skate shop nearby and introduced me to
the owner. He had one of my boards in
the shop, and he told me I could stay at
his pad. I ended up staying with him for
two-and-a-half weeks. I went to discos
and hung out all day.
Who are some of your favorite skaters
in today's circles?
Out of all the new guys, Ben
Schroeder is the raddest. Some of those
rookies who qualified at the Del Mar con-
test did really well. Those are guys I had
never seen skate before. They could do
every little mini-ramp trick-all of the new
tricks, the Tony Hawk tricks.
What has been your biggest achieve-
ment in skating?
There have been so many. I have been
skating for ten years and every day has
been a killer day. I have so many
memories of so many towns, skating so
many killer spots.
What is skateboarding to you?
Skateboarding is a job. It's been good
to me. When you go to a demo and.
somebody else is down, you have to im-
press all of those kids. There are a lot
of kids and just you are skating, so you
have to bust out.
Is there a lot of pressure?
Contest pressure is different-demo
pressure is fun. You go there and bust
out. The crowd digs it and the kids are
stoked. At contests you have to impress
five dudes who have been sitting there
all day. How do you judge an art form?
There are so many different styles.
So you don't like contests?
I like them, they're fun. But that isn't
skateboarding to me. I do contests be-
cause I have to. You can get a guy who
really rips it in contests, but can't really
session that rad, can't go to a pool, can't
jam down a steep hill at high speed.
Where do you see yourself in the next
five years?
It's hard to say. I don't even know what
I'm going to do tomorrow. I'm getting
more involved with Alva, working on new
projects, shapes and boards. This year
I'm going to travel all over. Go to Europe,
Japan, everywhere. I'm going to concen-
trate on seeing the world, skating new
spots and meeting cool skaters.
What kind of skating impresses you?
I've been skating with Christian every
day for awhile and I've seen this guy
blast nine-foot airs and do every trick in
the book. He's totally devastating. You
look at everybody else and they're below.
him. Mike Conroy does that air-to-fakie
pretty high. That's a nice move. My
favorite skaters are Craig Johnson,
Caballero, Christian and all of the
backyard pool skaters-Ricky Stiles,
Tony Alva, Salba, Hackett, Jay Adams.
As for the street skaters, I like the Gonz,
Jason Lee, and some of the new guys
who are doing rad old stuff like ollie pop-
ping and freestyle tricks on banks.
What is your favorite trick?
I don't have a special trick. I do so
many tricks, I love them all.
What tricks get you up the most?
Blasting airs. I just go as high as I can.
Where are the best places you have
ever skated?
Upland. This mini-ramp in Australia,
I forget the name of it. It was the biggest
mini-ramp I've ever seen in my life.
There's a contradiction in terms.
It was five ramps in one. Take a bunch
of ramps and stick them all together and
you've got it. Playland.
Who was the first big time skate-
boarder you ever met?
I'd have to say Olson. Or Duane
Peters. Way back in '84, in the Whittier
days. I was skating and I did this little
blunt fakie. Duane walked up to me and
said, 'Dude, that was rad." He patted me
on the back. I was this little kid thinking
Duane Peters was a legend. Then I saw
him in person and he told me I was rad.
I was really stoked. To see him skate in
real life was just incredible. The first con-
test I ever saw was with Duane and
Caballero at Whittier battling it out for
first, head-to-head. Caballero was this
little guy doing 360° ollies. I idolized
Caballero when I started skating. The
first time I met Gator he came to my
house to skate my little ramp. I wasn't
sponsored; I had just built the ramp and
started skating. After we were done
skating, he looked at me and said,
"You're going to be good when you grow
up. I knew then that I was going to be
a pro skater. I knew it because I could
do the new tricks almost as soon as I saw
them. But nowadays the tricks are get-
ting so advanced; the new kids are
beginning by doing all the gnarly tricks.
How do you perceive the attitude of
the hot-shot upstarts?
Well, if the guy is real cool and I like
the way he skates, I'll tell him all of the
things I know to try and help him.
Because I know a lot about the business,
I've been there a long time.
What are some of your most memor-
able travel moments?
Every Texas experience. I'd have to
say the Australia experience. All the boys
were there. King's Cross in Australia,
Roppongi in Japan. Vancouver, Canada.
What was the most incredible move
you've ever seen?
I remember McGill doing the McTwist.
That blew me away. I saw Christian do
the first wallride ever. Gator, Christian
and I were skating a parking garage in
San Diego. Christian goes, 'Gator, I bet
I could do a no-handed invert right there
on the wall. We said, 'bullshit, and he
did it. It was the first one I ever saw.
What do you think of the evolution of
the skateboard deck?
I love it. I wish back then I would have
had the board I have now. I would have
been able to rip a lot harder. I've always
had a small nose on my board- a two-
inch nose-until just a few years back.
I love the board I have now.
How do you set up your board?
I like using rails so it doesn't scratch
my graphics. Just joking. Rails work
when you do handplants with sweaty
hands. That extra grip helps.
How do you adjust your equipment?
I ride my trucks loose in the street and
tight on the ramp. If you do a six- or
I seven-foot air you'll get the speed
wobbles. I ride a 32" board now, with
4 or 5" on the nose, I have the
double holes. I'm happy with Alva
boards. It feels good to go in there, draw
up a board and ride it.
I hear you surf a lot.
Yeah, I love to surf and ride snow-
boards. Skateboarding, snowboarding
and surfing are the three best things in
life. I've been surfing a lot longer, but I
can do almost all of my skateboard tricks
on a snowboard. I love it. Snowboarding
to me is like skateboarding when I first
started. I try to snowboard as much as
possible. I like flying off of ten- or fifteen-
foot boulders. Going into the unknown
terrain is killer. I'm stoked because Joel
from Sessions flowed me my first
snowboard. I went off a big old jump and
landed on a rock and broke it. For surf-
ing I've been riding my Christian Flet-
cher. I've been riding my longboard a lot
too. Longboard is fun. (Continued on page 94)
THRASHER
THRASHER
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THRANIED