When did things really start
taking off for you in skating?
In 1954 I started to go to con-
tests. I went to the Eurocaner
summer camp and I saw Rod-
ney Mullen, Mike McGill, Lance
Mountain, and Neil Blender.
They were there two years in a
row. I went there and met Claus
Grabke. He lived eight hours
from me by car. That's the first
time that I ever saw anyone
who was really good. Claus was
so good back then, as good as
the American skaters. He did
all kinds of stuff in 1983 and
1984. We went to the summer
camp and this guy Slappo was
the gnarliest, together with
Puttis. We had the first Scandi-
navian Open in Herlev Skate-
board Club on a sixteen-foot-
wide ramp, eight-foot transition
with a foot of vert. Slappo was
doing six-foot airs back-to-back.
Puttis won. He only did hand-
plants, laybacks, airs. But Slap-
po was where I got my inspira-
tion from for high airs. He was
the main man.
What was the first big thing
that propelled you to your pre-
sent status?
I went to the European
Championships in France.
Bruno Peters and Steve Keenan
were there. I did lien airs and
inverts. Claus Grabke won and
I got second. Mike McGill was
there. He was at the Swedish
Summer Camp, went to the
French contest and did a
McTwist there, believe it or not,
for the first time in public. Mike
didn't enter because it was the
European Championships.
Is anything else in your life as
important as skateboarding?
and get a lot of speed. On mini-
ramps, you have to use a lot of
strength to pull that air out, so
you don't hang up. I feel lighter
on a big ramp because I play
with gravity easier on vert. I
prefer metal because that's the
fastest. Masonite bubbles too
fast. A lot of people complain
about slippery metal, but metal
will last for years.
Not really. Skateboarding is
everything. I can't skate all of
the time, I would like to, but I
know there are other things
that have to be done. I'm really
interested in art and music.
Do you skate everything?
I wouldn't say that I'm good
at everything, but I like skating
everything. Street skating is
good, but I really like to skate
vert. I get the most excitement
there. You don't have to use a
lot of strength to float high airs
What is your interpretation of
style in skateboarding?
Style is not sketchy. You're in
control and flowing with every-
thing, making it look easy.
That's style.
An example of that definition?
Christian Hosol, Chris Miller
and Stevie Caballero all have
style. They have the base style,
but there are thousands of dif-
ferent styles. There's the gnarly
style, the smooth style, an
aggro style and the flail style.
In your opinion, what would be
the aggro style?
Ben Schroeder or Steve Sal-
isian. Omar Hassan is aggro,
too, and Steve Claar slaps the
tail real hard. They skate like
men, if you know what I mean.
Long grinds.
How would you describe the
flailing style?
No one appreciates the flail
style unless you stay on. It's out
of control, but you still make it.
I did it today, I did a mute air-
to-fakie on the extension and I
landed it wrong, bent down and
was almost going to fall but I
held on for life and I flailed on
the other side because I came up
and had to put my hand on the
coping to get my balance back.
I still stood on my board. Eddie
Reategui doing a six-foot high
air with his back foot off and
making it. I've seen it a lot of
times and everybody screams.
Tell about your inspirational
guys, or, guys who nobody
ever heard of who shredded.
Jason Fine is that type of
guy here in the 1900's. He's this
hippy kid from Venice Beach.
His father's an artist in Santa
Barbara and his mother's an
artist in New York. He grew up
in the States and one day he
went to Europe. When I first
AUJOTE
saw him he had dreadlocks and
he was coming to my ramp in
Herlev. He did backside Smith
grinds where the coping was all
gnarly. He did stalled inverts
and flailing frontside airs. He's
ripping. He's a rapper and he
can talk to reggae rhythms.
Are there any old time guys
who heavily influenced you in
the European scene?
In the early days, it was
Michael Destoppelar and there's
a rock band now. They used to
be this team called Yins and Co.
and they were ripping, they
influenced me hard. They were
skating together, trying tricks
like inverts-to-fakie and Miller
flips. I learned to do ollies-to-
axle stall on their ramp. They
were like the Copenhagen hard-
core guys. Lucien Hendrix was
the rad guy from England and
Claus Grabke was always the
best. All of those Germans are
very competitive. They take it
very seriously.
How would you describe the
Danish skaters?
Probably like the San Fran-
cisco city boys coming to a con-
test down (Collinued on page 2)
Breaking the sound barrier over the
Vision ramp. Nicky Guerrero
(previous page) blazes a highly
potent lien air. A rocket scientist to
the nth degree, Nicky (opposite
page) launches an experiment in
stale fission over the channel at
Münster. Twisting a fat frontside
Invert (left) and slapping a bitchin'
Madonna (above) at Vision, Nicky
conducts a symphony in Eurostyle.
TRACKER