This interview first appeared in Vol. 11, No. 3 (July 2003) of Adam Gay Video XXX Showcase which holds the copyright.
Michael Brandon Interview by Doug Lawrence
Though Michael Brandon made his first XXX video in 1987, for reasons which he candidly discusses here his career did not really take off until 13 years later. There is nothing the gay-porn industry likes more than a big dick, and Michael’s is one of the biggest. Actually, there is one thing the gay-porn industry likes better than a big dick, and that is a big dick that gets hard and comes when it’s supposed to. And since that’s what Michael’s does unfailingly it’s little wonder that his has been the horsedick of choice for the past three years. His average of three videos per month in genres ranging from vanilla to kink to aggressive won him the GayVN Performer of the Year award in 2002 and again in 2003. An exclusive with Raging Stallion Studios since 2001’s Terms of Endowment, Brandon’s contract generously allows him to work for any video company that asks and practically everybody has. His own line, the Monster Bang series ( Big dicks and the holes that they fill ), was created for him in 2002 and, so far, includes four titles: Resort to Anything, Stick It In!, Packin’ Loads, and, Poke, Prod & Penetrate. One of porn’s most popular performers, Michael (www.xxxMichaelBrandon.com) spoke to me early one morning in April before heading off to Phoenix, Arizona, for a round of personal appearances. His newest movies are Nob Hill All Stars 1, The Dirty Director, FistPack 1, Prowl 3, Sexpack 9, and The List a number that will more than surely quadruple by year’s end.
Doug Lawrence: How much of an effect did winning Performer of the Year last year have on your career?
Michael Brandon: Well, it gave me more status and it’s useful when it comes to marketing, but it probably would have had a bigger effect if my career hadn’t been so far along. I mean, I’ve worked for almost every video company under the sun.
Did it at least change your day rate?
Brandon: Well, since I’m a partner in Raging Stallion Studios and Monster Bang is my line, I don’t pay myself. It’s all part of the investment.
Your acceptance speech was pretty emotional.
Brandon: I’m the Halle Berry of porn tears and all. After ten years of drugs and being on the streets and in prisons, to receive this award was overwhelming. For the last two years I’d been working on myself and trying to make myself a productive member of society. Having the XXX industry recognize my efforts in such a way was extremely rewarding.
It’s easy to forget that you actually started in the late ’80s, because you disappeared for so long. What happened?
Brandon: My very first movie was Ranger Nick for In Hand Video. I did eight or nine movies, some for Falcon, some for Catalina. I was young and freshly out of the closet, and primed for drugs and the drug culture. I get very focused on everything that I do, and, believe me, I became very focused on drugs. Drugs became my life, my lover, my confidante, my worst enemy. They took over my entire being. I went MIA for the next eight years. No one heard from me, including my family.
How then did you decide to come back to XXX? Was Late Nite Porn your reintroduction?
Brandon: Yes. That was in 1999. I had gotten clean on my own no program or anything and came back into the industry through Johnny Johnston, the agent I’d started with, who got me the job on Late Nite Porn. And then about six months later, I relapsed and disappeared for another six or seven months.
I’d wondered what happened to you.
Brandon: And now I’m back. I’ve been back since March of 2000. I was given a break by a judge. I was looking at seven years in prison and in lieu of that he got me into a drug treatment program that was very structured, very regimented, and just what I needed.
Has the porn industry changed since your first films and now? Any differences that you really notice?
Brandon: Absolutely. Back in the late ’80s we still weren’t using condoms. That’s a huge change, which I staunchly, staunchly support. There are teenagers watching Michael Brandon videos and I believe that it’s very important for us to send out a safer sex message. Also, there was a lot of drug use right on the set. It’s not so correct anymore to have lines of cocaine on the video monitors [laughter] that type of stuff.
Any technical changes?
Brandon: You have to understand, I was just out of the closet, young, the new kid on the block, fresh meat so the actual techniques of filmmaking didn’t interest me. I went on the set, I got it up, I got it in, I got it off. Plus, I was really only around for six to nine months. It’s only in the recent few years that I’ve really taken a huge interest in the technical aspects and even in the industry itself. I love this industry so much.
You know, someone once told me that you were straight and, though I found it hard to believe because you are such a good lay, I accepted it. Hearing you talk about coming out of the closet reminded me of it.
