Category: Interviews

Prior to the release of Blueprint’s masterpiece, Lost & Found, Chewy was either a chemically fuelled sweet that rotted your teeth, or a 7 foot naked Wookie from Hollywood.

All that changed when this young lad from Gorleston, Yarmouth, rode past us with one of the smoothest styles since spread able butter. Chewy embodies the cliché of a kid that came from nowhere to suddenly becoming a household name, but you can’t deny the skills when half of skateboarding can’t figure out which way he skates.

The bricks and plaid hoodies might have been replaced by designer labels and a flat in the City, but Chewy is still “that kid from Gorleston with a strange fear of bananas and whose name makes people go “Wrrrroooaaarrrr!”

Ralph Lloyd Davis spoke to Chewy on Skype at Crossfire HQ at the beginning of May 2006.

So, what have you been up to recently Chewy?

I just got back from a Nike trip to Australia where we were taking photos, filming, bits and bobs… I think it’s going to be in the June 2006 issue of Sidewalk Magazine.

How has professional life been treating you?

Not so bad actually. Things are starting to sort themselves out, people are paying me… Nike is sorting me out. It’s good. Plus, I just moved to the City (London).

Moving must make a big change from living back in Great Yarmouth?

Yeah! It’s great. I moved to Canary Wharf which is pretty hectic in comparison to Gorleston, my hometown. (laughs). But it’s good because there are loads of spots and I get to skate with different people all the time.

Brophy lives in the Wharf doesn’t he?

Yeah! In fact, I live with him! His brother owns a house with his girlfriend and they let me move in with my girlfriend, and stay there for cheap. Even though Brophy doesn’t pay rent..! (Laughs)

Isn’t Gorleston where they film that series, ‘League of Gentlemen’?

(Laughs) Nah! That’s where Brady’s from! But yeah… Gorleston does carry that inbred feeling around with it. Lots of farmland and not much else!

I was told your hometown has absolutely no skate spots…

Yeah, well there definitely aren’t any maoin spots with marble or anything. There’s a skatepark though!

I’m guessing the scene must be quite tight then..?

Yeah, the local scene is good even if there are only a few skaters.

Do you still get to see your mates from back home, and hang out and stuff?

Yeah. A couple of them have come to the City to skate and party. I do go back to Yarmouth every now and again to see everyone; I’ve got to go back this summer actually and visit the beaches which are good.

Does it ever surprise you when you’re travelling to come across some amazing skaters in the middle of nowhere, who haven’t felt the urge or call to travel to the City or other meccas?

Yeah, but in a way you have to push forward otherwise people might never know. With Blueprint I knew I had to make the move to London to get more involved.

How did the Blueprint hook-up happen?

It started because of my mate Greg, who was making local Yarmouth videoa at the time, made a little mix of my skating and sent it off to Blueprint. (Dan) Magee saw the footage and called me up and it’s gone from there really. (Laughs) Lucky boy! Lucky boy! I didn’t really have anything to do with it…

Did you think Dan calling was a prank at first?

Nah.. I mean I knew greg had done something, but I didn’t expect too much to come from it.

Now you’re pro, have any ghosts from the past re-appeared to claim association to your celebrity status?

Yeah, They’re all after my millions! (Laughs) No really… There aren’t that many people in Yarmouth to have that sort of effect. It’s only the skaters that I already knew.

Despite yourself, who else is the most famous person to come from Gorelston? What is the town’s claim to fame?

(Laughs) I don’t know… Oh! Steve Cougan- the guy who plays Alan Partridge. Well, actually he’s from Norwich, but that’s as close as it gets to Gorleston! (Laughs) No! Actually Lowestoft is closer and they’ve got The Darkness. They’re pretty local. (Laughs) But they are pretty gay too! (here here – Z-Ed)

Before turning pro, what were you doing to make a living?

I’m still not earning much, to be honest! But, I used to work with my dad who’s a brick-layer, so I used to work as a labourer for him. Apart from that I was winging it really!

Do you think it’s good to know a trade?

Yeah, it’s definitely a good point to get a trade behind you, but then you can’t always choose… I went to college myself for a bit, but I couldn’t handle it. It was all too much with a three year long course at college. I was studying everything around and about brick laying, so i could help my dad with his business and maybe takeover in the end, but it all went a bit pear-shaped with the skating that took over a bit too much.

Do you think you could ever apply your previous knowledge into something like skatepark building or something?

Yeah, that would be amazing! But, I’m not all that clued up on building and stuff. I only know the basics and that’s far from making a skatepark! (Laughs) I’d give it a go though, with loads of concrete I’d definitely be up for that.

Whilst in Gorleston, did you ever end up making your own ghetto ramps and such?

Yeah! That’s what Gorleston is all about- the D.I.Y! (laughs) We made a handrail when I was younger; a four-stair handrail that we cut out from a bar and concreted into the stairs. it was well good! We had to constantly make spots ourselves otherwise there wouldn’t be any spots- simple as.

“Smithy could be the singer so he could get drunk and go off on one”

Who got you into skateboarding?

Ahhh…? I think the first time I saw ‘Back to the Future’ I thought, ‘How cool!’. But, I think my cousin was the first person to get into it, but he got straight back out of it, so I had to meet a few more skaters from around town. It was mainly my mates like Greg that kept me at it.

You travel quite a bit nowadays, don’t you?

Yeah, a lot more than I could have been. I mean, I travel more than what most people are even allowed with regular jobs, so it’s always good to be able to visit new places. the travelling has become quite regular nowadays, and I’m off to Russia soon which should be fun!

You’ve been to Mallorca a lot haven’t you?

Yeah, I’ve been there quite a bit because the Blueprint team have been there a lot and make something out of it, so I’ve seen Mallorca a fair ammount. I want to go to the Canairie Islands, so i hope that’ll be next on the cards.

What’s the best place you’ve been so far- like a place you weren’t expecting to be so good?

Malaga was pretty good what with some of the spots over ther, but Australia is definitely the best! I have only just gone there and it is still fresh in my mind, but Australia is amazing and everything was really good.

There are a lot of concrete parks out there. What did you think of them?

Yeah, there’s lot of concrete, but it’s just a good vibe. There are lots of street spots too, so it’s got everything.

Any good tour stories you care to share? Any dirt..?

(laughs) Dish the dirt! Nah… What goes on tour, stays on tour! (Laughs)

What has been the strangest thing you’ve ever witnessed during your travels?

I can’t think… Christ! Uhhh…? I nearly saw Danny Brady and Dan McGee have a fight in a carpark, somewhere deep in the heart of Barca. (Laughs) that was quite funny, and now Brady is claiming he would have fucked McGee up! I’ve probably seen quite a few strange things, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

Is there any specific item you always travel with? Or any rituals you won’t shake like having Tea at 4:30 or something?

Yeah… Everytime I go away I wish I could take my guitar with me, but I can never be bothered to have it because it’s just extra luggage. It might get broken and shit… Apart from that, just stasha bit of weed with me and I’m good! (Laughs)

What’s your axe?

I’ve got a couple, but I have a Yamaha that I always wish I could take.

Have you been playing for long?

Not long. I’m not very good or know any songs, but I just like to jam.

Would you ever jam to your own video part like Ray Barbee or Nanda Zipp?

Yeah! That would be well good, like get the bongos out and stuff… (laughs)

If Blueprint were a band, who would play what?

Smithy could be the singer so he could get drunk and go off on one. That would be good! Ummm… Brady could play the trumpet… (Laughs) I don’t know why… Maybe because he can do pretty good farts! (laughs) Colin (Kennedy) would be on the decks because I know he likes that stuff, mixing it up steez. (Paul) Shier could be on the old guitar there- (Mark) Baines is a guitar man too! And Vaughan (Baker) can play the drums. Yeah..!

Who would be the manager?

(Neil Chester) Ches! Ches can lead the orchestra- the man with the stick! (Laughs)

Who rates higher: Skate groupies or grunge chicks?

What??? I don’t know… Aren’t they both the same?

You know, the gremlin jailbait ones that hang out at skatespots lurking…

Ah! Neither! (laughs) Neither, otherwise my girlfriend won’t be impressed!

Have you had any random encounters with estranged fans or groupies?

Yeah! Randomly at The House in Sheffield, I met this girl who was telling me I was her favourite skater, and how she had seen all my stuff. That was quite weird, but it was ages ago now. It’s quite a strange situation to be in. Stalker!

Do you ever get extra attention brought to you through the name Chewy?

All the time! Usually i get the old Star Wars comments, or ‘Wrroaaww!!’ weird growls and stuff. (laughs) Apart from that it’s just, ‘Chewy?!? What the fuck???’ (laughs)

It hasn’t got you in trouble or anything..?

Nope!

Back to skating, your part in ‘Lost and Found’ was one of the video’s highlights. How did you go about filming for it?

Cheers! I didn’t put too much pressure on myself or rush anything, but this next video is going to be different. Obviously I’m stoked on the result of ‘Lost and Found’, but I think a lot of the footage was due to people taking me to spots, and I’d have to skate them. Whereas, now it’s me finding my own spots around where I live in London, so I think I might be more into this project. The last video was just gathering footage during trips and at spots people would show me…

How long was the period you filmed for?

I wasn’t sure if I’d have a full part but I didn’t rush towards the end or anything, but it seemed to go to plan and we did have three years to complete the video, so there wasn’t any real hustle over it. I thin k I did get more and more footage towards the end of the deadline though, but that’s because everyone goes off on a filming mission at the end.

Was there anything that didn’t make the final edit?

I don’t know… I think I used most of the stuff that McGee filmed, and I’ve only got a couple of outtakes.

I know you liked Swiss Cottage- How did you feel when that spot got knobbed?

Ah man! I only got to skate there once, and that was like the best spot. I was gutted to hear that it was gone… I reckon we should go back there and pull the skate stoppers out! But, I’m always down for finding more stuff street-wise, like around my area, Canary Wharf and Lewisham, there are so many spots to find. The hunt for the perfect marble ledges…

Do you think videos need to allocate more time to transition skating?

Oh, I think there’s a place for everything. I think it’s sick when I see some new transition skating, but I obviously don’t like everything.

What are your tranny skills like?

I suck at it! (Laughs) I’m really rubbish on a mini ramp.

Blueprint are working on a new video- Any chance of shedding any light on this new project?

Yeah, we’re starting to get busy with it, so it should be out end of next year… It’s going to be called ‘ Dark Days in December’. It won’t be the same as the last video where everyone has a full section. I think we’re going to be putting out more shorter videos because it’s too hard to get all the riders’ footage for one great big video. ‘Lost and Found’ was pretty epic in the end at about an hour long!

How is it with the new amateurs on the team?

It’s good! It’s a tight little team, and we all know oneanother really well, and get along so it’s really good!

Have the older guys been serving out beats? Has Brady passed on his teaboy status?

Yeah, yeah… Something like that. (Laughs) Nah… Brady will always make the tea! He made me a cup of coffee this morning actually!

What’s your favourite way to start and finish a day?

Cup of tea and a reefer! That’s the way! (laughs) End of the day will be watching a film with my girlfriend, relaxing in bed. Chilling…

People get confused over your stance. For the record- Goofy or regular?

It’s regular, but I skate switch a lot because I fucked my foot up at one point and had to start skating the other way. My right toe was fucked and I couldn’t pop off of it. It hurt so i started skating the other way and ended having more board control switch, so i just skated both ways.

That’s nice! So, there aren’t any mongo roots you’re afraid to reveal?

(Laughs) No! Actually, the first day I skated i pushed mongo, but my mate told me, ‘You wouldn’t understand this, but if you pushed with the other foot forward, you’ll have loads more control’, so I just followed his advice. I hardly pushed mongo for a day and got taught! (Laughs)

Matix just established a UK team. How did it feel to get picked to ride for them?

Oh, I’m stoked! It’s cool to be on the team. It’s early days yet, but it should be good…

How do you feel about US companies setting up business directly over here? I mean, do you think this new business method is preventing the local scene from building any bigger..?

I don’t know because if we just let the national scene cater for our needs, it might not have been able to get us to this level, I think skaters need help from both sides. Obviously it’s good to keep the euro and british companies alive, but we need help from abroad to get stronger at times.

Does Blueprint collaborate a lot with other European teams?

Uhhh…? Not really. I think all the other euro teams are well respected by Blueprint, and likewise. Afterwards it’s up to the managers, and it’s good to seem them pushing their scenes. It keeps us on our toes and working to push Blueprint forward. Cliche are building their team and they are probably the best Europe has to offer at the moment,and they are always going to get everyone else psyched.

You think it’s helped create positive competition then?

Yeah, it’s good and makes everyone want to skate. Not straight competitiveness.

If you were going to start a company outside of skateboarding, what would it be?

Uhhh…? Christ! I don’t know… I’d like to open a coffee shop.

What- like Amsterdam style..?

Yeah! Well, just a chilled atmosphere, but if you can get that Amsterdam aspect then that’s a bonus!

Do you think a British skater can survive on his skating alone today?

It is definitely hard to make ends meet, but if you stick through it you can make a wage out of it. There aren’t enormous amounts of money involved, but you can definitely make do.

Do you have a safety net plan incase you got injured or something..?

Nah, not really. I just take every day as it comes. I never really plan ahead too much because you never know what might happen…

Is your wrist a problem?

Yeah, it has been for the past 18 months or so. I broke it twice and it’s been a nightmare. Actually, I’ve broken it three times now! It’s not good, being in and out of casts … But it seems to be getting a lot stronger now, and not so swollen.

How did you break it initially?

It was in Mallorca- I fell backwards and did the old break. I think just about every skater has done it once in their life. The skate-phoid (Laughs) Even the doctors call it that!

I picked up some info about you having a serious fear of bananas. Care to explain your bizarre phobia?

(laughs) Ah! bananas are just stinking. I hate them! I’ve never liked them, my dad hates them too.

I don’t like them either… If they’re in a bowl- fine. But otherwise…

Yeah! I can deal with bananas in a fruit bowl, but I just can’t deal with anyone opening one near me! The smell!!! Argh… i hate that shit.

I hear you. I took a a long as coach trip once with a man next to me eating dodgy, hot black sausage all the way…

Urggghhh… That don’t sound good! (laughs)

Yeah, you know you’ve just got to sit out and hope you don’t throw up or anything. Have you had any childhood trauma with the banana or something?

Oh no! No trauma. I didn’t slip on a banana or nothing!

So, we’ve stablished you’re not down with any sort of bent fruit then?

(laughs) yeah, i have an aversion to ‘bent’ fruit! (Laughs) No… I don’t worry about the shape or anything…

What about vegetables?

Vegetables are all good. I like my vegetables. I like fruit too, but not bananas! they’re off key. Something very dodgy about bananas… (laughs)

Is there anything else you are passionate about apart from skating?

No… Just my girlfriend! I love travelling. Music is a big passion as well…

What are your plans for the future then?

I’m due to travel out to Russia this month, and then travel a lot more this summer. Tours are coming up around England this month too- the 25th I think..? So, when I get back from Russia, I’ll be straight on that another 10 days around England. basically just as much skating as possible, and try and stay happy really!

One last question: You have quite a quiet image or character that is far from being camera hungry. Do you think celebrity and skateboarding should mix?

No, no, no… I reckon everyone should just be themselves. It’s just skateboarding and you shouldn’t try and judge people or think you’re better than them.

Who do you admire that doesn’t skate?

I can’t really think of anyone to be honest… I think Badly Drawn Boy. I really admire his music and think he’s really good. But, apart from that i can’t think of anyone.

What’s the best piece of advice anyone has given you?

Phew! Just do it while you’re young otherwise you’ll live with regrets!

Sponsors or thanks?

