Braydon Szafranski’s Baker 3 section is a work of art that left a strong impression on every skater who watched it at the time.

So it’s no surprise that he now paints and illustrates as well as continuing to shred on his board. So we decided to hit him up to find out the behind-the-scenes stories of every single trick and clip in his part to get a finer understanding of how they all went down and what the most notable ones mean to him in reflection.

Even though we’re still hyped on the gnarly and tech moves he nailed in his part, we were shocked to discover how he got them in the end, to find out the tricks that got away and others where even he does not even remember rolling away.

We chatted about Braydon’s early days in Vegas, what he thinks of the level of skating leading up to filming for Baker 3, after it’s release, right now and the future, why he lives for the battle, tricks that came easy and others that just felt right.

Alongside all that we also had a conversation about his art and discovered that similar to his part there is a lot more going on beneath the surface, so we had to find out what motivates him to create his work.

Read Braydon’s interview to find out the trick-by-trick breakdown of every move in his part, the epic bangers and hijinx throughout, why he still believes Weed Saves Lives, the lost lines, the music and more. Watch his part in full and read about it below to find it all out for yourself.

 

 

 

 

I haven’t seen your video parts before you skated for Baker. What kind of stuff were you filming as a kid growing up in Vegas?

Yeah, I mean nobody has really seen them. This was the 90s and early 2000s, but way before, really early 2000s, from like 94 through 2001. We came out with probably five videos in Vegas, they were just like friend videos.

I’m trying to think of some of the names…There was Legacy, then there was Legacy of Brutality, then there was Best of the Best and…fuck, I can’t remember the other couple.

Then there were our sponsor-me tapes.

I recently talked to this old skater from Vegas, who got in contact with me that I haven’t talked to in 15 or 20 years. He hit me up and was like, hey, I was moving, my mom passed away and I’m moving out of her house and I found one of your old sponsor-me tapes! It was one of mine that Kenny Anderson helped me edit.

I guess I was 15 or something then because in the intro, I must have been heavily into CKY at the time – I jump off the second story of a building, roll and then look at the camera and then I’m like “I’m Braydon Szafranski, I’m 15 years old!”.

But he gave me the hard copy of it and I just put it on to a CD the other day. So I’m like, okay, I really want to put this on to a computer so I can post it, as this is pretty funny. It came out in like 96!

 

 

Oh man, that’s sick, that’s like a time capsule of you and the tricks you were doing at the time, that’s dope

It’s actually really funny. I really want to post it one of these days. You can just see my heavy Zero-Jamie Thomas-Chad Muska fucking like obsession where everything’s handrails and trying to jump down whatever I can.

 

 

What size stuff were you skating in the 90s?

This is like me grinding like 11 stairs and Front Boarding 11s and things like that, I was you know, 15. That was the big stuff back then.

 

 

11 stairs is still big now. It’s like, okay, you might see people hit 11 stairs at the start of a line sometimes now. But 11 stairs is still hard for everybody. Do you know what I mean? It can still break you off, anyone can get fucked up skating 11 stairs.

Oh man, times have changed so much. Yesterday was Arto Saari’s birthday and so people have been posting things about Arto. Somebody posted his Sorry part where he won Thrasher Skater of the Year.

I was watching that thinking, wow…I was at that premiere and we were all with our jaws to the ground going, now what the flying fuck? This is impossible! Like Switch Front Board down Hollywood 16. Oh my God, nobody could ever do something like that. Now you just see these kids and you’re like, oh, people are fucking pretty much Cab Flip Back Lipping Hollywood 16!?

 

 

Skateboarding nowadays is next level. I was just reading something Alex Olson said in his interview with us where he thinks Instagram and YouTube and stuff like that are pushing the level and showing younger skaters what’s possible. I think that’s what it is. Seeing is believing and some kids start to think maybe I could do that too. You know?

That’s exactly what it was and you can’t explain that to a person, especially a kid, nowadays, because they’ve only known the internet.

When I would see a Geoff Rowley photo or any of them, Jamie Thomas, Muska or Reynolds, it didn’t matter who it was, when you would see a photo, not a sequence, but a still photo and it was the cover, like Geoff Rowley Frontboarding Hollywood 16, and you sat there and knew that the video was coming out within the next year or two.You just watched, stared, wondered and kept wondering what that was, what it looked like and how it went down. Then, by the time it came out, you saw it and you were like now I think maybe I could…

It wasn’t like now where you just watch Instagram and there are so many sites to show you the most fucked up thing you’ve ever seen and you go outside, you go oh, maybe I can!

Like, you know, I see these kids doing Noseblunt Nollie Flip Out and things like that, and the more I watch, the more I’m like wait a minute, how have I never thought of that? I probably could have learned that as a kid. But it wasn’t thought of then.

 

 

In that era when big videos dropped every three or four years you just put a barrier between yourself and the pro skaters doing the tricks. It’s like if Eric Koston is doing a Tre Flip Nosebluntslide down the handrail at the end of Yeah Right, I’m never going to do that.

I actually happened to be there that night that Eric Koston did that 360 Flip Noseblunt.

 

 

Oh shit. How did that go down that night?

That was a random phone call at 11 o’clock at night, the night before the Yeah Right premiere and it was from Mike Carroll. He was like hey, want to go for a ride? I was like yeah, sure!

Eric Koston picked me up. So it was me, Rick Howard, Carroll, Ty Evans, Koston and another filmer. We just got in the car, drove up, got there at 2.30 in the morning and I’ve never even seen the trick being done and he ended up pulling it that night and the next night was the premiere.

So Ty was up all night finishing the edit and fucking now I see that there’s one kid that’s in contests and he 360 flipped Noseblunt Nollie Heelflipped out on handrails in fucking qualifiers and shit. I’m like what the fuck is going on?

