Adam Connett is a skater who runs skate zine ISNBH.
I run ‘I Should Not Be Here’, a South-London based collective of skateboarders, photographers and illustrators.
Everything from board graphics through to videos is a creative process. Let alone skateboarding as a creative outlet itself. For us it was just getting a bunch of likeminded people together. We all skate and are into photography, art and design so I thought lets make something. I started it with my good friend Dan Graham who oversees all the design aspects. Between us we just put our heads together and try pull something off.
From my early days skating it was definitely Alien Workshop. I remember getting my first proper set up which was an Anthony Pappalardo Don Pendleton board and thinking it was the coolest. Ed Templeton s Toy Machine was another massive influence. Jump Off A Building was my favourite video growing up. I used to watch that tape over and over again. I loved how these videos were raw and scrappy and had the Super 8 and 16mm footage intercut throughout.
When I studied art at school I just wanted to make skate ads like Templeton of me and my friends. That scrappy, DIY approach really resonated with me. I was getting really music too, especially punk which shared a common philosophy. My then art teacher introduced me to Francis Bacon, and that certainly changed things up.
Nowadays I get stoked on exhibitions, old exploitation and horror movies and photography books. In terms of skating Polar Skate Co. , #fuckingawesome #hockeyskateboards , #Lottieskateshop , #willstrobeck and Quasi Skateboards always gets me stoked to skate. I love that #boysofsummervideo too. Just having fun with your friends skating, intercut with awesome film clips and a sick soundtrack. That’s what we try and capture in our edits.
The No Comply Network is great. It’s champions skaters and gives them a platform.
ISNBH released our 2nd zine recently. It sold out so we’re reprinting those right now and we’re doing some tees and making a second video, so keeping pretty busy.