Brandon: No, I’m not straight. But I had been married and was just getting a divorce when I started making videos. I sort of blew the closet door off its hinges.
That’s why I thought it was so strange for a straight guy to be behaving the way you were on the set of Playing With Fire 2. You were blowing all the straight guys off-camera to keep them hard between takes! It was so hot. Was that a special occasion or is that typical Michael Brandon behavior?
Brandon: That is total Michael Brandon behavior! You know, because my dick is so big, my cocksucking skills often get overlooked because the focus is on guys trying to take me orally or anally. So when director Tony Alizzi called and asked me to be in MSR Videos’ Blow Me! series, I said, Tony, I’ll tell you what. I’ll be in your movie if you’ll let me suck some cock! I had it written into the contract.
You really are a gifted cocksucker and rimmer!
Brandon: Yes, I love to eat ass. In Gang-Bang Cafe when Chi Chi LaRue said, Who wants to lick some butt? my hand was in the air: Over here! She said, Oh, yeah, I forgot what an avid butt-licker you are. That was a fun shoot.
You don’t bottom regularly, but you do. Have you always? Did you bottom in the ’80s?
Brandon: No. It was deemed a waste of my talent. But now with the internet being what it is, and how much I use it to keep in contact with my fans, I learned early on in the resurgence of my career that they really like to see me get fucked. I bottomed for Jack Reilly in a Studio 2000 movie, The Size of It. We were on a chair and my dick was hard as a rock it flailed around like a fuckin’ elephant’s trunk while I bounced up and down on him. I was amazed at the amount of fan mail I got because of that movie. My fans loved it! And the funny thing is, I was a replacement for someone who cancelled at the last minute. The scene had already been set up and they said, Are you okay with bottoming? And I said, Let’s do it. I’m glad I did.
Who is your best top so far?
Brandon: I had a lot of fun with Jon Galt on Trespass and Enrico Vega in Stick It In! It’s hard for me to pick a favorite I’ve done, like, 150 videos in the last two-and-a-half years.
When did you know you had a big dick?
Brandon: Not until I started doing movies.
But not in high school? Surely you were the star or nightmare of the locker room.
Brandon: The thing is, I have this birthmark on the back of my thigh. And it’s very dark and it’s very hairy and I was very embarrassed by it at that age, so I didn’t go to Physical Education. I failed P.E. almost every semester because I refused to change into gym clothes, which, of course, they would demerit me on. And because I was embarrassed by always getting demerits, I just wouldn’t show up for that class and, consequently, I didn’t go into the locker room or showers.
Oh, too bad. You might have had fun!
Brandon: Probably. [laughter] Actually, I do remember one time I did go to class and I did end up in the shower and this guy was in there with me and his dick got hard. I remember thinking, It looks pretty fucking good! That’s the only locker room experience that I recall.
Do you ever get together with any of the other big-dick stars and compare and I don’t know laugh at the rest of us?
Brandon: We don’t really, like, stick them up against each other and compare. But, obviously, we have an interest in another guy’s cock if it’s as big or bigger than ours. I worked with Chad Hunt a couple of weeks ago and he’s definitely bigger than I am. My cock’s name is Monster, and Chad comes walking into the room behind his, which is clearly an inch or so longer, and even in girth it’s much bigger than Monster, and I’m thinking, Hmmm. Should I rename? [laughter]
So how long is it?
Brandon: It’s almost ten inches.
And measuring from where?
Brandon: From the base by the balls. It’s just a little shy of ten, but for advertising purposes
You must have had problems with guys not being able to take your cock.
Brandon: All my bottoms are either picked by me or Raging Stallion, and they’re mostly power bottoms, so there are no problems. But before that it was touch and go. When I first started in porn I was cast with a model I can’t remember his name who didn’t get to the set until late and we, basically, went right into the scene without any introduction. We were laying there doing a little foreplay, the cameras were rolling, and my dick got hard and rubbed against his thigh, and I could feel him suddenly tense up. He reached down and grabbed my cock and just froze. Then he was, like, Cut! Cut! This isn’t going anywhere near my asshole! So I ended up bottoming in that scene, just to make it happen.
Does that happen much in your personal life?
Brandon: There have been times when I haven’t been able to get into somebody, but a lot of it is mindset. If your mind is telling you, That’s not going to fit. That’s not going to go, then that’s going to tense up your muscles. And that’s all it is down there it’s just a muscle to be relaxed and massaged. I can almost always get guys to open up just by looking into their eyes while I’m leaning over them trying to push Monster in and saying, Just relax. Tell yourself to relax. You have to relax. And they do and it slips right in. And that’s one of the most amazing feelings.
