ARKADE SEPT 2012

LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, BOY AND GIRLS

How has your summer been?

It’s been good, lots going on these days.

Busy... Ha yea right. We all know you pro snowboarders don’t do shit during the summer. What have you been doing?

Ha well I’m different than most I guess... I’ve got my hands in all sorts of things, just starting small businesses and seeing where I can take em. Sometimes they work and sometimes not, but you gotta put yourself out there if you wanna do something. Trying to diversify my funds fool.

What type of small businesses?

I don’t like talking about what I do, if they work out then you’ll eventually hear about it, I don’t need to spout off telling you about how I’m doing all this shit, kinda like “talk doesn’t cook rice”. It’s an old Chinese proverb that I like.

Ok. Speaking of small business, I saw you a couple times this summer. Once was at 7 eleven getting some extends and a pack of Magnums. Was that wishful thinking or does the shit really work?

INTERVIEW BY BOB PLUMB

PHOTOS BY BOB PLUMB AND ANDY WRIGHT PHOTO

Haha, well the dude on the commercial seems super happy so I thought I would try it out and see if I end up like him...

Haha. His name is Bob, kind of Ironic. Did you work in your studio this summer making beats?

Haha, yea I’m always in my studio regularly, you gotta keep the creative juices flowing or you’ll step in the studio and be rusty as hell. I’m just trying to always learn more about it and make better beats until I feel like I’m in a place to really come in. I want to come correct, so I know what I’m puttin out is the best it could be. So I guess that’s why you don’t hear that many of em, because I’ve just been stackin em up until the time comes to make my move.

That sounds like a good approach. Do you have anyone you can send your music to to get feedback?

Yea for sure. I send most of my beats to Buckwild, he’s a member of the D.I.T.C. crew, which is a group of some of the most legendary artists in Hip-Hop. Buckwild has been a leading producer from NY since the early 90’s. You’d recognize a lot of his shit from most of Big L’s early stuff, and a catalog of other tracks that you’d definitely remember. He’s kinda taken me under his wing and really helped me along the way with

LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, BOY AND GIRLS

ANDY WRIGHT PHOTO

a lot of stuff. We have been talking about doing a project together in the future, just tryin to get it all lined up. Not going to make any promises, but it’s definitely something I’m working hard at.

That has to feel good knowing you have someone like that giving you positive feedback on your music.

Yea, I definitely feel very fortunate to have a connection like him. Yea man crazy fool, like I’ve been buyin this dude’s records since I was like 15 and always regarded him as one of the dopest producers out there. To be talkin with him about makin beats is insane; definitely feel lucky to have someone like him helpin me out.

That’s cool. I feel like that makes you appeal to the baggy pant people out there. But I want to broaden your fan base. You have a motorcycle!!! Is it a bullet bike?

ANDY WRIGHT PHOTO

LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, BOY AND GIRLS

Haha, yea I do have a motorcycle, I don’t know why that always comes as such a shocker to people. I usually try and keep it a secret since it seems to be the new “cool thing” to do these days, and I’m not really tryin to get caught up in that... My older brother has been sweating me to get one for years and what kid didn’t want to ride one since they were young? I just was broke as a kid and couldn’t ever afford one, so now that I make a little bit I of course wanted to fulfill my childhood dream and buy one. Plus my grandpa rode a Harley back in the day, and I’ve always wanted to be just like him, so I followed suit… And no, it’s not a bullet bike…

I just thought it might be a bullet bike cause I went to Philadelphia and all the gangsters out there had decked out bullet bikes. I’m talking glowing neon rims and shit. So no glowing rims on your bike?

Nah, I decided to go with hydraulics instead. And it has a sizzurp dispenser and a gold chain steering wheel instead of handlebars.

Haha, #ridindirty. Is that how you and Cale crashed your bikes? Too much sizzurp?

Yup, I had a zip and double cup too much… Also unexpected gravel and a pot hole as big as a bigfoot’s dick.

That’s sounds like a hairy mess. Did you guys both go down? How fast were you going?

