MARC ECKO, Founder: “The mag was just a dream. We initially wanted to call it Climate. I had these two pet projects—Climate and the video game Getting Up—that I used as a way to medicate myself when we were going through some difficult times with the clothing brand. The initial concept for Climate was slightly heady and intellectual.”
ALAN KET, Founding Editor 2000–2: “I knew Marc and Seth Gerszberg, the owners of Ecko, since the mid-’90s. I was starting a magazine called Stress and they were one of our first advertisers. In 2000, I shut down Stress and Seth said, ‘Yo, come out and meet me and Marc in South River. We might have an opportunity.’”
The name Complex began as a reference to the Ecko.com website. In the early aughts Ecko Unltd merchandise had tags that said ecko.complex. The idea was to evoke images of an "Ecko Complex" as in the Ecko Place, Ecko Factory, or Ecko Zone.