These aren’t tricks that are supposed to be consistent. These are tricks that you’ve just done once or twice in your life and then you go oh my god, I am the fucking man!

 

 

Definitely. You got a call from Mike Carroll. You took a drive somewhere to see a trick you’ve never seen and fast forward to the future and it’s just a trick in this kid’s warm-up run.

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying like this doesn’t make sense, you know?

 

 

For sure but every era has its own merits and you can’t really compare them. Like what Penny, Reynolds and Muska were doing in their era compared to what Ishod, Jamie Foy or Shane O’Neill are doing now, it’s all kind of on the same wave, where they’re all pushing the limits. It’s just that they all see it differently but it doesn’t mean if you brought those guys back in time or you brought those other guys during the 90s into the future, they would see things differently. It’s all perspective.

It’s just where the internet and all that is because if you took Jamie Foy and Ishod and all these people and you put them in the 90s, and they were my age they wouldn’t know any different either. You know what I mean? It doesn’t matter who you are, that’s just what you would have known and where skateboarding was at the time.

I remember when I was a little kid. I started skating in 1994, and I remember watching old videos from the late 80s, like 1988, like Animal Chin and all that. When they have their street parts and it’s like us going, my God, we would have been the best skateboarders in the world if we could have started skating back then.

But now these kids are probably watching our video parts from This is Skateboarding or Baker 3 and all that, and going this is what they used as a video part!? We could have done that. That’s like what I warm up on!? And you’re like, yeah, that’s true, but to us that was fucking breaking the boundaries.

 

 

Yeah, definitely. I think there’s another thing as well. Video parts are such like a fixed lens, such a concentrated view of what’s going on because the tricks you were doing in Baker 3 are still some of the best versions of those tricks to this day. What’s cool about the things that you guys did in Baker 3, I think, is that there are a lot of tricks that are still talked about. It’s like the benchmarks, you know. Like the Keenan Milton Switch Flip over a table kind of level of tricks that have become the standard for how you should do this or that.

You know, I’m more inspired now by old videos. If I watch an old 411 or Uno or any of those older videos. They make me want to go skating more than watching skaters now. Like when I watch those things I still go, this is skateboarding to me, this is what I love and why I love it. You know, watching Instagram and all that my reaction is more or less wow, that’s pretty cool…

 

 

Watching those older videos, it’s not even like nostalgia, because everything is viewable at the same time these days, you can watch a clip from 20 years ago and you can watch something from yesterday, and it’s less about nostalgia and it’s more about how that trick makes you feel, reminds you of something, like an aspect of skating or about somebody’s style. It’s not like you’re wistfully like looking back, going like oh, times were better then. Just like oh, I actually prefer this!

I feel you on that. The past is the past and I love what happened and how it is, but it’s always about moving forward, watching the growth of life and in life for me, which my life is skateboarding, watching the growth of where this beautiful thing that the new generation can take to any level.

I mean, if anything, Tony Hawk would probably know more than anybody because he changed skateboarding as a whole for the world with the 900.

Now you see nine-year olds who are doing the 900 back to back to back, where they’ll land three in a row and you’re like, oh ok, that was the trick that changed the whole world – now a nine-year-old can do it. My nephew is fucking 10 and I swear he literally acts like a 10-year-old, which I would have been at 10, you know?

So to see these little kids, that can change skateboarding, and they shouldn’t even have legs that can walk yet pretty much…

 

 

Yeah, it does ask a lot of questions. Like what’s he going to be doing at 20 or 25? Anyway…let’s talk about Baker 3. I never thought about it until recently but the video is really cryptic. There is so little explanation for 90 percent of what is on the screen and it’s part of the mystery of the video.

Videos come out every couple of hours now it seems and it’s hard to keep a memorable thread of what’s going on. But I can remember so many things from Baker 3, especially from your part. Your section starts with you, with bloodied hands writhing on the floor, but do you remember, what happened to cause that?

When I’m holding my ass?

 

 

Yeah, yeah

Yeah, that’s a very common bail from that trick we have in Vegas. There were no skateparks back when we were kids, so you learned a trick and after you learn how to Kickflip or three flip or anything like that, you went to this high school called Burkholder and they had two four-stairs, then an eight-stair, then a 10 stair in a row.

Then, after you learned that you skated Chaparral high and Chaparral had an 11 and a 12 – which if you see Chap in a video, you’ll be like, oh, I’ve seen that in tons and tons of videos. But that was that set right there and I Caballerialled it and whenever I do that trick, if I don’t turn all the way, I always land with that force, when instead of 360 you’re like 270 where you land and it just smashes you right to your tailbone.

That’s what that was, me holding my tailbone because I just got drilled into the ground for like the 15th time in a row.

I think I ended up landing it that night, but I landed it, Powerslid a 180, and then ran into the wall, so we didn’t use it in that video. We used it in some Vegas video or something like that.

 

 

Oh shit, so it’s the aftermath of a clip we never see in your part. I thought that was a slam from you trying Full Cab Flip.

Yeah, I landed it a few tries later and it’s like your body’s already rotating, so I landed it Powerslid a 180 and ran into a wall, but I didn’t like that. It wasn’t the perfect rollaway, so we just used the clip of me just destroyed.

 

 

That’s cool, it’s always been a mystery to me what happened there. So, yeah, in the next shot you are lighting up quite a big spliff after that.

Oh, that was my 21st birthday. I just started getting paid from Emerica and I think that brand November or something. So I went from zero money, zero money on anything I ever did to hey, here’s a couple of $500 cheques. So I was like dude, it’s my 21st birthday and we rolled up a half-ounce into one joint.

