Was it you that joked about being exiled from the skate community if you bondo’d a spot in Scotland?
When I spoke to Wes [Kremer] he said it’s Sk8Mafia for life. How long have you been pro now?
We were just fuckin’ around like, “damn. We haven’t seen anything so crusty. If you use that shit you’ll never be allowed to come back and skate again”. It’s like cheating.
Fuck, maybe four years? Me and Wes pretty much got on around the same time. We got on about twelve years ago when we started making stuff. Those were just the guys we were skating with in San Diego: Smolik, Dan Connelly and Brandon Turner. They were just around and we would skate with them. It was just their crew and they started making shirts and it all naturally pushed on from there. It was never a question it just happened. Never looked back.
How do you compare it with San Diego? So much more weathered but definitely a lot of fun. It wasn’t bad it was just, “now I’ve got to fuckin’ man up here and skate through”. It was tight. The skaters were all the same though; it was like a second home and everyone vibed real well. How did you feel going into that switch ollie? We actually drove by it going to a different spot. I’m a big fan of over the rail and into the bank. I’m always trying to find that type of spot. We were just like, “let’s go and peep that thing”. We went there and right before it there was a big crack that lifted up. I was like, “fuck I don’t know if it’s skateable”. Tom Knox said that someone had kickflipped it a long time ago and then he found the photo. We were skating another spot and I found this sign, which worked when I took it back. We taped it down to cover the crack. The trick didn’t take too long to get though. The cracks were kind of mossy though so I kind of slipped whenever I kicked it out.
Loved your shared part with Gustav Tonnesen in Stee. And the whole video too actually. Thanks. I was stoked on the whole video too, it was tight to share it with the Sweet homies. You think collabs like that would happen more often. I was trippin’ because I heard it was the first collab video between international companies in skating. I didn’t believe it but I guess it’s true. You must get asked a lot about the switch flip late shove-it over the bump to rail. Honestly that’s the only one I’ve ever got. I think it came about because I was skating some local park, going up the bank switch and tried the trick. I kicked it in the air after the switch flip and it kind of went but I didn’t get it. I thought it might work somewhere though and that spot was close to my house. We went there and I just thought, “fuck it. I’m going to try it”. Got that one and then never tried it again.