{"id":88195,"date":"2018-09-15T17:24:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T00:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/?p=88195"},"modified":"2022-07-11T15:04:59","modified_gmt":"2022-07-11T22:04:59","slug":"jason-dill-in-conversation-with-jim-murphy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/jason-dill-in-conversation-with-jim-murphy\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Dill in Conversation with Jim Murphy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first time I met Jason Dill was on a road trip to the Pine Ridge Reservation a few years ago. He was hilarious and serious and, during that 7-hour drive from Denver to South Dakota, I learned a lot about him. Stories about his upbringing, Alien Workshop, NYC and beyond kept me laughing, never knowing that one day his angst with the corporate world of skateboarding would lead him to start a company named Fucking Awesome, which is fucking awesome! What we learned about Jason on that trip, was that he\u2019s a loving and caring dude, who loves seeing skateboarding taking off for the youth. Jason is coming in hot with FA World Entertainment and leaving an unforgettable mark on the skateboard industry, doing things his way, unfiltered with no apologies! With no fear and no remorse, Dill wants to keep skateboarding for skateboarders.<\/i><\/p>\n

JASON DILL INTERVIEW BY JIM MURPHY<\/strong><\/h4>\n

MURF: Yo, Dill. How are you doing? Are you ready for this interview?<\/strong><\/p>\n

DILL: <\/strong>I am completely ready for this interview. I just got back from work. I was at the warehouse and now I\u2019m going to talk to you.<\/p>\n

Are you in California or New York?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m in California. I\u2019ve lived in California now for six years. Right around the time that I met you, when we went out to South Dakota, is when I first got this apartment in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Killer. Where were you born and raised?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was born in Huntington Beach, California in 1976.<\/p>\n

When did you find skateboarding? Did you get into the concrete skateparks at all or were you too young then?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. I was too young. I feel like skateboarding has experienced a couple of deaths and one of the deaths was at the beginning of 1980. I was four years old and I hadn\u2019t found skateboarding yet. That\u2019s when the parks started to close and that big boom of skateboarding was ending. My family is from the East Coast, from a place called Braddock, Turtle Creek, outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then they came to California and had me. I was raised by a bunch of people from back East, and we were always moving. From the time I was born until the time I was 17 and I got my first apartment on my own, I had already lived in 22 different houses, apartments, motels and trailer parks.<\/p>\n

Was all of this moving in California?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. We always lived on Warner Avenue or Beach Boulevard. If you go East on Beach Boulevard, you\u2019d get into Westminster, which was sketchy, but they had super cheap motels, so sometimes we would live in a motel, which I liked. I didn\u2019t realize how psycho what we were doing was, but I liked it because, once I skated, I always had new spots to skate and new skate kids to meet. When I was 8 years old, my dad went to jail for trying to sell cocaine, so he was locked up. One day I looked out the car window as we were pulling up to this nice place in downtown Huntington Beach, which was our new home and, across the street, there were some older kids skating a jump ramp. The kids ended up being Ed Templeton and his friends.<\/p>\n

No way! What year was that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

1984. I met Ed and he said, \u201cDo you skateboard?\u201d I said, \u201cNo.\u201d Somehow they got a used board together and that was my first set up. Then I learned how to go off that jump ramp. I was eight and they were 13, so they were older dudes. Once I started skateboarding, I was into it. Then I was in a grocery store with my mother and I saw Mark Gonzales for the first time. I was like, \u201cHoly shit!\u201d<\/p>\n

Did you know it was Mark Gonzales?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. Ed and his friends would talk about Gonz like, \u201cHe\u2019s the best.\u201d I was like, \u201cI need to see this Gonz guy.\u201d So there was Mark at the grocery store. Mark has a different version of the story. He says, \u201cDill and his mom were stalking me.\u201d<\/p>\n

What? [Laughs]<\/strong><\/p>\n

He tells people that and I\u2019m like, \u201cNo. That\u2019s not the truth.\u201d What I\u2019m outlining is that I\u2019ve been in this shit for a long time.<\/p>\n

So you guys were skating ramps and street skating at that point? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yep. Ed and his friends were all about jump ramps, and they were going street skating too. At first, they were like, \u201cWe\u2019re going skating and you can\u2019t come.\u201d I was happy to skate the jump ramp because I was a little kid, but then I found other kids in the neighborhood that were my age. There was a white kid named Warren and a black kid named Dennis. Dennis was really good, and he should have gone on to be pro. There were a lot of people that were better than Jason Lee at that time. This one kid, Eric, was so good, but he ended up quitting and joining a gang. When I was nine, I was skating at Huntington Beach High School with Skip Pronier, Arron Devine, Jake Burns and John Lucero. Sometimes Donger and Mike Carroll would show up. Mike Vallely was around a lot too. Once I got older and went to junior high school in Huntington Beach, I remember walking out of school and the H-Street team was in the parking lot waiting for school to get out so they could film.<\/p>\n

Was that in \u201989 or \u201990?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I started skating at Huntington Beach High School, it was 1985. It was around the time that Mark\u2019s first pro model came out on Vision. It was really crazy for me because I\u2019d be riding on a Gonz board that had no nose. The next year, Ed and those guys were riding boards with the nose turned up. Then the nose got big enough that you could slide on it. Then came nose blunt slides and then came \u201890 and \u201991. That\u2019s my generation. I got my first sponsor when I was at Sadlands in Anaheim.<\/p>\n

Did you ever ride with Blender there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I only saw Neil Blender once in my life in person and that\u2019s when I was a little kid. I\u2019m a super uber psycho fan of Neil Blender, and I spent 15 years with Alien Workshop and I know he didn\u2019t work with the company anymore, but I\u2019m surprised I never met the man. He\u2019s very high on my list of important people. So I was at Sadlands, as a kid, skating with Terrence Yoshizawa. He was Lester Kasai\u2019s cousin and he said, \u201cYou\u2019re good. How about you meet my cousin Lester?\u201d I said, \u201cYour cousin is Lester Kasai? Wow! I know who that is.\u201d So I went to Lester\u2019s house and his mom cooked us Japanese food. Then they took me to Sadlands and we had a tryout where I had to skate in front of them. It worked out, between Terrence and Lester and a girl named Saecha Clarke. She was a girl skater that rode for Rocco, and she used to give me World Industries boards. So then I was sponsored by House of Kasai. House of Kasai was cool, but I was in Huntington Beach and that was where everything was happening. Everyone was on Independent Trucks and Vision and Lucero\u2019s stuff and Hosoi and Gonz. I rode for House of Kasai for a little bit and, shortly after that, through Tracker, I got asked to ride for Blockhead.<\/p>\n

Sick. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Blockhead had Rick Howard, but I also liked that they had dudes like Sam Cunningham. I thought Sam Cunningham was rad. I thought Frank Atwater was rad too. Frank Atwater was way ahead of his time because he was doing all that crazy wall ride shit. It\u2019s like Tim Jackson in Venice. Tim Jackson was so far ahead of his time. He could be a top pro now with all his crazy wall ride stuff.<\/p>\n

Totally. <\/strong><\/p>\n

So I got on Blockhead and that was the real birth of my skate career.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SKATING UP THE SIDE OF BUILDING IS ALMOST ALWAYS A QUICK BUST SITUATION WHEN THEY CAN SEE YOU THROUGH GLASS WALLS, BUT IT\u2019S ALWAYS WORTH THE SMOOTH RIDE ON YOUR WAY BACK DOWN TO EARTH! DILL TAKES A BACKSIDE GLASS RIDE CLEAR AND FREE. PHOTO \u00a9 ACOSTA<\/p>\n

Did you ride the Blockhead ramp?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. I was 12 years old riding for Blockhead, and I\u2019d be at that house where the Blockhead ramp was in the middle of nowhere in Bonsall, California, and the nearest thing to the house was an AMPM store that was about a two mile walk. It was crazy. I was a little kid out in the back skating the ramp by myself for days, trying to be careful in case I hurt myself. If you hurt yourself out there, you could starve to death. I remember being there one time and there were people at the house, but no one would drive me to the store. I was a little kid, so I understand. So I walked to the AMPM to get my meal for the day, and I came back a few hours later, and I\u2019m walking up this long driveway to the Blockhead house, and there was this strange, corny, weird \u201890s Camaro parked in the driveway. There was a guy that had pads on and he was taking his helmet off and he turned around and he said, \u201cHey, kid, do you want a Vision sticker?\u201d I looked up and it\u2019s Gator. He\u2019s looking right at me and I said, \u201cNo. I ride for Blockhead.\u201d Gator mimicked me and goes, \u201cNo, I ride for Blockhead.\u201d I kept walking and I remember thinking, \u201cFuck Gator, that washed up old fuck. I don\u2019t care about your stupid Vision. You\u2019re years too late, bud!\u201d Two weeks later, Gator turned himself in for murder, so I met him after he killed the girl. Think about that.<\/p>\n