 

 

Yeah, that’s the most productive thing to do with weed

Well, yeah, when you’re that young and you’re just stupid, somebody gives you fucking 500 bucks, you’re not thinking like, oh, I need to save this. You know, back in that era and not even era, when you’re at that age and everything you have, your crew, your homies that have been there with you for your whole life, and it’s like your entourage that no matter where you go, they go, no matter where they go, you go. So, of course, if any of us had money, it wasn’t like, oh, I’m gonna buy something for myself. It was like, no, I’m buying something for the crew.

 

 

Yeah. That’s sick. And then I guess, like after that there’s that legendary clip where you turn around to the camera, and shout “weed saves lives” which I think has become one of the most recognisable and quoted statements in skateboarding since. But what inspired you to say that?

That was young cocky me who would say and do anything. We had just landed in Florida where we started that Boost Mobile Baker tour, where we had the tour bus right. I think it was our first Baker tour of our lives or something like that.

I can’t even remember where we were in Florida, and it was, like all of us at the hotel bar. I think we were too young to drink, or we were drinking on the bus, who knows.

We were just drinking and we were walking from the bus to the hotel and we were just on a hot one and somebody, maybe it was Kevin or somebody like that who didn’t smoke weed or something, was like talking shit about weed. I can’t remember who it was and then I just kind of turned around and said like, “fool you have no clue, weed saves lives!”.

Over the years, I’ve watched people who’ve had cancer and everything else use it to their benefit and I’m like, yeah, this plant can fucking do a lot more than just get people high!

 

 

For sure. I think that’s why it just resonated so hard with so many people. I think if this video had a slogan, it’s that. So then there’s a lot of rapid shotgun-style editing where you nail a load of sick tricks. At the start you do a Kickflip Nosegrind Pop Out, where’s that spot and how’d it go down?

Pretty much if you watch a lot of my skating, it’s very influenced by Kenny Anderson and especially old Kenny who was always like the balance pop-out king. So anything that he would do, I would also do immediately. Kickflip Nose Manual, Pop Out Backside Nosegrind, all that was just part of my daily routine every day.
 

 

Kickflip Nosegrind Pop Out

 

 

I don’t remember where that was – just somewhere in California, just from a random night, like oh, here’s a cool ledge. That was the era where you didn’t plan tricks, you just went to spots and things went down. You were skating 10 hours a day, every day. So you were always ready and whoever was going somewhere you’re not just going to sit there, like if we’re at a spot, we’re skating.

 

 

I liked it. What about your Nollie Backside Flip down that set of 10?

Yeah, that was the bummer one. That was the one that I did in a line. I’ve never been good at lines, because I’m not very good at doing flatground in the middle.

I can skate flat all day, but as soon as you put a camera in front of me I can land the hardest trick first try, then fuck up on a goddamn fucking Kickflip on flatground and then maybe can do the fucking last trick. So I never really did lines. That Nollie Backside Flip. That was one of those days. Me and Beagle went out and I did like a Kickflip Tailslide on a ledge, then a Half Cab Flip and then Nollie Backside Flip.

Then I think it was either the first or second try and I landed it perfectly and Beagle did that thing where he was changing the exposure and it accidentally went to black for a second because there were so many shadows at the spot.

So we tried it again, went back two times, for hours each time and I never rode away. Then I ended up doing the Nollie Backside Flip another night just warming up for the fucking line again like, got there and did it on my first try and then fucking never got the line again. So that line was never used, it was just that!

 

 

Nollie Backside Flip

 

 

Fuck. The Nollie Backside Flip by itself was amazing, but knowing that there was a whole line like that you were trying before it totally must change it for you, but fuck man it’s still so sick. Kickflip Frontside Tailslide, or Kickflip Backside Tailslide?

Kickflip Frontside Tailslide, then a Half Cab Flip on flatground and then, the Nollie Backside Flip. Of course, it was one of those things that was first try and you can try it for hours and still can’t fucking do it.

 

 

Fuck’s sake, that’s so annoying. But still, like I mean that’s still got a legend behind it. Do you know what I mean? Like that was a single clip but there was a lot more going on. So then there’s the Kickflip 5-0 that you do down that brick hubba and Kickflip Nosegrind?

That was the spot where someone took off the rail. I went and skated it with Beagle, I got those two tricks, we left.

I think it was the next night. Reynolds and Lenoce and everybody went there and fucking they all got arrested and went to jail. I don’t know if Reynolds was there, I don’t remember exactly who was there but I know Jeff and Beagle and a bunch of other people went because they went through the trunk and found like hacksaws and all that shit. So they got charged with fucking taking the rail off.

 

 

Kickflip 5-0 and Kickflip Nosegrind

 

 

Oh, shit, so you managed to get in while it was good, you weren’t there with them?

Yeah, I got in the night before, or something like that.

 

 

I’ve seen Reynolds skate this spot…

He does the Switch Nosegrind 180 in his part. I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t that night with Andrew, it was like another group, but it was with Beagle and Lenoce and all that and they ended up going to jail, getting a fine and all had to do community service and pay for the spot.

 

 

What…they had to pay to get the rail back on?

Yeah or something like that for it being fucked.

 

 

Most people would see that footage and just think, oh, that hubba looks perfect.

No, it was perfect. That was why I felt bad for everybody.

 

 

That’s nuts. Then there’s your Switch Backside Flip down that double set. I’ve seen this set before but I’m not sure where…

Yeah, I mean if you’ve grown up on old videos, that was in everything.

 

 

Switch Backside Flip

 

 

Yeah I recognise it from Menikmati.

It was in everything, like it was out in the valley. So it was like Mikey Taylor, Paul Rodriguez, all those dudes would skate it all the fucking time. Brandon Turner, Sammy Baptista, Jesse Silvey, it was just like in all those old-school skate videos.