Yeah, Blueprint, Matix Clothing, Nike… I can’t say Satori because I don’t ride for them anymore, but they did help me out. (Laughs) Oh, Modus bearings and Thunder trucks! Can’t forget them! (Laughs)

Ralph Lloyd-Davis
Posted 25th May 2006

by Ralph Lloyd Davis

It’s always a strange feeling to meet a professional skater. Your head is full of preconceptions, tricks you’ve witnessed and general anticipation because they are pro and you are not. When the moment comes, the surprise can be either bitter or sweet.

Sometimes that one pro you adored and worshipped throughout your pre-pubescent years turns out to be more annoying and self-centered than your older sister.On other occasions you can’t seem to get to grips with how down to earth the pro can be, and how wrong the rumour mills were. Thankfully Pat Smith was a sweet surprise.

I met Pat completely out of the blue, skating a spot in Belgium of all places. In fact, before Pat got there, someone told me about this guy who had just rolled through the day before and literally killed it, only to skate off oblivious to the impression he had just made on the locals. I was a bit disappointed to have missed the rare sighting, but could live with it.

But, sure enough along came this lone skater who started to empty his stylish bag of tricks again; a wall ride here, a wallie there, a tweaked ollie over this and a determined grind on that. This was Pat Smith. I knew it because I’m a geek that studied skate videos at college.

Anyway, Pat was here and no-one knew for how long so I had to jump at the chance to introduce myself. That first moment you meet someone is crucial because it moulds their idea of who you are and what you want. Well, I’m a journalist and I want to talk to a pro – simple as. I managed to catch Pat before he sped off again on an ATV attack of the landscape.

“Hi. You’re Pat Smith, right? I’m Ralph. I work for the Belgian skate magazine, Flatspot and Crossfire and was wondering what you were doing in this wonderous land of waffles and beer?”

Pat looked at me slightly shocked I think!

“Uhh.. Hi, Ralph. I’m just passing through. You work for a magazine?”

“Yes. In fact that’s one of the editors over there.” I pointed in the direction of a friend and fellow skater.

“Oh..?” Pat still looked hesitant at this groupie encounter, so I skipped to the chase.

“Say, would you like to try and get something done while you’re out here, like take photos or something?”

“Sure!” Pat Smiled. Phew… ” No problem. When and where?”

Just then another magazine employee rolled up, so I introduced him too.

“Here’s another editor for the mag… We’re nearly complete except for the last editor and photographer.”

Pat looked at this odd trio and asked, “Three editors and no photographer? What kind of a mag is this?”

My friends were a little hesitant with their English so I answered, “Oh, this is Belgium Pat. We take things easy here. Don’t worry!”

Our visiting pro smiled sheepishly, probably asking himself what he had just got himself into, and we worked out a plan of attack for the following day.

Like any good skateboarder, Pat isn’t averse to travelling. The young American has come a long way since his early memories of riding his older brother’s board in Maryland. Pat’s skate path has taken his talent from the East Coast to the West Coast and back again. Most people remember Pat from his part in the Black Label video, Label Kills!, where he shone through as this merciless trooper wrestling with unforgiving New York and Jersey terrain. During this period, his ties to Southern California were strong, but his roots in the East were stronger.

“The history goes….Real, 5boro, Black Label, 151, 5boro, CODA. Steve (Rodriguez) and those guys at 5boro always appealed to me: Authentic East coast skateboarders. So I left, came back, and then left again to start CODA. (The East Coast) is rough, dirty and the winters suck. There are lots of cities, each with different architecture styles- And winter. So you have a lot of kids who can rip anything, simply because they ride anything they can get to; parks, pools, streets… Just look at Zared Basset: So good at everything. I think it makes you appreciate it more and affects your skating a lot.”

Whoa! Lets take two paces back and re-read that: “…left again to start CODA.” What’s CODA, I wondered?

“Ah…Coda…It’s my retirement plan (Laughs!). Its goals are to perpetuate skateboarding in a purist way, and try to provide that ethic and ideal to kids whose only other choices are corporate. So we try to just keep everything skateboarding… Through the company, we hope to provide the skateboard community, not only with a good and pure product, but a resource. Whether it’s building spots, or sponsoring kids and trying to help them experience some of the stuff I was lucky enough to experience with skateboarding.”

So, here was a man with a mission to change skateboarding and the way kids perceive it. Well, perhaps not so bold a mission as that, but definitely out to try something new. From what I gathered, CODA was an artist/skater based company that wasn’t interested in marketing ploys and target audiences. It was more like a family looking out to benefit it’s community. The idea of community rang a bell in my head and reminded me of the famous Tylenol Bowl that got built in New York to help the skaters get through the harsh winters. Pat refers to the project as the Autmn Bowl, but he definitely had first hand experience of the operation because he led the team along with fellow constructor Dave Mims. You see, even if you’re most likely to spot Pat in the street skating, he’s actually pretty good at the transition technique too.

When we met up with Pat the following day in Gent (an old university town North of Brussels), we had in mind to stalk out any odd bank or natural quarter pipe-type spots. However, Gant isn’t really known for it’s tranny, but more so it’s ledges and street spots. Ah… Needless to say, Pat was very humble and willing to skate anything. At the first spot, a huge bump and drop-in mound, Pat looked pretty excited, but the neighbours weren’t. None of us were from Gent, so our spot list ran about as long as a post-it. Luckily our third editor and photographer had an idea. As he led us down a dirt track and past some abandoned buildngs, myself and the rest of the Flatspot staff looked at oneanother as if to say, “We are going fishing! The concrete is back there…”

We turned a corner and there ahead of us lay a steep brick bank which looked hard enough to drop into and roll away from with the Olde Land’s cobblestone runout, but the labourer’s pick-up truck parked at the bottom wasn’t going to help either. Our man from America was pretty interested, but the van needed to go. As skateboarders, we have plenty of experience buying time at spots and dealing with authority. Today Lady Luck looked down on us and granted us a friendly bunch of burly builders who were glad to see us skate their worksite. I think the actual reason was that it meant they could clock off work a bit earlier…

Pat got down to business straight away, and even asked us what we wanted from him. My friend simply said, “Oh, an ollie is fine! Maybe a flip..?”

Pat seemed puzzled, as if any other media might ask him to leap through fire halfway down the bank. I quickly mentioned that, “We’re a Belgian magazine. We take it easy here…” he smiled and got to work. After a stella performance of ‘on-the-spot’ skateboarding I asked Pat what he thought of the bank (which in my eyes was far from perfect!).

“Those are the spots that I seek out; Just anything new to me, anything fun. But because of my background, it allows for a little more open-mindedness on what is “skateable”. Versatility is important. If you can’t skate, then you can’t. Either you can ride your board or not. Sure, some kids can do amazing tricks, but if you can’t ride your board, then what’s the point? I want to be able to skate anything. I might not be good at it. You don’t have to be good at everything, but I want to be able to skate it all. It’s all fun.”

We made a brief pit-stop for lunch and then strolled across town in search for more spots. Pat spotted a great wallride opportunity, but helas the landing was covered in the slippiest grease known to mankind. Sure he could steer his plank across this vertical divide and over the 2 foot wall, but the landing was not going to be so easy. We made a mental note of the location and carried on our travels. Speaking of traveling, Pat had this to say on the matter:

“I kinda hate “tours”. You have to do demos and get stuff done. You don’t always have time to enjoy the culture. I love traveling. And I love traveling with my friends, skating, seeing new shit, and generally experiencing life.”

Now I understood why Pat wasn’t stressing about going to see hubbas or rails, or the fact our photographer had us waiting in a bustling town square for half an hour because his camera bag was weighing him down. Pat just skated around with his eyes looking upwards at the ancient architecture that surrounded him. He even asked about the different languages people spoke in Belgium: French and Flemish (a sort of Dutch), so I let one of the many editors answer that as I was a foreigner here also.

Once our trusty camera man arrived we wheeled it across town to a plaza that offered a wallie-able fountain, smooth ground (Very rare in Europe!), steps and ledges: A true street spot of some sorts. Here, Pat cruised around faster than the rest of us and surprised a few of the local rats with his barrage of tricks over the steps and adjacent trash cans. Pat obviously loves skating and tries to skate everything. The Flatspot staff love skateboarding too, but we also love a nice cold beer and Belgium is the land of hops and barley, so naturally we skated hard (maybe not as hard as Pat…) and retired to a nearby terrace for refreshment. Once positioned at a table, we stuck out like sore, sweaty thumbs with our skateboards and camera equipment.

So much so in fact that a business woman at a table across from ours leant over and asked Pat, “Are you a professional skater? My son skates and loves Tony Hawk – can I get your autograph?”

We all laughed and Pat felt genuinely embarrassed, poor chap. However, he naturally complied to the ladies wishes and she left in a hot flush. Pat said it was weird, but she had probably picked us out because of our accents and attire. I asked Pat if he felt like a pro:

“No! My relationship (with skateboarding) has been as a lifestyle, as gay as that might sound, but it is. It just creeps into every thing I have done or do. It has ruined jobs, and relationships, and oddly enough, sponsors. I like to skateboard. I like to hang out with my friends. I like those times when you are having so much fun lying on some dirty ass ground. It’s great!”

It wasn’t long before Pat’s Girlfriend came and joined us at the bar. She seemed honestly surprised by the Flatspot staff, but we quickly explained that we were the equivalent of The Skateboard Mag for Belgium, or roughly thereabouts… Pat’s girlfriend was the main reason he was in Belgium: She came from here, but they met in New York. Together they assisted some of the Fashion Week events. We joked and said Pat must have enjoyed being surrounded by beautiful young women. Pat pleaded the Fifth and we dropped the subject.

The sun was starting to set and Pat told us about this one last spot he had seen that looked skate-able: A wall to bank drop-in. We agreed and made haste so Pat and our photo guy could use the remaining light. Pat’s spot was killer (for lack of a better word), but in the literal sense. It was a 2 foot skinny ledge atop a 70 degree inclined precipice of bumpy tiling. It is in moments like these that I appreciate not being a professional skateboarder. It was going to be tricky because the run out led straight into a busy road, but Pat didn’t care. He just ran up, positioned his tail and dropped in first go! After a couple more drop-ins, Pat suggested an ollie into the wall of death. As an eager eyed kid I said , “Yes! Of course.” As an intelligent adult, I kept my mouth shut and thought, “What? Are you mad?!?”

As if the stress of performing for foreign media wasn’t enough, Pat’s girlfriend and sister had booked a restaurant that evening for a farewell dinner (Pat was leaving the next day). The clock was ticking- literally! Pat battled with his nerves and the bank for the first few tries. Committing to such unforgiving terrain was not a small feat. I couldn’t encourage him with my attempt at the wall because my flimsy 7.5 inch deck with 49mm wheels wouldn’t cut it. However, Lady Luck was still with us and the girls cheered from the sidelines (It was an awkward yet amusing sight), and Pat finally pulled through with a sick backside ollie into the fearsome brick wall.

We congratulated Pat on his feat, but then had to quickly let him go to have dinner in the normal world, one without skateboards on the menu. Pat was thankful for us showing him around and experiencing the Belgian way of life, and invited us to visit him in New York. My three editors and myself weren’t sure if the magazine budget could get us that far, let alone to the airport, but we agreed with Pat and shook dirty hands.

A few days later, I emailed Pat back in New York. I apologized for our lax approach to skateboard journalism, and that we would steer away from the beer and concentrate on the proverbial ‘hammers’ next time. I posted him a few quick fire questions, and this is what he said:

Does anyone call you ‘Back Smith’?

Upon occasion. Usually it’s “Patside smith grind”.

Who skates faster- you or Suski?

Suski definitely skates faster!

Was there some inside joke about Vallely’s “pushing” part..?

I think Mike V is the joke! (Laughs)

If you weren’t skating, what would you be doing? What did your teachers think you would become?

I didn’t interact with my teachers. I hated most of them. I avoided school as much as possible. So if I wasn’t skating? Hmm… Probably music or some sort of art, and working a lot still because I wouldn’t be that good at those things either. (Laughs)

Grade yourself for the following subjects:

History– B

Geography– B all those “-akistan” countries and Eastern Europe /post Soviet Union countries confuse me.

Languages– C

Art– C

Gym– B I get bored quite fast

Home Economics (cooking) – B I can cook a little and I do cook very little. (Laughs)

Choose:

New York Bagel OR Belgian Waffle– Bagel

Rough Tarmac OR Bricks – Smooth bricks.

Frontside OR Backside – Backside

Coffee and Cigarettes OR Beer and Chips – Irish coffee

Brooklyn with T-Bone Tyrone Olson OR San Diego with Skatopia’s Brewce Martin –
Fucking Brewce Martin and the pools of San Diego of course! Have you ever hung out with that guy? Legendary.

What is the Coda Code of Conduct?

Subtle subversion

Pat Smith rides for Coda Skateboards, Autobahn wheels, Emerica, Independent, Satori, Dekine and Pit Crew.

Ralph Lloyd-Davis
Photos courtesy of Alexis Vandenplas and Brian Uyeda.

Images by Richie Hopson.

Whilst most vert riders look similar with their sweaty pads and sticker spammed helmets, Lee Blackwell looks like a Lord off a Death Metal clip – Long black hair, tattoos covering every visible part of his body, and a hellbent ferociousness when he rides a ramp.

Despite the ungodly appearance that could only appeal to the teenie goths that lurk around skateparks, the man you wouldn’t dare cross let alone snake, is actually a well-spoken lad with a big heart and is always up for a session for fun but pushed to the limits wherever he goes. In fact, we caught up with Lee just as he was going through his washing! Even a hard man needs a bit of softner in his life…

Hi Lee! What’s up? Are you busy?

Nah, I’m just about to hang up my washing. (Laughs)

How’s life been treating you?

Alright, I just got back from town where I had a nice coffee at the old Starbucks.

Oh… You must get a few stares in there, don’t you?

All the time!

Has there been an increase in fans since the release of Escape from Boredom?

Yeah, definitely! At least I know that my MySpace friends list has gone up quite a bit.

Does that create any competition between the team, like squabbling over fan mail and stuff..?

Nah! We’re all a bunch of misfits anyway!

Which premieres were you at? What was it like?

Yeah, I went to a couple- one in my hometown, Ipswich, and the other one in Harrow. The one at Harrow was pretty crazy just for the simple fact that half way through Nic’s (Zorlac) section we started off a mosh pit. From there on it just got messy…

Proper carnage!

(Laughs) Yeah!

Did you here about the one that went off in Australia? Schooner got kicked out several times!

No… I haven’t read about it, but I know it went down well.

Have you met up with any of the new Australian Death riders?

Yeah, last year when we did the Squadrophenia tour, Richie Jackson and the others flew over. But, I didn’t really see them skate because they were either too flued up, too lazy or Richie had an ingrown toenail giving him grief….

It must be those hippy sandals he’s been wearing..?

Oh! Hippie ain’t the word!

Dude looks like he’s on some drugs or something. Did you see how fast his section blew up and got spread all over the web?

It was ridiculous to see him skating like that because, like I said earlier, when he came over he hardly did a thing. Then I saw the section and I was like, “What the fuck?!? Where have you been hiding all that footage???”

Well he’ll definitely blow up, and I think the whole of Death will blow up now because of EFB.

Yeah, I hope so! (Laughs)

Have you ever made it out to Australia?

Nah! They keep telling me to get out there and stay with them, but I’ve been busy with other stuff. I went to India, Goa, last year.

Yeah, how was that? It must have been mental!

Unbelievable! To think that a place like that exists on this planet is an absolute joke! It was beautiful, the heat was amazing, the women were amazing… Skateboarding in the middle of a jungle was a joke! We’re going back there this year, hopefully in the next few weeks!

The whole Death Team on holiday again?

Well, most of us: Me. Mark (Munson), (Nic) Zorlac… At the moment it’s just a case of getting away from this weather, and Goa is the place to be.

I saw some footage from out there and it looks amazing. Is the park finished or are they going to keep pouring concrete and building ?

