Green Light with Chris Long - Tony Hawk! Documentary 'Until the Wheels Fall Off,' THE 900 & The Tony Hawk Pro Skater Videogame.

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

(2:18) - Tony and Chris Saw Tupac's Hologram Together and Didn't Know It. (9:55) - Tony's Documentary 'Until the Wheels Fall Off', THE 900 and the Impact of Tony's Father on his Career. (22:50) - Dealing with Fame and the Evolution of Skateboarding Tricks. (31:16) - Skateboarding Bust in the Mid 90s, Tony's Flow State When Skating and How Tricks Are Named. (42:03) - Tony Hawk Pro Skater Video Game, Skatepark Code Breaks, Meeting Wesley Snipes and the Success of Skateboarding at the X Games. (49:05) - Tony's Foundation 'Skate Park Project.' Green Light Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/user/951jyryv2nu6l4iqz9p81him9?si=17c560d10ff04a9b Spotify Layup Line: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1olmCMKGMEyWwOKaT1Aah3?si=675d445ddb824c42 Green Light Tube YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/GreenLightTube1 Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. https://www.greenlightpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Tennessee, y'all two. 1-800-9-9-7-89. Welcome to the Green Light podcast. Cowboy. The bird man's on today. Tony Hawk, he joins us on everything skateboarding. We're talking tricks, Ali's, Madonnas, McTwist, and of course the 900.

Tony's documentary until the wheels fall off is out on HBO right now. We go through his career, favorite moments, fame at a young age, owning a house in high school, going broke with the skateboarding dive in the mid-90s, and then the re-emergence of skateboarding via the X-Games and YouTube. And Tony gives Chris a couple of code breaks when Chris, takes way into the skate park. That's actually where they are right now. They just took off. Ended the interview. Chris grabbed his board and skater right down to the park. He's an

Lolly Trey flipping all over the place now. All right, man who needs no introduction. Tony Hawk is with us. Tony, how are you doing? I'm good. Thank you. What's your day-to-day like? Oh, wow. It varies greatly. Let's see. Today, we are, well, I'm doing this with you. Thank you for finding the time, man. This is a, this is a treat. Of course. Well, I got my daughter off of school this morning. Yeah.

Tried to catch up on communication. I'm here in my office, as you can see behind me. Yeah. And doing something with you, doing something with Anna Farris after this. Nice. And then my ramp is just to my left. So I'm going to try to get on the ramp before my daughter gets out of school. And that's a pretty mellow day.

Yeah. So you still get time to get on the ramp. That's like daily, though. That's like a, that's like a leisure day for me. Okay. Well, I was, I was going to ask you, like, I know you're, you're big on, like, posting the interactions you have with fans. And this may or may not go well, but we've, we haven't met. We've been right next to each other.

It was at Black Keys, I think, at Bonner. Oh, wow. Do you remember going to Bonaroo and seeing Black Keys or was that Coachella? Coachella. It was Coachella. I was right next to Coachella. Yeah. Yeah.

So was my kids there? I don't know, man. I tried not to like stare. Were we close to the stage or away from the stage? We were up in VIP like in the front. Like you know how they have the road dog? No kids. I took my kids to Coachella when they were young and a little intimidated.

Yeah. And at some point I found that we were on the very outside of the crowd. The Black Keys played that year too. But at some point I was like, you guys, we're not really in the concert here when we're so far away from the stage. But yeah, I was there with my wife. Well, it's like flying your kids. it or something. It's like, this is not how it is. Like, we got to go in the belly of the beast for you to say you're really at a show. Yeah. That was the Tupac hologram year, I think. Yeah, that one.

Yeah, that, yes. I quit Coachella. It just, I mean, I was, I was in my prime as a party animal. And the third, fourth day, I was like, you guys go. I'm going to stay at this house. We rent it. I am out of gas. And then somebody called and they're like, Tupac's on. And I rushed in and saw the hologram last minute. So I'll never forget that for two reasons. I met Tony Hawk. and I saw Tupac. All right. We both saw Tupac. I actually met Tupac.

Did you really? I did, yeah. Was he cool? He was so cool. It was really, and one of my biggest regrets in life is that I took a picture with my then-girlfriend of him and her and didn't think to just hand her the camera. What a good guy.

I mean, that's interesting. I hope she has the picture. Oh, yeah. No, I kept, well, over the years, she's actually, she's the mother of my first child, Riley. Yeah. And over the years, I kept telling, I got to find that. It's going to be like, your kids are going to freak out. She has other kids. I was like, your kids are going to freak out. If you ever find that. She's like, I don't know. I don't know. And she finally found it. And every year, her kids post that picture of her for a birthday. That's so good, man. That's so good. Who's the most, like, shocking person you've met that's, like, really into your stuff? Oh, wow. I guess what I didn't realize was that Pharrell was such a hardcore skater in his youth,

you know, really down to like to the nitty gritty of tricks and getting into the weeds and stuff like that. So, you know, it seemed like there have been, there have been plenty of musicians, celebrities that try to attach themselves to skating because somehow that it's cool now. It looks cool. Which is crazy to me. Well, because when I was a kid, it was the furthest thing from cool you could do. Yeah.