 

 

How about your Back Salad Frontside 180 Out down that rail?

That was my favourite trick of the whole part, up the bank!

 

 

Oh no, I meant the one you did down the rail?

Oh, okay, I just remember, after the video was done, my favourite trick of my whole part was at those LA High banks or whatever it was, where it’s a little bank, and I did the 5-0 to Fakie around the corner.

 

 

 

 

That was fucking steez man!

Dude, that shit took me so long. That was like my go-to trick and it fucking was so hard for some reason. Then, like I remember, I did that and was just so fucking happy and I remember watching that in my part going you know, I think that’s my favourite trick in my part!

 

 

Yeah, it’s just great use of the spot. So then there’s the Back Salad 180, a Backside Flip and that bolted Fakie Flip. How’d those go down?

Down the 11? That just went down as that was the best handrail I’ve ever seen and that trick has always been my absolute warm-up go-to. I could do it down anything, whenever I wanted. It was just like that trick, it just worked.

I think I was warming up for a Backside Noseblunt and I did it, landed on it like 50 times on that rail. It was an 11 rail and I never fucking rode away, just kept stomping it, riding five feet and slipping out so that was just one of those warm-ups, and then, you know, I never really thought of it, but a lot of people were like, oh, that’s definitely going to be in the video.

 

 

That’s a tough trick to have on lock man.

That was my ‘contest trick’, like I can do it down any rail whenever I wanted man.

 

 

Backside Flip

 

 

That’s a sick trick to be able to do on command. What about the Fakie Flip?

I don’t know how that one came up. I think we just pulled up at that spot and I started doing Fakie Ollie then that happened a few tries later.

 

 

Fakie Flip

 

 

Half Cab Flip and Backside Flip. Was there anything that stood out for you about those last two?

The Backside Flip was in Malibu. That spot was really fun and then the Frontside Half Cab Flip, that was just another one of those go-to tricks!

 

 

Frontside Half Cab Flip

 

 

You’ve got Half Cab Flips down really good but then you nailed those mirrored manual tricks, both still tough to this day. What inspired those?

That’s just more Kenny Anderson-Daewon-Song just trying to be out there.

I also liked to bring it back from the Sorry video with Arto’s part. I liked when people did something regular and then they did that same trick switch right behind it.

I always thought that was really cool looking yeah, the way his part started with those mirrored lines was crazy. You could do everything both ways: Kickflip Front Board, Switch Flip Front Board, regular Crook, Switch Crook.

 

 

Mirror Manuals

 

 

That was just crazy. I remember at the time. I can see how that’s kind of inspired by that.

Yeah, exactly. I always thought that was just the coolest thing.

 

 

Yeah, definitely. And then you’ve got the Frontside 360 down that double set. The rollaway is on a curve, so you have to land and carve. But what was the toughest part of doing that?

Nothing!

 

 

Frontside 360 Ollie

 

 

Haha, alright, but c’mon the 360 that you did is fucking sick. It’s like a lot of times you’ll see people do a Frontside 360, and it’ll land on the ground, but like you’ve already rotated before the wheels touch the floor and you have to hit this one at an angle.

That was the era and it still is where Backside 360s were really popular right and everybody was doing them. I liked Backside 360s and I was able to do them, but I just always grew up thinking Jeremy Wray was the coolest guy in the world with his Frontside 360s and the way he would do them in photos and the way he would just tuck them down.

I just always obsessed over front threes. So to me, it was like, oh man, I want to do a front three more than I want to do anything and I used to just do them everywhere. That double set was in a park where you can kind of just skate it. You’d get kicked out if the cops drove by, but you can just kind of go there any hour and at least get an hour or two in.

So I remember I think that night I did, like the front three, the Varial Heel, Switch Backside 180, and like I used to just go there and just Frontside Flip, Kickflip it and do whatever all the time, Switch Flip it.

 

 

Sick, that looks like a nice set. Looks really smooth. The rollaway looks a bit fucked up but you handle it really easily on the front three down it.

It’s so smooth to get to and you kind of have to have enough speed and if you fuck up, you go right into a fence and a bush.

 

 

Then just before that Back Salad Frontside 180 you do a Back Tail Flip out. The flip out you do, it’s so deft man, it’s like you barely get into the Tailslide. You get on before the lip, do a Back Tail, then flip out straight away to Fakie. It’s stylish.

That was on that Baker tour again. I think we were driving in the tour bus from LA to either San Francisco or somewhere else and we stopped at a gas station because people, you know the tour bus rule – nobody’s allowed to shit on the bus and I think somebody had to go to the bathroom.

 

 

Back Tail Flip Out

 

 

So we got out of the car and we were just kind of fucking skating in the parking lot and I went around the corner and right there was that little three-stair ledge that I was like, oh, this thing looks fun. And then I ended up getting a clip within 20 minutes and we got back on the bus.

 

 

Nice man. Yeah, it looks really easy for you to get that flip out. A lot of people would have to be on the slide for a lot longer than that to ever be able to get a flip out.

I’ve done hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Kickflips in my career. It’s my favourite trick. So if I always have this philosophy, if I can do a trick, I can either Kickflip into it or I can Kickflip out of it. It’s one of the two. I mean in or out, it doesn’t matter, because I had Kickflips where, if I can do the trick, I can do a Kickflip in and I can do a Kickflip out of it.

 

 

But did you get that one quite easily, or was it a battle?

No, no, Back Tail Backside Flips Out and Tailslide Kickflips generally come pretty easy. Always have. It’s one of those things that if I can get in the Back Tail I can flip out, and if I’m in the Front Tail the same.

