Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Tony Hawk

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Tony Hawk is a professional skateboarder widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the sport’s history. Rising to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s, he became known for pioneering tricks like the 900 and for pushing skateboarding into the mainstream through competitions, video games, and media appearances. He became a household name through victorious X Games performances, and his career highlights include being the first to land the 900 in competition, earning over 70 contest victories, and dominating vert skating across two decades. As an ambassador for the sport, he also founded the Tony Hawk Foundation to support youth skateparks, further cementing his influence and legacy in skateboarding culture.

Tetragrammaton My older brother was a surfer. My older brother was a surfer. He's 13 years older than me. skating was an extension of surfing in the 70s so he started doing it and he's my older brother so I was like oh that's cool and for whatever reason I I didn't take the surfing the way he did I liked it but I but I wasn't that confident in the water with big waves once we found skateboarding together I really enjoyed it but it was really intimidating it was like all the kids most the kids were older

there was a skate park in San Diego the Bulls seemed like they were gigantic you know and it was constant danger but there was something about it when I first went to the skate park on my own and felt the energy in that space where it was like it wasn't organized

it wasn't a coach telling us what to do no one's relying on the rest of the team for their success people are flying the music it was like a punk rock soundtrack it was all new and it was just i was like i want to live here i want to be in this world and i got hooked skate parks must have been a really new phenomenon at that time they were i didn't realize i was at the tail end of it because to me it seemed like oh

there are skate parks everywhere there were actually two in san diego near us spring valley oasis i was not old enough to get a membership of spring valley he had to be 10 i think i was 9 and my dad wouldn't lie. And then I went to Oasis and spent as much as I could get rides there, both my parents are working. So it was hard to get there as much as I wanted to go. How far was it from where you lived? Like 20 minutes, but it was just more like my mom worked at a community college. She was usually there till late at night. My dad was kind of a traveling salesman and musical instruments. He was retired from the Navy. What kind of instruments? Everything. guitars, myelins, I mean, drums.

My sister, my older sister, was in a band. So he was there, roadie, for the most part. And then he found a way to source instruments and just started selling them to music shops all around southern California and Arizona. So he was usually off doing that. And then I could rely on my brother at least once a week and my mom a couple times a week to get to the park. So I was there until they closed.

And I remember just, I was obsessed. Like, I had to be there. And first time I got hurt, I got knocked on my front teeth, got a concussion. And I didn't care. You know, I feel like I remember. How old were you when that happened? Maybe 10 or 11?

Yeah. I remember being in the ambulance. I remember waking up and I was not. not where I got hurt. So you got knocked out. Oh, yeah. And then I woke up and I was in the pro shop of the skate park and they put me in ambulance

because my parents weren't there yet. And then I remember sort of this epiphany in the ambulance that was like, oh man, I got to learn how to do rock and rolls better. Yeah. Because that's what took me out. Yeah, yeah. That was a pretty pivotal moment in my life because it was like. In those days, how many hours would you be

skate park typically. My parents moved around a couple times, San Diego, and ended up in North County, and it was just pure coincidence that the last skate park, almost in the U.S. was right there, Delmar Skaid Ranch. All of the other ones closed. During, like, the Dogtown days, there were not yet skate parks. They were starting to crop. I was like, like the Dogtown Z-Boys were the ones I was reading about the magazines when I first started. But they learned to do what eventually you did in the skate park. In backyard pools. Yeah.

but then the idea was well why don't we build something instead of using a pool but it felt like that came after them it did for sure how long was the window between them and you maybe three years not so long not so long no two three years i mean i i i went to marina del rea when i was actually i went to marina del rea you like this story and because they had these you were on a skate park team so i was team delmar skate ranch originally oasis than dalmar skate ranch so then we would go to these Every park would have a team I mean that was short-lived

It was like one season or two seasons of that But We would have to go practice at these other parks And so I got my brother to drive me To Marina Del Rey Which is, you know San Diego to L.A. And I'm trying to skate this bowl

This pool so it's the dog bowl It's literally where Where those guys skate I'm Stacey Peralta Tony Alva And I'm just a little kid with this giant board and I'm just trying to like reach the top and I and I had a shallow end so I could do these little tricks in the shallow end and then all of a sudden this influx of punk rockers

started coming into the park not skating just taking over the space like what is going on and my brother we're not from L.A so we're just kind of like this was kind of intimidating this is weird and then all of a sudden they all gathered in this one bowl right by where I was skating but started spilling into the skate area and I was like like, I guess we're done for today. And this guy got up on a ladder and they took photos of it. And that is the cover of Circle Jerks Group Sex. Wow. And then the Circle Jerks started playing. Amazing. Yeah. I'm 10. Yeah. You know, like, I had no idea that I'm witnessing this revolution at all. I'm just more like, why can't we skate anymore? So cool. Why do you think that connection

between punk and skateboarding exists? I think it's just, there's a do-it-yourself aspect, but there's also just this outcast element of like we don't fit in we don't belong but we're going to do what we want anyway we're going to make our own scene and that attitude that mindset is very much aligned skateboarding and punk rock and you know plenty of i mean if you look back like henry rollins skated emk skated like all these guys were deeply connected to skateboarding And then that became sort of the soundtrack to it. Do you think that you're an unusually gifted athlete? Are you a diligent workaholic?

I wouldn't say unusually gifted athlete. I was okay at sports, baseball and basketball. Like, I was average player. You know, I wasn't making the all-star team, but I wasn't the last picked. Yeah. When I started skating, I was, heavily ridiculed for my style, for my lack of strength, for my size, for my look, I mean, I was bullied endlessly in the skate world, but I was possessed. So would you say it was your

dedicated? It was hard work, yeah. I mean, it was, it was, it was just repetition, perseverance, and a stubbornness, really, like, you know, I, people say like, oh man, like, you're so determined. I'm I'm like, I'm just stubborn. Yeah, yeah. Would you say there were other skaters for whom it was easier? Not saying they got better than you. Absolutely, yeah. So it was the work.

You were diligent. It was the 10,000 hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And not, I didn't want to get hurt, but I wasn't afraid to get hurt. Mm-hmm. And that can go a long way with what we do. Absolutely. Because fear is probably the thing that would slow down all the progress.

Sure. Yeah. Did you ever get in surfing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And tell me about the relationship between surfing and skating. Similarities, differences. I would say the link, the evolutionary link

from surfing to skating is the Dogtown Z-Boys because they were trying to emulate surfing by riding swimming pool walls. And then when I got into skateboarding, you either skated pools or you skated freestyle. Freestyle was flat land.

The kickflips were not invented yet, So basically, are you cool or are you a nerd? Right? Because the freestellers, they're not putting much risk out there. I mean, that was the attitude. They're doing pirouettes. They're dancing to routines. And I wanted to be cool.

