{"id":312252,"date":"2020-12-22T12:01:07","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T12:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nocomplynetwork.com\/?page_id=312252"},"modified":"2023-10-13T20:14:56","modified_gmt":"2023-10-13T20:14:56","slug":"henry-edwards-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nocomplynetwork.com\/henry-edwards-wood\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Edwards Wood"},"content":{"rendered":"

@bentimstewart<\/a><\/p>\n

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Henry Edwards Wood produces skate videos that transcend the boundaries of art and skateboarding cultural documentation. His relentless drive to hone his craft and capture unseen skate talent, impactful tricks and the intangible moments that he manages to witness behind his lens have been lucky enough to be delivered to our screens for the last 15 years. <\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s very rare to find someone who is so passionate about skateboarding, filmmaking and the culture that surrounds it all with the ability to translate their vision into various visual forms. He’s not just great at filming and editing, his post-production skills and thematic ethos of his films are all interwoven with a distinct character and personality. It gives his films a philosophical outlook and sense of being and importance that resonates with the viewer as a fellow skateboarder on multiple levels. <\/strong><\/p>\n

He’s most well known as Hold Tight Henry due to the series of Hold Tight London edits he produced with Morph. It’s a fitting nickname because he always made himself available to film and be there when skaters needed someone to capture a trick. <\/strong><\/p>\n

His library of skate edits contain their own self contained language and history built around the friendships and partnerships that he’s made along the way. He’s more than just a filmer, he’s a documentarian of the London skate scene and specifically his favourite spot the Southbank Undercroft.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are beyond stoked that Henry is now a No Comply Network member.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ever since watching his work for Concrete Poets, HTL and the Long Live Southbank campaign we wanted to make this happen.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So after a long time of appreciating his films, we had a chat about how he first saw skateboarding and became passionate about filmmaking, producing Concrete Poets’ Writer’s Block video, car park sessions in Catford, meeting Greg Conroy, Faris Hassen and going to Southbank, inspirations from Dan Magee, Blueprint, Waiting for the World and Lost and Found, Josh Stewart, meeting Morph and starting up Hold Tight London, Jak Pietryga, Chewy Cannon, skating with Shaun Witherup, getting advice from Fos, discovering HD cameras, working for Landscape Skateboards, Jin Shimizu, his thoughts on the Sheffield skate scene, Mark Baines, Shaun Currie, shooting Slam City Skates first ever skate video – City of Rats and selecting the soundtrack and sections, living on Theobalds Rd in Holborn, David Yap, putting together full parts of Nick Jensen, Joey Pressey, Rory Milanes, Lucien Clarke, Steph Morgan, Snowy, Casper Brooker, Darius Trabalza, Jerome Campbell, Neil Smith, Karim Bhaktaoui’s tricks and capturing clips with Arran Gregory, Madars Apse, Kurt Winter, The Gonz and Ben Jobe, freestyling with Femi Bukonola, his thoughts on Palace Skateboards, Long Live Southbank and his Innocence and Experience edit featuring Kyron Davis and Blondey McCoy.<\/b><\/p>\n

Read it below to discover it all for yourself.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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How did you originally start to skate?<\/h1>\n

Man, it\u2019s very hard to pinpoint that, the way I look at it is, I was led on a path of inspiration and suggestion. When I think back there was always a skateboard in my house. One of the little original Penny boards, a yellow plastic one, that was always available. Standard kids toy. I\u2019d skate on that.<\/p>\n

My mum\u2019s friends had a family with kids, of a similar generation, a few years older to us, they had all of the 80s boards and they were always skating as a family. We would get plonked at their house to be looked after and I skated with them, so I was always riding on boards. When I was a kid skating a board was just like everything, kicking a ball or getting on a bike.<\/p>\n

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Yeah, it\u2019s all the same when you\u2019re a kid<\/h1>\n

Yeah just playing with gravity and wheels you know? That\u2019s pretty much all it is. That\u2019s all humans as kids are doing pretty much. That was a highly over intellectualised answer but it\u2019s true. People have asked me that before but the genesis of an idea never has a ground zero. I think the memories I have of seeing a skater using a board in a proper fashion as we would call it, in the wild, stand out to me. I have vivid memories seeing older skaters, standing up on their boards, on the popsicle shape skateboards.<\/p>\n

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Do you remember who they were?<\/h1>\n

Nobody special or in particular. Just people from Catford. Skateboarding did not exist where I was from. As an object I was familiar with it but I didn\u2019t know about the culture. I mean you do get little bit of American culture coming in through TV. I was growing up in the 90s after all, so it was everywhere in some sense, Tony Hawk\u2019s Pro Skater was out, skating was around. But I decided that I wanted to be a skateboarder in probably 1999.<\/p>\n

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OK<\/h1>\n

Back then it was like an identity thing you know? Because back then it was this fashion tribe. Kevs, Townies, Chavs and the alternatives, grungers or whatever you want to call them.<\/p>\n

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Chain wallets, rock tees, big shoes or trackies and trainers<\/h1>\n

Yeah, basically the whole world was like you have to choose your uniform in some sense. You have to choose your pack your tribe, to know where you belong, especially school was all about that. I didn\u2019t fit in anywhere. I was a shapeshifter, I played all the sports but I was also very academic, smart but loved music, I refused to be defined. I was always being moved around.<\/p>\n

Also I used to do ballet because my mom was a ballet teacher, so I was used to being the odd one out. Also just because I hated the world I was in at the time where everyone\u2019s playing EastEnders politics, stabbing each other in the back, becoming vicious to each other and manipulating each other, I was just fucking over it.<\/p>\n