 

 

Okay then you do Flip Back Smith down that perfect hubba. I remember hearing this hubba was in somebody’s backyard?

Yeah, that was in Victorville and Donny Damron, the owner of Pharmacy, had a really nice house and I think Hubba Hideout just got fucked up or destroyed and so he built a replica of Hubba Hideout at his house.

So that was kind of our little go-to film at that spot. But we would always make a joke that it looks like it’s on the streets so everybody just filmed there.

But yeah, I mean there wouldn’t have been a difference between it being in the streets and if it was not – besides the fact that you don’t get kicked out.

 

 

Kickflip Backside Smith Grind

 

 

But this was at a time when the idea of making a replica of hubba in your back garden was just insane. Like they had to put that in your part. It’s legendary man.

Oh thank you.

 

 

Then you do the Front Tail 270 Out. That’s a trick you just never really see, but you made it look dope.

Tailslide 270s are another trick that if I’m getting a Tailside, I can always figure a way to come out.

 

 

Frontside Tailslide 270 Out

 

 

What do you think is the key to getting the pop out on Tailslides and tricks like that?

I don’t know, it’s just Tailslide. You know, everybody has their niche of what they’re good at.

If you’ve looked at my skateboards since I was a kid, the nose of my board is always brand-the-fuck new. It doesn’t matter if I ride the board for two and a half months, the graphic is always there. You never fucking see a scratch or two in that and that’s it but my tails are destroyed because I just have always done a lot of Tailslides.

 

 

Right, okay, so those just come natural to you

Tailslides and Bluntslides were always just like my fun ledge tricks that I will always have and they’re just that trick for me. So if I’m in a Tailslide and once again – 360s were a huge thing for me – so that’s already a quarter of the 360 already done, with your shoulders going with that momentum. So it would just wind you right out yeah.

 

 

So the key is just having the trick so down that when you’re in it, it’s almost like you’re not in it, you just kind of do it.

Yeah, I mean, my whole thing was just get me in the Tailslide. Once I’m in the slide and I know that my feet are on it, when you’ve done something billions of times, it feels like you know, you’re already confidently like I’m gonna get the Tailslide. You’re not even thinking about the intro. So the outro is just the easier part.

 

 

Then there are these two tricks you get on that out rail. You do a gap Front Board to the shorter piece and then 50-50, through the kink?

Oh yeah, just more little Vegas spots.

 

 

Gap Front Board and 50-50

 

 

Was there anything difficult or notable for you to get those?

In that era there weren’t really many people skating tons of kink rails. They’re not like nowadays. Daniel Haney, he just always had footage doing kink rails but just getting fucking so broke. It was insane, like the worst slams, and so I kind of always steered away, cause I’ve only skated a couple of kink rails in my life and I always seem to take the worst slam ever. So I think that was more or less like oh my God, I just did a kink rail, wow.

 

 

That’s tight. Then you skate another kink rail. You Crook it, pop out just before the kink and then do another on it 180 out.

I mean all that footage came from pretty much one week that I came out here to Vegas and I was like, oh, I want to get some Vegas tricks, I know of a couple spots and it was like Kickflip and three flip over that four-flat-four.

Then there was that six-flat-six out here that I Kickflipped and that was in the same night, right one after another. That was right down the street from that kink rail and it was at a golf course.

So we went there in the middle of the night and that’s where the Crook was. Once I Crooked it I was like, oh, I wonder if I can Crook 180 and then like that just happened really easy. And then I think the next night or two nights later was when I went, did that other kink rail and I was like cool, I’ve got some footage out in Vegas.

 

 

Sick, it kind of just came together really easily then.

Yeah, it was just one of those weeks.

 

 

Kickflip

 

 

Right, and after those tricks it’s the double set Kickflip and Tre Flip. Is that in Vegas?

The four-flat-four. Yeah, that was right before the Kickflip. That’s why I’m wearing shorts in both of them. I’ve never worn shorts in my life. I was on a Marc Johnson kick that week where I wanted to be like MJ. So I was like, oh shit, I can fucking do a Kickflip and wear shorts.

 

 

Tre Flip

 

 

That’s cool, yeah, like how he was in the Maple days

Check this out, how funny is this, as we’re talking, I just checked the mail and I got a cheque from the state of California for 30 cents!

 

 

As if, why?

What the fuck, is this even for? They wrote out a whole cheque for 30 cents and it’s from the state of California.

 

 

That’s so weird.

This is great.

 

 

I mean fuck it, man. It’s not often you get money in the post. You know what I mean!

These are the ones I like to frame because they’re just so funny to me.

I have a framed cheque from Baker. I think it was like the only cheque I ever got from Baker and it was after I stopped riding for them. They sent me a cheque and it was for $2!

My mom started laughing so hard that she was like I’m framing this. This is way too good.

 

 

What the hell? What are you going to do with a two-dollar cheque?

Well, it was too funny.

 

 

Yeah, put it on the wall. I think the Full Cab Flip you did is a benchmark trick. Whenever I see a Full Cab Flip down a big set of stairs, I always think of this one but also some of the ones Bastien did back in the day.

Bastien was I think the only person I ever seen do it, and that’s why I kind of wanted to do it and learn it and I just love Caballerials.

And then once again, once it was a Cab, all I had to do was add a Kickflip and for me I’m like, well, this seems pretty doable because Kickflips are my fucking trick.

 

 

It’s epic man. You go so high on it that you could have gone over the photographer on the stairs.

I don’t even know what to tell you on that one. That’s one of the only tricks I know in my life that I didn’t ride away in my head.