In a number of your videos, Cops Gone Bad is one example, you’re really aggressive. Is that to suit the video or is it part of your personality?
Brandon: I’m known for the aggressive-almost-to-the-point-of-brutality fuck that I deliver. And though it’s definitely a part of my on-screen persona, I can and do get that way on a private level. Sometimes I get emails or phone calls from my clients like, I would love to be with you, but you can’t do to me what you did to Sky Donovan. I will gauge what the bottom can handle and take it from there. And I love slow and sensual just as much. I ask clients to email me a fantasy of what Monster and I get to do to them. That way I have a guideline for their likes and dislikes. I don’t want to go slapping the guy on the ass and not have him like it.
Speaking of Sky Donovan or can you? I guess he’s pretty much persona non grata at Raging Stallion.
Brandon: Yes, he’s persona non grata a lot at Raging Stallion. But I can talk about him. That boy is fuckin’ hot! He’s a truly hot fuck. And if I’m ever in a situation where Monster is not responding as well as he should, I think of Sky. I don’t want to call him my favorite, because I really enjoy the time I spend with most people, but he is definitely the guy I fantasize about when I need to.
You’ve fucked hundreds of porn guys is there anyone you haven’t worked with who is especially tantalizing?
Brandon: I would love to work with Sean Storm. Trent Atkins. There are a lot of people.
Sean Storm! I’m surprised you haven’t worked with him yet.
Brandon: So’s the whole company.
Wait. Didn’t you have a scene with him in Closed Set?
Brandon: That was only oral. I didn’t fuck him. I’d love to cast him in Monster Bang 5. We’ll see what happens.
So what was sex like in prison?
Brandon: It was fun. I had more straight-boy butt in prison than I’ve had ever. Prison was fun. It was not a deterrent in any way, at least early on. It became a deterrent later on. I did, like, eight-and-a-half years in prison in-and-out, in-and-out, in-and-out. I would do a six-month stint, I would get out, I’d do my drugs, I’d get busted again after two or three months, I’d go back in for eight months that type of thing. So out of a ten-year period, the period when I went MIA, I was in prisons eight-and-a-half of it.
But fun?
Brandon: Going into prison as a homosexual, you are looked at as a woman by the other inmates, and a woman is to be protected.
What?!
Brandon: Yeah. So, carrying myself as respectfully as I do, I was treated really well. Believe me, it beat living on the street! I used to work for captains and lieutenants on the prison yards and through them I was able to have, basically, whichever cellmate I wanted. And there was no shortage of guys who wanted to be my cellie.
No kidding!
Brandon: Oh, no. It was a status symbol to have a homosexual on your arm. Especially someone like me. Back then I had very long hair down to my butt. I was the epitome of woman. When I first came out of the closet I was still confused. I didn’t know what I wanted, who I was, where I was going I let my hair grow, I used to pin it up in a bun, I used to wear pony tails, I had bangs
Sounds like you were really nelly.
Brandon: Extremely. I was very, very feminine. I have a tattoo on my right butt-cheek that, if you really look at it, is a woman, and she has a knife in her hand, and one leg is reaching out, with a pump on and that’s a portrait of me. That’s the woman in me trying to get out. It was done in prison by some of my homeboys. They drew me as they saw me. And that’s what’s on my ass: the female side of me.
I’m speechless. This is so contrary to everything we see depicted in books and movies. And as far as sex, were you ?
Brandon: I was both. I was definitely a bottom. That’s, of course, what I was in the cell for. But because of my personality, and because you’re living in an eight-foot by twelve-foot box, and you’re locked down twelve hours out of every day, you get to know each other very well. So it can work one of two ways. You can end up hating each other or you fall in love. And that’s what the boys would do. They would fall in love with me. So instead of me just blowing them or bottoming for them, it would go to them jacking me off, and then it would go to them kissing me, and then it would go to them blowing me, and then it would go to them bottoming for me, because they loved me and wanted me to feel as good as I was making them feel. I cannot tell you how many times I heard that in prison. It’s pretty amazing. Think about it: A lot of my cellies were lifers like, they were doing fifteen years to life or twenty-five to life they’d been in for ten or eleven years and I was the closest thing to a woman they’d had even with the ten inches banging up against their leg while I’m sucking their cock.
