Zered Bassett’s skateboarding and Paper Skaters art both creatively use street architecture to challenge our perspectives.

His ability to consistently stick sick tricks and lines on his board on every terrain is on full display in every part he’s had and edit he’s been featured in. But his striking wheatpaste-based photo art, that he’s posted on walls all over the world, shows he doesn’t just have a great eye for finding and shredding skate spots but also for seeing opportunities to make and exhibit his surreal street art.

Zered’s creations stand out not only because he uses dope photos of some of our favourite skaters but also because of the unique way he prints, places and pastes those images and uses composition to completely reinterpret the original.

So after being equally big fans of his skating and art for decades at this point and since he’s been a member of No Comply for a few years now, we were stoked to finally have a conversation with him about it all, alongside a chat about a selection of tricks from his parts that have alway caught our attention..

Read Zered’s interview below to find out what it was like growing up as a skater in Cape Cod, skating airport runways, meeting Lurker Lou, skating street and parks, skating in Boston, Jahmal Williams, getting on Zoo York, filming with R.B. Umali, EST, Mixtape 2, Vicious Cycle, getting creative inspiration from Ocularge, Ray Barbee, Daewon Song and Banksy, creating Paper Skaters, his ethos and process, his thoughts on a selection of standout Paper Skaters pieces and collages and illustrations he’s made, the reason Alltimers ended, his standout tricks in their ‘You Deserve It’ video, his favourite thing about skating for Converse, his experiences of skating with Ben Raemers, stories from memorable skate trips and tours, plans for future projects and his favourite skate videos, skaters, styles, spots and more. 

 

 

Zered, Switch Crook, Brooklyn Banks: Shot by Reda

 

 

What’s your full name?

My full name is Zered Jon Bassett, spelled J-O-N, it’s my father’s name!

 

 

What have you been up to recently?

Yeah, everything’s good by me. I’ve been doing a bit of skating, creating some art, doing a little pond fishing and just back home where I grew up enjoying life.

 

 

Zered, Switch Hurricane: Shot by Reda

 

 

So you grew up in Chatham, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, what was it like growing up there?

Chatham, Cape Cod in general is pretty blue collar fishing, there’s a lot of fishing, and then in summertime, a lot of tourism and rich people have their houses here and stuff. So I grew up I wouldn’t say in the woods, but off of a dirt road with a decent amount of woods around me.

So I grew up riding BMX bikes. When I was super young I got into riding four wheelers and dirt bikes at a very young age. I have an older brother that’s two years older than me, so I would always trying to keep up with him and his friends. I think I was around three years old on Christmas and I remember my father got me and my brother two 4-wheelers. So I started riding around on them at three years of age and was just super into dirt biking and just being in the woods and outdoors.

I also grew up on a pond so I’d be fishing and in the winter playing ice hockey when it would freeze over. I started playing ice hockey when I was around three years old because my older brother used to play. So, I played that a lot and then definitely got pretty serious with hockey over the years and was travelling and trying out for teams and making it on to some higher out of town teams and doing a lot of travelling for hockey but then I found skateboarding.

 

 

How did you first see skateboarding?

I saw a couple kids in my town, walking through town with skateboards, and they were you know, not the old school shapes, they were the new school shapes, with noses and tails and I remember just being like what are those?

I had to get a skateboard. So I ended up getting one, and then another kid on my hockey team ended up getting one, so we would skate in the parking lot before and after hockey practice. Then, probably close to a year later, a bunch of the kids in town got together and we ended up getting a skate park approved from our town and as soon as the skate park was built I was there every day and shortly after I quit playing hockey and just was fully addicted to skateboarding. So that’s pretty much my childhood!

 

 

 

 

That’s fantastic, what was that setup and where did you get it?

Yeah, I got it from a surf shop, it was a Madrid skateboard. I got B52 Tracker Trucks on it and I had Micro Brew wheels. I remember setting it up. I almost bought an already set up one but then I was like no, I want to pick my own stuff. So that’s what I ended up picking from the selection I had to choose from.

 

 

Madrid is a brand I’ve heard of from the 80s and the early 90s too

Yeah, this was probably early 90s. Before that I found a penny banana board at my grandfather’s. I remember we were cleaning out a bunch of his stuff to go to the dump and I found this penny board. So I was cruising around on that before but just didn’t look at it the same way as when I saw the kids with these, you know, new school boards. It was totally different. I didn’t even really connect the two as the same thing.

 

 

So that crew from that skate park, do any of them still skate?

No, nobody but I did meet my friend Lurker Lou at that skate park some years later though.

 

 

What was the name of that park?

Chatham Skate Park. It moved a couple times. The first location was behind the elementary school in town and then they moved it behind a small local town airport, which is actually right behind where I grew up.

So, I would end up skating, cut a hole in the fence and I would go around the airport, and then some years later, when I met my friend Lou, we ended up just skating there too. We’d be skating down the runway to the skate park and we’d have the airport people chasing us and they’d chase us to the skate park, but they would never come into the skate park and say anything to us. It was really strange!

 

 

Zered, Frontside 5-0 Grind: Shot by Eli Reed

 

 

That’s a funny cat and mouse thing you had going there, that’s jokes

Exactly, it’s a really small airport, so it’s not like as gnarly as it sounds, but there was a handful of times where planes were coming down to land and see us and go back up and circle around and then we’d watch them land once we were back at the skate park.

 

 

Basically, it’s like once they pass that line, maybe they couldn’t really do anything to you. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, maybe. I mean, I’m just very surprised they never even came over and were like hey, can you guys not skate down the airport!?

 

 

Zered, Switch Flip: Shot by Jon Coulthard

 

 

Yeah, I reckon they were just waiting to finally get you. Around this era you got this park built, you must have had some understanding of what skateboarding is. But did you know there was a whole skate industry at the time?

Yeah, so I was definitely secluded from all that for the first year or so. There wasn’t really access to skate mags or skate videos and I didn’t really know anybody that really talked about them or anything. So I’d go to the post office, as that was the only place that really had magazines.

They used to have a magazine called Heckler and it was a surf, skate, snow mag and I remember picking that up. That was the first magazine I had for probably the first year that I skated, and I remember there was a Mike Vallely interview in it and he was doing Bonelesses and riding off roofs.

So he was definitely my first favourite skater and my first inspiration of seeing somebody outside of my crew skateboarding where I was seeing someone do a bunch of different tricks. So then I started learning like Bonelesses and stuff he was doing and that was my first ever outside knowledge of any type of skating besides what I saw around me.

And then I would say a year or two later I met Lurker Lou and he was just a skate nerd, 411 subscription, magazines, knew all the pros names, knew all the trick names, so we would hang out. I remember him getting mad at me. We’d be watching skate videos and I wouldn’t be paying attention and he’s like dude, did you even see what’s going on? Do you see what this guy just did? I didn’t even know what tricks were at the time, so Lou definitely put me on to street skating in that way and a lot of what was going on in the industry.