 

 

Full Cab Flip

 

 

I mean I landed that one and I walked up the stairs with my head down and started the ride back and everybody was like – I think it was Miner or Beagle…I don’t remember who’s filming it and everybody’s like dude, what are you doing? I’m like let’s get it. And they were like, what do you mean, you just got it!?

Because I tried it so many times and I thought on the one that I landed that my foot slipped off – as I had previously landed it so many times where I would just land and my foot would come off the board and I would just fucking put my foot on the ground and then put my foot back on the board and ride away, so when I did that one and actually rolled away, I thought that same thing happened.

So to this day, I never got the feeling of a rollaway. When you get that like, oh my God, I did it feeling, that feeling never ever happened, because I was for sure that I didn’t do it until everybody showed me the footage and by that point I was just like so is it done? And they’re like yeah. And I’m like oh well, okay, and I just went home.

You know what I mean? There was no happy celebration in my head!

 

 

Just full-on blackout mode

Yeah, pretty much it was just repetition, over and over and over until oh my god, you guys are telling me I’m done.

 

 

That’s sick. I wish every trick went down like that.

Not me, I fucking live for that feeling. That feeling is my bread and butter. It’s what keeps me trying anything and what taught me how to be so good in every other aspect in my life. It was always fail, fail, fail, succeed, no matter how hard it is and that feeling that I had was still of failure.

So I don’t like that one that I did because to me I never got the feeling of oh my god, I tried it a hundred times! Just like in business or anything in life, when I failed every time but learned from my mistake and then I did it.

 

 

It’s up there with the best Cab Flips I’ve seen. So what you didn’t get from it everyone who watched it did, you know?

Sorry you gotta think of it like this okay. When Erik Ellington rode away from that Bigspin down Carlsbad, you could see the feeling that he had and I never got that feeling and that’s the feeling we live for.

When he yells we’re going to get fucked up tonight, you could see it in him that he knew and felt every fucking piece of that and that car ride home and that night and that week was just, oh, my fucking god! You know what I mean?

 

 

Yeah, man, like the dance that he does, like he just kind of comes alive, like after he rolls away and he’s really stoked that happened and it comes through in the footage. But in the same way, when you’re rolling off, the way it’s shot, the music and how it’s edited, how dramatic it is, it worked for your trick.

I could not even see the Cab Flip though, the way my hands are, the way I’m rolling off, I’m not excited. I’m still in my head thinking I fell. So there was no fucking like. Oh my god, this was the one!

 

 

On that note, how did you choose the song for your part?

It’s been over 20 years. I really can’t totally recall on how the song came upon.

I know I wanted to skate to Black Sabbath and I asked a few times and I remember right before the deadline Andrew just said you got the rights so we can go for it and that was when, I started drilling down on what song exactly I wanted to skate to. I didn’t think that would be a better choice than that one and I still can’t imagine any other song besides Black Sabbath’s song, ‘Under the Sun/Every Day Comes and Goes’.

 

 

Sick, that settles that then. So then you do a Backside Nosegrind. Well some people would say, Backside Overcrook…that one was cool

It’s just Nosegrind to me

 

 

Backside Nosegrind

 

 

Yeah, it’s weird, people say that

There’s Backside Overcrook and that’s Backside, and then there’s Nosegrind and it doesn’t matter what it is, that’s a Nosegrind. I’ve heard even people say it’s an Ollie over Crooked Grind. I’m like what the fuck are you talking about?

It’s a Nosegrind, and a proper Nosegrind was supposed to look like Jamie Thomas’ back in the day, where you Ollied and tweaked it in there. Not fucking, you got it into the pinch. Like who does a straight Nosegrind down a handrail?

 

 

Yeah, true, not many are doing straight Nosegrind, and if you do, it’s gonna end up in weird places for you if it goes wrong.

Man like well, one, it’s gonna look ugly and then two, it’s where’s it’s gonna look like you fucked up. I can see it if you Kickflip into it, because it’s going to be like you didn’t mean to do that, but it just went into that straight Nosegrind and you rode away. But like not when you’re skating a handrail, is it not an Overcrook or a fucking anything, it’s just a Nosegrind…

 

 

I know it’s just terminology but yeah, Ollie over to Crook is a step too far but this one in particular, I get it. It is going a little bit Overcrooky. It’s like a trick I don’t see you do too often like, but how did that go down? It’s a pretty big set as well. It’s like 11 or 12 stairs?

13 stairs exactly. I mean, the hardest part about that, which you don’t see, I had to Ollie up a two stair, like seven feet before it.

That just happened because that was a spot that was right next to El Toro and I went to El Toro to 5-0 it and we got there at like 11 o’clock at night and it was a parent-teacher conference. So we went up to that rail and I was like, oh, I’ll just skate it to stay warmed up.

We went up to that rail and I think we counted like 24 5-0s in a row down it and then we went back to El Toro at one o’clock in the morning but there were still a bunch of cars and people there and then we were driving to El Toro again the next weekend during the daytime.

We were driving there and we got a phone call. I think it was a Sunday and somebody said, oh, Ben Gilley 5-0’d it fucking yesterday, on Saturday and we were already almost there, so we just stopped at that rail and I ended up just Nosegrinding it.

 

 

Back in the day, it’s like right, I have to do something else, I can’t go there and do what someone’s already done.

I think that the only tricks that ever went down there were Heath Kirchart, Lipslide, and then Brian Herman, 50-50. I was like, dude, I’m going to do the 5-0…You know, that was like my go-to on rails.

It sucks that we got kicked out that night because there were a couple different things that it blew. The first one was that I’m pretty sure that they were talking about me getting the cover of Transworld. I think I had like Jaime Owens or I can’t remember there, so that already took away my option of ever having a cover of Transworld, which sucked.

