66 THRASHER
Switch craze.
Are there any negatives connected to
that drive?
Oh yeah. I'm a complete workaholic.
Relationships are hard. It affects all my
friends around me and the people who
depend on me. I'm always late, trying to do a
little bit more here or there. Sure there are
downfalls, but they're small in comparison to
the success you can achieve by working your
ass off. At the same time, the relationship is a
major point, and I seriously have to make a
conscious effort at trying to be there.
What scares you the most?
To tell you the truth, it's being out of con-
trol. That's part of the reason I don't do
drugs or alcohol; I felt like I was out of con-
trol. When I did get that feeling, it fright-
ened me that I would wake up the next day
and not know what I had done the night
before. I wasn't myself. That whole thing
been the star of the video, but he didn't feel
as if the stuff he had was up to his level.
There were a lot of strange feelings going on.
Maybe I should've stepped down from doing
some tricks here and there to make him not
bummed out, but I don't know. Then some
crazy communication problem at the pre-
miere came up, and we got in an argument,
and he quit, and then he got back on, and
then he got kicked off. It was a big fiasco. But
we're cool. We grew up, and it's been years
since all that. We skate together now. Maybe
now is the closest we've ever been, because
it's eye to eye.
What's your favorite nickname that he
calls you?
He's only got one nickname for me. It's J-Rock.
Would you let anyone else call you J-Rock?
No, just Muska.
At least ten or twelve.
What was your reaction the first time
you saw one?
Holy cow. What can you say?
What's it like when you meet old ene-
mies and now they're your new pals?
It doesn't really happen to me. It used to
happen a lot, but now I choose when I'm
going to be seen and who I'm going to see.
Sure, you're going to bump into some people
here and there, but I haven't gone to contests
that often lately, and I've been doing my own
thing, staying in my element with my friends.
You don't bump into that many old enemies
too often. I never really had any enemies. It's
weird. Somebody could've been making fun
of you years ago, and you see them again,
and you've changed and maybe you've got-
ten some respect in the industry, and that
What's one of your favorite Muska person's also grown up. They've become
There was this missing element
more mature and they're
going to be nicer to you,
usually. You don't know if
that leould never find that Iimally found,
and that was accepting
kind of freaked me
out when I was a kid,
so it turned me off to
that completely.
Jesus Christ as my savior"
What's the closest you've ever felt to
The Muska?
The first six months we met, we hung out
so much. He lived at my house, and we
filmed each other, and we had fun skating. He
was a wild thing, though. He was so young,
probably sixteen or younger. He never even
told us his true age. He said he lied so much
about his age he forgot how old he was. For
the longest time he and I skated together
every day, living in Pacific Beach, and it was
really fun. We grew apart a little when he
moved to Newport Beach and have just kind
of gone our separate ways.
You never had a falling out?
A couple came into play, I guess. For some
reason we were at odds. He was hurt, and
couldn't film, so he was really frustrated. The
last couple of months of filming for Welcome
To Hell he had a hurt ankle, and lots of tricks
were going down that last few months. He
felt that some of the tricks were ones he was
good at and he was kind of getting the raw
end of the deal because people were out
doing tricks he could've been doing easily.
But he couldn't because he was hurt. It was-
n't anyone's fault; it was just a weird series of
events. This video that was really hyped up
was coming out, and he was feeling a lot of
pressure because he was supposed to be the
star of the video. And he probably would've
moments?
it's you or them
who's changed.
What's up with
Jim Greco?
Jim goes through
some crazy phases,
but he always rips. I just wish skating were
consistently his main focus. But. I under-
stand that people go through things in life
that feel more important to them. It goes in
and he's an amazing skateboarder. He can
do anything he wants.
Are you proud of The Mule?
Probably when he got titled "The Muska."
About four summers ago, we were on tour,
and we were in some pizza place in
Tennessee and he got drunk and told, and out for him. He'll get really focused,
Ballard he wanted to slap him. So Ballard
said, "All right, slap me, Chad." Chad
slapped him, and Ballard kind of laughed,
and Chad said, "What's so funny, man? Slap
me back." Ballard said, "No, I don't want to
slap you." I don't know if anybody knows
who Mike Ballard is, but he's this huge guy
and he's got a huge hand, and you wouldn't
want to be slapped by him. But Chad kept
pushing the issue, and eventually Ballard
slapped him. Chad freaked out, saying,
"Man, that was messed up, I can't believe
you slapped me." Everyone was like,
"Dude, you told him to." So Chad said, "I'm
going home. I'm leaving this tour. I'm out of
here." He went and got in the van, and sat
in the van for a while, and he was so mad,
fuming, saying he was getting the next
plane out of Memphis. So everybody came
outside to leave, and he told Ballard, "If
you ever touch me again, I'll rip your ear
off. I'll bust a bottle over your head. You
can't fade The Muska." From that day on,
he was called The Muska. The next day we
woke up and everything was cool. We went
on with the tour.
How many Zero tattoos have you seen?
Of course. I'm really stoked on Erik.
He came through like crazy in the last
video. He's the kind of guy who works
well under pressure; he says he doesn't
like being under pressure, but he filmed
at least half of his video part during the
last month, and we'd been filming for it
for a year. He just killed it when the last
month came along; he was out there
every day breaking himself doing what-
ever it took to get it done. It was a
respectable thing. I was in disbelief. I'm
excited for him; he's always been some-
what of an underdog, and he always felt
that things weren't going to work out. I
tried to always encourage him that if he
worked hard they would, and he's pro
now, so they have.
Would Zero ever have a vert skater?
I'd like to, but we have four pros and three
amateurs. I have my hands full right now.
Do you see Zero as being a skateboard
company in ten years?
That's a hard question. It's doing really well
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