 

 

Zered Bassett, FS Grind Brooklyn Banks: Shot by Reda

 

 

Speaking about Bonelesses, your Frontside 180 Boneless down Hollywood High 16 back in the early 00s was fucked up. You know Slim? Thrasher released a video of him doing a Boneless down the huge 16 at St Paul’s, the run up to the set is jacked, do you know that spot?

Is there a kink hubba to the left or a hubba with a kink? I think I Noseslid the hubba on a Zoo trip, because I remember when Slim did that Boneless you’re talking about came out, I remember how big that set was and I was blown away yeah, it’s like a launch ramp run up, really rough rollaway, it is gnarly.

 

 

 

 

But the fact that you did it down a similar size set so long before speaks volumes about how good you were at Bonelesses at the time

That’s funny yeah.

 

 

Zered, Frontside 180 Boneless, Hollywood High 16: Shot by Reda

 

 

What do you think about skateboarding nowadays?

It’s going every direction now definitely.

 

 

Which skaters did you look up to in your early years on a board?

I’m trying to think back around then, from Mike V – after that was Tim Brauch and these are early, I’m still at the skate park days. Tim Brauch was a huge inspiration. Then when I was started to make my way to Boston and getting more into street skating and stuff, Rick McCrank was always one of my favourite skaters. I was skating around that time with Jereme Rogers a lot and I remember his favourite skater was Eric Koston. I remember we would watch the Girl video and I’d be hyped on Rick’s stuff and he was hyped on Koston’s stuff. So Rick McCrank was definitely a favourite in the earlier years, for sure as well.

Then I remember Daewon Song definitely held the title as my favourite for some years as well. But yeah I jumped around a lot of different type of skaters, not really one specific niche. I had attraction to a lot of different skaters, with certain things they skated and tricks they did.

 

 

What was it like being with Daewon on DVS?

Yeah, that was definitely a trip!

 

 

Yeah, it probably made you think, I must have achieved something, because my part is in the same video as Daewon

Yeah, no for sure, I definitely was, and still am, super hard on myself. So, no matter where I’m at, I still don’t even feel like that was where I was. Like I was in the van with all those dudes and I’m like what the hell am I doing here? But yeah, it definitely was a trip.

I remember we did the ‘Skate and Create’ articles they used to do at Transworld some years ago and there was a bunch of doubles that me and Daewon did together. I remember that was the first time it really tripped me out, like when the photos got published in the magazine and just seeing it. I was like this is my favourite skater and we’re in a photo together, it was definitely a trip.

 

 

 

 

That must have been like a huge honour and I guess to go back, I remember seeing you do a gnarly FS 360 fly out out over a spine, you looked really young at the time, do you remember doing that?

Yep

 

 

How did you come up with that one?

Like I said, I was very out of the skate mix and not knowing what was happening in the industry and stuff, and just being at the skate park every day, all day long just thinking of weird shit to try, like, alright, I can do like a Frontside 360 over the spine and thought oh, maybe I could do a ‘No Footer’, you know, just skating and trying stuff, without knowing what was what and yeah, I don’t know. I definitely miss those times.

There’s so many opinions and the more you learn about anything, it closes your mind down a bit. I feel like I look back on those days and it was a lot more free, which I feel like I’m getting back to now in my skating, where I just don’t care what other people think.

But, when I was younger, I definitely cared way too much once I found out what was happening on the streets and in the industry and everything. I was definitely a lot more worried about being judged or doing the wrong trick, and that’s not a good feeling and that’s not why I started skating. So it’s cool to be getting back to, you know, not caring and not really being in the mix as much, it just feels a lot more genuine and authentic.

 

 

Zered, Switch Hurricane, Shot by Oliver Barton

 

 

How did you get sponsored?

So, that 360 trick over the spine you mentioned was at a Duffs/Invisible demo. That was at the Chatham Skate Park at the airport I was speaking of earlier.

So it was the Duffs/Invisible trip. I remember me and some of my friends were like, oh, we gotta fucking rip, like there’s gonna be pros here and whatever, you know? We’re just town kids, super psyched. So they came and I was just trying to do my best and to get noticed and whatnot, and one of the dudes from Invisible came up to me.

It was Rodney Johnson, who passed away, and he ran Sixteen Skateboards because that was all part of Climax Distribution.

 

 

Right

So he he came up to me and was like, hey, we have this team called Sixteen Skateboards it’s a bunch of younger skaters you should make a video and send us a sponsor me tape. So, after that I was like, oh shit, I need to get a video camera!

So a good friend of mine, Chris Mallows, that I grew up with, he had a video camera and I got one or vice versa. I don’t quite remember which way around but we started filming each other to make videos and whatnot. So then I sent a video to Sixteen and they started sending me boards. So that’s how it started for me.

 

 

Right, and the whole thing with Sixteen was you had to be under 16 years of age to skate for them, right?

Yeah, exactly.

 

 

Being sponsored by Sixteen, were you thinking by the time I’m 16, this isn’t going to be an option anymore? Were you thinking about progressing as a pro? Or were you stoked at that time to be where you were at and not thinking about that?

I mean, I remember definitely when I turned 15 or something I was definitely like, oh shit, it’s coming. You know I got a year left but I definitely wasn’t thinking too much about it and as far as pushing my skating, I was so engulfed in skateboarding that was all that was on my mind.

I wasn’t necessarily thinking of how far I was going to go or how hard I was going to push it. I was just skating super hard every day, learning tricks and just you know, so absorbed in it. Then before I ended up being 16, Rodney Johnson ended up leaving Sixteen to start working for World Industries, and he offered me to get their boards because some of the other guys were going to go with him to World. So I started getting boards through Rodney from World.

 

 

What year would this have been?

Oh man, what year? yeah, like 97, 98, maybe

 

 

Ok so World was still a big deal, but nowhere near as popular a brand at it had been in the years before you were on. Did you ever have any footage that came out on World?

No, it was more…I don’t know if you want to call it flow, but I never had an ad or anything like that. I wasn’t on for very long either.

Around that time I was skating in Boston a lot and I remember I was walking from spot to spot with Jahmal Williams, and he was asking what I was thinking and if I was going to skate for World or what I was trying to do, and at that time, Jeff Pang from New York had hit me up and offered to send me some boards. so I was running that by Jahmal, like I don’t know I’m getting World boards, like Pang hit me up to get some Zoo stuff, I don’t know what I want to do?

Jahmal was like dude, you’re from the East Coast, Zoo York’s an east coast company, you should ride for Zoo. So that definitely opened my eyes and got me thinking.