And you were actually a top sometimes?
Brandon: Absolutely. I even taught some of them how to douche by filling an empty plastic shampoo bottle with water and squirting it into their asses. All that stuff. And being a homosexual, you have a lot of power in prison.
How so?
Brandon: The men will do anything for you. You’re a woman. I don’t care if you’re 350 pounds, have hair all over your back and butt if you raise your hand and say, Hey! I suck cock and take it up the ass, you are looked at as a woman from there on out. On the flip side, though, because you are a woman, they drop laundry off at your doorstep and expect you to do it. One morning there was a big bag of dirty laundry by my door. It wasn’t mine, so I kicked it aside and went on to the chow hall. When I got back it was by the door again. I looked at my cellie and asked, What the hell is that there for? Oh, he said, that’s homeboy’s. He needs you to do his laundry. What?! I don’t do laundry. I barely do my own laundry for chrissake. He said, You’re a homosexual aren’t you? I said, Yes what does that have to do with me doing somebody else’s laundry? He said, Well, he just figured Well, you know what? He figured wrong! Now, the rest of the tattoo on my butt is my prison name, Wild Thing. Which I got because I didn’t put up with anybody’s shit.
I take it that means you didn’t do laundry?
Brandon: Absolutely not. I made them do mine! I had one cellie he’d done, like, thirteen years we spent a year together, and every Sunday he would do my laundry. He would be out in the dayroom for everybody to see, and everybody knew he was doing the homosexual’s laundry.
Pussy power!
Brandon: Absolutely.
But you don’t consider yourself a transsexual.
Brandon: Not at all. I am a man.
What were your first gay experiences like?
Brandon: When I first came out I had a boyfriend. The man I had sex with first became my boyfriend/roommate/lover for a year or so. We were basically monogamous. I used to bottom for him, sometimes six or seven times a day. I was eighteen. I thought that I was supposed to be like a woman. I ended up in the hospital with prostatitis because he fucked me so much. That was my first year as a homosexual. But after we broke up the first of six times, one of my requirements for us getting back together was he had to bottom for me.
Do you have a boyfriend/roommate/lover right now?
Brandon: No. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with anything I do, but when it comes to an intimate, emotional level I don’t think it’s fair to the other person. Over and over and over again I hear, It’s totally okay with me. I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But they would. When my phone rings, I get up out of bed and go. And then I come back an hour-and-a-half later with another man’s smells on me. It would be difficult for me to deal with, so I don’t think it’s right to put anyone else through it.
You’re a very popular escort. Do you remember your first time?
Brandon: I don’t really recall my first time, but I remember that when I first started I would get all dressed up. And when I say dressed up, I mean to the nines. But now, because of my persona and the way I’ve grown up, I dress nicely, I’m well-groomed, but I’m less formal.
Do you limit your escorting to the U.S. or are you international?
Brandon: I’ve just become international. I’ve only had a passport for the last nine months. Because of my legal problems I wasn’t a full citizen. I couldn’t get a passport. I wasn’t even allowed to go fifty miles from home without permission. That was one of the conditions of my parole.
Do you have a type ? Is there a Michael Brandon dream fuck?
Brandon: I don’t really have a specific type, but my ideal man would be truly versatile, clean-cut, confident without being cocky. Attitude really makes a person ugly in my eyes.
So, how long do you plan to continue in porn?
Brandon: Well, I think I have maybe five more years in front of the camera, but the studio and I have found another thing that I do really well, and that’s producing, putting it all together. I would like to see Raging Stallion and Monster Bang on the road to taking care of all of us, after all the hard work we’re putting into it right now. This is really a tough industry, especially in this day and age.
What’s in the immediate future for you?
Brandon: Monster Bang 4: Poke, Prod & Penetrate is having its world premiere this summer. The Gay Pride season is starting and I do a lot of personal appearances promoting myself and Raging Stallion and the Monster Bang line. But one of the things I’m trying to do this year is incorporate a little bit of balance in my life. [laughter] Let’s face it, Michael Brandon is everywhere! I’ve been up everyone. I’ve been really, really focused on and obsessed by my career, and I think it’s time for me to enjoy all my hard work. I need to slow down a little.
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Douglas Oliver, Los Angeles
dglslvr@sbcglobal.net