They’ve added to the street course now: where the stairs go down they’ve put a couple of handrails and ledges in. They’ve finished the mini ramp off totally, the pools there, and there’s another bit of land next to it as well where they have plans to build a concrete vert bowl type thing. Hopefully that’ll get done soon…

Damn! It must be mad though, because there can’t be that big a scene in Goa…

There is no skateboarding in India! Skateboarding does not exist over there. That’s what makes it insane! If you break a board or something, you had best hope you brought a spare or something along with you…

Just grab a machete and go chop one out of a tree!

(Laughs) Yeah, you will! You’ll have some little tribesman trying to carve you one out of a log or something!

Has skateboarding sent you anywhere else in the world?

At the moment, the main place has been India, but I’ve ended up going all around Europe and that which was pretty cool. I’ve been skating in Holland, Amsterdam, Poland, Germany, France, Spain, all those sort of places.

Have any of those places had scenes that remind of the British skate scene or mentality?

To tell you the truth, I actually found that in Europe skateboarding is pretty laid back, except Germany perhaps which is a bit more like the English attitude. You have to be ‘down’ with what the British scene represents otherwise you’re a ‘nobody’. I personally think British skating is up its own arse more than any other country. Elsewhere skating is more chilled and laid back, but over here it’s all about fashion like street skating, baggy pants, New Eras etc… It’s bollocks really.

Well, how much would it cost to get you dressed up like Chris Gentry?

(Laughs) *Hesitates*…I actually used to look like that! I used to be into my Hip-Hop, and I still listen to a lot of it. But, at the end of the day when I got found skating Southend, I was really into my older stuff like Flip, Acme, Anti-Hero all that… But! There came a point where skating turned all Hip-Hop and I wanted to get out of Southend. So, I thought , “Right, I’ve been offered a shop sponsor up in Ipswich…”, and I had changed into this Hip-hop thing, but then I’m like, “I’ll move away and then I can get back to the original me like tight jeans and everything again!”

You’re from Essex, right?

Yeah. (Laughs)

Do you get a lot of stick for that, like people rating you as a real Essex boy?

Yeah, all the time! And the funny thing was it was always from the people in Essex! (Laughs) I was fully fucked because of them when I was a kid! It turned me into the arsehole I am now. Guys were always pushing me to hurt myself, like beating me and shit…

What would you have become if you hadn’t discovered skateboarding?

I’d probably still be hanging around the sea front, stealing cars and stuff like that… Or in prison.

Oh my god… Who got you into skating?

Well, I used to ride around loads on my BMX, and even got stuff flowed to me at one point. The local hood kids were into BMX-ing and we all used to jump off the ramps and race through the streets. Then a couple of people moved out that way, like a kid called Paris who used to get stuff from Vision, and my friend Andy Cooper was always out skating… So, we all started to pick up boards gradually. I was still on my bike and he suggested I have a go at it because we always hung around together, and it took off from there.

Just to visualize how things were, what period was this? What was going on in skateboarding at the moment in time?

About 1992, I was 12 years old when I decided to start skating seriously.

1992 was a slight peak and then skateboarding bomb-dropped.

Yeah, it disappeared! (Laughs) It was the time when they introduced those tiny wheels and stuff… I had Leigh-on-sea skatepark on my doorstep, which I thought was the best skatepark in Europe back then, so that was my home where I learnt to skate. But it was like a bomb was dropped when everything went to thinner boards, real tiny wheels… It killed skateboarding, skateboarding killed itself.

It’s harder to call now that you’re professional, but do you think it would be a good thing if skateboarding took another dive like that? Or perhaps not so harsh… I mean, do you think kids have any idea how hard it was back then?

I don’t think they have a clue! They don’t even know what bonelesses, or no-complies are. Shifties and shuffles… You do an old-skool trick in front of the kids and they’re like, “What the hell was that??? That’s rubbish!” Then they have a go at trying it and can’t do it! It’s also one of the reasons as to why loads of these tech bods got taken out in the Es game of SKATE- people were doing 360 no-complies! It’s the same with a pressure flip- ask a kid to do a pressure flip and he can’t. He might be able to do a switch tre-flip, but not a pressure flip…

Yeah, but you don’t need to take it that far. Nobody needs to see pressure flips again!

(Laughs) Pressure flips are good! If they’re done right, they’re good! It’s like a good hardflip…

Hardflips, pressure flips..? I don’t know, man. Some people were getting away with scandalous stuff back then…

Oh yeah definitely! (Laughs) That was a sketchy era back then. I guess that was another good thing about it: People worry too much about looking good nowadays, instead of having fun.

That’s cool. Whilst you were on the Big Push tour, what were you doing when everyone was skating Milton Keynes at 4 am? No transition in sight.

I was skating there! I had my tech trick in there: Ollie up nose manual around the block 180 off! To tell you the truth though, I spent most of the time complaining. I started the tour off pretty badly, and I probably ended it pretty badly as well. Just pissed off after a while…

How did you hook up with Death?

I was riding for Hoax skateshop, but I was up for doing something a bit different and pushing my skating a little further. So, I started hanging around with the Hardcore Hobbies Crew, which was Dom and Jay, and decided to ride for them because it was lot more laid back than the whole Hoax thing at that time. Dom started talking about Nic Zorlac from Death, and I was like, “Yeah, I know him” because we used to skate together a bit down at Leigh-on-Sea.

Dom offered to try and get me in with them again, so we arranged a day to try and go skating down in Harlow. I didn’t really know that the reason we were going was so Nic could watch me skate and see about hooking me up on Death. I had no idea, I just we were meeting up because we hadn’t seen one another in ages..?

That’s kind of cool then because you couldn’t have been too stressed..?

Nah- I was just skating, and Nic was just standing there by the ramp looking at me…

What, like a dirty pervert?

(Laughs) Yeah! I think he was just eyeing me up to take me home or something…

Ahh… Dirty Nic! There aren’t any dodgy initiation rites over at Death are there?

Nah! People probably think there are when they see us all together out on the piss having a laugh. There’s no initiations, it’s just a case of what happens happens…

Fun is a definite feeling Death puts across through your videos and overall attitude. Are you really having that much fun together, or is it just a scam? When the camera turns off do you all hate each other?

Nah! We are all really good friends! We drive off one another’s energy all the time. It’s a real good buzz when we all skate together, even hanging out afterwards and stuff… We’re always having fun. We’re always having a laugh. It’s like a constant party sort of thing!

I heard Cates was doing the rounds on a speed dating circuit- what’s up with him? Is he a ladies man in disguise?

(Laughs) He is! And like everyone says: he tries to deny it! Dan does love women. The way he gets around it is he just turns around and says something like, “Al women are slags!” He treats them like shit, but in the back of his mind he’s thinking how fit they are and how he could get a piece of the action. I think he’s getting to that midlife crisis section now where he’s feeling left out and wants a lady in his life…

Do you ever find yourself being chased down by any of these teenie goth chicks that lurk around skateparks and spots?

(Laughs) All the time! All the time… It’s pretty funny, but I don’t mind it.

Is it lonely being a vert skater?

(Laughs) Uhhh… Yeah, kinda… I do skate a little bit more street nowadays, and the local kids are always taking the piss because we aren’t tech enough.

I know vert skating is a lot harder than it looks. How would you convince a kid to take it up?

I’d totally tell him to get into it! The thing with vert is people get worried by the size of the ramp, but I ask why? It’s no different than a mini ramp really? You can have a lot more fun on a vert ramp because you’ve got the time to set up between tricks, and think about whether you’re gonna land a trick or not. You can get away with a lot more because it’s like a big slide, whereas skating a mini ramp once you fall off its “Whack!”- you’re hitting the flat bottom! You know it! But, I’ll always try and push kids to give vert a go.

Are there any other perks to vert skating, like having a whole ramp to yourself instead of taking a ticket and waiting in line for one go at a block..?

I think the best thing about skating vert is be able to fly! That’s it! There is no other feeling like vert skating. You just block out what everyone else thinks, and you know there’s more of a friendly atmosphere on top of the vert ramp. There’s a lot more drive in everyone: dudes are banging their boards, shouting at you to do stuff… On street it’s a little bit more… I don’t know? It’s not the done thing, it’s not fashionable, there isn’t the same drive when it comes to pushing one another like that. With street skating, someone tries something down some stairs and you’ve got to wait… On vert everyone joins in and that’s what’s good about it.

Have you ever scared yourself whilst riding a vert ramp?

Yeah, all the time! Whenever you slam on vert, you know about it! (Laughs) You can come across lucky, but your heart always falls out. I mean you can save yourself with a knee slide, but every time you walk up those steps to drop in again your head is full of ‘what ifs?’.

Which vert rider needs to put down the pads?

Argh! None of them! I don’t think any of them deserve to quit, just for the fact that I’ve seen skaters from back in the Powell days at Download festivals and they are all still killing it! I don’t think anyone needs to put down their pads, and I hope no-one will be saying that about me when I’m 40. You have just got to keep going as long as your legs can hold you…

Who should pick some pads up and get on a ramp?

Ummm…? That’s a hard question actually. (Laughs) I’d say there is this little kid who just got on the ramp called Adam Howe. He’s probably the best tech street skater in England, and now he comes to skate vert with us. He’s so tech, like a proper robot, but the first time he skates vert with us he’s doing frontside 5-0s, frontside airs, backside ollies… and it makes you think, “You’ve never touched a vert ramp in your life??” He’s an absolute natural. Otherwise, a kid that everyone needs to look out for at the moment is Ben Raemers!

Yeah! I saw him at the Crossfire Xmas Jam, and he was going off- it was sick!

Yeah, a lot of the older guys need to pull their fingers out their arses because when kids like Ben come around, everyone’s in trouble!

Has anyone ever shouted “Chris Livingston!” at you while you were riding a ramp?

Not really, but yeah, once some guy shouted it at me because I kinda look like him or skate like him..? That was in Germany. (Laughs)

It’s the long black flowing hair Lee… But that’s where the similarities stop. Have you ever had anything else weird shouted at you?

“Get off!” “Do something new!” (Laughs) Mainly, when it comes to demos like when we were on the Eastpak tour set up in the middle of the highstreet, there are usually chavs shouting abuse at you. While I’ve been on a ramp, I’ve had kids throw stones and sweets at me! Me and (Marc) Churchill were skating Bay66 years ago, when I first met him, and there were kids behind the barriers throwing rocks at us! You get it all… (Laughs)

Shit… What do you do when kids scream, “Do a 900!”?

I try and blank it out! (Laughs)

Ummm? I have written here- Who has a bigger make-up case: Twisted Sister or Kiss?

(Laughs) Twisted Sister , definitely! I reckon Dee Snyder has gota bigger make-up case the all of Kiss put together!

Who’s in your CD player at the moment?

Actually, it’s Twisted Sister! (Laughs)

Is there anything in your music collection, that most people wouldn’t expect to find from a metal head like yourself?

Yeah, probably… I’ve got things like the Lost Boys which is hip-hop. LL Cool J..? Alkaholics, Mobb Deep, Ludacris… Because of (Dan) Cates, I went and bought a 50-Cent album! (Laughs)

I know you’re pretty tattooed up, but what do you draw the line at in so much as tattoo ideas?

Probably anything to do with Swastikas and racism style tattoos. It’s not my thing. People probably look at me and think I like it because I’m into the whole rock metal biker thing, but I’m definitely not for it. I’m really against any form of racism.

Do you own a motorbike?

Nah, but I’m gonna hopefully look into building one this summer. We’ll have to see what happens…

Have you ever spotted any kids with Death logos tattooed on their bodies?

I haven’t seen many kids with tattoos, but I have spotted a couple of Death ones on people. You know, they’ve gone and spent £30 on them and the tattoos look like little smudges! (Laughs) The main thing I notice is that kids do follow you and try and be like you. It’s strange…

After turning pro and travelling around doing demos and stuff, has it changed you perception in regards the kids that look up to you now?

Yeah, it did in a way. I started paying more attention, and you don’t just think about the fact that you’re pro. You can’t really have a bad attitude in regards the kids because not only is a company helping you out, but you have a responsibility to help that company by promoting it. When it comes to the way you look at kids and treat kids, it all changes.

Alright Lee, it’s time to run off your sponsors and hand out the thanks…

I’d just like to thank anyone that supported me and pushed me over these years. My sponsors, Death Skateboards and Urethane, Eastpak, Duffs Shoes, Rush Bearings, Lee Denim, Randoms Hardware, Protec and Independent Trucks, Nic Zorlac, Mark Munson, Adam at I-Five, Shiner, Nick Street, Dave Allen, and sorry to anyone I missed out!

What are you going to do now?

I think I’m going to finish my washing… (Laughs) Lots of black shirts!

Don’t forget your pads!

Yeah, they’re next on the list to go in!

Ralph Lloyd-Davis
23/03/2006

Related links:
www.deathskateboards.com
www.duffs.co.uk
www.eastpak.com

MJ is a man of mystery. In these fast times where media sources can chew up and spit out a skater and their career, it comes as no surprise when someone of Marc’s stature take cautionary steps if approached for an interview. That said, Marc was up for a grilling after winning our Trick of the Year comp by public vote, and luckily he complied with our requests.

Uninterested with the rumour mills and haters that put pressure on his undeniable skills, Marc stays sharp and sarcastic in these testing times. We really tried to push him for details on the epic Lakai video, but the cat caught his tongue… But, who cares? It was Marc’s flawless skating that pushed him into the limelight, and as he proves time and time again: Actions speak louder than words and words are delivered by Ralph Lloyd Davis and various forum hoppers..

You’ve been in the game for a while. The first piece I ever saw on you was an autobiographical piece that appeared in TWS in 1995 (?). You seemed pretty burnt over your situation as an amateur that chased their dream and landed on the west coast. Has your attitude changed since then?

My idea of the world was very small TEN YEARS ago. Yes, you could say my attitude has changed. I’ve seen some bright days and some really dark nights. Figuratively speaking. I’m looking forward to the future. The past is past.

What was skateboarding like before moving out West? You mentioned in your 411VM profile that you were on the run from someone- Care to elaborate..?

Boring. No.

Who did you look up to as a kid? Who do you look up to nowadays?

Let that heavenly filter shine.

When did your career start to take shape i.e. you could accept the fact that you skated as a profession?

Bills and photo shoots. Mortgage payments.

You moved to San Jose, then moved away for work, then back again. What’s San Jose got that elsewhere hasn’t? What’s the scene like today?

Hookers that don’t charge if they’re drunk. Shit talkers. Cops that are convicted for murder. God bless the party. It’s still in 5th gear. 40 year-old men renting a room in a skate house. I haven’t been there in a long time.

Who is your favourite character you play from the tilt mode skits? Is Chauncey Peppertooth the real Marc Johnson?

No one knows who the real Marc Johnson is. I’m just energy slowed down to a low vibrational wavelength known as solid matter. We just had a really, really, good time making those videos. Memoirs Of A Moron.

Are you still close with everyone despite leaving Enjoi? Can we expect a cameo in the new video?

A clip or two. That’s drama.

Are you as excited about the new Lakai video as the kids are?

Excited? Try ‘relieved’.

Whose part (if you have seen any yet) is gonna blow the snow?

I’ve been served a gag order about the video. Can’t talk.

Did video kill the skate-star?

Most likely. It’s looking that way. When you’re 15 years old and thinking about ‘quitting’, you can point the finger at someone holding a camera. It stands up in court.

You are a technical innovator that adapts to virtually every terrain. When are we going to see you on Vert?

Like I said, I can’t talk about it.

Your name is always under every “what’s your favourite section” poll, but unlike the others, many people can’t decide what part stands out most. Which video section of yours are you most proud of and happy with and why?

I’m just glad you like them. That’s good enough for me.

What’s life like off board? I know you read a lot- what are you reading at the moment, and what would you suggest kids read?

Read ‘The RA Material’ by Don Elkins. Just read it.

How has having a kid changed your life?

It taught me to care about someone more than I care about myself. I do lots of things I don’t want to do because I know it will make his life better. And it’s hilarious.

