A glimpse at the daily schedule of the world's most
winning, innovative and influential skateboarder of the
last ten years, Tony Hawk.
What's the average day like around the estate?
Wake up, sometimes at eight, ometimes eleven, it ranges. Eat breakfast
at Monica's, our favorite place in Vista. We like it and it's good. Come
back, check the machine, return calls, check the fax machine.
What is everybody calling about?
Anything Can come skate Do you want to do a demo? Shoot the
shit. I'll probably return most of the calls. Probably peall the ones who
want to skate though
Then what?
depends on how hot is. lia's no hot, we might go street skate
somewhere. Possibly Visur Carlsbad Fondido. Rossibly even drive
into A, but that's kind or a day thing There has to be another reason
to go to LA to hot, well probably go swimming or go surfing.
Get back the house around three or four
Who's the crew?
Bucky (sek) is stay right now it's probably he and, Shawn
Mortimer hat's probably about it for us because Ray (Underhill) isn't
into the stre scene. But Joe Johnson) will go with us. Joel hau We'll
cruise by Mars (Hensley) house sometimes. Then it'll be lunch some-
where. Get back here around three or four and skate the rames the re
of the ay. Try new stuff, do whatever. Sometimes there will be someone
coming to shoot potos or videos or we be shooting video. We do that
a lot.
The neighborhood looking up, noticed
Yeah, they got a mall down the street. It used to be if you wanted to go
anywhere, it was a fifteen minute drive Theatres, food... were on now.
What have you been listening to?
Let's check the CD cas. We got Nitzer Ebb, because Doug and
Vaughn rule. We met them and they invited as to see them with
Depeche Mode in LA. The Cure, Led Zeppelin, New Model Army.
Jane's Addiction, The The, Soundgarden, Nag Inch Nails, Concrete
Blonde, Jesus Jones, AC/DC, 2, Sisterhood, Sidgeway, Ministry
and Michael Penn. We just go the Minisay video and it's happening.
"Just Don't Bite It" by NWA is one of the funniest songs I've ever heard.
How was Europe this year?
Great, I just don't like to go there forever. The last tour we did was five
weeks Switzerland, France, Italy and U.K. After that I didn't want to see
a skateboard anymore. I didn't want to do anything. That's why I didn't
go back for Germany (Münster), I was so burned out on the whole scene.
Do you generally get along well with the Europeans?
Yeah. There's just no food to eat there. I think everyone says that.
Anyway, after that tour, I called Stacy and told him, "I'm so burned out."
And he goes, "I was waiting for this to happen." He told me just to hang
out and get bored. And so I did, and it worked. I got a new fire.
What did you start back into?
The mini and street, pretty much.
Did you make a decision to skate street to win more contests?
No, I wasn't out there to get my street skating to a level where I could
win contests. I mean, the street and the mini-ramp formed as one at one
point. I just go out there to see what I can do. I'm not out there doing the
Caballerials over the benches and stuff. I'm just having fun. I dig it.
What about tricks? Is it beyond even trying to name them or do you
just put combinations together?
Yeah, just basically trying to lead one into another.
Could you describe a warm-up line on your ramp?
Well, a line that would feel good to me would be to drop into a back-
side tailslide grabbing the nose, a frontside ollie tail grab, an alley-oop
feeble grind to fakie, maybe a Caballerial disaster, maybe a nose grind.
to fakie. At my ramp, pretty much one wall travels and the other wall
stays still, just to avoid the spine. Then I might do a fakie-to-frontside
pivot-to-fakie, then maybe a fakie ollie revert, or a one-footed
66 THRASHER MACAONE
Caballerial, something like that. This is just off the top of my head, a line
that would feel good to me, not something I'd do in a contest.
Is upper body movement important in lip tricks and reverts? How
would you describe that body movement?
A lot of it comes with experience, feeling where you are on the wall. I
try to work out the logistics of a trick my head before I try it and then
just see how it works. Like last night fore I was falling asleep, I was
thinking gay twist varial disasters, how you would go about doing that.
Then we went up and shot it today with a ideo camera, and it worked. I
just noticed, like if you watch the guys now days who an twist and turn
any way out of any trick, you can see that they have a really good center
of balance. They're always really entered n the board no matter
which way they are. A lot of it has to do with the upper toro.
What about hand movement is that something you work on?
I never really think abouwhere my hands are going to be to tell you
the truth. The key to ver skating just owing where you are relative
to the wall think that when you el like you're not going to come out
of it straigh your arms pretty much do the trick by themselves. A
ating vert salong your body gin to sort of take ove
Do you ever make radical adjustments so you can pull a certain trick?
Definitely. Sometimes just trying to be more mellow on tric helps.
LiI was trying to carackside olli reverts and I just kepover
ing and almost going around 540°, and realized I had to be meow and
try to go with my board and the board only spi so much.
What are some other new trick you like to do?
I like the frontade ollie around o nose pick. It's frontside ollie all the
way around to backside chink. I jus learned that on vert recently. I was
rally happy about at because that's something I've always wanted to
da Other than that, he trick I want to get going is frontside ollie to
nose blunt. Le done it a couple of times but I want to get it good, maybe
slide got a glimpse of a 900° the other day. It was sort of this entity,
this number that I've always wanted to reach. Then I saw it and went, oh,
that's it? I don't really want to do it that much anymore.
But it's possible?
Yeah, Danny told me he made it. I'm not even bummed if I can't do it,
I'm just glad to see it done. I don't think my knees will take it anyway.
After all these years as a pro, almost nine years, looking back, what do
you think about the judging overall?
A long time ago I think the skating was too far ahead of the judges and
the judges were kind of lost in it all, they couldn't really tell the differ
ence between tricks and so on and I think that now most of the judging
has evolved with the skating. The judges have begun to understand how
skating has become so much more intricate and they're understanding
the difficulty of some tricks.
I'm sure you threw them a curve when you started skating backwards
and switchfoot.
Yeah. Sometimes I think that maybe they don't notice stuff like that,
especially when they see other people do it. I can tell that if someone's
really not as involved as we are, then they wouldn't notice it.
Any other types of training that you're doing?
Not really. Now that the surf's getting better I've been going surfing
pretty much every day. I feel like I'm getting better at it, so I'm stoked.
The only thing I think skating doesn't give you is upper body strength.
Surfing helps me out there. It seems like almost every skater has the same
figure nowadays
Favorite terrain?
I just like any place that flows, where you can just keep going back and
forth. I don't really like to skate a street spot where you're just skating
one thing and you have to keep going back and forth at it. I'd rather have
something where you can move around and do different things. I like to
keep going.
Who are some of the new guys that you're keeping an eye on and
what will it take for them to make it and keep going?
I don't know about the new skaters. I've been trying to get to amateur
contests, and it's really hard for me. As far as new pros, (C)