{"id":55301,"date":"2014-05-01T11:43:21","date_gmt":"2014-05-01T18:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/?p=55301"},"modified":"2022-06-07T17:40:58","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T00:40:58","slug":"steve-olson-x-lance-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/steve-olson-x-lance-mountain\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Olson X Lance Mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"

STEVE OLSON X LANCE MOUNTAIN<\/b><\/p>\n

PHOTOS BY TED TERREBONNE AND MRZ<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steve Olson and Lance Mountain interview each other about skateboarding and life as they live it…<\/p>\n

It is not fair sometimes. \u201cYou\u2019ve got 15 minutes to write Olson\u2019s introduction. We are going to press. Houston, are you there?\u201d I just read over his intro for me and I love it. How can I compete with that? Steve has a way with words and making you feel good about yourself. Charming, maybe, but I\u2019m not a girl. There are many words to describe people who have done and loved what they do for so long, but to have the ability to pretend that none of it matters is the hardest, and it comes so easy for Steve, as does his skateboarding. He has shown us how to turn on a skateboard better than anyone. He has won multiple contests and awards. He has turned down more sponsorship opportunities than most have been offered. He brought in a new wave of style, thought and look to skateboarding. Some called it punk. We called it Olson. – LANCE MOUNTAIN<\/i><\/p>\n

When one plays King of the Mountain, you try to get to the top, right? But when you play the same game\u00a0with Lance Mountain, it\u2019s hard to win…Competitive, that\u2019s an understatement… Passionate, his picture is in the dictionary… Talented, well, that\u2019s easy… Yes. Committed, slightly, and very…\u201dtil death do he part ways with his skateboard\u201d… Goofy, Disney owes, know what I\u2019m saying? Loyal, ah yeah, duh, I mean… Should he be the first man knighted in skateboarding? Just think of the way it would sound… \u201cSir Lance Mountain\u201d\u2026 Off with his Head… – STEVE OLSON<\/i><\/p>\n

=========<\/p>\n

OLSON: Okay, Lance ask me a question.<\/strong>
\nLANCE: Okay, Steve, here\u2019s my question to you. Why are we going into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame before all these guys from the \u201870s should go in?<\/p>\n

We shouldn\u2019t be going in. That\u2019s the truth. That\u2019s reality.<\/strong>
\nThere are about 70-100 guys that should go in before us.<\/p>\n

Yeah, before me, before you\u2026<\/strong>
\nDefinitely before you. [Laughs] No. I meant me.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] No. Before you.<\/strong>
\nWhen you started skating, who were the guy\u2019s names that you heard?<\/p>\n

Dogtown. [Laughs]<\/strong>
\nNo way. That\u2019s ridiculous.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] There were so many great skateboarders back then.<\/strong>
\nWas Ed Nadalin a popular name?<\/p>\n

I started skateboarding in 1967 and Squeaky Haynes was my idol.<\/strong>
\nThat name rules. It\u2019s like a Shreddi Repas name. It\u2019s just a rad name, Squeaky Haynes. I\u2019m so bummed I didn\u2019t grow up on Squeaky Haynes.<\/p>\n

There were a lot of guys that were really good. You\u2019d get your information from the magazines that were out like Skateboard and then you had Stevie Monahan, Ty Page, Russ Howell and Ed Nadalin.<\/strong>
\nSkitch Hitchcock.<\/p>\n

Did you just put one in for me?<\/strong>
\nYes. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

That\u2019s amazing.<\/strong>
\nThose are the same names I grew up on.<\/p>\n

You had Bob Mohr and Bob Neishi from Huntington Beach.<\/strong>
\nYou weren\u2019t a Skitch Hitchcock fan?<\/p>\n

There was Mike Weed, Skitch Hitchcock\u2026 That list goes on. Who was the epitome of the blond-haired blue-eyed skateboarder? Gregg Weaver. Who was on the first cover when Skateboarder came back? It was Weaver riding a swimming pool, a little below the light, but who was worried about that at that moment in life?<\/strong>
\nDid Mike Weed get the second cover, kind of falling off the hip?<\/p>\n

The second one was Bruce Logan doing a nosewheelie into the sunset.<\/strong>
\nDid you have a lot of friends that skated or you just found the magazines yourself?<\/p>\n

How did this happen that you are the interviewer?<\/strong>
\nI thought I was supposed to ask you questions.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re just having a conversation.<\/strong>
\nOh. Okay. I\u2019m going to talk about myself then. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

No. I had my brother who was four years older and we had surfing. Everything was related to surfing when we started skateboarding.<\/strong>
\nDid you live within walking distance of the beach or did you have to take a bus ride?<\/p>\n

No. We had to drive. We lived four miles from the beach.<\/strong>
\nWhere did you surf? Seal Beach?<\/p>\n

I like how you just slide these questions in. Yeah. Duh. We surfed Seal Beach.<\/strong>
\nWhy aren\u2019t you asking me questions? I feel left out.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just answering your questions.<\/strong>
\nWas this before or after water polo? I think it\u2019s very interesting that you played water polo.<\/p>\n

Michael Phelps. Here\u2019s the deal. Where did you start skateboarding?<\/strong>
\nI lived in Alhambra, California, and my friend Enrique was five years older\u2026<\/p>\n

I remember when I came to Whittier and Pat Brown brought me over to the halfpipe to see you skate.<\/strong>
\nWait. I was in the middle of answering your question. You don\u2019t even remember that day. That was the first time I met you at Whittier. [Laughs] You only remember that because I told you.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] I remember it like it was yesterday. Pat was like, \u201cYou have to see this kid from Alhambra skating the Whittier halfpipe.\u201d<\/strong>
\nNow I know you\u2019re making stuff up because everyone thought I was from Whittier. You\u2019re always making fun of me.<\/p>\n

\n

“I built a ramp in front of my house. It was a 4′ x 8′ sheet on an angle a little less than 45 degrees and we sessioned that thing for hours. The thing that we sessioned the most was the driveways in front of our house.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

[Laughs] I\u2019m not making fun of you.<\/strong>
\nYou didn\u2019t even care because you were Olson.<\/p>\n

Wait. You\u2019d gone to England before that. How was it when you went to England?<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019re jumping all over the place.<\/p>\n

Of course, and we\u2019re just going to keep doing it that way.<\/strong>
\nI started skating when Enrique gave me a board, and it was all about those guys doing the handstands, the L-sits, the nosewheelies, the tailwheelies, 360\u2019s and catamaraning down our hill. I wasn\u2019t very good at it. Enrique was a lot better than me. Then there was a bike shop at the corner and that magazine Skateboard came out in 1975 with Stevie Monahan going through the water.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the best photos.<\/strong>
\nI just remember thinking at the time that maybe skateboarding isn\u2019t about all these hard things. It\u2019s also very visual and emotional and it makes you feel something, and that looks fun. I remember that very clearly. I wasn\u2019t very good at the stuff that was considered hard. I could do handstands really good and a lot of stuff though.<\/p>\n

Could you push up into a handstand?<\/strong>
\nYeah. I could push up and come back down. I could never do more than nine 360\u2019s.<\/p>\n

How about a V-sit?<\/strong>
\nI could not do V-sits or L-sits.<\/p>\n

What about a headstand?<\/strong>
\nI couldn\u2019t do nosewheelies or any of that stuff. I couldn\u2019t do daffys. I still can\u2019t do a daffy. I wanted to do that stuff really badly. I remember seeing that photo and thinking that it\u2019s not only that. Then it was Evel Knievel time and everyone started pushing their board off things and that\u2019s when it became more fun and I became a little more daring.<\/p>\n

Were you more daring than the guys you were skating with?<\/strong>
\nYeah. I lived in San Gabriel Valley and there were all these guys skating at this place called Arby\u2019s where there were banks. It was right when the urethane wheel came out and there were like 60 guys riding these banks. Do you remember that period? There was this huge boom.<\/p>\n

Yes. I also remember where the runways and spillways and the riverbed met at the end of Long Beach. It was two spillways that came into one, so there was a spine down the middle. On any given day, after junior high school, there would be at least 100 people skateboarding.<\/strong>
\nThere was that weird boom, but it dropped off fairly quickly around \u201877 or \u201878.<\/p>\n

What were your first loose ball bearings?<\/strong>
\nThe board Enrique gave me had white clay wheels. As you rode them, they just crumbled away. He got urethane wheels. I think that\u2019s why he gave me his old board, so I had white clay wheels and just an oak deck. I don\u2019t even think it had a name. Quickly after that, I went down to the bike shop and got my own urethane wheels too because his board was so much better. I had Metaflex wheels.<\/p>\n

Metaflex had good color wheels though.<\/strong>
\nThey had that rad little lip, kind of like a Powerflex 9 almost. I still have them actually. Those were the first urethane precision bearing wheels that I got.<\/p>\n

What trucks did you have?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t remember the trucks. I just remember those wheels. I remember that name. I bought the wheels and probably used the old trucks off that board. Then my dad made me a see-through board out of plexiglass and my friend\u2019s dad made his boards out of aluminum.<\/p>\n

Tell me about the plexiglass board.<\/strong>
\nAs soon as I got it, my sister dropped it and it broke. I was so bummed. The bearings were rolling down the street and you had to collect them all, but you were always missing one, and you think you could use a friend\u2019s BB, but it didn\u2019t quite work. The BBs were the wrong size. Did you ever try to put BBs in there?<\/p>\n

I tried everything. [Laughs]<\/strong>
\nYes. It was terrible. It was rad. We skated around the house for a long time.<\/p>\n

How long was it before it was like, \u201cHey, you guys, let\u2019s go skateboarding instead of chase girls? [Laughs]<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Let me ask you that question. What about when people ask you to go skateboarding instead of chase girls?<\/p>\n

I\u2019d be like, \u201cWhat\u2019s a girl?\u201d<\/strong>
\nWhat do you say now? [Laughs]<\/p>\n

Where are we going? [Laughs]<\/strong>
\nAs a kid, I had to be in when the lights went on.<\/p>\n

You had a curfew.<\/strong>
\nI had to do my homework and I had to be able to squeeze my skating in between. I hated Day Light Savings time because I could never skate. We could only skate on the weekends or on the block.<\/p>\n

Was this at the house with the ramp?<\/strong>
\nYeah, it\u2019s up on the hill. We would go down around the corner where there was a little bit less of a hill. It was all about going down that slight hill and cutting up on the driveway and pumping down the hill. Once we were allowed to go around the block, it felt like we were going so far from home. Skateboarding was my little escape. It felt like we could go around the world.<\/p>\n

We used to skate from Los Alamitos to south Long Beach because there was a bush there that was like getting barreled. That was a long skate on Roller Derby boards, and we would session this bush at this mall for hours. It was hours of just going in and getting hit by the branches. It was insanely fun.<\/strong>
\nHow many were in your group of guys that would go skate?<\/p>\n

Three. We were called the Bearded Clam Team. The BCT.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] No. How old were you then?<\/p>\n

I was 12 or 13. It was also a surf team. It was our little team. It didn\u2019t mean anything. It just had a clam with a beard on it with B.C.T. underneath it.<\/strong>
\nYou even had a team. We had about five guys: Enrique, me, Stewart Fong, Chris Genevees\u2026 These guys were all on the block and they were all older and they were all really pretty good. A lot of them had Brewer boards with the little beam. They were solid oak, but they were cutting the slants out. That\u2019s when we started going up to North Alhambra to skate the banks and stuff.<\/p>\n