Two, I’ve never skated a 20 stair handrail in my entire life. Like that was when I felt confident to do that. I said let’s go to El Toro. We went to Hollywood High. That’s when I’d never even skated a rail as big as a 16. I did 50-50 down Hollywood 16. Jon Miner was like yo, before we go to El Toro, why don’t you just try it on something else? So we went to Hollywood High and I 50-50’d it.

First try, the 16, landed on my board, and slipped out. Second try 50-50, landed on my board, slipped out. I was like fuck this! 5-0’d first try landed on my board, slipped out, 5-0 second try, rode away. Then the 5-0 third try landed on my board, slipped out. 5-0’d it fourth try and rode away.

Then I was like let’s go to El Toro, and that’s when we got in the car that evening and went to El Toro and we got kicked out and still to this day, I’ve never skated a handrail as big as that ever since, which sucks, because I’m like that would have been my one time to feel what a 20 stair really felt like. Now you know, I know for a fact I’m not going to be skating any 20 stairs in my life, so…

 

 

You were in a window of being able to jump down seriously big stuff and get on huge rails

It sucks because I wanted to feel that feeling of what it actually felt like to look behind you and go oh my god, there’s a fucking mountain behind me and I somehow rode down!

 

 

Man, that’s crazy to do all those tricks down 16 that day. You’d either have done it or had a good crack at it, as it’s just four stairs more.

I would have done it, no matter what, like when we got there and I looked at it, I was like I got this, it’s easy. Then, fucking, when we got kicked out we went to that 13 stair rail, I 5-0’d it like 24 times in a row. Everybody kept going, are you done? I’m like, no, I just keep going. And then, because we were just wasting time and it was like 24 in a row where if I would have went to El Toro it would have been fucking first or second try, because I would have just said it’s the same thing, you’re just sitting on it for an extra four feet longer.

 

 

Fuck that parent-teacher night got in the way

Yeah, the one time there was a fucking parent-teacher conference.

By the time we left there it was like two in the morning and I was like we’ll just come back this weekend and I don’t know if Ben Gilley heard that I went there or what happened, but I just know that, like you know, he was also there. He was going really big at that time.

 

 

The chances of two people going to El Toro in the same week to do the same trick, like in that era, without knowing, is high, but do you think he knew?

I mean the thing is that you know, skateboarding back then was very small. Everybody knew everybody, and when something like El Toro was a spot you know what I mean, you knew who the big skaters were and you knew how long of a window you had.

 

 

But at the same time it led to that Nosegrind which is a big trick in your part. Then there’s your Front Blunt Flip Out. Is that the same night as the Front Tail 270 in Miami?

I think that’s the same night.

 

 

Front Blunt Flip Out

 

 

Was there anything else that you tried on that hubba that got away on that, or were you just trying those two tricks that night?

I don’t know, did I Tailslide Kickflip that in that part?

 

 

Nah, you did a Tailslide 270 and then the Front Blunt Flip out. I don’t think I’ve seen a Tailslide Flip out on that by yourself.

I did a Tailslide Flip out. I’m trying to think what video part that was in then, because I did a Tailside Flip out. I can’t remember what night it was, but I know I did it there. I think that was a Baker ad.

 

 

Then you nail that Kickflip Backside Shifty down the Santa Monica triple set.

That was the one that I didn’t get the feeling of. You can see it in my face when I’m riding away because I didn’t think that I did it proper.

 

 

Backside Shifty Flip

 

 

Dude. Cmon!!

I think that was like third try or something like that, and I just landed it so easily that I was like you know…I’m one of those skaters that I’m used to working for everything you know?

So when I land things right away or on the first or second try I never felt it, unless it was a handrail, because handrails I expected to land it right away. But if I had to work for something then I got the feeling and everything out of it. But when I’d land things within a try or two, I would always be confused.

 

 

When you land things and it comes easy and you don’t have to battle for it, you’re kind of left thinking is that the best I could have done?

Yeah, and not only that, I mean the way I would do things, because I would watch those certain skaters that were it was strictly business, like Heath Kirchart.

Heath is a strictly business skater and there’s certain tricks you know, I became strictly business where if you knew you were going there this weekend, you would go to the skate park and do hundreds of them a day to build up to you going there that weekend.

So when you work that hard for a trick and then you get there and you do it within a try or two you work that hard for a trick and then you get there and you do it within a try or two you’re confused because you’re like I worked this hard because I thought it was going to be harder.

 

 

Yeah, I know what you mean. I think it’s a bit anticlimactic, because you kind of built it up in your head.

I guess it’s another thing that teaches skaters business and everything and how to be so successful in life afterwards is that you’re used to being so successful in life afterwards. It’s that you’re used to getting so prepared that by the time you make it to what it is, it’s such a piece of cake that you just think that it was either stupid or that this was the easiest thing in the world.

You need to do something harder for yourself but the reality was you just worked so hard at it, which most people don’t work that hard towards things.

 

 

 I guess that’s what keeps you striving and moving forward and doing other stuff like making art. Have you always painted or is it more like something that you’ve been doing recently?

I always just kind of drew a little here and there. But painting is just fun as fuck to me because there is no right and wrong and you can change things so drastically with paint, and that’s what I kind of like.

I drew this painting, it was of this skeleton with his head exploding, and I could stare at things for hours and you think you can always add more. But sometimes, you have to step back and just go okay, I don’t know when to say this is done, but it’s done and let’s move on, because I’ll just keep adding something to it.

But paint I really like because you can’t really fuck it up, and if you do fuck up, you just paint over and start again, and that’s kind of what really got me into actually using paint so much was that anything is possible. When it comes together, even if you don’t see it, when you actually finally do see it, you’re like, oh, wow.

