Copywriter Todd Carey graduated from Providence College in 1991 with the intention of belting it out as frontman for a heavy metal band. Then a chance encounter with staff at Leonard Monahan Lubars & Kelly turned him away from a life of Marshall stacks and leather-clad groupies. These days, Carey can be found in the halls of Rubin Postaer & Associates with his creative partner, Curt Johnson. In the past three years they've crafted numerous hits for Honda in North America including "Avoid Imitators" and "Foot".

Given Carey's ambitions toward rock stardom, it's not surprising he hadn't crafted a grand plan to conquer the advertising world. He worked at LMLK for free for about a year, "mostly so that I could have access to photocopiers and stuff at night. It was a great experience." His Rhode Island indoctrination was followed by a westward migration, and in 1997 he joined RPA with the goal of getting involved in big television assignments.

Art director Johnson originally hailed from the LA area, but his arrival at RPA in '96 came by a circuitous road. His first job was at JWT, Chicago, before stops at Ruhr/Paragon, Minneapolis, and two NY agencies including Ammirati. At RPA, the two bonded despite Carey's outspoken behavior. "Todd is the type who thinks out loud," Johnson explains. "Even if he knows it's a bad idea, he'll keep trying to talk it into a good idea... That took me a while to get used to." Carey's penchant for monologs aside, the two creatives agree their personalities and styles complement one another, not least because they're both strong in the visual and verbal arts.

Johnson says his favorite collaboration was a :60 spot for Unicare, called "Repo Man", in which a man in a parking lot gets stopped by heavies looking to collect $27,000 for a gallstone operation. When the poor sod can't pay, they threaten to put them back. The longer time frame allowed the creatives to build a dynamic more familiar in movies than spots. "We had the opportunity to use these long drawn-out silences," says Johnson, "and make it a very uncomfortable situation."

Carey pegs the Honda CRV "Campfire" teaser campaign as notable because of the freedom the team was given. It consisted of a dozen :15 spots that were completely improvised by the actors. Carey and Johnson set up two cameras and let the talent go, then wrote back stories for the characters and sculpted some 80 hours of footage into a coherent campaign. Though the pair claims to have no favorite directors, it's worth noting that Epoch's Phil Morrison lensed both the Unicare and CRV work.

That sort of freedom was not something they enjoyed for three spots for the Honda Accord last year: "Avoid Imitators", "Inanimate Objects" and "Foot". Even though the spots, particularly "Foot", in which a doctor examines a patient with a lead foot, are quietly funny, "we've done better," says Johnson. "Experimentation is a bad thing on Accord. If we're going to do something different, we have to have a really good reason and sell it really hard."

Complicating matters on the six-day shoot last summer was the blackout. "The entire production office and staff ended up having to [work] outside in the sweltering heat with generators," recalls Carey. "They set up a whole production office on a sidewalk in Manhattan."

With this type of experience under their belts, it's not surprising that Johnson and Carey are collecting ACD credits as well. But don't expect them to start screaming for soy no-foam lattés any time soon. Says Carey: "It's not one of those agencies where you hear nightmare stories of the ACD who wants to get [his] hands all over the script and change everything."

While the pair credits agency honcho Larry Postaer for setting the standard of independent thought and experimentation, Postaer says the two deserve whatever kudos are coming to them. "If they take on an assignment it's taken very seriously. There is no reason to crack a whip. If anything, you have to tell them to shut down and go home."

With much of their work running in seasonal cycles, Carey and Johnson are knuckling down on some work for Blue Cross before the spring turns them loose on Honda. As Carey says, "We don't think in years; we usually think in Honda seasons."

STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

Age: Johnson: 42; Carey: 35

First record: Johnson: Led Zeppelin IV

Best concert: Carey: Metallica, 1988

What would you buy if money was no object: Johnson: "An island"

Your inspiration: Carey: Mark Twain, Lenny Bruce, Frank Zappa; Johnson: Gary Goldsmith (at Lowe, NY)

What advertising has taught you: Carey: "Be original"; Johnson: "Every assignment can be great."

What would you change about the biz: Johnson: "Occasionally they do group focus testing of storyboards, and every time I go to one of those it makes me want to find a new career. I hate it so much."