\n

“Okay, Steve, here\u2019s my question to you. Why are we going into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame before all these guys from the \u201870s should go in?”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We made our own boards. I also surfed for Wayne Brown Surfboards and they were kind of early on. \u201cA kick in every tail.\u201d I\u2019d go to the factory in Costa Mesa.<\/strong>
\nHow old were you then, 16?<\/p>\n

No. I was 13 or 14.<\/strong>
\nReally? How did they see you?<\/p>\n

It was because I surfed Huntington Pier all the time. I wish I could find that surf ad. I was in one of their ads surfing.<\/strong>
\nReally? I don\u2019t believe you.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s okay. I have a private detective looking for it right now. [Laughs] I had an older brother and I used to make boards really wide so that I could knee paddle on them like a surfboard. I really enjoyed kneeboarding skateboarding because you could get really low.<\/strong>
\nWas your brother better than you on a skateboard?<\/p>\n

My brother roller-skated.<\/strong>
\nHe would go under the bush on roller skates?<\/p>\n

No. He would skateboard then, but that was back in the pool days.<\/strong>
\nWere you better than him?<\/p>\n

No. There was no better or worse.<\/strong>
\nDid he get sponsored by Wayne Brown Surfboards?<\/p>\n

No.<\/strong>
\nWhy did you get sponsored and not him?<\/p>\n

Because he was surfing somewhere else.<\/strong>
\nHe was better than you?<\/p>\n

It was different.<\/strong>
\nThere is no better we\u2019ve known.<\/p>\n

He surfed differently. It doesn\u2019t matter. Here\u2019s the deal. He went backwards.<\/strong>
\nI wish I could say that I was better than all those guys, but I was way worse.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t care who was better. Obviously, there were guys that were a little more advanced.<\/strong>
\nIt didn\u2019t come into play until people started talking about it, right?<\/p>\n

Well, I went to a skateboard contest at the Los Alamitos Youth Center and saw guys like Johnny Walker, Scott Hostert, Richy Carrasco and all those types of dudes from the inland version of Orange County and it was solely 100% about freestyle skateboarding and wiggling a little bit through the slalom cones. Freestyle was the huge thing and it was a turn-off.<\/strong>
\nIt was a turn-off?<\/p>\n

Yeah. Being a surfer, I thought, \u201cWho cares? You can\u2019t spin 360\u2019s on your surfboard.\u201d It was not happening, so there was no relationship, but I have mad respect for all those dudes that can do all those things.<\/strong>
\nThey were so great. I went to a Cadillac\/Bahne contest at a school in Tujunga with my friend Enrique. We went to this contest to watch these guys skate, and there was an obstacle course with a little bank and a little tube. The guys were freestyling or doing whatever, and then we wanted to go skate. In the lower parking lot area, some guys had put a piece of wood up against the wall and started riding this bank, but they wouldn\u2019t let us ride it. They were really protective of it.<\/p>\n

How old were you then?<\/strong>
\nI was probably 13.<\/p>\n

I built a ramp in front of my house. It was a 4\u2019 x 8\u2019 sheet on an angle a little less than 45 degrees and we sessioned that thing for hours. The thing that we sessioned the most was those driveways down in Laguna Nigel and Dana Point. We\u2019d skate at the beginning of the driveway, right by the curbs. We used to drop into driveways, and one was steep and we called it Pipeline, one was big, and we called that Waimea and one was more slopey, but there was section of it that was a little steep, like the inside part of Sunset, so that was Sunset, and you\u2019d commentate, \u201cDropping in now is Jeff Hakman. Dropping in now is Gerry Lopez! Here comes a cutback by Barry Kanaiaupuni. Oh my God. It isn\u2019t! It is! It\u2019s the style master, Reno Abellira! Oh my god! It\u2019s a drop knee cutback by Billy Hamilton! He\u2019s hanging ten like David Nuuhiwa! It\u2019s unbelievable. He\u2019s pearled. He\u2019s down. He\u2019s hurt! He\u2019s drowning!\u201d And your friend is over there pretending like he\u2019s drowning on the grass. It was insane.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] We sat in the boxes that the washing machine came in. We put five boards under it and three of us sat inside it and just went down the sidewalk until we hit the ivy and flew out. There was no surfing involved with us. There was maybe a little Evel Knievel thought, but we didn\u2019t have any water. I never thought about surfing at all.<\/p>\n

\n

“Being a surfer, I thought, \u201cWho cares? You can\u2019t spin 360\u2019s on your surfboard.\u201d It was not happening, so there was no relationship, but I have mad respect for all those dudes that can do all those things.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I was totally all about the fact that the urethane wheel came out. We thought that was one of the most amazing things to ever happen. From Roller Derbys to Black Knights, the Roller Derby seemed like it was a little better quality than the Black Knight in the wheels and trucks.<\/strong>
\nWas that a Vita-Pak?<\/p>\n

No. It was just straight Roller Derby. It was insane when those urethane wheels came out. I have no idea how we got turned onto urethane wheels. It was probably from a surf shop. Then the precision wheel came out. The precision wheel was another big deal because it completely made you stealth and ninja-like because all you could hear were the cracks and not the sound of the wheels.<\/strong>
\nWere you going to skateparks by the time the precision wheel came out?<\/p>\n

Yeah. For sure there were skateparks.<\/strong>
\nMontebello was open by then and precision bearings were out by Montebello.<\/p>\n

I know we rode pools with loose ball bearing wheels. We just thought it was amazing when we saw Gregg Weaver on the cover of Skateboarder in a pool. We went out and found a pool that day. It was all about surfing for me.<\/strong>
\nWhen you skated for Wayne Brown Surfboards, when did you get sponsored?<\/p>\n

I think I was 13. I was surfing Huntington Pier and I saw this guy in the water and he says, \u201cCome by the shop. I want to talk to you. I think you surf pretty cool, so come by.\u201d I didn\u2019t really pay attention to what shop he said, but he said it was on PCH between Main Street and the next street. At that time, Greek Surfboards had a team of guys, like John Davis, Bobby Burchell and all these dudes. They had this great looking wetsuit with a collar that popped up with a Western kind of back to it with a picture of some dude surfing. I thought, \u201cWhoa. Maybe I\u2019m going to get on that team and I\u2019ll get one of those wetsuits.\u201d So I rolled into Greek Surfboards. I was maybe 13 or 12, and I was a shrimp. I was like \u201cI\u2019m totally down to get a surfboard.\u201d The dude helping me at Greek Surfboards was Bob Ballou.<\/strong>
\nOh, really?<\/p>\n

Yeah. So I\u2019m in Greek Surfboards and Bob Ballou is just this straight salesman from Massachusetts. He was like, \u201cYeah, buddy, I saw you out there surfing. You surf great!\u201d I was like, \u201cThis is pretty fantastic, so how do I get a board?\u201d He goes, \u201cHere\u2019s what I can do for you. I can give you that board for a little bit over cost.\u201d He quotes me the price and it\u2019s the same price as buying a board off the rack. I was like, \u201cWait a minute. What do you mean you\u2019re going to charge me?\u201d He was like, \u2018Yeah, it\u2019s just a little bit over cost. We\u2019d love to have you on a Greek Surfboard.\u201d I was like, \u201cWell, that\u2019s not what you were talking to me about when we were in the water. You were talking about giving me a surfboard.\u201d He said, \u201cI have no idea what you\u2019re talking about, kid.\u201d I was like, \u201cI don\u2019t get one of those wetsuits either?\u201d He was like, \u201cNo!\u201d It was like, \u201cGet out of here, kid. You\u2019re bothering me,\u201d after he realized it was some weird misconceived thought I had that I was going to get on the Greek Surfboard team. Then I went next door to Wayne Brown Surfboards and I was like, \u201cI got the wrong shop at first.\u201d They said, \u201cOh, you weren\u2019t dealing with Ballou were you? That guy probably tried to sell you two boards for the price of three.\u201d It was funny.<\/strong>
\nSo that\u2019s how you met Bob Ballou. Who did you get sponsored for skateboarding by first?<\/p>\n

I rode for Wayne Brown, bro. I couldn\u2019t skateboard to save my life, but if you were on the surf team, you were on the skate team. I got my own blanks because I didn\u2019t like their shapes. My brother was a craftsman and he made his own surfboards and then we made our own skateboards, but they were flexi and they sucked.<\/strong>
\nDid you ever have wide skateboards?<\/p>\n

I had wide skateboards long before those other cats.<\/strong>
\nWhen did you get on Powerflex? Was it right after that or was there stuff in between or were you ever on Powerflex?<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t on Powerflex until much later, after the skatepark craze started.<\/strong>
\nWho did you ride for after Wayne Brown?<\/p>\n

We made our own stuff.<\/strong>
\nSo your first sponsor really was Powerflex. Did Bob Ballou remember that you were the kid that walked into his shop?<\/p>\n

No. He said he does, but he\u2019s lying. He\u2019s probably drunk.[Laughs]<\/strong>
\nHow did he meet you later? Was it at the skateparks?<\/p>\n

Yes. It was probably like, \u201cOkay, the kid can do a little backside turn at Skatopia.\u201d I just remember I always wanted one of those net jerseys.<\/strong>
\nI still want one. I\u2019ve been trying to get someone to make one for me now. I want to wear them now.<\/p>\n

That was like you made it.<\/strong>
\nPeople thought they were lame, but now everyone loves them. G&S had gold and burgundy jerseys.<\/p>\n

Powerflex had the white. Logan Earth Ski had the red white and blue. They also had yellow and black and maybe orange. Bahne had theirs. Sims totally had them. Sims was on fire.<\/strong>
\nThose were red, white and blue. Makaha had the yellow and white ones.<\/p>\n

Do you remember Pro Am Gold? They had a jersey. No one wanted that jersey, but they still had a jersey.<\/strong>
\nDid you ever hear of California Hardwoods? They were based on Fremont in Alhambra.<\/p>\n

Did you get hooked up by them?<\/strong>
\nNo. I didn\u2019t know it was there until years later when it was way out of business. I looked it up and it said, \u201cAlhambra.\u201d The address was walking distance from my house. If I showed you the sticker, you would recognize it. It was a yellow C with blue and it said California Hardwood and it was a Tracker-shaped sticker.<\/p>\n

I know California Hardwoods, now that you explained the sticker. Makaha was in Los Alamitos by the naval base and I never knew that and that was in my neighborhood. We would have figured out how to break in there and steal the shit out of some boards.<\/strong>
\nGonz was telling me that he used to go to the old Variflex factory and take everything out of the trash. He would take all the seconds and all the stuff in the trash.<\/p>\n

Did you guys like catamaraning?<\/strong>
\nYeah. I still love it. We used to catamaran with a bunch of people. We\u2019d catamaran and then our sisters would get on the board too and we\u2019d go with as many people as we could on skateboards.<\/p>\n

Skateboarding was so wickedly badass. It was about having as much fun as possible to me and my friends.<\/strong>
\nTo everybody. I guess it\u2019s still the same, but it\u2019s not the same. It was about just having fun, but it was so simplified back then.<\/p>\n

Now we\u2019re totally different dudes. We\u2019re old and mature.<\/strong>
\nYeah. The kids are having fun in a more advanced way now. I don\u2019t think they can just catamaran for hours. They might now because they see it and it\u2019s funny, but I think, because other things have been advanced, they have to go there first to have fun.<\/p>\n

I really enjoyed skateboarding from belly boarding to knee boarding to standing up. We used to make longboards too. We used to get the Indy 500s and chip away a couple of layers so they had a little flex to them because we were little guys and we would get pulled around on mini bikes with big long ropes. How did you get to go to Montebello? Was it by your house? I never got to go to Montebello.<\/strong>
\nI remember the magazine had a thing about the opening in Montebello, and Carlsbad had just opened. Montebello was the second park that opened. It was \u201876. In the magazine, it had this form and it said, \u201cSend away for memberships.\u201d We signed the thing and sent it away.<\/p>\n

