Daniel Castillo has rolled all over the world with a series of the sickest skaters of all-time.
Shredding in the late 80s, getting sponsored by some of the biggest brands at the time in the 90s and still throwing down creative bangers for Chocolate Skateboards today, in every era he’s not only seen the skaters he looked up to at the start and throughout the years, nail sick tricks in their video parts, he’s been at those spots watching them do those tricks and lines firsthand.
So when we hit him up to find out who his favourite skaters are from the 90s to now, we knew his list was going to be dope. We were hyped to find out who they were and also to hear some of the stories he had tell about their next level tricks, parts and edits that have made them standout to him.
Read Daniel’s interview below to discover who made it on to his favourite skaters list for yourself and more.
Daniel, Switch Heelflip: Shot by Rick Kosick
You’ve been skating for a long time, so I know it’s a tough question to look back but do you remember what video you were watching the most in the early 2000s?
Honestly, I used to watch PJ Ladd’s Wonderful Horrible Life a lot. I used to watch that video a lot. PJ’s part definitely. That was another video that I would geek out on.
Even though my tricks are not on that caliber, he was just insane.
When I saw the PJ Ladd video, and I saw him in that, he was knocking out tricks I never even considered possible with ease and the fact that Jereme, Ryan Gallant, and Alexis were doing tricks that in some ways were just as interesting as PJ, was impressive. He was doing some of the toughest tricks but they were holding their own.
Oh man, yeah, then I started skating with PJ a little bit too. I would trip out, like, fuck I’m skating with PJ Ladd! When the Berrics first started, the first generation of the Berrics, dude, watching that guy skate was insane!
Sometimes, dude, I’d be there skating with somebody else, and then PJ would just come in, and you wouldn’t even know he was there. Then you’d be, like, holy shit, PJ Ladd’s here!
He would just come in all quietly and start killing it. Yeah, that dude’s pretty rad. He’s a quiet guy. I mean, I don’t know him that well. I mean, I started to know him a little bit because we would skate with each other, but I was like dude, this guy is so quiet you can’t even tell when he’s here or not. It’s funny.
Say you would not land the trick, and your board would go all the way to him. I remember my board went to where he was at, and he got on my board, did a Kickflip, and then gave it back. I was, like dude, thanks, that was sick!
He just got on to see how it felt and did a Kickflip.
His part is still probably one of the greatest ever
Oh, man. Just the song and everything, too, right?
Seeing him skate in that era, post that part must have been sick!
So insane, man. I also liked in that part where you can see this dude skates till his shoes are all fucked up. You know, just that clip of him showing that éS shoe and it’s all flapping. I was like damn!
I think he helped sell a lot of Accels; a lot of people saw that.
The black Accels? Straight up right! Yeah, I sometimes think of Tom Penny with the brown Accels, you know, the tan ones? Then you think of PJ with the black ones.
Yeah. I never thought of that before, they are definitely the first two people that come to mind when I think of those shoes
Straight up, dude.
So, is there another skater you were watching a lot in the 2000s?
Yeah, Lem Villemin‘s part from Diagonal. I used to watch that so much dude. So much. At one point, he was supposed to get on Chocolate…
He would come to LA, and I would skate with him a lot because he would stay at my friend Yoon’s house.
At that time, me and Yoon were skating together every day. So I would skate with Lem every day and dude, he was just so talented.
He made skateboarding look so easy. Torsten Frank did a good job of showing that in his Diagonal part
Dude, that kid’s so good. I mean, I still keep in touch with him a little bit, and he’s like, when are you coming to Stuttgart!?
I’m like, dude, I don’t know…as soon as I can!
He had such a good style and effortless. A lot of times it would be me, him, and Schmatty skating, you know? I would just be thinking these dudes are so fucking good. It’s crazy how good they are! So Lem, definitely, watching that video part would get me psyched before I went skating.
Okay, what skaters come to mind from the ’90s?
