Indian Larry (born Lawrence DeSmedt; April 28, 1949 – August 30, 2004) was an American motorcycle builder and artist, stunt rider, and biker.

He became interested in hot rods and motorcycles at an early age and was a fan of Von Dutch and Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, whom he would later meet in California.

During this period he and his team built the motorcycles, Daddy-O (known to most people as the Rat Fink bike), Wild Child, and Chain of Mystery.

[1][2] The oldest of three children, with two younger sisters, Diane and Tina, Larry was described by his mother, Dorothy, as "a good boy, but mischievous.

"[3] Larry's strict father, Augustine, was a carpenter at United States Military Academy and had built the family's home.

[3] As a boy Larry liked Lincoln logs and Ed "Big Daddy" Roth Revell plastic model kits.

"[8] A well-known anecdote about Indian Larry is that as a kid he attempted to build a bomb in his parents' basement in order to blow up the Catholic school.

[9][10] When asked about the experience of being maimed as a kid during a 2003 Biker Build-Off program, Larry seemed to have come to peace with it: Like most horrible atrocities that happen to you in life, when you look at them in retrospect, it's usually a blessing or a lesson.

[12] Larry's first build was when he took his little sister Tina's tricycle and equipped it with Schwinn bicycle handlebars and a lawn mower engine.

[3][6][13] According to a Rolling Stone interview that was mentioned in a New York Times article, Larry's first motorcycle was a 1939 Harley Knucklehead that he bought when he was a teenager for a couple hundred dollars.

[26] In November 1991, during a period when he was living around the Bowery, Larry was going through severe withdrawals one night, wandering the streets cutting himself with a broken beer bottle.

As friend and bike building partner Paul Cox explained: "...he would go through periods of time when he didn't think he deserved fame or whatever, and would sabotage himself by doing drugs.

[32] Larry is credited with helping to re-popularize the stripped down, tall handlebar, foot clutched, jockey shifted, no front brake or fender, small gas tank, open piped, kick start only, stock rake choppers that prevailed in the 1960s, before long front ends became popular (Larry explained during his first Biker Build-Off, that he preferred nimbleness in a bike so he could ride at high speeds along the mountain switchbacks).

Among custom bike builders, Indian Larry was known and respected for having mastered the old-school style of building and remaining loyal to it.

During the Biker Build-Off period in 2003–2004, Larry's appreciation for modern horsepower and twin carburetors for increased fuel/air intake was expressed in his builds.

He would rarely make a sketch or jot down notes...he just envisioned what he wanted in one wide-eyed flash and would turn to you with a look like he saw God.

[40] The beginning of Indian Larry becoming known to the general public was his appearance in the Discovery Channel program, Motorcycle Mania II in 2001.

The program's primary focus was on customizer Jesse James, but it also featured different scenes profiling Indian Larry as he and the group (which included Jesse James, Chopper Dave, and Giuseppe Ronsin) set out to ride 1400 miles from Long Beach, California to the Sturgis 2001 Black Hills Classic in Sturgis, South Dakota.

[44] He explained that being a chopper builder requires being able to create from the abstract, and having a sense for aesthetics, while also possessing mechanical skills to deal with "extremely critical tolerances...like 2/10,000 of an inch in the motors".

Indian Larry participated in three different Biker Build-Off programs on the Discovery channel: The premise of each 45 minutes program was to profile two different custom motorcycle builders, each from a different part of the United States, and film them and their crews at work in their respective shops building a unique bike from start to finish within a set number of days.

Also shown helping Larry in the construction of each bike were Paul Cox and Keino Sasaki (pronounced "cane-o") from his shop.

His second trophy was cut up and shared with his opponent, Billy Lane and the audience, after Larry unexpectedly declared an exact draw after it was announced that he had won in the voting.

[45] Indian Larry's fatal motorcycle accident occurred during the filming of his third Biker Build-Off in 2004, on the same day, and at the same bike show, where the votes were being tallied to determine the winner.

[48] When Indian Larry first met the woman that would become his wife, Andrea "Bambi" Cambridge, in 1996, her first impression of him is that she thought he looked like "a total mass-murderer".

[6] People would go out of their way to avoid him on the subway, but the moment Larry would start talking he'd instantly put them at ease with his sense of humor.

Before they officially started to date in 1997, they hung out together at a bar and Larry kept putting quarters in the jukebox, playing romantic songs by Roy Orbison and Patsy Cline.

She performed as "Bambi the Mermaid", and Larry's act involved lying on a bed of nails while large blocks of ice would be broken over his chest by a girl with a sledgehammer; or she would stand on his stomach.

[56] When asked about its meaning during the Motorcycle Mania II program in 2001, Larry explained with a big grin on his face, "...it's my philosophy.

He appears in the documentary, Rocket's Red Glare!, and performed stunts for the films, Quiz Show, Muscle Machine, My Mother's Dream, and 200 Cigarettes.

In 2004, Indian Larry was living in the East Village with Bambi, working at his shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and was appearing at bike shows and rallies around the United States.