Where did you get skate magazines?<\/strong>
\nWe got them at 7-Eleven. That\u2019s where I got Skateboarder and I then got a subscription to that. At first, we went to Dick\u2019s Bike Shop and then I got stuff at Dennis\u2019s. So I signed the form and sent it away to get the membership to Montebello and nothing came in the mail, so we just went down there and it was open. There were thousands of people. It was so crowded, and it was so small, but we would go there quite a bit.<\/p>\n

What pros did you see there?<\/strong>
\nI saw Stacy Peralta there. I saw Bobby Piercy there. Conrad ran the team there. I saw Laura Thornhill there. I saw Wally there. Piercy was there quite a lot at the beginning.<\/p>\n

What did you think of their skating abilities?<\/strong>
\nI wasn\u2019t that good, but we\u2019d already been skating pools. There was a pool across the street and up the hill a little ways, so we could kind of ride pools. Montebello only had one place that had vertical with a little edge, and Leonard was a local and he was probably the best skater there. I remember Skateboarder came out with a centerfold of Piercy doing a kickturn on that wall frontside, bailing. The caption said, \u201cHe made 19 out of 20 this day.\u201d<\/p>\n

They ran the one that he didn\u2019t make?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know. I didn\u2019t know that Piercy was a slalom guy. I was thinking, \u201cLeonard and these guys that we are skating pools with are way better than these guys in the magazines.\u201d I saw this guy named J.R. and we were skating this pool up by Montebello. We hadn\u2019t really seen real vertical skating yet. We had seen Alva in photos, but we didn\u2019t know how it translated. I went over the light and I could kickturn and stuff, but then we saw J.R. doing forevers and pumping wheelers. He was kickturning with his hands behind his back. We were like, \u201cOh, this is how it\u2019s done. This guy is better than the guys in the magazines.\u201d Here\u2019s a photo of this guy bailing on this little wall. This was before we had seen anyone do it. That\u2019s when it kicked off and Montebello became kind of obsolete. Pools were way better.<\/p>\n

What about when you took your parents to see you skate a pool?<\/strong>
\nThat was the pool that we had skated it a few times. I told you this story before, but now I have new information, so that story has been adjusted. I took my aunt and my dad to the pool. It wasn\u2019t my mom. My aunt said that she came in with me while my dad was parking the car and I walked around to the deep end. I was riding a Z-Flex board at the time, so I didn\u2019t drop in, but she said that I walked around to the deep end and dropped in.<\/p>\n

What kind of Z-Flex board?<\/strong>
\nIt was actually an orange Jay Adams Z-Flex board. My aunt says that I walked around to the deep end and just went in. I said, \u201cDid I fall and trip?\u201d She said, \u201cNo. You tried to go in.\u201d I hadn\u2019t learned to drop in yet, so I think her story is wrong, but she said, \u201cYou fell in and you were laying there. My dad came in and they were like, \u201cGet up!\u201d They thought I was goofing around like I normally do, but I wasn\u2019t. I got KO-ed. My dad was freaking out. He just lost it. He picked me up and put me in the car and took me to the hospital and I was still out. I didn\u2019t wake up until five hours later in the hospital.<\/p>\n

Five hours?<\/strong>
\nYeah. My aunt said my dad was losing it. I didn\u2019t know she had seen it happen. So that pool got closed.<\/p>\n

You got the pool closed by showing off.<\/strong>
\nYeah. I closed the pool by falling on my head. All those guys were like, \u201cYou\u2019re the guy that got the pool closed. Now you can\u2019t skate our pools.\u201d At this one pool, they let my friend Monkey skate, but I had to sit on the shallow end steps with my helmet on to watch them skate.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Yes.<\/strong>
\nNow who\u2019s in the Hall of Fame? [Laughs]<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame? Helmet Boy!<\/strong>
\nNot them. [Laughs] Wait. I\u2019m just joking. I think that\u2019s why I tried so hard.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] I have to tell you a story about trying to show off. I told my parents that my friend was selling a mini bike.<\/strong>
\nC\u2019mon. Stay about skateboarding. You don\u2019t want to talk about skateboarding ever. Go ahead.<\/p>\n

No. The mini bike was about towing our friends behind it on skateboards. It was amazing. We were having BB gun fights with goggles on and full facemasks. My friend was selling the mini bike, so I was like, \u201cYes. Now I can get a mini bike and I don\u2019t have to rely on these other dudes that don\u2019t always want to go. They couldn\u2019t really skateboard like me, Steve Thomas and the Alvarez brothers. I get this little mini bike with the Briggs & Stratton 2.5 horsepower, and I was riding it up and down the street. Both my parents come out and they\u2019re standing on the sidewalk. I\u2019m riding it and I\u2019m going in circles trying to show that I totally have it wired. The next thing I know, the throttle sticks just as I\u2019m coming into the turn towards the curb where they are standing. I panicked, hit the curb and got thrown up onto the grass right in front of them, and my dad looks down and says, \u201cAbsolutely not.\u201d They both walked in the house. That was it. I bought the mini bike anyway. It was good. We used to get a big rope and kind of waterski skate.<\/strong>
\nAt Concrete Wave, were you better than Gnu or was he better than you?<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Oh my god.<\/strong>
\nWe thought he was the best in the pool there.<\/p>\n

He for sure was, right?<\/strong>
\nI thought so, but you won the contest there, right?<\/p>\n

I wonder why.<\/strong>
\nWhy? Were you more consistent? You went into the deep? He fell? You won the first pool contest at Concrete Wave. Was it because you could carve and he could only kickturn?<\/p>\n

Maybe it was because I could carve and grind and kickturn both ways, and I could do rock n\u2019 rolls before anyone knew what they were. All of a sudden, there was the invert that we did on the hips.<\/strong>
\nYou said you\u2019ve never done the invert.<\/p>\n

I hate the invert. No. I love the invert. Who was your first sponsor?<\/strong>
\nI never got sponsored. I entered a high jump contest at Montebello and won.<\/p>\n

Oh you did? How high did you go?<\/strong>
\n3\u20196\u201d. It was pretty high for a small kid.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a little more than a yardstick.<\/strong>
\nI was tiny. My friend could go 4\u20192\u201d.<\/p>\n

Like Ernie Martin out of the East Coast?<\/strong>
\nYeah. That was the first contest I entered.<\/p>\n

Did any of the guys out of Thrashin\u2019 come up and say, \u201cWe want to sponsor you\u201d?<\/strong>
\nThat was at Montebello. They asked me if I wanted to be in a Highway Patrol film. It was a safety film. I think Curtis Hesselgrave was in it. I was the kid that had to put the pads on and then I would have to fall.<\/p>\n

\n

“We sat in the boxes that the washing machine came in. We put five boards under it and three of us sat inside it and just went down the sidewalk until we hit the ivy and flew out. There was no surfing involved with us.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Can you imagine being a little older during that whole craze and realizing that there was money to be made in this industry that was just booming and all fresh and brand new?<\/strong>
\nNo. I can\u2019t imagine that.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] You can too. There were a lot of weird characters back then that were like, \u201cOh, look at this toy that we can make a lot of money off of.\u201d<\/strong>
\nYeah. There was a lot of weird stuff going on then. There was a lot of weird product. It was really cool, but weird. The wheelie board was always my favorite.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t do a nosewheelie, so I would go to the hardware store every day after school and try to figure out some contraption that would let my nose hit the ground and not stop and just continuously roll.<\/strong>
\nDid you put a little roller on the top?<\/p>\n

I did. I tried every kind of roller they had to do a nosewheelie because I was totally influenced by Bruce Logan\u2019s nosewheelie, or anyone who could do a nosewheelie. I put this little invention together, not to make money or anything, just to find that balancing point. Finally, I got good enough to where I could just nosewheelie.<\/strong>
\nI never did. I\u2019m going to make that wheelie board right now and I will sell it, actually, because it will sell right now. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

It will never sell. [Laughs]<\/strong>
\nI went through that weird period where I wanted to get all the good boards of the guys that I liked. In \u201879, I had no money for some reason. Then my dad and I started making boards in the bathtub again. We would get plywood and just warp them. That\u2019s when I went to England with these pieces of junk homemade boards. I had learned inverts already, and then I lost them, and I think it was because the product was so bad. When I came back from England, I got a K-Beam. When I got good product, it really helped.<\/p>\n

How did you get the K-Beam?<\/strong>
\nWhen I got back from England, I went to Upland. I had already skated Upland a bunch, but when we got back from England, I went with Subloski and Henderson. It was right after they poured the combi.<\/p>\n

That was long after. I never saw you at Upland.<\/strong>
\nYou never saw me at Lakewood either and I used to go to Lakewood all the time.<\/p>\n

Did you see me there?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t really remember you.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Yes.<\/strong>
\nI knew who you were, but I don\u2019t remember seeing you there. I saw Mini Shred all the time, and I saw \u00a0Terry Lourence all the time. I actually really liked her, but everyone did at the time.<\/p>\n

What do you mean you liked her? Did you have a crush on her?<\/strong>
\nYeah. She was a girl skateboarder that was tough.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Oh, yes. And she was cute.<\/strong>
\nYeah, but I was like four.<\/p>\n

You were not four.<\/strong>
\nWhatever. I saw Bobby Valdez there all the time.<\/p>\n

What about Darrell Miller?<\/strong>
\nI saw Darrell Miller and Bobby\u2019s brothers. I saw Pat Brown there. Then I went to that contest there.<\/p>\n

Let me ask you this question. When you first started skateboarding and then you became sponsored, did you ever have any thoughts in the back of your head like, \u201cYeah. That\u2019s right. I should be getting sponsored\u201d?<\/strong>
\nNo. I always had that little beat down feeling because I didn\u2019t get sponsored until late.<\/p>\n

When? You got sponsored by Variflex.<\/strong>
\nYeah, but that was late. I was 16 or 17. I didn\u2019t get sponsored until really late. I went to Whittier right when Skate City opened. My friend and I went to Whittier and it happened to be the day that they were having park team try-outs. We went in and they had these little contests. Lucero and these guys were the locals I guess. They were hanging out there while it was getting built, so they already knew the people that ran the park, so they were probably going to get on the team, but my friend and I came in and took their places basically.<\/p>\n

Oh. Was there a little animosity?<\/strong>
\nNo. We just took their places. This was right at the beginning of \u201880. Greg Tai was managing it, and Taters would always hang out there. George Orton, Ray Bones and Darrell Miller were the local pros. At that contest, George Orton asked me if I wanted to be sponsored. I remember I actually told him, \u201cNo. Not really.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Laughs] No.<\/strong>
\nI did. I hadn\u2019t done anything yet. I was like, \u201cPark team? Cool I\u2019ll be on the park team.\u201d I kind of did what my older friends did. I got the impression that they thought I would always act or dress like other skaters that I looked up to. When Shogo Kubo had a headband, I had to get a headband. When Alva had his hat, I had to get an Alva hat. My friends would always make fun of me like, \u201cWhat are you doing, you poser? Why are you trying to hold your arm like Wally?\u201d I didn\u2019t even notice that I was doing this stuff. I just loved that stuff. I thought my friends thought that being sponsored was not something you\u2019d do as a skateboarder, but when I came back from England, they were all not skating anymore. They all got jobs or whatever. I was going to the skatepark and I was thinking that I should get on the team and keep going. When George asked me to be sponsored, the first thing I thought was that I just wanted to ride for Ray Bones. This was right when Ray Bones board first came out.<\/p>\n

