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So where are you from, who do you ride for, and how long have you been skateboarding? |
| I’ve been skateboarding for 11 years now…wow that’s a long time. I’m from Fort Collins, Colorado, but originally from the Northeast. I ride for Vision, Tracker Trucks, Negative One Griptape, The Skateboard Market, and Null Wheels. |
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| Lein Fast Plant. |
| How do you like Chicago so far? Even though you’ve only been here a few months, how does it compare to your hometown of Fort Collins, CO, and other places you have lived? |
| I love Chicago. It’s my favorite city in the country. I think Chicago and San Francisco are my favorite cities. Good hardcore scene, good skateboarding scene, and awesome vegan food. I would say Chicago has the best vegan food in the country. There are some good spots in San Francisco and San Diego, but this place is the balls! |
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| Melon. |
| As far as skateboarding, how do you like Chicago? |
| Skateboarding seems to be pretty good, like in California there’s a lot going on there, but in Chicago it’s fun to go out with a bunch of dudes that listen to similar music as me. And everyone’s down to not just go to ledges haha. |
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| Lipslide. |
| Yeah you don’t seem like the type of skateboarder who likes ledges or tech skating. You definitely have a different bag of tricks than most skateboarders. |
| Get weird and jump down stuff. |
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| Fs Judo block. |
| I know you were out in southern California for a minute. Why did living there not work out for you as well as Chicago? |
| California is a little bit too laid back for me. I like to go out and do stuff all the time. I always try to go skating, or go to shows, and do everything I can. I think it’s because I’m weird. Chicago, this is one of the only cities that I’ve been to where everyone is super motivated to do the same stuff that I’m into. Like I can hit up people and be say, ”Hey let’s go skate and grill and go to a show and go to the bars!”, and everyone is always down. |
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| Fs Crail block |
| Yeah I can see that because you’re always the person trying to plan skateboarding adventures. I’ve gotten used to receiving texts from you early as hell in the morning making sure everyone is awake and on point when we are supposed to go on a day trip to some place like Indianapolis or Milwaukee. |
| Man, Indy was a great trip! So was everywhere else like going to Rockford on the weekends or up to Milwaukee. It’s been a blast. |
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| 50-50 Fs 180 |
| Judging by your large vinyl collection, music, specifically hardcore seems to be really influential to you. |
| Hardcore is really good. Well, I have ADD really bad so I think how chaotic the music is keeps up with my ADD. Because I’m thinking of a million things at once, so having music that’s playing a million miles an hour helps. I like the high energy; it keeps me moving. And plus the scene in Chicago is awesome. There are usually a few shows every week. |
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| Hurricane |
| What inspires you in skateboarding? You’re not the kind of guy that’s occupied with all the new trends in skateboarding. You do your own thing. |
| Well at the shop back in Colorado that I grew up skateboarding for, I used to watch videos like Streets of Fire, and watching Matt Hensley skate, and all the older videos. Those are the guys that influenced me. I would watch an H-Street video and see someone do a rail slide with a grab out, and that was the coolest thing ever to me. That stuff blew my mind. But with the new videos, they’re insane and I don’t really understand how people skateboard that way. The older stuff in skateboarding was really what influenced me, and it kind of went hand-in-hand with hardcore music. I got to go on a trip with Danforth, and that dude is like the original punk rock skateboarder to me. Well Danforth and Duane Peters. I remember being 15 and watching Danforth skate to Black Flag in a contest and it was fucking awesome. |
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| Ollie |
| Haha so can we credit Danforth for being the reason that you’re obsessed with Black Flag? I know you’ve got a few Black Flag tattoos. |
| Haha I need more Black Flag tattoos. The reason I like them so much, is because they were the first hardcore band. They stepped it up from punk rock into something more aggressive. |
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| Pop Shuvit |
| Tell me about getting your masters degree. Everyone seems surprised when they find out that you are going to graduate school. |
| So I’ve been a member of Amnesty International since I was 14 years old. I’m a pissed off political punk rock kid. Like growing up in Fort Collins, it’s vanilla valley. And I’m not kidding, it’s depressing. |
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| Fs Boardslide Melon Fakie |
| Haha vanilla valley? |
| It is absolutely! It’s only god and white people, like fuck that. Not into it. I had this teacher that was like, “Hey you care about this stuff? You should look into Amnesty International”. It’s all about human rights, so I started looking into that and got really involved all throughout high school. I think being apart of Amnesty is what made me want to go to college and finish it, so I might have a better understanding of why things are the way they are. Like why does 2.5% of the country own 85% of the wealth? That’s fucked. Things like that make me really angry.
And anther reason I’m going to school is that I want to be educated. So much of my life has been people looking down on me for how I look. You know what I mean. It’s all a part of being a punk rocker. Everyone assumes that you’re a shit head because of your appearance. It’s so much better to be able to tell them they’re wrong about something and also tell them why they’re wrong. |
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| Fs Blunt |
| Is it true that you almost dropped out of high school? |
| I was going to drop out of high school. I hated going to school. But I had one teacher that got me through it. She convinced me that once I was done with high school, things would get better. Then I went to college and it was a lot of the same bullshit. But I want to be an educated person, and I’m hoping that one day I can help to educate others. |
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| Wallie Bs Lipslide |
| Did school ever conflict with skating? |
| Well I went to Metropolitan State College of Denver, which is only a stones throw away from Albuquerque and not too far away from Arizona. So pretty much every weekend I took a trip somewhere. I traveled so much, but I straight up told my teachers, “Hey I’m going to be gone for this extended period of time so give me the assignments”. For the most part all my professors were fine with it. I just hated being there (in college) so much for the first 3 years that I had to get out of there and take skate trips as often as possible. |
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| Airwalk Plant Fakie |
| Let’s wrap this up. Anything else you want to say or people you want to thank? |
| Thanks to my lovely girlfriend, Jen. Also to Fauser, Rob Walker, Jon Sharrat, Alec Ozawa, Aric Sparticus, Vision, being vegan, hardcore, candy, coffee, Ben Gilling-hammed-her, Negative Degree, and motherfucking Chicago!! |
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