Versus Skatezine & Plus #58

Nicola Hosek

interview

crailslide - portugal - photo nick heuberger

rock fakie - Portugal - photo nick heuberger

Hello Nico! Let’s do that in english, is it ok with you?

I don’t know you that much, but I can already said that you’re honest.

Yeah, you were not afraid to tell me what you think about Versus, even if it was far to be positive. I appreciated that. Thanks again. Alright, introduce yourself now please...

Yo Jey! Thanks for the questions... Don’t get me wrong about your mag... I think it’s a great idea to do such a homemade skatemag and I appriciate, to be in it...

But I was just shocked, that someone hates so much the place, where I skate all summer long. But ok. Everybody has his own taste....

Man your part in Bumble Fuck was almost as long as Marc Johnson’s part In Fully Flared... And it gave me the same impression. Fucking amazing tricks... but too long! It felt a bit like you wanted to use every footage you had...

In my point of view, it’s a bit a shame, because something like a 1/3 of it, is seriously the real shit, with all terrain stuff etc...

blunt grab - fribourg - photo fabio stoll

My part is a little bit too long. Yes. You’re right. But it was the last one to do and Nick was under pressure to finish the movie, so we couldn’t really decide which trick we should put in or not... In addition to that, I had quiet much of footage and it was hard to sort things out. For me it was hard to tell, which footage I prefered.

The same for Nick... What would you left out?

crooked - bern - photo fabio stoll

Tell me more about this video... (who, where, when, how, etc...)

If you don’t know yet, I live with Nick Heuberger, the regisseur form Bumblefuck and Mädi (Silvan Erne) in one flat near the Kocherpark.

Bumblefuck was developped in about 3 years or so. I think nick managed it to create a skate-film who shows skateboarding the real way. It’s a movie, who gave the possibility to almost every skater form Bern, who wasn’t in 180 to film and have a couple of tricks in it.

You pretty much killed Bremgarten bumps... You know what you have to do to completely murder it right?

Ok, these tricks where just the result of hard work man. Had to throw my body for ages over these stonebubles... Couple of those tricks I couldn’t even really do in flat (switch treeflip). I just thought about a trick I wanted to do and then tried it till I landed. Maybe this sounds stupid, but sometimes I’m obsessed by a trick.

What do you do when you are not skateboarding?

When I’m not skateboarding, I study medicine, do something with my girlfriend Larissa. In summer I use to surf! Since Brazil I love that shit!!!

pivot fakie - bern - photo larissa rimann

What do you think about the skate scene in Bern? And in Switzerland in general?

Fribourg suuuuper good!!! Warriors: don’t know them, but seem to be suuuuper cool! Bern: getting better and better.... rest: ok Let’s see if you are a real good swiss guy... Do you have a knife with you? Do you like chocolate? What’s brand is your watch? How many bank account do you have?... What’s your opinion about the SVP initativ result?

I don’t have a swissknife and I don’t vote for SVP. I think this party is really dangerous and a big bunch of crap. It’s a shame to live in a country, who treates foreigeners differently then Swiss people. And this with the minarett-thing is just ridiculous. Why don’t you let other people just do want they want and what they believe in... What harm is another tower in the city or somewhere else? Can’t understand that. Especially this Amstutz is so... This guy just doesn’t listen to people. His opinion is just the only truth. Why? On the other hand I’m glad to live in such a country as Switzerland, where I can study, have a girlfriend, skate and answer questions for a interview in a critical skatemag. I’m just happy to have such a good life, when I see the news and realize, that so much people on this planet are soo fucking poor and live in misery.

But maybe they have it even better there than we here... who knows?

varial heel - fribourg - photo dorian kessler

bs lipslide - bern - photo nick heuberger

ollie - portugal - photo nick heuberger

By the way: I adore chocolate, have a Swatch (won it once at a contest in Fribourg) and have over 1 million on several bank acounts in Geneva, Zürich and Bern...

Do you buy skatemags? What do you think about Whiteout, the one and only real in Switzerland?

Whiteout is good. Like to watch the pictures and read Boris Fuhrers check out.

Bumblefuck was on the blog!!! But they should bring more about Bern.