So to think that now the cool kids are skaters or the cool kids in school are skaters is still just seems wild. And so when I saw Farrell talking about skating, I talked to him for a bit and I realized like, oh, no, he really was, he was an outcast skater. He was he started skating when it was not cool and when you were made fun of it, especially in his area. So I plot him for that. He's from Virginia. He's from two, three hours away from me. And I was kind of wondering this, like y'all started way back. I mean, what, in the early 80s, or whenever you started, you're 13 years old or whatever you are. Like, you guys kind of dictated not only the sports popularity, but the culture, like what people wear, how they act.

Like, to me, from the outside looking in, I'm wondering when y'all kind of kicked this whole thing off, were there are other regions that people were skating in and y'all beat them to punch, or was it just y'all? There were pockets of skating. Yeah. mostly in the U.S., but some all over the world. I think what it is is that skating was born mostly in Southern California. Right. And so the industry was there, especially in the beginning.

In the 80s, there was no social media. So the industry, the magazines, the photographers, the skaters were all sort of moving west to try to make a go at it. And then when you would get photos or stuff in the magazines, the magazines wouldn't get to other areas for months. Yeah. So we were ahead of the curb only by default, not because other people weren't skating. It was just more like, this is what the progression of skating is, and everyone else is finding about it later. And like in Europe, they're finding about it a year later. Yeah, right.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I know. I was thinking about it today, kind of like, you know, the clothes, the kind of slang or whatever, whatever you want to pick out of the whole bag. Yeah, I think it just, it wouldn't have been so closely associated with punk rock music. Right. That's what I feel like. And they're so intertwined, especially in the early 80s. I mean, that was when I would go to the skate park, I was young, but that was the soundtrack of the skate park was like circle jerks, black flag, sex pistols.

And so to me, that was that was skate music. You know, I'm not an athlete anymore per se. I did just join a softball league. but I'm a podcaster. To podcasters, gut health is very important. My morning routine is very important. My breakfast is very important. Walking downstairs to the kitchen to the song Narco is very important to me.

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purchase. All you have to do is visit athletic greens.com slash greenlight. Again, that is athletic greens.com slash greenlight to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. So, documentary, until the wheels fall off, you know, the part that struck me

and probably a lot of people was, you know, you land in the 900, 20 something years ago and then doing it today at your age. And like, as a washed up athlete

and you're not washed up because you can keep doing what you're doing. So it's a little bit different than pro football. But like I pulled my hamstring playing fucking softball last night. So like,

there's an element of like, I know I can't You know, for retired pro athletes in team sports, I feel like you always wonder, like, could I still do it? And you get to go do it. What is it about the 900, 25 years later, or 23 years later, whatever it is, that makes it more difficult? Like, because I don't know how it feels to be your age and have skated a million miles. Like, is it, you know, kind of your appropriate perception, your balance? Is it your confidence?

Is it like you don't have that crazy-ass gene you had? I think it's more the reaction time that I have now and my flexibility. Because it was much harder to get to at my age. I mean, I did it a few years ago. But when I was younger, I was easier to, it was easier to ball up and spin fast. And so because I can't spin as fast, I have to go higher in the air, which makes it more risky. Right. So there's some irony in that, in that.

I spin slower, so I have to make it more dangerous in order to go higher. Yeah, and then so I have to make sure that my speed is up every time, and it's just so exhausting. And then when I go to land it, I was able to fix it easier when I was younger. Do you know what I mean? Like if something was a little off, I was turned one way or another, I could, I could compensate for that. This one, I just had to take the hit. And I took a bunch of hits.

And I think at some point after it was about an hour of nonstop attempts on this last one, I felt like, all right, if I do make this, that's it. I'm not doing it again because it wasn't like I set out to say this is my last one. But after the end of it, it was like, why would I want to go through that again? Right. Right. I mean, like, I don't know. The fear thing, like, are you any, you don't seem to be less fearless than you were.

And that seems to be a rarity because I know, like, things. Things change over your lifetime. Like, I don't know. I was crazy in my 20s. And then I got older and had kids and, you know, your testosterone goes down or whatever it is. But like something clicks where you're like, I'm just not as psychotic as I was. Like, do you, did you lose a little bit of that?