Like, I wanted to fly. I wanted to grind. That's what the pool skating was about. So that's why I chose the type of skating that I did. But when you look at nowadays, most of these tricks that you see, people wanting to learn, perform, their freestyle moves, kickflips, 360 flips. Like, that was all invented by Rodney Mullen, who was the best freestiler. But there was something special about him that we recognized, and even the most ardent

nayser as a freestyle, were like, Rodney is magical. He can do stuff that we don't even understand. Yeah. Did you ever talk to him about it? Oh, sure, yeah. And for him, was it just a natural thing? like me he just couldn't stop dedication dedication yeah and and and i mean the thing that we identify with i'd say to identify with in each other is this obsession with having to learn new stuff

and even he and i like we had probably the most successful competition rankings in skateboarding history he won every single freestyle event except one in his career i won most of the verd events that i entered but the day after the competition is when we were released and able to try new stuff yeah and that's what we cherish the most would every new move ultimately be an iteration of an old move sometimes nowadays yes without question sometimes it was just like what the hell i mean like rodney the all the impossible you know it's where your board actually wraps all the way over your foot doesn't make any sense that you can't relate it to anything else to us it seems impossible yeah right but once he

figured it out people started doing it and was it something he figured out or fell into or do you know just kind of tinker around with his board i mean he grew up near clear water florida on a farm and he had a slab of cement that he would skate by himself that was his MO and then he would just kind to tinker around and even like he invented the kickflip he just said he he did an ollie kicked it away and the board flipped and he goes it's mocking me if i just go stand above it when i do that and a half hour later he created the kickflip so it's just kind of like that so i took a lot of inspiration from him because like i learned how to flip my board in the air above a pool because i watched him yeah the iteration was he was doing it on the ground you were doing it in the

air. Yeah. But if you didn't see it on the ground, you couldn't do it in the air. You needed to know it was possible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the same goes for... But the same for him. He probably didn't think it would be possible to do it in the air. Right. But then I would do tricks in the air air and he figured out how to do, how to ollie off the ground, where no one really had learned it the way that he could. Yeah. And so he started learning some of my tricks like an airwalk, right? I'd create an airwalk where I take both feet off my board. I kick each opposite directions. And he was like, oh, I can ollie off the ground, grab my board and kick it quickly.

And then he deeded it right there, like, you know, without all of the momentum that you had. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah. And then a lot of the early tricks were taken from surfing, laybacks, burtelman, carving, you know, all the stuff. But then at some point, skateboarding became its own thing

in terms of, oh, we're doing stuff in the air. We're flipping the board. We're spinning 540s. And then the power balance shifted where it was like surfers were trying to emulate skateboarding after that. I see. Which is what happens now. I mean, when you look at surfing, it's big airs, 540s, stalefish, varials, kick flips.

Like, that all came from skateboarding. How is the difference between being on wheels versus being on a board on water? Oh, it's way different. I mean, just the way that you maneuver the board. the way you generate speed. It's, you know, some people can cross over pretty well. I'm not one of them. Would you say wheels give you more control?

Sure. Because also you could take your foot and push for momentum. Yeah. On a wave, you have to rely on where is the speed pocket of the wave? And every wave is different. Every wave is different. Once you're riding a pool or in a park, it's the same every time. It is, yeah.

Yeah. How different is it going from park to park? oh way different it shifted a little bit with the olympics because they had to parks had to have it's nuanced but kind of an overall vibe and different types of obstacles if they're going to be considered for an olympic qualifier that's my best explanation how many years has skateboarding been in the olympic uh first one was tokyo so that was 2021 should have been 2020 and then Recently. Yeah, and then Paris this last time. So two times?

Two times, yeah. Wow. Did you watch? I watched, yeah. And what were your thoughts? It's amazing. It's crazy. I think that half-fights should be disciplined,

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And experience next level performance With athletic nicotine Warning this product contains nicotine Nicotine is an addictive chemical Tell me about the skateboarding world that you entered at the time. It was the end of the skate parks. Kind of end of the... The first era of skate parks.

Yeah. Because they came back. They did. I don't know if you want to say first or second, but it was sort of the end of the second boom of skateboarding. Tell me each one. Tell me the history. So the first one was sort of late 60s, early 70s,

and they were toys. They had clay or steel wheels. And people were just using them. to go down in the hills and transportation. Then that sort of fad went away. I mean, it was almost like the frisbee of the day. Yeah. And then in the 70s, it sort of came back,

especially with the Dogtown Z-Boys. Eurthane wheels. Eurthane wheels changed the game, for sure. I think it was like 74, 75 maybe. I may not have it right. It was before my time. And trucks? The trucks were originally,

roller skate trucks and then they started to make them specifically for skateboarding and then the board starting getting wider but i would say through the 70s that was the revolution of equipment and then the dogtown z-boys era people started realizing you could do a lot more than just go down a hill and then skate parks started cropping up so that was sort of the second boom probably bigger than the first one and was the goal of the skate park originally to get the feeling of riding in a swimming pool? Yeah, I mean, I think, well, the goal ultimately was profit. Skate parks saw, you know, people will pay to be here all day or for an hour or whatever.

I mean, they would actually sell one-hour sessions. But it was different than skateboarding down the street. Absolutely, yeah. But it would, it had a little bit of everything. Usually skate park had a little bit of everything. So it had sort of reservoir, we call it like a bank slalom that was just sort of, of a downhill bank that looked like a ditch they had small pools they had bigger pools they had square pools they had capsules shape pools what were you doing a square pool well square you can actually

the corners are rounded just enough so you can kind of i see with through the corner they had full pipes you know just they were just like ones they would find out in sewage lines stuff like that but big ones yeah i mean back then when i was on park team we used to they used to have a what they called a pipe pasting event and so you would put you'd put a piece of tape around your fingers and then you'd skate the full pipe and get as high as you can and then get your hand up and and then put the sticker up and if you made it they would run a line across to see how how far over avert you got and then that was the winner was it getting more popular when they went away or it got less popular it was starting to get less popular but liability insurance became impossible

I see and I think that was the perfect storm was there a case or something that happened someone got hurt somewhere and that changed it I think there were there was enough no I think it was just more that I don't I can't say there was a particular case but I think it was just more that insurance company just kept gouging skate parks and to the point where they couldn't you know couldn't survive they didn't have the the clientele to justify it yeah I got lucky because the park I told you about Delmar skate ranch it was part of an entertainment center. So it was like mini golf, a driving range. They even had like RC slot cars. Cool.

And all of that helped to keep the place open, even though the skate park was a big part of that and it wasn't doing as much business, they didn't really care because the rest of it was working. And then they lost their insurance and that was it. So then what did you do when that happened? That was kind of around the time that people started building backyard ramps.

see. So I had a couple of places to skate by then. How old were you before you had your own ramp? When I first got my ramp, I was 19. And were you already professional at that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was the other thing. All of a sudden, we were kind of, you know, skating came back around in the mid to late 80s, and all of a sudden, I'm on the Bones Brigade. The Bones Brigade is just on tour. So we were on tour endlessly. Globally, yeah, Europe, Australia, Japan. And would it always be for competition, or would it also be for demonstration?

Mostly demonstrations. It'd be like a show. Yeah, but I mean, you know, in the sense that we go to a parking lot of a skate shop and they just put a bunch of junky ramps out and it's like, go, skate this. Or skate parks. Because by then there were wooden skate parks, indoor skate parks. And they were busy enough to justify getting injointed. insurance. So that was cool because we got to skate all kinds of different terrain. We didn't

have that many options at home anyway. And how many people would be on the tour? Usually they would send out four to five skaters in a van and with sort of a supervisor. But the supervisor was also a pro skater and usually they were they were just along for the party anyway. So, you know, it was very lawless. I mean, it was very much like I always think of, like Beastie Boys or um like punk rock show yeah but but you know a bunch of kids traveling like no one's setting guidelines or rules yeah except for be at the demo at this time that that was our rules the people in the shop also were probably kids yeah we were it was whole thing was just chaos a youth movement absolutely yeah counterculture movement yeah but i was always at least reliable

I never partied so hard that it affected my skating because that was always paramount to everything else. That was my priority. I had to skate good. I had to prove myself at every turn. And anything else was a distraction from that. Will be the places that you'd stay when you'd go on tour? Holiday Inn, Ramada, definitely sharing rooms.

We didn't care. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was fun, yeah. And the word would get out just through the skateboard stores? Just through the shots. Yeah, well, I mean, Powell Peralta, who was the company behind Bones Brigade,

their tour plans were pretty elaborate. How many years had they been doing tours before you? Oh, we were one of the first. Really? Yeah. I think they did a few one-offs, but like I think the first tour I went on, we actually had a van, you know,

like a van that you would travel with a band in. Yeah. And then we put ramps in the back of the van. And then we show up to a skate shop and then we just pull all the ramps out and put it in the parking lot. And it was sort of like our little Lego set that we could put however we want.