Music and skateboarding go together like red wine and cheese. What would you enjoy in your slippers as background music, red wine and cheese and what would get you hyped to go skate? Expand on the musical influences over your years of life…

Van Morrison. Everything else is just a waste of your time.

Last live show?

Chemical Brothers. Australia 2005.

Has all the travelling you’ve done through skateboarding helped you understand global diversity, or foreigner’s perception of Americans and their culture?

America is a modern-day version of the fall of the Roman Empire. Sometimes it hurts just to look around. You can’t even smoke in public here anymore. Civil revenue generators. It’s falling apart over here, boys.

If America imploded, where would you go live? Would that be based on skateability, or pure culture and lifestyle?

America is imploding. I’m just here for the ride.

What’s right with skateboarding in 2006?

Handrails and ‘Big Fours’, supposedly.

What’s right with the World in 2006?

The collapse of linear time.

If it’s sunny tomorrow, what will you do?

Shovel snow.

And if it rains?

Shovel water.

Shout outs/plugs/links etc?

Magazines in the loo.

QUIKFIRES

Blondes or brunettes?

When there’s a bag over her head, it doesn’t matter.

Video Days or Questionable?

They both pretty much explain my life.

Switch or regular?

It’s all the same.

Boneless or curb grind?

Curb.

Poostache or a cheese mullet?

Invest in gold and silver. Paper money is worthless.

Gonz or Howard?

Honz AND Goward.

A large Gin or a smoothie?

Smoothie. Gin tastes strange.

Cali or Barca?

Americans ruined both.

Autographs or Hide in the van?

Don’t even show up.

Trick of the Year 2005 on Crossfire or a night out with a piss soaked tramp smelling of wet fish …

Trick of the year. I hate seafood.

Beers are on us…you better turn up dude!

As long as I don’t have to either hide in a van or sign autographs, I’ll be there. Cheers!

Related links:

www.crailtap.com
www.lakai.com
www.chocolateskateboards.com

Pics courtesy of Leo Sharpe and Richie Hopson

Rodney Clarke has lived a larger life than anyone, but still stays humble and down to Earth. Already those are two attributes some of us only wish we could answer for.

Rodney is a veteran yet still stands at the front of the game. He is recognised from Australia to Austria and always happy to session or share a drink with fellow skaters.

Despite the fall of previous sponsors and a paralysing accident, Rodney stayed strong and took it all in his stride to build a brighter future. Ralph Lloyd Davis caught up with Rodney just before he whizzed off to Australia with the Crème team. Lucky bugger!

What are you doing now?

I was just having a quick conversation with Australia!

Zac mentioned you were about to head down there again- what’s up with that?

I’m gonna go and escape the winter for a bit.

By yourself, or with the Crème lot?

The Crème lot and the Split guys.

Lucky bastard! You’ve been to Oz a lot haven’t you? I remember in that UKVM you mentioned nearly paralyzing yourself- What happened?

I got half way rotated during a backflip on a fricking trampoline, came up short by about 180 degrees.

Shit… It’s always when you least expect it, eh?

I landed forehead first and dislocated the c5 disc, and bruised my spinal cord! It left me paralyzed for about a day or so…

Were you alone or did Skippy come to your aid?

My good mate Spence was there. When I told him I couldn’t move he thought I was joking started bouncing on the trampoline

Pfff… Typical.

I’m screaming like, “Mate, stop it! I’m serious- I can’t move. Get help!” I spent only two weeks in hospital though.

That fast? Lady luck wanted to see you skate some more obviously. Even though you’ve had some heavy injuries in the past, people know that you can get gnarly on your board- Is it a bit more calculated nowadays?

I ain’t worried about hurting myself. I kinda got the whole “I’m indestructible” thing going, you know: what don’t kill ya, can only make ya stronger, and all that… I wrecked my ankle shortly after getting back on my board; these days its more about what my body will let me do.

Looking at the some of the yoot out there nowadays, do you ever think some of them are taking unnecessary risks? Mispelt yoof..?

Nah, its weird that it may seem that way, but I think people just look at what’s been done, and feel that its within them to try crazy stuff. Danny Way doesn’t help matters jumping out of helicopters and stuff! (Laughs) The level of skating has gone through the roof!

I look at skating like stunts nowadays. The age of flowing and lines seem to have flown out the window… At the Xmas Jam Ross (McGouran) was going off- it was sick. You were spotted going at the gap with some fairly old-skool moves- What’s your favourite?

I would love to have done what Ross did, but for the sake of consistency I stuck with a trick I could probably do in my sleep.

Ah! The old sal-flip… I like it too except when you land on it primo. If you could take the younger generation back in time to another era of skating to teach them something about their past- where you you go?

Probably the early seventies. Kids have to loosen their bloody trucks and learn to carve and turn- when skating looked more like surfing. It has sort of gone that way again a little bit with the long hair wearin’ hippy Huntington Beach beach stylee. But, when I look at people like (Geoff) Rowley and Chris Haslam, that’s what the kids remind me of.

Who did you look up to as a kid?

Obviously the Bones Brigade being the first major company I remember seeing had a major part to play as a kid. Tommy (Guerrero) was my favorite then- when they all came to the UK I was so hyped! Then after that it would have to be Ray Barbee, Matt Hensley, then a little while on Eric Koston and Danny Way. Oddly enough, its weird that they all made visits to the UK around the same time..? Hey! What does that say to the USA? The importance of tours and stuff is immeasurable.

Do you think some companies have forgotten the importance of demos and touring? Sometimes they jet over to Europe for filming missions only- no demos, no nothing…

Absolutly! Ok, so a good video part is essential these days- no question. But nothing actually beats seeing it live. It never can

Off on a bit of a tangent- When was the last time you saw (Mike) Manzoori at St.Albans?

Oh wow! I don’t honestly remember… Maybe about 8-9 years ago, my guess..? Mike used to smash that place! (Laughs)

Do you have any fond memories of the old St.Albans comps? Or perhaps something horrible that engraved itself on your memory?

It was an amazing time in skating, so many memories: (Matt) Pritchard’s early naked antics, Tom Penny’s run on the mini ramp, Luke McKirdy killing it, Manzoori killing it, Rune Glifberg wallride madness… So many things!

I know you’ve done the whole euro contest circuit a few times- how do the big events compare to the ones at home?

The home grown events have more atmosphere. When big companies put on their events for the telly or whatever they tend to become more like a show. It’s all good but not the same.

Right, now we’re in Euroland- How did Crème Skateboards come about? Was it intentional to get a few different nationalities on the squad?

Yeah! We wanted to showcase the best of Europe. There are many things great about the English scene, but I think we tend to forget that we are part of Europe and have a lot in common with other parts of Europe, like the terrain and Architecture for instance. Cliché does a good job of bringing the whole thing together, but they are only one company.

Do you share knowledge, like try and learn one another’s languages, culinary types or anything?

I don’t really want to talk shit on certain people but ‘they’ seem to think the whole world revolves around the UK.

I know what you mean… But yeah like I said earlier- have you learnt or taught anything to you teammates?

It’s great! Domi (Dietrich) and Manu (Margreiter) spent a bit of time over here in the summer. Its funny watching them pick up on all our bad habits, swearing and stuff like that. (Laughs) I know how to ask for things in a couple of languages and to cook a super good pasta dish Austrian style now.

Sweet! Loic from Antiz skateboards taught me that the French have a grab called a ‘sad’ which doesn’t exist in any other language! I think it’s their equivalent of a melon grab.

Its times like that when I wish I had paid more attention in school… Nah! Melon grabs comes from melancholy which means sad and depressed, just like the grab. So it is the same.

Ahh! Well done Sherlock. In any case, they still make me laugh with their ‘flip back’ ‘trois-six flip’ malarky… 10 years ago, could you imagine yourself pro, and riding for a respected euro company?

I never expected to be pro it was a nice addition and probably the natural progression of things.

Cool. So, what are your plans for the future? I know you’re going to Oz in Feb/March…

Well, I’ve been running this skate school thingy at my local park and have one more in South London. They run well and I really enjoy working with the kids

Anyone asking for a 900?! Do you think you might do something like that in the future- i.e. work with kids, or would you rather post up somewhere in the skate industry?

Who knows? I would like to stay industry related, but I don’t know what the future holds for now..? I will just keep skating as long as my body holds out.

Alright Rodney, I’m pretty much done for questions. Now’s the time for your list of sponsors, people to thank, people to not thank etc…

Cool.

So yeah, post ’em up.

Etnies, Crème, Split, Coretech, Independent, Motel 6, New Era. I want to thank everybody that has helped me out over the years; that’s too many people to list! All my sponsors and anybody who has ever let me sleep on their couch.

Cool. Cheers for this Rodney and have fun in Oz whilst we hug the gas heaters in the deep freeze!

Cheers man, and Cheers Crossfire!

Ralph Lloyd-Davis
03/03/06

Despite all the videos, web sites, magazines and other mediums that cover skateboarding, one discipline is missing: Vert. Despite being some of the hardest working pros on the circuit who fly endlessly around the globe in the goal of promoting what we love, they still get no real love from us.

Well, Crossfire wants to buck this bizarre trend and pass the mic to a man who has sessioned with the best, and beat the rest- Pete King. He is known for his vert skills but can skate anything you put in front of him. Say hello to one of the the UK’s skate ambassadors and appreciate the lovely photography courtesy of Richie Hopson.

Hey Pete! I’ve been trying to get a hold of you but it’s very hard. Last time I tried, you were off in Estonia- What was going on over there?

Yeah, sorry. There was a street comp over there, and it was the last trip for the Vans Team manager Pete Derichs, so we went out there for a bit of a party weekend and a skate.

Did you get to skate much?

Yeah, I skated a fair bit of street, but the day of the comp it was looking pretty grey and I was suffering irregular chronic bowel movements… But I had a good little skate before then, but I guess I was suffering my slight over indulgence of the night before!

Who is Gerald? And did you find him at a bus stop?

(Laughs) Ah! Gerald and Neil Kirby are the British mascots at Marseille! Legends- proper piss heads, always up for it. Neil, if he isn’t smoking one, he’s rolling one… They are sort of like a bickering old couple, but it’s worth going to Marseille, just to see them! (Laughs)

Did you see Brewce Martin skate naked at Marseille?

Nah… I had a mad night out with him there, though. After the comp, I had to catch a flight early the next day to Austria. Everyone was at the pub, but ended up going to bed around half eleven. I didn’t want to sleep for fear of missing such an early flight, so I hooked up with Brewce and some dodgy birds he was chasing after, and we went clubbing in Marseille. It was mad! He’s such a hillbilly, but so good. I mean, he’ll let anyone sleep on his property if they are down for skating. He’s got that massive Skatopia ranch, and he keeps telling me to get out there.

If you went, would you drop in naked out of respect?

To be honest, I don’t think I’d dare! (Laughs) He sent me footage of a comp or jam thing at Skatopia, and while guys are skating the bowl, there are people pissing in the bowl, fgalling in the bowl naked, chairs being thrown at the skaters while they ride it! It looks absolutely gnarly! I think I’d stick to the background for safety… (Laughs)

Why did you have to be carried home from Marseille?

(Laughs) Oh! Suffering from over indulgence again! That was messy weekend. Apparently, I was a little worse for wear and needed a shoulder to lean on. But, I did wake up with cuts and scratches all over my body, shit on my clothes, sprinklers were going off… I think I threw a bit of a wobbly due to the mix of sitting in the sun all day and skating, filling myself up with beer and whisky…

Tired and emotional..?

Not emotionally disturbed, just physical! (Laughs) The night after, I had a whitey so I went to sit down on the beach and the next thing I knew it was the following morning! Freezing cold, alone, board still there-luckily!

What do you think about all the drama that went down last year with the Anti-Hero team?

Actually, I missed most of it because of a Quiksilver tour, but people told me a bit about it. Apparently someone burnt a park, which is disgusting in my opinion! Tomi Tomminnen, the Quiksilver team manager sparked one of them… I don’t know. I’ve only ever met a couple of people in skateboarding who are real dicks. You get the odd bitter person who is acting a bit devious, but other wise I really only meet good people through skating on my travels. In the magazines, they should quit the corporate blackouts and just ban someone’s coverage if everyone knows that they are a cock!

When did you first catch a glimpse of a skateboard?

First time I ever saw live skating was in a friend’s garden, his older brother had a mini ramp round the back of his house. It was only 2 foot high with no coping, but there were loads of kids sessioning it. I went down there and watched them skate it, but before long I borrowed someone’s board, and that was when I got into it. This was about 15 or 16 years ago.

It’s a weird assumption, but do you think riding a ramp to start has led you to become the ramp rider you are today?

No, not really. We had the mini ramp in that kids garden, and we kind of helped build it because his dad would take us around building sites and we’d nick the wood and stuff. We had a spine ramp with a vert bit to it that ran up the wall. Then, the kid also had a quarter pipe in his garage and an adjustable flat bar on the floor… He even had bits of plywood lent up against his kitchen windows! It was amazing, like a little skatepark. Pikey as hell, but amazing! Then that kid stopped skating and his dad just tore it all down, so I couldn’t skate ramps again for years… Strictly carparks.

Do you think some kids get it a bit easy with all the parks at their disposition? Don’t you think they need to get out there and build some ghetto ramps themselves?

I wouldn’t say it’s too easy, but some kids don’t realise how good they’ve got it. A lot of the kids live near skateparks, but don’t actually bother to visit them. They’d rather go to town and skate some set of stairs and a bit of flat with a ledge or something. If I think back to the time when I used to street skate all the time, it’s because that was all there was to skate! If we had had a park back then, we’d have been there everyday. It’s good to see that there are a lot of great skateparks that have been built in the UK, but it depends where the kids live, I guess? We’re definitely starting to catch up with Europe which is great.

You’re an avid supporter of skateparks aren’t you?

Yes for sure. That way the parks get some good designs with everyone’s input. Everyone in England complains about how shit skatepark designs are, so if you can get involved and make something good, why not?

Should skaters be more supportive of their parks?

Definitely! I like that Sidewalk Magazine have started doing these park reviews; that’s really positive. Some kids don’t realise what they are missing with the parks because you can skate all day without getting the boot, hang out with your mates, and they are ours. They were made for skating!

Aren’t you getting your own ramp built at the moment?

Yeah, I’m getting a vert ramp built which Vauxhall are funding. I’ve been working on it for the last year, and it’s been complicated to accomplish, but we’re there now and the ramp’s getting built. Hopefully it’ll be at the Urban Games and NASS. It’s just a big fuck off vert ramp basically! Probably the biggest in the country…

I heard you copied the exact measurements from Tony Hawk’s ramp..?

Yeah! My mate skates that ramp all the time, so I phoned him up and got the details.

Have you skated Tony’s ramp?

Yeah, I have- It’s amazing. That’s why I specified on getting the duplicate done because it’s the best ramp I ever skated. Tony Hawk’s ramp is in this building that looks like the headquarters of HSBC or something because it’s on the premises of the Tony Hawk Federation- a charity organisation that does all these fundraisers and stuff. It’s a good thing, but it’s pretty glitzy! The ramps round the back. You know, the one he uses on his Boom Boom Huck Jam tours? It’s got a loop and a 10 foot channel, big fuck off roll-ins… Insane!

You mentioned Vauxhall- this isn’t the first time you work with them, is it? What was that Vauxhall Skate City thing about?

I just got a phone call out of the blue! I think they had been asking around, and I was lucky that the people they asked had suggested me. They came up with a project they wanted me to do with a designer, Sam Buxton, where they wanted something unusual to skate. It had to be 50% skateable and 50% design project. Sam was a good dude who had a good laugh making it, but the photos that came out of Skate City didn’t do it justice because there was a lot more of it. You could move it all about, and there were proper ledges and kickers but it was all adjustable so you could make the gaps bigger and stuff. When it was up and done loads of people came to skate it and it was good fun.

Do you think we could see another Skate City thing in the future..?

