In May 2017 when I walked through the Old City to interview Zoran Stepanov about his new barbershop, E.D. Bailey, I expected to hear about cuts and write a simple story. Upon meeting Zoran, I quickly learned that sometimes a barber isn’t just a barber. The story became much bigger than the shop, starting in Serbia, moving through a civil war, and to points in Israel, across Europe, and into New York City and Chicago. Life is, after all, about people and their stories.
Like many of you, I began using the barbershop (Urban Boy got his haircut there at age 2 and will only allow “Mr. Zoran” to touch his hair to this day.), and watched its business grow. Barbers were added and, eventually, the space could not hold them all and keep pace with the business.
Zoran made plans to open a second shop and build its business. He opened at 304 W. Jackson Avenue after the ramps were finished. Only he didn’t tell anybody. I repeatedly offered to write a story only to be told “I’m not open, yet.” I think he liked working on his own, choosing his music, and doing his thing solo. Until now. He’s found a second barber, or that second barber found him, and now he’s “open,” with actual regular hours and the whole bit. He invited me to meet the new barber and learn his interesting back story.
Kyle Pemberton was born in Texas but grew up in Michigan where his father had returned to the family upholstery business. He grew up helping with special needs adults as a side-walker for his stepmother’s therapeutic horseback riding program. That early exposure to people with special needs would cycle back into his story. After graduation, Kyle joined the Navy, but a medical discharge for a heart condition cut that short, and he subsequently moved close to Bozeman, Montana.
He also worked in culinary businesses along the way, which he enjoyed for the artistry involved, but wanted to find another long-term route for his own expression. He said, “I knew I loved people, and I love to make people smile. Even though we may be going through a lot, there’s always someone going through more.” In Montana, after stints in construction and restaurants, his barber suggested he go to barber school, which prompted his move to Boise, Idaho to study. He’d cut his own hair growing up and eventually cut his friends’ hair, so it made sense.
Out of barber school, he worked in a salon in Boise offering free haircuts on Sundays to special needs adults, calling it “Sensory Sundays.” Local media picked up the story, making him a brief celebrity. He left Boise, working in Montana as a barber, but free haircuts continued to be a theme. With his fiancé and a child in tow, he bought a school bus, retrofitted it as a mobile home and traveled for a year offering free haircuts, giving away hygiene products to homeless people, and living on tips and sponsorships that made it work, but “barely.” At the end of the year COVID hit, funding stopped, they returned to Michigan, then Montana.
Back in Big Sky he sold the bus and opened Man of the Woods, his own shop where he worked until 2024, cutting hair for the very wealthy, sometimes in their Montana mansions. “I had this celebrity demographic . . . they had staff and jets. One client had twenty-two staff members and when I went to his house, I would cut everyone’s hair.” He traveled developing barbering content, doing work with Sharp Fade Partners and Wahl, and as a hair model. But he was overworked and he wasn’t happy.
He and his wife split, with her returning to Michigan while he moved to Knoxville. Why Knoxville? Because he’d cut Cruze Contreras’ hair in Big Sky when Cruze was passing through with the Black Lillies. The two became friends and Cruze invited him to Knoxville. He moved here last September, working at a couple of different shops, but eyeing Rube Bailey from the outset.
When he met Tarik Becha of Tarik’s North African Food at Ebony and Ivory, Tarik asked him about the barber pole tattoo on his arm, and Kyle told him he’d looked in the window at Rube Baily and would love to meet that guy. Tarik pulled out his phone and called his friend Zoran and handed Kyle the phone. He started about a week later.
Of the shop, Zoran said, “The first idea was to bring some of the barbers here,” but he hated to move them with their clientele already coming to the other shop. It will be two years in May since Zoran began cutting hair in the new space. “When Kyle came in last week, he said he wanted to work here. I said, ‘Let’s do it, but I’m not open, yet.’” Zoran typically sold out two weeks in advance, so with Kyle, he feels like he can now open officially and take walk-ins. “Now people can call. Now I can pick up the phone.”
I asked Zoran if he would now have regular hours. “Yeah, but I don’t know. It should be 9 to 6. 9 to 5.” Kyle stepped in and said their hours will be Tuesday to Friday, opening at 9:00 am and closing at 6:00 pm, except Thursdays when hours extend to 8:00 pm. Saturday will be from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm. The shop is closed on Sunday and Monday. Zoran said they hope to have some social hours, including those late hours on Thursdays and maybe host some First Friday events.
Kyle has fired up an actual social media presence for the shop on Instagram and they have a phone number which Zoran will probably now answer: (865)253-7827.