Were you tripping when you heard that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. Dan Sturt is the one that made him turn himself in. Gator killed the girl and lived a normal life for a while and then I saw him at the Blockhead house. Right after that, I heard about how Gator killed this chick. It was insane. Time doesn\u2019t feel like that anymore, but I remember what time felt like then. When I heard that Gator killed that girl, in that time in America, the air was different.<\/p>\n

Yeah. Gnarly. So you\u2019re on Blockhead and it\u2019s getting to the mid \u201990s? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Wait. In the mid \u201890s, I turned pro for 101. I turned pro in \u201893 or \u201994. I understand how funny that jump feels, believe me. It\u2019s really strange. I was on Blockhead when I was 12 years old. The next year, when I was 13, I got on Black Label.<\/p>\n

How did you get on Black Label?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a born and bred Huntington Beach child, so I think I got on Black Label from just being around. I was the little kid that was around Aaron Devine and all those dudes, so they saw me all through the years because we had famous skate spots like Pay and Play where Ed skated at night. People would bring jump ramps behind Huntington High School and, on any given night, it would be Gonz and Jason Lee and everyone. That\u2019s where some beautiful skateboarding went down and that\u2019s where I learned from watching all those guys. I  remember going to a Santa Barbara contest at the Powell Skate Zone with the Black Label team and Cardiel had just got on, and he got into the Powell Skate Zone and just flew around the place. It was really cool with John Cardiel when it was just me being a little kid. When I was only 14, they drove me in Lucero\u2019s van to the NSA finals. When I did my NSA finals run, Cardiel followed me on a board and filmed my whole run. The only thing that I remember is that my last trick was a back 180 late back foot flip over a hip.<\/p>\n

Wow! Cardiel! Were you pro at that point or were you still amateur?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was in \u201991 or \u201992, so I was amateur for Black Label. I had a great time riding for Black Label. The first time I ever flew on an airplane was with Lucero. He took me to a skate contest in Texas. It was me, Lucero and Mike Smith. We went to that Houston park that had all the metal ramps.<\/p>\n

Did you see Gibson and Craig Johnson?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. That\u2019s where Gibson is from. That\u2019s where Zorlac went down. You know all that. It was insane. The contest was in the middle of summer and those ramps were all metal, and I got heatstroke. I remember doing a trick and running behind a ramp and throwing up. I looked up and Rick Kosick was like, \u201cYou don\u2019t look good. You need to get out of here and drink some water. You look pale, dude.\u201d I had never experienced a heatstroke before, so I didn\u2019t know what was going on.<\/p>\n

Were you riding the vert ramp?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. I was on the street course on that huge slab of concrete with all these metal ramps. They had a metal mini ramp too. I was 14 and, at that age, I was full of energy, so I was going to skate the mini ramp and the street course. I remember waking up in a motel room and the whole Alien Workshop team was there. It was Lance Conklin and all those dudes. I got up and they showed me the trick at the vending machine where you used to be able to squirt saltwater into the machine where the dollars go, and it would shoot out Cokes and money. Then I ended up quitting Black Label to ride for this company that ended up being really corny. It was called Color. It was Kris Markovich and a few other people. Mark Oblow put it together. It was really weird. When I was 13 and I was on Black Label, I was so happy. Then a few years went by and I was 15 and I guess I got a little bit of an ego and started bleaching my hair blond. I started to come into my weirdness as a teenager, and I quit Black Label and it really sucked. I didn\u2019t want to, but I did. I still think about talking to John on the phone and how mad he was, and I deserved it. John did a lot for me and John was in a bad place at the time. Back then I got on Black Label through Simon Woodstock and Skippy and Gino Iannucci. They had just gotten Gino Iannucci from back East, and we\u2019d hang out when he would come to California. Then I quit Black Label to ride for Color and that was really lame. Then I was 15 and sponsorless. Gino Iannucci moved to California and we started skating with Brian Lotti. We really liked Brian and we thought he was so cool. We talked to Brian about perhaps starting a company through World Industries. We were going to do this company and it was going to be me, Gino Iannucci, Brian Lotti, Kris Markovich and Rob Dyrdek. It was going to be called Program, like Pro Am. It was so stupid. What a \u201890s company. It would have been perfect to run a Big Brother ad right next to Bitch Skateboards.<\/p>\n

Yikes!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. It was 1993. It was weird. So that company didn\u2019t happen because Dyrdek didn\u2019t want to quit the Workshop. At the time, Dyrdek really needed money, so he was thinking about it, and Rocco was more than willing to give Dyrdek money. Rocco wanted Dyrdek and Markovich and all those cool guys. As that was happening, we didn\u2019t know it, but Rick Howard and Mike Carroll were quietly plotting to leave World Industries to go do Girl. When the time came, Brian Lotti was like, \u201cI\u2019m going to move to Hawaii and move into a monk monastery and quit skateboarding.\u201d In the meantime, me and Gino had been filming a lot, so Brian left our footage on Natas\u2019 desk at World and said, \u201cYou should put these two kids on 101.\u201d Natas watched it and he called Gino at home. We couldn\u2019t believe it. We were like, \u201cOh my God! Natas called!\u201d It was the craziest thing ever. Natas said, \u201cAre you guys going to go to that contest in San Francisco next weekend?\u201d It was the Back To the City contest in 1993.<\/p>\n

That was the one with the ramp in the fountain and all that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exactly. So we go up there and meet up with Natas at a Subway sandwich shop and he was like, \u201cLook, Eric Koston just quit 101 to ride for a company called Girl and they all quit Plan B. Do you guys still want to ride for 101 knowing all this?\u201d We were like, \u201cAbsolutely. We want to ride for 101.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WHATEVER THE CHALLENGE PRESENTS, DILL DIALS THE LINE AND THROWS A BACKSIDE KICKFLIP OVER RAW TERRAIN. PHOTO \u00a9 ACOSTA<\/strong><\/p>\n

Was that the first time you met Natas?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. Natas was so young. When I look back on it now, it\u2019s crazy. He was like, \u201cI have my company still. Do you want to do it?\u201d We were like, \u201cYeah, of course.\u201d I was totally tripping. Black Label was really great to be part of but, when I got on 101, and Natas ended up making me pro and we ended up making those videos in that time period, I knew that was it. That video Trilogy came out in 1996, and that was like my big part. That was the first time I ever saw myself even close to Gino or anyone else in skateboarding that were my peers. That was the first time that I saw myself not like a little kid.<\/p>\n

Was 101 cranking out sales at the World Industries level worldwide?<\/strong><\/p>\n

World Industries obviously had the Plan B years before those guys quit. At the same time, I don\u2019t think there was all that much money there. I think Rocco made a nice amount of money, but there\u2019s a reason they made such shitty t-shirts. If you had a pro model, they would only make 100 of them. Also skateboarding wasn\u2019t that big back then. Rocco had such a corner on the market and there were fewer companies then. When World Industries was in their heyday from \u201991 to \u201994, everything else seemed lame. I made $200 or $300 a month as a amateur and, when I turned pro, I made $1,000 a month. It was not big money.<\/p>\n

Did you guys travel with Natas?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. It was incredible. I went all over Europe with Natas. We went to contests and had the full experience. I was doing skate runs in contests in arenas full of people screaming. It was crazy. At the end of that trip, we were in Rotterdam at this old \u201870s skatepark, and it had this really big hip and Natas did a frontside flip over it. It ended up being a video sequence in Big Brother. That felt like the last time that Natas was tech and up to date with everybody else\u2019s skateboarding. That was in \u201993 or \u201994. At the end of that trip, I was only 17 years old, and I lost my passport. I didn\u2019t think anything of it because I was young, but two days later, after not having a passport, I\u2019m in Frankfort, Germany and we all wake up and I was like, \u201cBy the way, Natas, I don\u2019t have a passport.\u201d He was like, \u201cWell, see ya later.\u201d He just got on the plane and left.<\/p>\n

Whoa. Punk rock. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I do not blame him at all. So I went to the American embassy in Frankfurt, which was about a two-mile walk from the airport. They lent me 70 francs and gave me a rushed passport and I spent four nights at the Frankfurt airport by myself and that\u2019s when I bought my first pack of cigarettes. I was 17 and I was stuck in Germany and it was a real learning experience for me.<\/p>\n

Were you pro at that point?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had just turned pro and that was my first experience on the European tour circuit. I had one board out and it was that Winnie The Pooh board.<\/p>\n

