wheel company, Circuit, to Chad's, Ghetto
Child. I was skating outside and Chad called me
with the idea and I was psyched. We talked
about it, and then Ghetto Child started. That's
the only actual change I ever made from one
company to the other.
When is the first Ghetto Child tour going
to happen?
When Chad has a spare minute on his hands.
He's a busy man.
What was the last time you saw Chad?
At a hotel in London, same time as the
Wembley contest. E.Two, Apples, and I took
him to a club called Barrumba.
When are you gonna come out with your
pro shoe?
I don't know; I'd like to have a couple of
good interviews, a good section for the Flip
video, and maybe some stuff after that. If it's
good stuff that I'm doing, then I'll be psyched
to do it in maybe a year or so.
What do you plan on doing for your
24th birthday?
Probably get hyped up for about a month.
before it happens, and then when the day
comes realize it's the same day as any other,
3:00 PM, get up, put on a CD, whatever I feel
like listening to, put on my zoot suit, and
then change out of my zoot suit into my skate
disguise, get a little bit to eat, go skate, and
than change into a barstool at the pub, and
then I turn into oblivion. No, I just got music
in my day, skating in my day, and getting
faded in my day.
What's your daily diet like?
My good friend Jacob from Kristiana says eat
like a bird and drink like a whale.
What's your favorite time to skate?
4:20, and any time between two in the
morning and sunrise.
What's the best trick you've seen on a
launch ramp?
This girl Nancy from London, never
skated in her life, just pushed down the
steepest hill, went off the jump ramp, and
did like a 720 flip, fuckin' somehow landed.
on it. She seriously did like eight flips and
three turns upside down flipping, landed on
it, and then slipped off and broke her arm
and both her legs, and then was chillin' in
the hospital.
What damage have you done to yourself in
you really do fuck yourself up badly, you
don't really feel it, and that's when you
know you fucked yourself up bad. Inch
and a half shit, like two inches deep, just
in between your balls and your anus. I
swear on my life, man, I was in the hospi-
tal for about half a week but pretty much
unconscious. It was stupid.
So that was your first and worst injury?
Yeah, definitely.
When did you start getting into vert?
It was the second SS 20 shop, in a place
called Leamington Spa, and they had a vert
ramp there. One night we were kind of
faded, and I dropped in on it. Then we were
just carving around. A little while later, we
saw another vert ramp. We didn't really have
vert ramps, so I saw it once and I dropped in.
The next time I was psyched and borrowed
some pads off someone, and I started fuckin'
around. I'd have fun just dropping in and
pumping as hard as I could, just flying like
three to four feet out and just bailing-you
know, fakie 540°, fakie whatever and just
sliding out. That shit was fun, and it's good
to learn like that too. Once you learn how to
"EAT LIKE A BIRD AND
DRINK LIKE A WHALE"
and then probably get mad depressed, start
crying and shit with a couple of bottles of
sorrow. No, I'm kidding.
What do you think about skaters being so
judgmental of the pros?
I don't know; they're talking shit on you but
they're acting like they're the fucking police
and shit, like taking you to court and sitting
up there with their fuckin' gay wig, slamming
their hammer down three times telling you to
shut up before you say anything.
What were your early musical influences?
Mostly my mom's old shit, Hendrix, Bob
Marley, some classical stuff that she had. I
used to go see my dad doing Morris Dancing
when I was about three or four.
Morris Dancing?
Yeah, they tie all kinds of bells around their
arms and ankles and just dance.
What kind of stuff are you listening to
nowadays?
It depends; you got Sade for those moods,
you got Del for just grooving out and getting
funky, you got Onyx if you're stressed out,
Suicidal, Wu Tang Clan if you feel like doing
crazy little crossword puzzles, some kebab
shop music.
What does your average day consist of?
Wake up hung over about 2:00 PM, go back
to sleep for about an hour, wake up at about
your skateboard carrier?
I didn't hurt myself for years and years and
years; then I did my wrist, then after that I got.
the fuckin' ankles. Uncle ankle just said,
"Damn, man, you're getting old."
Your wrist was your first skating injury?
Naw, I had a fucked up one when I was
skating with Alex Moul at Southsea. We
had this little jump ramp, and we were like,
"We can't go high enough off this," so we
got a slightly bigger ramp going higher and
higher. You know, when you try to do the
melancholies and point the nose down as
much as you can, so it was almost like you
were going to fall off forwards and then
you bring it back. We were doing that off
the little one and then the medium size
one, and then we got the bank to wall with
the big one. It had some sketchy '80s graf-
fiti backdrop with "insane" and "radical"
and "get gnarly" written on it. We got the
ramp to wall and it was like a six-foot-high
jump ramp and we were just flying at it full
speed. I did probably like a 10-foot-high.
melancholy and got it straight vertically
down. When I went to put it back straight,
my back foot slipped off, and I went.
straight down. I laid on the floor for a cou-
ple of minutes, got up, and was like, "Oh
I'm chillin, I'm all right." You know when
bail on vert, you can do whatever you want.