Are you still that crazy? Um, no, I think my risks are much more calculated now. Yeah. And, um, and definitely I was reckless when I was younger. You know, I didn't, I just didn't. didn't think of any consequences. So there was this sort of false invincibility I had. And then as I got older and had some of my bigger injuries were when I was older. And you start to realize your sense of mortality. You start to realize that you have responsibilities. I mean, I have kids that I want to

be there for them. I don't want to be either gone or incapacitated. So that changes your perspective too. And so now I feel like I've really shifted my style and is something that's much more technical and low impact, but allows me to still be creative. I think that that was sort of the turning point for me, especially in my 40s where it's like I can still skate. I can still be considered relevant and innovative if I just focus on this skill set. And that's what I've been doing ever since. Yeah, like retirement seems different for you. Like you technically retired what year was it? Oh, 2000, 99, 2000.

So you've been out for a couple decades, but like you still get to do what you love, which is different than some other sports, but you don't get the crowd maybe? No, it's not that. It's just that skateboarding is so much more of an individual pursuit and an art form as well as a sport that, like, I'm, you know, I am capable of doing big exhibitions. Yeah. And still, and, yeah, still draw a crowd and still, like what I say, play the hits and doing my tricks. And that allows me to do that. There aren't many sports,

especially for retired athletes that could allow you to do that, except for an exhibition form. And I feel like a lot of athletes, and I'm sure I'm going to get to this point, they don't want to, as my good friend Rodney Mohn says, they don't want to rot in public. Yeah. And that is literally why Rodney doesn't skate on camera or in front of people anymore. Like, he loves doing it. He does it. hours at a time, but he's just, he doesn't think he's at his full potential or what he was. And so he just wants it to be more of a legacy. It also sucks to see older guys get hurt. And I'm not calling you older because you look great, but like, I'm older. It's okay. I mean, like, I fully embrace that.

Yeah. Well, you know what? Like, you're still doing it. And I saw like the Bones Brigade guys got back together and we're doing some of the same stuff. And, you know, like, I don't know, when I see older boxers box, you know, when I see older, yeah, it's just, I'm like, damn, I don't want to see that happen. And, and, you know, I want to see you fall. It's like, it's just, you know, you feel for the subject more. I don't want to fall. Yeah, I know you don't. I don't enjoy it. I imagine you don't. But it is part of the game. Yeah, it's part of the game. You know, I heard you on Rogan talking about concussions. And, you know, I think you said you've had maybe 30 of some, you know, some scale of concussion.

Is that accurate? Daring degrees, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Is that something you continue to worry about it all? Or, you know, like, because this is a commonality with our sport. Like there's, it can be a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can be like, damn, I'm going to lose my mind. Like, that's what they say happens because of all this stuff we've done to our heads. But I feel pretty good.

I think that I've been a little, I've been a little more proactive in, in at least researching it and being tested and and seeing if I'm, more susceptible for for CTE or for Alzheimer's because my my mom had Alzheimer's. She passed away a few years ago. But I do, I'm not, I guess I'm not more at risk for those things in terms of the testing I've done. And I, yeah, I worry about it, of course. Absolutely. I mean, I can't, I would, you know, I would be, I would be in complete denial to say I

don't worry about it. But at the same time, I do. feel like our equipment has come a long way. Right. You know, the helmet that I wore when I was a kid, it was just, it was just a plastic cover. Yeah. And nowadays, they literally save your life.

And I've hit hard in my helmet and been right back with it. Yeah. So it's not like I'm relying on that, but that is a big game changer. Well, yeah. Like, my pops played 13 years and they played with totally different equipment. And a lot of times, like, they'll compare that era to, you know, what we're going to go through after football. And, you know, I think that, you know, you got to take into context the advances in the equipment. It's the same thing with you guys, I would imagine.

Your guerrilla suit accident, that one looked really bad. And, you know, like... Yeah, it was a bad day. Oh, my God, dude. Yeah. Okay, so I remember you saying they asked me who the president was because you, you know, you, you fell from how high was that right on your head in a monkey suit? Yeah, that loops about 14 feet. Yeah, that probably, I'm going to imagine it hurt. I don't know if you remember it hurting or not.

I remember the first, my first thought when I came to and I was obviously groggy and the first thing that shocked me into being lucid was they were they were moving, they were putting me in the ambulance and when they moved me up, something in my hip was just this intense pain. And that's what snapped me out of it and why I found out later I broke my pelvis. But I had brought my kids there because they had this chimpanzee that that skated. That's why we were there. That's why we were dressed up in those suits. We were shooting for wild boys. And that was the whole thing was the theme of the day was that this chimpanzee could skate and we're skating with him or behind him. He doesn't like you skating ahead of him because he comes to attack you. So we're skating behind him and then we were doing our

own tricks on the side. So I thought it would be fun for my kids to come see this champ skating. And then when I first woke up, I just said, oh, shit, where are my kids? Yeah. And luckily, my friend had come with me and he had already driven him home. He saw what was happening with me. And he's like, and got them out of sight. And he brought them home. So that was, that was what I remember from that day. It was like, oh, my hip hurts. Where are my kids? God damn, dude. Oh, and the one day you bring your kids. Yeah. Well, they, I mean, They probably get to come along with skates right now, right? Riley, he's... They all skate, actually.

