Indian Larry (born Lawrence DeSmedt; April 28, 1949 – August 30, 2004) was an American motorcycle builder and artist, stunt rider, and biker. He first became known as Indian Larry in the 1980s when he was riding the streets of New York City on a chopped Indian motorcycle. Respected as an old school chopper builder, Larry sought greater acceptance of choppers being looked upon as an art form. He became interested in hot rods and motorcycles at an early age and was a fan of Von Dutch and Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, whom he would later meet in California.
Wide acknowledgment of Indian Larry's talent only came in the last few years of his life. He died in 2004 from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident while performing at a bike show. His bike, Grease Monkey, was featured in Easyriders magazine in September 1998. In 2001 Indian Larry participated in the Discovery Channel program Motorcycle Mania II, followed by three different Biker Build-Off programs. During this period he and his team built the motorcycles, Daddy-O (known to most people as the Rat Fink bike), Wild Child, and Chain of Mystery.
Early life and education Indian Larry was born Lawrence DeSmedt in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York on April 28, 1949. He grew up in the Newburgh, New York area including the town of New Windsor. The oldest of three children, with two younger sisters, Diane and Tina, Larry was described by his mother, Dorothy, as "a good boy, but mischievous."Biography special on Indian Larry. Program included interviews with Larry's sister Tina, his mother Dorothy, wife Bambi, friend Timothy White, and others; footage of Larry from past Biker Build-Off programs; segments showing Billy Lane, Paul Cox, Keino, and Kendall Johnson and crew building tribute bike they named "Love Zombie". Executive Producer: Thom Beers. Co-Executive Producers: Tracy Green, Hugh King. Producer/Writer/Editor: Larry Law. Discovery Channel. 2005. Larry's strict father, Augustine, was a carpenter at United States Military Academy and had built the family's home. He wanted his son to follow in his footsteps in the carpentry trade. As a boy Larry liked Lincoln logs and Ed "Big Daddy" Roth Revell plastic model kits. Roth, a legendary California artist and hot rod builder, was a big influence on Larry and his style would later bubble up to influence Indian Larry's motorcycle designs.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 134.
Larry attended a Catholic elementary school where he suffered abuse. The nuns would hit his knuckles until they bled and lock him in dark closets.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 20, 22, 29. He kept what was occurring to himself, and didn't tell his family what was going on. When his mother asked about his knuckles, Larry would always just say that he had gotten into a fight. It wasn't until years later that his family learned what had actually happened. As a child Larry was described as being sensitive and artistic, and "feeling more than most."Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 38.
A well-known anecdote about Indian Larry is that as a kid he attempted to build a bomb in his parents' basement in order to blow up the Catholic school. The contraption exploded taking off the little finger of Larry's left hand. Another version of the story states that the injury occurred while he was trying to build a skyrocket for the 4th of July.Both versions are hinted at in the 2006 Tom Zimberoff book: Art of the Chopper II. . When asked about the experience of being maimed as a kid during a 2003 Biker Build-Off program, Larry seemed to have come to peace with it:
As a youth Larry participated in the Boy Scouts. His scoutmaster, Gerald Doering, had raced Indian motorcycles which had an influence on Larry.Doering and his son Ted, who was in the scout troop with Larry, would later open a motorcycle museum in New York, the Motorcyclepedia. Ted had opened a chopper shop in 1969 out of a shed on the family's property, and the Doerings started selling wholesale parts in the early 70s focusing mainly on older Harley-Davidson models and had collected Indian motorcycles over the decades. See and
Larry's first build was when he took his little sister Tina's tricycle and equipped it with Schwinn bicycle handlebars and a lawn mower engine.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 20. According to a Rolling Stone interview that was mentioned in a New York Times article, Larry's first motorcycle was a 1939 Harley Knucklehead that he bought when he was a teenager for a couple hundred dollars. "Within hours, he had taken it apart, and it took him nine months to put it back together."
As a young man Larry learned how to weld from Conrad Stenglein in the Newburgh, New York area. The shop was simple. As Stenglein described it: "All we had in the shop was a welding machine, torches, grinder, body putty, stuff like that." Quality of work was important to Larry early on. Stenglein said that "Whatever part we made for a bike, it had to be strong and had to be good, that was our thing. It had to be perfect. If Larry put something on a bike that he didn't like, he'd cut it off. That's how he was."
A month before he was to graduate from high school, Larry told his mother that he was heading to California to join his younger sister Diane who was deeply immersed in the 1960s counterculture (Diane had run away from home when she was 16).Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 30. In California Larry also took part in the scene and delved into drugs. Larry saw his sister Diane as a kindred spirit who understood what it was like to feel like an outsider in society.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 40. On June 21, 1971, Diane was murdered. Larry accompanied her body back to their hometown for her funeral. The experience was emotionally devastating to him.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 30, 35, 38, 40.
