Nina Mercedez- Exclusive Interview- “Elephants Can’t Jump”

 Cover & interview Copyright Xcitement Mag, Interview by Cindi Loftus

Nina Mercedez didn’t have a great start in life according to statistics. She had a child as a teenager and only completed the eighth grade. She looks back at that now and knows she has beaten the odds. She worked really, really hard for many years and it has paid off. She rose up through the ranks of the adult world from feature dancer, to Vivid contract star, now on to successful businesswoman. Nina still does dancing shows. She still makes movies. But she also owns a successful movie company, runs twenty websites, and is starting an agency to book feature talent. Mercedez is definitely a positive role model for girls starting out in the business. I’m very lucky to call her my friend.
 
Xcitement: How are you doing beautiful?
Nina: I’m doing great. I’m extremely busy though.
X: I don’t know how you do all you do. You and I have a really long history together. So many times people go into this business and get chewed up and spit out and end up with nothing. And you have gone from a beautiful feature dancer to a business woman. You have grown up in this business and been successful all along the way. I bet you are making more money now than you did before and everyone else is losing money.
N: Well I just got all the sites up, so we haven’t quite seen the money yet. But back then it was a different animal. When I was featuring I was making a ton of money because I was on the road 42 weeks a year and strip clubs were a lot different. There was a lot more money there, and the internet was new.
X: Yep and you were driving a bus with you and a snake painted on the side of it.
N: Yeah. I did make more money back then, but I wasn’t very smart with it. (laughs) I am getting there, but it’s a slow process.
X: You are working really hard, and you have a wonderful partner (her husband Ray). I’m really happy things are going so well for you.
N: Thank you. He is really smart.
X: He IS smart, and he’s a tough guy. I like that combination.
N: Usually they are good looking and big, but dumb as a rock. But Ray is big, built, good-looking and he’s really smart, and he has a college education that is always a bonus.
X: Yes, you have a really good guy. Things have changed a lot in the feature dance business. What advice would you give to a girl starting out in it right now?
N: There is room for it. I think feature dancing has taken a totally different direction. I actually got calls from club owners who were concerned saying that “the feature dance business is kind of done. It’s come to a halt, we don’t want it to be done. What’s your advice, Nina?” It’s kind of scary to get those calls from well-known club owners who have been booking features for years. So that is kind of why we said things need to be done differently.
X: What is the major difference for a girl who starts to feature dance now, from when you started?
N: The showgirl aspect of it has gone out the window and now you can put on a pair of boots and a bikini and if you have done a couple of movies, they will throw you on the road. And that’s the agents not being careful. That’s the agents selling the name. I think that yeah, you have a name, but you are just a glorified house dancer if you are up on stage wearing boots and a bikini. I think the showgirl aspect needs to come back. Girls like Stormy Daniels, Devon Michaels, Lexi Lamour, who do porn but are also show girls, those girls need to be put at the front of the line. They spent money on elaborate costumes and they have shows that are put together. They have a cowgirl show which has cowgirl music, and they have a nurse show that has nurse music. They are not just up there saying play me four songs. That’s not how it should be. Who wants to pay for that? And that is why featuring is dying. Club owners are saying this is not what I need. So if you are a new feature starting out, put some energy into it, put some costumes together. If you are going out to get paid $600-$800 a show and you are a porn star you should be able to buy a thousand dollar costume. Get the showgirl back into it, because if not it’s going to be very short-lived and it’s going to die.
X: So is that why you decided to start your own feature talent agency?
N: It really scared me that I was seeing less and less clubs book features and most of the bookings I have done lately the clubs are saying they only book direct. I love feature dancing so much. I believe in it 100%. I work for Exotic Dancer (Expo) every year for free because I love being around it. And it was really scary for me to hear club owners say that it is dying and going to be dead in a couple of years if we don’t do something. I have more than enough to do, but I love it so much that I will take time out and put energy into it and try to bring it back. I think it’s something that is great and it can make money if you do it right. You have to match the right girl to the right club and it has to be profitable for everybody.
X: Because of your success in it, you will have a lot of club owners calling you.
N: Right. I don’t have to have the biggest names that book out for three thousand dollars a show, but I want to have good showgirls. A lot of guys may not know who the porn star is, but if they see a really good show at a club they will tell their friends and come back to the club to see another show. It will spiral and eventually it will catch back on. I think featuring will have a long life. I think it just needs to be done right.
X: And you are the one to do it!
N: Me and Lexi Lamour are doing it together.
X: Well you both have a lot of experience so you are the book of knowledge for the girls you will represent.
N: Yes. Lexi is starting a dance school. We don’t want to send girls on the road who have never been on the road. I’ve had club owners say, so and so was here and threw up three times before she went up on stage and got drunk because she was nervous. All of our girls who are inexperienced will have to come and do the school. I think the school will be really important and we’ll put out a better product.