Because when I was younger I was just thinking you need to be in California to be a pro skater, that’s where the pros are and I wasn’t too up on East Coast skating, even at that time, at all. I had the blinders on. So once he said that it opened my eyes and I started looking at Zoo York and a lot more East Coast skaters, and just got super hyped on it. So then I ended up skating getting boards from Zoo and I stopped getting boards from World Industries

 

 

It’s good to hear Jahmal recognised that and you realised it. Where you always skating a mixture of street and skate parks or did you start skating street and leave the skate parks?

I would say when I started going to Boston more I knew a lot more what was happening in the skate world, so I was like I need to get to some skate spots and Boston was definitely the closest city. But yeah, there was never a time where I stopped going to skate parks. I was skating mostly street, but I wasn’t against going to a skate park. So yeah, skating both, but more street at that point.

 

 

Zered, Switch Backside 5-0: Shot by Reda

 

 

I feel like you’re one of the really lucky skaters who has grown up skating skate parks, but like there’s no visible signs in your style that you did, if you know what I mean.

Yeah I think I definitely spent my fair share of time in the streets, so I think the scale tipped where I was on the streets more than the skate parks growing up maybe.

 

 

You were also a local at Skater Island, I remember it was a really popular skate park, who were the people who were shredding there the hardest at the time that you saw?

The people that stick out in my head were Donny Barley and Brian Anderson, they would be there a lot. I remember being super hyped on those two guys, at a young age, knew who they were and had watched their videos by then, so I’d say they were probably they’re the most out of people that you would know of, that made it, and were great skateboarders.

 

 

Both of them are absolute legends. Which videos did you have on rotation the most when you started?

I definitely remember, because I was mentioning my friend Lou had a 411 Video Magazine subscription, so I was definitely watching a lot of 411 videos, watching a lot of the Transworld videos.

I remember Transmission 7, the Transworld video, I was watching a lot of that. Yeah, that, and any team video that came out I would watch. I liked the 411 opener where Eric Koston Nollie Back Heels over the Brooklyn Banks wall too.

 

 

 

 

Also as far as Girl videos, Mouse, was definitely my first favourite video.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I still watch it all the time. So you said your introduction to making art was shooting photos?

Yep

 

 

What was the first photo that you shot that inspired you to take more?

I think it was mainly just travelling at a young age and just travelling to a lot of places that I never thought I’d go to. Then I’d get home and my family were asking me about the trip and I realised that I was not really remembering a lot about the trip.

I remember getting a camera just to remember what I was experiencing mainly, that was my first motivation. As far as an individual photo, I don’t really think there was one in particular that really inspired me. I think just the just realising that capturing moments blew my mind just like little time capsules. That’s what really got me into shooting photos in the beginning

 

 

That’s the best thing about photography, storing memories you don’t want to forget. Speaking of the past, we just got to the point where you were recommended by Jahmal and got on Zoo. So how did that all work?

Well, so when I was going to Boston I was skating with Eli Reed and Jereme Rogers a lot. I think the particular time was I went to Jereme’s house. He lived like 40-45 minutes out of the city and I would go stay with him for a few nights at a time and we’d take the Metro north into Boston and there’d be some nights where we didn’t really have a place to stay because we’d missed the last train because we wanted to skate.

So we were at this spot called Aquarium in Boston, and Steve Nardone came through to skate a little bit at night and saw us there skating and offered us to stay at his house.

So we ended up staying with Steve, and he was like yo, anytime you come to Boston, hit me up, you can always stay with me. So I’d come to Boston and I started staying with him right in the city, and got really close with him. His roommate was Brian Brown’s brother, Doug Brown, who started filming me, so he got a bunch of footage of me skating in Boston around that time and he gave it to Jeff Pang through Brian Brown.

So Jeff saw my footage and that’s how the Zoo thing came about.

 

 

Zered, Switch Front Heel, Shot by Oliver Barton

 

 

Oh, okay, yeah, I’m glad to ask that now because you did mention Jeff Pang before. But the whole Doug Brown, Brian Brown connection with Steve Nardone in the mix, that makes a lot of sense. Finding out you’re getting on Zoo, what was it like to join that team at a time?

Yeah, so it was definitely a trip. I mean, coming from a small town, spending a little bit of time in Boston and then just being in New York a lot, around all the guys that skated for them.

They were definitely, you know, a rougher bunch of guys and people who I was super into because I grew up, as I was saying earlier with like an older brother, so I was always hanging with older people.

So, yeah, it was a trip. Just all the graffiti, the city vibe and everything was very eye-opening for me which ended up with my photography, and a lot of my art stuff mixed in with the graffiti stuff, and that’s how I started to use my photographs in a different way, my screenprint stuff and my photo collage stuff was a mix of me being into photos and also being around a lot of the graffiti writers and creatives that would come through the New York office.

 

 

Zered Bassett, Switch Front Feeble, Shot by Oliver Barton

 

 

Eli Gesner played a pivotal role in creating Zoo York. Was he an influential person for you?

Yeah, being around Eli Gesner was definitely very inspiring and there was another guy, Dave Ortiz, back then who had a shop called Dave’s Quality Meats. He was very into graffiti and and painting and a lot of art stuff. So being around those two definitely planted a lot of ideas in my head and, it’s cool to feel like a lot of them I’m revisiting now.

It’s like I’ll talk with Eli about certain ideas and I’m like, dude, you’ve done all these things that I’m doing now and I didn’t even realise it at the time because I wasn’t really looking at the art, I was just more focused on the skating. But now that I’m getting a lot more into art, I’m re-realising what he was creating way back then and it’s just been a trip.

 

 

What was the first video you worked on for Zoo York?

Mixtape Two, before that R.B. Umali was doing the EST volume videos which I had a split part with Charles Lamb in one of those. That was the early days I was in Boston, the footage in that was right when I got on Zoo, the footage was probably filmed before I actually got on Zoo.

 

 

 

 

Who filmed your EST video footage?

The EST stuff was filmed by Doug Brown who had footage of me from my earlier days in Boston. So then once I started getting Zoo boards, R.B. was like, oh, I have this footage of you. Do you mind if I put it in my video EST, you’re gonna split a part? I was like, yeah, of course, sounds great. So that’s how that happened.

 

 

 

 

Mixtape 2 must have been a huge deal as the first one is a classic

Mixtape Two part was just from all the trips that I had gone on with Zoo. Once I was on I definitely wasn’t looking at it like I was filming a video part. I was just on tour, just skating what spots were there. I don’t think I’ve ever really planned a video part. It’s always just been footage I’ve had from trips or being in New York or whatnot. There was never anything like, okay, I’m filming for this right now.

 

 

I always felt with your Vicious Cycle part you can’t really plan that you know! But you can tell that you had a lot of organic sessions that resulted in great tricks. But just tell me a bit about putting that together and did you feel like you were going to have such a long, epic section or did it all come together spontaneously?

