was accepted into the University of Washington's architecture program before veering into the world of steel fabrication and leather seat stitching. He is stubborn, as you must be to survive in a town that is hardly Chopper City, U.S.A., and an industry in the doldrums. Tattoos on the inside of each of his forearms proclaim how serious he is. One arm reads: "Never." The other reads: "Quit."

He believes that mantra helped him growing up in Kelso, where, he says, the custom world didn't exist.

"I spent most of my time drawing," he says. "It was the cheapest way to be creative; all you needed was a piece of paper and a pencil. In school I enrolled in as many architecture and mechanical-drawing classes as I could. I was more drawn to the idea of visualizing something in my head, finding a way to make it happen and then have it come to life. I always liked motorcycles, but not any more than your normal high-school dude."

Architecture fascinated him because it was art one could use. After getting a degree from Lower Columbia College in Longview, Adams was accepted into the University of Washington's architecture program. But he never went.

Instead, he stayed in Seattle and took sculpture classes at the university. In one, he reshaped an old exercise bike into one that looked like a chopper. When another student told him about Lucky's, Adams took his art chopper there and stayed, choosing to begin working four hours a day at minimum wage instead of college. He stayed about six years and became a sought-after fabricator.

While working at Lucky's, he built a chopper he called the Blue Diamond, distinguished by its sleek, flowing lines and its understated paint job. Adams wanted to appeal to a broad enough audience so it would sell and give him seed money to start his own business. When Blue Diamond sold, RedSoul began. (His custom choppers are priced between $20,000 and $45,000 — "It just depends on how far guys want to go.")

RedSoul (www.redsoul.com) has no employees and subcontracts jobs like painting. As a way to lower overhead, it rents out about a quarter of its space to someone who restores vintage bikes. Adams envisions doing public art some day. After all, the bikes, in his mind, are art.

"Money comes second to us," he says. "We would rather build a legacy or an image that we can say we are proud to be a part of. I really like the idea of creating something that wouldn't exist if not for you."

Richard Seven: 206-464-2241 or rseven@seattletimes.com