Uhh… No, I think that’s done now, and I will try and shift some of the units into my shed for later use, I mean you could put them on top of a vert ramp and skate them like that. Vauxhall’s project at the moment that I’ve been working on is this vert ramp. I’ll try and get the ramp to various events which is good because like that the guys won’t have to skate dodgy set ups anymore!

You didn’t manage to blag a free car out of Vauxhall?

(Laughs) Nah, but they did lend us a nice one!

Now, street skating dominates the media- what do you think it would take to bring vert riding back into the spotlight and regain the reigns of popularity?

Well, it’s sad but true, but I honestly think that if Girl, DVS, Chocolate, Lakai and other big companies like that started sponsoring vert riders and putting coverage of them out there, then the kids might start to skate vert again. I mean, the British skate scene does follow America quite a bit in regards trends. Actually, some of the most talented kids I’ve seen ride skateboards recently have been the ones on vert! In England we’ve got some amazing little rippers! Ben Raemers is rad, Paul Luke, Sam Beckett… They’re both throwing down rodeos and flipping their boards about, and they have only been skating for like 2 or 3 years! I think vert skating definitely going to have a big comeback and with all the little kids coming up, the takeover bid is on.

Would you agree with me when I say those X-Games events killed vert in the eyes of skateboarding?

Yeah, and the other thing is vert skating attracts weird people. I mean, I have friends who ride vert and rip it to bits, but they aren’t interested in any other areas of the sport. They couldn’t name one person that rides for Girl, for example. They don’t care about any of that malarkey, they just care about riding their boards which to me is really refreshing because there are too many people looking the other way. Vert does tend to attract the people who just like to ride their boards. I mean, I’ve been to loads of competitions and there are those riders who you can tell have planned their runs perfectly, and take it so seriously because all they want to do is win.

Well, how do you feel in those comps, like Marseille for instance, where dudes like Omar Hassan put down the same tricks everytime and pocket the cash, just because he does a heelflip or something? Surely it must be annoying…

No, not really. When I watch Andy Scott riding a comp, I can physically feel myself wanting him to go off because some people like him are the embodiment of what skating should be for me. Andy Scott is one of the best vert riders in the world! He skates everything, and I really respect that. Even if he loses to someone else at a comp, I look at Andy and know that he is in a different league of ability to everyone else. Of course, he might miss a trick because he hasn’t practised as hard as the next guy, and that’s a disappointment, but really I’m still one hundred percent behind him. He’ll never win the X-Games, but ability wise Andy is there!

I must say that you are a bit of a British skate ambassador what with all these tours and demos you do- How and when did you get into that line of work?

The first time I did a demo was at this event called ‘Live 95’ through Andy Peerless funnily enough. But I guess I’ve just been lucky really… A lot of the reason why I started doing these tours was because of the vert ramps. Vert was completely dead, but I kept at it with a couple of mates because it was still fun to skate. A couple of guys invested in these portable ramps because it was easier to travel with than a whole street course, and the general publics could relate to it a bit better. They put these ramps at all sorts of events: fashion shows, trade shows, art shows and all that kind of malarkey… Honestly, I think it’s good for skateboarding. I know the ‘cool’ kids diss it and look at it as commercial, but the fact of the matter is this is how a lot of kids see skateboarding for the first time! They might not end up skating a vert ramp but they’ll see skating and think, “That looks fun!” Plus it gets skating out there, and it’s a chance to skate with your mates, having a laugh. I never went out of my way to do these tours and demos, but I just got the chance. If you do one event one year and people are happy with you, not being a dick, then they’ll invite you to the following one next year and so forth… A lot of the random trips I have done are usually through friends who hooked me up and blagged me in on it with them.

At one of the big demo/comps you’ve been to, have you ever swapped suits with other athletes, like don some rollerblades or something..?

(Laughs) I’ve never put rollerblades on! I’ve had a go on someone’s bike before but only for a couple of minutes. I went to Woodward Skate camp with a couple of mates, me Dave Allen and a couple of bikers, and the bikers were trying to get us to land backflips into the foam pit! So I jumped on his bike, but stacked it just going up the quarter pipe! (Laughs) But Dave was nearly doing backflips!

Have you ever been star-struck when you’ve been skating?

I did one demo in London that was pretty full-on: It was at London Arena and I knew Tony Hawk would be there, but I just thought it would be a demo style thing, no pressure… Inside it was just a vert ramp because it had been sold as a Tony hawk demo. There were people outside, packed inside, people couldn’t get tickets… Danny Way was there, Bucky Lasek, Jason Ellis… That was one time when I thought, “What the fuck am I doing on the ramp with these lunatics???” Danny Way was always my favourite as a kid, so that demo was a bit of a trip! It’s a bit surreal, you know?

You must have a fair few stories. What were some of the craziest places or things you’ve had to skate?

I’ve done a few weird ones… One time, Jocke Olson from Sweden was staying with me over at my mum’s place, and he got this call from Taiwan where they wanted two skaters to go join a circus for 6 months. Jocke blagged me in on it, and we had a week to decide if we wanted to go and sign these amazing contracts. I mean, it was meant to be loads of money, but remember that me and Jocke were both dead broke back then! (Laughs)
So off we go and when we get there it’s fully run by the mafia, and they hadn’t even begun building a ramp! (Laughs) So we were just stuck in Taiwan with nothing to do except tag along with this circus and hang out with all these Mongolian acrobats, Russian bear trainers… Full on circus family, you know! Me and Jocke just had a mad party and met all the local skaters and went street skating every day. Jocke had brought all his records with him, so I went around all the clubs saying Jocke was a DJ. Nobody spoke much English out there, and in those days there weren’t many visitors, so I’d go there and say, “Yeah, I work at Ministry of Sound…”- because that was the only British club they had heard of.!- “…and we’re really happy to have top DJ Jocke Olson with us who’s prepared to play at your club!” (Laughs)

No way!

Yeah! So Jocke had these life-size posters of him outside the clubs and he’d be playing three clubs a week getting paid cash! Plus, Jocke owed me money, so I got paid back sweet… It was street skating by day, and mad benders at night! We never ended up skating in the circus, but after seven weeks the bloke who sent us out there started to sue the guy who wouldn’t pay us. Like something out of a film, at 2 in the morning there was a knock on the door. Me and Jocke had just got back from another night out, pissed up, and I open the door to these two big fuckers in suits with a lady. The two gorillas didn’t say a word, and the women kept telling us, “Here are your plane tickets- You’ve got to leave tomorrow!” Naturally, we’re having fun so we’re like, “No, we don’t want to!” at which point she insists and basically threatened us that if we didn’t leave they’d break out legs! So, basically we took the tickets like we were going to leave the next day, but she hadn’t actually threatened us, it was more implied, if you know what I mean..? “You must go! You have no choice! You must go… Very serious if you stay. Very serious.” But we had met a few people by now, so we left the hotel and started hanging out at theirs for another couple of weeks… But yeah, that was one of the weirder ones! (Laughs)

What was the worst course you’ve ever had to ride?

One time, a friend called me up and said they wanted some skaters to do a demo at some event up in Nottingham. I get there really early in the morning, security lets me in no problem, and there in the hall is this massive vert ramp. So, I’m like, “Rad! But I haven’t got my pads…” I jump on it anyway to cruise about, and this guy comes running up like, “Fucking get off the ramp! That’s not for you, it’s for the BMXers! Your ramp’s upstairs…” So, I walk upstairs and all I see is two little fly-offs lying on some carpet! The ramps weren’t even attached to the floor… Otherwise, I had to do a demo at Donnatella Versace’s house and they had put these weird plastic sheets all over the ramps…

Eh? How does that work??

Well, it didn’t! (Laughs) You might be able to skate it, but you could bail because it would rip your jeans, bite your kneepads and spit you to your face! The reason they used it was because it looked nice behind this catwalk with all these precious models???

Zac mentioned a deal with Al-Jazeera TV- what was that about?

Oh! Some guy had been organising it for ages; he wanted us to travel all across the Middle East doing demos with Al-Jazeera filming and stuff. Some of it sounded ok, like Dubai and Saudi Arabia, but that wsas the diluted version because initially it was supposed to take us through the gnarlier places over there and show skating to the kids. The guy had been busting his balls organising it, but in the end the plug got pulled, so hopefully we can have another go next year.

Do you ever put limits as to where these tours could go?

Well, I did have my reservations about going to Iraq! Sure it would good to get some footage of us going into Iraq, but we’d be prime targets for kidnappers with the film crew and all that…The plug go pulled for whatever reason, but I would have gone because I wouldn’t want to miss out on an opportunity like that.

What would be your words of advice to a skater who wants to travel the world like that?

I think who you go with is really important. Pick your travel buddies wisely because it can be more important than where you choose to go!

Do you think skaters need to organise themselves a bit better when approached for one of those kind of trips?

I don’t know… I mean, the whole corporate side of things don’t really like skaters and vice versa but it got us out there. The big corporations are making millions off various pro shoes and stuff, so you shouldn’t be fooled by clever advertising. Especially Nike! Look how many kids are running around with Nikes on their feet? Nike is an old Chav brand that have never done anything for skateboarding, and they just dived in at the Eleventh hour because they know they can make money off of skateboarding. And that’s cool??? A company like Red Bull have been working with skaters for ages and done tours and stuff promoting it, like funding comps so we can skate and get together, but they still don’t seem to get the same type of Kudos as Nike who have done nothing!

It might come down to the way you sell your stuff because I know Nike has some pretty harsh tactics…

Yeah, but I was talking about this with a friend who runs a skateshop, and he said in Nike’s defence that they do give exclusive rights to skateshops with all their sneaker-mugs limited edition stuff… I don’t know the ins and outs of that, but at least that sounds like a good thing.

I don’t know if the kids are aware, but skateboarding is going through a bit of a slump at the moment. Has it affected you at all?

The slump that’s affecting shops doesn’t have to do with less kids skating now. I’m certainly not seeing that from going to the parks and stuff, but shops are probably suffering because there’s a slight recession at the moment. I mean, all the local kids at my skatepark buy their shit off E-Bay now, so the slump is probably more due to that than kids not skating.

What did you feel when Reaction bowed out of the game?

To be honest, I couldn’t really give a monkey’s arse because I didn’t really ride Reaction boards anyway! They didn’t make a board that was wide enough for me. But it was a shame because all the people on the team were friends. At the end of the day, where you get your skateboard from isn’t on the end of my list of worries, in so far as at that period of time I had no input over at Reaction. It’s alright; their demise didn’t stop me skating. I’d be more gutted if I twisted my ankle! (Laughs)

So how is it now riding for Karma Skateboards?

I’m really stoked with Karma because if you ride for an American company through a distributor then you have nothing to do with that company, you’re not part of it and the people on the team in America probably don’t even know you exist. Adam, who runs Karma, phoned me up to explain the whole Ethos of the company, and it was clear to me from his first words that he wasn’t in this to make money and he does actually care about what he’s doing. Adam’s supportive of his riders, and just his whole attitude towards running the company really suits what I think. Even the guy who they’ve got doing the graphics, Mick Foster, he’s a long time ripper himself, so I can see him out skating every weekend and that’s the kind of person I’d like to work with, you know? Karma aren’t bothered about being cool, they are just down for skating. I’m stoked.

How does a Karma trip compare to a huge demo circuit deal?

It’s all pretty much the same because I’m skating with mates. Obviously with a Karma trip there is less pressure, but lately I haven’t been skating vert too much so if I get the call to go ride a ramp with maniacs who ride perfect ones all the time, it can get me a bit stressed.

Karma have a well-rounded team, haven’t they?

Yeah, it’s great! Dave Snaddon is on and he has got massive pop- fucking spring loaded legs! (Laughs) You can learn tricks, but you can’t learn what he’s got.

What has skateboarding taught you?

Skating taught me that people come from all walks of life, be it pikey or pilot. I also appreciate the travelling because I’ve seen there is so much more to the world than just my local area.

What do you do in your down time off the board? How do you switch off and unplug from the plank?

I live with my girlfriend and she couldn’t be further away from skating which is good because I wouldn’t like to skate all day, come home, talk about skating, have dinner, watch a skate video… Just general living, I suppose; take the dog for a walk, go out weekends and get drunk, dance like a dad at a wedding… (Laughs)

What are your plans for the future?

Get busy helping with these parks down Monaco way. I’ve just been finishing off a section for Andy Evan’s new video, This ‘n’ that. With Karma, we’re looking to do a tour in the Baltic region, but the country isn’t decided yet.

Ok, Pete. Run off your sponsors and thanks.

Karma Skateboards, Quiksilver Clothing, Vans… Cheers to the Extreme Sport Channel, Screwed Hardware run by a friend of mine, Type S wheels and Independent Trucks. Thanks to everyone that has helped me out and put me up on my travels!

Ralph Lloyd-Davis

The brands Etnies, Emerica and eS Shoes are household names in skateboarding, all under the roof of a company called Soletechnology. But did you know they were all owned and put together by a team of people under a man with such a massive vision for how skateboard shoes should be designed, worn and thrashed?

Let us introduce you to the man behind that vision and the story of how such a challenging idea formed originally in Europe ended up being one of the flagship companies of the current Skateboard industry worldwide. At some point your feet would have been in a pair of Etnies, CEO Pierre Andre Senizergues explains how they got there and much more after dropping into Crossfire HQ in February 2006.

Bonjour Pierre, I hear that you are the Big Cheese of Etnies skateboard shoes, is this correct?

Yes, that’s right….

When did you start Etnies?

I started Etnies 16 year’s ago, it was actually a company that was started in Brittany in France and I brought the company to the U.S and launched in California, the mecca of skateboarding back in the day, and that’s kind of how the story starts with Etnies.

So it was a company that was started in 1986, made by a footwear manufacturer in France, it was a generation of people who had been making shoes for over 200 years and they interacted with a skater whose name was Platoon. Well that was actually was his nickname.

Platoon?

His name was really Alan Laughty but the Platoon movie came out and he was wearing camouflage all the time so all the skaters were calling him Platoon. This guy was living in a village where there was this big shoe manufacturer who made fashion shoes and he talked to them to see if they could make good skateboard shoes. That is kind of how it started. The company didn’t work very well at the beginning because they still had the mentality of making shoes from fashion shoe designs but these were for skateboarders.

Yeah, French shoes as well?!

‘Laughs‘…So Etnies was trying to make it happen but they were really having a hard time trying to do this from the village and I came in during the late 80’s after I had decided to retire from skateboarding and I brought the company to California. I designed the shoes that were with the team that consisted of Natas Kaupas, Rudy Johnson, Eric Dressen, and Sal Barbier even Gonz was on the team for a while…but different guys like this.

Legends now of course.

Yes, big names now but back in the day some of the guys like Rudy Johnson and Sal were unknown in the beginning but they became big names as we went along.

What inspired you to set up a shoe company and not a skateboard company?

I was skating for so many years and I wanted to stay in the skateboarding industry because I was passionate about skateboarding. I grew up skateboarding in the suburbs of Paris and I wanted to stay skateboarding but I was having back problems and couldn’t skate any more. So I had to do something and I didn’t want to go back to France, I wanted to stay in California. I decided I would like do something that would contribute to skateboarding and there we so many people making boards I couldn’t really add anything.

I was looking at skateboarding shoes and I didn’t really see anybody making good skate shoes at the time so I figured I could try shoes and see what happened. I thought that one thing I could contribute to was stabilising the skateboard market because it was the seventies and skateboarding was dying. I’m not even necessarily talking about the shoes but skateboarding as a whole. In ’78 and ’79 I saw skateboarding dying immediately and by ’87 it went big and then ’88 and ’89 it died again and I was like “damn what a bummer“, and I thought I should try to do something to stabilise skateboarding as a whole so the kids can be supported.

I figured if I did shoes, I could make a difference because there weren’t many people doing shoes and secondly if the shoes could appeal to a wider audience, that could stabilise skateboarding because that would mean there could be a shoe company generating revenue who could invest and market skateboarding. Even if there were less boards sold we would have a base to support our passion. That’s why I went into the shoe market and umm… everything went wrong!