Yeah. And then the crowds outgrew that scene very quickly. So then the next year, they bought a fully retractable mini ramp that lives on a trailer and hired, you know, seasoned drivers to be in charge of the ramp. So we would be in a van that's just the skaters show up and the ramp is already assembled

and ready to go and the crowd is there. Same as a van. First time you go, the equipment's in the back, you set it up yourself, you put it away, and then maybe if things go good, the next time there's another van with the roadies that have the equipment, and then you're in the other car in the vehicle to travel.

And at that time, and then years after that, we thought that was the biggest ever going to get. Yeah. I mean, we were riding high like that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of the, let's say in the initial crew were four or five, how many of the four or five continued being the same four or five year after year? I would say that lasted for at least five to six years.

And so you and the four or five other guys. So what they would do is they kind of had what I would say were their A-listers. Yeah. Of the Bones Brigade. Yeah. And those were Steve Cavallero, Mike McGill, Tommy Guerrero, Rodney Mullen, me, Lance Mountain. So usually they would put one or two of us in that crew, and then the rest were amateur skaters. They were all excellent skaters.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just not as known yet. Just not as known. Right. And so inevitably, you'd show up, and it'd be like, where's Rodney? Where's Lance? It's like, they're not here, but we're here. And then those guys would tell me every time they show up, where's Tony?

so yeah yeah how many teams were there in the country there weren't many i mean it was really like it was palpalta vision santa cruz and those are like the big three what happened next as big as it was skate parks again were closing even though they weren't permanent structures and and usually they were in the more difficult parts of town for the real estate cost but the skate parks again couldn't forward the insurance they started closing skate was still considered a fad in a way. So it was like, all right, this cycle's over. And then skating went underground for the most part.

Did the tours stop, or did you still continue? Tours didn't stop, but they changed shape. Did they shrink in audience or not necessarily? No, shrink in audience, absolutely, yeah. Because by 1992, I started my own company. I had left Powell because I saw the sign. And I thought, I guess I'm 24. I guess my career is over because I'm old and I skate ramps.

What was the first peak that you experienced? And then what was the first bottom that you experienced after that peak? I'd say the first peak I experienced was 88, 89. And your age then? 20. 20. And then 92 is when all of a sudden everything was dropping. My income was shrinking by half every month because it was all royalty based.

yeah you know even like and royalties on skateboards t-shirts t-shirts but all the accessories too trucks yeah you know shoes so the whole industry was shrinking a whole yeah and and and i was feeling it and i you know i i had a child on the way and two mortgages and was like what the whole bottom just dropped out what's happening and so i started a company hoping that i could sort of create what Stacey Perel to create it with our team. Yeah. It was like, I'm going to find the talent. And if skateboarding comes back around, we're going to be on top of it.

Yeah. That was the goal. You were out in the world of skateboarding at that time, were the people who were interested still interested, or was the interest in all of it waning? There were no more casual skaters that were in it for the hype of it. that were in it because it was cool, even though I never think of it as being cool because, like, all those kids in the 80s,

when they were in high school, they were getting hassled if they were skating, right? But they coveted it, they loved it. It was more like, it's just not as accessible. And so the people who truly love it are going to keep doing it at all costs. But there's very little support for that. So there was a hardcore contingent that was always there.

Like, if you look back, especially if you look back in early 90s mid 90s that's the revolution of street skating and that's when things were no longer oh this is southern california vibe this is surf culture no this is we're in the streets this is like new york city you know wu tang is the soundtrack philly texas and it was all like everyone had their little pockets of scenes but it was all street skating and it was all mostly illegal and so if you wanted to be a skater in those days you had to endure cops you know ridicule kind of like the graffiti like it's not so different than that yeah culture and so many of the hip-hop artists from the 90s were skateboarders yeah yeah yeah again like

a continuation of the punk rock side just the inner city version yeah i mean i remember What we thought was a big event in England, maybe like 93, 94-ish, and De La Sol played at the event. So cool. And I remember half the skaters were like, are these guys really here? You know, because to us, very hugely popular hip-hop band. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're still the dredge of the earth skaters here. Yeah, it was weird.

So then you started your own company. I started my company in 92, got a team together. And that's when I learned the hardships of being on the organizing end of doing tours. Because then it was like, all right, I got to book all these places. I'm the one else to collect the money and make sure that we have a place to stay, get food. You know, we used, we had this old really beat up Toyota van that we used for deliveries for the skateboards for our company. so that became the tour van mostly i was driving there were five of us and we would go skate shop there were a few skate parks left so we'd go there too would show up skate for like an hour

sign autograph stuff for an hour and then i would have to try to collect three hundred dollars from the shop i would say i got it maybe half the time yeah you know and then and just not a nice position to be in having to do that no i mean you're a skateboarder yeah but i mean you know i signed up for it i started the company and this is the new gig and so depending on how much we got that would dictate if we're going to get one room or two rooms right you know at Howard johnson's usually yeah and then hopefully gas and then talk a bell how long would tours go for it usually five a six weeks. Even when there was less of an audience and less of a business model were tricks continually evolving. So the art form was always moving forward regardless. Regardless. Still,

to this day. And the sad irony in my case, I mean, not that I look back in regret, but I was still skating ramps, even though it was like this forgotten discipline. They're hardly any vert ramps. In those years were my most creative years in terms of learning new tricks and stuff. I had no audience for it, you know, like literally if you put a half pipe section in a skate video back then, you know, we call half pipes a vert. So people would say hit the vert button. That means fast forward. That's amazing. Yeah. And to this day, like that's still a thing that there's, in fact, there's a podcast called The Bird Button.

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Like I imagine right when you started that that was. So in my day, that was mandatory. You couldn't go to a park without having all the gear. I see. And helmets. Yeah, but they rented it. I see. They rented these shitty, super.

thin plastic we call it was available because there was a time when no one even thought about it right right i mean my first concussion i was wearing a helmet it was just shitty yeah it was a joke yeah yeah in fact the the the edge of the helmet sliced my eyebrow so i had stitches too like you know what i mean just squished into my head but i would say once the skate parks were closing then all bets were off were for pads i mean that's you know this day when you especially when you watch people skate you probably hardly see anyone wearing pads right out in the wild on handrails and stuff like that because once it wasn't mandatory who cares have you ever street skated at all a little bit but but my style was very rooted in what we call transition skating which is like

riding radiuses yeah so I'm not ready for like any sort of rough terrain or abrupt things like that you know I did I went as far as I could with my street career until on one of those tours I ended up rolling one ankle in the worst way on a handrail and then the very next day we're still on tour I'm still you know I still got to skate whatever the next day I went down a small set of stairs like skating the other direction because my ankle was so fucked up and then I wrecked my other ankle just as bad and in that moment I was like if I want to continue to skate and have fun I can't do this stuff yeah you know i'm just not i'm not built for it no it's completely understood like i think of the difference between skating and surfing if you fall off the way there is the potential for drowning

that's a real thing but you're landing in the water which just seems like if you're going to be falling off of something to land in the water is so much better than to land on concrete steps yes i agree um when people say like how can you ride these giant ramps you know like and they give me shit like and you won't go search when it's a little heavy. I'm like, because when I fall, the ramp doesn't come attack me and hold me underwater. I try to drown you. Yeah. I know where I stand with this ramp. And I'm good if I fall. I'm fine, you know. It's really interesting that difference because it does seem like falling on something hard seems like the worst option. Yeah. I mean, one thing you learn by default and

almost involuntarily through skating is how to fall. Yeah. And you learn that early on? Way early on, yeah. Yeah. Are there secrets or tricks you can explain? Well, if you're skating big ramps, we do knee slides.

