{"id":316703,"date":"2021-06-15T12:13:15","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T12:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nocomplynetwork.com\/?page_id=316703"},"modified":"2024-01-13T13:53:05","modified_gmt":"2024-01-13T13:53:05","slug":"brian-lotti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nocomplynetwork.com\/brian-lotti\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Lotti"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Brian Lotti is a revolutionary skateboarder, painter and filmmaker who invented a series of pivotal tricks in the 90s and went pro but as quickly as he shot into the fame in the industry he suddenly departed from skateboarding.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In these years Brian developed his painting which alongside his skating is what he is as well known for now. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Although Brian left skateboarding during the transition of the golden era to the modern one, his style and creative influence are still an inspiration.<\/strong><\/p>\n

With storied experience as a pro skater, professional painter and filmmaker he\u2019s got plenty of interesting tales to tell and unique points of view and perspectives.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So we hit him up to chat<\/strong> just as he was about to make a major life transition by moving from New York to Los Angeles to ask him if he wanted to join The No Comply Network and he was down.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We had a great long conversation about how he got into skateboarding, art and film, growing up with Kenny Anderson in Las Vegas, getting sponsored by H-Street, Mike Ternasky, inventing the Bigspin and the Lotti Spin, innovating a series of sick tricks, moving over to Planet Earth, filming for Now N’ Later, untold stories about Daniel Harold Sturt, finding a new path on Blind, doing creative work for Big Brother Magazine, getting into hijinks with Spike Jonze, Jeff Tremaine, Marc McKee, Sean Cliver and Rick Kosick, shooting Jeremy Wray, departing from skating, Zen Buddhism, becoming a professional painter, developing and refining his style, his painting process and subjects, getting back into the skate industry, his films 1st and Hope, Free Pegasus and Descending Bilbao, his most recent projects, his thoughts on the future of skateboarding media, and his favourite skaters, artists, photos, videos, tricks and tips of all-time and more.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the Brian Lotti Interview to find it all out for yourself.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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@galeriedroste<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Did you grow up in California Brian?<\/h1>\n

Well, I grew up in the west, my dad was in the US military and so we moved around. I got into skateboarding when I lived in Salt Lake City Utah.<\/p>\n

It was in a crazy place in the middle of nowhere. So when I was in Utah, street skating wasn\u2019t really a thing yet. It was all about the Bones Brigade, vert ramps and pools and shit. Then I moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. I went to High School there.<\/p>\n

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What was it like living in Vegas?<\/h1>\n

Vegas was great because there were so many ditches there.<\/p>\n

I was like wow, I definitely knew by that point I wasn\u2019t a ramp skater and street skating was a thing finally and I was like, thank God, I can do this! I can skate parking blocks or anything now.<\/p>\n

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So this was in the Mid to Late 80s?<\/h1>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

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Utah and Vegas are different. One is religious and the other is all about glitz, glamour and gambling. What age did you live in both?<\/h1>\n

I got a board when I was 11 but I was probably 13 when I properly got into skating.<\/p>\n

So I was in 7th<\/sup> grade, I skated for two years in Salt Lake City and I was just learning to Ollie and Powerslide you know, do little tricks like Ollie up curbs. Then my dad got transferred and we moved to Vegas.<\/p>\n

Yeah, the two are very different. Vegas is a lot dirtier and a lot sketchier, I remember I\u2019d never been bullied before and I remember this kid in Vegas was always trying to bully me and steal my shit. It was kind of like the innocence was lost.<\/p>\n

It was more of a brutal and harsh world there. Condoms out in the parking lot in 7-11. Guy\u2019s jerking off in the parking lot, right outside of 7-11, I was like woah!<\/p>\n

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@brianlotti<\/a> ,Backside Air, Munster, 1991: Shot by Sin<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Yeah, as a kid, that must have been next level, especially as you\u2019ve lived in this totally different place.<\/h1>\n

Totally. I wasn\u2019t a Mormon. Utah was a sheltered safe place. Vegas is nuts and it only got more nuts with time. The cool thing was that there were a lot of kids skating there who were street skating there, it really saved my life. I met a lot of amazing kids skating there.<\/p>\n

Vegas is kind of like West Side story. The town was kind of divided into the east, the west, the north and the south and there were different skate gangs and rivalries but then every so often when there would be a contest everyone would get together and be so stoked. But then there would still be rivalries. It was a cool scene, it was funky. That\u2019s when I was like skateboarding\u2019s for me, I love this.<\/p>\n

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Were contests important at the time?<\/h1>\n

Contests were a big deal because it was kind of like the time when there was a safe spot, it was usually because the skate shop Thrills on Wheels, got permission to section off a parking lot and they had killer quarterpipes, slider bars and jump ramps.<\/p>\n