How come pretty much every fucking village in this country got a skatepark, and here, in Bern, we have pretty much nothing?

Why...? Don’t ask me! Probabaly too much politics in bigger cities... or lazy people.

But a bunch of people including me are trying to realize a project in Köniz, maybe you know when you read the papers... They built this new Liebefeldpark and gave the youth a part of it to create a skatepark. So we have the place, but still need some money. It will be a concrete skatepark with bowl. If you want to get more information go to: http://www.parkimpark.ch/ and if you know some really rich guy, who doesn’t dislike skateboarding please tell us!!!

What should I do to make Versus better?

What can you do better in your mag? Hmmm. It’s your mag man.. J’aime bien qu’il y ait plusieurs langues dedans. Bring more about all skaters from Bern. Or those who would be interestet to be in it. I know a lot of them who would be motivated to do something with you!!

Top 5 films: The Shawshank Redemption, Waltz with Bashir, Bumblefuck, Star Wars episode 6, Gegen die Wand Top 5 ice-hockey players: Don’t know any ice hockey players Top 5 books: da Vinci code, Lord of the rings, Les hommes qui n’aimaient pas les femmes, Prometheus Anatomie, Lonely planete Brazil Top 5 songs: The smiths “Handsome devil”, Jimi Hendrix “Crosstown traffic”, Body count

airwalk - bern - photo martin kleiner

“Killin’ floor”, N.W.A. “Panic zone” , Antonie and the johnsons “Fist full of love” Top 5 porn-stars: Jesse Jane, Alexa Rae, Carla Bruni, PJ Ladd, Sylvester Stallone I’m done man. Would you like to talk about something else?

Best word: putain!!!

Thanks for your time and interest. If you have a last word, it’s now or never...

Hope to see you on board soon (hopefully not in Weyerli)...

Last words: just skate, don’t think too much. Thanks to you! Hope these answers are something you can use.... Also thanks to my girlfriend Larissa, she’s the best.

boardslide - bern - photo manuel schuerch

fs rock - bern - photo daniel getejanc

Merci Pontus!

First of all, why Moto-City? (Who, where, what, etc...)

Well,I´m the founder and owner of the Moto-City Inc.The Teamriders are Matze Preisser, Patrick Munz, Flo Wimpff, Stephan Rathgeb und Kamil Krzesniak.

Due to my job I had to move to Lörrach but it´s a Stuttgart-company, that´s were I was born, lived most of my life and learned to live the life of a skater and founded the Moto-City Inc..

The first idea for a name was just Motor Skateboards, ´cause of 2 reasons, almost everybody in my family worked with cars, we also had a car-dealership for a while and I got an apprenticeship as a car-mechanic, I also sold cars for a while, I just love bikes and cars.

I love my bike which I ride a lot and work on, so that`s where moto came from in the first place. Also I always had the feeling that skating is our motor to do all kind of things.

I mean look around, how many skaters are great musicans, like Ray Barbee, Tommy Gurrero, back in the late 80s bands like the Chilly Peppers or Metallica had boards on Skull Skates or Zorlac ´cause they skated and than you have filmers like Spike Jones or let´s get local, Torsten Frank, their inspiration to start filming was skating. The same with photographers, artist, graphik-designers, or things like traveling to strange places to find new spots and meet new people, the list goes on and on but in the end it comes down to skating.

I don´t think skaters are born more creative but the fact that we don´t have any rules but being individual, pushes the creativity and the will in us to make things happen no matter what it takes. Skateboarding is our motor, just look at Max building the pool, now he learns to work with concrete, I don´t think he would have done this playing Tennis.

The City part is a local Stuttgart thing, cause whan companies like General Motors and Ford in Detroit were almost bankrupt, we were joking around that Stuttgart is going to be the last real Moto-City, hahaha, you gotta have local pride, wherever you´re from!

Where, how can we get your stuff?

At the moment in Stuttgart-Shops like Kiste, Hall11, Arrow&Beast, Fossy in Ravensburg, Rollbrett Mission in Emmendingen and Black Heaven in Münster. Teamrider Stephan helps me with the distribution, we try to take care that our stuff is only sold in true Skate-Shops.