You told Orton, \u201cYou\u2019re not my top choice.\u201d<\/strong>
\nI think I really thought that or I just didn\u2019t want to be sponsored. I don\u2019t know. I just remember telling him, \u201cNo. I don\u2019t want to be sponsored.\u201d Greg Tai shopped me around. In 1980, He took me to Big O for Steve Cathay to watch me skate. I remember them shopping me around, but no one thought much of me. I remember physically feeling that they were bringing me around like, \u201cHere. What do you think? No? No?\u201d<\/p>\n

Greg Tai shopped me too in \u201877.<\/strong>
\nOh, he shopped you around too?<\/p>\n

Yeah. I rode with Arnie Hoag who was probably one of the best dudes and he tried to shop me to McIntyre. We even lied about my age and said that I was younger to make me look better, but McIntyre said, \u201cNo. That kid sucks.\u201d He kicked my skateboard at Skatopia and I told him I would shove it down his fat throat. We were playing Grand Prix racing and my board was there and he came in with a guy on the team and, all of a sudden, he kicked my skateboard. He was like, \u201cGet this piece of shit out of the way.\u201d I was like, \u201cListen, fat man, I will shove that skateboard down your throat!\u201d I was a little guy too, and I was pissed already. I thought his team was whack.<\/strong>
\nI was 16 already, so I wasn\u2019t going to get on a team. Nobody wanted a 16-year-old kid. I was always at the wrong place. Then Ray Bones gave me a couple boards and I was thinking, \u201cOkay, I\u2019m going to ride for Ray Bones.\u201d<\/p>\n

How psyched were you?<\/strong>
\nWell, I don\u2019t know if he even knew me. I just thought it might happen. That was right when Stevie and Foss were coming up and they were the kids that were going to be pros. Lucero and those guys were at Whittier, and Greg Tai was gone by then. It was hard for me to get to Whittier because I didn\u2019t live around there.<\/p>\n

How did you get there?<\/strong>
\nMy sister would drive me or I would take the bus. We used to have skatepark team days and there would be contests at different parks every month, so I\u2019d just go wherever the contests were. Once you\u2019re on the skate park team, you had to do that. They were like, \u201cStacy is bringing Stevie and those guys down.\u201d I was like, \u201cThis is my chance. I\u2019m going to show them I can ride.\u201d I was a total dirtbag with boards that were smashed to pieces. I was thinking that because Ray hooked me up, Stacy would just take me on, but Ray was already on his way out, so I knew I had to do this on my own, so I showed up and rolled around. To this day, Stevie tells me that they hated me. He said, \u201cYou were the local kid that just followed us around and wanted to show us that you were good.\u201d I was like, \u201cI wasn\u2019t trying to show you anything. I was trying to get Stacy to put me on the team.\u201d They were completely not interested in me at all. They actually ended up talking to our friend, Jeff Briliak, that skated there, who could talk better to people, and Stacy ended up giving him product. I was just crushed. I felt like a scumbag. Then Darrell Miller started giving me boards.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I saw you ride the half-pipe.<\/strong>
\nI was a full Darrell clone at that point. Then Jerry Hurtado gave me some Indys. This was ASPO days and I did good. I won a lot of them.<\/p>\n

Did you skate the USSA contest circuit?<\/strong>
\nI skated two of them, but I didn\u2019t skate the whole circuit. I skated Escondido and the Marine one. There were so many people at that time. There were so many groups.<\/p>\n

I skated USSA. It was crazy. That was so badass. I had to skate against Salba. He was a dirty little scumbag.<\/strong>
\nHe was good, right? He could go really long. He has a lot of energy.<\/p>\n

He could rip, and he still can.<\/strong>
\nTo me, that skatepark against skatepark nonsense was the only way I ever got into anything. I wasn\u2019t seen or known by anybody and I was always under the radar. Ngoho tells this story and it makes me feel good. He came to this Paramount contest, and they had so many weird divisions. It was 10 and under, 12-13. 14-15, 16-17 and 18 and over, 1A, 2A, 3A, which was unsponsored, shop sponsored and team sponsored. They had all these groups and there were hundreds of kids skating in these things. I remember my dad took me to Paramount to practice the night before the contest. Nogho was there practicing too and he said, \u201cWhat group are you in?\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m in 14-15.\u201d He said he was thinking, \u201cOh, darn. He\u2019s going to beat me.\u201d We got to the contest the next day and I was in 1A and he was in 3A. I was unsponsored. I wasn\u2019t even shop sponsored. That\u2019s why I liked Ngoho. He was already in the Gyro Dog Bowl before that. He was already in that pro event and I was sitting in Alhambra, like nothing. I had that weird chip on my shoulder because I missed all that, but I\u2019m glad I missed all that.<\/p>\n

Do you feel like you\u2019ve gotten even yet?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s not even like that.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Okay. It\u2019s just a joke.<\/strong>
\nI feel like if I had been there at all the right places, I wouldn\u2019t look at skateboarding in the same way. I still look into it like, \u201cOh, that\u2019s so rad!\u201d That\u2019s how most of the Whittier guys are. We\u2019re retarded. We\u2019re fans of skateboarding. We\u2019re goofballs. I\u2019m not like Salba.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] What does that even mean?<\/strong>
\nHe won the first pool contest, so he has a different look at stuff. He\u2019s like, \u201cI won the first pool contest. It doesn\u2019t matter what any of you guys think.\u201d Do you know what I mean?<\/p>\n

No. I don\u2019t know what you mean because I didn\u2019t win the first pool contest.<\/strong>
\nYou guys think the same. You guys don\u2019t respect what it was to other people because you were doing it. You were like, \u201cWhatever. We\u2019re doing it.\u201d People talk to me about the \u201880s, and they\u2019re like, \u201cOh, you did this demo or this contest.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cWhatever. I don\u2019t even care about that.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cThe Variflex days were the raddest days.\u201d That\u2019s when I felt like I was better.<\/p>\n

Why were the Variflex days so much better?<\/strong>
\nBecause I was good. I thought I was good then.<\/p>\n

You were happening.<\/strong>
\nNo, I mean\u2026 Okay. Stop.<\/p>\n

Did you say, \u201cStop?\u201d Wait. Did you think you were skating at your personal best?<\/strong>
\nI thought I was better than people thought I was then. I always thought everyone thought, \u201cOh, he\u2019s lame. He\u2019s not very sponsor-able. He\u2019s not very good.\u201d You know what the industry does.<\/p>\n

I know very well.<\/strong>
\nA lot of people were like, \u201cSo you got on Powell and you became good?\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cNo. I was better when I was on Variflex.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been on two big teams.<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve been on a bunch of teams.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking about that era. You were on Variflex and Variflex had a big team.<\/strong>
\nVariflex was huge. They had guys that were dominating. They were good.<\/p>\n

Who were the dominators?<\/strong>
\nEddie won a bunch of contests and invented a bunch of tricks at that time. Then you had Steve Hirsch and Eric Grisham that won every doubles contest. Grisham was so gnarly. He was even gnarly early on. Patty Hoffman, the girl, won all the events. I did pretty good that year. I got third over all. Billy Ruff and John Gibson destroyed me because they were way better actually.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Tex and Billy Ruff smoked you?<\/strong>
\nI choked at Marina. I got tenth. I could not skate keyholes. Keyholes are more trick-oriented than line-oriented and I always had an advantage in something that had a line. The contests that I did good in were more line-oriented than trick-oriented. I always did better in the line-oriented stuff. I would do good at Upland. People would come to Upland and have a hard time because it was really line-oriented, but I would go to Marina and it was wall-to-wall tricks and I would choke. I struggled at Del Mar because it was wall-to-wall tricks. Whittier\u2019s clover had a lot of lines. I don\u2019t know. I got on Variflex late. Variflex was already established and had this reputation. When I got on, just like my whole life, I really didn\u2019t fit with the original guys. It was like, \u201cWhy are you on Variflex? That\u2019s kind of weird.\u201d When I rode a K-Beam and I rode the combi with Subloski, Salba and those guys were blown away. They thought we were British and they were like, \u201cThose British guys are all into British punk.\u201d Salba was really cool with us. The first time I was there, I did inverts on that north wall. Then I went back there and I was trying it again later and they were like, \u201cHey, you can\u2019t do stuff on that wall. It doesn\u2019t really work.\u201d I don\u2019t think I ever did a trick on that wall again. I remember that I started going there a few times more and Salba said, \u201cWhy are you still here? Why aren\u2019t you in Brittain?\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m not British. I live here. I just came with them.\u201d Then I was riding in this contest and my Darrell Miller board got stolen the night before and Steve Hirsch was there and he gave me his board, so I rode his board in the contest the next day. The connections are crazy. That\u2019s when Steve was like, \u201cThey want to put you on Variflex.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

“I remember my dad saying, \u201cJust get everything on paper with your skateboarding deals.\u201d After becoming that kind of skateboarder dude, I was like, \u201cHe\u2019s so stupid. This is not like that. He doesn\u2019t know anything.\u201d I should have listened.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I thought that George Orton put you on?<\/strong>
\nNo, that was the year before, when I said, \u201cNo.\u201d I didn\u2019t get on Variflex until over a year after that. George wasn\u2019t even on the Variflex team when I got on. He was on Santa Cruz.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t say that.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Yep. You guys were all on the same team together.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Wow. Did you have to skate all the different disciplines in those contests or was it just bowls?<\/strong>
\nI had to skate everything. It was rad. I got on Variflex and I went to Upland and that was it. I was on Variflex, so Salba blew his nose on me and I wasn\u2019t the same kid anymore at all.<\/p>\n

No way! He just blew his nose on you?<\/strong>
\nYeah. I was on Variflex, and there was that heavy rivalry with Santa Cruz. I always played neutral. I was proud of the team we had. We had Allen Losi. I didn\u2019t even mention Allen Losi. He was insane.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t they run Colton?<\/strong>
\nYeah. They bought it from Lou Peralta. Lou Peralta owned Skatercross and he was going to close it and that\u2019s how Allen\u2019s dad got in there. He bought it. Allen Losi was insane at that point. I loved and respected those guys and they were doing what they were doing. I didn\u2019t fit that Variflex mold because I wasn\u2019t really from that era. I came in late. I remember Duane telling me, \u201cYou\u2019re the only dude I like on the team.\u201d I was very much more after his kind of approach in my mind. I saw both worlds. I saw that Eddie might win the contests because he had a better take on how to compete, and he invented these tricks, but Duane was more of a theatrical show that connected to people and made them want to be him. I realized that skateboarding was more about that because tricks kind of just go away. When people don\u2019t know, they don\u2019t know. It was less about being good and having tricks and it was more about touching people and really affecting them and making them have an emotional connection to it. I learned that early on. I saw that from looking at the photos in the magazine and seeing what I wanted and what I didn\u2019t want.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s weird that both of those dudes came from the same team.<\/strong>
\nYeah. I always tripped out on that. You\u2019d see the magazines and there was a heavy Santa Cruz against Variflex vibe going on. I think a lot of it stemmed from Variflex dudes riding Variflex trucks and not Indys. If there were Variflex dudes riding Indys at that time, I don\u2019t think it would have been like that.<\/p>\n

