{"id":7686,"date":"2011-12-01T00:00:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T00:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/?p=7686"},"modified":"2022-06-07T20:49:35","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T03:49:35","slug":"jj-rogers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/jj-rogers\/","title":{"rendered":"JJ ROGERS"},"content":{"rendered":"

INTERVIEW BY ANDY ROY<\/strong>
\nINTRODUCTION BY TODD PRINCE<\/strong>
\nPHOTOS BY BRUCE RODELA<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first time I ever heard of J.J. Rogers was through Joe Lopes when we were hanging out in San Jose. Lopes would tell me stories about how fucking gnarly he was, like \u201cHey, JJ can do frontside 50\/50s to fakie\u201d and I\u2019d be like \u201cThere\u2019s no fucking way. That\u2019s impossible!\u201d (Remember this was around \u201888). Lopes brought him to S.J. to skate the Kennedy Warehouse, and sure enough \u201cBam!\u201d the cocksucker did it right in front of me. I remember I spit on him and we became friends right then. He asked to move in, and I said yes, and my girlfriend cried. Through all the years of punk rock, raising hell, death of vert, you name it, we became the best of friends. To all the skateboarders who came and stayed with us over the years at the Eleventh St. Punk House, you know what I\u2019m talking about! Throbber killed the vert, mini and the street. Fucking Man Style, J.J. is the Paul Bunyan of skateboarding, no shit, he really is. I\u2019ve seen his Blue Ox. Even though my bro might have the morals of an alleycat sometimes, he loves his whiskey, beer and chew, but most of all his daughter, Myla Ross. I really hope that everybody that reads this gets the chance some day to skate, fish, and just raise hell with the man, because Throbdaddy is one hell of a guy. Skate Hard.<\/p>\n

\n

“I was always in trouble, but when I got that in-between-report-card-time when my mom said I could go ride, I\u2019d hit it as hard as I could.\u00a0\u201cDo or die,\u201d like Ben Schroeder says. Take the hipper. You just have to do it.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Okay, we\u2019re going to get all the good stuff. When did you start skateboarding?<\/strong>
\nMy dad bought me my first skateboard in 1976. My dad is a surfer. He still surfs now. He called himself a hot-dogger. He\u2019s rad. He wore Vans and all that. In 1976, he bought me a Makaha skateboard with clay wheels. He got me into skating and he was stoked like, \u201cThis is my kid!\u201d I went to the beach with my dad and then I left with my mom. That\u2019s how I got here, if you know what I mean.<\/p>\n

I do. When did you start to know that skateboarding was your deal?<\/strong>
\nIt was around \u201881. I was in sixth grade. That\u2019s when I knew it. It was like, \u201cI\u2019m doing this. This is the rest of my life right here.\u201d I was skateboarding. In 1980, I remember I had a badass Redline BMX bike. It was top of the line shit and I traded it for a Red Dog Dogtown skateboard with Variflex Trucks where the kingpins came out the front of the truck. The board was broken in half, so the dude was some stoner dude and he had put a strip of metal down the board and the metal kept it in one piece. I traded a $500 bike for this $10 broken skateboard. I was like, \u201cI\u2019m skateboarding and that\u2019s it.\u201d That\u2019s when I gave up everything else and started riding.<\/p>\n

Where did you grow up?<\/strong>
\nHayward. San Francisco. Bay Area. East Bay. San Leandro. It\u2019s Joey Lopes turf. Joey Lopes FOREVER!<\/p>\n

Who did you see growing up that was gnarly on a skateboard that you looked up to?<\/strong>
\nJoey Lopes was my mentor. My friend Vince Rodriguez was our homeboy. I remember I went to this ramp that this dude Darren had in Castro Valley, CA. East Bay. We were kids from the ghetto. None of us had money. We\u2019d wake up on Saturdays at 5 o\u2019clock in the morning and everyone would get together like, \u201cWhere are we going to go ride?\u201d We skated Darren\u2019s ramp, which was a little vert ramp, 9-foot tall with a foot of vert and 8-foot trannies. When I was 11 or 12 years old, I remember going there and Vince showed up, but I didn\u2019t know it was Vince. I thought it was Joey Lopes. Vince has that curly hair and Lopes had curly hair too, and I had only seen Lopes in the magazine. We go to this vert ramp and it was Vince and this other dude Mondo. Mondo showed up and he\u2019s like, \u201cI\u2019m Steve Steadham.\u201d I said, \u201cDude, you ain\u2019t Steve Steadham.\u201d He\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, I ride for Motorbuilt.\u201d I\u2019m like \u201cNo way. I\u2019m at Joe Lopes\u2019 side right now.\u201d And it wasn\u2019t Joe Lopes. It was Vince. He was just dropping in and killing it with backside airs, frontside airs, lien to tails, inverts, and all this shit. About an hour into the session, all of a sudden, these dudes showed up and it\u2019s like \u201cDamn, that\u2019s Joe Lopes right there.\u201d I was a little kid and I had just seen him in the magazine and I\u2019m freaking. I was just the kid going, \u201cThis dude rips. Lopes is killing it.\u201d The ramp had PVC coping and it was 4-foot wide and he was killing it. That was my first introduction to a dude in the magazines.<\/p>\n

Joe Lopes is forever. He\u2019s a great person to have as a mentor. I remember skating with you guys and he would snake everyone. He\u2019d look right at you, when you\u2019d have your board out and he would take the run. That was the deal.<\/strong>
\nHe was the coolest dude. He was my mentor. One day when I was 12 years old, I went to his ramp. I remember my mom took me there. It was crazy, but we grew up with hippie people, so she just hung out. I get there and it\u2019s the session of a lifetime. Tommy Guerrero was there. He was riding for Madrid. Free Beer, the punk rock band, played. I was psyched. Tommy Guerrero is a year older than me, but he seemed 20 years older than me because he was so rad.<\/p>\n

