WHACK! staph degenerate Miss Lagsalot caught up with dirty director Rico Montana last week for a chat!
WHACK! First of all, I’m sure that a lot of our readers will know who you are already, but for those who don’t, can you give a little introduction; tell us who you are and what you do?
RICO MONTANA Yeah, my name is Rico Montana. I’m an adult filmmaker. I consider myself a director, a camera man, and an editor. Or a reporter, basically, I’m a one-man band a lot of times. I’ve been in porn for probably the last five to sex years, working professionally in the adult industry. I believe my official start in the business was with a porn studio Pink Visual. They had a corporate office out here in LA, but their corporate office is actually in Tucson, Arizona.
W! I didn’t know that. Where are you located?
RM I’m in Southern California. My studio and my company are based out of Studio City, which is pretty much the heart of Pornville. Have you been?
W! No, not yet. I’ve been to LA but not that part of LA. It’ll probably happen soon. I’m a little scared of it, honestly. What’s it like out there? What’s the town like? I mean is it like porn all the time?
RM It happens to be a town… Well it’s a town that happens to be hustling and bustling with perversion and pornography.
W! So lots of beautiful people all over the place?
RM Yeah, I mean, the Valley originally was a suburban area right outside of Hollywood. People who didn’t want to live in the city or in Hollywood would just travel over the hill, over the 101 or the 405 to get to the Valley. But porn’s been going on out here since the late 70’s, early 80’s. And it’s just one of those things, it’s just like people are shooting porn right in the backyard.
W! I’ve seen some of that, and the most unfortunate thing about backyard porn is that every time, at some point during the scene, a plane flies overhead, or you hear like an eighteen wheel truck go by.
RM That is a common problem. Like, some of the companies that I work for, what they like to do is have these scenes shot outdoors or in public where most people would think it would be impossible to do. So whatever they chance they can get to shoot something outside or in public, in the backyard, you do it. And that’s a common problem we have, like planes and especially helicopters. I gotta tell you, it’s like the helicopter companies and local police, they know where the shoot location and houses are, and they’ll fly over those houses, I wonder if it’s for their own kink or to bust. Sometimes people get busted and sometimes you have helicopters flying low overhead and nothing happens. Maybe they’re like, “Check this out, they’re shooting porn!”
W! Yeah, probably. I bet they’ve got like a new guy in the cockpit and the pilot says, “Hey, check this out, let’s go over here, let me show you something…”
RM (laughing) I wouldn’t doubt it.
W! Well, anyway, I’ve been doing some reading up on you, and I found some interesting tidbits. For instance, on your MySpace page it says that you’re really interested in martial arts. Does that mean that you love martial arts movies or you’re trained in martial arts? What’s your interest?
RM Well thanks for asking. That’s actually a big interest in my life, aside from women, asses, and pornography. I’ve been studying 
martial arts since I was a kid, off and on, so I’m definitely into movies and anything martial arts. From the Karate Kid, the original, to UFC, anything boxing or combat sports related, I’m all about it. I personally train in Southeastern and Filipino martial arts, better known as Kali or Silat.
W! That’s pretty cool. Have you ever thought of working martial arts into a porno? Or would that be disrespectful to the idea of the martial arts?
RM No, not at all. Actually, I have something in… Well I wouldn’t say in pre-production, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about. And I don’t want to give away too many ideas, but definitely I do have a martial arts, action flick that’s hardcore triple x in the works. Hopefully we’ll see it happen in 2011.
W! That would be fantastic! I don’t know much about martial arts but I appreciate the movie genre aspect of it, and that could be really cool.
RM What not a lot of people know, also, is that Filipino martial arts is actually used a lot in a lot of the movies. A lot of people don’t know that, just because they don’t know about it or because they’re not into the action stuff and fight sequences, but if you name the top five movies, it’s Filipino martial arts. Like all the Bourne Identity trilogy, you’ve got Blade with Wesley Snipes, Kickass… You know I could name like twelve movies that came out in the last few years, but this is an article for another segment.
W! Yeah, you’re right, but that’s really interesting. I’m gonna look into that. The other thing I found out from researching you is that you’re a big supporter of the legalization of marijuana, which… I mean, you live in California, where they’re a lot closer to it than we are out here on this side of the country. But what are you hoping will happen? Federal legislation? What’s your deal?
RM I’m gonna speak just about home, here in California, where a lot of good stuff is coming out of this state. Not to get too heavily political, but I know the Federal government considers marijuana, period, as a drug, as a controlled substance. But here in California we obviously have compassionate laws, where we can legally sell marijuana. What I want, basically, is to be left alone. Basically, it’d be our business if we want to light up and smoke. Not necessarily in public, but in the privacy of our own homes, if we want to be medicated. And California is definitely the place to be for that. I know there’s a handful of other states that have medical marijuana laws, but there’s not a lot of states like California. You have the areas in Northern California, like Mendocino county, the county you always hear about, and Humboldt county. Most medical marijuana comes out of California, and if you’re an avid weed smoker, it’s the place to be.
I, myself, I do have a medical marijuana card, and it’s legitimately from my private doctor.
W! … I have a sneaking suspicion that many readers of WHACK! Magazine might be supporters of the legalization of marijuana cause.
RM Definitely! As a matter of fact, I was getting ready to light up during our interview, but I wasn’t sure if WHACK! Magazine was a supporter of medical marijuana, but if you are, maybe I will!
W! You do whatever works for you, man. As a porn publication, we try not to judge anybody for anything they do. But, speaking of pornography, you run your own company, right? Called Hot Buttered Porn?
