I heard when all you guys went
over to Europe the skateboarding
was totally wack and everyone
was wearing white t-shirts and
blue jeans and not even riding
graphics, and then all of a sudden
all the European kids saw that and
they didn't want to ride any com
Skateboarding is supposed
to be an individual thing.
pany's board or shirts and the distributors were all bummed.
Everyone should be their own individual. Ride their own boards.
Do you think skateboarding was affected a lot by the way everyone
didn't ride graphics and t-shirts for a while?
Yeah, definitely because the whole idea of being pro is having your
own board and it's sort of part of you, that's your own board, that's what
you designed, your graphics, and I think that you shouldn't be ashamed
of that, you should promote that, and you should promote the company
that you ride for.
Do you think it's going to go
back to where it should be?
I'm sure with a lot of people, it
is like that. Hopefully more people
will realize that they don't have to
do the freshest ollie.
You live with both Mat O'Brien
and Matt Pailes, and now you
got Greg Carroll living here
again. Does it get kind of hec-
tic? Is there much privacy?
There's really no privacy at all.
It's kind of crazy having four peo-
ple living in a two-room apart
ment, like two people have to
share each room, and everyone
kind of gets on each other's
nerves a lot. I get woken up every
morning. You've just got to deal
with that, I guess. We're getting a
new place pretty soon. Hopefully
we'll all have our own privacy. It's
cool, though, because we're all
good friends, and we can all deal
with each other. It's rad that I
always have someone to talk to
and hang out with.
How long have all you guys
known each other for?
I just met Matt O'Brien when he
moved in about a year ago. And
then I've known Greg Carroll and
Matt Pailes since I lived in Maine
and they used to come up from
Massachusetts to skate the park
up there.
So you guys have been hanging
out for a few years now?
Yeah, about three years.
Did you like being on tour?
Yeah, I love travelling around.
Before I was ever sponsored or
anything, that's all I really did, like
drive around the country and
skate new spots, see new things,
and go down to Maine every
chance I'd get. I'd just like to say I
bought a new Orca The Whale fountain for my bathroom
sink. You stick it on there and the water shoots out of its
mouth, you shut his mouth, and the water shoots out of
his blowhole like a fountain, so when you're brushing
your teeth, you don't have to stick your head under the
fountain. It's really cute. He's my buddy. When I'm stuck
here in the apartment all alone, I just hang out with him.
Suck from his blowhole.
You used to do some writing in the past. Do you still
keep a journal?
I sort of do. Like sometimes an idea comes to my head
and I write something in my book, but usually it never
makes much sense or anything like that.
Why would you say that is?
It makes sense at the time,
but afterwards I read it and go, "What the hell
was I thinking?" Kind of like my drawings
What was it like growing up in Maine?
It was cool. Like when I started skating, we
built a lot of ramps, we just used to always
skate at different ramps. And then after a few
Prime examples of big-time hauling ass: Both the
kickflip (top) & the gap attack (below) spell S-P-E-E-D.
years skating there, they built a really good park there. It's probably the
best park I ever skated, it was huge and had like a 12' high, 60' wide vert
ramp and 28" wide mini-ramp and it spined into a bowl and a huge street
course. I pretty much had the whole park to myself because there were
like maybe four or five other little kids that'd skate there. It was kind of
stupid for them to build it there, but I was stoked.
You got it hooked up where you could just go and ride it all the time?
Yep. Occasionally guys from Boston would come up.
What was it like going to school all the way up there in Maine?
School was alright. There were
a lot of people that thought
skaters were fucked-up or what-
ever, and they tried to outcast us,
but it didn't really matter to me. I
just did my own thing and hung
out with my friends.
Did you graduate high school?
Yeah, I did graduate, that's one
thing I figured I should do before
I got out of the state, before I
moved away.
When you originally moved out
to San Francisco, I know that
you started going to art school.
But then you stopped, do you think you're going to go back?
I figured I'll go back and do something, I'm not sure, art or what, I'm
not really sure right now. That's the primary reason I moved to San
Francisco, though. But it kind of fell apart. I was getting sick of it. I got a
chance to go pro and I was like, "Fuck school, I'd rather be skating right
now, at this time in my life."
What do you want to do with skateboarding?
I'd like to keep skating. I think about it sometimes, but I'm not really
sure what's going to happen. I guess I'll wait for that, see what happens
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