Describe what it was like going to Europe and touring as a pro. Were you going out of your mind?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, it was a mix of a lot of things. I had just started taking acid and mushrooms. I wanted to see what it was like, so I smoked cigarettes and took acid. I didn\u2019t have the normal 17-year-old experience because I quit school the year before. I had been sent to a continuation school where they lock you up, so you can\u2019t leave. Basically, the whole school was pregnant chicks and Mexican kids and me. I got out of there and the first place I went out of the country was Tokyo. I was 16 and I was with that clothing company, Droors. They sent me there with Rob Dyrdek and Jeremy Wray. I remember I called my mom from the lobby of a Japanese hotel on a pay phone. I said, \u201cWhen I get home, I\u2019m not going back to school.\u201d She got real mad. I said, \u201cNumber one, what are you going to do about it?\u201d She said, \u201cYou\u2019re not 18, so I could send you to juvenile hall.\u201d I was like, \u201cMom, we come from nothing and I\u2019m here in Japan. Who else has done this in our family? I don\u2019t want to get sucked down with this bullshit in our family. I want to get away.\u201d And I did. It was tough. Shit. It\u2019s tough to talk to my mom about it now. As you get older, you surpass the age that your mom was when she had you and you get into a position where you start to feel like it\u2019s not a mother-son relationship. Now I\u2019m guiding her and I help her and I pay for everything. I know she didn\u2019t want me to drop out of high school, but it was a bigger thing than that. I needed to get away from the experience of being a nomadic family of gypsies. It was crazy. Why did we move 23 times? Why were we always being thrown out of places? I wanted my own life outside of it all. That\u2019s when I went to New York. I was 16 when I went to New York in \u201894.<\/p>\n

Were you still on 101?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. I was still on 101. I\u2019m pro and I\u2019m in New York City and I thought, \u201cOkay. I made it. I\u2019m here now.\u201d It was incredible. It was five years after Basquiat died, but there were still plenty of things to see and I got to see it all. I kept going back to New York and it finally stuck and I stayed there. I was a small child when I first went to New York, but four years later, I was living in a really nice place and I was doing good. It\u2019s weird that it only took four years, in New York of all places.<\/p>\n

Who was the crew that you were skating with then? <\/strong><\/p>\n

When I first got to New York, it was Jeff Pang, Ryan Hickey, Mike Hernandez, Chris Keefe and Jones Keefe. Danny Supa and Javier Nunes were my age, and I would go stay at Danny Supa\u2019s house in the Bronx. That was fun. I remember staying with Danny a lot. We were both little kids, and everyone was older. Keith Hufnagel was absolutely incredible at that time. All of the Keefes were great. Gino would be around. Everybody in New York had a huge, tremendous influence on me.<\/p>\n

Did you ever meet Kessler?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Absolutely. I knew Kessler well. In the last year of Kessler\u2019s life, I was standing in front of my friend\u2019s funeral on Second Avenue and Andy came up to me. He knew my friend too and Andy put his hand on my shoulder and he said, \u201cYou know that kid loved you, right?\u201d I was crying and I was like, \u201cYeah.\u201d He goes, \u201cDill, he loved you and I know you loved him. That\u2019s what it is.\u201d He gave me a big talk like, \u201cYou\u2019re not doing good. I can see it. Look at you. You need to clean up. You\u2019re a mess.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cYeah. I know.\u201d I was on drugs.<\/p>\n

Was that what your friend died of too?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

So Andy was familiar with that situation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. Later that summer, Andy was surfing in Montauk and got stung by a bee and he died from the allergy.<\/p>\n

I know.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the things that I got to experience through Mark Gonzales was getting to know Andy better. I think, on one hand, Andy was like, \u201cFuck Dill.\u201d You know what I mean? You could see it. He was like, \u201cHere comes this cool kid from California and he thinks he can just come to New York and roll up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

A BACKSEAT DRIVER\u2019S EYE VIEW OF A LIT UP JASON DILL CONCRETE WALL RIDE COVERING SOME DISTANCE. JD HIT AND RUN! PHOTO \u00a9 ACOSTA<\/p>\n

Kessler was great. The way he hated street skating was funny. <\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so funny because he was the original street skateboarder.<\/p>\n

I know. That was Andy. We were all into vert skating, so it was great. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Totally. It was interesting. Over the years, I got to go through Central Park and talk to Andy and Mark. They were talking about things that happened in 1978 and all this crazy shit that went on. I was just born then and they were already out here killing it. Andy Kessler was great. Harry Jumonji is another one that is great. Let me tell this story. This is me meeting Harry Jumonji. I was in New York at the age of 16 and I would go place to place on my own. In \u201894, St. Marks wasn\u2019t super dangerous, but it was St. Marks, so it was dangerous. The first time they took me to Washington Square Park to get weed, I was the only white kid and I didn\u2019t want to admit to it, but I was scared. We went there at night and I thought we were gonna get killed. I kept thinking about The Warriors and I was thinking people were going to come out of the trees and kill us. The gangs were going to converge and we were going to get killed in a gang fight.<\/p>\n

It can go down. <\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what it felt like. You just felt like mayhem was going to happen and somehow the mayhem was going to hit you. So I\u2019m walking down St. Marks and I\u2019m doing my best little white kid tough guy walk with my board and I had my eyes to the ground. All of a sudden, I hear, \u201cOh, who\u2019s this? Is this the little pickle? I hear everybody talk about this little Dill pickle.\u201d All of a sudden, I\u2019m face to face with Harry Jumonji. You have to understand, when I was 16, I was super short. So I\u2019m looking up at Harry and he goes, \u201cLittle pickle. You\u2019re a little guy, huh? You probably don\u2019t even have any hair on your nuts!\u201d Harry tapped my young cock and balls and patted me on the back and said, \u201cOh little pickle!\u201d And then I just walked away. What I realized later is that Harry has been in and out of jail and he jail baited me. That\u2019s the experience you probably get on the first day of serving a long time in jail. [Laughs] I was grateful for the experience. I was freaked out, but I was grateful. To become close with Harry later, that made me happy.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] So we\u2019re in the mid \u201990s now. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. It\u2019s 1994, and I was 16 years old and I walked into the Supreme store on Lafayette Street and it changed my life. The store was completely empty. There was only a few Supreme shirts and stickers and the rest was Real shirts and Thrasher shirts. I walked in and there was Harold Hunter and the first thing he said to me was, \u201cJason Dill, put me on 101.\u201d I was so shocked, like whoa. Then I went in the back of Supreme and met everybody. Being friends with Gino and riding for Black Label a few years before that gave me entrance to New York in a really good way. The year before that I was up in SF skating Embarcadero and Peter Bici and Chris Keefe came up and said, \u201cHey, you\u2019re pickle. You\u2019re Dill. You\u2019re friends with Gino.\u201d I was like, \u201cYeah, I\u2019m Pickle.\u201d All the guys from the East Coast called me \u201cPickle\u201d and they still do, like Keith Hufnagel, Jon Buscemi and Alex Corporan.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] No way.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. When I was at Embarcadero, I saw these two kids from New York, and they were like, \u201cYou\u2019re friends with Gino. Come stay with us.\u201d Boom! I\u2019m staying at Ron Allen\u2019s house in Oakland with Peter Bici and Chris Keefe. He did a company called Fun and he sponsored them. Two nights later, I find myself once again alone at someone\u2019s house. That happened to me a lot. I\u2019d have nowhere to stay and then, all of a sudden, I\u2019d be by myself at someone else\u2019s house. So it\u2019s 9pm and someone knocks on the door at this house on Telegraph Ave, which was sketchy then. I opened the door and it was Mike Vallely. I was like, \u201cMike Vallely, how ya doing?\u201d I\u2019d known Mike from skating at Huntington Beach High School with Ed Templeton. He was like, \u201cOh, wow. How are you doing?\u201d He\u2019s like, \u201cWhere\u2019s the nearest store around here?\u201d So we went to the store and this dude came up to Mike and was trying to ask him for money and Mike was like, \u201cNo, man.\u201d Then the guy got aggressive with Mike and I saw Mike turn into crazy Mike. He was like, \u201cI said no!\u201d He got real tough with the guy. I was like, \u201cOh, man, Mike Vallely just flexed on this dude at a gas station.\u201d It was interesting. What I\u2019m outlining is the interesting teenage childhood that I had. Also in 1994, when I was in San Francisco, I found myself at night with nowhere to stay and I met Greg Hunt for the first time. He let me stay at his house and he gave me the Miles Davis autobiography and I read it and it changed my perspective on things. I got to meet all these older people and there were these series of events that all led me to be who I am now. I was getting away from a lot of things and trying to find something.<\/p>\n

Were you hooked up with the Indy crew?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. I ride for Indy now but, when I was a kid, I was all over the place. I\u2019ve ridden for every truck company except for Gullwing. I was on Tracker. I was on Thunder. I was on Venture. I was on Indy back in the day and I got off Indy. I\u2019m fully on Indy now. It\u2019s been six or seven years since they put me on their team officially. Fausto was always really sweet to me. Whenever I would see Fausto, he would pull me in and say, \u201cHow have you been? How are you doing?\u201d He would always tell me that I had a good future. Fausto was really good to me. I remember thinking, \u201cWhy is he so nice to me?\u201d I think he was nice to me because he had seen that I rode for Lucero and Natas, his heroes kind of, so I was stoked. I only knew him a little, but, when I would go to DLXSF or Thrasher, he was so nice to me, and it felt really good for Fausto to recognize me. I was just some little kid in SF always drinking and surrounded by the gnarliest people and he\u2019d say, \u201cOkay, little Dill, you\u2019re doing good.\u201d During that time period, I had been living in New York and then I was back in California, and I rode for 101 and then I got caught stealing from World Industries and they let me go. I was stealing to pay my rent, but they let me go, which I understood.<\/p>\n

