UT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW.
The crunch is on. It's a cyclical thing. The weathered
old guard is crumbling and those off their game are soon
Words and Photos
to be pitched out on their asses, as quick as an Everslick and
as worthless as Bonite.
By Michael Burnett
Adrian Lopez has been skating for less time than many of the big names
have been pro. He's earned his stripes not on jump ramps or Animal Chin, but
with long hours at the waxed ledge and countless afternoons in front of
the video camera. He's doing it the new way-the way of the
future. Out with the old, in with the new.
ADRIAN
LOPEZ
is the new.
MERCITY
Are Y'm eighteen.
re you the youngest pro?
Lavar's the same age.
Yeah. He's been pro since he was 14.
Who's younger?
I don't know. Maybe I am.
So you're a whole new generation of
pro skater.
Yeah, maybe I am.
When did you start skating?
Six years ago, so 1992.
What was the first skate video you
ever saw?
The first video I ever saw was Blind's
Video Days, but it was already old.
So
o you missed H-Street.
Yeah.
So the name Matt Hensley means
nothing to you.
Obviously I know what a great skater
he is. I mean, I know what he did, but
it's still hard to appreciate it, just
because I wasn't there when it was the
newest thing.
When you're hanging out with the
older guys, do you sometimes feel
left out when they're talking about
"back in the day"?
No. Sometimes when they're getting
excited about old videos, they get so psy-
ched on certain things and I can't really
relate to that. I mean, I know what all
those old guys have done, and I totally
appreciate what guys like Gonz have
done for skating, but it's just different not
growing up with it.
Where do you live?
I live Temecula, CA, but I've only
lived there for two years. I grew up in
Poway, CA.
What got you into skating?
The same as everybody else, I guess. I
saw some friends of my brother's skating
and I used to watch them doing all this
crazy stuff and I wanted to try it. So I got
my parents to buy me a board for my
birthday. I don't know what the name of
the board was. It just had a dragon on the
bottom. It was pretty small.
What
were the early skate days like?
Definitely fun. There were like 15 kids
every time we went skating. We'd just go
to a parking lot and skate a curb, or set up
a board and ollie over it. We'd skate any-
thing we could find.
What was the first trick you learned
that you got excited about?
The kickflip. I learned the kickflip about
two weeks after I started skating.
Wow. Do you have brothers
and sisters?
I've got an older and a younger brother
and a younger sister.
Do any of them skate?
Yeah, my younger brother. He's 12 or 13.
What about mom and dad?
I live with my mom and my stepdad.
Are you going to move out of
the house?
I thought about it, but I like living at
home still. I can save money. But I'll
probably move out within the year.
What did you do before you skated?
I used to play soccer all the time. That
was pretty much it. I just went to school.
Did you graduate?
I got my GED.
So you didn't go to the prom or anything?
Nope, no prom. I didn't go to any
high school shit. No football games
either. I left my real high school in
ninth grade and went to a continuation
school, and then skateboarding got
more important to me and I chose to
A true James Hetfield
fan, Lopez gets his metal
fix with a backside tail-
slide to shove-it. Give up
the horns.
94 THRASHER
95