X: Where will the school be?
N: Here in Vegas.
X: That’s the perfect place to train showgirls!
N: Exactly.
X: Are you still featuring all over the place?
N: I’m not. I have the booking in Miami and I will book a few of my favorite clubs, but I’m going to take a break. The good thing about our agency is that if a girl needs to cancel me and Lexi can jump in if we needed to.
X: You used to live in P.A., and I know you hated the cold. So you moved to Vegas when I wasn’t looking?
N: I moved to Vegas to do a show in the Sahara, and I was to be the principal in the show. I spent a ton of money to move out here. Went through four weeks of training for the show. It was me, Taya Parker and two other girls and they opened the show and didn’t realize how much money it takes to put on a Las Vegas show. Every week, the show never picked up. They spent way more money than they expected to. I got let go, and each week another girl got let go. Taya stayed the longest. The show went down and then the Sahara closed.
X: Wow! So the whole Sahara hotel is closed and gone?
N: The whole Sahara is gone now.
X: That sucks.
N: It was a good learning experience. I learned that these Vegas showgirls do it because they love it. They definitely don’t get paid what they are worth. When that show closed I got offered the main spot in Fantasy at the Luxor, but when I started talking to them and looking at the contract and really thinking about it, do I really want to get into full hair and make-up 6 days a week? I couldn’t commit to that, not for the money that they wanted to pay me. The showgirls do it because it’s in their heart and their blood.
X: So now you are staying in Vegas?
N: Yes.
X: Does Ray like it?
N: He likes it. He goes to visit PA. every three months to see his parents. So we just got back from there a few weeks ago.
X: So how do you like living in Vegas?
N: I love Vegas. Everyone wants to entertain you for free. You can walk down the street and someone is entertaining you or go to the park on the weekend and there is always a live free band. It’s the only place where you can have a two hundred dollar dinner and than walk downstairs and put five dollars in the machine and win four hundred. Not only did you get a free dinner but you walked out with two hundred extra in your pocket. Ray came home the other day with three hundred dollars and I said what did you do, and he said I put four dollars into a machine and won.  He goes gambling sometimes at night and I’ll wake up with seven hundred dollars on my night stand and I’ll say oh you won last night and he’ll say it’s yours and I’ll say go back again! (laughs)
X: I’m glad to hear you get to sleep at home sometimes! I know you travel a lot. What do you do with all the time you spend in hotel rooms and airports?
N: I have twenty girls contracted now to XXXFastPass which is our network of websites. So I am constantly editing video, editing photos, or putting stuff together for a convention. Running the site is completely insane. I didn’t realize how much you have to put into it. I figured we would just have to update all the sites and then push traffic. But for the last year we have been designing sites and putting them up. But it’s more than that. It’s a family and everyone has got to feel loved.
X: You are good at love though, because you are a very warm-hearted person so I am sure that comes naturally to you.
N: All the girls are different. I have Devon Michaels and she is so independent. I have had Sofia Santi under contract for three years going on four and she’s the first girl that we contracted and she’s just so easy. Some girls just go with it.
X: What are the names of girls in your network?
N: I have Sofia Santi, Lexi Lamour, Alexis Ford, Isis Taylor…
X: So you started with Sofia, how did you get more?
N: They came to me. I’ve never gone to anyone. All of the girls have come to me because they heard that we run a really honest website and we’ve never had anyone leave. It just kept going. Actually Brianna Banks is the last girl we are taking. I probably turn down two girls a week. I can do twenty and that’s it.
X: I think twenty is ten more than most people would handle.
X: Okay after Isis?
N: Kayme Kai, Kiara Mia, Kortney Kane, Nyomi Banxxx, Devon Michaels, Prinzzess, Nikki Delano…
X: Nikki is the cover I just did.
N: Nikki is a funny story. We got a photo of her mailed to us. Ray looked at her and said she is going to be really really big. So we saw that her domain was available and we bought it with the intention of giving it to her. It turned into a big mess because she thought I took her domain and it turned into a Twitter war. Then we cleared it up and people were telling Nikki that I ran the best sites, so she said I am so sorry, will you do my site? So we are. I believe she is going to go really far. She’s got a great attitude and she is doing it right.
X: You are a feature dancer. You are a porn star, but how did you learn to be a webmaster?
N: Ray taught himself. He is amazing. He can do everything on the sites. I would sit at his computer and watch him. Just from watching him I learned stuff and he taught me stuff. So we are both self-taught. He can do everything from driving traffic, design, the backend, HTML.
X: He’s amazing. And good looking.
N: And he has a big dick! What else could I want?
X: Maybe a trust fund? (laughs)
N: No, but he is good with money. One day we will be there.
X: I’m so happy for you. You so deserve all the good things that are happening. You worked very hard to get to this point. XXXFastPass is amazing. I took a look. So it’s $29 bucks a month and you will get 20 sites.