Oh no.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. I was 19 years old. Around that time, Gino went and rode for Chocolate, and I got an offer to ride for Sal Barbier\u2019s new board company called 23. I didn\u2019t have any options really. It\u2019s not that I thought the offer was bad, but I was gonna ride for the first thing that was offered to me. I wanted to ride for Alien Workshop, but I think that I put in a call to them and I got turned down.<\/p>\n

What year are we looking at now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was in \u201996 and \u201997. In 1998, I went to a contest in Canada and I hung out with Dyrdek and the Alien dudes. I went from place to place with them and I skated really well and they were really impressed. When I got home from that contest, a new issue of Slap had come out and it said in the talk section. \u201cJason Dill now rides for Alien Workshop.\u201d I was so shocked and scared that it said that. I was like, \u201cOh god, did I say something to someone? They\u2019re going to read this and think that I said this.\u201d I was freaked out, so I called Alien Workshop. The first time I met Chris Carter was when I was 12 years old at a contest in Arizona. I was swimming in the pool and he was walking by. I was with Bryan Ridgeway, and he was like, \u201cCarter, this is little baby Dill.\u201d So I had met Carter, but I didn\u2019t know him well. When I called him regarding what it said in Slap, he said, \u201cThey called us and I told them to run it. I thought it was funny to say that you rode for the company so, yeah, do you want to?\u201d I was like, \u201cAbsolutely. Holy shit yeah!\u201d I was so nervous about calling and then I was on the team. It was unbelievable. I got on Alien and 15 years went by.<\/p>\n

Sick! What was it like riding for Alien Workshop?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those days were the best. From 1998 to 2005, I had such a good time. I was in New York and we were making videos. Every two years, we\u2019d make a really great video. We were just clocking away. Photosynthesis took from 1998 to 2000 to film. Then we did another video called Mosaic that came out in 2003. That time period was the greatest time in my life. I was flying all over the world and it was amazing. That time period in New York before 9\/11 was great. There were no rules. It was less constricted and traveling was easier too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

DILL FRONTSIDE OLLIE TO LOCKED-IN 50-50 AT THIS BANK TO FENCE RAIL. PHOTO \u00a9 ACOSTA<\/p>\n

What was the vision for Alien Workshop?  <\/strong><\/p>\n

Their mentality was that what you see on television and what you see that makes this country up, it\u2019s all shit. Fuck it. You have to separate yourself from this ridiculous sheep-like society. They wanted to and did make the most serious skateboard company. There\u2019s never been another serious skateboard company like that. Everything was super serious and visually artistic and that was a big influence on me. Everything they did had to be very thought out.<\/p>\n

Was that something they involved you in?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. When I got on the team, they had already been operating for eight years and they had already made Memory Screen. I got to come in and see the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, and sometimes I was involved. In Photosynthesis, I filmed some of the Super 8 stuff. They would give me a camera and tell me I should film stuff. I should have done that more often but, when you\u2019re young, you\u2019re only able to replace the cartridge on the Super 8 thing so many times before you\u2019re over it. Luckily, I have photos from those trips to Europe because I\u2019d steal disposable cameras from the store. I ended up   taking a lot of photos, and I\u2019ve produced a couple of pretty underground photo books. I just wish I had taken more photos.<\/p>\n

Yeah. The \u201890s started off with the philosophy of World Industries and, all of a sudden, it went more to the philosophy of Alien Workshop that was mysterious and different. I remember seeing it and I knew Blender started it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, you knew Blender and Claar.<\/p>\n

Yeah. I was stoked because Alien was mysterious, just like Neil is, and it was unlike any other company. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. They did a great job. When you go back and look at the early boards they had, like the first Blender board and the first Claar board, they were using shapes that Grosso uses now. Blender is such a big deal to me. He was such a tremendous influence on me, in drawings and everything he ever did. When he would pop up in those Powell videos, that stuck with me. I remember Blender being with Lance and O and playing music and throwing the body off the roof. Blender is the best and his skateboarding was so different and funny. I love Neil Blender. When I got on Workshop, it was a really big deal for me. I was really happy.<\/p>\n

When you were there at Alien Workshop, did they ever talk about Neil?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nope. Never. He left. He didn\u2019t want to be there. He said, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be here anymore and I don\u2019t want you guys using my art anymore.\u201d I wasn\u2019t there, but that\u2019s what I heard happened. They\u2019re in Dayton, Ohio, and it\u2019s gnarly out there. There\u2019s a train track, a graveyard and a bar down the street. It\u2019s fucked up, but what a history and what a company. It was a great ride and it was so cool. The imagery that Alien put out was incredible, and I\u2019m so glad to have been a part of it.<\/p>\n

What was happening toward the end of it when you were leaving?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is interesting to be talking to you about this. I\u2019m not sure that you realize this but you and our buddy Walt had a bit of a hand in what I now do. I don\u2019t think that anyone would ever think that. They might say, \u201cHow the fuck did Jim Murphy and this Indian man, Walt Pourier, influence Dill?\u201d<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Right. <\/strong><\/p>\n

At the end of my days at the Workshop, in 2011, I really started skating again. Before that, I had been hospitalized for drugs. I\u2019ve never been to rehab, but I got talked to by enough doctors that were like, \u201cCut this shit out.\u201d So I thought that I should leave New York and go live with Anthony Van Engelen in California and see what happens. So I came out here and Anthony said, \u201cCome on this Vans tour.\u201d I was skating on this Vans tour and we\u2019re in New Zealand and it was cool. We skated our asses off on that tour. We filmed a section for a TransWorld video called the Cinematographers Project and we had a really strong section and Dylan Rieder had really strong stuff in that. I\u2019m really proud of that section, and we were pushing it and doing it on our own. We were like, \u201cLet\u2019s go here and do this.\u201d Anthony and I kind of guided the team. We were guiding Dylan and a young Grant Taylor. My argument was, \u201cHow do Dylan Rider and Grant Taylor ride for the same team, but no one sees them together? This is bullshit.\u201d They went on the tour and we were like, \u201cDo this.\u201d They were like, \u201cOkay, but the money\u2026\u201d I was like, \u201cFuck the money. We\u2019re on tour.\u201d I was mad. I kept saying, \u201cWhat are we going to do when this guy is on TV? He\u2019s selling all these boards to help support this company but, when he\u2019s on TV, that\u2019s going to end it.\u201d I started to get frustrated. To the defense of myself, who the fuck am I, coming around so late in the game, to say what I don\u2019t like about Alien Workshop, after I\u2019ve been drunk and on drugs for a decade straight? I get it. There was a bit of \u201cFuck you, Dill. What the fuck?\u201d The thing is that Mike Hill was being forced to make Alien Workshop product for Zumiez and Active and those conglomerate mall stores, and those chain stores will say, \u201cThese new shirts are great, but make me the shirt with just the logo, and do it in red, green and blue, because we\u2019ve done our marketing analysis and those are the colors that sell to 14-17 year olds. If you do those colors, we\u2019ll order 5,000 instead of ordering a couple of hundred.\u201d That was happening every day and it\u2019s still happening now. That\u2019s how it happens, but that does not happen with my company. There were a lot of things that I was not happy with at the Workshop and it didn\u2019t feel like it felt before. Another thing is that Alien Workshop had just gotten bought. We were sold to Burton and then Burton got rid of us. At the end of my time at Alien Workshop, they were housing Alien Workshop in Irvine, California, next to Metal Mulisha and the Berrics gear and O\u2019Neill, because they had been bought by this shitty California conglomerate that just sucks up companies and produces shit out of terrible Irvine. For anyone out there, if your company goes to Irvine, I think that\u2019s the beginning of the end. If you move your company to Irvine, you might as well just pack it up. It\u2019s all done. Or you\u2019re laughing all the way to the bank because you just sold your little company to a huge company.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Yeah.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So Alien Workshop got bought and sold a couple of times. By the time I got out to see you guys in South Dakota, and had all those boards sent out from the Workshop for the kids on the Native American reservation, I was not happy on the Workshop. Then I got to spend that time on the reservation with you and Walt and meet all the kids. I got to meet that lady, Bonnie, who was kind of the grandma to 20 kids that had committed suicide. She told me, \u201cNot all of them are my kids, but they are all my kids.\u201d I said, \u201cI get it.\u201d Being with Walt and you on the reservation, I woke up one morning at 7am, and Walt was like, \u201cWe\u2019re going to Wounded Knee.\u201d When I walked through that cemetery, I just started crying. It wasn\u2019t white guilt, it was just human compassion. I\u2019d read all the books about our history and it\u2019s just really sad. I know Walt would not want me to talk about the negative aspects of going to the rez, so I won\u2019t. It\u2019s just feelings and what comes through. We did a lot of driving and talking and walking around. You guys talked to me a lot and I talked to you guys a lot. I asked you guys a lot of questions and I\u2019ll never forget it. You guys were driving me back to the airport in Denver and it was quite a long drive. We were listening to music and that Link Wray song, \u201cFallin\u2019 Rain\u201d. You were sitting in the front seat and you turned around at one point and said, \u201cI think you\u2019ve got to do your own thing, man.\u201d At first, I was like, \u201cYeah, whatever. I\u2019m not going to do my own thing. I can\u2019t handle that. I\u2019m too nutty.\u201d<\/p>\n

