NATAS
INTERVIEW BY JIM THIESAUD AND TOMMY GUERRERO
In the now of 1995, Notas Koupas (right)
ollies to 50/50 over the fun box, some-
where Back East. In 1987, at the
Dominguez Hills Velodrome (sequence)
the walle to frontside air was all his.
Slashing is fun because you never know
when you are going to slide out, over-
rotate and bite. Reminding us that skate-
boarding is but an extension of surfing.
Natas (left) liquifies concrete in 1988.
Natas and Skip (bottom right) kickin' it.
AVERWARK
NATAS IS MORE THAN SATAN SPELLED BACKWARDS, it is the name
of a skateboarder who changed the face of the sport forever. From big ollies
to handrails, Natas Kaupas embraced the old and challenged the new.
How long have you been skating?
Probably since I was about four or five, about
the time of the Big Wheel, like one of the toys.
And seriously probably since like ten years ago,
sometime during junior high school.
How did that start?
Well, then it was actually like knowing the
names of tricks, actually knowing that tricks
existed, not just like power slides or whatever,
actually learning stuff.
Back then, Santa Monica and Venice were
legendary in the surf and skate lore. Were
you part of all that?
Yeah, it was a part of just growing up there.
You skate and you surf, and that was like what
you did then. It's like living in the mountains, you
78 TR
ski and you play in the snow, it's like the same
thing. You have the beach there, you go in the
ocean. And you go skateboard if you go out
surfing. It all worked together. But it used to be
set up a lot different. It used to be one long,
two-sided curb that went for miles.
All along Venice to Santa Monica.
Yeah. It was just one long, two-sided curb, and
you'd have to ride rails to make it slippery. And
there was one wall, there was no bench, and that
went all along the beach too. And then they
redid it all into an even better skateboard park.
Made it into the Natas curb.
It's my park. I charge admission there to all the
people there, and it's like four bucks to get a
membership there.
How did you first get sponsored?
I was sponsored for surfing, mainly, then
word kind of got around through that, because
through Santa Monica Airlines, the guy who did
it, Skip Engblom, also worked on surfboards, and
then kind of heard. And I think I had like a shop
sponsor, but not really.
terh
And Skip, he ran Santa Monica Airlines, and
it was originally a skateboard company?
Yeah, it was like a really tiny skateboard.com-
pany. He did all the skateboards by hand, and
his other job was sanding surfboards. I got to
work with a guy who would like try new things,
and he just leaned towards the more art side
and like paint them real nice and stuff, and it was
a lot of fun. It was a good scene.
Who did you skate with back then?
Just me and this guy Brandon Murdock, and
he was friends with Mark Gonzales, and he intro-
duced us. And we'd skate his quarter-pipe.