CHATSWORTH, Calif.—Juicy Entertainment general manager Danny Gorman has good reason these days to sing the praises of our neighbor to the north. In February, he signed a distribution deal with Canadian web starlet Bryci, co-founder of the BellaPass network of sites, who had turned to Juicy to release her first exclusive-to-DVD content. Now he has a new line coming from another Canadian web performer, and he couldn’t be more thrilled.
Just a few months after he began carrying Bryci’s titles, Gorman already is looking at great sales. “She’s doing really well—my numbers are really up,” he says. “Reorders and no returns.”
Next up from BellaPass is a new line of DVDs featuring Katie Banks, whose website, KatieBanks.com, has been up and running since early 2010. Banks is shooting new content specifically for DVD releases, and Juicy has the exclusive distribution worldwide.
Who is Katie Banks? Blond, beautiful and busty, she got her start non-nude modeling and progressed to erotic photos before moving on to shooting hardcore scenes with toys and girls. Raised in Vancouver, Canada, she’s been doing live webcam shows a few times a week since her site launched in 2010.
“This is Katie’s first DVD, so she’s going to a new audience. They’re bringing the webcam heat to DVD,” Gorman says.
Explaining “webcam heat,” Gorman describes the scenes that Banks shoots: solo, girl/girl and boy/girl action with her husband. “It’s all true—it’s true sex. These people are not faking it. They love when people are watching them, and they love the sex. It’s all real.”
On top of that, he marvels, “They’re not affected, they’re really easy to work with—and they give me everything on time.”
The first release, titled Katie Banks, comes out on July 25, featuring Banks, who also directs, and husband TC Davidson, who produces. The two-disc set features five scenes—all never before seen, and all shot in 4K—as well as behind-the-scenes footage, interviews and photos.
A middle child with two brothers and a father who played rock and roll, she describes herself as “the wild child” who has a passion for cars. “I love cars! And trucks. I love working on them. I learned a lot about them hanging out with my gear head friends in high school,” she said.
“Definitely a nerd in high school,” Banks was a straight-A student who joined the theater crowd and played soccer. She went to college, and then started working. “My last job before starting in adult was a waitress at a local family restaurant chain full time,” Banks recalled. “I loved the people but I wanted more out of life.”
One thing she wanted was more sex. “I've always been a very sexual person, often told I'm more like a guy when it comes to my sexual wants and my libido.”
Also, she says, “I would definitely consider myself very strongly bisexual. There is something about women that is very alluring and very sensual.”
Banks says she also watches a lot of porn. “I get inspired by a lot of models that I started watching —Eva Angelina, Lela Star, Lexi Belle, Tori Black, the list goes on.” And she also liked amateur porn “that looked interesting, that looked like the girl was having a lot of fun.
“I always found the women looked so beautiful and so glamorous and they were having fun acting and being silly and just expressing themselves. They seemed to be really free with their sexuality, embracing who they are sexually—to explore and be interested in pleasing themselves as well as enjoying the pleasure that’s being provided for them and that they are giving to their partner in the scene.”
In March Banks began releasing boy/girl scenes on her site. “I wasn’t sure what the fan reaction would be because you never know, right?” she says. “But honestly I’ve been blown away by just how positive and energetic people have been, saying, ‘I’m so happy you’ve done this. You guys look like you are having so much fun.’ Everyone just seems super-positive about it, which is really encouraging.”
Speaking of fans, it sounds like Banks’ mother is among their ranks. “My mom is so supportive. I just love her to death. I did Playboy back in 2010,” Banks recalls. “When I told her it was coming out in print, she asked to have the first signed copy. ... She’s always super supportive.” When people ask Banks’ mother if she knows what her daughter does for a living, her mother says, “Yeah—it’s awesome, so shut up.”
For the DVDs Banks and Davidson will release, the scenes will be new and available only on DVD for a period of time. The new scenes were shot with DVD audiences in mind, Banks says. “It definitely inspired us to create some interesting roleplay or find some really interesting angles. Rather than just set up one camera and get started, we’ll set up four cameras ... we can have something that is, you know, more fun. To push our boundaries and have some fun and ... really just kind of explore.”
In terms of the roleplay, Banks says, “We’ve done stuff like naughty schoolgirl, playing up the ditzy blonde role. We’ve done things like I’m a girl who needs to be punished. We most recently did a casting couch roleplay. Things like, ‘You’re my best friend’s boyfriend, this is bad’ ... kind of a little bit of everything.”
Asked if her fans know the DVDs are coming, she admits it’s hard to keep a secret but says she’s only dropped hints. “I really enjoy sharing my life with the people who are around me, and that extends to my fans—people I talk to on webcam or on Twitter. I’m excited to share things with them,” Banks says.
Banks met some of her fans in person when she attended her first AVN Adult Entertainment Expo this past January: “We went to some of the seminars and all the booths. It was really quite surreal walking around and having somebody walk up to you and say, ‘Oh my god, it’s Katie. Hi, it’s me!’ It was really fun to meet people. ... We are definitely planning to come every year from here on out.
Banks says, “There are more things on my bucket list that I am aiming to accomplish.” One is attending the AVN Awards. “If I ever got nominated, I would, like, die ... And if it ever happens I would have to take a moment where I go, ‘Wow.’ ... We didn’t actually go to the awards this year, but we waited in the lobby and watched all the girls. ... Everyone looks so beautiful.”
While at AEE, she also met Gorman. “Every time I get off the phone with Danny I’m always smiling and super pumped,” Banks says. “I’m just really, really excited every time I talk to the guys at Juicy. ... They’re just so awesome. I’m just so pumped to do this and have this opportunity.”
Asked about whether she has done any girl/girl scenes for the Juicy titles, Banks says, “The first DVD is just me, but the second one, which I just submitted content for, has a scene with another fellow Canadian, Alyssa Reece. ... I always say there’s something in the water here that makes us [Canadians] go wild. It gets really cold up here in the winter and there’s nothing to do here but stay inside and be naughty and masturbate,” she says with a laugh. “That’s one of the things I do in the winter when I’m bored. ‘What am I going to do today? I could put on this porn I saw the other day. That looked like fun.’”
As she contemplates her success so far Banks says, “It still feels really surreal to me, because ... I will always be in my mind that nerdy girl in high school who’s kind of awkward. So to me I’m like, ‘Wow, people are interested in me—this is really cool.’”
To order the new DVD Katie Banks and other BellaPass titles, contact Danny Gorman at Juicy: (800) 584-2960 or [email protected].