I remember you were saying to me that you and Anthony were not happy at Alien Workshop and you had just come out with that Warhol graphic.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exactly. They would just make too much of it and then they would make Warhol longboards and we were like, \u201cWhoa! What are we doing anymore?!\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought about it and who you are and the attitude you had, and it was just like what happened in the late \u201880s when World Industries came into it. You needed to be like Rocco because you were like, \u201cFuck all this shit!\u201d I was like, \u201cYou should do your own thing.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

At first, I didn\u2019t believe what you were saying.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

DILL ANGLES DOWN A BACKSIDE SMITH GRIND WITH STYLE. PHOTO \u00a9 ACOSTA<\/p>\n

I just saw you wanting to go the way that Rocco went and saying, \u201cFuck all these people!\u201d Then I was thinking to myself, \u201cDill still needs to make a living, and I don\u2019t know if doing his own thing will make him any money.\u201d I didn\u2019t know if I was giving you bad advice, but you were not into the Workshop anymore. It seemed like it was time for you to do your own thing. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Murf, I apologize that I never have given you credit until now, but I think you know with my actions and what I do. I try to do as much as I can for Walt and the kids, and that\u2019s out of gratitude to you and him, and those kids too. I haven\u2019t talked to many people about this. It\u2019s like, \u201cWait. You\u2019re telling me you\u2019re driving down the highway in a truck with Walt Pourier and Jim Murphy, the Alva pro, and Murf is telling you that you should make FA?\u201d No. You didn\u2019t say I should make Fucking Awesome, but you told me I should do my own thing and I looked at you like you were crazy. I never wanted to do my own company because it sounded like the biggest pain in the ass ever.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is the biggest pain in the ass ever, but I love it. I love it like it\u2019s my teenager. It\u2019s like, \u201cI love you and you\u2019re doing great in school and I just want you to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, I watch all your FA stuff come out and I\u2019m like, \u201cHe\u2019s really going for it. That crazy fucker is actually doing it!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah! I learned a lot from the way that Rocco did shit. You have to catch them with the colors and the set up. You have to catch them with things that when you see it, you go, \u201cIs that what I think it is? It is! Holy shit! They did that!\u201d So I knew from that, but, going back one more time, I thank you. I thank you and Walt. Walt was like, \u201cYou know you\u2019ve got to think about this brother.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cYou guys are trying to tell me to make my own company?\u201d<\/p>\n

I told Walt that you were probably going to go broke with our advice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, dude, at the time, it was really funny. I had just spent four days on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in the poorest county in the nation. I got invited by Walt Pourier to come out there and, at the time, you guys were making the illegal skatepark. You guys just renegaded it and did it, so you guys had this bowl and a very rough skeleton of that quarter pipe and the street part. There was a parking block and I loved skating that parking block. It was such a good parking block. Basically, I had a completely spiritual experience while I was there. You can\u2019t be there and talk to everyone without feeling it. When you listen to an elder Indian man laugh, it sounds like the Earth. It really does. I have a lot of problems with white people and, obviously, I\u2019m a white person. Here\u2019s another thing that people don\u2019t know about Native Americans. They didn\u2019t get horses until way later because the horses came with the Spanish. Once they got the horses, what did they do? They became the greatest equestrians of all time. I try to explain this to people. Horses have been around a long time, but can you ride a horse standing on your head while shooting a bow and arrow?<\/p>\n

No.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are other things like the word, \u201cwasichu\u201d. I learned this from a book that Walt gave me. Walt gave me two books that changed my life. Wasichu is the word for white man. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the same word for every tribe, but they all understand it if you say it.<\/p>\n

Well, what it literally translates too is \u2018the person who keeps the best meat for himself\u2019 so they interpret that as meaning white people. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes! In the book, it says, \u2018He takes more than he needs. He keeps the best meat and most of the meat he doesn\u2019t even use.\u2019 That\u2019s brilliant. That\u2019s the thing with reading literature of a translated language. It\u2019s so beautiful. So being out there on the rez, I was catching pretty heavy emotions.<\/p>\n

Well, you were so full of angst and anxiety about your situation. Walt is usually the guy talking for seven hours straight, but this time, you were the guy talking the whole time. [Laughs] It was such a good time because I learned so much about you and I had never met you before. From all that talking, I could tell you had the passion. I was like, \u201cYou have to do your own thing. You\u2019re a grown man now.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

I was no spring chicken. I was like 35.<\/p>\n

You were clean and it was time to do your own thing and go your own path. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Once again, I thank you. I took that whole trip home with me. When I got back on the streets of LA, everything outside my house looked insane. I was like, \u201cWhoa!\u201d When you\u2019re there on the rez, and you eat your first meal at the prairie course, it\u2019s great. Some of the best meals I\u2019ve ever had were at that place and they have great iced tea. So you\u2019re there at the gas station and the park and you\u2019re experiencing society there and then you come back to LA society and you see everything differently. I was like, \u201cWhat am I doing with my life?\u201d When I was on the rez, I met all those kids, like Joe and Leroy and Emily Earring and the little guy, Jake, who was almost doing Mctwists. You guys drove me through Whiteclay and that was before the alcohol ban. What\u2019s it like there now?<\/p>\n

Well, they cleaned up Whiteclay, so there is no alcohol there now. <\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what I thought. To remind the readers, Whiteclay was a town of 12 people and they had two liquor stores and they sold four million cans a year of malt liquor. The numbers were staggering.<\/p>\n

Yeah. They shut Whiteclay down and you can\u2019t buy liquor on the rez, so people started to go to a town 45 minutes away. Now the problem is that more people are getting killed driving there and back. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Whiteclay was interesting because the Indians that just wanted to get fucked up would live there in abandoned houses and just freeze. It was crazy the way that people lived there. So when I was on the rez, Walt put two books in my hand. One of them was a book called Lies My Teacher Told Me. This book is full of so much unfortunate, real history of America. I will be reading it for the rest of my life, and I\u2019ve read the book twice already. There is so much information in it that I\u2019m going to always need to go back to. For instance, Columbus got to Haiti way before he got here. When he was in Haiti, he cut all of their hands off and made them perfectly susceptible to being colonized by the next group coming in. Then there are the terms that you hear, like the Natives are crazy and they\u2019re savages and all that. It\u2019s unfortunate that the word savage gets thrown around so much these days because that\u2019s not a good word for Native American people.<\/p>\n

No. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The reason that they were called that was because pregnant women in Haiti would throw themselves off cliffs. What would drive someone that mad? Well, if you take a pregnant women that already has five kids and you cut her husbands hands off because he won\u2019t bring you gold, you have created this insanity. Let me just say this for all the readers that may not have a soul. I can\u2019t stand for anyone to say, \u201cOh, you\u2019re just talking about white guilt. You think the Indians were all peaceful before the Europeans got here.\u201d No. That\u2019s not what it was like, but these people didn\u2019t waste a speck of dirt. Whatever they consumed, they consumed all parts of it and they were on such a high spiritual plane from the West to the East to the South to Canada. There was a lot of shit going on that was psycho. I just have a real problem with people trying to say, \u201cOh, you thought it was all peaceful.\u201d No, asshole. At the same time, it\u2019s probably the same asshole that has no idea that there have been like 31 movies made about Helen Keller, but no one seems to know that she went on to university and got degrees and ended up protesting the Woodrow Wilson administration. She\u2019s the first woman to ever protest in front of the White House, and she happened to be a woman that couldn\u2019t see or hear or speak. It was amazing. So that book that Walt gave me really woke me up.<\/p>\n

I hear ya. <\/strong><\/p>\n

He gave me Lies My Teacher Told Me, and Black Elk Speaks. Those two books got me. It was heavy and I was thinking about the history of the world and what happened, after the industrial revolution, with race relations and slavery. Woodrow Wilson became president and set back race relations by like a hundred years. There were black Postmaster Generals and then he got in office and took away all these black\u2019s jobs. I was getting freaked out about the history. Within all of that, you had jazz, Miles Davis, Coca-Cola, James Dean, James Brown, Modernists\u2026 It\u2019s like this. The amount of trash that I can make on a day-to-day basis bothers me. I don\u2019t drive a car. I think cars are cool, but I guess I\u2019m not normal when it comes to feeling guilty about just being human. After being out on the rez, I was just coming to a crux of thought about all these different things, and I felt like a wasichu myself. I felt guilty and ungrateful and I just wanted to be back on drugs, but then there was something else. After being on the rez, I had all this new information and existence felt futile. It was like, \u201cWhat is anything when you see how badly people can get treated in your own country?\u201d When I saw the situation those kids were in, I was like, \u201cFuck  anything to do with Ronald Reagan and all that bullshit.\u201d A short time after being out there, your words echoed in my head, \u201cDo your own thing. Grab it by the balls. Go for it. You\u2019re creative. You make shit. Do it.\u201d So one day I woke up and called Anthony and said, \u201cWe have to quit the Workshop and we have to make our own company.\u201d<\/p>\n