They all skate, yeah. Yeah, but my oldest son is a pro skater. How has that been, like, giving him, you know, his space to grow and be his guy? I mean, like, do you kind of feel like you walk a line with that, like, um, having a son who's pursuing the same thing? Yeah, I think I, it was tricky at first, especially when he started coming into his own because there were, there were claims of nepotism or favoritism or, or whatever, or like he has all this handed to him.

And it's like, you can't fake skating. You can't buy skating. You know, skating's so hard. It's just, you're either working at it or you're not. And you're willing to go through the trials and tribulations to get there. So I backed off a bit, especially when he started to get a name for himself. And then he got his own sponsors. And that's, that's when everything shifted where he was more recognized for being a talent than just being my son.

So I backed off in that sense. but now we've come a long way. I mean, he's almost 30, and it's more fun to do stuff together now than it was way back then. Yeah, that's awesome, man. That's a good, it's good that you have that perspective. And I know your dad was pretty supportive,

but in like a different way, right? Like he was pretty hardcore about like getting out there and getting you out there skating and supporting what you were doing, which probably wasn't a normal thing for a dad back then in that sport. Not at all. No. I mean, my dad, I think, well, it all stems from his childhood. because he had no support.

But he was a World War II veteran, and he saw what skating did for me in terms of my self-confidence and my sense of identity. And he wanted to support that. And yeah, most of my friends, they had to get rides to the skate park from my dad because their parents didn't want them skating. Yeah. Like under the cover of darkness? Absolutely.

Yeah. A lot of them had to hide it. No shit. And you had a house. Did you bought a house or a duplex? or something like that? Like at what age, how old were you when you, you had enough money to do that sort of? I was a senior in high school.

And I, my dad was, was worried that I was making all this money and not being, uh, responsible with it. And so he said, I think you should invest in property. And, and these, this new, um, development had just come up available right near us. Yeah. And so I, uh, I put a down payment down and actually moved in during my senior. year, which made things very challenging to stay focused on schoolwork. Yeah, I would imagine. I mean, like, I'm surprised you did any. Yeah, because you know, when you're a senior,

it's like, whose parents are out of town? Who's having the party? I was like, my parents are always out of town. Yeah, I'm over here. I got a pool and everything. Yeah. I didn't have a pool yet, but I did have a hot tub and that was a big hit. Hot tub is enough, dude, as a senior high school, If you're here in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, or right here in Virginia, and you haven't tried the WinBet app yet, I have great news for you. WinBet is now offering $200 in free bets for new users. That's right, $200, $200 big ones on a $50 bet. WinBet is basically giving you free money.

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Tennessee, y'all 2, 1-8009-9-7-8-9. Give me a sense of how quick the fame came for you and like how quick the success and the money because that has to be a lot. You look at a lot of these individual sport guys and gals and it's like it just the whole world kind of comes down on them at a young age and I really feel for these young athletes It seemed very quick It came very quickly and then it went away very quickly

But I think somewhere around age 16 Yeah like 16 I started to get people recognizing me when I was out and about and it was weird because it was still not cool like skating wasn't really cool, but there was this underground movement of people that were getting into it. So I would fly to Florida for a big competition over the weekend, you know, sign autographs, have fans, whatever, come back to school and be a ghost to school. Yeah. Because it just wasn't cool. So at some point, that started to change more that people were interested in it, I think, around 16, 17.

And then it felt like, it felt like we were on top of the world. It felt like this was never going to end. and it's really challenging to have that kind of success when you're you know i didn't even know who i was yet and all of a sudden people are looking at me for for being an example or a role model and i was like role model for what like i'm i'm just trying to meet girls and go you know what i mean pick up some of these big ass checks right my skateboard yeah i remember i was i heard you had to put those big ass checks in the uh in first class or what or in the cabin i don't know if you're my first class but no no no we were not flying that's the other thing yeah i came home from the big competition

in uh that's right in st louis and i had one of those oversized checks and they put it up in the first class closet you know with the suits but i had to go sit in the coach that was cool of them to put your baggage up in the first class it's cool yeah and you're six three you can't be sitting in coach that was one thing i noticed about you when i when i stood next you i was like this dude's tall and i kind of wonder is that like what go the skaters all different heights, right? Like, are there more tall skaters? Is it more challenging in some ways? Is it easier in some ways? Like what advantages to each? Yeah. I can't say one is better than the other. I grew up as a run. So I, you know, I formed, I formed my style when I was very small. And that is kind of the reason that I have, that I do the tricks I do is because I didn't have the strength to muscle into the air. I had to figure out how to sort of launch into the air on my own. And so when I got taller, that stuff became a little easier because suddenly I had way more strength.