Yeah, it was very spontaneous. it was again just being on Zoo trips. Being on Zoo was a lot about travelling back then, so we were always on trips. Europe trips or driving across the US trips.

I was just sitting on all that footage, and I remember a couple different companies like Transworld, hit me up to do a part. A couple different people that made videos wanted to split up the footage and I was seeing what I could give certain people. But then me and R.B. decided to just to do a video with all of it. So that’s how that ended up coming together, sitting on a bunch of footage and trying to think of what to do with it, R.B. was making a video and getting people that I wanted in the video around me and that’s how that happened.

 

 

 

 

Sick dude, props, there are so many gnarly tricks in your part. But even now I think your hillbomb line with the road gap Ollies still really stands out, tell me how that line went down?

There’s two road gaps at the top, back to back, and then there’s one at the bottom

That hill is called Mission Hill. The actual street that’s Wade Street, but the hill that it comes down is Mission Hill in Boston, and Steve Nardone that I was staying with a lot in Boston at the time, he lived at the top of the hill. So every day we would go by the hill and sometimes, we’d start bombing down the hill and whatnot and a lot of people were just talking about how no one’s ever Ollied all three of them, so I would always look at it and be like, oh man, I’d love to try to Ollie all three of them.

Then one day we ended up up there at the end of a session. I want to say Joey Pepper was there, Robbie Gangemi and Doug Brown was filming, there might have been a couple other people, but, I was just like, yeah, let’s try to do this. So I started trying to Ollie the first one, and then the first time I Ollied the first one I did the other two after, it happened, pretty quickly

 

 

Wait that whole line was first try?

It probably took me maybe 10 tries to Ollie the first one, but then as soon as I Ollied the first one I did the other two. Yeah, the first go that I Ollied that first one.

 

 

I wouldn’t expect you to have that many attempts because on the last road gap everything’s going down so fast and you’re gonna lose some skin for sure if that didn’t work out.

Yeah, it was too late to not try it and I remember everybody saying like, oh, no Powerslides, you just gotta go for it!

So I remember just almost taking a Powerslide when I roll off the second, I do the second street gap and I roll into the street. I remember I wanted to Powerslide so bad. But I was like I can’t fucking Powerslide. But then, yeah, it worked out.

 

 

Yeah. It’s something I still watch often. It’s still so gnarly. But which trick or line are you the most stoked on that was in your Vicious Cycle part?

Oh man, probably the hillbomb to be honest, yeah, I’m trying to remember other lines that are in there. Yeah, I’d say the hill bomb’s definitely my favourite one.

 

 

Yeah, I mean, it’s amazing the stuff you did off that loading dock, the sort of street ramp.

Oh, the out-ledge, the white one!

 

 

 

 

Yeah, the out-ledge! Was that a spontaneous session or did you go there to try something?

That was actually a few days before I got my first box from Etnies and I remember that was the first time going to Europe. That was a Zoo trip. We were leaving the next day to go to Europe for I think 43 nights or something.

We went all through Europe, and I remember just being super juiced and we were out skating that day like, oh, we’re going to Europe tomorrow and we just ended up at that ledge and I just was skating the ledge and got a good amount of tricks on it. It’s such a good ledge and I was living in New York at that time, so whenever we’d end up around that area in the city, I would always try to go get a different trick on it, just because it was a really good ledge and you really couldn’t get much time on it.

So that first day I remember people were tripping out on how much time we were getting at the spot. So, I would go back whenever we were around there and try to get a few tries in here and there

 

 

Then there’s that sculpture that you skate. You do a Backside Flip and then a gap 5-0. What was that spot and how did you end up doing those?

Yeah, I believe that was in Memphis. We were on a skate trip and we just came across it. I remember doing the Backside Flip and then I was looking at other ways to skate it and I remember it was tough because there was some train tracks that went across the runway so it was hard to get the speed. But yeah, I ended up doing the Backside Flip and then started skating the other side and did a 50-50 and I was like shit, I think I could Back 5-0 this, and then got the Back 5-0 but yeah, that was just on a tour trip, going through Memphis.

 

 

Zered, Backside Flip: Shot by Patrick O’Dell

 

 

Yeah, it was sick man. It always stuck with me because I was just like this thing is not built for skating but it looks sick to skate. Yeah, that’s interesting. On the subject of striking pieces of street art, you talked a bit about your photos, but before that did you tag and make traditional kinds of graffiti too?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, the guy Dave I mentioned, was pretty active at the time when I first started going to New York, so he was definitely trying to teach me little things here and there. Also there was this older graffiti writer, who passed away some years ago now, Stay High 149. He he would always come through the Zoo office, and he had a stick figure smoking a joint and I remember thinking that was cool and Dave said oh, you need to figure out a character and you need a tag and whatnot.

So I was just writing ‘DR Z’ because that was my nickname, and then I did a little stick figure smoking a joint, because I was really into smoking weed when I was that age. So yeah, that was when I started playing around with graffiti a little bit, but never too seriously, and then probably eight or ten years later, I think I really started paying more attention to it.

I remember going to Tokyo for a trip, and I remember seeing a lot of graffiti. As soon as I walked out of the hotel there was work by a lot of graffiti artists that I would see in New York all the time. It was the first time where I realised that these guys travel around and just hit different spots and it was very eye-opening and I was just very intrigued by it. I was like I’m travelling and I want to put my name up, so that was when I got more into it, not that I was ever really that ‘into it’, but that’s when I started taking it a little more serious and trying to get a throw up and get my tag together. So I’ve been writing here and there ever since but I’ve always been a fan. I think it’s really unique and just the certain spots people hit and colours they use and the different hand styles, it’s pretty intriguing.

 

 

At what point did you change from making graffiti to creating Paper Skaters wheatpaste art?

Yeah, I guess just getting more serious about graffiti. And probably after I got arrested a few different times for doing graffiti, I was like, okay…I was never impressed with anything I did graffiti-wise. So I was like I want to be doing graffiti, but I want to be doing something, I want to be putting something on the street that I’m more proud of.

Then I started leaning towards my photography and seeing the Banksy stuff was really inspiring, where I was like whoa, this dude’s using so many different mediums than just a can, he’s not just doing graffiti. It’s not lame street art, he’s using his brain and doing some very creative shit.

That was a big part of thinking about Paper Skaters and thinking about how to use photographs and do illegal stuff in the streets, with something that I would create that I was actually proud of and that’s where I think I started. It’s not that I stopped doing graffiti, but just put a lot more of my energy into creating and doing wheatpaste stuff with my photography.