That's how we get out of situations. The secret, like the technique to a knee slide is as you're falling, you take one very quick step with your lead foot, whatever that might be or your dominant foot, and then you go straight to your knee. So you've kind of taken the impact with your one leg just enough that you can take the rest of the impact with your knee. So you're not breaking the fall with your knees.

You're not breaking. If you do go straight to your knee, you'll jar your back. I see. And if you... So you use the bent foot as like a run. One quick step, drop to the knee, yeah. To get to the knee. And I guess you get good at that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you get good at spatial awareness, like a gymnast. where it's like you snap and you're like uh something's wrong i got to bail out even though i can't see where i am i just know this is not right how much of what you're doing is always intentional versus hmm i'm surprised my feet decided to do that well in the context of trying to learn new tricks i would say it's like in my experience in my approach it's like two-thirds intentional one-third happy accident and when i say happy accident it's like I screw up an attempt, but I see something else.

Yeah. You get a glimpse of how it could work. Yeah. But you wouldn't have known that had you not. Right. Or I have something in mind. I want to get this done. I want to check it off the list.

Yeah. It just doesn't work. Yeah. And then I find this sort of side door approach to it almost by accident. It's like, why did I torture myself trying it this one way and not just go this way with it? But, you know, I was always happy to make those discoveries. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is skateboarding as fun for you now as it was when you were young?

It is, yeah. I broke my leg about three years ago. Skating? Skating, yeah. And doing a McTwist, like some trick I took for granted that I've done thousands of times and just kind of didn't have the right amount of speed and was cavalier and fucked around and found out, like, you know, just that doesn't work the way it used to. I can't just recover.

Got my leg tangled and broke my femur. and broke my femur, like, I mean, as I was still sliding across the flat bottom, it felt like my leg had left my body. You know what I mean? It was so obvious. It was like, okay, that is disconnected. I broke my leg for sure.

And getting back from that, I had a false start. I got, I skated too soon. The bone never actually reconnected back to itself. So it was offset for the first eight months of my recovery. And I was always in pain. And at some point, And I was like, this can't be right. I can't have this kind of limp and be struggling this much.

And then they took a x-ray and they said, yeah, you have what we call a non-union fracture. Yeah. So the bone came back together, but in the wrong place. It didn't even come back together. Oh. It never did. At some point, it was on top of each other. I skated too soon.

I shifted it out of place. And then it was just hanging above the other one. Yeah, it sucked. So then you had surgery, I imagine? months later i had it realigned with a very stern warning from the doctor that did it's like you cannot get back out there don't get back out there the way you did yeah take it slow in fact i want you to be on crutches for the first two months even though you won't need them yeah yeah and i'm only telling this because now having gotten through that getting to a level of skating

than i'm at now that is back to sort of a professional level yeah i don't take any of it for granted And so it kind of makes it way more fun. Understood. I mean, I just skated with my kids two hours ago at Kappaah Skate Park. Yeah. And just jumping over the hips there. Like, that's a gift at my age. And then I get to do with my kids.

Yeah. You know, I'm not moving the needle on getting gnarly, but it's so fun. And also, the idea that skateboarding has come this far. It's accessible to everyone. Is it more popular now than it's ever been? That's hard to answer. I would say yes on an international scale

but also But now it's in the culture It's not like a fad It's just something that people do Like yeah You know like this dude showed up today He was driving by I saw a skate and he's like

Oh man I haven't skating a wall If I get my board Can I skate with you guys? Yeah go for us We drove home, came back And he was skating And it was just like That's how it is now

Like that guy Skating is in his DNA Even though he doesn't even do it that much anymore And I feel like this is part, this is something people choose to do. Like riding a bike. Yeah, they just think, we don't always ride a bike. But once you're not to ride a bike, it's in your arsenal. Yeah.

Like going back to how available skateboarding is. I mean, if you go to a skate park right now, almost anywhere, you'll see people of all ages, all genders, all races, all backgrounds, using the park and all skill levels. Like from absolute beginners to actual pros that are competing. internationally and they're all enjoying the space the same and they're all encouraging each other i just don't there's no other sport like that tell me about the changes in equipment what each of the changes allows that wasn't possible before i think in the 80s it just allowed more stability

because the shapes got bigger and wider wider yeah wider and a little bit longer i remember there was a period at some point where they got really long yeah that i That's more longboard, like, cruise boards. That's sort of a different approach. But that exists. Yeah, and at the time that they came out, it was new. We hadn't seen those. It was new, sure, and it's just less trick-oriented.

Yeah. So. And then boards, I remember, when I was a kid, they were hard. And then there was a time when they got soft, they would flex in the middle. Those boards, like, those were more like the surf-style boards in the 70s or slalom boards. Slalom boards were very springy. And what's the benefit or negative? Well, the negative is that it's not rigid enough

to be able to do tricks, right? But the benefit is if it's kind of bouncing in the middle is you can do slalom and do real fast turns. Back to back. Would it be like shock absorber also sort of? Not really. No, because you wouldn't be on those types of boards, you would not be leaving the ground.

Okay. I would say around. And slalom is like you see the videos that the guys going really fast down doors. Really fast, just back and forth. Yeah, yeah. Which I had to do as a part team member, and I was terrible at it, and there's, like, video of me hitting all the cones. It was just not my thing.

In the early 80s, or sort of early 80s, mid-80s, seven-ply maple became the norm for construction for skateboards. And then it was just about what is the concave and what is the shape, and that is unique to each company. Why is concave a good thing? It just keeps your foot in place. I see. Especially when you're up on big walls and stuff. Like if the board's flat, there's a good chance your foot's going to slip off once you get...

Does the shape of the nose or the tail make a difference? Makes a difference, mostly because we learned that as skating evolves, people start skating backwards. So now you need a nose that's just as long as the tail. I would say that was the biggest shift of equipment from the 80s to the 90s. Because in the 90s, all the boards look like popsicles. So now they're reversible, essentially.

Yeah, yeah. And you're using the nose as much as the tail. Still does one side have more of a kick to it or not necessarily? They're pretty much the same. Pretty much same, front and back. Yeah, yeah. If I were to show you my board, you would not know which is the front of the back. Is there a front and the back?

There is, yeah. I just know because it's very subtle, but I've been riding the same shape for like 20 years. So, no. Do you think of skateboarding as competitive? I think there is a sector of it that is competitive. Sure. When I was growing up, the only way that you're going to get any recognition, sponsorship, support was through competition. There was no YouTube. The magazines didn't care what you were doing unless you were competing. tell me about a competition i've never seen a skate competition well basically my era was pool competition

so there would be usually be a main pool at every skate park that's the competition pool at dolmar was the keyhole and then you would go there would be whatever how many people in town a hundred skaters you'd have prelims and they would cut it down to maybe 16 people then you'd have semi-finals and then they would cut it to eight and then And eight people would generally get three to four runs, 45 seconds each. If you bail, you can get back up, start again, but if you fall, you're not going to win. You get marked way down. And you've got to do something like, you know, just pull some brand new move out of your ass if you fall and to even be considered back in the lineup.

It was supposed to be about your style, your airtime. trick selection and when it came down to it in our day it was just kind of like who's the coolest and who was the coolest Christian Osoy yeah right and so to

combat that I had to come up with the craziest shit trick wise because they hated my style they didn't you know I was bony cock like I was the nerdy kid that was just trying to maneuver my board and looked awkward doing it so I had to do like

McTwillard McTwist, but do a variation of McTwist. Like, throw my board another 180, grab it a different way. And that was the only way that I was going to get seen. So do you say what Christian was doing was easier for him to do than what you were doing? It wasn't that.