Coupled with his grief, Larry was spiraling into drug addiction. To pay for the drugs he was robbing stores. The cops had an idea that it was Larry but had not been able to catch him so they set up a sting operation. In 1972 as Larry was exiting a bank he had just robbed, he was fired upon by two police officers. He narrowly escaped being killed when one of the bullets grazed his eyebrow.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 42, 43. At the age of 23, Larry was sent to Sing Sing prison for three years. During his incarceration Larry earned his GED, and started taking courses in welding and mechanics. Prison was "the place where he honed all his best mechanic skills."Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 48, 52. He also asked his mother to send him a dictionary and books on philosophy and other topics. He was released in September 1976.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 56.
Move to New York City After completing parole, Larry relocated to New York City where he became involved with the underground scene. The first magazine article about Indian Larry was in Iron Horse Magazine in 1987.Issue # 70 November 1987 It featured his 1950 Indian Chief chopper with red-orange flames. It was during this period that people began to call him Indian Larry.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 60. In the 1980s he hung out with Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol. Mapplethorpe in particular was "attracted to Indian Larry's 'crash and burn'" lifestyle. One of the photographs that he took of Indian Larry ended up on the cover of Artforum magazine.
Indian Larry began working in different motorcycle shops in New York City and New Jersey during the 1980s and early 1990s. Often he would be rebuilding motors out of his apartment.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 67. For many years Larry struggled with alcohol abuse and heroin.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 104, 107. In November 1991, during a period when he was living around the Bowery, Larry was going through severe withdrawals one night, wandering the streets cutting himself with a broken beer bottle. Larry would later say, "I was homeless, shirtless, penniless, showerless...I had nothing. I had nothing left".Describing one incident to his friend, artist Joe Coleman, Larry said, "Going through withdrawal, my whole body shook like an engine going through a full stop." (See: Lieb, Rebecca. "Remembering Indian Larry: Joe Coleman's Homage to the Ultimate Motorcycle Artist". Juxtapoz: Arts & Culture Magazine February 2006 Issue #61. pp. 40–47.) According to Larry's sister Tina, when a cop arrived on the scene shining a spotlight in Larry's face, Larry told him, "Just shoot me." They committed him to Bellevue Hospital.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 105, 106. It was through Bellevue that Larry got connected up with a drug and alcohol program.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 107.
Larry had "1991" and "1994" tattooed on his arm, as he explained that he had to go back after his initial treatment. Larry struggled with a familiar cycle for years. As friend and bike building partner Paul Cox explained: "...he would go through periods of time when he didn't think he deserved fame or whatever, and would sabotage himself by doing drugs. Larry would attack himself internally and head down a self-destructive spiral."Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 65. It was not until the late 1990s that Larry was finally able to free himself and stop using.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 65, 67. Mentioning the long journey that it took, Larry expressed that he didn't think that he could do it all over again. "It was too hard," he said. Larry's friend photographer Timothy White expressed, "drugs didn't belong with Larry and I think Larry knew that and it wasn't until he got to a point that he really realized that – only at that point could he let it all go. And once he did, his life changed completely. It changed completely, like nobody I've ever seen."
Chopper builder Indian Larry, along with Paul Cox, Fritz "Spritz by Fritz" Schenck, Steg Von Heintz, and Frank, formed the crew at Psycho Cycles on New York's Lower East Side beginning in the early 1990s. During this period they created a distinct New York City chopper style. In 2000, Larry and friends opened Gasoline Alley in Brooklyn.
Larry is credited with helping to re-popularize the stripped down, tall handlebar, foot clutched, jockey shifted, no front brake or fender, small gas tank, open piped, kick start only, stock rake choppers that prevailed in the 1960s, before long front ends became popular (Larry explained during his first Biker Build-Off, that he preferred nimbleness in a bike so he could ride at high speeds along the mountain switchbacks).
When building a chopper, Larry could draw upon what he had mastered over the years in the fields of mechanics, welding, and metal fabrication. Among custom bike builders, Indian Larry was known and respected for having mastered the old-school style of building and remaining loyal to it.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 131-132. Larry considered himself to be a "gearhead" originally, and was rooted in the hot rod culture of the 1950s and 1960s. During the Biker Build-Off period in 2003–2004, Larry's appreciation for modern horsepower and twin carburetors for increased fuel/air intake was expressed in his builds.
Larry explained, "I'm a chopper builder. Old-time, old-school chopper builder. But I like the modern technology that's involved. So the bikes run better, perform better. And we have more fun with them."
In the art of building a bike, Larry preferred old school methods and didn't use CNC machines.Nichols; Cambridge. - p. 160. He favored Paughco rigid frames and panhead motors. Larry liked being able to see all of the nuts and bolts and mechanics of a bike, rather than concealing those elements in a bike's construction. The way that Larry approached building a bike was evident early on. The man who taught Larry the craft of using a welding torch said that he remembered Larry not wanting to grind down welds if they were good because Larry "felt it showed your craftmanship."