 

 

Definitely and I think the interplay between the subjects, composition and photography is what makes Paper Skaters really intriguing and interesting, because it’s not the fact that you’ve just created a picture of Ben Raemers, doing that Front Blunt. It’s like how closely it is mapped onto this wall and that barrier where, for a second, you’re confused as to whether it’s real or not and then you want to get to know more. What was the first wheatpaste graphic you did that made you think, this is the shit, this is what I want to do?

I remember I didn’t have a printer at the time so I went to Kinko’s. First I shot a photo of my good friend, Jon Newport. I was like yo, can I shoot a photo of you do a Backside Nosegrind? I want to try out this thing I’ve been thinking about. So we went out, shot the photo and I got it printed, had it cut out, and I was going around the city for a while trying to find a place where it would fit proportionally and correct to scale.

So I ended up finding this spot under this bridge, and we pasted him doing a Back Nosegrind, and it was on a bank up to this wall. So I just had him at the top of the wall and I painted some wheel marks going into it and I remember just shooting a photo of the final piece, creating the image and adhering it to the wall, it felt really cool. But then, after shooting the photo of it finished and then getting home and looking at the photo, it just got me super psyched.

I was just blown away. I just had this image in my head for a few weeks or a month or so and then to be looking at it finished, just got me going and I was like super hooked on it.

 

 

Jon Newport, Backside Nosegrind
 

 

Your art translates well on the wall in photos, especially for skaters who recognise the people in the pieces and must confuse pedestrians who don’t.

Yeah, exactly, there’s a handful of different angles to it.

 

 

It’s Ben Raemers (RIP) birthday today. The Paper Skater you made of him means so much to people who knew him. What’s the hardest part about doing big wheatpaste throw-ups and what inspired you to make that piece of Ben?

I love Ben Raemers and spent a lot of time with him as well on the road. We definitely connected a lot, on a level of just, we’d show up to a demo and both of us would be super anxious and he was always the one sitting beside me. We’d be drinking beers and just wanting to be skating, but we would just…feel paralysed, just mentally and I don’t know…I just couldn’t get going, and we both shared a bit of just that mental feeling of just being stuck. Like we wanted to skate but all these kids are here! So I definitely spent a lot of time with him and talked a lot with him about just trying to not be stuck in our heads and stuff.

So, yeah, when I did that piece, I wanted to do a huge one because, you know, the bigger the better. I wanted it to be as big as I could, so that was about as big as I could go on a roll gate.

 

 

Ben Raemers, Front Blunt

 

 

As far as it being hard, just the size, there’s more paper flapping around in the wind and I had to cut it into a few pieces and line it up correctly. But yeah, it’s definitely by far my favourite one. It’s the last one I’ve done. I’ll be getting back into it soon, but after doing that one it was hard to top for me. I was like, okay, what can I do now? That one just meant a lot to me. It was an honour to do that and I’m glad you liked it

 

 

Do you have a favourite trick by Ben or a memorable story of something you saw him do on tour?

I’m trying to think of one trick in particular, but he would always surprise me. He’d always laugh to me as well, because he’d get himself into tricks where he’s just like, why did I even try this? But then he’d come close. So then he’s like now I have to do this, and he’d just be losing his mind just trying to do the hardest fucking trick, and most of the times he did it. I’m trying to think of one trick in particular. Some different ones come to mind. Yeah, just the energy and just the commitment he would put into getting a trick.

It was a true battle and he was pushing himself to the limits, which was really cool to see in person.

 

 

For sure he felt comfortable throwing out 540s and doing massive airs. What inspired you to make those pieces of Ray Barbee with the guitar in front of the car and the Back Tail one?

Yeah, I mean Ray is a super legend and then after meeting him Thrasher did an art trip to Detroit with a handful of skaters that make art. He was one of them and I was on it as well. So I remember I was just like I need to get a photo of Ray, so I shot a couple of photos of him and the Back Tail was probably one of the better ones that I ended up pasting up. That was pasted up in Baltimore. Then the one of him sitting on the car with the guitar, I didn’t shoot. That was shot by Joe Brook and that was a smaller piece of a big collage I made that was the opening spread for the art trip Thrasher did in Detroit, that was a small little piece of it.

 

 

 

 

Favourite trick by Ray?

The older video, where in his intro he’s doing the long line with all the No Complys.

 

 

I feel like that is what sticks in my mind yeah, that’s Ban This?

Yep. I think of that every time I hear his name, I just visualise that. I mean the way he skates down the street. I think everybody wants to be able to to do that at some point. Have that like you’re dancing down the street. It’s a good look!

 

 

 

 

For sure. How do you decide to throw up a piece in the places where you do?

I go a few different ways. A lot of the times, you know, I’m always shooting photos, so I’ll look through the photos I have and a lot of times an idea will pop up regarding a certain photo, so I’ll go that route if that happens. Other times I’ll find a really cool spot on the street where I’m like, oh, I can visualise a skater pasted on the wall, and then I’ll go out and shoot a specific photo for that actual spot. Yeah, so it it works both ways, but I would say majority of the time the photos are shot first and then I figure out what to do with them afterwards.

 

 

Louie Lopez, Back Tail

 

 

Yeah, it’s such a sick process that’s different to traditional graffiti

Yeah, I think a lot of it too, is if you notice other street artists’ stuff, they’re putting up the same thing over and over again which is super cool. It’s like graffiti. But when I started doing Paper Skaters, I remember wanting every piece be different. Sometimes I’ll do the same one in different spots or different sizes, but yeah, the variety, is exciting and keeps it interesting for me.

 

 

Sage Elsesser Crook Collage

 

 

I enjoy looking at your collages and the different collections of imagery you put together but what brings it all together is your dope photography. How did the photo with the three guys in the water with the cameras come about and how did you take that shot?

So that is just one person, my buddy Colin. We were on a trip and I was just shooting him floating around shooting photos in the water, and yeah, that one’s just photoshopped. I thought it’d be cool to have three different images of him.

 

 

Colin Collage

 

 

It’s surreal because of the waves in the water, it makes you unsure whether this is really a single photo. Is there a collage you’ve put together that you’re most hyped on?

Yeah, I don’t know if you’ve seen my Instagram recently, but I just finished it, I was working on it all summer. It took me a few months, but it’s a big mural that’s now in this pizza restaurant spot in Cape Cod where I’m living.

I went around and shot a few hundred photos of different landmarks, old famous businesses, restaurants, beaches and all that stuff. I made a digital mock-up of it and created a whole scene out of it. I printed it all on vinyl and installed it on the wall, which I probably finished a little over a month or two ago, yeah, it’s by far probably my favourite thing!

 

 

Cape Cod Photo Collage

 

 

Yeah, that makes sense, as it’s based on your hometown. So it was your chance to choose all your favourite features and rearrange them as you saw fit. It’s rad how you’ve distorted size, perspective and scaling. Are you into surrealism?

