{"id":94804,"date":"2022-01-07T16:29:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T00:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/?p=94804"},"modified":"2023-09-20T16:31:58","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T23:31:58","slug":"aj-nelson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/aj-nelson\/","title":{"rendered":"AJ NELSON"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AJ NELSON INTERVIEW BY JIM MURPHY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DEVILLE NUNES AND PETER FURNEE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born and bred at the gnarly Kokomo Skatepark, AJ Nelson has been comin\u2019 in hot every session. Whether it\u2019s a concrete park, a big vert ramp, a backyard pool, a DIY spot or a jump ramp in a parking lot, AJ sends it with style and aggression with no ego and just pure love for skateboarding. After a pie to the face, christening his A team placement on The Powell Peralta team, AJ is in California making things happen! Be on the look out for this humble hardcore skater from the Midwest with a whole-hearted stamp of approval from the late Jeff Grosso.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MURF: Hey, AJ, I wanted to interview you because I\u2019ve been seeing photos of you skating over the years and, knowing the guys in Kokomo, I heard you were a local there. Were you born and raised in Kokomo?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

AJ: I was born in Kokomo in \u201896. I\u2019m Indiana born and raised. I\u2019m proud to be a Hoosier and represent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was going on in Kokomo when you were growing up? Were you getting into skateboarding?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t start skating until I was 13. Growing up, I was a kid that played every sport imaginable, from football to baseball to wrestling. You name it. I had the biggest yard on my block, so all of these kids would come and play in the yard. My buddy, Jerek Dockery, was a skateboarder and then he got my best friend, Hunter, into it and everyone started skating. I was the last guy to be playing baseball and football. I was like, \u201cI want to hang out with my friends, so I guess I\u2019ll start skateboarding.\u201d Then my mom took me to this place called DK\u2019s Skatepark and I got a complete. It was a tiny little 7.3 Starlite. That was in 2009 and it was on from there. I\u2019ve been a skateboarder ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you started skating street with your friends and then looking for transition to skate after that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. We would skate downtown Kokomo and these little spots that are pretty decrepit now. We have Pipeline, the Grindline park with the elbow full pipe, and I got into skating that when no one skated transition. There was only a handful of us in the whole state that really rode transition. It was pretty street-dominated. I skate street too, but I have more fun on transition. When I was 16 and 17, I\u2019d just go to Pipeline when the sun came up and I\u2019d skate all day until the sun went down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When that park was getting built, did you hang out with the build crew at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No. They built that park in 2005 and the first time I went there was in the summer of 2009. I had this shitty complete that my friend threw together and, as soon as I got to the park, it fell apart. I set it down and the bearings blew out and I lost an axle nut, so I just sat and watched my friends skate. I looked at it and I was like, \u201cFuck. I\u2019m not dropping into that.\u201d Then I took my buddy\u2019s board and started from the bottom and pumped in the deep end and just figured it out. Each time I\u2019d go back, it would get better and not as scary but, when you\u2019re a kid, everything is a thousand feet tall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did you think when you first saw that elbow full pipe?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was like, \u201cHow did they build that?\u201d Everyone\u2019s first question is, \u201cI wonder if anyone has looped it?\u201d That\u2019s still the question going around, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s possible on a skateboard. That park is about 60% sandpaper now and three-inch black pipe coping. It will serve you and you will get smoked on it. It\u2019s got tight trannies and steep walls. It\u2019s one of a kind. They don\u2019t build parks like that anymore, unfortunately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. My friend Merk was the form guy and he built those wooden forms they needed to build that full pipe. That park is a Grindline legend. It\u2019s just amazing because, when I went there, no one was skating it. When you started to ride it, was it so intimidating that people didn\u2019t want to ride it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, it is intimidating. You walk up and go, \u201cWhat the fuck is this thing?\u201d It is kinda far away from downtown, so a lot of kids wouldn\u2019t have rides out there. It\u2019s on the edge of town, next to the park, way off in the distance. There are people that have lived in Kokomo their whole lives and they\u2019re like, \u201cI didn\u2019t know this place was even here.\u201d It\u2019s been there since 2005, but street skating is just more accessible. Kids go right outside their door and are like, \u201cI don\u2019t want to wait and get a ride.\u201d They just want to skate whatever. I get it, but that park is sitting there waiting to be ridden and it\u2019s just a ghost town. Me and a few friends would go skate there when it was nice out and we held it down and took care of it because the city had stopped. I had to bondo holes and cracks and the graffiti was out of control, but whatever. It builds character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a helluva place to start learning to skate. Were you hooked after you learned how to carve and drop in?