I go way higher. Well, that's funny. We were just talking about like basketball players and like a, you know, a 610 guy who has guard skills like growing up and then he hits a gross spurt. Like you got to learn as a guard. And then you have all this power and height at some point. It's like a, it's dangerous, you know, for everybody else. Yeah.

I think when I got taller, the, the big ramps, the bigger ramps seemed way more comfortable to me. Yeah. I bet and some of those ramps are insane dude uh like tell me what's next in the sport because you know i watched the dunk contest not to go right back to basketball but i'm sometimes i'm like what more can these guys do you know like like how much more creative can people be and is there like an inflation factor to the currency of doing a really great trick you know like people like i've seen that a bunch it's still just as amazing but like once people catch up and replicate

you know, I kind of wonder what's next because I've noticed young sport, right, relative to all these other sports, but there's been a lot of ebbs and flows. Like you go from parks to, to, you know, street skating to, you know, verts or whatever. I don't want to butcher the lingo, man. I don't want to be a fucking poser here. No, you got it. You're in the pocket. I'm like, this is good. My six-year-old wants to skate. I didn't sound like a goober with Tony Hawk. But like what's next, dude? it keeps it keeps progressing it keeps evolving i i don't i can't say what's next but i can tell you that the tricks that that people were dreaming about or only doing once for a video uh 20 years ago are now the normal yeah and that the the kind of thing that you is is what you get for a baseline

for your tricks if you're trying to make a career out of it so or for instance like yeah i did the 900 in 1999. Since then, Mitchie Brusco, just a couple years ago, did a 1260. It went a full 360 beyond what I did because he had a bigger ramp.

He had more airtime. He had spatial awareness. He was a gymnast. And that, you know, yeah, sure, it's 20 years for a full 360, but it is still evolving. And the tricks that you see,

especially what the street stuff, is so highly technical. And it's just a combo of all these existing tricks that we really, really only ever were able to do in video games before. Did you ever have to like kind of chill out with the street stuff? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because that seems like a little bit different game, you know? Like they both seem dangerous as hell to me.

But, you know. And also just, well, I learned, I learned how to skate in pools because in my day, especially in the late 70s, early 80s, you either skated pools, which were the Dogtown Z-Boys crew, which was the cool crew. Or you did freestyle, which was like ice skating or dancing or, you know, doing pirouettes. Right. I didn't want to dance. I wanted to do the cool stuff.

And so I wanted to skate pool. I wanted to fly. Right. So there was no, there was no street skating in the way that people think of it now. And then as street skating started to evolve, my style was kind of rooted in in transition skating, in ramp skating. And so when I would go do stuff, it just looked clunky.

Yeah. And I remember coming home from a tour, this is probably around like 90, 1994, 96 maybe. And I had rolled one ankle right at the beginning of the tour. I was skating with an ankle, rolled one ankle street skating. And then I was wearing an ankle brace on that. Then on the last week of the tour, I was doing a little trick on the street, rolled the other ankle worse. Came home. I was literally, we're driving.

we had a van for our tour. So I'm driving home from St. Louis with one foot up driving with ice on it. And just thinking, like, I can't do this. Like, if I want to keep skating, street skating is, and the other thing is I'm not moving the needle with any of the stuff I'm doing. Football season brings back many traditions we know and love. Touchdown dances, pick sixes, strip sacks, game winning sacks, tackles, hitting the quarterback and watching it all with friends in a cooler Miller light.

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Yeah, I was struggling for sure. But I'm just saying like in terms of in terms of what street skating and what people were appreciating, I wasn't doing the bigger technical stuff. I was just trying to fit in. Yeah. And then that was really the moment when I was driving home from that tour that I said, if I'm going to keep skating, I got to stay in my comfort zone. I got to keep skating ramps because that's the only way I'm going to have any longevity. And it was kind of, it was risky because the only way you're going to make a living in that time was being a street skater. luckily around that same time rollerblading took off and so I got a bunch of jobs being the guest

skater during rollerblade shows rollerblading right so I was I was the skateboard I was like the skateboarder special guest in the rollerblade exhibition how do skateboarders feel about rollerblading it feels like a distant oh I mean there's always distant yeah I just in those days there was a lot of animosity just because it was like wait what this we've been riding these ramps for you years, you know what I mean? But I didn't, I didn't bite the hand in the February. I was, I was doing an amusement park, parking lot demos with inline skaters for $100 bucks a day. And it was paying the rent. And I, I didn't complain. In your whole career, what's the weirdest place you were asked to go skate? Wow, that's a good question. Well, I got to skate in one of those zero gravity planes.