‘Laughs!’

Well I thought it was going to work but it didn’t! ‘laughs!‘

But you stuck with it?

Yes, I stuck with it. I started borrowing money like, hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Was that not scary?

That was scary and when I could not pay it back, that was when it was really scary. I could not pay it for 4 years, and I went into millions of debt!

Millions? Dollars, Euros?

Dollars….and I was thinking I should shoot myself!

Shoot yourself?

‘Laughs!‘ Either that or I had to make it work, but luckily enough in 1994, Etnies took off in the U.S. which was due to different reasons. Firstly because I finally understood what it took to run a company, like, how to make shoes. Secondly the economy was coming back up in the U.S. so that helped and we had started designing shoes that the new generation of skaters wanted, like the lo-cut like the lo-cut type of shoes. Back then we were doing the high top, and the low top people were getting away from the high tops but nobody could see that skaters wanted the lo-top shoes…

Only because they had no options….

Yeah because everybody was used to the high top for skateboarding, as if skateboarders only skate in high tops.

Because they protect your ankles….

Yeah, exactly, so when we developed the first pro shoe with Natas in 87, it was a high top and everybody was in the “hi-top, hi-top, hi-top” mood. ‘laughs!‘ Then suddenly I was seeing a lot of skaters wearing the Adidas Gazelle and Puma and nobody was moving on it so Etnies decided to develop a low cut type of shoes. We wanted to make a shoe that lasts, unlike a Gazelle where you skate it and end up with a hole in the shoe because they were not made for skateboarding. So we were going to do a low cut type of shoe but with a durable outer sole and a durable upper part and modify these shoes so they would be better for skating and at that point they took off. And so for 4 years it was a pain owing so much money that when it took off, it went the opposite way! ‘laughs!‘

I can appreciate that, it does hurt sometimes, but the good things in life really work when you want them to. Am I correct in saying the lo-cut is still the biggest selling Etnies shoe of all time?

It is still one of the biggest selling ones but the biggest one right now is the Callicut, which is a version of the lo-cut in a sense. It still has the E on the side and is a bit different but it is still a simple shoe.

Did you have any other names you were close to using instead of the word Etnies? Where did you get that word from?

Well the concept first came about because when we were skating we were always a little group of people back in the late 70’s. When I was skating with my friend there was about 50 skaters in France and we knew every single skater, we knew their name, we knew where they lived, we knew everything about them, so it was kind of a little clique of people – our little sub-culture ‘like a etnique‘. But the word etnique was too close to a shoe brand called Etonique and we couldn’t trademark the name. So we had to change, and it became Etnies which was the closest thing that came to it. The concept of Etnies was a little sub-culture, a group of skaters that came together doing their own thing. Their music, their skating, their own way of living….

So you were a freestyle skateboarder back in the day?

Well it’s funny actually because every body knows me as a freestyle skateboarder but in reality when I started I was doing everything. In the 70s people were doing everything. You would be skating ramps, you would be skating pools, freestyle, high jump, slalom, downhill. Everybody was doing everything and I think it was a pretty amazing time because there was so much variety and the ways you could be skating, and freestyle back then was like street skating. In a sense, street skating was non existent because people were skating in the streets doing freestyle tricks but nobody saw we would be riding walls at the time. We didn’t know how to do an ollie, they didn’t even exist. Alan Gelfand invented ollies but they were in pools and we did not think we could do that on the flat. We were doing more like pressure flips, nose wheelies, 360’s. One thing I remember is doing 360’s and seeing how many i could do!

Have you noticed that the skate industry is pretty much run by freestylers?! – Jeremy Fox, Don Brown, Paul Sunman, Rodney Mullen, Steve Rocco, Ian Deacon etc.

Well you also have Kevin Harris. He runs a distribution in Canada and has the biggest distribution in France for skateboards….

He was on Powell wasn’t he?

Yeah, that’s right. and Jon Marquette, a big distributor who was sponsored by Powell too. Ricky Bains has turned distribution in the U.S. there’s a lot of them.

A huge amount…

But what I think happened is ramp and freestyle merged into street skating because in the mid 80’s popularity was going towards street skating because it was the most practical thing to do. Vert skating was a bit too crazy like a bit too hard to start off, hard to drop from the ramps.

Well it’s a massive transition from freestyle to becoming a vert rider over night….

Exactly, and freestyle was a bit too technical for a lot of people and they wanted to have fun right away so they combined freestyle and ramp and skating got a whole era of new street skaters in the 80’s like Natas, Gonz, all those guys. So the pro freestyler was not selling many boards. It was a different reality to be a pro freestyler to a pro street skater and all the street sales would go to all the street skaters. The ramp skaters were also not popular but the boards were almost like a street board back then, you could street skate with a ramp board but not with a freestyle board because they were too small so the freestylers were left with basically nothing. They had to be working somewhere, they had to be doing something to survive, they were the first ones who had to find a job, you know.

That’s true, you go through the list and the whole industry is run by people that were running freestyle skateboarding throughout the world, everywhere.

Its very interesting too because its not like there was like millions of freestylers, there were not that many. Freestylers knew all the other freestylers. Even when skateboarding went really big, freestyle was always a little subculture, something for like weirdo’s or nerds. ‘laughs!‘

The nerd thing’s now official! ‘laughs’

“laughs!” – The reason I was doing freestyle was because I felt I could do it anywhere, in the kitchen, in the airport, anywhere I would travel and I just loved skateboarding. I wanted to be able to do it anywhere, so it was logical for me to be a freestyler instead of being a ramp rider where I need a ramp especially because back in those days, when there were not that many skateparks either.

So the transition from moving from a small suburb in Paris with your idea to California was a big one…how much of a tax on your brain was that?

Well the way it happened was kind of funny. I was skating in France and I went to Sweden for a skate camp, called Euro Camp. I went there and Mike McGill was there and Caballero was there and Per Welinder was doing the freestyle, and he was amazing. So I went there and learnt some new tricks from him and then I came back and one day I decided I kind of wanted to go to California. But I knew nobody in America except Per Welinder who I’d met in Sweden a few years before. I thought if I called him, I could stay at his house one night so I called him and he said “yeah you can come, stay at my house” so I flew to California and stayed at his house. The next day we go to Venice beach and I started skating and there was this crowd just watching me doing my tricks. I was really surprised and out of the crowd comes this guy who ask if I wanted to ride for Sims. I was like “who is this guy?” and it was Steve Rocco ,the was team manager of Sims and I said I would love to ride for Sims as they were the best company at the time.

At that time they had Lester Kasai and Steve Rocco was on the team. I remember just being like “no kidding I would love to ride for Sims!” so I went to the factory with him to get some boards and then he asked me if I wanted to go to a pro contest in Vancouver, and I told him I wasn’t sure if I was good enough. I was just a rider from France but I went there and won the contest and in that year I won pretty much every single contest in freestyle. I become number 1 and world champion and they started giving me boards with my name on and royalties and it was crazy, I couldn’t believe it.

But with all of this going on how did you find time to set up Etnies?

Well that was 1985 so it was all running and I felt like just living my dream and in the meantime I was taken to the French army for a year and that was a catastrophe! I went to fight and I couldn’t skate anymore so I was losing my mind!

That must have been hell! All of a sudden your having the time of your life and then the next minute your just running about with dickheads with guns!?

Yeah! And it was also the worst winter in Europe it was below 25 degrees in 86 and so I went from California where I was having a great time – you know, free boards I could skate about with, to the military for a year and I think I almost lost my head at some point but I managed to turn it around and I managed to skate in the army. I have a lot of stories about the army and skateboarding.

Do you have any photographs of this?

Yes I have photographs, I have a photograph were I lay a soldier on the floor.

What and ollie him?

Well I couldn’t ollie him because it was too early, so I was doing long jump jumping over soldiers from one board to another, it’s pretty scary because it’s like the army in full uniform and then I just lost my mind and got into a big fight with 15 soldiers and a captain and everything and they shot me and sent me to the hospital!

Why did you get shot?

Because I was getting out of control I couldn’t stand not to skate anymore. So they realised I was a pro skateboarder and they interviewed me, because at the start of the army, you go in front of a board of people, and they ask you what your job is, so they can assign you a place. So I said, “I’m a professional skateboarder!” and these guys went nuts and they decided to send me on the worst mission possible, like driving in the middle of the night, it was crazy, but I lost it after 6 months!

Did they kick you out?

Well they didn’t know what a skaterboarder does, so they thought “maybe we should let him skate for half an afternoon and help him get better before he starts to kill everybody” and it was much better. And then they asked me to do a skate demo in front of the officers to show them what skateboarding was about. So I did a demo, and there was a change of base, so there were 3 of the major generals of the French army with their wives and kids. So they kids came and loved it and I spent the whole morning and afternoon skateboarding. So after that, for the last 6 months, I spent half the time skateboarding and half the time in uniform. So it worked out really good. But it was like Midnight Express, I went there from California at 25 degrees to being where people were freezing in the night and going to the hospital thinking “what am I doing here?!”

It’s a good lesson I guess, we live fairly decent lifestyles as skateboarders. And I guess when you hear stories like you it makes you realise how lucky you are. You know you have to get through the worst times to get to the best times.

Exactly, for me it was a good lesson. The thing I learned through that was that I was really passionate about skateboarding. I didn’t know I was that passionate until I started losing my mind!

Would you say that single handedly gave you a purpose to set up Etnies? Or one of them?

Yeah, it gave me that feeling that it was too important in my life to not be involved in skateboarding and actually, I’m glad it happened, because it gave me a better direction of where I was supposed to go.

So let’s talk a little about the direction, what’s happening right now, and the Etnies worldwide team. In record companies, you have an A&R guy and that person will source a band, sign a contract with them, they’ll produce and amazing record and they’ll sell it. It’s very similar to skateboarding as far as I’m concerned. So who is you’re A&R person and what makes hthat person pick a certain rider?

Well, it’s a team effort, not a single persons decision. It’s a group of skaters, we decide together and we trust each other in the decisions we’re making and we’ll all back each other up. So the guys that make the call on the team are the team managers because they specialise in that area and they live it 24 hours a day, so they go around the world and they go to skate parks and talk to people to see who is coming up and should be supported and we take a look at him and how and when we decide to sponsor him, then eventually give him pro shoes depending on the person and what’s best for that person.

We don’t give shoes to a person right away, because we might feel like that person is not ready. Giving them a shoe might be financially beneficial for them but not mentally. It has to be the right timing. There are too many stories of people’s heads exploding because they’re making lots of money or have too much popularity and they can’t cope with it. We pay a lot of attention to this. For example with Ryan Sheckler, we just gave him shoes this year but we felt like he was ready to get them, he has a good head on his shoulders and he has a supportive team, he’s been with Etnies for a while and both of his parents were behind him too to make sure we’re not going overboard as far as taking him too far. He can be a pro skateboarder in the best possible way for him. Also, with giving a pro shoe, you have to be a very very good skateboarder and you have to want to have a shoe, because some don’t. So it’s a number of things, its not just one thing, and it’s a decision for the whole team who work for Etnies, so we can be behind him 100%.

Ryan Sheckler is a good example because obviously he’s a very young up and coming skateboarder with world recognition because of the competitions he’s winning and his parts on DVDs, like the Almost DVD that just came out. How much input would a new rider have on their pro shoe?

I think it’s one of the things that makes skateboarding very unique, the ones that get the shoes are more involved in designing their shoes than in any other industry like basketball or running for example. I’ve spoken with people who develop basketball shoes and they’re making so much money that they don’t really care about the shoe, it’s not really important. I’ve heard stories where a basketball player goes to the designer of a certain brand and finds out how many they’re going to sell of it. With skaters its not the same way at all, they are really involved in the shoes, they take more pride in taking a shoe than in basketball in general. For skaters, the image is very, very important so if they put their shoes on the market, they wanna make sure they function well, make sure it looks good, the way they like. They wanna make sure that everything works with the shoe, they don’t take it light, they take it very serious. That’s why, to me, skate shoes are much more interesting than any other professional shoes outside skateboarding, because I think skaters are thinkers, what’s cool what’s not cool, and they wanna do something really amazing. Otherwise they don’t wanna do it, why do it if you’re not pushing the envelope?

Are you still running that Soletech shoe testing complex we saw photographs of last year?

Yeah definitely, the sole-tech institute is the first bio-mechanic laboratory for skateboarding, and the only one that exists. Part of the reason I did that, was the reason I started in the beginning – I want to make shoes that functioned better for skating. When I had enough resources I was able to say that instead of just saying “this feels good, the material absorbs shock well“, we wanted to do it bio-mechanically, rather than just by feeling. That was groundbreaking in skateboarding, for me, from the standpoint of being a skateboarder and having back problems from skating so much, I was thinking that I had to make the shoes the best possible. I wanted the shoes to last as long as possible and not be limited in what they do, I wanted to push to the limits with how fan they could do. The bio-mechanic lab enabled to do this.

One of the things that made me happiest was when I saw Ryan Sheckler testing some of his shoes in the lab and his mum was there, and she was watching him jumping 10 stairs and a hand rail and landing on a plate where we measure impact and where we have sensors that go into the shoes to show exactly where the impact is, so we can see that if he’s getting more pressure on the front of his shoes, or side of his shoes, we can build his shoe a certain way. Ryan is very small and this was a few years ago when he was 14, but he is tiny so he looked like a 10 year old kid and you see him doing the tricks, and his mum could appreciate that there’s no way she can stop him skateboarding because he loves skateboarding and so she supports him. But it was good for her to see how we support him so he can do this for as long as he wants in the right shoe. That’s where the lab was being useful to do something good for him.

Obviously Sheckler is a priority on the team now and has just won the Global Assualt in Melbourne, but you’ve lost a few people like Ellington, Penny etc in the last couple of months, that must have hurt?

Yeah sure, when you lose somebody its always difficult because we put so much into our riders to be part of our family, it’s heartbreaking when this happens. But I’ve seen this happening where people have had 25 years skateboarding but they move on, and it might be the best move for them, but it’s always a hard decision to make. You try as hard as you can but sometimes you realise that you can’t force something.

Like in a football team, when you have someone who doesn’t want to be playing for you, its best to let them go?

Right, sometimes the best thing you can do for somebody is let them go because they can learn from that, so it’s important. We’re always looking at what the best thing is we can do for our riders and sometimes the best thing is to not hold them back and to keep them on the team when he goes for himself and it’s the best for him.

When senior members of the team leave, do you feel there is a need to replace them with other senior members from other shoe companies?

Yeah when someone leaves, it leaves a spot for somebody new. We don’t necessarily look to take people from other shoe companies, it’s more usually that people come to us or with other people in the pipeline too. Or it’s a chance for somebody to take the step up.

If you could take a pro rider from anywhere else in the world and have them on the Etnies team, who would you pick?

I dunno, I never look at it that way. I never think about taking somebody from another shoe company.

But if there was a flagship rider out there that could represent Etnies who would be your ideal man?

The one guy I really like is Mark Appleyard – I like his style, he’s a great rider and he’s a really cool guy too. He even comes to my Halloween parties!

Good ones?

Oh yeah!

Scary?

Last time he went as Marlon Brando! We had a great time, 700 people in fact came to the last one. We got kicked out of Newport Beach because people were too scared!

It’s an interesting name to mention actually, because he’s with Flip Skateboards and obviously there’s an affiliation between Flip and the riders on your team at Etnies. I take it you’re quite close with Jeremy Fox and the whole Blitz set up?

Well yeah, Etnies came from Europe and Jeremy came from Europe too and for me, I always had some kind of emotion for England because my mum came to England to teach French so she always had marmite.

Was she a fan?

Yeah yeah, she loved it.

Because we’re split down the middle here, you either love it or you hate it!