It was just more that he looked so smooth. Yeah. He was amazing. You know, he could go twice as high as any of us and do some of the hardest tricks, too. I'm like, it's not lost on me. Like, Christian, he had the moves. just for instance his lean air

would count for probably one of my harder tricks I can do lean airs but they didn't look like him yeah yeah yeah so you had to do something over and above and and I have to hide it from the judges because if they saw me do it in practice then they wouldn't be impressed and if I didn't do it they're like what about that trick we saw and I would get marked down I see

so they were judging me against what they thought I was capable of Yeah. So it was tricky. But I mean, whatever, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Like, all that just fueled my fire to keep getting better and better and better. Yeah. Would you ever get there a day earlier to practice something in the place where it was going to happen? I would practice it not in the place that was going to happen because everyone shows up a day or too early.

I see. And that's when you're under the microscope. But how different is it from place to place? Well, at some point, it evolved from pools to ramps. So the ramps were a little more reliable in terms of being similar to each other. You know, they were all wooden and they were generally... Better to fall on wood? It seems like.

Yeah, I think so. I prefer falling on wood than concrete for sure. It seems like it. Yeah. It's funny to say that because they're having an event at this sort of legendary concrete bowl. They're having it in January and it's going to be the last one there. And they're having a legends division. And everyone's like, you've got to go.

And I was like, I do not want to fall in concrete. It's not a matter of if I'm going to fall, it's a matter of when I'm going to fall. endurance and feel your best. Add element electrolytes to your daily routine. Perform better and sleep deeper. Improve your cognitive function. Experience an increase in steady energy with fewer headaches and fewer muscle cramps.

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dot com slash tetra and stay salty with element electrolite l mn taut. Tell me about your shyness when you were young. How would you experience it? I just didn't feel like I belonged. So I just would be very... Just quiet and reserved. Yeah, just introverted. And then when I started started skating good, that was my voice. And so I used that as much as I could. And then people thought I was arrogant because I wasn't talking to anyone.

And I'm just doing all these crazy tricks. And I was like, I don't know how to talk to people. I don't know, you know. And I think I broke out of it eventually because Stacey Peralta said, look, there's all these kids here. They literally bought a skaper with your name on it. They're staring at you, like, go talk to them.

Like, I'm not even comfortable in my own. And how am I going to talk to these guys? Yeah. And eventually I just kind of learned to move through that discomfort and be available and be interactive. When you think of Stacey as a mentor for you? Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Tell me about sponsorships. How do they work for skateboarders? Usually it's a contract, like an annual contract. In the case of there's a strange disconnect with skateboard companies, actual, like who make manufacturer skateboards because they are not the biggest in the industry, like in terms of sales. So hard goods are the hardest to maintain a legitimate business with. You are officially a pro skateboarder if you have a skateboard with your name on it. But the irony is that that's not going to be what makes you money. It's if you have a shoe deal, energy drink deal, car sponsorship,

or your competition earnings. But the skateboard company is the very least of your income. But you're identified through that. It's very strange. You can't get the sponsorships without being... You can. I mean, there are people that do it for sure. They're more focused on competition.

Yeah. But the ones that are like vying for skater of the year, for thrasher, they're out in the streets, they're getting the craziest footage. They definitely have a skateboard sponsor. Tell me about the culture of skateboard shops. Well, that was the hub. I mean, that was where you would go to find your crew, to talk shop, to watch videos.

Would they typically be places that only sold skateboards or would they sell other things? It depends on the era. Generally, it would only nowadays. Well, I would say through the 80s and 90s only sold skateboards, for sure. But in the early days, yeah, it could be just sporting goods and they had a little skate section in the back. And also, they're the ones to support the local scene.

You can't dismiss them. Like, even if their online sales have affected their business and whatnot or they're struggling, they usually are the ones that people look to to put on local events. To get teams to do demos. When I talk to people about those 80s and that era and doing demos, the first thing they say is, oh, yeah,

I saw you guys at this shop. The shop is what they remember. Is there a crossover between skateboarding on like X-Games and... I think that there's a synergy in that we use the same terrain. Yeah. For instance, in the early 90s, I wasn't getting a lot of jobs as a vertical half-pipe skater,

but I would get invited to be a special guest at the Roller Blade demos and the BMX shows at the State Fair. Yeah. And that paid my rent. Yeah, yeah. I was the special guest at Matt Hoffman's BMX show for the Michigan State Fair for two. two summers in a row. And would it be like BMX scene in some ways replace the

skateboarding scene or not really? No, not really. I think in the early 90s, inline skates did for sure. Inline skates. Yeah, rollerblades. But you can't do tricks. Not really. But they did skate ramps and they were selling tons of these rollerblades so people would come see and pay to see those shows. So I did shows like I was again special guest at Six Flags parking lot St. Louis for a whole summer in a Roller Blade live show. Yeah.

But you would skate. I would just skate. Yeah. Because there were some people that they knew my name from the 80s. Yeah. So I remember that guy. And I guess do all the tricks.

So, you know what I mean? Like people want to bash inline skating, rollerblading, whatever. I was like, dude, that was, I'm so thankful that they were around back then. When did your connection to video games start? And how? Around 1997, a guy approached me because he had a crude engine for a skate game that he had coded on his PC.

And he said, hey, I think we could do a skate game. Do you want to go with me and pitch it to different publishers? And so he and I went to a bunch of different meetings. We went to some software studios. We went to actually Nintendo. And I mean, I remember one quote was skateboarding is not even popular. Why would a skateboarding video game be popular? Yeah.

And I'd say, well, skateboarding games were popular. We had 720. We had skater die. Like, I think now that we're at a different stage of video game and home consoles, we could do something fun. And even if people don't skate, they would like it. It's like, no. And then about a year later, less than a year later,

I got a call from Activision. They said, hey, we heard that you might be working on a skateboard game. So, well, I tried. But it didn't work. And they said, well, we are working on a skateboard game. We just did a game called Apocalypse featuring Bruce Willis, which is the first time there was like a name and likeness in a game. I said it didn't do very well, but the engine is perfect for skateboarding.

And so we want you to come see what we're doing. And I went up to Activism the next week, and they handed me a controller. And I started playing this game that was Bruce Willis on a skateboard with a gun on his back. skating through a wasteland and immediately like I was doing allies and kickflips and grabs and I was like, oh, this is it. I just knew instinctively like that this is the game that skateboarders will want to buy a console to play. Yeah. And to me, that was the biggest success. Like, if it's good enough for skateboarders that they like what they're seeing, then that's a win. Yeah, it sounds like falling doesn't hurt as bad in the video. Yeah. It is hard to watch though. There isn't animated. of like my knee popping one way that I can't watch it happen I have to choose a different character you talked about breaking your leg and as someone who's suffered so many injuries over the years tell me in that moment when you realize what's happening what's the thought process is it oh no or is it okay there goes two months what do you it's that like how long is it's going to take yeah it's just how long is it going to take yeah yeah and the only reason reason how long it's going to take is because how long is it going to take before I can get back? Yep. Yeah, that's it. It's not, well, it'll be painful for two months. That's not part of the thought.

No, I mean, that's a given. It's just getting back. Yeah. Getting back, yeah. Or, you know, did I damage this so, so completely that I can't get back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. What, you know, when I woke up the next morning from the surgery, like, oh, we got her back in place. It was like, okay, here we go. Let's go. Yeah. But that was my fault for thinking that way. What's the longest you've ever gone without skating? It was during that time. It was probably the second time around.

I didn't skate for about three months. And then when you get back, is it always like, ah, I'm back, yes. Or is this... Well, the first go-around of my broken leg, I thought it was going to be like that. And it was just so painful and so weak. That's when reality hit me.