Once you overcome the vertigo aspect of it,
you feel like you're skatin' a mini-ramp, but
you know you can bail whenever you want.
You definitely can't do that on street; that's
one advantage of skatin' vert.
Why did you leave California?
To go to the European skate contests, like.
everyone else who left Cali at the same time.
To go to Switzerland, the Czech Republic,
England, Germany, Montpellier-there
wasn't the Marseille contest back then. I
told all my friends, my girlfriend, every-
body, "Oh yeah, I'll see you in two weeks."
Towards the end of it, I found myself in
London, where I saw my old friends. I was
like, "Fuck it, I'm just gonna chill for a cou-
ple of years with my old friends." It wasn't
why I left; I just decided to stay in England.
I didn't decide to leave the Cali dream.
So you stayed in England for two years; what
did you do?
Hooked up with my friend Joe from
Portugal and this other dude. We just
travelled around Europe to snowboard
resorts, macking on mad girls, just chillin'
out in houses with parties, this, that, and
the other.
How do you like snowboarding?
It's great. The funniest thing is every time
you go down the mountain, you get your
beer and a joint for the way back up, but
it's like 20 minutes to get back to the top of
the hill. The air at the top is so fresh that
by the time you get off the lift you're not
even high anymore. It's so fucked up!
You're like, "Sick, we're gonna be so faded
for this next ride." You get to the top, and
you're stone cold sober, man. I hate the
fuckin' fresh air up here. I'm going back to
the city.
What was the first live concert you saw?
Oxford United versus Queens Park
Rangers we had the dopest seats, right
behind the goalpost. We couldn't see shit.
Oxford won three nil.
So that was English football, or "soccer"?
Yeah, football.
the same way...
What's the longest you've been off your board?
Probably about three or four months. I don't
really skate much when I'm out in the country,
except on my mini-ramp.
How long have you had a mini-ramp?
About three years. Pastey and I built it, and
then a couple of years later Christophe and I
cut it down.
What would you do if you won the lottery?
Get a nice little place where the end of the
swimming pool just dropped off the edge of
cliff. You know, so it still looks like a swim-
ming pool but it goes over like that, with a
nice view. Then my mom can just be chilling
and I can be travelling and just go back
whenever I want. I'd get a meter square
block of hash and a wine cellar, full of wine
LI
Steak or chicken?
Steak... and chicken.
Handrails or ledges?
Ledges.
Vert ramps or mini-ramps?
Vert ramps and mini-ramps.
Cities or country?
City and country. You can't do that, 'cause
they're both dope.
Bob Marley or Peter Tosh?
Gotta keep it underground with Peter Tosh,
only 'cause I don't hear it so often. That's the
only reason, and because Rune has his
fuckin' t-shirt.
Swimming pools or the ocean?
Swimming pools.
Club or a bar?
Pub.
ICDON
STOP à la
destruction
de la forêt Annienne
Gardons l'Amazonie.VIVANTE! GR
Who was the first professional skateboarder
you saw?
Pierre Andre, at the Trocadéro in Paris. I
could barely even tic-tac. I couldn't do it; I felt
embarrassed, 'cause he was busting out mad
freestyle shit, so I just sat down and watched
him. His girlfriend was talking to my mom and
she gave her some stickers; my mom didn't tell
me anything till we got back to the hotel.
Do you remember what sticker it was?
It was him doing a handstand finger flip or
some shit under the Eiffel Tower, with some
French flag behind it.
Was your mom psyched on you skating?
The person who introduced skateboard-
ing to me died of an overdose a couple of
years later and my mom said that I was
going to go the same way. But she was kind
of joking, and afterwards I just kind of went
and champagne.
Who are some people you've looked up to?
As far as magic and just fucked up shit,
you've got Houdini-that's a hero, a fucking
legend. People like Kasparov and those chess
dudes, they get heavy in their mental. Oum
Kalsoum just for having the most incredible
voice in the world.
Is that the lady who sang in the Jean-Michel
Jarre concert?
No, that's who the concert was dedicated to.
Just people who have gotten in their space-
ships and gone into a different universe, found
it, and then they actually tell everyone about
that shit.
Milk or orange juice?
Milk.
Coke or Pepsi?
Coke.
www.greenpeace.fr
Eating out or cooking?
I don't eat out shit, unless I'm stupidly drunk.
And I can never remember it; she usually just
tells me in the morning.
Last life or next life?
I'd like to choose one of the best ones.
from the last 2000 years and just chill there
for a while; but I might be at my best one
already, so I'm already here. No, I'm just
being stupid.
Eric Koston or Guy Mariano?
Guy, man-there is no battle. That's like
saying fuckin' Rodney Mullen or Daewon
Song, and then being so stupid you have
another video saying round two. It doesn't
really need answering.
Sunrise or sunset?
Some eclipse shit a little bit of both.
-Theo Hand