It was probably something Fausto had brought into it because he was such an amazing marketer.<\/strong>
\nWell, everyone turned it into style against robots. Everyone turned it into Eddie vs. Duane. Then it was old surf style vs. brand new robot style. That was kind of absurd because Eddie and Duane skate exactly the same. Technically, they skated the same. They had the same style. Duane didn\u2019t really surf. He didn\u2019t have surf style like you. Duane is very aggressive and more theatrical, but it turns you on. It\u2019s not surf style. It\u2019s not old style and new style.<\/p>\n

Do you think Duane picked up that whole theatrical thing from Skateboard Mania?<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] He\u2019s a performer. He was so exciting to watch. He was aggressive. Then you have Neil Blender, who was the third kind of those guys, which is another realm that was influential to us.<\/p>\n

How so?<\/strong>
\nNeil is a thinker. He thought things out. He was like, \u201cWhat can I do with it? Maybe I can push it this way.\u201d Neil was constantly messing with things, and trying to do things differently, and that was hugely influential to us. Neil was influential in a lot of different ways. I\u2019m sure he was just like a big weird kid to you guys at Big O. I don\u2019t know. Those days were fun. It died and nobody was skating. It was just ten people and we were just trying stuff on skateboards for no reason. I would do pretty badly at contests and I couldn\u2019t care less. I knew I could do good. I remember at the Palmdale contest, I didn\u2019t really care about doing good. I had learned invert channels at my house and no one had done them because no one had channels. It was like a year before everyone was doing invert channels. I remember Palmdale had a channel, so I was doing this invert channel to show people. I was focused on trying to do an invert in the channel because I thought it was new. I got fifth in that contest, but I got a centerfold doing an invert in the channel, so that\u2019s all that really mattered to me. I didn\u2019t really have anyone telling me that I had to win to really get people to care about what I did. I always thought about that when I thought of David Z and Teddy Bennett on Powell.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] I love this. What did you think of them being on Powell and you not being on Powell?<\/strong>
\nI was jealous. David Z was rad.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] You are so amazing.<\/strong>
\nWell, I wasn\u2019t as jealous of that as Jeff Briliak getting Powell stuff from Stacy.<\/p>\n

You were really pissed about that.<\/strong>
\nYeah. I couldn\u2019t understand it. Ray was giving me stuff. I couldn\u2019t figure it out. That all makes me like it more. Foss always tells me that he got on and he was charging it and then it became this thing and he just wasn\u2019t interested in it. In the Gold Cup contests, the Oasis contest was the first real contest I entered. I was an amateur and Foss was an amateur and I beat Foss that day. I thought he was the best, but he was over it already. He burned out and didn\u2019t really want to do it. I probably could have burned out early on if I would have done anything, but by not having it, it made me still want it. I always thought that. I could be wrong. The next contest was Big O and I won it.<\/p>\n

As an amateur, you won the Gold Cup?<\/strong>
\nYes.<\/p>\n

Who won the pro?<\/strong>
\nDuane.<\/p>\n

Boom! Sharing it with the master.<\/strong>
\nI was sharing it with Duane. I remember feeling like I had arrived, but there were no photos of me in the magazines. There was nothing.<\/p>\n

Oh, no way.<\/strong>
\nWhy would they shoot photos of me? They were like, \u201cThat kid isn\u2019t going to do good in this thing.\u201d That was the reality. I knew I had to swim uphill.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re still swimming up hill.<\/strong>
\nYes. I am.<\/p>\n

No, not now. I mean then.<\/strong>
\nNo. I mean now. I\u2019m still swimming uphill now. [Laughs] It becomes a mental state of mind of how you think you\u2019re perceived. I love that. I want to be there. What about you?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t care.<\/strong>
\nYou pretend not to care, but you care. You love skateboarding.<\/p>\n

I love skateboarding for sure.<\/strong>
\nYou would have stopped skateboarding, like everyone else, if you didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n

I absolutely care. It\u2019s fun. Are we talking contests? I can go and smoke anyone in a contest if I were up to par because I can compete. I don\u2019t mean that in an egotistical way, but more in strategic way.<\/strong>
\nYeah. Here\u2019s the difference though. Here\u2019s why you look at me sometimes and think I\u2019m too crazy about it. Here\u2019s the way I look at it. Here\u2019s what always affected me about it. I was not going to let what happened to all those guys before me happen to me. I was not going to let it happen.<\/p>\n

What dudes?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m talking about every one of you guys that had a two-year window of compensation for what you did. You had a two-year window and then the companies decided they didn\u2019t need you anymore and they got someone else or they said, \u201cOh, skateboarding has changed.\u201d A lot of skaters saw it that way. They thought the companies bailed on them. I saw it in a different way like the whole thing just bailed on them. You had to figure out how to make it happen. Someone like Ray Bones looked at it like, \u201cThose guys bailed on me.\u201d But the whole thing changed. I was like, \u201cI\u2019m not going to let anyone decide how long I get to do it and how much I\u2019m going to get paid for it or if I get to keep doing it or if there\u2019s a place for me. I\u2019m not going to let that little window disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought it was the coolest when that went away and it didn\u2019t matter about the competition or any of that. When it died, it was totally badass and that was the most fun time because then you were skating for the pure joy of skateboarding and not to win a contest or sell boards or any bullshit like that.<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s why those guys quit or moved on. Who knows?<\/p>\n

When your board sales go down, it\u2019s over.<\/strong>
\nI was making $14 a month on Variflex. I think I got a $50 check once. It didn\u2019t matter. That wasn\u2019t the point. The point was that I was not going to let it die. I was not going to let it not let me be involved in it the way it didn\u2019t let other people be involved in it. Everyone says it\u2019s their choice. I would love to see Jay Smith still getting photos and being involved but, for some reason, he thought there was nothing there and he had to go figure life out. I wasn\u2019t going to go figure life out. [Laughs] I was just going to keep skating and I was going to figure out how to make skating pay because I had a family. I think I come from a very desperate position, which is pathetic. I just love it where you\u2019re a lot more relaxed.<\/p>\n

I grew up with the fact that these dudes could not produce something that they could make a lot of money from and they just lost interest in that side of the world of skateboarding. They couldn\u2019t make what I was designing, so I was like, \u201cOkay, if they can\u2019t do that than why bother?\u201d<\/strong>
\nAre you talking about designing boards and stuff?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking about the business side of the industry. It\u2019s part of skateboarding, but that ruined it a little bit, I thought.<\/strong>
\nAs gnarly as the \u201890s got, it was rad. We fought through the \u201880s to survive and not let this thing that we loved just disappear. We tried to hold onto that big era before us, and then it boomed again and we were like, \u201cYes! There\u2019s a payoff.\u201d Then it died again and got worse in the \u201890s. It just went down to nothing again. For me, the \u201890s proved to me what I was thinking as a kid. It doesn\u2019t matter what anyone says you\u2019re capable of or if you can sell product or you have value or no value. It\u2019s so easy to do it yourself. I\u2019m just going to do it. I don\u2019t care what those guys that run companies think, and then I ran a company, so I saw both sides of it. Those kids didn\u2019t care what I was doing. Some of us can do it ourselves and some of us can\u2019t. It\u2019s that whole thing of doing it yourself. It will probably happen again. What do you think? Besides not caring about any of it, was any of it any fun?<\/p>\n

I loved every bit of it.<\/strong>
\nYou just like to pretend you didn\u2019t care about it? Wait. You were asking me if I skated all disciplines, freestyle, slalom, bank slalom, cross country and pools. Yeah. I was good at all of them except for freestyle.<\/p>\n

Bowl riding was happening. I wouldn\u2019t think you had to do all the disciplines.<\/strong>
\nWell, it was parks against parks and the overall score was based on all disciplines. I think the parks put together teams with guys from all disciplines. I think Eddie Meek was the guy from Big O and he dominated slalom and he was a really good bowl rider and he could bank slalom, so he really had an advantage because I could not tight slalom. He got first that year and I got second. I could not freestyle at all and I could not tight slalom as good as him. Okay. Wait. Did you go to college?<\/p>\n

Yeah. I went to college in New York for two weeks.<\/strong>
\nMy semester turned into two days, actually.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Wait. I want to know more.<\/strong>
\nDo you think you should have won Spring Valley?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know. No. The guy who won won.<\/strong>
\nI was just joking. Of course, he won. He beat all of you. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not joking. Did you just say that?<\/strong>
\nI could never go back and say that I should have won a contest.<\/p>\n

No. It all happens for a reason. You\u2019re at a skateboard contest and they\u2019re going to have a bowl riding contest. They really hadn\u2019t had a professional bowl riding contest yet, so they didn\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing. It was run by a slalom racer who was crazy enough to go for it, which is amazing in its own right. There was no bowl rider guy having a bowl riding contest. It\u2019s a slalom guy having the first bowl riding contest, probably egged on by his sponsors, who were helping fund the whole contest.<\/strong>
\nBefore they got pushed out of the whole industry.<\/p>\n

Yeah. C\u2019mon. It was amazing. Then you were skating against all the guys you would see in all the magazines.<\/strong>
\nDid you feel like you were coming into someone else\u2019s thing with all these guys in the magazines and you get to skate against them? Did you feel like that?<\/p>\n

I was coming in like, \u201cOkay. Now we get to prove who is better than the other, based on someone else\u2019s opinion.\u201d<\/strong>
\nSo you felt like you were coming into it from the outside? You said you were coming into this contest and you were going to skate against all these guys in the magazines, as if you had never been in the magazines yet, so you might not have been.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t really in the magazines yet.<\/strong>
\nSo you felt like you were coming into it as an outsider and you thought you could take this.<\/p>\n

No. I just thought, \u201cOh, wow. This is a little crazy. We\u2019re going up against these guys that are so great and amazing. Then you come in and you\u2019re riding with them.<\/strong>
\nAnd you felt like you could beat them or lose?<\/p>\n

I thought, \u201cI can win!\u201d [Laughs]<\/strong>
\nI love it because that was Salba\u2019s year for Skater of the Year that you took away from him.<\/p>\n

It happens. I\u2019m kidding. It was his year?<\/strong>
\nIt would have been, right?<\/p>\n

That would have been his year for Skater of the Year because he won the contest?<\/strong>
\nYeah. He came in and won a few of the contests and then you came in and won the other few contests. It was like a shared year almost.<\/p>\n

Who did he ride for?<\/strong>
\nAt that time, he rode for Kryptonics and you rode for Santa Cruz. It\u2019s like you said, \u201cIt\u2019s all bought and paid for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of us are more strategic than others.<\/strong>
\nYeah. Didn\u2019t he ride for Kryptonics then?<\/p>\n

Let me see. They made millions of dollars off of Road Rider and these guys were trying to get into the skateboard industry.<\/strong>
\nWhat board company did Salba ride for?<\/p>\n

He rode for Alva.<\/strong>
\nYeah. He bounced around. At the first Hester contest, he was riding a G&S board.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think he was riding a G&S board. He was riding a wood board with a sticker on it maybe.<\/strong>
\nHe was riding Yo-Yos.<\/p>\n

Everyone was riding Yo-Yos at that contest. I was riding the old reliable 5-ply rocker. I liked the rocker.<\/strong>
\nWho were the guys you thought were good?<\/p>\n

All those guys were good. After watching contests and seeing how it went down, I was thinking that to go and compete was pretty simple.<\/strong>
\nThe strategy to competing was one thing.<\/p>\n

Yeah. The first runs were two minutes long, so it was an endurance test.<\/strong>
\nIt was just a little exercise event. Were there guys that you thought were good?<\/p>\n

Dennis Martinez was really good at Spring Valley. Doug \u201cPineapple\u201d Saladino was really good. Mike Weed was really good. A lot of dudes were super good.<\/strong>
\nWas it different at the Upland Hester where you had to ride the pipe and the bowl thing?<\/p>\n