I was like, oh, this, I'm never going to get back to, where I was. I see. But now... But now I'm, I would say, you know, I'm like 80, 90% of what I was before that, and if that's where I live, it's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How popular did the video game get? It was the biggest game. It was insane. When the fourth game came out, the first three were still in the top ten of sales. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. How long was it between iterations? We came up each year up until... So in the fourth year, one, two, and three were all in the top ten. That's unbelievable.

Unbelievable. And then the consoles kept getting better. So then we're out. I also love the fact that Nintendo is like, God, no one's going to like this. Yeah. Well, it wasn't exactly Nintendo that said that, but because someone said it. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, you're right.

It's just that much more interesting when the powers that be the experts say it's a bad idea. yeah and then but also it took everyone by surprise i mean even the designers you know we were just kind of going rogue like picking music i was just picking the soundtrack to my skating years so we got dead kennedy's and primus and right you know what i mean and they were all happy to lend a song because it was like you guys want our music okay yeah sure and then all of a sudden the soundtrack took on the life of itself and people credit that for getting them into punk rock or ska or even hip-hop. Yeah.

I mean, it was, it's crazy. There are four cover bands that only play songs from our video game, one on different continents. Amazing. Yeah. It's amazing the power of music in that way. I think if it wasn't for The Clash, I don't know that any of us would know any reggae or ska. That's when people say, like, what's your, like, what starts with the Clash and Gang of Four?

And then everything fans out from there. Yeah. Gang of Four incredible. So great. I'd see them live two times. once at Irving Plaza and once at Roseland. Wow. Unbelievable. What a great band.

I remember speaking of something like that. Like I remember I saw Nirvana right after Nevermind came out in 1990 at a small venue in Houston because there was a skate event in Houston. And then everyone's like, Nirvana's playing tonight. So all the skaters go to the show. And I remember as they started thinking like, This is the coolest place you could possibly be in the world right now. Yeah.

And it went crazy. And I remember Jack Black told me that same thing about seeing Devo in 1980, where he's like, this is the greatest place anyone could think of to be right now. Amazing. He's in the presence of this band. I saw Devo in Boston in this theater. I don't know what it was called, but like an old movie theater. And it was one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life.

I know that place because... in Boston. You had to, like, walk through an alley to get to it, even though you get to it, and it's a theater. So when I was on tour in Boston, on Bonesbury Tour, the damned were playing there. And I was so excited. Yeah. And I walked in, they're like, it's 21 and over, and I was 20. And I was like, come on.

Yeah. And it's just like, no, it's just not an all day show. I never got to see the damned. Well, I didn't get to see him until 20 years later, but I still, like, I remember exactly that moment was in slow motion to me where I saw the poster. I knew I was saying. there tonight and I was like one ticket yeah like no bro in the history we got to the point where it was 92 you start your own company what's the next uptick in skateboarding uh X games

X games started 95 it was still kind of a it was a little scattered it was a little wonky just with how they presented our sports because it was like they're extreme woo camera angles like this and Mohawks and it was like dude that's not what it's all about but they kind of found their groove I'd say in 97, 98 What percentage of the X-Games of skateboarding? Is it like a third or a fifth?

I would say it was more like a fifth then. Yeah. It's about a quarter now. But all the other sports have shifted. Yeah. Because back then it was like bungee jumping and sky surfing and eco-channel and just random stuff.

Do you think of yourself as a daredevil? I think so, yeah. Yeah, I mean, when I was a kid, I want to go off the high dive and yeah, for sure. Bounce on big trampolines and all that stuff. Is it that you like that adrenalized feeling? Yeah, yeah. But not so much that I'm throwing caution to the wind. Yeah.

I like the idea that I am capable of this. Yes. And yes, it can be risky and yes, it's a little out of my comfort zone. or skill level, but I know I can figure it out. Has there been anything besides skateboarding that you've dedicated yourself to in that way? Well, parenting, I suppose, yeah. Which I had to learn kind of the hard way

through my years of success where it was like, oh, you have to prioritize better and choose time with your kids more so than whatever you think this other thing is important. And that took a while. I mean, definitely took longer than it should have. What's the current state of skateboarding?

Pretty solid, very international. Trick still evolving. Still evolving. How often do you see something where you feel like, I can't believe you did that? Absolutely. I mean, it took me 10 years to make a 900, right? 10 years of my life, getting beat up. You were the first person to do it.

Yeah. And you were the only person to do it for a while. For a couple years, yeah. Then a few people learned it. then Tom Schar did a 1080 I don't know maybe 10 years later or nine years later

then Mitchie Brusco did a 1260 you know as the ramps got bigger and they're like gymnasts it's crazy I just watched this is last year at our event vert alert we have a big vert contest with my ramp we bring it to Salt Lake City

I watched a 10 year old do three 900s in a row in a row 10 years old 10 years old in his run like that was part of his run doesn't hurt as much when you fall in but i mean i can't believe i get to live in that timeline yeah i was the one commentating like i get to witness this i get to call it i get to try to explain the difficulty of that you know i i i didn't so cool so cool yeah and do you think it's that humans are evolving sure i think it's just

we see what's possible and so we that's the that is a goal to start with it's like the six minute mile once it's broken yeah then a lot of people can do it absolutely yeah when i started skating no one did 540s yeah so 900 was impossible until it wasn't right and now that it's not impossible other people can do it like now you skate ramps start spinning unbelievable yeah it's really interesting yeah and it continues that's an example though again just an iteration because it was a 720 before there was a 900 right Right. Yeah. To put it in context. I did the first 720 in 1985 on a ramp way outside of Stockholm in this little town by a lake with three people watching me. Did you intend to do it or did it happen?

No, I tend to do it because the ramp was a little different design and allowed us to go higher. And so I was doing 540s a lot back then. And I thought, well, maybe this is the ramp to go one extra spin. Yeah. I learned it in like half an hour. There were three people watching me. Yeah. No one care. You know, I mean, it was cool.

Yay. So is that often the case where there'll be something in the environment that sparks you to do something that you couldn't do before? Yes. Because you were reacting. I was. You didn't decide in advance, I'm going to do this. I didn't go with that intention. No.

But you saw the opportunity based on the real world conditions. Yep. Yep. Is it typically that way? I would say it's half and half. Yeah. It seems like it would be easier if you got that glimpse than just, I have an idea, I'm going to make it happen.

If you get a glimpse, oh, the speed or the height that I'm going now makes it easier to do this thing that I couldn't do before, you see the opportunity is different than a theoretical idea in space that you're going to push to happen. Sure. but it's interesting like going from that that was 1985 i didn't make a 900 until 14 years later yeah to do that extra 180 took that much time and and you remember when the 900 happened what was different about what allowed that to happen there were a few things one that the ramp was

built much better than most ramps at the time because no one had the budget to make great ramps but yes p.m did and in the past whenever i tried to make it i would fall forward and and And one time I actually broke my rib around 1996. I had all the pieces of the puzzle. I'm doing it. Here it goes. And then I fell forward, broke my rib, had to go pick my son in kindergarten.

Like, couldn't breathe. No one was paying me to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was all just for the passion of it. Yeah. And then... How long was it before you tried it again? About a year.

But I could not get that commitment again. Because I didn't, you know, for what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to go through that again. And so I actually had a ramp built that was bigger than most ramps. It was in a bowl ring. It was in Tijuana. It was like, oh, this is going to be sick. And I was doing all these other tricks. And I was like, I'll do 900 of this ramp. And then when I finally got to it, I was like, I can't. I don't want to get hurt again and be stuck in Mexico.

