trying kickflips on vert when I got older. Sargent was
incredible the first time he came. But usually me and
Jake would wake up and skate all day long. It's weird
to think that people only skate like an hour or two.
What kind of music were you listening to?
Van Halen, of course. We wore out the David Lee
Roth Eat 'Em And Smile tape.
Why did Jake's get torn down?
After the earthquake, we thought it wasn't such a
bad thing, like, "Right on, we got out of this okay."
But then the old freeway was right through the ghet-
to, right next to the projects, and once it fell down,
they cleared it out. They said the freeway was going
to come right through the building, so that was the
biggest bummer for sure. Now the new freeway
doesn't even look like it's going to mess up the
warehouse. It's genocide, that neighborhood has so
much class, and Cal-Trans is just kicking people out
of their homes and making them move to projects.
What about Bryce's ramp?
I liked it. I guess people thought it was too tight.
But after skating Phoenix Ironworks, which was crazy,
it was like street skating.
And now you've got your own ramp?
Yeah, it's right there in my
living room. I think every
body should build one.
What are you trying now?
I'm just trying to do stuff
higher and bigger and
faster, ollie out or into stuff,
I like to do that.
How about a tailslide and
kickflipping back in?
Yeah, I tried to do a 5-0
and kickflip in, but some of
that stuff you weigh it out,
"This takes three days to
land, it's not really worth it."
Did vert skating die at some point?
Yeah, it did. That's what's pissing me off right now,
there's a lot of people like Mike Frazier, Colin McKay
and Sluggo, breaking their balls skating for the last
three years when now, I see people at contests that
disappeared when the going got rough.
How about all this switchstance stuff?
It's great. I remember Mark Gonzales once said:
"If you can do it and it doesn't look retarded, then
do it." But of course you have to
learn it, and it's going to look
weird at first. But people like Bob
Burnquist or Danny Way, they do
it so naturally because they're so
centered on their boards.
Do you have anything planned
for the Real summer tour?
Yeah, I'm going to try to get
Frazier and Bob and whoever
wants to go for own little vertical
skatepark trip. Just get in the van
and drive for a couple weeks.
Yeah. I'm sure there's rippers in
every town around the world,
and they see someone like you
56 T
Max (left) skies a switchstance
kickflip air to fakie. After this
shot of Scott (right) was caught
on Potrero Hill, the warehouse
in the background burned to the
ground. Johnston (below) in fine
form with a switch frontside 5-0
at the Oakland Art Museum.
STOP