All these different little skate gangs got to skate the same shit for an afternoon, so it was like most of the rest of the time the only stuff we could skate together was the ditches but you\u2019d never have that many of all the skaters in Vegas skating the same thing at once.<\/p>\n

People didn\u2019t really come out to \u2018compete\u2019. It was more like ah there\u2019s this cool shit to skate, it was more like a feeding frenzy like,\u2019 oh my god, I get to skate this new thing!\u2019.<\/p>\n

But yeah people would be jacked up with loads of energy to skate in front of their friends.<\/p>\n

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What were those Vegas skate contests like in the late 80s?<\/h1>\n

The contests in Vegas were madness. People would throw bottles and break shit, the cops would come, skaters would be on the phone calling 911 and pranking them, like \u2018Oh my god there\u2019s a riot, you\u2019ve got to come right away\u2019 and then take off to go hit the quarterpipe and come back and prank the cops again.<\/p>\n

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Brian Lotti<\/a>, Backside Ollie One Foot to Pivot, Shot by @jgrantbrittain<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Sounds like everyone was hyped<\/h1>\n

I\u2019d say to people, \u2018do you want to skate? Or cause a riot?\u2019 and people would be like \u2018fuck it, I want to do both!\u2019.<\/p>\n

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What was the name of your crew?<\/h1>\n

We were the Bonanza skaters really. That was the name of the high school I was closest to.<\/p>\n

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It was called Bonanza High School?<\/h1>\n

Yeah haha.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s a funny name. Who else was in your crew?<\/h1>\n

My little crew on the West side was like me Larry Jones, Jamie, Donny, there were about 4-5 of us. Then later on Kenny Anderson, Dave Abair and Josh Cuzel, we used to skate with too.<\/p>\n

Kenny and I grew up together. He was a couple years younger but yeah we used to skate together all the time. We had a little unit for a while.<\/p>\n

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So Kenny Anderson was in the Bonanza skate crew too?<\/h1>\n

Yeah but then some guys stopped skating as much, some guys started skating more, then some of us got driving licenses and we were able to drive places and skate more, then when that happened the east and the west thing didn\u2019t matter quite as much and everything was more fluid.<\/p>\n

Early on a lot of the street skating we\u2019d do, because some of us our schools were in our neighbourhood but for some of us our schools were more in the middle of the town, like for me, to go to Bonanza, a lot of times we\u2019d skate home from school.<\/p>\n

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How long was that?<\/h1>\n

So it was a 4-5 mile skate home, kind of all downhill and there would be spots.<\/p>\n

So I had other friends who went to other schools close by, so we\u2019d skate home together and skate spots along the way.<\/p>\n

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How long did that take?<\/h1>\n

It would take several hours to get home. You get to find little spots. We learned how to do Wallrides because we found this wall that had a slight little bank going up to it. We were like ah you can cheat because it\u2019s easier to get up on the wall.<\/p>\n

For the first few weeks, I could get up on to the wall but I could not turn off of it and my buddy Brad was like you\u2019ve got to turn hard and I figured it out and I was like woah.<\/p>\n

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Did you skate home every day?<\/h1>\n

I didn\u2019t skate home every day it was more like a couple times a week then other times I\u2019d take the bus home.<\/p>\n

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How did Kenny join the Bonanza skate crew?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

He became a part of the Bonanza skate crew because later on, I had a couple quarterpipes and some blocks at my house.<\/p>\n

So people would come to my house a couple days a week and people would skate at my place, then we\u2019d take off and go somewhere, go skate a ditch or curbs somewhere.<\/p>\n

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What was it like skating with Kenny at the time?<\/h1>\n

Kenny Anderson<\/a> was like the little kid who was really good on mini ramps. There were a lot of people back then who just skated ramps. Vert ramps guys, pool skating guys but then the rest of us would skate street and skate mini ramps if we could find them.<\/p>\n

Kenny was the mini ramp kid.<\/p>\n

He probably started skating when he was 7-8 so by the time he was 10-11 he was really good on mini ramps. I remember he was like the tiniest kid at the time.<\/p>\n

Then I remember my friend Dave started dating his sister Kay. So Dave and Kay were hanging out and so when Dave went to go out and skate he would grab Kenny and we would all meet up and then we would just skate wherever.<\/p>\n

Then when I was a junior in high school, I had a car; I was driving every day, just going wherever I could. We skated together me, Dave, Kenny, Josh and this guy Chris skated every day. You know what it\u2019s like you get your crew and it\u2019s just on.<\/p>\n

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Brian Lotti<\/a> One Footer: Shot by @cortizphoto<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Did you realise Kenny was talented even at that age?<\/h1>\n