I was sick of being betrayed by my friends. This was just a journey of being in a school in Central London I guess. I decided to be a skateboarder by my own and I just skated in Catford by my own. It was a very hardening experience being shouted at and trying to do that at the time.<\/p>\n

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How old were you when you decided to be a skateboarder?<\/h1>\n

\u00a0Around age 12. I was still going to school, I was still playing sports, I still did everything. I was that hyperactive kid who had to do stuff; I had to lend my hand to most things. Fated with that ‘Jack of all Trades’ thing.<\/p>\n

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Why was skateboarding the thing that grabbed you?<\/h1>\n

It was because it was completely different to everything else in how it operated. The way that it was self-dictated and everything else. I skated for a year and there were all these chance occurrences. There was a magic to it. There were all of these meetings that led me on a path to be a true skateboarder, a code and credence to get into that identity. But to get into that world, there was no internet, no Instagram and it wasn\u2019t around me, where I was like so many people in the UK.<\/p>\n

The journey of discovering the world that transcends the skateboard \u2013 as an object – itself was some serious magical stuff. It led me on a path where I met friends, discovered the odd other few people in my school, who skated and became my friends and we started a crew. That became Concrete Poets and we started all of these echelons in the skate world and skate stories, and I wound up in Southbank and became the person I am today in some sense.<\/p>\n

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Yeah. Who were the first people in your skate crew?<\/h1>\n

Its funny right you start skating and you don\u2019t have any reference points. You\u2019re looking for other people who skate. You start to notice stuff like clothing and bands and stuff. And looking to older skaters, who were really more grunger. Skating was more a part of their holistic image, let\u2019s say.<\/p>\n

Looking back on it weren’t what we would call steez as core skaters I was in the school band I played bass and I ended up getting into a band with these grunger types at school and I was just learning to skate.<\/p>\n

I would follow them to the local carpark. They were doing Slappy Noseslides and Kickflips.<\/p>\n

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Okay, they weren\u2019t new to it<\/h1>\n

Yeah but they were a bit older and I started to get the idea, they weren\u2019t the coolest, most switched on guys and they didn\u2019t care that much about the skating. I was just fascinated with skating. It felt impossible to get it off the floor. It was magic you know?<\/p>\n

The point is that they led me to Comet car park, the car park where Concrete Poets were born out of. Through hanging there with them and meeting people there I got more into it, and I even met some older skaters later on who said they used to go there.<\/p>\n

There was a certain affordance that helped skating and a community to manifest in that space, like Southbank, that car park had that. It was the only car park that was open in the area, so skating\u2019s going to happen but there were connections there because it was the local area.<\/p>\n

I met Greg Conroy<\/a> there. Through Greg, I met Faris Hassen,<\/a> who was in my year at school, who I was aware of but didn\u2019t know that he skated.<\/p>\n

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Do you still keep in touch with people from school?<\/h1>\n

The only people I keep in touch from school with are the people who skated. I liked skating because it gave me this whole world nobody understood but when they saw it; they respected the hell out of it. It was just a defense mechanism.<\/p>\n

People didn\u2019t know what to do about us just throwing us all around. It really hardens you up mentally. Everyone was giving you shit for it just because they couldn\u2019t understand it.<\/p>\n

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Those early days in the 00s it wasn\u2019t quite mainstream<\/h1>\n

When you’re young, you have a more na\u00efve perspective on it. You\u2019re sold by the mainstream narrative that everything is like a uniform that you put on. That you buy your way in and you get a board and you’re one of the gang. You get a board and you assume you\u2019re a skater. You can\u2019t fault the logic but its\u2019 not true. But you have to go through that to realise it\u2019s irrelevant what you\u2019re wearing. You\u2019d end up trying to find the others. As a skater, you\u2019re dropped in to this world…It\u2019s arbitrary but skaters are the one who don\u2019t feel like they belong, so they\u2019re looking for other people<\/p>\n

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Yeah the black sheep<\/h1>\n

Yeah, because we are.<\/p>\n

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Somebody\u2019s always got to do something different<\/h1>\n

When we were younger I was like I want to think for myself. I don\u2019t want to do what everyone else was doing. Skating seemed to be a vehicle to do what you want, if you put your mind to it. It\u2019s still that. For the individual it\u2019s got unlimited possibilities.<\/p>\n

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Concrete Poets is a philosophical name to come up with as a young kid. How did you come up with the name?<\/h1>\n

All of the skate videos that we had and watched had that poetic sensibility. We got an education through skate videos that we did not get anywhere else. The music, the art, the culture and the archetypes of the industry. I was opened up to a world of artistic substance that gave me a much deeper poetic view of the world then my peers. All of us skaters had that. We weren\u2019t stuck in that, you have to do this or that or you\u2019re a wasteman mentality.<\/p>\n

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When you’re young everyone is being pushed into a box; you get multiple opportunities through skating to express yourself<\/h1>\n

It literally dissolves boundaries. It turns boundaries into objects of interest and joy it dissolved everything around you that are boundaries.<\/p>\n

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What was your proudest memory of the Concrete Poets video?<\/h1>\n

You mean Writer’s Block?<\/p>\n

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Yeah<\/h1>\n

Writer\u2019s Block was actually the 2nd<\/sup> Concretes Poets’ video.<\/p>\n

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Really?<\/h1>\n

There were two videos that have never been released. Before we were Concrete Poets we were the Asylum Skate Crew. There is a legendary Catford scene video we made that probably has like a 20 burned DVDV release distribution that circulated around the local area that I\u2019m looking to release in the future.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s my last gem of like wow; you guys have not seen this shit. <\/strong>It\u2019s just me, Greg and Faris, being little shits skating around Catford and the local area.<\/p>\n

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