That was good too.<\/strong>
\nWho was good there? Was that more of a localized place where the locals were really good?<\/p>\n

Every place was a localized spot. Spring Valley was a favorite to the G&S dudes. Then a couple of them slammed hard and I was like, \u201cWow.\u201d<\/strong>
\nWho?<\/p>\n

Settle down. I think Martinez knocked himself out. Pineapple got slammed, so all the favorites were out and it was wide open. The next thing you know, we were going to Upland and Upland was fun. I remember T.A. saying, \u201cI just try to go anywhere and rip. I thought that was a good approach. So thanks, Tony. I owe you one. It was totally amazing. You\u2019d go to all these contests and see all these guys and you\u2019d go to these skateparks and it was totally fun because you\u2019d meet new dudes from different areas. It was the camaraderie of riding skateboards and who had the same sense of humor. It wasn\u2019t as serious as it started to get. Spring Valley was amazing because the first weekend it got rained out, so everyone met and knew what was happening. It got rained out twice, so by then, everyone knew the bowl. It was like, \u201cOkay, let\u2019s see who is going to rip.\u201d It was fun. I was thinking, \u201cI\u2019m 16 and I\u2019m skating against all these dudes and I can actually maybe win.\u201d<\/strong>
\nYeah. That is awesome. It would have been fun to experience that. I\u2019m not that much younger than you. I think it would have been fun to experience that rather than to experience it a lot later. To me, when we got put in that position, the locals had their place wired, so everyone had their skill set and knew what they had to do. After the first year, people learned the technique and the theory behind it and they figured out what they had to do. A lot of people were just good only at their own park, but being good everywhere really started to matter. After the first two Hesters, that whole skill set was developed and then it could just be seen. After the two Hesters, there were 30 or 40 kids at every park that could have been or should have been in there. Skating with kids now, they adapt so quickly. There was a period when people didn\u2019t adapt. They were just good at what they were doing because they did it over and over and over.<\/p>\n

\n

“All those guys were like, “You\u2019re the guy that got the pool closed. Now you can\u2019t skate our pools.” They let my friend Monkey skate, but I had to sit on the shallow end steps with my helmet on to watch them skate.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You had to adapt. That was important.<\/strong>
\nI think it\u2019s important again, and these young kids adapt so quickly now.<\/p>\n

They adapt beyond.<\/strong>
\nYeah. It\u2019s so rad.<\/p>\n

It was still fresh and new then.<\/strong>
\nI just couldn\u2019t imagine those kids that are really good now having that experience. There\u2019s no chance whatsoever to experience what you experienced because it\u2019s 30 years later.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just evolution. It was amazing. We made great friends and it was totally fun.<\/strong>
\nWho were your best friends?<\/p>\n

I skated with Gregg Ayres and Rodd Saunders a lot. I saw those dudes at Skatopia and they made fun of me because I had on leopard skin swimsuit shorts.<\/strong>
\nIt wasn\u2019t a one piece?<\/p>\n

No. It wasn\u2019t. [Laughs]<\/strong>
\nWas that your take on punk rock?<\/p>\n

No. Punk rock wasn\u2019t even happening then. I just liked leopard skin. I wish I had those shorts still, and the shoes too.<\/strong>
\nWhere were Greg and Rodd from?<\/p>\n

They were from South Bay. We skated with Kevin Anderson and this guy Dave Forest from E.T.<\/strong>
\nKevin Anderson was so good.<\/p>\n

He just charged, super gnarly. He\u2019s just a gnarly human being. He ripped. He was the Worm. Anyone who would edge out at Paramount\u2019s big bowl was insane to me.<\/strong>
\nI saw him skate it too and we were tripping. He was gnarly. What does Gregg Ayres do now?<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a CPA.<\/strong>
\nAre you in touch with Rodd nowadays too?<\/p>\n

I talk to Rodd Saunders. He works in the movie industry as a grip.<\/strong>
\nWhat was skating to those guys?<\/p>\n

Life. Everyone skated because they loved skateboarding.<\/strong>
\nWhy do you think skateboarding ended for them?<\/p>\n

I think it ended because things started to advance. I got chucked to the curb because I hurt my ankle and I was out for 4-6 months, which was insane.<\/strong>
\nBack then everything was happening so fast.<\/p>\n

By then, things swapped, Miller flips, inverts, rock n rolls, and all of those things started to roll and tricks were starting to advance and go above the coping.<\/strong>
\nHow did you get hurt?<\/p>\n

I got hurt before the second Hester contest. I rolled my ankle at the infamous San Antonio demo.<\/strong>
\nI want to hear that story.<\/p>\n

We went to San Antonio and it was amazing. It was 30 pros, no supervision on the plane. It was Strople, Martinez, Blackhart, Stecyk, Hackett, myself, Salba, Bobby Valdez and the list goes on. We went to a skatepark and Big Bob, the promoter was there and they were having the Texas State Championships. He was like, \u201cI need a little help putting this contest together and, the next we know, he just disappeared and we were running his contest. He had promised us this deal where he flew us down, which was completely insane. We got there and he was like, \u201cYou\u2019re going to be staying at this all girls school in the dorms.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Perfect.<\/p>\n

We were supposed to be getting paid this certain amount of money and all these promises, which fell through except for one thing. \u201cYou\u2019re going to help run my contest.\u201d He had nothing but a huge supply of Nike Blazers, so I had this idea, and I turned everyone one else on to it too, because we were into hustling people at that moment. I said, \u201cHey, Bob, my shoes are a little bit worn out and I don\u2019t have time to go to a shoe store and get new ones. Could I possibly get a pair of shoes for helping you do all this?\u201d He was like, \u201cOf course, help yourself, Steve.\u201d I went in and grabbed a pair of shoes and put them in my bag. Then I decided I would go back with an empty box and put in another pair of shoes. I did that a few times. When you look back at that era, you can see my shoes change in the pictures in the magazines.<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t really remember seeing much coverage of that event in San Antonio.<\/p>\n

It was where Blackhart rearranged the sculpture in the hotel and then they split and went to the Amarillo pipes.<\/strong>
\nWhich magazine covered it?<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t get that much coverage. I\u2019m talking about the shoes I was wearing in photos in the magazines later.<\/strong>
\nWas that around the time that Schneider got his cover in Amarillo? [Olson\u2019s phone rings] I can\u2019t even have a conversation with you between the phone ringing and the neighbors visiting.<\/p>\n

I have to answer this. This is for my son.<\/strong>
\nOkay. You\u2019re the first professional skateboarder to have a professional skateboarder as a son, right?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure there were dudes before.<\/strong>
\nWho? Tony Hawk is the only one after. My son never went pro.<\/p>\n

He could have if he had chosen to.<\/strong>
\nHe didn\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n

My kid thought, \u201cOh, my dad is such a loser. I know I can make something out of this.\u201d [Laughs] What about when you and I went to give that talk at the MOCA in Virginia? Did you have fun doing that?<\/strong>
\nYes. That was pretty good. Can we do another one of those? It was bizarre.<\/p>\n

Okay, I\u2019m going to tell the story. I got a call from this dude and he says, \u201cI want you to come out here and speak about the transition from being a skateboarder to making art.\u201d<\/strong>
\nAt a museum in front of people\u2026<\/p>\n

Yes. I was like, \u201cThat\u2019s crazy. I can\u2019t do that by myself.\u201d<\/strong>
\nOh really? That\u2019s why I got pulled in? [Laughs]<\/p>\n

Yeah. No. I said, \u201cI think it would be more interesting if we brought in someone from another generation. It would be smart to bring in a guy like Lance Mountain.\u201d He said, \u201cNo way.\u201d I said, \u201cYes way.\u201d<\/strong>
\nOh, you mean he said \u201cNo way,\u201d like he couldn\u2019t believe you knew me? Or like, \u201cNo way. We\u2019re not having that guy here?\u201d<\/p>\n

[Laughs] No. It was like, \u201cNo way. You can get Lance Mountain here?\u201d<\/strong>
\nWait. You didn\u2019t explain it to me that way. It sounds like I could have charged more under those circumstances.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Oh no. They had a budget. I definitely work a budget well.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] When are we going to do that again?<\/p>\n

That was the longest flight home ever. We went from Virginia to Baltimore to Tennessee on AirTran.<\/strong>
\nThat was rad. I wish we could just do things like that all the time. We could do that and go skating and get paid for it. That would be insane. That would be so fun.<\/p>\n

I thought that was amazing. We were like, \u201cWhat airline are we flying on?\u201d The itinerary said, \u201cAirTran.\u201d I was like, \u201cHave you ever heard of AirTran before?\u201d And you said, \u201cNo. We\u2019re going to be flying with livestock. They\u2019ve got a couple of jump seats next to the chickens and the cows.\u201d They said we could only bring one bag that was 15\u201d x 15\u201d because that was all the space left.<\/strong>
\nWhat\u2019s going on with the skate-able sculpture you did in Louisiana? Is it still up?<\/p>\n

\n

“We even lied about my age and said that I was younger to make me look better, but McIntyre said, “No. That kid sucks.” He kicked my skateboard at Skatopia and I told him I would shove it down his fat throat.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s up. Okay. I\u2019m telling the MOCA story. So we get to MOCA in Virginia and we\u2019re there for three or four days for an hour-long speaking engagement. We\u2019re cruising around and we ride some new park out in Farmdale, or somewhere, and we see Henry Guiterrez. And you\u2019re sick.<\/strong>
\nOh yeah.<\/p>\n

We get to the museum and we\u2019re talking to the guy and asking if there are images or what and he told us that he had pulled some stuff off the Internet, but if we had photos, he could use them. We were like, \u201cWhat kind of photos can you use?\u201d<\/strong>
\nAt that point, I was like, \u201cWhat are we doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Never mind that. That was fine. The guy was like, \u201cWell, if you have photos on your phone, I can use those.\u201d Then it was just this bombardment of photos from the phone. I really had a blast. I really had so much fun doing it.<\/strong>
\nIt was rad. People were actually sitting there listening. It was absurd. Most of them were art students trying to figure out how to turn their passion into making a living. They were probably really good artists and we\u2019re up on stage telling them how to do it and we can\u2019t do anything compared to them. Our thought was that if you turned professional skateboarder and you win the first pool contests and do a few of those things, then you can sell your art later. You could get in the first video ever made for skateboarding perhaps and parlay that right into fine art. I think a lot of them went away thinking, \u201cThose guys are nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

They thought, \u201cThose guys certainly know how to hustle.\u201d [Laughs]<\/strong>
\nI think they loved it though. I\u2019ve talked to a ton of people about skateboarding and all that stuff has defined some part of people\u2019s culture, so it is art, but I don\u2019t think I ever looked at it that way. Being in those situations, you realize it is.<\/p>\n

\n

“They asked me if I wanted to be in a Highway Patrol film. It was a safety film. I think Curtis Hesselgrave was in it.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s a big giant collective.<\/strong>
\nI see it now. I never saw it then.<\/p>\n

I still don\u2019t see it.<\/strong>
\nReally? You showed me it.<\/p>\n

We were up on this huge stage with this giant screen. We\u2019re sitting at this table, and I\u2019ve had a few beers. [Laughs] The mediator guy is asking questions and it was kind of like \u201cGood cop, bad cop.\u201d<\/strong>
\nNo. It was like \u201cBad cop, bad cop.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was about following your passion.<\/strong>
\nWe were sitting in the hotel room and I said, \u201cSteve, what are we going to talk about?\u201d And you said, \u201cDon\u2019t even worry about it.\u201d I was like, \u201cWhat are we going to say? What are we going to do?\u201d You said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry about it. I got it covered.\u201d We get up there and they ask a few questions and you were like, \u201cOh, I don\u2019t even care.\u201d Someone was trying to be serious, and you\u2019re just laughing the whole time and making jokes. I was trying to answer their questions and be serious. Isn\u2019t that how it went?<\/p>\n