Yeah. So the key to it was at the 99 X games during the best trick event. I started trying it because I had done my best trick in the event prior to that, which was a 17-7. 20 variation. So I already had that. And it was like, what's next? Well, what's next is a 900, you know, impossible. So you've never done it. Yeah. The one time you tried, you broke your rib. The one time I've really committed to it, yeah. And now you're going to do it in competition? No, I just started trying it because it was like, here's the next thing that I would like to do. Here's the next stage of spinning. It was kind of like for this crowd, because we never had a crowd like that. It was just kind of like me like, yeah, check it out. This is what, you know, know. And then after about my third attempt, I had a super good spin. I had way more speed than I usually had. And I was like, well, if I'm ever going to really try again, it might as well be here

because I don't mind getting hurt here. And so then I started fully committing to it. And when I did commit to the first one, I fell forward again, but it didn't get hurt. And there was something that happened there where it was like, you have to shift your brain. body weight mid-spin that's the key so the next one i tried and you could have never known that until you did it until i did it unsuccessfully until i did it unsuccessfully and took the hit yeah but took the hit that wasn't so debilitating yeah that allowed me to get up again yeah yeah yeah because when the first time i got hurt and broke my rib i didn't drive away going man i got to figure how to shift my weight i've drove whaling on the fucking trick i'm never going to do that trick right

I hate that trick. Yeah. In that context, I just thought, okay, shift your weight. So then the next one I did, mid-spin, you know, there's a lot to think about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you can't see anything when you're spinning that fast. Shifted my weight to my back foot. And when I came down, I fell backwards.

It was kind of a hard slam, but I was like, that's it. Like, I fell forward. I've fallen backwards, split the difference. And I made the next one. Yeah. And is it that intellectual where you're programming yourself

to do it? Yeah. Just making these tiny adjustments every time and banking them. So you must have great sense of your body in space because you're flying and spinning while this is happening.

Yeah, after a while you do, yeah. That's amazing. What I'd learned in those years, in the years after where watch what you wish for. Because then once I learned it, any time I'd go do a demo anywhere, it's like, 900, come on, let's see it. I'm like, oh, guys, it's going to take everything I have to do that again.

Did you ever do it more? I did, yeah. I ended up doing it like 30 times. Yeah. Did it get easier or never? It got easier to get to that stage of knowing I can do it. Yeah. So, for instance, at X games, I think,

it was like 11 attempts after that it would usually take me less than five or six to get there yeah but it always took a lot it was never first try yeah yeah yeah but what I learned in those years after is that as soon as you snap if something's off don't stop spinning and I've told kids that who want to learn it like look if you go and you miss your board or whatever do not open up because you're going to open up and you're not going to know where you are and you're going to be way further out of the ramp than you usually are and you're going to get you're going to get hurt yeah like there's no question so so by continuing to spin what happens you come back around the wall and you can get to your knees i see it's like you're so far off the wall but you kind of your your spin and your

your trajectory brings you back to the wall if you keep spinning yeah do you ever spin where your back is through the wall instead of your knees? The first time I ever tried it, yeah, because I didn't know how fast it's been. I did that in 1987. That's what prevented me from trying it after that. Because I literally landed my back, like, oh, but if you open up. Anything you can think of that I may have done at some point in my life,

something physical that everyone can do, but that takes some practice to be able to do it. How similar is it to learning and writer? bicycle what we're talking about it's kind of like if you've ever tried to do a flip off a dime board that can seem like the scariest thing in the world and once you leave the diving board if you panic you're gonna end up on your back right yeah it's the same thing you go up to for 900 and something goes wrong you panic you open up you're gonna land on your back yeah one body motion is much more extreme than the other but it's the same outcome

i see if you learn something like keep spinning can that same idea apply to other tricks is that knowledge based deeper than that trick or is it just that that one's that one's kind of on its own in terms of what it takes to get there what are some of the ones that are more general like a technique you use when it's going wrong that ends up having good effect on a lot of things. That's hard to answer. I would say the things that you do up on the lip where you're getting your board and you're grinding with your trucks and you're grinding with the middle of your board,

it's very easy to get lazy on that stuff and your board will hang up on the top and you think you're going to be in and then next thing you know, you're on the flat bottom. Yeah. Right? We call that hanging up. Yeah. There are very subtle feet maneuverings where you can avoid that. And you can use them for almost any lip trick.

Oh, good. So you learn them from the basic ones, but you get them so dialed that you know if you get in some certain position and, oh, shit, your board's over the coping, you have that backup skill set. Does the board ever hit you fall on you? Yeah, I mean. But it's not a big deal. Yeah, I mean, it sucks, but yeah. I definitely have scraped up my knuckles, too. I mean, all this, my shin, that's my skateboard.

Yeah. Is there some piece of equipment that you can imagine that would allow gains in skating that have never happened? That's how people got to do 1080s and 1260s is that... What do they have? Fump hits and bigger ramps. So it's just you can fall much easier... You can fling your body.

You don't have to worry about opening up. spinning if you're flying in a foam pit i see past the foam pit is there anything that can take it further i don't know i i don't people try to try to develop harnesses and things like that and i'm still old school like i you know i learned in the school of hard knox yeah i learned on concrete all this stuff so i don't really have a gauge where it's like yeah go try that easy way in yeah yeah who would you say was the most influential skater on you Eddie Elgarra, because he was the most innovative skater at the time when I was coming up. And he got ridiculed because they called him a robot because he was learning tricks.

And I was like, that's me. I want to do that. I want to learn tricks. Yeah. I learned his signature trick, front side rock and roll when I was like 11. And they moved me up two divisions as an amateur because I could do front side rocker rolls. I couldn't do anything else. But they're like, oh, that kid can do front rocks, put him in 3A.

And I was like, okay. I say it a lot. He was in the right place at the wrong time. He was like the most innovative skater at a time when skating was in its lowest point. Yeah. Is there any training you can do outside of skating that makes you a better skater? I would have said no a long time ago. But these days, at my age, yeah, for sure.

I mean, I work out three times a week. doing strength in conditioning and stretching, and it helps my skating just in terms of my endurance, mostly. Yeah. With my leg, it's unlocked some positions that I can now get back into that I couldn't. When you were younger, do you feel like... When I was the antithesis.

Working out, like, that's for jocks. Yeah. Jocs hate us. I'm not doing anything that... You know what I mean? I'm not going to do anything that football or baseball players are doing. you know I got away with it for a long time because I could like I was I was lanky and I was skinny and I was flexible and so I could just show up to any ramp cold turkey and do a bunch of crazy shit how much of skateboarding is feel I'd say it's half feel it's half visual have you ever skated with either blindfolded or eyes closed no would it be possible or no yeah I mean there are there are blind skaters but I I rely I rely on and watching my board and seeing the coping and so much of what i do is watching the edge of the

ramp in my relation to there so i need that at all times mostly yeah if i'm spinning or if i'm going to be blind to it i know the feeling of where i am in the air too and what needs to be adjusted to make it work does it feel good when you're going fast yeah yeah it's cool did you ever get in skateboard videos sure yeah i mean i the first thing i did when i started birdhouse was make a video oh cool we sold it for five bucks and we asked people to mail five bucks to us in the mail and then we send them a vhs in 1992 and were videos the way that people learned saw new moves and yeah that time yeah how big was the tape trading world it was big i mean i i don't know how many we sold i think we only made 500 yeah But they were influential.

To this day, people were like, dude, Feasters, I remember that. Yeah, they got passed around. They would break. Tell me about the skate park project. That is my foundation for public skate parks in underserved areas. We've been doing it for 24 years now. And it's definitely my proudest work because I saw skateboarding on the rise, obviously in the early 2000s, mid-2000s with the success of the X games and our video games.

and skating was just everywhere and there were no facilities and cities were not providing I just thought if there's something that I can do to give back to this world it's provide skate parts because my skate park was my salvation as a kid is where I spent all my time where I met my closest friends

where I learned my skill but also just felt a sense of belonging that's what it was like we were the nerds and the outcasts like we were the misfits and the skate park was our happy our safe place So how do you get it to happen? Through having a voice and a name that city councils would recognize

and advocating for the kids in the areas that are trying to get it themselves. So I'm not taking credit for it. I just became a conduit for it. And it was like, these kids need a skate park. Listen to them. You're giving them tickets every day because they skate wherever at the mall. They're like, they're not going to quit skating. Yeah.