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. When I figured out how to pump through a corner and carve, I was like, \u201cHoly shit! You can skate the whole park in one run if you understand it.\u201d I\u2019d watch the BMX guys or the older dudes ride and steal notes from them. I did my first little frontside air on the middle bowl flat wall. After that, it was on. I was hooked as soon as I figured out how to ride that park like a bowl instead of just dropping in and mini-ramping everything. When I was 16 and 17, I really started skating it hard and I was up there every day by myself. A couple of friends would go here and there, but they\u2019d just skate flat in the parking lot or watch me eat shit. Most of the time, I would go up there on my own or my mom and dad would drop me off. When I got a car, I\u2019d go up there all day by myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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AJ EGG IN CALI POOL. PHOTO \u00a9 DEVILLE NUNES<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I do stained glass restoration for a living and I go to Kokomo Opalescent Glass in Kokomo, Indiana.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. It\u2019s legendary!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s where people from around the world get their glass. It\u2019s incredible. It\u2019s bizarre because the kind of work that I do is really niche and, when you\u2019re talking about Kokomo, it\u2019s well known. When I heard that you grew up there, I wanted to find out more about the skate scene. When did you start skating with other skaters that could ride on your level that wanted to skate vert and bowls?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was skating Pipeline every day after work and skating street sometimes with a couple of friends, and then my best friend, Hunter, and I went to this birthday party for his little brother at Ollie\u2019s. I had never seen a vert ramp in person and I got up there and I was padless and I didn\u2019t know shit. I thought, \u201cI can drop in on the vert wall at Pipeline and that wall is 12 feet, so I can probably drop in on this.\u201d I skated it and bailed and ran it out. I didn\u2019t know how to skate a vert ramp. No idea. Then I met Peter Furnee and Todd Morrow. They were like, \u201cYou need to get kneepads and skate with us. You look like you know what you\u2019re doing. Where are you from?\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m from Kokomo.\u201d Todd and Peter are from Westfield and I was in Greenwood, which is 45 minutes to an hour and a half away. After that, I got a Pro-Tec Full Cut helmet and some 187 kneepads and I started riding with Peter Furnee and Todd Morrow. They got me into vert and traveling. I\u2019d never really travelled before that. I was just always in Indiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then you learned the art of knee sliding?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. When I got the pads, I went to Pipeline and spent a few hours trying to learn how to knee slide. I would jump off the hip or just bail something and go to my knees. It pitched me to my face a couple of times and ate my shoes up really fast. That was a trick in its own, the knee slide. Once I had learned it, I realized that I could do more stuff. I just had to learn to knee slide first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that you were dropping in on the 12-foot wall at that Kokomo park is gnarly. What was it like the first time you tried dropping in that thing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I met Gradon McFarland there and we\u2019d be the only guys skating. He\u2019s two years younger than me and our parents would drop us off at the same time and he became a really good friend of mine. One day he was like, \u201cHave you dropped in on that before?\u201d I said, \u201cNo.\u201d We both went up there and looked at it and it was definitely a contest between him and I from the get-go. The first time I dropped in I squatted it out. I should have ate shit, but I didn\u2019t somehow and I rode it out. It was probably the scariest thing I had ever done in my life. He followed right behind me and we just kept going and kept pushing each other. I was 16 or 17 when I dropped in on that wall and it\u2019s no joke. Pictures don\u2019t do it justice. You\u2019ve seen it. It\u2019s insane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, I know. Was it a mental game for you just being up there and not knowing how you were going to pull it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. I knew I couldn\u2019t just stand up there forever because I would have freaked myself out. I looked at Gradon and I\u2019m like, \u201cIf he\u2019s gonna do it, I gotta do it.\u201d He said, \u201cYou got it. Just don\u2019t lean back.\u201d I dropped in and somehow I made it. I should have smacked off the floor and I didn\u2019t. Dropping in on that wall is scary because it\u2019s concrete and there is hardly any transition on it and it\u2019s like three feet of vert. It\u2019s so other world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After you made that drop in, did you feel like you had some shit figured out after dealing with that fear?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. It was like unlocking a door. There were all of these other possibilities now. You can go faster and higher. Once I dropped in and started skating the deep end more, I was like, \u201cI can do more things.\u201d There\u2019s more to skateboarding than just mini ramp and street. There\u2019s more substance to skateboarding and you rediscover it in a lot of ways. It\u2019s like finding a new trick or a new thing to hit. When I figured the deep end out, I was hooked immediately. I like going fast and getting broke off is fun. It\u2019s a reality check. I just want to haul ass and get scared. I like that feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n