What did Anthony say?<\/strong><\/p>\n

He said, \u201cWhere are you? Let\u2019s meet right now.\u201d I told him the plan and I told him, \u201cThere are a lot of things I\u2019m going to do that you are not going to like. I\u2019m going to steal people from other companies and I\u2019m going to make stuff that looks a certain way and I\u2019m not going to budge and I\u2019m going to do things that you will not like. Rule number one in doing this with me is that you can\u2019t get mad at me.\u201d He broke that rule a lot. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

What was his reaction? Was he like, \u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. He knew. We both felt the same way. We both felt like that company was getting soft. Skateboarding is getting soft. It\u2019s all at the mall and we don\u2019t want that. Also there\u2019s the deal of riding for a skateboard company and that being your identification. Who does Tony Hawk ride for? Birdhouse. Eric Dressen is on Santa Cruz. That\u2019s not going to change. The skateboard company they ride for is their identification, and I saw that slipping away from the industry. I thought, \u201cWe\u2019re just going to have a bunch of pros that ride for shoe companies. That\u2019s going to be really stupid and that\u2019s not going to look good. The board companies need to keep it together. The board companies need to be our identification. When I was telling Anthony he couldn\u2019t get mad at me, he was like, \u201cOkay, I get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

JASON LAYS UP A VERTICAL BACKSIDE TAIL SKID WITH A SMOOTH QUARTER PIPE ASSIST. PHOTO \u00a9 ACOSTA<\/p>\n

How did you come up with the company name Fucking Awesome?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, in 2001, I started making my own shirts. At first, it was just called Dill. It\u2019s funny because my partner, Mikey, who invented this stuff on Canal Street in New York when he was 19, was like, \u201cShawn Stussy is set. He\u2019s chilling. He\u2019s rich and he didn\u2019t invent a thing.\u201d Mikey was like, \u201cYou can make your own thing and it could be sick one day and you could have all the money you need and we could have fun like we\u2019re having now forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

So if you establish an image and style like Stussy did, you could make it happen.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. Mikey was totally right. He was like, \u201cYou have a weird name and people will like it.\u201d I remember making the first shirts and then Supreme New York was nice enough to say, \u201cYeah. We\u2019ll carry your stupid shirts.\u201d You could get the shirts at Supreme in New York and then I was like, \u201cI want it to be called Fucking Awesome.\u201d We were in England in a taxi cab and I was like, \u201cWe should make a real actual company and it should be called Fucking Awesome and we should do shocking looking things and reference things that I like.\u201d I learned a lot from watching Supreme make their lines over the years, so I thought that I could do something like that. We started out with stickers and shirts and that went on for a while.<\/p>\n

This was all selling out of Supreme?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. In 2002, when I was doing Fucking Awesome, I asked James Jebbia, \u201cHey, James, will you call Ten in Japan?\u201d Ten was in charge of Supreme Japan, so I asked if James would call Ten for me and ask if he would carry my shirts. James said, \u201cNo, but you most certainly can.\u201d I said, \u201cOh, okay, I get it.\u201d Shortly after that, Alien Workshop said, \u201cYou need to go to Tokyo for this tour.\u201d I was like, \u201cPerfect.\u201d So I put some of my shirts in my backpack and went to the Supreme office in Tokyo and had a meeting with Ten and I pulled the shirts out of my backpack and showed them.<\/p>\n

So you had t-shirts that said Fucking Awesome on them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. The shirts had all these different designs. Some were the logo and some were artwork, and so they put my shirts in Supreme Japan too.<\/p>\n

What is the typical reaction to Fucking Awesome? Is it teenage boys that are like, \u201cOh, sick, Fucking Awesome!\u201d Do chicks go into Supreme with their moms, and are their moms buying it for them? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s weird because now their mom is younger than me, so they come from a new generation. That\u2019s what\u2019s happening now, which is interesting. I just spent a month in Miami because I needed to get away. I run this company and my life is really hectic, but right now everything is mellow. So I went to Miami and, in Miami, nobody skates. No one gives a fuck about you in Miami and I love that. No one is talking to you about politics. In Miami, everyone around you is trying to relax and do their thing. You\u2019re just trying to relax too, so it\u2019s hard to get pissed. This one night I was eating on this street called Washington at this diner. I was sitting outside and this Latin kid comes up and says, \u201cWow, you\u2019re Jason Dill.\u201d I was like, \u201cHey, how ya doing, kid?\u201d The kid was like 18 and he asked if he could get a picture. Over his shoulder, I see this woman coming up and, in my head, I was like, \u201cThis is a hot girl.\u201d The woman walks up and she\u2019s my age and she\u2019s his mom. She was like, \u201cIt\u2019s nice to meet you.\u201d She had no idea who I was, but she was stoked that her son recognized this person. I was like, \u201cMom, I\u2019m a skateboarder that your son recognized.\u201d She was like, \u201cOh, it\u2019s all good. I\u2019m into skateboarding.\u201d It was so interesting to me. This woman was probably younger than me and her son was coming up wanting to take a picture.<\/p>\n

That is crazy. So no one has a problem with a company called Fucking Awesome.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When it comes to the company being called Fucking Awesome, maybe a while ago, there was a bit of resistance, but not anymore. Now with me being older, just recently, when we mail stuff, I don\u2019t want our packages to say Fucking Awesome. It\u2019s on our checks though. It says Fucking Awesome with the logo. With most business stuff, I want it to be under the moniker FA World Entertainment because that\u2019s the way I look at it. I don\u2019t only make this for skateboarders. I make this for the general  public. I make lighters. I make hats. I make ashtrays. I make chairs. I make rugs. Those are products that aren\u2019t only for skateboarders, and I have a real issue with people saying, \u201cAll these people wearing Thrasher t-shirts don\u2019t even skate.\u201d What the fuck do you care? If we were in the movie business and we just made Amityville Horror 4, we\u2019d be stoked if everyone was running around in Amityville Horror 4 t-shirts. If you made the movie Ghostbusters, you were stoked when everyone was running around in Ghostbusters t-shirts.<\/p>\n

In New York City, I see these 17 year old girls in a Panera restaurant and they\u2019re wearing Fucking Awesome hoodies.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You know what? I really appreciate you saying that. To this day, if I\u2019m in a taxicab, and I see someone on the street wearing my shit, I still get that feeling like, \u201cFuck yeah! It\u2019s in the wild. Look at it go.\u201d Now I see it more and more. I make this for those girls. I make it for the dads. I make it for the grandmas. It doesn\u2019t matter to me. I like the product I make and FA is at a big tipping point right now. My phone rings every day and someone is on the phone saying, \u201cHey, FA is doing really good and we were thinking we should collaborate.\u201d I always say no, but the phone is always ringing now. I\u2019m like, \u201cWow. It\u2019s really crazy.\u201d So if you see Rihanna wearing a Fucking Awesome shirt, don\u2019t get mad. It\u2019s Rihanna. She\u2019s a modern pop star, and I love Rihanna.<\/p>\n

Are you at that level where Fucking Awesome is getting into Hollywood at all? <\/strong><\/p>\n

No. I\u2019ve seen photos of Rihanna wearing a Fucking Awesome shirt, but we never send it to anyone. We have a flow team that would blow you away though.<\/p>\n

Who is on your flow team?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matt Mooney in New York City is a kid I\u2019ve known since he was nine years old. There\u2019s another kid in New York that I\u2019ve known since back in the old days. There\u2019s this kid, Lucy, and there\u2019s the girl from Florida that skates, Beatrice Domond. She\u2019s sick. She\u2019s getting better every day and that girl rips. So, no, we don\u2019t send our shit to Hollywood people. On one hand, I get it when people say they don\u2019t want famous people wearing our shit because we want to keep it for us. At the same time, it doesn\u2019t change what I make and what I\u2019m putting out there. If one of those Jenner sisters wears it, I don\u2019t like that, of course.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just hilarious. You see all of them wearing Thrasher shirts and hoodies. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I love that Thrasher is so big right now. It\u2019s funny.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all over New York City.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s all over the world. If we flew to Jakarta right now to go on vacation, we\u2019d see people in Thrasher shirts. It\u2019s everywhere. I was talking to Tony Vitello about that recently. I did a Thrasher thing where I made an FA\/Thrasher thing because every time I turn around I see people take our stuff and make fraudulent FA stuff from it, or they just copy it completely. I was talking to Tony and I was like, \u201cYou are getting the fuck bitten out of you guys. Every time I turn around, some asshole has found a new way to write their name in Thrasher writing. He was like, \u201cDill, it\u2019s getting bad.\u201d I said, \u201cWell, let me make a thing. I want to make a thing.\u201d If you look at the FA\/ Thrasher thing I made, it says Thrasher trash. I made it look like someone had taken our shit and cut it up and fucked with it. We are living in a very interesting consumer age.<\/p>\n