And if you provide a skate park, people want to come to your city. How do you know where to go to advocate for a skate park? Oh, I mean, at some point, you learn the process, the city civil process can actually work. Like, if you work the system, you can make it happen. Is it pretty similar place to place? Kind of, yeah. I mean, it requires city council meetings, petitions, hearings. But sometimes it's like, hey, this guy has this land, he'll donate it.

Well, that's one huge hurt. to get over. Yeah. Or we only need this much more to reach our goal for funding. And it's like some wealthy person in that area of had a deep history with skating. They're like, I got it. And then we're the ones that can connect those dots. Great.

To date, we've helped to fund over 900 parks. Amazing. Yeah. It's a huge number. Huge. Huge. And globally or mostly in the states? In all 50 states, but we have a partner,

have a partnership with Skatistan, who they provide skate parks and educational facilities in South Africa, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Jordan. We help them with their projects because there's no one I would trust more. How would you say besides the fact that you've dedicated your life to it, it's provided for you and your family, how else has skateboarding changed you? It's given me a sense of confidence that I don't think I would have found anywhere else. and identity everything that I do almost inherently is connected

to skateboarding even with my kids in a lot of ways and so I identify with it but I identify with it proudly and for instance like when I was in when I was a freshman in high school I was a pro skater right I was the top amateur skater

I was about to go pro I had to hide my skateboard before I went to school I would hide it in the bushes near the bungalows because I would get harassed at school with it like I would get bullied or he would steal it or they would like beat me up or put me in the trash can or whatever

like that was going to happen and then I would go through the day and try to be low-key and out of everyone's way and then go get my skateboard at the end of the day and skate home and then go to the skate park and be there until closing

learning all these tricks and it wasn't that I was embarrassed to be a skater it was just hard to identify like that. It was dangerous, yeah. And nowadays, like, I'm old as fuck, and I, like, go on a plane and I put my skateboard up in the overhead bin

in first class, take up space for other people. And I'm like, this is me. This is who I am, you know, take it or leave it. Yeah. And so I just mean, like, it's become so... It's an extension of my body now, and it's something that I am very proud of. Yeah, I'm so glad that you get to continue,

continue doing it at the level that gives you that feeling of joy. It's amazing. I'm so, I'm living the dream. Like, I'm so lucky. When you were 14, could you have imagined the grown-up you doing this? No, I mean. It's unimaginable. When I was 24, I made the washed-up skater list in Big Brother.

Yeah. I was washed up at 24. Yeah. Still learning tricks, but for, for me. what? Yeah, because nobody else cared. I mean, I did. I still do. No, but that's the beauty of it is your dedication is what allowed the whole thing to happen. That's something that it's hard for me to accept, but I'm hugely proud of it. You know, if I did anything to raise a profile of skating or if someone got inspired by me and my dedication or stubbornness, it's the best thing

that I could hope for. What's the last trick that you were committed to doing that took a long time to get to? I did that trick, the impossible. I did what we call a front foot impossible. So you take off and you use the other foot to wrap the board around. So it's like a two-part process. It makes it take more time. Yeah. And then I did it to a backside error. I had never done it. And I had to do it. I had to do it really high to have all that time to do it and I had to set up with my feet in an awkward position

so when you do tricks aerials to get speed there's kind of a standard aerial that you do that's just functional it's just for getting speed I couldn't do it like that because I had to have my foot

in this fucked up position and it was in the way of my hand so I had a different type of error and I kept trying it trying it like got close a couple times and finally set a date this is it we're getting to some film yeah i had a tiba jefferson there shooting a sequence of it and i made it but it was it was so fucking hard is that the only time you've ever done it only time the only time i'll ever do it yeah yeah yeah i landed one and fell on how many hours would you say it took to get to be able

to do it just focusing on that trick it was probably a year of off and on attempts yeah Yeah. Like an hour at a time, so. So you knew it was possible. You just hadn't done it yet. Yeah. And it was just as hard as I imagine to do. Like, probably harder than I imagined

because the one time that I did try to make it, I thought I had it, and then I just fell backwards across the flat, and it was like, fuck, if I can't make it like that. Yeah. And then the one... Was there a breakthrough or it was just...

No, it was just... Glinding. ...inching towards it, and then finally landed one. Yeah. went up on the deck just collapsed like that's it i'm done are there any tricks that have taken a really long time to learn but once you learn them you can do them like it's nothing yeah how does that happen you just get more confident with it back in the day we learn tricks

to have them in our repertoire so like in bones brigade days if you learned a trick you're going to keep doing that trick going forward yeah it's only in the last 20 years or so where it's like that trick is so hard. It's a one time only. It's a one-time thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for sure, like, there have been some other tricks that I've learned fairly recently, and it was like, I could throw that in there. Like, that's a pretty cool one.

Yeah. What gets you excited about learning a trick? Just the fact that haven't seemed to have done before and you can do it. Yeah. Or even if it's something that has been done. Yeah, but you haven't done it. But I've never done it. Like, that's exciting to me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that buzz, when you land something that you've never done, that buzz, like, that's the dragon. Does watching skateboarding excite you as much as it always did? It probably excites me more now because of the possibilities now, because I'm seeing what's next. Yeah. You know, in a lot of ways, I was trying to help create what's next, especially through those 80s and 90s. But now it's way beyond what I'm doing. And so I've just watched it like, I never imagine.

And you're astounded by what you're seeing? Outstounded, yeah, it's fucking unreal. What's the craziest thing you've ever seen? There are tricks that Bob Bernquist has done, and he's more of a generation of like 90s era, but there are tricks that he has done that I'm convinced no one else will ever do. For instance, we're in the weeds here,

but he's a front side 540, which is not usually you do backside McTwist, Make sure this is a 540. There's a trick called a gnar jar. What's that? So a body jar is when you go up in the air and then on the way down, you land on the tail and it's very risky

because if you're trying to land on the tail, it's a good chance you're going to miss and your trucks are going to go over and you hang up and you're down. If body jars go wrong, you're getting chaos. You know what I mean? There's no safe way out of a bad body jar. A gnar jar is a 540

and then on the way down, you come down on your tail. It's the gnarliest of jars, right? Yeah. There's like four people in the world that ever have done it. Yeah. And to this day, I'm like,

but when you see it, it's just like terrifying? It's terrifying. Even to watch it. Because you know what can go wrong as a skater. Yeah, yeah. Other people see it and they're like,

oh, that was cool. 540, he hits tail. And it was like, oh, Bob did it at front side. Are there things that you ever see in street skating that are like astounding to you? Yeah, the way that people can just

pinch into a rail and just stay on a rail now and they're on a rail and then they're setting up their other foot for what is going to happen when they come off that shit like i it's so far beyond me i cannot believe it's wild it's wild it's what we put in our video games so that you could skate in a fantastical way because we never thought that stuff would be possible yeah and now a lot of the skaters now grew up playing those games and they can do it they can do it unbelievable unbelievable Unbelievable. I think sci-fi works that way too. You read things in sci-fi books that are impossible, but then 20 years later, the seeds are planted.

20 years later, it's better than it was in that version of it. Yeah. Yeah. Tetragramatin is a podcast. Tetrogrammatine is a whole world of knowledge. What may fall within the sphere of tetragrammatin? Counterculture? Tetragrammatian. Sacred geometry.

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