 \u201cI want to keep learning and progressing the best that I can. If I can get more people skating vert, that\u2019s cool too.\u201d<\/h2>\n\u2013\u00a0AJ NELSON<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What was the evolution from there?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the kneepads, I learned how to go faster. I was carving faster and doing longer grinds and faster grinds. The first invert I learned was after I started getting into skating vert ramps. At first, I didn\u2019t understand inverts. I didn\u2019t even know about that kind of skateboarding. I was just doing what I knew how to do with pads on, just on a bigger scale. I was doing little frontside airs and learning airs over the hips and doing longer grinds. Then I learned how to backside tailslide on the 9-foot at Pipeline. That\u2019s because I had pads on. I remember that day. I just looked at my friend Hunter and I was like, \u201cI\u2019m going to try backside tailslides.\u201d An hour later, I did it. It was just a three-inch little slide, but I took it. The concrete sparked under my wheels and I improved what I could do already on a mini ramp, but just on bigger deep end stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you want a vert ramp to ride too?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. After I met Peter and Todd, I would drive down to Westfield, Indiana, and then I\u2019d drive with Todd to Peter\u2019s. All of the vert ramps around Kokomo were almost three hours away so, I was only able to skate vert once or twice a week, if I\u2008was lucky. Each session, I had to cram. I\u2019d lose tricks since I was only skating once or twice a week, so I was losing stuff and learning stuff. I was like, \u201cI want to learn to skate vert.\u201d Meeting those guys was like another door unlocking and I was learning about vert skateboarding from these guys that had been doing it since I was little. It was just off to the races from there. It was a whole other scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s crazy because vert is so underground. You\u2019ve got to be really dedicated to go through the pain and learn it. Were your parents like, \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the start, my mom has always told me, \u201cAdam, you have one neck and one brain stem.\u201d She\u2019s always supported me but, when I got pads and a helmet, she rested a little bit easier knowing I was kinda protected. My friends didn\u2019t really get it. They were like, \u201cOh, Tony Hawk, yeah, vert.\u201d When you don\u2019t know anything about vert, you just think Tony Hawk obviously. The first few sessions I went to I had never traveled that much and there was only three hours to a session once a week on Wednesdays or Saturdays after work. The first few weeks, I would get so amped up and scared. My mind was racing and I\u2019d be so freaked out that I would throw up before the session. I\u2019d do it so no one would see. To me, it was exciting and brand new. The dedication is real because there are no vert ramps anymore, and half of the session is just getting there. You have to want it and you have to be all in. You can\u2019t half ass it. You gotta be there every session and keep everyone involved. There\u2019s more than just you and a vert ramp. You\u2019ve gotta keep a crew. It\u2019s hard to skate vert by yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThere\u2019s more to skateboarding than just mini ramp and street. There\u2019s more substance to skateboarding and you rediscover it in a lot of ways. It\u2019s like finding a new trick or new thing to hit. I like going fast and getting broke off is fun. It\u2019s a reality check. I just want to haul ass and get scared. I like that feeling.\u201d<\/h2>\n\u2013 AJ NELSON<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. Do you remember when you first figured out how to do a handplant?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first invert I learned was a frontside invert. That came up in a conversation in the car with Todd and Peter because I did a little Miller flip on this wall ride and I posted the clip. They were like, \u201cYou could do a frontside invert.\u201d I was like, \u201cWhat is that?\u201d They said, \u201cIt\u2019s like a Miller flip, but you don\u2019t flip around. You just pull it back in.\u201d We talked about it in the car and then I spent that whole session trying them. I\u2019d go up and fling myself up and I shot out and went upside down. You take that one good fall that throws you off balance because you\u2019re upside down and don\u2019t know how to get to your feet. Then I figured it out. My wrist kinda sat on my hip and I just did this little dinky one on the coping and pulled it in. That was my first invert at Ollie\u2019s ramp. They were like, \u201cGo fast and spot your landing and your hand placement and just go in.\u201d Frontals are weird. My first invert was a frontal and a tiny one, but it was a make, so I\u2019ll take it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frontals are sick. From there, you got the Smith vert down and the flapped over inverts. How did those first flapped over inverts go when you were learning those?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was just building off of doing it each time and going a little bit farther back. I loved seeing photos of Jeff Kendall. He\u2019s an Indiana legend. I looked up to Mike Conroy and he\u2019s got great inverts. Rob Mertz has incredible Smith verts. I love all of the early \u201890s skateboarding. Mike Frazier is another one. I watched Grosso\u2019s Loveletters all the time and the handplant episode was my favorite. I probably watched it a thousand times looking at all of the variations. Peter Furnee loves inverts and he was the first guy that I saw do an invert on vert. He would coach me through it and I\u2019d try them and open them up a little more and twist them a little more. I was building off the last one like, \u201cHow far can I make this one go?