Devon Turnbull is a man of many talents. He creates handcrafted speakers that can be found in shops, hotels, and restaurants around the world, including Ace Hotels and Supreme—but he is also a graphic designer, fashion designer, and DJ among other things. The malti-talented man picked up the Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again T-shrit for the interview.
Multiple careers, multiple bases.
If it is difficult to ascribe a single job title to Turnbull, it is equally difficult to pin him to one location. He was born in New York, but he spent his childhood in the Midwest and his late teens in Seattle, where he studied audio engineering. He returned to New York in 1999 but spends much of his time traveling the world—to France, Morocco, Germany, and elsewhere—in a camping car equipped with solar panels, a hot water system, and one of his handcrafted sound systems. (You can follow his adventures on Instagram @ontheroadhome.)
His first break came in New York, courtesy of alternative hiphop group Antipop Consortium. “My ultimate goal was to somehow get in the studio with these guys—they were sort of my heroes,” Turnbull says. “At the same time, I was hand-embroidering my own clothes. The streetwear brand Alife—which had just opened its shop—liked what I was making, and they asked me to bring some stuff in that they could put on consignment. A few days later, they called and said, ‘This guy Beans is here from Antipop Consortium, he really likes the stuff you’re making.’ That’s when I thought, maybe this is part of what I’m doing.”
Turnbull at his home in Brooklyn.
Ojas audio pieces, including a 2A3 SET tube amplifier.
What made him to be a sound system builder.
This was the start of Turnbull’s illustrious fashion career, which includes cofounding the Nom de Guerre streetwear brand and shop. In the meantime, he continued to pursue his interest in audio, and hi-fi equipment in particular, until he was building his own stereo systems from scratch.
“One of the first people I told about this interest of mine was Ace Hotels founder Alex Calderwood, who was a huge supporter of mine,” Turnbull says. “He gave me my first audio commission.” Turnbull met Calderwood in Seattle, where Turnbull had initially moved to pursue snowboarding. “When I was in high school, I wanted to snowboard more seriously,” he says. “I had friends who were snowboarding professionally who encouraged me to come to Seattle. In fact, my best snowboarding friend in Seattle was Josh Rosen, one of the founders of lifestyle brand Saturdays NYC, who has also commissioned me for speaker systems. So, everything connects! It’s crazy how the universe works.”
Turnbull says one of his biggest influences is Japanese audiophile culture. He even has a Japanese mentor living on a crater lake on top of Mt. Bandai in Fukushima Prefecture. They’re currently working jointly on a tube amp. Another one of Turnbull’s major influences is New York itself: “The downtown New York creative scene and its diversity helped me create my whole creative identity. “I feel like it’s very important to have an exchange or a dialogue with people who live a really different life than your own. They usually help you leave your comfort zone. But you need to physically go there, because on social media, you mostly end up connecting with people who have the same interests.”
Public Record—a Brooklyn café bar and music-driven social space that just opened last year—is equipped with a comprehensive hi-fi system built by Turnbull. “The most magical thing is when you listen to music you love and you feel like you’re interacting with it,” he says. “Building sound systems is the closest thing I can get to playing music with my heroes.”
©/®/™ The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
PROFILE
Devon Turnbull | Turnbull was born in New York. He builds custom sound systems in the basement of his Brooklyn home and at his Navy Yard studio for clients around the world. He once owned a clothing brand and shop; during this period, he often shopped at UNIQLO in Japan before the brand launched in the U.S.Instagram @devonojas