Before that, I would get stoked on Gino Iannucci‘s part from Trilogy. How iconic is that intro…and that Switch Backside Flip he does over the trash can at a demo, and they put it in the part!
Yeah, Gino and Keenan’s Mouse section was dope too. I always felt at the time I saw his footage, Keenan embodied the Chocolate brand in a way.
Oh, yeah, totally. Keenan Milton was the leader of Chocolate. I felt like that. You know that Chocolate Tour video, where I’m on the cover?
That was the premiere where Keenan came out and introduced the video and he was in a tuxedo.
I just thought man, that’s so dope, dude. That’s our leader right there! I remember watching, thinking that’s so rad.
Yeah, I think his Switch Flip over that picnic table is the benchmark Switch Flip for so many people.
Oh man, it was so sick, dude. A lot went down that day. Clyde Singleton Frontside Heeled the table. I think that was the same day at Lockwood, that was a hell of a day right there![Editors Note: It was not the same day]
Yeah, I remember Clyde’s Frontside Heel footage. I didn’t know that was the same day though!
Yeah, dude because Socrates filmed both of those! Man, those days were so rad, dude because literally everybody would be at one place, We’d all be at Lockwood, or we’d all be at USC or Los Feliz School; those were rad days.
Big group sessions at picnic table spots and at those schools like Lockwood, where skaters were doing tricks for the first time, sounds like the place to be
Yeah. We’d be so deep at spots, it would be the Menace dudes, Chocolate and Girl dudes. Even at the Courthouse.
The Courthouse was always like that. If you watch Kareem‘s line in 20 Shot Sequence where he Kickflips up the stairs and Tre Flips down, and then he goes to the other set, you see all of us just chilling on the stairs. Dude, that was just a weekend. Every weekend was like that at the courthouse.
Speaking of that era, do any other skaters from the ’90s come to mind?
I’m gonna go back in time a little bit, but I have to mention Jovontae Turner‘s Planet Earth part.
I used to watch the shit out of that. That dude was very influential man. I liked his skating a lot. He was one of the illest. Tre Flip Master, his Manuals.
Dude, I loved how he did 180 Nose Wheelies. That’s why I love doing Frontside 180 Nose Wheelies too, so, yeah, that video part was definitely influential too, and that would get me hyped to go skate.
For sure. So moving over to the modern era, Who’s your other favourite skater that comes to mind?
Even though I still skate with this fool all the time. Daewon‘s Almost part, where he skates the big rig. Round 3.
Just crazy. Different terrain, Just the hardest tricks and dude, how he did the Crooked grind and popped over the gap. He could have died.
I mean, there’s a lot of Daewon. Daewon goes in stages where he’ll say, I’m just gonna skate mini ramp or whatever. But when he started skating all the roof gap shit, I was like, bro, you’re crazy! He would be like, help me put this bench up here. I was like why!?
He’d be like because I want to do a Back Noseblunt! I’m like, dude, you’re psycho. You could die, dude. When this fool Fakie Flip Fakie Back 5-0 on a bench over a gap…dude, I’m just thinking, you’re crazy, bro. I would help put the bench up there, which was insane, it was scary as fuck. That era of Daewon was crazy dude.
Yeah, Daewon did so many roof to roof tricks it’s hard to keep track of how many that he did.
Dude, there are so many.
There’s a Tre Flip Nosebluntslide on a bench he did from roof to roof, and there is a photographer shooting a sequence of him up there. Do you remember that one?
Yeah, Seu Trinh is shooting that sequence.
Yeah, then Seu puts his hand down after Daewon does it, and you can see he’s amazed at the trick but he’s so aware of the drop and potentially falling he’s shaking as he puts his hand back. Even taking photos of the tricks that Daewon brought a danger element to the people who were just shooting him do them.
Yeah
He was in the right moment of time where he had no responsibility, no fear, and the ability to do all of that next level stuff.
Yeah, it was the perfect storm right there.