N: Yeah, right now it’s 15. We just put up Raylene.com and that’s the 15th site. I’m working on Shay Fox, Nikki Delano, Kayla Carrera, Keni Styles, Kala Paige, and Lisa Daniels.
X: Keni Styles? There’s not a lot of guys who have sites.
N: Keni Styles is a really brilliant guy. I wanted to round out my network, so that we have everything. And I thought a guy’s site that was done for the purpose of guys wanting to see him with girls, and all his content is done with A list girls, so I thought that would work really well.
X: If I join the XXXFastPass network, what do I get?
N: The majority of the girls web cam, plus you get the archives. Most of the sites are updated three or four times a week. There’s over fifty updates a week, so you can never get to the end. And that’s what we want. Too many guys join a site and see everything and they don’t want to wait for another update. That won’t happen here, because you can’t ever get to the end. It’s just not possible. There is too much stuff.  I have ten years worth of content on my site alone. And Devon Michaels has ten or more years of content in her library. You get videos, photosets.
X: Are there blogs? Exclusives?
N:  Kayme Kai has a great interactive blog. Kiara Mia is now doing boy/girl just for her site. I do boy/girl specifically for my site. Isis does boy/girl interracial only for her website. So there are things you can’t see anywhere else.
X: What if I want to go watch a full link porn movie- can I do that?
N: Yes, Heartbreaker Films is included in there and that is a library of movies.
X: Speaking of your movies, you recently put out “Popular Demand” which includes your first double penetration.
N: The movie is all about what the fans have been asking for. They wanted a scene with me and Gina Lynn and I’ve been asked for that for years, so we did one. They wanted a scene with an eighteen year old guy. They wanted a DP scene. They wanted to see me and Eva Angelina together. They wanted a DVD that was all me, so I put everything that they wanted into one DVD. It’s probably the only DVD that I put out through my company that is all me. There is also a scene with me and Sophia that is absolutely insane. We both went at it. By the end of the scene we were sweating, no makeup on, she couldn’t walk. She said “Oh my god, I can’t get up and walk!” So I must have done my job.
X: I want to join mostly for your site truthfully, and I want to see your new movie. You have to tell me about your DP. That’s scary.
N: To be honest, it was good and it was fun, but I won’t be shooting another one. I’ll do two guys, like I just did a scene with Ray and Keni Styles, but the DP wasn’t for me, I won’t be doing that again. I don’t want to do anything that I have to push myself to do. I like one on one anal sex. I like vaginal sex. But together it’s too much concentrating on his balls can’t touch his balls.
X: (cracks up)
N: Where you are looking. That you are giving equal attention. Who’s on the top. Being careful of each position because their balls can’t touch. Because that is very very important to the guys, for some reason.
X: (Laughing)
N: It’s too much thinking to enjoy yourself.
X: So you are thinking about them, not even yourself.
N: Yeah, myself too. I am thinking about opening up for camera, and that my boobs look good, and that my legs look nice. I’m sure if I was doing it in my bedroom off camera, it would have been more fun. I would have had a good time. But the scene came out great.
X: Who was the other guy? Ray and who?
N: Jerry, he is one of my favorite performers.
X: I can’t wait to see the movie. I gotta say my favorite quote in this interview is going to be “make sure their balls don’t touch” That is certainly something I have NEVER thought about before. I figure during DP the girl is thinking be careful going in and out of those holes. I can see why you will only be doing this once.
X: I follow you on twitter and I notice that you put up three interesting facts each day.
N: If I don’t do them now, people ask me where they are.
X: Why did you decide to start?
N: I wanted to put something that you will think about, you will learn something, maybe go down to the corner bar and share it with a friend. That means that you have me on your mind all day!
X: How do you come up with the things to put up?
N: It’s an app on my phone, and they are not always right let me tell you.  When it’s wrong I get tons of tweets letting me know about it.
X: Today you told me that “Elephants Can’t Jump”
N: Yep.
X: Thank you!
N: (Laughs) But did you think about it, and me later?
X: I did. I tried to picture an elephant jumping and I couldn’t. Then I thought, Mercedez taught me something today.
N: See it works.
X: You are an excellent marketer, and that’s just one small example of it.  I think it comes naturally to you, because you have always marketed yourself well, and now you are doing the building up the network.
N; Thank you. I thought I was going to be a bookkeeper, which is what I did when I was younger.
X: You’ve certainly come a long way from being a bookkeeper! (Laughs) Do you have a message for you fans?
N: I’ve had the fans that read your magazine for a long time. So I guess I would say thank you for always sticking by me and believing in me, and being a fan. I really appreciate it!
NinaMercedez.com
FeatureElite.com
Twitter.com/@Nina_Mercedez
Mercedez appeared  at Tootsie’s September 7-10

To see the whole mag & Nina’s naked pics go to Xcitement.com