I mean I’m into I’d say everything in a way. I think you can pull something out of everything, or everything makes you think of something. So it’s like you can get inspired from anything and you can pick one piece out of something. It gives you an idea to build off of. I’m into a lot of different stuff and trying to hone in and figure out what I want to create besides collages and stuff.

 

 

Ray Barbee

 

 

You’ve travelled all over the world, so you’re going to have first-hand experiences and photos of different things you can pull together for inspiration. But speaking about collages, is there any reason why you like to create them on USPS mailbag stickers?

There’s the old school graffiti sticker. That is where that came from. I think that’s what you’re talking about, the shipping labels?

 

 

USPS Shipping Sticker Art

 

 

Yeah. You’ve rearranged a photo of Jake Johnson doing a handstand on a board and it’s pasted across these priority mail bag stickers. What inspired you to do that?

Yeah, just mixing the photography with the graffiti sticker, just pushing those two worlds together. I guess, just knowing a lot of graffiti artists write on the priority mail stickers, and then thinking of where I was at the time with street art and wheatpaste, and figuring out how to get that onto a sticker I’ve seen for years used as a graffiti tool, it’s just mixing the two worlds together.

 

 

Jake Johnson, Handstand

 

 

That’s sick. Also your illustration of the Olympic rings with the suited hand, puppeting the skater…The imagery, the meaning, the symbolism is rad. How did you come up with that one?

That was when there was first talks of skating being in the Olympics, and I was definitely just, you know, being a skater most of my life…seeing you know how people’s perspective of skaters has changed.

 

 

Olympic Rings Puppet

 

 

Now that skateboarding has been accepted into the Olympics and the big money’s coming in with the shoe companies and everything, accepted into the Olympics. Kind of just being a little, resentful towards the bigger companies, and not only companies but for people in general not really understanding skating. Then all of a sudden they think they understand it because they can make money off it, as it’s getting big. Which, obviously, on the other hand too, is good to see friends make money coming from the bigger companies as well. But it was just a cool image that popped into my head and I just I wanted to create it, just to do it, and I thought it had symbolism, and it was just a raw image that could make people think, talk and create a conversation about it.

 

 

Definitely. So moving on, what is it about creating stop motion, collage-type photography scenes that you like and which is your favourite that you’ve done?

Yeah, so there’s the one that you brought up of Jake Johnson, where there’s a bunch of images overlaid. Is that what you’re talking about?

 

 

Jake Johnson Push Art

 

 

Yeah

I was playing around with the printer I actually did a Ray Barbee one doing the Back Tail, and I kept running the paper through the printer multiple times, and I started trying to make it look faded, trying to make it look like it started at nothing and then came to full colour, just by running it continuously through the printer, and then I started playing around with the the stop motion, the video ones, and then I printed out a full sequence of my buddy, Ron Deily, doing a Lipslide Shuvit Out and I had all those pieces just laying on top of each other and it gave me the idea to just recreate that digitally.

 

 

Ron Deily, Lipslide Shuvit

 

 

So I went in and layered a bunch of them like that and I was planning on getting around to doing more of a canvas 0 like a larger scale, with all printed ones out, and then we’d paste it together. But that’s how those came about was just from doing the stop motion and having all the cut out pieces laid on top of each other, and then I was like, oh, that could be cool if there was a bunch of them layered out on top of each other.

 

 

Andrew Brophy, Nosegrind

 

 

You said you stopped making wheatpaste art…what was the reason and what’s motivating you to get back into it?

A big part of it was just the printer I had. I got it used, it needed work. I fixed it up and had it working for a few years and then the printer stopped working. So that was the main reason that I had stopped.

I had planned on getting another one. At that time I was still living in New York and just had other things that were more important in my life that I didn’t really have time to get back into it. I didn’t have enough time to really do it the way I wanted to do it.

 

 

Aaron Herrington, Tre Flip

 

 

So I had it on the back burner and then, since I moved back to the Cape, I had been wanting to get one of those printers again, just a large format printer. Then that mural came about for the pizza place I was talking about. So then I was like, okay, I’m going to do this big mural, I need to get the printer. Then I was waiting for a reason to get the printer, the mural ended up happening, so I got the printer. So now my brain’s back into printing out some Paper Skaters and getting going on that again as well!

 

 

Zered, Bump to Bar Switch Ollie: Shot by Jon Coulthard

 

 

What’s going on with zeredbasset.com and the pieces you sell on there?

Yeah, I still run zeredbasset.com, I brought up my friend Chris earlier, about when we’ve got video cameras around the same time. But when I moved back to the Cape a couple years ago, we’ve started hanging out a lot together and he was really into screenprinting.

I remember we were over his house one day and he had all his old screenprinting stuff in his basement and we were just talking shit and I was just telling him how I was always interested in screenprinting and and he was like you want to set all this shit up at your at your place?

So he got me all set up and taught me the ropes of screenprinting. So we were playing around for probably I don’t know six, seven months, and I was lke damn it’d be cool to start making some shirts.

So, yeah, I ended up making that first run of shirts which was the Hasselblad with a snake coming out of it, which was a graphic that I created, probably like five years ago or something.

So once we got the whole thing set up, he was like what do you want to try to print?

That Hasselblad Cobra was the first image that came to mind so we printed that and then set up the web store and shortly after that, the mural opportunity, came about. So I switched gears and got all into the creating that mural which is now finished.

So now I’m going to be jumping back and making some more shirts and and working with screenprinting and doing some more mixed media stuff with the printer I got and the screenprint stuff and trying to play with the photos that I’ve taken and with different mediums and trying to find out how to find a nice flow to make some pieces and that’s what I’ve been doing.

 

 

 

 

That’s sick. That camera has played such a big part in skate photography, I remember seeing some of Atiba’s photos shot on Hasselblad, it gave those older mags in the early 00s a completely unique look.

Yeah, exactly that’s the significance for that first graphic. So, yeah, just trying to build off of all the things that I’ve been into, which is photography, skating. So the first image that I ended up printing was the the Hasselblad, and it’s cool that you know that that was a big part of skating, which a lot of people don’t. But I just thought that would be an appropriate first screen to print to then be followed by more printing of the photographs and then carry on from there.

 

 

Yeah, definitely. Are you looking to put together any exhibitions of your work or a book, of your wheatpaste art?

I mean, that’s definitely a goal. I think right now I’m settling into my space to do screenprinting and having the printer, and a bunch of ideas are rattling around my mind and I’m just trying to figure out how to cohesively use all the tools I have to create stuff that looks cool to me.