Who was there skating?<\/strong>
\nIt was Bryce, Fish, Phelps, and this dude we called Horseface because he had 64 teeth rather than 32. This dude had a grill on him. Kevin O\u2019Connor, a badass East Bay ripper, was there. It was all of these rad Northern California dudes and I\u2019m this little 12-year-old kid. I was scared.<\/p>\n

Did they know that you could skateboard?<\/strong>
\nYeah. It was 20 minutes of sitting on the end of the roll-in because I was too scared to drop into Lopes\u2019 ramp because it was so big. I was like, \u201cI ain\u2019t gonna do it.\u201d I would sit there and sit there. After about 20 minutes, I pushed off and rolled in. It was roll in, invert, kickturn, kickturn, sess slide, kickturn, kickturn, fakie ollie, kickturn, kickturn, frontside air over channel, kickturn, kickturn, get out. I was like, \u201cWhoa.\u201d Lopes was stoked! He was like, \u201cThis little kid is rad!\u201d My mom was sitting there telling him about how carrot juice is so good for you and I\u2019m all, \u201cShut up, mom! They don\u2019t want to hear about carrot juice!\u201d<\/p>\n

Good ol\u2019 moms. What was your first trick that you learned on a ramp?<\/strong>
\nThe very first trick I learned on a ramp was an invert. I could do an invert before I could do a backside grind.\u2002My aunt lives in Visalia and I went out to visit her and my uncle Dave. He builds guitars and mandolins, and he had all this plywood at his house. My uncle Greg is my homeboy. We hang out. I\u2019m like, \u201cI want to build a ramp.\u201d So my uncle Dave helped us build a quarterpipe. It was four-foot tranny, 12-foot tall, right to vert. I was like, \u201cI\u2019m going to learn handplants.\u201d I learned handplants and that was it. I could not do anything on a ramp, but I could do a handplant. That was my first trick.<\/p>\n

What was the first skateboarding road trip you went on with Joe Lopes?<\/strong>
\nI was 17 or 18 years old. I hung hard with Joey. Bod Boyle and Steve Douglas came from across whatever ocean they came across and made it here and those dudes hung out at Lopes\u2019 all the time. We had a payphone at my high school and I\u2019d call over to Joey Lopes\u2019 house. I still know the phone number to this day. It was a really cool time for me because me, Bod and Douglas would ride Joey\u2019s ramp every day after school. I\u2019d call them and be like, \u201cHey, I\u2019ll be there.\u201d I\u2019d go down to the BART train station and panhandle money so I could get the 60 cents to get to their stop. I\u2019d go over there and we\u2019d skate the vert ramp all night. Joey just took me under his wing. I\u2019d just graduated from high school and Joey goes, \u201cHey, we\u2019re going to go to L.A.\u201d I was like, \u201cWho\u2019s going?\u201d He was like, \u201cMe and you. We\u2019re going to L.A. You got any money?\u201d I go, \u201cYeah. I\u2019ve got like $100.\u201d He said, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t even matter. You\u2019re coming with me. Let\u2019s go on this trip.\u201d\u2002I was like, \u201cAlright.\u201d I sold my car for $100 so I could go with Joe. Money didn\u2019t matter. He\u2019s like \u201cLet\u2019s go. Let\u2019s do this.\u201d He introduced me to all the people that were in the magazines like Neil Blender and Mike Smith.<\/p>\n

Where did you guys go?<\/strong>
\nOur first stop was that big vert ramp in Fallbrook. It was a huge ramp. We got there and Steve Douglas and Lopes were talking to Schmitt about me. They were like, \u201cYou have to check this dude out.\u201d I got there and that tranny was so big. I sucked. I couldn\u2019t even do a rock n\u2019 roll. I couldn\u2019t pump it. It was ten and a half foot transitions and I dropped in and I couldn\u2019t do it. Whatever. I had a good time and that day was crazy. Chris Miller, Jeff Grosso, Ben Schroeder and Jason Jessee showed up. It was just rippers.<\/p>\n

FOR THE REST OF THE STORY ORDER ISSUE #69 BY CLICKING HERE…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INTERVIEW BY ANDY ROY INTRODUCTION BY TODD PRINCE PHOTOS BY BRUCE RODELA The first time I ever heard of J.J. Rogers was through Joe Lopes when we were hanging out in San Jose. Lopes would tell me stories about how fucking gnarly he was, like \u201cHey, JJ can do frontside 50\/50s to fakie\u201d and I\u2019d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7691,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4027,4028,4041],"tags":[14451,4098,4093,14452,14454,3949,4090,4088,4087,4091,14433,14455,4080,4082,14255,6175,1870,4083,2025,4085,14453,4095,4092,4086,3165,14382,4084],"class_list":["post-7686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-interviews","category-skate-2","tag-andy-roy","tag-ben-schroeder","tag-bod-boyle","tag-bryce-kanights","tag-chris-miller","tag-dogtown","tag-fish","tag-free-beer","tag-horseface","tag-jake-phelps","tag-jason-jessee","tag-jeff-grosso","tag-jj-rogers","tag-joe-lopes","tag-juice-magazine","tag-juice-magazine-69","tag-madrid","tag-makaha","tag-mike-smith","tag-mondo","tag-neil-blender","tag-paul-schmitt","tag-steve-douglas","tag-steve-steadham","tag-todd-prince","tag-tommy-guerrero","tag-variflex"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/JJROGERS1-2.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7686","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=7686"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89562,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7686\/revisions\/89562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}