Please, tell me that your boards are not made in China...

flo wimpff - pivot fakie - photo kamil krzesniak

100% made in the USA, that means definetly not in China or Mexico, nowadays you got to be careful with that, lot of woodshops are american but produce their boards in China or Mexico. But it´s hard to keep that, ´cause as a DIY-Company you don´t produce the amount of decks to get as good deals from the USA as from China and shops want to make profit so the pressure to lower the prices is on. But to me it´s important to have american decks or europeans (but there aren´t any good european woodshops at the moment), because I want to sell the best boards possible. I even let Matze and Flo test some chinese boards and they told me that I should never sell them ´cause they don´t last as long, that confirmed that my decision to not sell chinese boards was right. I just hope there are enough people out there, that see that it is important to support skaterowned companies and wood-shops that are founded and run by skaters, ´cause those are the companies that pushed skating in the past and will do so in the future. The chinese companies don´t give a fuck about their worker s rights or skating and if skating would go down again the way it did in the 90s, they would produce other stuff and wouldn´t care about the die hard skaters(they don´t care already).

But if you as a skater don´t care about the human-rights and the politics, at least they should

kamil krzesniak - bs smith - photo martin herrmann care about riding top qualitiy boards.

I just want to to produce stuff that is worth the money you spent and want to take care that the right people earn some money when I produce stuff, like my shirts and hoddies are printed in a caritas-workshop where ex-junkies work and the guy who manages it is an old friend from way back whan I started skating. So I make sure the money goes the right way!

Nowadays, there are like, 100,000 brands in the business, aren’t you a bot crazy to start up your own company?

Yes, I am!

I mean, when I see all those brands owned by big corporated companies, like Alien-Analog-Habitat-Gravis which is actually Burton, or kids riding with Nike shoes...

What’s your goal as a small DIY underground company?

It was always my dream to have a company the way I like it! I know I´ll probably never earn millions with my company, I just want the Moto-City Inc. to survive, because I think skateboarding needs DIY-Companies, it´s in the nature of skateboarding. Skating always had trends but almost at the same time a trend became mainstream, skateboarding started a new trend in the underground.

Like when all those concrete-bowl-parks and skateplazas started to pop up like mushrooms, people where thinking now that the cities are building parks to get the kids of the streets, skating/skaters will be easier to control, but the opposite happened, and more and more skaters started to build DIY-Parks and spots. I know parks like Burnside were there before

matze preisser - crailslide - photo martin herrmann and even Oberesslingen Bridge-Park was a DIY-Projekt in the beginning but now u find stuff like this everywhere. Same with companies, you got Burton, Quiksilver and other companies buying the market but to be honest, I don´t care, ´cause I see companies like Moto-City Inc. or Kollos owned and runed by skaters, I see kids riding their boards and being stoked on the local companies, this was not that way 10 years ago.

Moto-City Inc. will always stay independent, if it means that I have to work my ass of 9 to 5 to live my life and do the stuff for the company at night, than it´s ok, even if it means Moto-City Ínc. won´t last long, it´s ok, at least I did it the way I like it, got the team I like, the graphics I like, sell the boards that I think are the best and had a company without any ass-kissing! Skateboarding needs independent Companies ´cause skatings real breedingground is the underground not an office in a marketing-agency!

How did you choose your team-members?

To tell you how I chose each one would be a long story but I tell what´s important for me when it comes to choose a teamrider. To catch my attention you need a good mixture of style an tricks, I don´t care about your quatriple-flip, 20 stairs handrail or 10 foot air as long as it looks weak, less tricks but done with style and individuality is what I like. But before I decide to get someone new on the team, I ask the riders, they got to be down too, that´s important for me. I want the team to be well rounded and show all aspects of skating, street, pools, tech, gnarly, old, new, whatever, ´cause skating is too cool no matter what!

What do you think about the german-skate-scene in general?

It´s getting better and better. Back in the days I had the feeling that the German scene doesn´t care about the roots and just kids are skating, even I knew there were older skaters. When I went to France or the US for example I had the feeling, that skating there was already a lifestyle in all aspects, because you already had those old dudes still killing it together with the young boys and people were livng it. Now it´s becoming like this in Germany too and of course it´s my home, I always liked the scene only thing is the magazines, there are too many and not a lot of good ones - I´m a skatemag-junky,hahahahaa For who did you vote for the Thrasher Skater Of The Year?