Exactly yeah. You knew he had his own thing going too. He couldn\u2019t Ollie as high as us but he was like a late bloomer, he was a real small guy till he was a sophomore in high school then he kind of grew. He was just a mini dude. Like Guy Mariano<\/a> – he was ripping like that when he was a kid. That\u2019s how Kenny was.<\/p>\n

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Mini ramps really help you to learn how to skate ledges<\/h1>\n

Mike Carroll<\/a> was really good on mini ramps, he was better at skating them than anything else in the beginning.<\/p>\n

Then he could take Frontside Smith Grinds and Back Smiths and Lipslides on the ledges super easy because of that.<\/p>\n

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Brian Lotti, Slappy Smith, Las Vegas 1988 photo by Jared Eberhardt\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Yeah, it\u2019s like he learned how to lock in better on a Mini by rolling in rather than Ollieing on to it. So at what point did you start to just skate street and what inspired you to do just that?<\/h1>\n

I had kind of seen street skating in some videos. Vision Streetwear had put some ads out.<\/p>\n

Most of the videos were dudes at ramps and were at contests. Occasionally there were street contests guys like Steve Rocco, Natas and Mark Gonzales would be at those contests and you\u2019d get a taste for it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0But in one of those Vision Streetwear ads, there was an ad with Gonz where he did this Kickflip over this gap in this ditch in Texas and I remember just tripping on that.<\/p>\n

Then I think a month or two later Transworld put out this issue and on the cover it said, \u2018Street Skating’ or \u2018The Street Issue\u2019 and the cover was this guy doing a Boneless of this ledge. The whole issue was street skating.<\/p>\n

It was Todd Swank, Natas, Gonz, Vallely, a lot of the shots were shot in this schoolyard in San Diego and they were skating this little flat rail, skating this bank to wall and these other little banks and I was like boom! Anything where people were skating a bank I was like that looks like fun.<\/p>\n

So after that Transworld issue I realised you could just be a street skater, you don\u2019t have to do any of this other shit you know?<\/p>\n

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@brianlotti<\/a>, Backside Tailslide: Shot by @rube_<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Cool, so it was this issue of Transworld that made it clear for you what street skating was<\/h1>\n

Every issue you\u2019d see pictures of these guys I just mentioned, just a couple at first but gradually more and more pictures of those guys skating would come out.<\/p>\n

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Do you remember the first time that you saw the Gonz skate?<\/h1>\n

I remember the first time I saw Gonz<\/a> skate. He did a demo in Vegas. Everybody there was like woah!<\/p>\n

\u00a0There were not a lot of videos back then. From pictures of tricks of them you couldn\u2019t understand what they were doing or how they were doing it.<\/p>\n

So the first time I saw Gonz skate he was doing like Half Cabs to Backside 50-50s to Backside 180 out on a slider bar or Backside 180 to Fakie 50-50 Half Cab out on this little thing you were stoked to be doing a little Boardslide on.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d see that and think that\u2019s magic man and you wanted to be able to do that. His board control was insane.<\/p>\n

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For sure. What was the first skate video that opened your eyes to doing those tricks?<\/h1>\n

I remember reading about Ollies and I couldn\u2019t really imagine it.<\/p>\n

I remember reading about Tommy Guerrero<\/a> doing an Ollie over a bush at the beginning of his part in Future Primitive. Then I saw that part and I just remember thinking Ollies were like letting your back wheels hit a crack and that boosted your board up.<\/p>\n

I remember thinking how did Tommy do that from a crack\u2026but then when I saw him hit his tail I was like Woah! I understood it.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s dope. So who got the Ollie first in the Bonanza crew?<\/h1>\n

Good question. I think everyone was working on them at the same time.<\/p>\n

When I was learning Ollies, I was in a garage in Salt Lake City Utah, in my garage, there was snow on the ground. There were other people street skating in Salt City and they were pretty good.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of things that people are working on at the same time and were figuring it out together in different places.<\/p>\n

The Gonz and Natas Kaupas<\/a> were the ones who cemented Ollies as the foundational trick of street skating.<\/p>\n

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What other skaters were you looking up to at the time?<\/h1>\n

Steve Rocco was a really good street skater for a little while too. People don\u2019t really remember that.<\/p>\n

He was a freestyler who gave up freestyle and started to be a street skater too. He was cool. I was also into Mike Vallely, Natas, Gonz and Guerrero.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve never heard that about Rocco\u2019s street skating<\/h1>\n

There was a really cool video of him and The Gonz, skating downhill in SF.<\/p>\n

Kind of like Tommy in Future Primitive. It was a Thrasher video. The band The Drunk Engines was playing over clips of them skating in SF, they were both super good it\u2019s crazy.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s cool, they changed skating in different ways<\/h1>\n

Those guys were buds back then<\/p>\n

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