Yea he was right in front of me and slipped out on a bunch of gravel on the road going about 45-50 around a corner. I thought I was maybe gonna slam into him so I tried to swerve outta the way, and I happened to do that on the same patch of gravel as Cale. So my bike slipped right out from under me with not even a glimmer of hope to correct any mistake. I’m skidding on my side with my bike on top of my foot and grinding my arm off on the cement, feeling my flesh getting ripped away by the second… I ended up slamming into Cale, both of us getting stopped by bigfoots dick. It was awesome, I rode my bike home but my gold chain wheel was all bent up and my arm looked like death.

Damn that’s crazy. Glad you guys are all good. Did it mess your bike up?

A couple thousand bucks in damage probably, and a valuable lesson learned.

I bet. Maybe you assholes will start wearing helmets on your motorcycles. Speaking of wearing a helmet, have you thought about wearing one while snowboarding?

No I haven’t… It would probably make me hit my head.

ANDY WRIGHT PHOTO

Really? You could hide it pretty easily with you XXL gear.

Do I wear XXL hats too?

Good point. It could be a new business venture for you: “Bennee Beanies”. They fit over your helmet. Kind of like the beanie over the hat look. That was cool in Colorado.

We could call it Panda Head Headwear.

Haha. Clever. Have you thought about taking the XXL to just XL and slim fit jeans?

Haha no, I am who I am. I’m not the dude changing up his style every month to keep up with the trends, that shit’s weak.

Ya, you got to stay true to yourself. What plans do have for this upcoming season? Is Nike making a movie for real this time?

Yea, you can usually see right through the people that are trying too hard to be somebody they’re not. But yes, Nike is making a movie this upcoming season; they are going to do it right, like they do everything else. I’m looking forward to it too. I have some cool opportunities to ride with people on the team that I look up to and

feel that I could really learn a lot this year if I have the chance to ride with some of these dudes. My goal for this season is to hopefully be able to travel to places nobody has gone before. It’s always refreshing to find a new zone that you know isn’t going to get played out by every crew, and it’s also sweet to check out new places. I also plan to try and make my riding a bit more well-rounded, at least learning more technical tricks on rails and hitting up the backcountry a lot more. I’m excited for this year.

Who are a few of the people you are most excited to ride with?

Man, pretty much everyone… I wanna get on a trip with Gigi for sure. Hopefully Nicolas too… I like going on trips with Johnnie Paxson and Jed too. Both those guys are on some next level shit. When I get the chance to film with them it always pushes me to step my game up, and they’re good people to be around.

Dude I think you forgot someone... The Dingo!

Haha, I don’t know if I’ll be seeing him on any trips this year unfortunately. On one Nike trip though to Argentina, Danny met a dude who became his partner in crime for the trip and his name was Diego. So we thought it only made sense that his name be changed to Diengo for the duration of our stay.

BOB PLUMB PHOTO

LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, BOY AND GIRLS

Haha. What if I was your sidekick? We could make a TV show “Bennee and the Possum”. Better yet, “Bennee and BobO”. You down?

Yea, I’m down for sure. But I wanna do a nature show. We would just travel to crazy ass places in the jungle or whatever. Completely not qualified to handle such tasks. But what we’ll do is in each place we go we will hire the dude who’s known around town for being the gnarliest jungle guy and have him be part of our crew for the trip, and fend off all the predators we come across and go on crazy adventures. This is my pitch to whoever may be reading this that can make this happen…

Yes! I could walk around with a facemask and sunglasses, regardless of temperatures and lighting situations. Maybe throw out a joke or two and take some erotic pictures of the lands and its female inhabitants.

See we already have it all planned out, and then once we make it happen we will finally be popular in snowboarding.

AND BE RICH! MAHAHAHAHAHA. I think we have successfully done a snowboarding interview without really talking about snowboarding. Anything else you would like to add, or should we get to your sponsors and shout outs?

Thanks to everyone at Nike, all the people at Nitro (check out their movie, HYPED). Thanks to Skullcandy, Mike, Lance, and Nima at Ashbury (support snowboarder run companies).Thanks LRG for years of support, Celtek, Josh and Cal at Milo, and Jesse at Airblaster for all the Ninja Suits. Thanks Tracy at Herschel for all the sweet bags, thanks to Chad for the Redbull. Thanks to all my homies who get me hyped to live life, you know who you are. Thanks to my family who has never judged me for a second and have always had my back from day one. Thanks to any fans that I might have, because without you I wouldn’t be here!

Scotty Goodale R.I.P.

ANDY WRIGHT PHOTO