MIKE
CRUM
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY SCOTT
SERVAS
IT SEEMS LIKE ONLY YESTERDAY that
everyone was talking about this little kid from
Dallas, Texas, but that was over five years ago.
In the meantime, Mike Crum has been busy
creating a name for himself by travelling, doing
demos and hitting contests around the world.
Somewhere between sessioning in Vancouver
with the Red Dragons and riding with Danny Way
and the Pappas brothers at Plan B, our team of
crack reporters tracked him down. Lance Conklin,
Tas and Ben recorded this interview containing
the wit and wisdom of the king of the vert nollie.
-Robin Steele
What's going on with the beard?
Boen sick, haven't shaved for a while because
it takes too much effore I might cut gesell
You'll grow a full beard?
Yep.
How old are you now?
Twenty one.
You started skating in Dallas, so you must
have been friends with all the guys there.
Who pushed you to skate better?
When I first stepped up to the ramp, it was
crazy pros like Craig Johnson, Jeff Phillips and
Mark Roach, he's the kid I first started ting
with, he pushed me, he got me on Zorlac when
I was twelve or thirteen; super young, and just
skated with all the Texas cludes: Nielsen,
Pennington Phillips, all those guys.
Did they give you shit or were they cool?
They were cool guess when I was super
young, they used to fuck with me, but whatever.
After you got through the beginning stages
of skating and you somehow recognized you
could do it pretty good and you got spon
sored, who was the second generation of
people who influenced you?
skated with Chris Gentry and add Nielsen,
Bryannington-he was way ahelid of his
time, icky Lasek was fuckin' great, Sean Miller
was amazing. I got first place in this one amateur
res has thinking I could go into the finals and
da pretty good, and when ligot there got a full
really check seeing Bucky and Sean Miller and
Buster Halterman, Tom Bay was already pro
then, the Weiss man, thoseys were gely
So you've always skated vert except for a
Vision Streetwear shoe ad. Can you talk
to me about that one?
There were some bad times.
Diet you invent the move in it?
Fuck-off. No was riding for Dorfman then,
esn't get paid, but to even get an ad, he
likeah, it's got to be street. So I tried
and it didn't work out tab well. That was the
only way They'd send me defective Blue and
Television boards, Couldn't get anything, not
aven a Psycho Stick.
What about The Other Level? What happened
with that company?
The same deal. Just Gentry's rap ideas with
whatever. don't know. Anything back then was
better that nothing. It definitely sucked, but
those years were definitely a nightmare for us
vert savage
Mike (above) takes the street to vert with a
switch pop shove to fakis. Next thing you
know (sequence), it's a switch Caballerol.
While he was in Switzerland, Crum (oppo
site roasted the ozone with this lien air.
OTHER