Oh really? She also loved that store Liberty. She once sent me out Christmas Eve shopping and it was a nightmare. People were so crazy! But also Etnies was at the beginning sponsoring Pig City in Brighton so we always had a strong link with England. So the first freestyler I saw was Jeremy Anderson.

Before my time….

In the 70s, he was one of the best freestylers in Europe and was from England. And my friend Don Brown who was the first person I hired to help me with the team, because I was bombarded, was from Brighton. So the liason with Flip was very natural. Also you know even though Etnies has headquarters in California, I always felt bad growing up in Europe and not being able to live as a pro skater in Europe. You had to live in California because all of the major companies are there. So I wanted to contribute the other way round, to support skateboarding in Europe so we started doing the Etnies European Open in 95, with my friend Rudy, another freestyler and I trusted him to start a kind of union of skateboarding and creating a scene in Europe. So going from England to skateboarding in Spain or Finland or wherever, to create a scene between all these countries, but he knew that there was something they could count on and it was the tour going all over Europe, that we’d be back every year. And the idea was that we didn’t want to do anything with the outside, we wanted to be able to depend on us skaters, so even if skating was getting fashionable, or dropping, we’d still have this base supporting us.

European skateboarding is definitely on the up and in many ways self sufficient now, where you are in California, do you notice that rise? How are Americans reacting to the uprise?

The Americans generally aren’t too happy about this because they like to control everything but I think for me, my goal was always to promote skateboarding wherever it was, and I grew up skating the suburbs of Paris with no support from anywhere and I always felt the need to do something in Europe and I applaud the companies from Europe that are doing it directly from Europe because its very hard. When Etnies was launched in France first, it was very difficult to make it work. But now it’s a different market, what’s optimistic is that skateboarding is much bigger now, much more recognition everywhere, skateboarding has existed since the 70’s so you have now 4 generations of skaters. So if people like me have kids, they can understand why we were skating and will put their heart and soul into this and can be there to support it. They can go to the mayor of the city to try and figure out how to sort the skatepark and move things around and be there to support youth culture. There is much more support in Europe and have companies coming directly from Europe and being able to survive with what they do.

What are you feelings on what Nike are doing in skateboarding?

I’m not sure exactly what they do. I think its good because in a sense they are recognising skateboarding because other big companies are looking at skateboarding.

Some people tend to disagree….

I understand why some people disagree because they’re coming into the market and trying to steal the scene that has been made by a lot of decent people. But it’s very difficult to do it, I think you really have to be in skateboarding for a long time to be able to do it. I mean if you go to a skate comp you’ll see more skateboarding shoes than shoes from the big sports companies because people recognise their roots. It’s obvious to work out who are real skaters and who are not.

Would you be able to compete with Nike and stop people leaving Etnies for Nike?

Yeah, we were born in skateboarding, and if there is a danger for us to survive, then we’re going to do whatever it takes to survive. I think it’s a bit like a country trying to conquer a country. But this time it’s not a country and they are trying to conquer something they know nothing about and the country will defend it with their last bit of blood because that’s what they are. So with the example of Vietnam. Lots of countries tried to conquer them but it never happened, in fact the people of Vietnam took back their own country. It’s surviving or dying. And for the skateboard industry, it’s the same way. The people in the industry who come from skateboarding are going to do whatever it takes to stay there.

One last question: Can you take Etnies any further? Is the ultimate shoe on the market right now or is there something up your sleeve?

Yeah the goal is always to get better. When you go skating you do one trick, it’s good and cool but you wanna learn another one, so it’s a non stop thing. I think that’s the spirit of skateboarding, it’s always been creative. So Etnies are pushing forward all the time. We are also looking at the environment too, I want to make sure that Etnies leaves the right footprints behind. It’s very important than when you go skateboarding, you breathe good air, so you can skate better and have a better time. We manufacture products that reduce pollution, so we don’t use petroleum anymore, so we don’t pollute the planet as we did. We run our research and development building all on solar power, we have huge solar panels.

Where is this based?

This is California. It’d be hard to do in London!

We’d all be fucked!

But in California we have so much sun so we’re using that energy and we save 42 acres of forest a year which is important because it means turn carbon dioxide into oxygen with 42 acres of forest. So it helps you breathe better, you have a certain responsibility. My goal with the company is to always leave the right footprint in whatever we do. Supporting everybody else too, not just skateboards. And we have meetings every 2 weeks with the City to go over what’s happening at the Etnies Skatepark to make sure the City Council and the Mayor know what’s going on and they come to the meetings and the skate park is even more than a skate park, it’s becoming a youth centre, we have local bands playing, art shows, movie premiers, charity for foster kids and stuff, oh and of course skateboarding!

In December we had 500 kids turn up and we do demos and have people talk to the kids and sign autographs, we had Santa singing to them and we gave every kid a pair of shoes. It’s fabulous, you see the workes at Etnies, the carers, the Council, the Mayor and the people of the community coming together to support the youth. You see this and it makes you want to do more.

So you’re a happy man?

Yeah, yeah!

I’ve got one last question for you: Pogo or Primo?

I’ll say Primo!

For more info on Etnies, go to www.etnies.com

By Ralph Lloyd Davis
16th January 2006

Between the fashionistas, prima-donnas and straight up bizarre, Pete Ramondetta drops in to the category of a skater’s skater. He doesn’t sell himself on flair or or someone else’s coat-tails – Pete skates, and he skates hard!

This was the second time I got to meet Pete in the flesh (the first being for a Real demo, this time being courtesy of Circa), and he never ceases to amaze me with his calm demeanor yet steely determination. Needless to say Pete holds down his business: He’s about to score a major role in the first ever Circa video, ‘It’s Time’, he’s also working on the next Real video, he’s touring and he managed to pocket some Crossfire dollars at the X-mas Jam thanks to a barrage of tricks down the round rail.

Whilst the kids went for broke on the Gap of Death, Pete and I caught up on things for Crossfire…

So, Pete how are you doing? How long have you been on these cold shores and what have you been up to?

Oh, I’ve been here since Wednesday, skating everyday.

No tourism then?

Nah… We’ve just been street skating everyday. So far, we’ve been to Bristol, Wales and now London for the Crossfire Jam.

Did you get a chance to see any of the new street plazas we’ve had built over here recently?

We went to that one bus station place..? Milton Keynes.

With all the new parks popping up, do you think the next generation is going to be fucking hard to catch up with?

I think so. All the new kids coming up now have such high standards, and they just keep getting higher. They start out way stronger than we used to. It’s definitely because of the parks and videos. They see one another in the videos and think what’s being done is everyday shit, you know?

You’re originally from a small town named Wichita in Kansas. What was it like growing there skatewise?

There are some alright spots in the surrounding cities like Oklahoma and Texas, Kansas City has a lot of stuff.

Ernie (Torres), you team mate at Real, is from Kansas City, right?

Yeah, Ernie lives out there right now.

Did you know one another prior to getting on Real, or was it one of those strange twists of fate?

No, actually I kinda grew up skating with him. I’ve known him for like 10 years probably. He’s amazing! Every time I see him he’s got a whole new batch of tricks to unleash.

In fact, the first time we met was at another Crossfire jam a couple of years back. There was yourself, Dennis (Busenitz) Mic-e (Reyes), Darell (Stanton) and this unknown ripper, Ernie…

Yeah, that’s right. That was one of Ernie’s first trips with Real and he was just psyched- It was the first time he left the country.

At the moment, the hottest thing to do is King of the Road, or something very similar. What was your experience like?

It’s kinda like the new craze every year with each team trying to go for it. It’s actually like a lot of work because you pull all night drives to get to various destinations, and you have all these tricks that you have to do- not really that you want to! It’s fun at first, but towards the end you start to get really tired and you just want to get home!

You’re over here with Colt Cannon at the moment and you have both taken part in KOTR, if you joined forces as the Circa team, what do you think your chances are of taking it?

I don’t know how serious Jaime is with the Zero squad, but I don’t think anyone wants to step up to those guys! (Laughs) He doesn’t even let those guys sleep at hotels during KOTR; they are just always in the van looking for something to skate, so… I don’t think anyone else would take the trip that seriously.

Well Chris Cole just won Skater of the year didn’t he? What would you rather win: SOTY or KOTR?

I’d rather want to win SOTY, but KOTR is cool too, but it’s basically just a kind of contest. I think the fun comes from just taking part and having the experience of being on the road, rather than just winning it.

Did you find yourself doing tricks that you never thought you could do before?

Yeah, yeah! There were these lists of weird flatground tricks you had to try, so you’d just be sitting there at a gas station having a go to try and tick them off the list. But there were a few flatground tricks that I had never landed before, so I was pretty psyched!

At the moment you’re filming for the new Circa video- What’s it like filming with Lee (Dupont) because he had worked with some tough teams in the past?

It’s not like he pushes you, but more like positive motivation. Lee’s definitely pretty professional about it, so if you’re going out with him you have to be quite serious and really try and get something done.

I know he has his ‘Ask Uncle Lee’ column in the Skateboard Mag, has he ever helped solve any of your problems?

(Laughs) Whenever you’re on a trip with him, he keeps things under control. You never have to worry if you get in a bar fight! The dude’s gnarly- He’ll take anyone out! But, he’s really cool, a nice fun guy to hang out with.

*Some kid practically paralyses himself in front of us whilst attempting to bridge a huge kicker gap- The crowd winces in unison…*

What do you think of this: Kids killing themselves? Was it this hard for you as an amateur, or is it still just as hard now you’re pro?

There is still some pressure because people look at you and think, ‘Well, he’s a pro, so…’ It’s kind of a standard you have to meet when people are watching you skate. Of course some people have bad days, and some people have their good days, but there will always be that pressure that people are watching you. If you are having a bad day, they don’t know and they’ll just think, ‘Oh yeah, that Ramondetta guy he sucks!’ But the amateurs need to get the attention and prove themselves. I’ve already proved myself, so I tone it down a little bit, but I’ll still push myself! It’s kind of like you’re putting in the work- you’re out there doing it- but working like that is made a little easier when you turn pro.

*A kid lands his leap of faith and the crowd erupts!*

The kids are crazy, like killing themselves right now…

Yeah, but they are loving every minute of it!

Ralph Lloyd-Davis

Related Links: Crossfire Jam with footage of Peter

www.c1rca.com
www.dlxsf.com

Words by Ralph Lloyd Davis – 12th December 2005
Photo by Leo Sharpe

So Colt, how’s England been treating you? Cold eh?

Yeah! (Laughs) I cannot get this cold out of my head… It was wet for the first couple of days over here, but it’s been fun.

Any tourism?

No…More like skate tourism-skating, skating, skating…

I’ve seen your travel agenda and it’s absolutely mental, like five or six countries in three weeks! How do you cope with such a schedule?

Well, you know it’s amazing to travel all over the world! It’s such a privilege, but after a while you’ve just got to take it day by day looking for the positive aspects of it all, and realise how lucky you are. That will get you through it.

The first time people really noticed you was as a hungry amateur getting his check out in an old 411VM. Back then could you have imagined where skating was about to take you, and how far you could take it?

I sort of knew that I would be travelling a bit, but I had no idea that it was possible to even travel this much! I didn’t think pros back then were even travelling that much…

Both yourself and Pete (Ramondetta) have taken part in King of the Road contests- How was it?

Oh it was great! But I had a lot of “pints” on the road, perhaps a little too many… (Laughs) That might have held the team back a bit.

Do you think that if you combined forces as the Circa team, you’d have a better chance of winning it?

If Circa ever took part in KOTR, I think we would do really good, just because I know what to do now, what not to do and so does Pete.

Whilst on the road you meet a lot of groupies. What’s the most desperate thing you’ve ever seen a groupie do to get your attention?

(Laughs) I just think any groupie that comes up and asks you to sign their tits is pretty bad… (Laughs) We’ve had people follow us back to the hotels and camp out side which is pretty overboard!

I know you’re a big sports fan, do you practice any other disciplines?

Yeah, I definitely try and stay as active as I can in other sports, but it’s hard to join up in leagues nowadays, so I usually just go around and mess around with a football or whatnot…

Do you admire any other sports personalities, not skaters?

Over in the States we have a type of football, not soccer…

Yeah, I know- American football, the NFL… Duh!

Ok, so there’s this team, the Indianapolis Colts who I like to keep tabs on.

It’s all for the namesake… (Laughs)

Yeah! (Laughs) They are my favourite team right now, and they’re undefeated.

Actually that’s something: Your name- Colt Cannon- Is that just a joke? Is your real name Reginald or Bob or something..?

Uhmmm… My dad had five kids all together, all named Cannon, and they all ride in the rodeos so he just named the last two Cody and Colt. My name is Colt, like a baby horse, and I can’t get rid of it… (Laughs)

Perhaps after this skateboarding malarkey, you could have a go in the Porn Industry?

Yeah! I’ve heard about that! I’m getting better and I’m starting to last a bit longer, so… (Laughs)

You mentioned your brothers were rodeo riders, which in relation to skateboarding is a pretty dangerous sport. One minute you’re riding along having a wail of a time, and the next you could be seriously injured and out of the game. Does injury ever worry you?

Of course, but now skateboarding isn’t something I just do for fun- It’s a job, it’s what I depend on for income. If I get hurt and money stops coming, that’s a serious thing to think about… You have to live your life, but injuries suck! At least I have a good family and friends to fall back on, so I can sleep at night. But if ever I’m going to skate a big handrail, I definitely make sure I know what the hell I’m doing because I don’t want to fall on my balls!

Yeah, but it seems like amateurs today are without hesitation and wreckless. It’s like they are blind to the real dangers and just desperate to get noticed.

Oh yeah, amateurs are definitely hungry because they need to fight for the spotlight and get noticed by sponsors and whatnot. Pros hold back a little bit more because they are more established, and don’t need to be pushing themselves as much which can also result in laziness. But, I’m not naming any names because it’s human nature and natural for almost anyone in any sport.

You don’t live in San Jose anymore, do you? But you’ve still got ties to the Tilt Mode Army, haven’t you?

No, I moved down to San Diego two years ago, now. But the Tilt Mode skate posse, I love those dudes!

What are they up to nowadays?

Uhmmm… A lot of them are involved in the Enjoi video project, so they are busy filming for that.

Will you have a little cameo in there too?

Yeah, I mean I talked to the main filmer and he said he wants some tricks of me in the video, so I was pretty psyched to hear that and I’m going to try and go and film some bangers for them!

Now, you’re pro for Element skateboards, and they now produce everything from trucks to shoes to travel bags- You name it, they make it! Have you ever considered taking the easy route and quitting all your other sponsors for one which could satisfy your every need?

(Laughs) It’s definitely tempting! Element is a very strong company and I love riding for them. But riding for everything all through one sponsor would be just a tad bit over the top! (Laughs) I like having the diversity of my other sponsors, and I think riding for Element clothes and boards is a strong enough combination for me.

If you could be sponsored by any company, be it Coca Cola, Macintosh, anything, what would it be?

I’d have to say, maybe… Bank of America., or Ralph’s grocery stores! (Laughs)

I’m Ralph! I can hook you up with a pound of veg!

Great! (Laughs) Wait- or Toyota! Ooh… I love Toyotas!Is that what you’re riding at the moment?

Yeah, I have a Toyota Tundra back home.

Circa has gone through a lot of changes over the last couple of years, how has that affected yourself and the team?

It definitely does! I mean, we switched up big parts of our team, like Jaime Thomas, Chad Muska, those guys… Mark Appleyard! They were leaders, not to mention really good skaters! So, losing people like that definitely affects the company a little bit, but not too much because we’ve got a solid squad now, good friends travelling on the road.

And you’re all set to go now working on the new video…

Yeah, absolutely! The video is going to be coming out soon and we’re all psyched for it. We’ve been waiting for this video to drop, and we’re all ready for it.

Is there anyone the public and media should be keeping their eyes open for on the team, any secret über-ams we don’t recognize yet?