RM Yes, also known as Hot Buttered Entertainment. The brand is Hot Buttered Porn.
W! Can you tell us a little bit about the company and what it specializes in?
RM Well, we specialize, mainly on the female derriere. I’m a big fan, personally, of women’s asses, and anal sex with females. So my movies lean toward that area. I have a few more titles under Pink Visual and new DVDs coming out, and you will see some of them are ass-themed and that sort of theme. Aside from the butt fetish, I also like what the industry calls alt porn, you know, girls with tattoos, not your traditional glamour, beautiful, Hollywood, Playboy, stuff like that. I mean, I was conditioned and trained in that area, but I want to move away from that. Hot Buttered Porn is the opposite of that. I try to move away from that. I freelance for Playboy as a cameraman and that’s the kind of stuff we see a lot of, glamorous stuff, and also Pink Visual which is more like your reality porn, but I try to be a little more edgy with my stuff. Focus more on the woman’s derriere, you know I like girls who have a more rock kind of look.
W! I kind of got that feeling from your website for Hot Buttered Porn. It’s really cool. It’s kind of a different take on what a porn website should look like.
RM Oh, ok, well thank you!
W! I really liked it. It’s got kind of an artistic edge to it. You’re doing something very different than just plastering pictures up all over the place and trying to get people to click on them. I wondered if you have a vision about your company that fits into that same kind of quirky idea?
RM Yeah, definitely. My ultimate goal for Hot Buttered Porn is to be like the grindhouse movies. I want to eventually make my movies… I mean not low-budget, not cheap, but with that raw, you know, 1970’s look, shot on… You know, back then, people couldn’t afford expensive high quality stuff so they had to shoot with what they had, and they’d get this real grainy look with scratch marks and things like that. And no budget for wardrobe, you know? I try to lean toward that area as well. I try to accomplish that look, the quirkiness of the movies of that time. A little artsy, a little artistic with the website, a little avant-garde with it. I appreciate your comment about the website, I have some pretty good feedback from it. I still consider it a work in progress; it needs a few tweaks, but ultimately it was meant to be a promotional website. Unlike your typical porn website where you have so much to look at and you have to pay a membership stipend, or pay for something. I never wanted to do that, I just want to promote my stuff and my content…
W! So if you’re a fan of grindhouse movies and stuff, it seems like you must have a background in mainstream film also. Have you always wanted to work in porn, or do you have big dreams for mainstream?
RM As a matter of fact I’ve been working in mainstream a lot longer than in porn. I’ve been working in mainstream production probably since the late 90’s. It’s been about ten to twelve years, give or take. And I’ve been in adult production for the last five to six years. When I was doing mainstream, I grew up in LA, I grew up in the city of Van Nuys, and I liked porn. And ever since, I always thought to myself, like, “What would it be like to shoot the porn?” Cause I mean, I had gotten into the entertainment industry, I was a cameraman by trade, I was editing, and doing all sorts of things on set, and I was like, “What would it be like to be around all these porn stars?” It was just a dream, but in 2004-2005, that dream pretty much became a reality, and five years later I’m here trying to branch out and trying to do my own thing.
W! So how did you actually make that transition? What actually happened that you ended up behind the camera on a porn scene?
RM You know, I would say… It was definitely my drive… I’ve always been this perverse individual, you know? I wanted to etch my name into… I eventually did the grind, you know, I put in my work. I did a few little rinky-dink videos and, you know, I-don’t-even-want-to-talk-about-it kind of things, and I worked with some small producers in Moreno Valley… I worked with Doctor Lickalotta, which is no longer operating, but to make a long story short, we produced some scenes on a DVD and that became my reel. I hooked up with one of the producers and a production manager at Pink Visual, Matt Morningwood, and basically he believed in what I was doing. He liked my style, he liked the quality that I could bring to the table. Similar to why Multimedia Pictures signed me.
W! Cool, and then you branched out from there?
RM Yeah, I pretty much got hired on the spot. I came back to be with the head honcho at Pink Visual and with that, I pretty much secured my gig over there for the last five years. I’ve shot over a thousand scenes. I’ve been shooting incredibly a lot, porn girls just come into the studio. So from there I did my time at Pink Visual. They were an LA company but a casualty of the economy, I guess. They did some downsizing, and that included me. I was pretty much out there in the world to be grabbed up and start my own thing.
stars. I know she recently moved to safe sex porn, which might limit me shooting her because we do more non-condom shoots at this point. We’ll see what happens with this whole Cal-OSHA thing, but you know… The premise of the movie, basically, is nymphos who manipulate themselves to either get in the house or sleep with someone else’s husband or their man. And they basically rip them off, whether it’s their belongings or other sorts of things. The DVD description is basically, “Imagine you wake up in your own house only to realize that you’re handcuffed to your steps and the woman responsible for doing this is none other than the stranger you let use your phone to get her car fixed. Now she’s sucking you off, eating your wife’s pussy, and will proceed to rob you blind. Watch these law-breaking sluts fuck their way into your living room.”
W! Yeah I really like the cover, too. I like the marquee, it’s got a real grindhouse theme to it. So, any other big projects you’re working on that we can look forward to? Or are you still finishing Home Invasion Nymphos?Come to “Porn Star Karaoke” on Tuesday, December 14th. Party starts at 9pm. to celebrate my first independent release. We will have giveaways and dvds on hand with Nikki Hunter as the host for the evening. Starlets from the movie are also scheduled to appear.
Porn Star Karaoke is at: Sardos Bar