No. Yeah, that was pretty cool. How did that feel? It felt like there was no gravity, I would imagine. But tell me, tell me more. I mean, I did. The coolest part, it wasn't zero gravity. The coolest part was like the third gravity.

Uh-huh. Because you could Ollie and your board's floating up, you can grab it either way. You can flip it a bunch of times. That was probably the biggest eye opener. That's so cool. What you just, okay, you just said, Olly. Like, I was looking up some of your moves.

stale fish, saran wrap, Madonna, there's an eggplant in there. Like, where do these, like, were you and your dudes just, like, kind of hanging out drinking and naming tricks? Or how did these come about? I mean, in the early 80s, skating was just the Wild West. And if you made up a trick, the unspoken rule was that you get to name it. And so we just came up with the dumbest names. So eggplants just out of the sky? Well, I didn't invent the eggplant, but, Like when you when you when you when you when you balance on one hand at the top of the ramp that's called a hand plant. Okay. Originally.

So this is using the front hand instead of the backhand, which was a new thing. So it had to have a new name. So it became the eggplant. Stalefish was actually I got that's a funny story. That's a grab that I created. And it's a way of grabbing your board. You kind of use your back hand between your heels. And I was at a skate camp in Sweden.

and I was keeping a journal because we were there for five weeks and we were bored out of our minds. And this guy came into my room while I was writing and grabbed my journal, you know, totally rude. And I was keeping it kind of cryptic. And he wrote, he read, stale fish, what's stale fish? And it was actually the lunch that we had. They gave us a tin of a whole fish in Sweden. And so I just wrote down, like, just to keep a reminder that we had that lunch. And he goes, stalefish, is that grab where you reach behind you.

your foot and you do it. I go, yeah. Yes, it is. It is now. Sure. It is now. That's so good. And Madonna, is that you or somebody else? No, I named that because it was a trick that I had just learned and my friend and I were talking and I said, you know, I've been learning all these tricks and I feel like no one wants to learn the tricks that I'm doing. He goes, well, a lot of them are just too technical. I said, yeah, but I feel like there's some tricks that I'm doing that wouldn't be that hard to learn. they just think they're not cool. And he's like, well, then you got to name it something trendy. And it was 1985.

Yeah, that was the thing to name it in 85. That was it. Yeah. And it works. People still talk about it. People did it in the Olympics. So I guess there was something that. She's still famous, you know?

So it kind of works out. I did. Actually, I broke my leg in March and I've had a pretty, I've had a difficult recovery. But about two weeks ago on Madonna's Bernie. I relearned Madonna's. Oh, wow. That's cool, man. Congratulations.

That's got to be, is it like the rehab process now is just got to really suck, huh? Yeah, but I'm glad I didn't get hurt like this in the 70s or 80s. Right, right. It was a femur. Did I hear? My femur, yeah. That's the big one.

Yeah, that's the big one. I'm not a doctor. I do feel like in the last, in the last couple weeks, I've turned a corner with my recovery, and I'm able to finally keep my speed up. And so I have a lot more hope. than I did even a month ago. That's great, man. I saw, like, one of your buddies did the Great Wall of China, which I think is pretty cool.

Danny Way. Daniel Way jumped it, yeah. So is there like a landmark that you're like, man, I want to jump over that? I want to ride that rail or whatever, you know, like, I want to, you know, like, is there somewhere in the world that you're percolating in your brain about? No. Actually, I've had an idea for a while to sort of resurrect some famous skate. bowls from my youth.

So that would be pretty cool to bring a modern skating to these bowls that are now defunct or skate spots. But no, I've never thought about, I mean, I got invited to a Father's Day event during the Obama administration and I skated through the White House without permission. That was pretty cool. That's cool as hell. Okay, there you go. Skated through the White House.

That's cool. How much did the video game change things for you? You know, speaking of, you know, skating in really cool play. I mean, it looked really, I was never a skater, but, you know, it really hooked me in. I was mashing buttons back in, what was it like, when to come out, like, 99 or something? 99, yeah. Yeah, like, how did that change? It changed my life.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it, in terms of my, well, definitely my success, but also my choices, like, I didn't have to do these parking lot demos to make ends meet anymore. and I could focus. It really changed my skating because I could focus more on just my skating at my leisure. And in those years, especially the first few years of the video game, were probably when I was in the best skating zone I've ever been in. And also, like, in terms of opportunities, it opened doors, I never imagined.

Yeah, like you said you're in best skating zone. Like, what does that feel like? I could just reach in to my bag of tricks from all through the years and do them on any, any time, anyhow. And we were, we were on tour during those years, like 2002, 2005-ish on the Boom Hucksham tour, which was an arena tour with a huge ramp. And motorcycles flying over us and BMX riders. And in those years, I just felt like I was learning really, uh, innovative tricks, but also I had all my previous skill set. And so it was like I had the best of both worlds and I could I could sway back and forth. Yeah, those tours were a blast.