What do you think about the result?

I didn´t vote but when I heard that Leo took it, I thought it´s perfect! ... Life of Ryan Sheckler...?

When it´s on, turn of the TV, go skating and don´t waste your time thinking to think about shit!

Top 5 videos: H-Street „Shakle me not“, Santa Cruz „Streets on fire“, Think “Dedication”, FTC „Penal Code 100A“, „Eastern Exposure III“, Thrasher „Prevent this Tradgedy“ That´s six but I can´t cut one out!

Top 5 skaters: Jason Jessee, Keith Hufnagel, Grant Taylor, Donny Barley, Peter Hewitt Top 5 spots: Marseille Pools, Fort Miley / S.F., Skatebox-Mini / Stuttgart, Stuttgart downhills, S.F. Downhills Top 5 bands: lack Sabbath, Kyuss, Thin Lizzy, Gang Starr, Dinosaur Jr. Top 5 beers: Augustiner „Helles“, Schwabenbräu „Echte“, Tannenzäpfle, Heineken, Krasovska Wodka

stephan rathgeb - having fun - photo michele danze

Let’s talk about Stuttgart a bit, and from my best friends... Ok, to be honest, I already hated them before, but since I went back to Stuttgart, and saw all those fucking cops everywhere, my teenage-anger is back, and is stronger than ever...

Do you have something to say about them?

And/or about the new trainstation project there?

Well from what I experienced in the states with cops, I must say, there are many cops in Stuttgart but way more relaxed, but you´re right, there are too many of them, that´s makes you feel controlled, like somebody is watching you all the time, that´s what I hate about it, but I never had any bad experiences with them!

The trainstation project is definetly an issue but I think before you argue about something like that you should get as much information about it as possible, which I didn´t.

But what I think is, is that all this is getting more strange every day. I think the fact that all of a sudden, thousands of people with all kinds of different social backrounds are on the street to fight one thing, shows that there is something wrong in the system and the communicationpolitics and to makes us aware of that is good. Maybe the gap between the politicians and the people became too big. That´s something we got to solve. I also hate how arrogant the politicians behaved and the way they used the police but I also think there are too many people that are not well informed, they are just there because they wanna be against something or like it´s „the big thing to do in Stuttgart“. All those demo-tourist and wanna be hippies, I hate ´em as much as the fat, arrogant politicians.

To tell the politicians that something is wrong, is what we should do more often but let´s get realistics, it´s a trainstation, okay a very big one, but why don´t they demonstrate as hard against the nuclear-powerplants, why don´t they kick the bankers asses that are responsible for the credit-crunch, I mean there are things out there that are way more dangerous than this station, the climate-chande for example and they sit at home and do nothing. I know a lot of people in Stuttgart probably don´t like what I said but I heard of people that are pro S21 and people spitted on them because of that. Come on are you serious? Go out an spit on fashists, on rapers... let´s meet downtown and find the fashists, spit on them and kick their asses... that would be cool!

Tell a question you would had love to hear, and answer it please...

Is there more than skating?

Yes, of course, but nothing influenced me more than skateboarding, I love it!

Thanks for your time man. Hope to see you soon on board! Until then, enjoy!

Last words? Thanks?

Thanks to the team, to Stephan for helping so much and being a friend for such a long time, to Kamil for the filming, Matze for being the ripper an cool dude he is, Flo for amazing me all the time on and off the board and Patrick for being down with the Moto-City Inc. and believing in it. Props to Paul from Treibsand-Graphics, Basti and Kelu for the designs and the support, also to Cap10 you´re the man. Thanks to the shops selling and all the dudes riding Moto-City stuff. Big shouts out to the original Bridge-Posse (you know who u are).

A very big thank you to my girlfriend for dealing with me my occasional freakness and to my parents for giving me this life I love.

Also thank you Jay, keep on the good work! Keep skating and don´t stop!

patrick munz - over-vert - photo michael mitulla

matze preisser - fs-air - photo markus preisser