 

 

Brad Cromer Kickflip

 

 

I’m putting stuff out there, but, yeah, definitely trying to stay on the streets as well. I’m really trying to stay busy and motivated and creating just makes me happy. It’s a lot like skating, where you think of a trick, and then you got to find a spot for it, it’s the very same mental things that you check off in your head when you’re creating. So I’ve learned that and it’s just really been inspiring trying to find my formula to create the stuff that I want to try to show. Yeah, it’s just a cool experience and it’s endless. It’s something you can do forever. It keeps your brain busy, thinking and it’s super inspiring.

 

 

With your platform as a skater, millions of people know who you are, but I didn’t know that you were doing Paper Skaters…was there a reason why you wanted to separate the two?

I know for sure, for Paper Skaters, it was just like people like you said, know me from skating and I wanted just to have my work live on its own without my name attached and be a fly on the wall and see what people thought of it and not try to ride my name in skating and have people like the art I was making. It’s more just to see people’s genuine take away of what I was creating, just to get a better idea. It’s just interesting to me. That’s definitely why I kept them separate in the beginning.

 

 

Marius Syvanen, Bin 5-0 Grind

 

 

Interesting. Speaking of sticking sick stuff on walls, how did you come up with that No Comply Wallride 180 Out?

Yeah, that was the first time I had done that one I think I was just doing it into a little bank ramp I landed in too. Yeah, I think I was just doing it normal off it, and then just with the angle of it I was landing a little crooked and it made me think, oh, I could probably Back 180 and yeah, I tried it and it worked!

 

 

So sick. Who has your favourite No Comply of all-time and why?

I’d say the ones that stick out of my head is Jake Johnson, the one he does over the bump to bar. It just looks crazy. He’s a taller skater and his No Comply looks super powerful and the way he does it, everything he does, looks really cool. But yeah, I think he probably has one of my favourite No Complys for sure yeah, definitely.

 

 

Thinking of powerful flatground tricks, you’ve got a banging Switch Tre Flip. What’s the key to popping and catching a proper Switch Tre?

I think the one thing I tell people is I always picture landing a board width over in front of me. So yeah, just get the scoop, and the front foot you’re just leaning forward a bit, but I just picture landing a board width in front of me, if that makes sense?

It makes you feel it a little more, that I’m moving over to the side, whereas if you just mentally think of it staying under you, it’s harder for me to catch it. It makes sense in my head that way.

 

 

What’s your favourite trick to put down on flatground and why?

Probably Switch Tre. I think it feels the best. I could be pretty sore and not feeling my best, but I could usually do that trick. It doesn’t for some reason take too much effort. It’s just like a scoop and it feels good.

 

 

Yeah, if you go out and make a Switch Tre, you know it’s a good day

Exactly, I’d say add to that Half Cab Flip, just feels good as well, like a nice folded Half Cab Flip well.

 

 

Backside Half Cab Flip

Yeah!

 

 

So difficult to get the fold but it looks so good. Do you have a new board sponsor after Alltimers yet?

No, I do not

 

 

Are you looking for a new board sponsor?

Yeah, I’m not really looking. Since I’ve been back on The Cape, like I said, I’ve been creating and restructuring and just falling in love with skating again. Definitely not that I wasn’t into it, but just body-wise. My knee was sore a couple years ago and I didn’t take a break, but I don’t know, I wasn’t feeling great on my board. So, I’m getting back around, feeling healthy and hyped to skate again. I’ve never been one to rush into getting another sponsor. I’ve just always believed things fall into place. so, I’m not really looking if that makes sense.

Yeah, just see what happens and usually something stands out that makes sense and is the right direction that I’m trying to go into!

 

 

For sure and it definitely will. So what went down with Alltimers?

Yeah, we’re all still friends. Pryce Holmes and Rob Harris are the owners. I think the industry is not doing great as a whole right now in general, and I think it takes a lot. I mean, just from me making one run of t-shirts, I learned how much goes into creating and making stuff. I couldn’t imagine running a whole skate company with a team and product every season and every drop.

So, yeah, I think, just with the industry not being in its best, both of them having children within the last couple years, I don’t know if they had enough time to put in to the company to make it what they wanted to make it. I think they decided to end on a high note and not try to drag it out or sell it to somebody else, which I think is really respectable. Yeah, it was a great run and those guys, I have nothing but good things to say about them and had a great time travelling and getting to know everybody on the team, it was a great experience

 

 

Your part in their ‘You Deserve it’ video is banging man!

Thanks, yeah, I had known Pryce and Rob from being in New York and Pryce asked me if I wanted to skate for them. and there was a couple of the younger guys at the time on, that he knew from Canada, that he had also known for a long time.

I met them, hung out and skated with them and everything, the vibe was just really good and very refreshing for me after being on Expedition and it was just a really cool vibe. It felt like skating, it was jokes and fun. We’d go on trips and there was no stress. It was like you guys are all grown ups, do what you want to do and get some tricks on film. Yeah, so it was a pleasure!

 

 

 

 

How did your Backside Flip to Noseblunt down that flatbar on the flatbank under a bridge go down and where was that spot?

Yes, I’m pretty sure that was in Naples, Italy. Yeah, it was just the end of the day, we were passing by that spot I love skating banks and then to have just a pretty unique spot. I just started skating it and I was trying to get a trick on it and that ended up feeling the most comfortable and, yeah, it felt, super good

I definitely had to battle for the Kickflip into that one. That one took a while. I want to say two hours or something. I definitely was trying for a while,

 

 

Oh shit you never know with clips I mean sometimes skaters get there and they do it straightaway and sometimes they set up the flashes, get the camera out, and yeah, six or seven hours it goes either way.

Some of the harder things I’ve done have been first couple tries or first try and then you never know.

 

 

What about the Nollie Crook that you did off the ledge, where you basically land right on the edge of a curb, how did that one go down?

That was in Baltimore. That was a Converse trip and I remember really wanting to do it, but I was fucking terrified of it. It was definitely one of the bigger drops that I had done in a long time. I haven’t really been skating that in a while, but just the runway and the ledge was so good, it grinded really well, it was super smooth marble. The landing was terrible. But I was like if I can just get on and get comfortable on the Crook, I know I could ride away from this.

So I just started getting comfortable on the Crook and then just went for it after I had my confidence going and ended up riding away.

Yeah, I’m like halfway on the curb as well. I wanted to clear the curb, I tried to go a little faster and I looped out pretty gnarly. So I was like I’m gonna go a decent speed and if I clear it, I clear it, and if I don’t, I don’t know, I’m just trying to ride away, whatever happens!

 

 

That makes the trick because you had to negotiate the thing the whole way through. What about your Switch Wallride Hippy Jump?

That was on an Alltimers trip. I remember we ended up there. I had seen people skate it that way and I asked if anybody had done it Switch and it was still available to try, so I started trying it. Yeah, that was a really tough one as well. But yeah, I think those unique spots I definitely gravitate towards those, and I know that a lot of tricks have gone down on that, and it’s a pretty famous spot in San Francisco, so it’s always a plus to get a trick on something that a lot of people have skated, if there’s any options left.