Is there like a flow state that you like, you know, I hear like some great athletes. I always tried to get a flow state. I guess I just couldn't quite get there. Yeah, you know, it's not, I can't say it's something that that like it just happens. It's not something that I go in it. Like I'm going to get in that mode. It's more like, oh, I'm in it. Oh, I can, I can expand on this. do more stuff. I mean, at some point, you just feel like things are flowing so easily. Like, I'll just be singing along to the music that's playing. That's crazy.

Like up there doing the trick, you're in the air and you're coming along to something. Yeah, that's when I know that I don't have to try so hard. Isn't that a nice place to be? It is. But there are other days when I go in and I'm all wobbly and I can't make basic tricks. So it evens out. So, like, let me ask you this. Well, first question, was there an anti-flow?

state for you, an anti-flow, like, kind of, you said these were your best years? Like, was there of a slump for you? Do skaters getting slumps where they just can't break out of something? Um, not slumps, but definitely, um, just bad days. Yeah. What usually leads to a bad day? I know it could be all types of things in your life, but like the day before an event, can you go out and get like fucked up? Can you, can you sleep five hours and go to an event the next day? Like, do you, do you guys treat your bodies like athletes like, because you are? But do you treat them like, you're maximizing your rest and recovery. Is there a nutrition piece of skating or is it just like, we just roll? Well, definitely I make more effort with that now. And I'm not out. I have too many kids.

Yeah, I know. I hear you. Believe me. But I think that there were times definitely in my 20s and 30s that, yeah, I would go a little too far the night before and still be able to bring it all together the next day. but eventually that came to an end. I think I did have one time where we were out in New York and then we had to do a big demo the next day, but it was outside of the city. And I actually flew off the side of the ramp. No.

Because I was so disoriented. Like on the upside of it? No, well, as I was coming down the ramp, I just kind of, I was still at an angle. So I kind of shot off the near the flap, but still up in the air. Damn, dude. You had a night. That gave me a sense of reality.

Like, hey, you're not invincible. This is real. Yeah, no question. If you're here in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, or right here in Virginia, and you haven't tried the WinBet app yet, I have great news for you. Winbet is now offering $200 in free bets for new users. That's right, $200, 200 big ones on a $50 bet. Winbet is basically giving you free money. Don't turn that down.

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You know, I mentioned my son, Waylon, he's six years of, old. And he used to make me last year during the pandemic when we couldn't go places, you know, indoors. And you know how this is you need to get your kids outside. It's like, holy shit, what do I do? Um, I take him to the skate park because he just loved to watch people skate. Like, thought they were the coolest people in the world. But I'm such an outsider that I'm like, son, I don't even know what to tell you about any of this. Like, we're just watching these motherfuckers. I'm like, yeah, it looks cool. I'm right there with you. So if I'm going to introduce him to the sport more formally, is there a young skater that he should be following along?

Yeah, I don't know if that's the answer, really. I feel like you got to let him explore it for himself. My best advice, especially to parents with kids that age, is get them all the right gear and safety gear and whatnot, but also take him to the skate park early in the morning because that's when only little kids and old dudes like me are there. And the older guys are going to watch out. when you go there during prime hours it's like a collision course yeah you don't know where to stand you don't know you know everyone's in the way and there's a certain sort of expert flow that

you need to get into but if you take them early like between 8 and 10 a.m. that's the best hours to learn okay well that's a good tip and then you just said it like there's this etiquette that exists and guys are just like it's muscle memory like we know the rules of the skate part and you know like any outsider i don't want to break the code i don't want to you know i don't want to you know find myself an escape park code break so what are the like the no-nows at escape park um don't stand on the obstacles okay that's number one okay you know if you see a set of stairs don't sit on the stairs okay don't stand on on the top of them or the bottom of them if there's a ledge or something stay away from the the landing zone of that ledge it's all you know people will tell you um in not so friendly

ways to not be there, but you can kind of figure it out. I think more, most parks have a certain flow of structure in terms of the direction of skaters. And if you're opposing that, if you're like doing cross traffic, that's when it gets dangerous. Okay. And is there like a slang word that refers to like a goofy dad that shouldn't be at the skate park that I got to watch out for if I hear some kids saying it? I don't think so, but it would be throwing at me too. So, no, I don't think so. What's your fame like? Because I know you're one of the, I was asking before you came on. I was like, you see the most famous person we had on the show?