Can you explain how the Thrasher thing got so big? Was it just because of Rihanna wearing it or is it bigger than that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s bigger than that. It started with Palace. I think the triangle Palace logo is what started this. I think people started to wear Palace that didn\u2019t skate. It went from that to Kanye West wearing it and then Kanye started wearing Vans. He started wearing Half Cab\u2019s and Sk8-Hi\u2019s. After that came the Thrasher t-shirts and hoodies. It was girls like Rihanna and whoever else wearing it. Now we\u2019re in the middle of whatever this is. It\u2019s very strange. It\u2019s insane. It\u2019s so crazy what it looks like outside right now. I\u2019m just happy to be part of it.<\/p>\n

Everybody is wearing Vans now too. I get on the subway and everyone is wearing Vans Old Skools.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vans is kicking ass. Vans is most certainly kicking ass. Vans and Adidas are beating everybody up right now. Vans and Adidas are really doing it right. That\u2019s another thing. I\u2019m not opposed to big shoe companies being in skateboarding. In the \u201870s, I would have wanted to ride for the Pepsi team. You want to know why? Because I think the Pepsi team uniforms in the \u201970s were sick. If one of my kids wanted to ride for Mountain Dew right now, I\u2019d be like, \u201cFuck yeah.\u201d I know Mountain Dew is owned by big evil Coca-Cola, but I don\u2019t give a shit. If you want to ride for an energy drink company, I don\u2019t like that because I don\u2019t like the way that looks. I just don\u2019t like the Red Bull and Monster look. I don\u2019t like the way the green M looks, you know? Monster and Red Bull are so 2000.<\/p>\n

What do you think of skateboarding these days when it comes to the Olympics? Do you have a problem with the Olympics in skateboarding?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. If you were to look at my skateboard career, it wasn\u2019t a lot of contests. I did a bunch of contests when I first went pro in the \u201890s, because then you had to do the contests. Now I like watching Street League. I like watching it get to a big level. For me, I just wanted to be in the streets looking a certain way. That was my whole deal. I wanted to be in the streets making video parts. I wanted to be on the cover of Thrasher and I wanted to be in the streets. I got to do that a couple of times, and that was all I wanted. I wanted to do a good shoe deal and be in the streets. I never cared about being on TV or the X Games or any of that crazy shit, but I was glad that it existed. It\u2019s the same thing I feel now. Every one of the kids on my team, whether it\u2019s Sage Elsesser or Sean Pablo or Tyshawn Jones, there\u2019s a certain way that they skateboard that is so naturally beautiful and poetic to me. That\u2019s why they\u2019re on the team. The complete opposite of them is the Olympics. I don\u2019t even know what the Olympics is going to be. Is it going to be like the Vans Park Series? Is it going to look like that?<\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love the park series. I\u2019m just saying I don\u2019t necessarily want to watch the Park Series if it\u2019s athletes from every country and there\u2019s some  jackass that\u2019s not as good as this guy from Hawaii or LA or wherever. I love watching the Vans Park Series. That Cody Lockwood dude is super gnarly.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah. <\/strong><\/p>\n

That little girl, Brighton Zeuner, is great! She\u2019s a huge fan of FA, and she\u2019s going to read this and be super stoked. She won the Women\u2019s bowl contest and she was like 13. I got word that she thinks FA is the best company, so \u201cHi, Brighton!\u201d I showed my old lady, \u201cLook at this little girl skate!\u201d Have you seen that girl, Rayssa Leal, ripping the park with a ballerina uniform on? She looks like a little fairy with wings and a tutu and she\u2019s heel flipping stairs and smithing the rail and lip sliding it.<\/p>\n

Yeah! I saw that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

She\u2019s putting out more footage and I\u2019ve never seen anything like it. We\u2019re getting into a realm now to where you see skaters at Union Square in New York City and at least one of those girls wearing Supreme and Thrasher and Fucking Awesome can tre flip. We\u2019re getting into that territory of the future. It\u2019s no longer the future. It\u2019s here and I love it. I absolutely love where everything is.<\/p>\n

Do you guys do tours? Do you get on the road and go to Europe with the team?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s mainly in America because we come from Alien Workshop where we\u2019d be doing demos at fucked up places in Ohio or Kentucky. If you go on YouTube to our FA World Entertainment channel, you\u2019ll see the videos that we make all consist of traveling. Over the last five years, we\u2019ve made four or five different videos. Hockey is the other company and there is FA. Hockey made its third video and people really like it and it\u2019s all traveling.<\/p>\n

Killer. What is Hockey?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hockey was the answer to this question. \u201cWhat do we do about Donovan and John? They\u2019re still on the Workshop and we can\u2019t just leave them there.\u201d They were young and they felt loyalty and allegiance to us because we brought them into the Workshop. They were like, \u201cYou just brought us here. Why are you leaving?\u201d It\u2019s true. We had just put them on the team, and those two kids have done some astonishing skateboarding. Holy shit! Donovan and John are incredible skateboarders, so I just pulled it out of my back pocket. I was like, \u201cThe name is Hockey and the team is just the two of you.\u201d They were like, \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

[Laughs] That\u2019s hilarious! Where does that name come from? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I really loved that movie Slap Shot with Paul Newman, and it was the influence of those crazy Hanson brothers that were always fighting. When Donovan and John would go to amateur contests, like the Damn Am Arizona, I would see footage of Donny and Donny was a fuckin\u2019 asshole. He would be skating the course and he would power slide and check somebody, and they\u2019d jump off their board. He was like \u201cGet out of my way, bitch!\u201d He was just checking people and being a dick and dropping in on people. I was like, \u201cThis is amazing. They skate like bad kids. They\u2019re skating like hockey players.\u201d John is so big that people were like, \u201cOh shit, get out of his way.\u201d John was like, \u201cI\u2019m coming through. Get out of my way.\u201d To me, it was like, \u201cYou guys look like hockey players and you skate like hockey players.\u201d That\u2019s what made me think of Hockey. Also when you do a company, whatever name you come up with, you gotta be worried that there might be something else out there that might be too close to it. With Alva, it\u2019s the guy\u2019s name. With something like Fucking Awesome, we own that artwork, but no one can really trademark Fucking Awesome. It\u2019s too general. But the art is ours, we own it. It\u2019s our deal and who is going to come along and do that now? Who is going to make a skateboard company called Hockey? [Laughs] No one.<\/p>\n

Exactly. When I saw it, I was perplexed. I was at Walt\u2019s house and he said, \u201cDill just sent me something and it says Hockey on it. For a while, we were like, \u201cWhat is this? I don\u2019t know.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s so funny. You guys had no context, and then this package arrives and it\u2019s Hockey with the FA.<\/p>\n

We were like, \u201cWhat are they smoking over there?\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

It looks like it just came from Play It Again Sports in the package. That\u2019s what I wanted it to look like.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s brilliant. It\u2019s so not skateboarding but then again it is so skateboarding, because it\u2019s that attitude.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hockey is a funny one. I do that company with my friend Benny Maglinao. Benny rules. He\u2019s brilliant. Benny came along and started helping us on the Mine Field video, and that was in 2009. He was a very young man when he got brought on to film for Mine Field for Alien Workshop, and I always knew that Benny was great. When I met Benny, Greg Hunt was like, \u201cHey, Dill, Benny likes Gram Parsons.\u201d I was like, \u201cWhat?! Wow! I don\u2019t know many people that even know who Gram Parsons is.\u201d I said to Benny, \u201cYou like Gram?\u201d All of a sudden, me and him were talking about The Flying Burrito Brothers and all this shit, so we got along really good. I love Benny. He\u2019s great. So I brought Benny on and I was like, \u201cYou\u2019re going to do this company.\u201d He was looking at me like, \u201cWhat? I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cYou\u2019re going to bring me the graphics or I\u2019m going to bring you a graphic and you\u2019re going to draw it, and I\u2019m going to say, \u201cPut this here and put this here.\u201d He was like, \u201cReally?\u201d I said, \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Laughs] You know it fucks with people\u2019s heads when you\u2019re talking to them. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. In the back of my head, I was like, \u201cThis isn\u2019t going to work. I\u2019ve brought all these people into this situation and we\u2019re all going to lose our jobs. This is the dumbest thing I\u2019ve ever thought of, and this is the stupidest name of a company ever.\u201d Then it\u2019s like, \u201cNo. We\u2019re doing great. It\u2019s going to work.\u201d Even with quitting Alien Workshop and making FA, I remember six years ago I was damn near in tears on the phone with my old lady. I was like, \u201cPeople are starting to quit their companies to ride for FA. I can\u2019t do this. What am I doing?\u201d<\/p>\n