Then there’s the drawings I’ve been working on. I have this series where I’ve been drawing all these skeletons with balloons for heads

 

 

 

 

Yeah the Airheads

 

 

The Airheads just came about because I’m not good at drawing faces and I’ve always loved drawing.

So I’ve just done all these drawings and I always thought a lot of people out there are stupid, so I just figured I liked balloons for their heads, because most people are just “airheads”.

 

 

 

 

I mean there’s not too much going on between the ears of a lot of people out there.

Don’t get me wrong, we all have our moments but, yeah, it was just one of those. It just kind of popped in my head that I like balloons and I liked how much I can do with all these characters. Then it just kept evolving into random, random things. Now, almost every couple of days, I just draw another different skeleton with another head going somewhere. I’ve just finished this one. I’ve been staring at it for the last four hours because I want to draw a martini in his hand.

I’ve been just trying to figure out what his hand position needs to look like to do that, and I’ve been just trying to figure that out.

 

 

 

 

Sick. Faces are really expressive, but a balloon is this symbolic kind of image, something that’s kind of just floating there.

You can make a balloon if you do it right for what you’re drawing. You can make it just as expressive in my head as I can, you know for a face that, just by the way, the string is, the way the balloon’s shaped, the way whatever.

I can change and make people think that this is what your head would be thinking if you were a balloon.

But I don’t know. It’s that and art for me is the only other thing I’ve found that everything shuts off, just like skateboarding, where I can go out there and it doesn’t matter what is going on.

 

 

 

 

Let’s say bills or this, or fucking somebody’s got cancer or whatever the fuck it is. It’s like you can shut it off and when I start to work on a painting or a drawing, hours and hours can go by and I don’t even realise that I’m doing it. You know what I mean and I’m just in my whole fucking world.

Then, when I’m done, I’m like, oh my god, I didn’t realise that I just created something without even thinking about it, without thinking about the rest of the world either.

 

 

I like how you’ve created a whole series based around a weakness you perceive yourself to have, as you think you can’t draw faces but I’ve seen faces you’ve done and they look good.

If I put my mind to it I can. But this, it had that whole airhead thing to it where I would just like listen to other people just be idiots and then I just kind of started drawing them with balloons because I was like, well, it’s just like that, listen to what that person’s talking about, they’re just a fucking airhead.

The more I just started doing that, the more it turned into a balloon thought and I started realising I could draw expressions with the balloons and what’s happening with the balloon by the expression of the drawing of their stupidity.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I like the balloon with the eye patch. It looks like a pirate.

Oh yeah, well, that one, I don’t know why I drew the hook on him and then, after I did I, was like maybe he needs a cane. And then I was like, okay, now he’s a pirate. And then I was like I’ll just draw an eyepatch on this one. I’ve got more that I’ve been working recently.

 

 

When I have a closer look, I see it’s all anatomically detailed. Like the joints, bones and rib cage and all that looks amazing man.

Thank you. Yeah, these are just my fun little fucking projects. I figure that it sucks because I want to sell some of them. So, I can. But at the same time I started to tell myself I can draw anything that a human is doing. So if I can do that, I’m like, well, then I can fucking draw and I gave myself a goal of twelve, or nine of them and now I’m only one away from a nine and I’m like that was only a month.

So if I really crack down on these, I could come up with 50 of them in a year and have an art show, a whole area, just full of different poses.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, definitely. These are all different

The thing is that the more I’ve done them, the more I’ve realised, if I draw 50 of them, I started thinking of so many things that, especially living in Vegas, like I have an idea. If I want to draw one, I can.

I mean it’s endless possibilities with this idea I came up with that like anything a human pose could be in, I can make a drawing for it.

 

 

 

 

How did the hot air balloon one come about?

That’s kind of where everything started, it all was the hot air balloons, where I drew a few of them and I think I sold one or two of them, so that’s why I only have that one left.

But that is where everything started, just thinking oh, a hot air balloon is just a giant balloon. Then, after I started to get the tracing of it, I was like, oh, wait a minute. Okay, this is starting to look cool.

Then I was like, what can I make instead of a basket? I was like, oh, maybe I can draw a fucking skull right here, where it’s all connected and then, when it was done, I actually stood back and went, wow, I think this is one of my favourite paintings I’ve ever done!

 

 

 

 

Yeah, man, it’s sick. Have you ever been up in one of those?

I did it once when I was a kid. I got to travel all over Vegas and it was amazing, but I’ll never do that again. I was like thinking about it and I’m like we were fucking double, triple the height of casinos in something that has no fucking propeller and you just go how do we get down? And they go well, we just kind of let air out slowly and I’m like I think about it now and I’m like that was so fucking sketchy and there wasn’t any landing pads or anything.

There were just cars, the people from the cars, you can see them way, way down there. They were just following taking roads to see where you go and the guy was like we’re aiming for a part, but you never knew if, like you, could just run into a fucking electrical wire.

 

 
 

 

How can people commission you for pieces and are you looking to do more commissions?

I was actually thinking about saying that today, just posting because I have an extra canvas, and just posting a post saying, hey, couple hundred bucks, 250 or something, and I’ll fucking make you something. Just give me an idea, I can draw you one of these skulls on this canvas, just because I want something to do today and I like it when other people have my art but I have this, exact sheet that I’m doing all the airheads on.

But I was trying something new and it just wouldn’t match with all the other backgrounds, so that’s why I just never painted on it. And I was already thinking the same thing. But no, people just commissioned me to do tattoos and then I came up with an idea.

I’ve thrown that out before. Nobody’s given me an idea. They just kind of like what your idea is, and then they buy that. But yeah, I’m 100% down for ideas. Like that opens my mind to new things where I’m like oh that lets me fucking know that I can do this and after I do it, then I’m like I can fucking do this.