 

 

Zered, Switch Backside Wallride Hippy Jump: Shot by Dan Zaslavsky

 

 

Definitely. That sealed it. Then your Switch Blunt Nollie 270 Kickflip into that bank. It’s just banging. How did you come up with that and what was the hardest bit about doing it?

Yeah, I was feeling good that day. I filmed a couple of tricks earlier on a different spot and then there’s another wall to the right of it that I did a Backside Pivot Kickflip on. So I had a few tricks that I had already done that day. So I was just feeling really good. So I started playing around with some Bluntslides and did a Switch Blunt Nollie Flip Out but I was actually trying Switch Blunt Nollie Hardflip Out – that’s what I wanted to do. But my shoulders kept turning so I was like, oh, I should just go all the way around and ended up landing it pretty quick, which was I was blown away as I was riding away. I blacked out and it felt really good. It was pretty surprising!

 

 

What’s your favourite thing about skating for Converse and how did you get on the team?

There was a guy working for them before, based out of California, and he had a lot of people on from California and a couple people spread around and a new person came in, a higher up, came in and wanted to rebrand a bit and, Converse is from Boston, so they were looking to go back to the roots a bit and look for some people that were from around where the company had started, and got a hold of me and asked me if I was interested.

So that’s how I started riding for them and, yeah, I love Converse. It’s cool to be a part of a company that’s, you know, from Massachusetts, because I’m from there as well.

 

 

 

 

Then, yeah, as far as the shoes, I like a lot of the different shoes. I like the Breakpoints a lot. I like the Fast Break the mid-top Fast Break’s, Jack Purcell, Chuck Taylor… I like all the shoes they do. The new Alexis Sablone shoe is one of my favourites right now, it skates really well and just fits good. Converse is great

 

 

I did not know they were from Massachusetts.

Yeah, no, it’s really cool. I definitely like to look for things that fall into place, like I was talking about earlier. So when that opportunity came about, I definitely jumped on it.

 

 

Sick. That makes sense. Has there been a Cons trip or tour that you’ve been on that stands out most?

There have been on so many. I feel like we went on this one trip.The Rust Belt Tour, and I remember just having a really good time on that and a lot of all the spots that we went to on that trip were right up my alley. We had a good crew on that one, but that trip stands out.

 

 

Who’s your favourite person to skate with on Cons trips?

Yeah, I mean I fuck with everybody on the team. Sammy Baca, we’re always super hyped to be on trips together. I really enjoy being on trips with Raney Beres as well, but, yeah, everybody’s great, there’s a lot of good people on the team. I always enjoy going on Converse trips.

 

 

Raney Beres, Backside Grab

 

 

What’s your favourite skate video?

I would probably still go with Mouse, just because that was a very impactful video on just learning about skating and all the skaters in it are super rad to this day, and just I think the soundtrack’s really good as well. So I think that’s probably one of my top videos, for sure.

 

 

 

 

Who’s your favourite skater of all time and why?

I definitely don’t have one favourite skater. I’d say probably, I go through a bunch of different ones at different times, but I think Grant Taylor right now is probably one of my favourite skaters. I’ve always been a huge fan of his, his footage has been hitting different. I’ve been watching some of his stuff that’s popped up, and yeah, just watching him grow as a skater and how versatile he is and powerful with finesse, yeah, I would say Grant.

 

 

 

 

Who has your favourite style on a skateboard?

Jake Johnson’s up there one of my favourite styles, just the tricks he’s doing in the style he’s doing them with, definitely sticks out in my head

 

 

Agreed. Do you have a favourite skate spot in Massachusetts?

As far as a skate spot in Massachusetts. I haven’t skated too many since I’ve been back and when I was young I wasn’t really skating the same type of stuff I’d be skating now, but yeah, maybe that skatepark that I post clips at from time to time. That park’s been there for almost 30 years and I used to skate it before I left The Cape to start travelling as a young kid. and I still have just as much probably if not more fun skating that park now!

 

 

It’s crazy you are doing tricks you’ve never done 30 years later.

Yeah, no, it’s surprising for me just to still have fun at the same stuff that I did when I was younger is pretty cool yeah,

 

 

Do you have a favourite skate spot on the East Coast?

I don’t think I do, which is weird. Maybe I guess I’d go for the brick Con Ed Banks in New York. I feel like I always find myself going back to that spot. There’s just a lot of options and it’s hard to skate. I’m going to say that.

 

 

 

 

Favourite place in the world to skate?

London’s awesome. I’ve always had a great time there…that one got me stumped a bit, I can think of others. Yeah, I mean Europe’s great. I was just out in Copenhagen and Czech Republic and Germany a few weeks ago. So yeah, I’m just going to say Europe.

 

 

What was the story behind that huge Frontside Flip you did off the kicker spot in Milan?

We were on a Zoo trip. I remember that spot and the trick. There’s a flat bar up on top of that. I remember Forest Kirby skating that. I forget what trick he did on it, but yeah, I remember I didn’t have anything to try on that part of it. So I remember just going off the side of it, yeah, doing the Kickflip and then the Frontside Flip I was definitely hyped, I felt really good, yeah.

 

 

 

 

There’s a photo of you where it looks like you’re about 15 feet in the air on an Ollie out this street quarter. Do you remember doing that Ollie? Where was it and how did it go down?

I do, yeah, I want to say it’s somewhere around Washington DC maybe. I might be wrong about that, but I remember going, and I was feeling good, I like transition, I grew up in a skate park so I was trying to figure something out there.

 

 

Zered, Ollie: Shot by Oliver Barton

 

 

Somebody had launched out of it into the street before, so there’s a little curb cut to the left that I land in. So I was justifying it in my head that I was landing in the curb cut and not doing the same trick as somebody already did.

Yeah, I mean, anytime I find a spot that’s like a skate park in the street, I feel like I have to skate it do it some justice.

 

 

 

 

It’s one of my favourite photos. Are you working on any new projects that you want to announce?

As far as, continuing to create and trying to find stuff to create that I’m into. I’m still dialling in my studio and getting familiar with all the new stuff I have to work with and trying to get it all figured out and learn along the way.

I’m going to start filming a new video part, where it will all just all be Northeast stuff. I’ve never had a video part that is all Northeast stuff. Never had a video part that is filmed all where I’m from – besides the EST part – but which was like a good amount of Boston. So, yeah, I am just trying to skate the suburbs of New England and Boston, so I’m going to be working on that.

 

 

Dope, look forward to watching it. Do you have any last words for people reading this Zered?

I guess just be nice to people. You never know what they’re going through and try to just keep going.Inspire yourself, ask questions, learn, do your best to be happy and get to a place where you’re happy enough where you don’t have to worry about what everybody else is doing.