You know, that’s the thing! Everyone has been working so hard for this video, that we’re all going to have parts worth watching over and over again. So, you’ll just have to use your own judgement… I must say, though, that the amateur squad we have is pretty insane!

Elsewhere, Element has got two teams running: You guys in the States and your counterparts in Europe. Do you ever get to hook up and skate or hang out together at all?

Yeah, they are all awesome!

How about that little Evelien (Bouillart) from Belgium? She’s gnarly!

(Laughs) Yeah! Actually, I’ve spoken to her a few times on MySpace! (Laughs) She’s cool, she definitely kills it!

You have your own website, don’t you?

Yeah, www.coltcannon.com

When can we expect to see more footage of you dancing around in your underpants on there?

(Laughs!) I’ve just got to get better at websites… I’ve been talking to a friend who might take things over for me and make it really cool, so I’ll definitely be adding some more films soon! (Laughs)

Cool! One of your quirky characteristics is your love for pop music. Please explain.

Laughs) Oh man… Black Eyed Peas is one of the bands I hate the most I think at the moment, with their stupid ‘Lumps’ song! Peter likes it! (Laughs) But, me…

They are all prefabricated anyway… Actually looking at how the media can push trends and force feed imagery to the masses, have you ever felt like you might need to really change things up a bit and present yourself differently?

No… I don’t worry about any of that because the kids that follow my skating will follow it no matter what the great trend is! I mean my fans get stoked by various things they see, but they seem pretty content with what I’m doing as a skater. I just try and keep pushing myself year after year, and not become one of those pros that just sits back and doesn’t do shit… You’ll see in the Circa video, what I’ve been up to. As far as trends, I can’t wear tight pants or triple XL shirts! (Laughs) I’m not good with trends.

How stoked were you on Britney Spears having a baby?

(Takes serious voice) Oh! You know… She just had to go off and do her own thing and marry this guy, Kevin- that she just met! Whatever… I knew it wasn’t going to last because it looks like it’s heading for the rocks. But perhaps one day, we’ll bump into oneanother and hit it off, but I don’t know if I’ve got that much love left for her anymore..? She didn’t save herself for me, so what kind of shit is that?!?

Damn! Bummer… But skateboarding is huge right now, I mean look at the rumours about Bam sleeping with Jessica Simpson? Have you ever heard of or been approached by celebrities that want to hit it off with a gnarly pro skater?

No, not much… If you live in Hollywood you might have some pull because people from over there are so screwed up anyway. It’s weird, I mean, I heard Darrell Stanton slept with Avril Lavigne?!?

Pete Ramondetta:That’s bull shit!

Really? Is that bull shit?

Ummm… Conflicting stories. I heard Kirsten Dunst had the hots for Geoff Rowley…

Yeah, I heard she was looking to date a skater or something lame like that, just going through the list of pro skaters… Yeah, to clear up: Darrell used to be a compulsive liar, so not even 80 percent of the shit he says is true!

Oh, nice!

(Laughs!)

So I guess you can’t trust him on claiming tricks then! (Laughs)

Yeah, tricks, hooking up with girls… I’ve been to a party with him where he didn’t leave my sight for more than two minutes, and the next day he’s all like, “Yeah, I took these two chicks to the bathroom and banged them out!” I’m just like, “No you didn’t! You were hanging around with me all night!” (Laughs)

(Laughs)

He’s cool, but he just tries to impress people too much sometimes…

Alright, back to you Colt! It’s your birthday in a couple of days! What do you want?

Yeah! I turn 24 years old this Monday. Everyone seems to think I look a lot older like 26 or 27 or something…

Yeah, you’re working too hard man!

(Laughs) Well, now we’re on the subject of girls, I mean, Avril Lavigne coming out of a cake… No, wait! Actually, for once I would like a sushi cake, California rolls…

Wait! What do you mean by Sushi cake? Do you mean one of those naked chicks that you can eat food off?

Oh my god! Yeah, if I can get one of those then sure! Yeah, a hot naked women that I could eat sushi off- that would be a good birthday present! (Laughs)

What do you want for Christmas Pete?

I want to skate Union Square in San Francisco! They just re-built it, but its 24 hour security. Early Christmas morning will probably be the only time of day you could hit it up!

I was in Washington not that long ago, and Pulaski Park which I thought was a bust was absolutely fine to skate. Do think people tend to over react? I mean, during SF’s heyday, people were like, “Don’t go there! It’s a bust, skate-stoppers everywhere…”

Well they skate-stopped and knobbed all the famous spots like the Pier, Black Rock and Embarcadero, but there are still loads of spots! People are finding new stuff to skate all the time, building new shit, new parks… Between SF and Oakland there is so much untapped shit.

Have either of you ever gone hands down and built your own spot, like cement a jersey barrier or knock together a curb or something..?

No… I like to skate stuff that’s not built for skating! I’ve skated spots like that, but I’ve never done it myself.

I think the most I’ve ever done with my friends is put a curb on top of a bank spot near my house… (Laughs)

I think that’s it for me. Any last words of wisdom for a fellow skater about to visit these cold North Sea shores?

(Laughs) Uhh… Bring thermals! Thermals would be key right now! Two pairs of socks everyday…

Gloves and a beanie!

Yeah, gloves and a beanie… A light but warm jacket, perhaps one of those ski-masks? (Laughs)

Are you sure? We have problems with terrorists here too, you know?

Well then spray it pink with a big sign that reads, “Do not worry!” on it! (Laughs)

And in the restaurants? What’s safe when faced with English cuisine?

Straight up steak, baby!

Drink-wise?

(Together) Stella! (Laughs!)

Ralph Lloyd-Davis
12/12/2005

The first time I saw Jak was whilst skating through the City of London many moons ago. Straight away you could tell that skateboarding was coming naturally to this youth, and it didn’t matter if it was stairs, manual pads or ledges- Jak was on it.

Obviously oblivious to lazy fun skating can procure, Jak strived to progress and went straight for the sponsorship counter. Needless to say, this caused a small wave of mockery and head turning among other amateurs and bitter folk.

However, the proof was in the pudding: Jak knew how to skate. So, after a little introspection and hair on his chin, the young squire gained his recognition and left the bighead at home. Today, Jak is busy getting things done notably for The Harmony’s debut video, and more importantly enjoying himself. With skills like these, Jak deserves everything he’s got.

Interview and intro by Ralph Lloyd Davis & pics were taken by Andy Hulbert

Full name?

Jak Pietryga.

Origins?

I’m British/Polish, and I think I’ve got a bit of Irish in there (Laughs).

How long have you been skating?

I’ve kinda lost count… I think it’s coming up to 7 or 8 years.

How did you get into it?

My brother got me into it. He got a board for his birthday and I thought it looked cool so I started trying to skate. I didn’t even bother trying to ollie for the first 3 months, just riding around on my Santa Cruz fish board was fun enough for me. In fact, I’m gutted! I gave away that board years ago, it would be a good collectable now… (Laughs)

The first time you were spotted was in London ripping up Shell and SB. Who were you skating with back then?

Pretty much the exact same bunch of people I skate with today, give or take a few. Always had Morph filming back then with his handy cam! (Laughs) Ahh… The good old days! I don’t think I really stopped filming since back then – No wonder my shins are so battered and brittle!

Who dropped off your tape in Cide? Was it done on purpose to be 10 minutes of sick footy?

I think I dropped it off in there. I think I dropped off about 4 before they sponsored me! (Laughs!) Looking back, I was really sponsorship hungry, like most kids I suppose. I definitely don’t think its the right way to go though, it doesn’t help matters (Laughs). Yeah, so one day Morph just decided to make an edit of all the best footage he had filmed of me and put it onto a tape to give in to Cide, and seeing he has been filming me for so long it jus turned out to be really long I suppose.

What’s the atmosphere like for a young buck trying to come up nowadays?

(Laughs out loud!) Buck’s a funny word! I don’t know really…? I’ve always just skated and things are just seeming to fall into place now, apart from when I was that kid handing in all those tapes into Cide! So I guess the atmosphere is good, just really relaxed at the moment.

Who sponsored you first? How was that?

There were a few others before but not worth mentioning for several reasons like giving me clothes for a comp then not hearing from them again after the comp, and getting me to film a full section for a video and then not even bother producing the decks and then buggering off to Spain… But yeah, Cide were the first sponsor to properly sort me out and not just long me off, and I am very grateful!

Since you’ve been sponsored and have started stockpiling the footage and media coverage- how has skateboarding changed for you?

Nothing’s really changed in my eyes. I try harder to get footage nowadays but it feels more like a good will gesture for sorting me out so well than because I have to. I like it this way, I think it actually helps me to get things done.

Do you think the level of skating is going to rise again now that kids have all these street plazas to go to?

Yeah, definitely! But, I think the level of skating is constantly rising but having these street plazas popping up everywhere can’t do any harm. I suppose at the same time though all these new kids starting skating will get used to perfect blocks and stairs etc… So it may not help them when coming to skate a real obscure street spot and it’s those spots that are the most fun to skate-You can get wild on them! (Laughs)

Do you skate parks or transition at all?

Yeah, I enjoy going to skate the occasional park now and again. I find it good fun to TRY and get my tranny skillz on! But yeah, tranny is good fun. I would love to try and skate a proper bowl, but I would probably end up breaking a hip or something…

Name a spot in London that was great but no longer exists?

Ahhh! It’s got to be the one and only Shell Centre. I suppose it technically still exists but it’s no fun anymore. You can’t just go there and have a fun little nibble on the 3. I have fond memories of going there straight from a party, sessioning Shell all by myself, just me an my tunes. It was so much fun, well it was for me anyway (Laughs).

Who’s the rattiest skater out there?

Mike Hulbert from Leytonstone. What a stinker! (Laughs!)

What do you parents think of your skating? Do they support you?

Yeah, they really fucking support me. They were like my sponsorship for like 6 years till I got on The Harmony.

You went to Sweden with The Harmony- How was it? See any fit birds?

Sweden was amazing! I never knew before then how good Sweden is for skating. There seemed to be something for everyone out there: stairs, blocks, rails, hubbas, banks, and then there was Pontus’ mad bowl which was amazingly hard to skate, but good fun. All the people I met out there were sound as fuck as well, especially Victor, the guy who gave me Tom, Danny and Adam a place to live for the week. He was a complete nutter and you would never hear him stop laughing, such a funny guy, he was amazing. I did a lot of new things when I was on that tour too: Before the trip I had never flown, I had never met any of The Harmony lads and I had never shouted ‘You have a sweaty bum hole!!!’ at girls before. I have done since though (Sly laughter). Yeah, and the gash was top class!

You got to skate one of Pontus’ little bowl initiatives- How was that? What’s Pontus really like?

I wouldn’t say I got to skate Pontus’ bowl, more like I got to drop in, try a trick, fail and then sit and watch the rest of the session (Laughs). That thing is so hard to skate, but Tom and Paul jus made it look easy. Anything that was done on that was respected, and then you had Paul doing it switch, which was insane! Watching Pontus skate it was unreal: Sessioning the over vert bit that everyone else just left alone. He was a cool guy as well, a little strange but definitely a cool guy. I was just glad he didn’t run about butt naked. Fuck that! (Laughs out loud).

Would you be willing to build an entire spot if needs be?

I would like to say yes but I think I’m just too lazy- Too lazy to do it like the Swedish do it, anyway… They have 2 amazing skate spots that they just made themselves, and they’re proper legit skate spots as well, not one of these launch ramps from Argos jobs.

Where else has skateboarding taken you?

I went Barcelona in the summer with all my mates for a little skate trip and to finish filming for Morph’s video ‘Routes‘. That place is seriously amazing, like you see skate spots from Barca in videos and you think, ‘Fuck me, it can’t be that perfect?!’ but it really is! With the obvious exception of the bus station: those ledges are truly fucked… It was so much fun though; getting plastered at night, going skating during the day and getting plastered again the following night, we were blessed.

The last day out there was shit though. I was skating MACBA, then went to get my bag to go round to the 4 and couldn’t find it. Realising some sly Spaniard must of stole it, I then went on to the British Embassy to try and get a temporary passport so I could get home. We only had 4 hours until our coach left to take us to the airport! I just about got there in time after a 5 mile hike to get the temporary passport- It was a proper mission. On top of that, the thief also nabbed my I-pod and phone that was also in my bag, and then went on to run up an £800 phone bill!!! It took the piss out of my life.

What is your take on turning professional? When’s the right time? If The Harmony wanted to turn you pro for X-mas, would you accept the offer?

I think it depends on the skater and how they feel about the situation. I’m really stoked on The Harmony, and I’m definitely on for being with them for the long run so I would probably say yes if they offered it. Whether or not I think I deserve it is another matter.

Who haven’t the media caught onto yet, but will very soon?

A lot of the people I skate with on a daily basis like Alex Greaves, Joe Saville, and Daniel Tomlinson. They are all really good skaters but have had no coverage apart from sections from the ‘Routes’ DVD. If you’ve seen these guys sections from ‘Routes’ you will see what I mean: a lot of talent there.

What was the most fun aspect of filming for the new Harmony DVD?

Just meeting new people and skating new spots. I hardly ever get out of London, so when I do I’m always really stoked (Laughs). The premiere’s gonna be amazing as well. I can’t wait for that!

Who in your eyes has the best part?

I haven’t actually seen the DVD yet so I couldn’t say, but I’m looking forward to seeing Danijel’s and Tom’s, Danny’s, Paul’s… In fact, all of it! (Laughs)

What is your fave trick you are most proud of on the DVD and why?

I don’t know… You know, it’s probably the tre flip manny in Sweden. I didn’t think I was gonna do that.

Joe Gavin just joined the team, will you teach him a thing or two-or vice versa?

Definitely vice versa that guys fookin’ amazing!

If you could serve up an ASBO to one of the following characters, which would it be and why? New Era cats, Girls denim dogs or I-pod wearing mongs?

Well I wear New Era hats and I own an I-pod so I will have to go for the girls denim dogs, whatever that means (Laughs!).

If you are sporting an I-pod or similar music machine, what tunes have you got blaring?

All kinds of tunes- I’m into everything. A lot of my tunes are from skate videos, it gets me pumped to skate. But yeah, groups I’m most into at the minute are Badly Drawn Boy, Belle and Sebastian, Taskforce, Fischerspooner, Regina Spektor etc… The Jump Off by Stroder featuring Ragsie is a good tune.

Has skateboarding made you more aware or receptive music, art or fashion wise i.e. listening to groups you probably wouldn’t have heard of before, or taken interest in a certain artist…?

Yeah, definitely! It’s like I said; a lot of the bands I listen to, I heard one of their songs from a skate video, then got the rest of their album. Skateboarding also got me into graffiti due to most of the skaters in my area doing graff. Graffiti artists like Seen and Cope 2 who were like the originators, and then there’s all the London heads who amaze me the way they seem to have been everywhere. They kill it.

If Dist.One (David Earl Dixon) is your fave artist, who would be in second if you had to find a replacement for your board graphics?

Some nudist artist, could be quite funny.

If the Harmony was a band, who’d play what?

(Laughs out loud) I think Eddie would be the front man, Danny would be guitarist, Veran would be the bass player, Danijel would be the drummer, Adam would do the backing vocals, Tom would play the bongo’s, Joe would play the keyboard, Dave would be the manager, Mondon would be the producer and I’ll be there doing my bit with the triangle!

What is cooking generally?

Fish fingers- you can’t beat deep fried fish fingers. Morph showed me the way!

Can you cook a good Pie?

(Laughs out loud) I never cooked pie.

What’s your favourite pie?

Cannabis pie.

Who ate all the pies?

Morph.

Last words

My fingers hurt.

Ralph Lloyd-Davis
23/11/2005

Watch the video on this page exclusively filmed and edited for this interview by Russell Cowling, Dane Crook, David Dixon and Paul Silvester. The music on this video comes from www.myspace.com/onceasuperhero
Contact: onceasuperhero@fsmail.net for more info.