\n

“He took me to Big O for Steve Cathay to watch me skate. I remember them shopping me around, but no one thought much of me. I remember physically feeling that they were bringing me around like, “Here. What do you think? No? No?”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Maybe.<\/strong>
\nIt was good. It was kind of like Laurel and Hardy.<\/p>\n

It was nice. They would ask a question and I would say, \u201cI think Lance should probably handle that one.\u201d Then we got another gig at MODA, the Museum of Design in Atlanta. That\u2019s another one I reeled you into.<\/strong>
\nYeah. There have been a lot of good ones. Let\u2019s do another one.<\/p>\n

\n

“I was the kid that had to put the pads on and then I would have to fall.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s on. I want to talk about Atlanta. We fly into Atlanta and the hotel needed a credit card for incidentals, so I gave them my credit card and it was declined. You had to put it on your credit card and I was like, \u201cI\u2019m not going to use any incidentals.\u201d<\/strong>
\nI was like, \u201cPlease don\u2019t use any incidentals because I don\u2019t have much money.\u201d I got the bill later and it was $360.<\/p>\n

Oh, it was $360?<\/strong>
\nDo you want to see the bill?<\/p>\n

Yes. It was $334.<\/strong>
\nIt may have started at $334, but there\u2019s interest after six years. [Laughs] What did you get for $360?<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t buy anything. It was a guest.<\/strong>
\nOh, be my guest, guest. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

It was not, \u201cBe my guest.\u201d [Laughs]<\/strong>
\nIt was looking for love in all the wrong places.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Oh, yes. We were out in Atlanta and all these couples were walking by all hammered. It was groups of people. You looked at me and said, \u201cLook. They\u2019re all looking for love in all the wrong places.\u201d [Laughs] I was like, \u201cWhoa.\u201d<\/strong>
\nThat one chick was throwing up on the curb and they were holding her hair out of her face. She had on her high heels and couldn\u2019t walk. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

The best thing is we\u2019re on this museum trip and we\u2019re thinking this is bizarre, but the exhibit looked pretty nice with all these board graphics. They flew us in, but they weren\u2019t paying us a dime, but it\u2019s cool. Skateboarders aren\u2019t worth a penny anyway. [Laughs]<\/strong>
\nJust to be here is an honor, still\u2026 [Laughs]<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Yes! We\u2019re sitting there and we\u2019ve been at this place for hours. The people that ran the museum didn\u2019t want to do this show at all, but the guy who set it up was totally down and he skated and he did a great job of curating the whole thing.<\/strong>
\nYeah. It was great.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re sitting there for six hours and then we go to get something to eat down the street and the guy gets a text from the director of the museum that said, \u201cHow dare you leave?\u201d Then you lost it for a second. It was the best. You said, \u201cHow dare she ask us that!\u201d<\/strong>
\nI think I was playing. That was when I met Load Warrior.<\/p>\n

Is he the guy that knocked you out? [Laughs] Oh, tell me that story please!<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know. I got knocked out. I got sucker punched and I don\u2019t remember any of it.<\/p>\n

Why did you get sucker punched?<\/strong>
\nI shot my board into the crowd at a contest and I guess it hit someone. I went back to get it and I said, \u2018I\u2019m sorry. I feel bad. Sorry about that.\u201d I felt bad, but I guess his girlfriend was egging him on for the rest of the contest, saying, \u201cYou\u2019re not going to let him get away with that!\u201d Then I was putting my stuff in a bag and I was leaning up against the fence, and then I just remember waking up and Christian Hosoi and all these guys were standing around me saying, \u201cWho did it? We\u2019re going to get him for you. We\u2019ll get him!\u201d I was like, \u201cWhatever. It doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d It was their buddy, so they weren\u2019t going to do anything. It was Load. He was an Atlanta rager and still is. He was there at the MODA show and that was cool. It was rad because his daughter came up to me and said, \u201cHey, my dad knocked you out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

“I got on Variflex and I went to Upland and that was it. I was on Variflex, so Salba blew his nose on me and I wasn\u2019t the same kid anymore at all.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

[Laughs] Yes!<\/strong>
\nI was like, \u201cYes.\u201d I had met him before that too. It was cool. I liked that. Wait. That art show you did in Shreveport with the skate-able sculpture, are they going to do anymore of that stuff?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know, but we did the wall ride too.<\/strong>
\nHow is the skate-able structure? Is it still up?<\/p>\n

Yep. It\u2019s up. It\u2019s there for everyone to ride, for as long as it lives.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s rad. Is the one in Houston different?<\/p>\n

Yes. I built an art project down there with Dennis McNett. I\u2019m doing another art show there with some English people.<\/strong>
\nWhy didn\u2019t you invite me to that one?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not running that one. It\u2019s not a skate show. It\u2019s an art show.<\/strong>
\nWhat do you think I do?<\/p>\n

[Laughs] It\u2019s not like that. I can always get us into any skate show. How did you get into building skate pools?<\/strong>
\nI build stuff all the time. I always built stuff to skate because I couldn\u2019t go anywhere, so we built stuff. My friends and I started out by building a half pipe right after the Rampage in \u201877. We put flat bottom on it and everything. Ramps didn\u2019t even have flat bottom then. Ever since then, we\u2019ve always built stuff to skate or altered stuff. Back when street skating was really happening in the \u201890s, we built ramps after ramps. We built the Animal Chin ramp. We did all sorts of stuff just to have stuff to skate.<\/p>\n

Tell me about the Animal Chin ramp.<\/strong>
\nStacy wanted to build a ramp. He wanted a very impressive ramp for the end of the video, so he asked if we had any ideas. He said, \u201cEvery ramp is 24 feet wide, so what if we built a wider one?\u201d We started throwing out ideas like, \u201cWhat about two ramps and extensions and channels?\u201d We started throwing ideas into it.<\/p>\n

Was it a collective of everyone\u2019s ideas?<\/strong>
\nI think it was. At the end of the day, I drew up the little idea that was made. It\u2019s always a collective. I don\u2019t really think of anything. I just take everyone\u2019s ideas and put them together.<\/p>\n

That was a pretty impressive ramp.<\/strong>
\nI guess it was, for the time.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t see ramps like that nowadays.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s because it doesn\u2019t work really good.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Why not?<\/strong>
\nWell, we built a spine ramp. It was the first spine ever built on a vert ramp. It\u2019s more of a mini ramp type thing. I hate spines. We were just building stuff out of wood because we didn\u2019t even think about building with concrete. We didn\u2019t even think that was possible. I was sick of just going back and forth. I wanted to ride snake runs. We didn\u2019t have many options, so we had to build options into stuff. Then I helped build and design that Kevin Harris mini ramp, and then the second one. It became a trend to build mini ramps with a bunch of options. We\u2019ve always built stuff to skate. When street skating kind of took over and I had a team, I was always altering spots to be rideable. I remember the kids going, \u201cThis is kind of stupid.\u201d But that\u2019s completely what everyone does now. You just run out of stuff to do, so you just keep building. The way I got into building pools was I wanted to build a pool at my house. Realistically, I didn\u2019t like any of the pools that people had built at their houses over the years, because they didn\u2019t feel like a mini ramp, six foot shallow and ten foot deep and you just drop in. It didn\u2019t feel like the old pools for some reason, so that\u2019s how I got involved. I just started barging in and saying, \u201cWhat about doing it this way or that way?\u201d I have to admit that I physically don\u2019t do any of the work. I don\u2019t want to take it away from any of the guys that do the labor side of it. I do design and overseeing of pools and building the template.<\/p>\n

\n

“I saw that Eddie might win the contests because he had a better take on how to compete, and he invented these tricks, but Duane was more of a theatrical show that connected to people and made them want to be him.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What\u2019s your favorite one you\u2019ve done?<\/strong>
\nI know the worst one that I\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the question. The question is what is your favorite one that you did?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know. They\u2019re all different. I don\u2019t have a favorite one. They\u2019re all different. I think Arto\u2019s is the most successful in terms of making a real pool that\u2019s understandable for the street skaters to make this type of skating interesting, because of the place. They can see you ride it or see someone ride it with a different technique than they ever knew of. They can see Oster skate it. Because of Arto\u2019s and because of the place and because of the group of kids that are going to ride it, it\u2019s the most successful in my mind.<\/p>\n

What is your favorite to ride? Yours?<\/strong>
\nI think mine was the most skate-able, but I rode it the other day and I can\u2019t even get to the top now. When I rode it a lot, it seemed like the one.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where you did your part for the video.<\/strong>
\nYeah. The only reason is because it has a little more vert than most of the other ones, but I don\u2019t even ride mine at all anymore. It\u2019s so boring. It\u2019s because you need people to skate with. Moorpark is really good. No one rides there, but it\u2019s really interesting because it\u2019s more of a hybrid of a backyard pool and a skatepark pool. I really liked it because it had line options. The idea of it came from the Buddha bowl. I want to do another version of that. Which one is your favorite? Do you like any of them?<\/p>\n

\n

“I absolutely care. It\u2019s fun. Are we talking contests? I can go and smoke anyone in a contest if I were up to par because I can compete. I don\u2019t mean that in an egotistical way, but more in strategic way.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I like all of them. I really like Arto\u2019s too because it\u2019s really close to my house, and it\u2019s totally fun. I also like that clover down at the Vans park.<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s really different.<\/p>\n

I like Angelo\u2019s. I know you didn\u2019t do Johnny O\u2019Shei\u2019s, but I really like Johnny O\u2019Shei\u2019s just because of the difference of it. I like backyard pools. Rusty\u2019s is pretty fun, even though I didn\u2019t get to skate it because of some prior obligations and getting sunburned.<\/strong>
\nWhat pools did you like in the skatepark era of the Hester\/Gold Cup days?<\/p>\n

I liked Big O. I liked all the skateparks, but I really liked Big O.<\/strong>
\nDid you like it because you won the event there?<\/p>\n

[Laughs] That too. I liked the pool. I liked the endless lines.<\/strong>
\nUsually, when you win there, you like it. I liked that one too. Didn\u2019t we both win in that pool?<\/p>\n

[Laughs] I think we did.<\/strong>
\nWhat other pools did we win in?<\/p>\n

Wait. You won the Gold Cup there?<\/strong>
\nYou won the earlier one. What other pools?<\/p>\n

Winchester was amazing.<\/strong>
\nDid you ever jump the channel at Winchester?<\/p>\n

[Laughs] No. I did not. You did?<\/strong>
\nYeah. I was riding a Variflex.<\/p>\n

I really liked Lakewood\u2019s halfpipe and Del Mar\u2019s halfpipe and Paramount\u2019s halfpipe.<\/strong>
\nI saw footage this morning of Ray Bones, Micke and Grisham at a halfpipe contest. It looks like Lakewood, but there\u2019s this building in the background.<\/p>\n

Maybe it was Campbell.<\/strong>
\nThat came in from both sides though and went straight. It didn\u2019t have a slant like Lakewood. Was there a pro contest at Campbell back then?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know.<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s weird. It looks like Lakewood.<\/p>\n