Wait. People were actually quitting other companies to ride for you?  <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. I had already quit the Workshop and told everybody, \u201cThis is going to be FA. We\u2019re going to do it.\u201d Then people started quitting the companies they were riding for to ride for FA. The first person we got was Terp. He came with us. Then I started working on Nakel. I was like, \u201cDo you want to ride for FA? You ride for Real and you\u2019ve got to do this.\u201d He was so scared. He didn\u2019t want to quit Real. He was worried. He didn\u2019t want to bum anyone out or get 86ed. Once shit started to unfold, I realized what I had taken on. I was in the back room of my house talking to my old lady in tears like, \u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing. What the fuck did I do? This sucks. I\u2019m going to ruin their lives. This is horrible. How can I do this?\u201d At the time, I was doing the math in my head because I\u2019d only made boards for me and Anthony. It was just our two class photos of us as kids and these two other black boards with the Fucking Awesome letters embossed coming out of the boards that everyone likes to copy now. One thing I love about making skateboards is walking into a skate shop and seeing how hard everyone is trying. I love it. They\u2019re all trying really hard.<\/p>\n

How long did it take for FA to blow up? Was it instant or did it take a few years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think right now this is a tipping point for FA. At first, people I know through work or someone on the street, would come up to me and say, \u201cFA is doing pretty good. This is sick.\u201d Of course, I\u2019d say, \u201cThank you. Thank you. Thank you.\u201d Now it\u2019s like, \u201cDude, FA is doing really fucking good! Holy shit!\u201d<\/p>\n

You didn\u2019t think it was going to do that well, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. I get this a lot in New York or Los Angeles. A kid will come up to me, and by kid I mean anyone from 18 to 30, and he\u2019ll say, \u201cI don\u2019t want a picture. I just want to ask you a couple of questions. Is that okay?\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cSure.\u201d Then they\u2019re like, \u201cI want to make my own brand. How do you do this?\u201d I\u2019ll always answer and then I say, \u201cWhat do you do for a living now?\u201d This kid came up to me three nights ago at a restaurant and, when I asked him that question, he said, \u201cI\u2019m a sushi chef.\u201d I said, \u201cWell, you might want to stay in that business. You might not want to make a clothing company.\u201d He said, \u201cWhy?\u201d I said, \u201cWell, any other art that you might be interested in, you should maybe pursue that because, at the end of the day, I\u2019m just making a bunch of art that I sell on t-shirts. I\u2019m not saying that my art should be in a gallery because everything I make is for sale.\u201d The kid looked at me like I had two heads. He was like, \u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d I was like, \u201cOkay, kid, never mind. Maybe you\u2019ll figure it out down the line. If you want names for your company, look at old movie actors. Take one of their last names and you\u2019ll be alright.\u201d [Laughs] I always try to give some advice to a kid that\u2019s taking the time to come up to me. A lot of times, they\u2019re nervous, and not all these kids skate. Some of these kids have never touched a skateboard. They\u2019ve just seen me in this culture bubble and they know about the brand.<\/p>\n

They want to see how they can make money without having the 9 to 5 job? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. That\u2019s every kid nowadays. They ask, \u201cHow do I make a clothing company that starts out on Instagram and next week I sell it for $10,000,000?\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cThat does not happen.\u201d It\u2019s a really wild unreality that a lot of young people are living in right now. It\u2019s really fucked up. I can\u2019t imagine being young right now. I have never been so happy about being this old, honestly. It\u2019s like, \u201cWhat? Are you kidding me?\u201d You know what\u2019s right around the corner? I was trying to explain this to my mother and this is a good way to wrap up this interview. Right around the corner is this. The other day we were at my brother\u2019s house and my mother is watching TV and I was explaining to them that I was watching a panel of scientists talk about the plausibility that we could be living in a simulated reality. There could have been human life that lived before us that got so deep into design mechanism and had their own technology breakthroughs and they made their own virtual reality and we are a result of it. Now I do not believe this.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a theory.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s people like Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about it. He doesn\u2019t believe it, but he\u2019ll have a two-hour discussion about it on YouTube. My mom is looking at me like I\u2019m crazy and I\u2019m like, \u201cMom, I don\u2019t believe that we live in a simulated reality.\u201d Right when I said that, on the television, there was a brand new commercial for NBA 2k18. It\u2019s a brand new NBA video game. I said, \u201cMom, is that a computer game or is that real?\u201d These video games look so real now it\u2019s insane. My mom goes, \u201cThat looks real to me.\u201d I go, \u201cExactly.\u201d We do not live in a simulation now, but we are coming up on the ability to simulate complete reality. We are   seeing the beginnings of it where people can\u2019t tell the difference on the screen of a video game if it\u2019s real or not. People think it\u2019s sick. The games are bitchin\u2019. Yeah. The games are bitchin\u2019. That\u2019s great, but what we are right around the corner from? You need to look at that it like this. What was the first video game? The first video game I ever saw was two bars and a ball in the middle. It was a screen that was green and black. It was an early version of Pong. Basically, what my mom is seeing on that video game is just the very beginning. Virtual reality is going to suck up humanity to where you can\u2019t tell the difference between what\u2019s real and what\u2019s not. It\u2019s almost like the younger generations, the kids right now living in America, are getting prepped for it. It\u2019s like, we live under a presidency of complete bullshit. Everything is always a lie. It\u2019s a strategy. It\u2019s a strategy of chaos. Confusion causes chaos. Divide and conquer. If you\u2019re a child and you grow up with a president that\u2019s lying every day, when you\u2019re 25, you might live in a completely isolated virtual reality inside of your apartment attached to a screen and having tubes that feed you. [Laughs] I probably sound  insane, but I\u2019ll tell you this. I can\u2019t remember what year it was but I had a TransWorld interview and I was on drugs at the time. It was the worst position I\u2019d ever been in doing an interview. I did a full blown TransWorld spotlight and they interviewed me over the phone when I was in New York City. At the end of the interview, I went off about the NSA and wire tapping and how they\u2019re listening right now. Now it is what it is. Now do I care about that shit? No. I don\u2019t give a fuck if the NSA knows what I\u2019m jerking off to or looking at or seeing. If you\u2019re listening now, take all my info. I don\u2019t care. It   doesn\u2019t matter to me, but I said all that in an old TransWorld interview and everyone thought I was nuts. Then, a couple of years down the line, WikiLeaks came out and proved it. I\u2019m not saying this is some prophecy. This is only from me reading too much, but it\u2019s coming. Virtual reality is going to swallow humanity. I left my mom with this, \u201cWe do not live in a virtual simulated reality right now, but will it matter once you can\u2019t tell the difference?\u201d That\u2019s where life will get weird. If you can\u2019t tell the difference, what does it matter? Have you ever put on one of those VR headsets?<\/p>\n

No. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I put a VR headset on in New York and it was super primitive, but I was under water looking at fish. I was like, \u201cHoly shit. I\u2019m under water.\u201d I didn\u2019t have the full sensation, like my skin wasn\u2019t wet, and I didn\u2019t feel my ears plug in, but all of that is coming. You\u2019re going to be able to sit down with your favorite porn star, perfectly made woman, and eat a whole meal and drink wine and get drunk and do drugs and have sex with her. You can do anything you want with her. It\u2019s all you. You\u2019re making it all happen. There\u2019s no one else involved. It\u2019s all very interesting and it\u2019s all going to happen. If you put your hand in your pocket, everything that you\u2019re touching and feeling is because your synapses are all triggering and sending it back to your brain. You could have a thing that presses those buttons, so instead of your hand going into your pocket, it could be your hand going up a skirt. It\u2019s all synapses. Once again, this is my huge tirade and it comes from earlier where I said I\u2019m glad to be this age. I\u2019ve never felt so good to be older. Yeah. The world is going to get really insane. People think it\u2019s insane now and it\u2019s just going to get more insane.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve both lived a pretty crazy life. We know how to live life and we\u2019ve traveled the world and been underwater and actually looked at real fish. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. We also got to be the last generation that  answered the phone at home and took a note for their mom. Kids don\u2019t do that now. We\u2019re very lucky. I feel very lucky to have been born right before the birth of video games. I got to watch that happen. I got to watch TV talk shows turn into everybody\u2019s version of what they now call the news. The news used to be a thing when we were kids. The news used to come on at six o\u2019clock and you\u2019d watch it and it was just the facts. It was like, \u201cHere is what happened.\u201d That was it. There was no arguing and no one came on and said, \u201cNo, Peggy, that shit didn\u2019t happen.\u201d That shit did happen. Now we live in a 24-hour news feed and no one knows what\u2019s happening. I just feel lucky and I\u2019m sure glad to have done this interview with you, Murf, for Juice.<\/p>\n

Right on, Dill. Thank you for giving me the time. That was fucking awesome, bro. <\/strong><\/p>\n

It was my pleasure. Thank you.<\/p>\n

Congratulations on your success.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you. I so appreciate it.<\/p>\n

FOR THE REST OF THE STORY, GET ISSUE #76 AT THE JUICE SHOP HERE.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first time I met Jason Dill was on a road trip to the Pine Ridge Reservation a few years ago. He was hilarious and serious and, during that 7-hour drive from Denver to South Dakota, I learned a lot about him. Stories about his upbringing, Alien Workshop, NYC and beyond kept me laughing, never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88198,"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":[4027,4028,4041],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-interviews","category-skate-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/jasondill_bssmithgrind_bw_02-copy-copy.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88195","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=88195"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90855,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88195\/revisions\/90855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}