They were like, I don't know, Shaq. Like I'm like, yeah, you guys. I mean, you're globally famous. But you also seem to occupy a niche where you can slide into a coffee shop and maybe somebody's like, are you that guy? Like, what's your, your kind of level of fame? And how do you deal with that? Yeah, it's not. I think, and for me personally,

a lot of people think of me as kind of stuck in the years of the video game series. So when they they know my name, but they don't expect this face to be old. Yeah. So I get that a lot where it's just like, what? Like, oh, and they see my name. And it's just like, well, it can't be him because it doesn't look like the dude from the 2001 video games. Yeah, that's. So I get that.

But more often than not, it's like, oh. Oh, hey, you're Tony. Yeah. But I can't say it's on the level of Shaq, no way. No, I think you're up there. I mean, yeah, Shaq, he's so tall. He's so recognizable. But yeah, I, um, the Westlake.

I think a lot of times I just look like, I just look like some suburban dad that is like, which is awesome. You know, like a teenager or something. And so that kind of throws people off. Um, but all the stories I share about people either mistaking me or not sure if it's me or saying I'm someone. No, that's all, all those are true. I'm not making that stuff up. That's so good. And obviously, the Wesley Snipes meme has just gone so, like, it's like, it's like, it's like part of the

internet's fabric. And I wonder when you all met for the first time, like, he knew right away about the meme. He didn't know. He didn't know. You had to explain to me to Wesley Snipes. I had to explain to him, yeah. So, how did that go? So that was last year at the Oscars. Yeah, my friends were doing the, the catering for the, um, for the Oscars. So we left the show early, and it was all, you know, all like chaos was happening anyway. So we left the show early and we went up to go talk to them. And Wesley Snipes was one of the first people to come up, up the stairs. And my first reaction was, I have to get a photo of Wesley Snipes, you know, to go with this, this meme thing that was happening. And I approached him and then I

explained it to him. And he's like, well, what's it from? What's from? I go, you know, it's from, it's New Jackson City. He's like, he's like, what do you mean? And then I showed him the thing. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I said, then I had shown what I wrote under it. Yeah. Like, I have to explain the whole thing to them. So if you see photos of us, half of the photos are me showing him my phone trying to explain what this thing is. And I was like, it would be cool to get a photo together because it shows that we have some unity or that I, you know, I was spared. After you explain the whole thing. Yes. It was like, it was like a two-minute pitch.

God damn, dude, but it's good being you because he's like, I'm talking to Tony Hawk. I'm going to sit here and like, yeah, we're going to see this thing through. He was very cool about it. Yeah. And we got the photo and then that, that went, you know. So the video game changed your life. X games change, you know, skating. Was that, was that a big shift? Did that, you know, kind of do something for the sport in some way? Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. It was weird that, that they wanted it to be grouped into and labeled as extreme. Like that, that rubbed us the wrong way because it was like, we have nothing to do with rock climbing or sky surf. or bungee jumping, like, you know, just because we skate, doesn't mean we're extreme athletes,

but at the same time, I understood that they didn't really know what would work either. And I feel like through the years, it got refined. And then the sort of the sports that had more staying power rose to the top. So it was skateboarding, BMX, motocross, you know, snowboarding, surfing. And so, and definitely that in combination, with having a video game, you know, that changed everything for me. What's the one X-game sport you watch and you're like, damn, those guys, they're extreme? Monocross.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, what we do is very trial and error-based. We can try stuff and bail and fall and get up, try it again. If you don't make your first time, you know, of a motocross backflip, it's tragic. Yeah. Yeah, that bite. get to just knee slide down the landing. Yeah.

I mean, all y'all have balls, man. It's like just different classifications. So skate park project, tell me about what you've been doing there and how important it is to have access to this sport. When I grew up, I happened to live near one of the last skate parks that existed in the U.S. And that was my home way from home. Like I literally figured out which school bus went closest to the skate park. And I would take that school bus out from school. So, and that was where I formed my sense of identity, my, my, got my sense of self-confidence,

found my community. And that was never lost on me. And so when I had a chance to affect any kind of change or to give back at all, I wanted it to be in the form of skate parks. So we started the Tony Hawk Foundation 20 years ago. And now it is known as the skate park project. And we've helped to fund almost a thousand. skate parks now in all 50 states and some extensions through Skatistan internationally.

And it's my proudest work because I feel like there are so many kids that are the field disenfranchised that choose to skate and they don't have any place to go or they're told not to do it because they're ruining public property. And it's like if you find something that speaks to youth, that empowers them, that gives them a good state of mental health, why would you discourage them from doing it? you're damn right and you're probably putting them in places where they're needed uh yeah we're i think that we're much more effective with our work and our money now and we've hit a great stride in terms of uh support that's awesome man well that's great work and um this has been a pleasure

i appreciate the extra time um tony hock everybody this was a blast our first skater ever and we did it the right way so dude nice meeting you thank you you too i appreciate it