Beautiful Losersmastermind Aaron Rose picks his style icons through the ages.

Aaron Rose’s resume reads like a primer of how to merge underground with above-ground tastefully: He’s a curator (of now-defunct NYC gallery Alleged, the traveling Beautiful Losers exhibit, and a Nike/UNDFTD billboard in L.A.), a writer (he edits ANP Quarterly), and a guitarist/vocalist (for The Sads), not to mention a tireless supporter of emergent subcultures.

Rose, 39, didn’t become a style arbiter overnight–he’s always been one. Growing up in the ranch-filled L.A. suburb of Calabasas, he was obsessed with Vivienne Westwood and The Face magazine. At age 15, he wore three-button mod suits–ordered from London’s Carnaby Street–to school every day (and got baloney sandwiches thrown at him). A few years later, he evolved a signature look–pork-pie hat, Dickies, plaid shirt–that’s carried him stylishly through the decades.

“My look grew out of a fusion between my mod stuff and a kind of cholo-punk thing that was going on in L.A.,” explains Rose on the phone from Silver Lake. “People always say I dress like an old man, but there’s elements of my style that definitely make it contemporary. I mean, there’s nights where I’m at The Smell when I look around and everybody is in painted-on jeans and pajama-print hoodies that I go, ‘What is up?!’ At the same time I don’t feel out of place there, because I feel like the way I dress is part of a long legacy of outsiders. My [clothes] don’t really define my outsider status, it’s more like an attitude.”

On the occasion of the release of the inspirational Beautiful Losers documentary, we asked Rose to break down the components of his style.

Terry Hall of The Specials
The Specials were a two-tone ska band from England. Terry Hall only wore black and white. He wore black suits with skinny ties and high-water pants with white socks and big, clunky old-man shoes. He had a flat top and suspenders. He was an amazing dancer, a great singer, a great frontman. For my 14th or 15th birthday, my mom got me a checkerboard cake that said “Happy Birthday Terry” on it. That’s, like, how into this dude I was.

Perry Farrell
This is so embarrassing but I got really into Jane’s Addiction. I don’t think I ever tried to dress like [Perry Farrell] but I admired his style and the whole thing that Jane’s was, which was druggie, magical, ‘fuck authority.’ My favorite Jane’s song is “Classic Girl.”

Tom Waits
He had a cool look. He still does. At that time, I was into that beatnik, kind of dirty suit thing. I had just discovered him and was just totally blown away by the music he made and his whole persona and the way he performed. [His music] was very Americana-based but with such a weird edge to it all. I just liked his whole trip. I liked the fact that he was a junkie who lived in a motel. He wasn’t some rock star guy. He was down and dirty and hanging out with homeless people.

Robert Crumb
Another guy with a hat! I have a picture of Robert Crumb over my mirror, and Salvador Dali when he was young. I like how [Crumb’s] whole trip was such an all-encompassing package. I mean, his whole life is like art. He dresses like the 1920s with a sort of counter-culture edge; all his artwork is done in a classic comic style but it’s underground; he’s into ’20s ragtime music and plays in a band that plays that kind of music. I’m into people who very naturally create their whole world. I mean, that’s what I try to do in my own weird way.

William S. Burroughs
This is a really hard one because I think I stopped having dressing idols by this point. I was pretty much set into who I am and stopped really looking at it like, “Oh, that guy looks cool, I’m gonna dress like him.” I’ve always had pictures of Burroughs around, but especially during this time. [The junkie thing] is a total myth. A lot of kids died behind that guy… and adults, but he still looks cool.

Interview: Aaron Rose

Rib juice, big hair, and boogaloo with Charlie Salas-Humara and Joe Kelly of Portland act Panther.

XLR8R: What was the original concept for Panther?

Charlie: There was really no concept. I wanted to do something different from my band that I was in, The Planet The. I was just making crappy beats and singing crazily. It was one of those things where I didn’t think. It was a guerrilla thing. I would do it around town. It was more like performance art at first, crazy to do. I suckered my friend into putting out a record of mine.

How did you come up with the name of the album, 14kt God?

Joe: When we’re on tour for a long time, I have this mind thing that happens to me where I’ll see signs and I’ll look at the words and they’ll say something that’s completely different–usually, they have a sexual connotation. We were in the Mission in San Francisco and I saw a pawn shop that said “14kt gold” but I read it as “14kt god” and we both liked it.

What about Charlie’s dancing?

Joe: Charlie’s got specific moves that people are into. We were reading some blog and some kid was making reference to one of Charlie’s dance moves as The Waitress. I guess it’s this thing he does that kind of looks like he’s carrying a tray.

Tell me about the first tour you went on as Panther.

Charlie: The first time I went on tour was with Yellow Swans. Those kids argued heavily. They are old buddies, almost like old lovers. It was really fun. I basically played noise shows. It felt like I fit more into that scene than anything else because it was more performance art than anything.

What famous duo do you guys most resemble?

Joe: That’s going to put me in the position of the sidekick and I’m having my own issues with that these days. I guess Laverne & Shirley. I’m definitely Laverne. I think Shirley was the better-looking one.

What is your favorite song on the album?

Charlie: I still like to play “Puerto Rican Jukebox.” I’m really proud of that song. It came out exactly the way I wanted it to come out. It’s really fun to play live and it kind of reminds me of the stuff I listened to growing up in my Cuban household.

Joe: Number seven, “Warm Moments.” They really like that one in Japan too for some reason. Different tours elicit different responses to different songs.

What band did you always want to be in when you were young?

Charlie: My favorite song, the first one I remember, is Peaches & Herb’s “Reunited.” I wanted to be in a band like that. Bad Finger too. I still kind of want to be in Bad Finger, but a couple of those guys died. Maybe I could be in Bad Finger. Joe: I really liked how terrifying bands like Big Black and Jesus Lizard were to me. I don’t think there’s dangerous people like that in music anymore.

Charlie’s hair is so robust. Does he ever have hair issues?

Joe: He does. He has real nice full hair but he just cut it too short. He got some bug up his ass and thought that he wanted to look like Norman Bates. Now he’s real bummed. Before, he had this offset Asian woman bob thing going on.

What is the worst job you ever had?

Charlie:I worked at Old Country Buffet. I got paid $4.15 an hour. I just bussed tables of piles of ribs, and rib juice and saliva would be all over my body all day and then I’d get a paycheck and it would be like $85. It was kind of in the Southside of Chicago. All the people that worked there were Mexican gang members, and they liked it because they got to wear a blue oxford shirt and a red bowtie. The worked there because they loved the blue. They were all 16 and really hilarious and we’d hang out and smoke weed with them. One of the kids didn’t show up one day ’cause he got shot.

MP3: “Puerto Rican Jukebox”