I liked the moguls. I liked the skatepark period.<\/strong>
\nWe have to build some moguls. Those are fun.<\/p>\n

Do you know that I really became friends with you through our kids?<\/strong>
\nYeah. You never talked to me when you were on Santa Cruz and I was on Variflex.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] That is so not true. I was not one of those Santa Cruz dudes that didn\u2019t talk to the Variflex dudes.<\/strong>
\nI won all the Am contests and you were one of the judges, so you must have liked me.<\/p>\n

You know what? We\u2019re even. [Laughs]<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] I first met you through skateboarding. You were a top pro and I was an amateur. I just started beating you at every contest, and then you started judging the contests. I knew of you for years, but I didn\u2019t do a lot of drugs, so I didn\u2019t hang out with you that much. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Like I was a drug addict?<\/strong>
\nNo. I was being silly. We really met when our kids started skating together and then we\u2019d end up skating together.<\/p>\n

How did our kids become friends?<\/strong>
\nThey were skating together at the Vans skatepark. It was more through Ed Templeton, because they both wanted to ride for Toy Machine at one time, so I think that\u2019s how they started spending more time together. It was mainly from skating Vans, because we lived really close to that.<\/p>\n

\n

“There was no bowl rider guy having a bowl riding contest. It\u2019s a slalom guy having the first bowl riding contest, probably egged on by his sponsors, who were helping fund the whole contest.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Right. We\u2019d always session Vans.<\/strong>
\nThen they wanted to skate all the time, so they\u2019d go off and go street skating.<\/p>\n

Then Alex would go down and spend the night at your house and I had no problem with that. I knew he was totally safe there.<\/strong>
\nWe were living in such a ghetto. We were in a two-bedroom apartment.<\/p>\n

It was so amazing. I always wondered why Cyril never came up here and then I realized that you didn\u2019t trust me.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] My son wasn\u2019t allowed to go anywhere until he moved out and got married at 18. He could do whatever he wanted then.<\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t let him come up and spend the night at my house though.<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t think he even asked.<\/p>\n

He came up once, just so you know.<\/strong>
\nHe did? At some point, we started letting him do whatever. We let him start experiencing doing stuff. We went to Europe and let him go to Copenhagen and stay with those guys. It was the wrong thing to do, but we let him do it.<\/p>\n

What do you mean?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know. It\u2019s not the wrong thing to do. It was the right thing to do, but the stuff that he was exposed to was just lame. It was going to happen somewhere.<\/p>\n

Well, my kid and your kid became good friends and I was like, \u201cWow. That\u2019s kind of ironic.\u201d<\/strong>
\nYeah, especially with you being on Santa Cruz and me being on Variflex\u2026. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

[Laughs] That\u2019s how we started out again. Then I was riding for Black Label and you were riding for the Firm.<\/strong>
\nThose were fun times.<\/p>\n

We skated a lot more then. How old were our kids when they met?<\/strong>
\nAlex was 15 and Cyril was 16.<\/p>\n

Alex was 15 because he was like, \u201cCan you give me a ride down to Orange County?\u201d<\/strong>
\nIt was cool. We skated a ton then.<\/p>\n

What about your wife, Yvette, hearing Alex and Cyril talk about taxes?<\/strong>
\nThat was great. My son and Alex were talking about making money.<\/p>\n

They were talking about what it might be like if they made it big and made some money.<\/strong>
\nYeah. So my wife was saying, \u201cWell, when you make money, make sure you take 50% of it and put it away for taxes. Be smart. Don\u2019t spend it all. Put 50% of it away.\u201d When you get taxes it will usually be 30% of what you have saved.\u201d She just piped in and then went out of the room, and she overheard Alex say to Lance, \u201cYour mom is so stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Oh no.<\/strong>
\nSaving! Taxes! What?!! Wasn\u2019t that the story?<\/p>\n

[Laughs] They\u2019re like, \u201cWhat is wrong with these old people? I can\u2019t believe they\u2019re still alive. How did they make it this far?\u201d<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s when my son was 17 and he was hanging out with my friends like Ed Templeton who was 30 and I was 40. My son was telling Ed Templeton, \u201cMy dad just does not understand me.\u201d It was that whole thing. Templeton was like, \u201cWhat are you talking about? You guys are the same person. You can\u2019t give me this story.\u201d It was good. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

You told me one time, \u201cI just don\u2019t get it. Cyril doesn\u2019t talk to me anymore.\u201d I was like, \u201cOh, that\u2019s not cool.\u201d<\/strong>
\nYou said, \u201cThat\u2019s because you raised your kid wrong. You should have done it like me.\u201d I believe that\u2019s what you said.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] No. I said, \u201cOf course, he\u2019s not talking to you. Would you talk to you?\u201d<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s because I\u2019m lame. You said, \u201cYou\u2019re not a cool dad like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Laughs] No. I wasn\u2019t saying that. I said, \u201cI just don\u2019t know if that is going to happen with me and Alex. It seems like we\u2019re pretty tight.\u201d<\/strong>
\nI said, \u201cJust wait. It\u2019s going to be the most painful thing to ever happen to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

You said, \u201cOkay. Sure. Whatever. You\u2019re just as lame as I am.\u201d [Laughs] I was thinking to myself, \u201cNo way. It\u2019s just because you\u2019re way too strict.\u201d That\u2019s what I was thinking, whether it\u2019s right or wrong. I was definitely wrong.<\/strong>
\nYeah. I wasn\u2019t strict enough.<\/p>\n

Yeah. Then Alex turned 17 and he just stopped talking to me.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Crickets.<\/p>\n

Yes! Totally. I was like, \u201cHey, how\u2019s it going?\u201d Usually, it would be, \u201cOh, you know, I\u2019m not doing anything.\u201d It was always that. Then it was like nothing. I found a note I wrote him when we lived up in Malibu. I left him a note that said, \u201cI went to the store. Blah, blah, blah. Love, Dad.\u201d Later, I went in his room and I found this note and underneath where it said, \u201cLove, Dad,\u201d he wrote, \u201cBiggest Dick Ever Idiot!!!\u201d He stopped talking to me. I was like, \u201cThis is unbelievable. This is the most painful thing I\u2019ve ever dealt with.\u201d So I called you and I was like, \u201cWhat\u2019s going on?\u201d You\u2019re like, \u201cOh, Alex stopped talking to you.\u201d I was like, \u201cHow did you know?\u201d I knew you were thinking, \u201cYou aren\u2019t that cool. It happens to every one of us lame ducks!\u201d [Laughs] It was funny, but it just crushes you because you go from being this kid\u2019s little mentor teacher kind of guy to being the biggest lamest jerk out there. It\u2019s just separation and individuality, I know, but I was laughing so hard like, \u201cOh, it\u2019s actually happening to me.\u201d It was a mad ego check.<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s funny because you don\u2019t think about this stuff until it happens to you. I was thinking about it and when I was a kid, my dad and I didn\u2019t really hang out or talk or do anything. I wanted to play baseball once and he swung at the ball and missed and fell down because he was used to playing cricket, and he just went in the house. Skateboarding was out. It was cool though. We\u2019d build models together and do silk-screening and stuff like that, but I didn\u2019t really communicate with him at all. He was just the way he was because of the war, I think. I never asked why.<\/p>\n

\n

“When it died, it was totally badass and that was the most fun time because then you were skating for the pure joy of skateboarding and not to win a contest or sell boards or any bullshit like that.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

They were just different.<\/strong>
\nYeah. Well, when my wife was pregnant, I was on one of those walkabouts where I was freaking out like, \u201cWhat am I going to do? How am I going to make life happen? I make $200 a month. I want to be a pro skateboarder that makes $14 a month.\u201d I\u2019m driving out to Chatsworth to silkscreen boards for Variflex, trying to make extra money and be a pro. I was working for my dad to make real money, but I was only making $200 a month. So he comes to pick me up in the car and he just wanted to be there for me and talk about it and I was losing it. I remember I jumped out of the car when it was moving and I didn\u2019t get out of the way and it rolled over my foot. I was just screaming at him like, \u201cI don\u2019t want to talk about it!\u201d I was having a meltdown. I did that to my dad and it was the same thing. It was crazy. I knew I had to do it without his help if I was going to do it. I didn\u2019t even want to talk about it.<\/p>\n

I just remember my dad saying, \u201cJust get everything on paper with your skateboarding deals.\u201d After becoming that kind of skateboarder dude, I was like, \u201cHe\u2019s so stupid. This is not like that. He doesn\u2019t know anything.\u201d I so should have listened to him. He was saying, \u201cYou might think they\u2019re your friends, but\u2026\u201d His buddy had just burnt him. He was like, \u201cYou just need to get contracts.\u201d I was thinking, \u201cDude, that\u2019s just old ways of doing business. You\u2019re so far removed from reality.\u201d I wish I had listened.<\/strong>
\nWhat is Alex doing right now? Do you talk to him?<\/p>\n

I talk to him every day. He talks to me again. He\u2019s going to Australia for some art thing, not that we got invited\u2026<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Right. Why didn\u2019t we get invited?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s because we\u2019re old. We invented art. We invented everything. How about going to a contest and screaming for your kid and him just looking at you like, \u201cYou are such an idiot! Quit making a scene!\u201d<\/strong>
\nWell, the thing is you weren\u2019t screaming for him. If I remember correctly, it was the X Games. You weren\u2019t screaming for him in the contest. You were screaming at him because he wasn\u2019t trying hard enough in the contest.<\/p>\n

No. That wasn\u2019t the X Games.<\/strong>
\nWell, I remember you being very frustrated because he didn\u2019t even try hard. You made a career of pretending not to try and your son actually didn\u2019t try and you were freaking out. You were like, \u201cNo! That\u2019s not how it\u2019s done. You have to pretend you don\u2019t care, but really try.\u201d Are you saying that conversation didn\u2019t happen? [Laughs]<\/p>\n

I guarantee it did happen. I was thinking of the Downtown Showdown when he was an amateur and we were yelling. I was psyched! It was a proud moment.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s so weird because every time we go skate, and I clap or yell, you\u2019re like, \u201cThere is no clapping or yelling in skateboarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not at some weird session, but at a contest, yeah.<\/strong>
\nSessions are way better than contests. Yeah! There\u2019s lots of clapping!<\/p>\n

You\u2019re so weird.<\/strong>
\nYou\u2019re right. It\u2019s all about shutting the guy down.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Oh my god. It\u2019s not about shutting anyone down.<\/strong>
\nOh yes, it is. It\u2019s all about shutting the guy down. Every time a guy steps on a skateboard, it\u2019s about making the guy feel as humiliated as possible about his ability on a skateboard.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Yes.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s not it? [Laughs]<\/p>\n

No. [Laughs]<\/strong>
\nThis is awesome.<\/p>\n

<\/b>[Click HERE<\/a> for part two of Lance Mountain X Steve Olson in Juice Magazine #74.]<\/p>\n

FOR THE REST OF THE STORY, ORDER ISSUE #72 BY CLICKING HERE\u2026<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STEVE OLSON X LANCE MOUNTAIN PHOTOS BY TED TERREBONNE AND MRZ Steve Olson and Lance Mountain interview each other about skateboarding and life as they live it… It is not fair sometimes. \u201cYou\u2019ve got 15 minutes to write Olson\u2019s introduction. We are going to press. Houston, are you there?\u201d I just read over his intro […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4022,4030,4027,4028,4034,4041,4042],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-2","category-bones-brigade-chronicles","category-featured","category-interviews","category-music-2","category-skate-2","category-surf-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/LANCE-OLSON1-2.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55301"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89489,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55301\/revisions\/89489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}