\u201d It was a building block game from then on. I watched footage and saw photos and thought of how they got there. I was watching and learning through visuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then you were doing 540s. Learning a 540 is gnarly. What inspired you to want to do those?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I can\u2019t do a backside air or a mute air, but I\u2019ve done 540s, like McTwist mute grab 5s. I can\u2019t even do a backside air. I\u2019m absolutely horrible at them and I\u2019ve landed maybe ten in my whole life. I don\u2019t understand them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MADONNA IN KOKOMO, INDIANA. PHOTO \u00a9 PETER FURNEE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why do you think that is? Why can\u2019t you land a backside air when you\u2019re already doing 540s?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

People say, \u201cThat\u2019s weird. You\u2019re lying.\u201d Every time I learn them, I can\u2019t figure out the motion or I\u2019m all balled up and I\u2019ll snag or my feet come off. When you skate vert once a week, you gotta make those sessions count and make what you can. There would be days where I\u2019d spend the whole session doing backside airs and I couldn\u2019t land one. I couldn\u2019t figure it out and I felt like I didn\u2019t do shit that day. I just bailed for two or three hours straight, so I didn\u2019t care to learn them that bad. Now I wish I had a backside air because it looks so fun. They look like the best feeling thing ever when you do them and you have them laid out right. Paul Zitzer has a great backside air. He\u2019s got one of my favorite backside airs. He does them and I\u2019m like, \u201cThat looks like fun!\u201d I just never took the time to learn them. When I wanted to learn 5\u2019s, I was going to the Florida Vert Series contests and seeing that some of the guys who were placing in the top five could do 5\u2019s. I wanted to push myself and do that too. I showed up to the Horse Ramp in Cincinnati, which is this 13-foot tall 50-foot wide vert ramp. It was me, Peter Furnee and Mike Conroy. Mike coached me through it. Mike said, \u201cI tried them on a 9-foot ramp in Virginia Beach back in the day. I was like, \u201cThat\u2019s fucked.\u201d He was like, \u201cI\u2019m going to show you how to do this.\u201d He threw a few up to show me the motion. I do them on a 50-50 because I can\u2019t do a backside air, so I haul ass on a 50-50 and launch. He was like, \u201cGo up in the air and grab your shin and look under your armpit and tuck.\u201d I did that a few times and then he was like, \u201cOkay, start grabbing your board.\u201d So I did that a few times. When I started getting comfortable, he was like, \u201cNow really pull off the coping.\u201d Then the next one I did I went up and didn\u2019t pull off and smacked my shins on the coping and fell straight to flat and blew my left MCL out. My first day trying 5\u2019s I got completely wrecked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you\u2019re going home from that, were you thinking that you weren\u2019t going to do that again or were you thinking that you were going to make it next time?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first time I was trying them I was with Todd. He was driving me back home and my knee was swollen like a balloon and he was like, \u201cYou can probably do it, but it\u2019s going to need some work.\u201d I just wanted some ice. I was freaking out because I had never had a knee injury before and it felt like a thousand cigarette burns. I was like, \u201cI just want to heal up and go back and do it.\u201d Sure enough, four weeks later, I went back to the ramp and started trying them again. Mike and Peter were there and they started filming it and I threw it down. When I landed it, there was a Journey song playing. I just remember that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIn Europe, skateboarding is treated like how we treat football and basketball here in the States.\u00a0Skateboarding is so big there. Even pedestrians that aren\u2019t skaters look at it like, \u201cWe\u2019re going to go watch some guys skate at a contest!\u201d It would be like, \u201cLet\u2019s go watch the Cubs play!\u201d\u00a0<\/h2>\n\u2013 AJ NELSON<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What song was it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was \u201cSeparate Ways\u201d. I rolled away from it and popped out and I was like, \u201cHoly shit!\u201d It was kind of a shitty one because my hand touched. Peter said, \u201cYou can do it way better.\u201d So I went back up and did one next try. I rolled away clean and popped out and Devo was playing when I landed that one. When I popped out, I remember Mike Conroy saying, \u201cMotherfucker!\u201d Then we went and ate at B-Dubs. I was like, \u201cI\u2019m done for the day. It\u2019s 100 degrees. Let\u2019s get out of here. I\u2019m so glad this is done.\u201d It was a battle for sure, but I\u2019m glad I figured it out. Everything is on Instagram now, so you can\u2019t just say you did it. You have to have proof. All my friends back home were like, \u201cHoly fuck!\u201d When I did that 5, it was like, \u201cI\u2019m serious about this.\u201d I\u2019m pushing myself and I just want to do the next thing. I just want to stoke myself out and I want to stoke my friends out. That\u2019s why I did it. I was like, \u201cI\u2019m going to do this 540.\u201d I did it and it was terrifying, I\u2019ll tell you that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You took a beating to get there too.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. I still am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From there, you\u2019re skating with Furnee, Morrow and Conroy and going to vert ramps around Indiana. During that time, were more people getting involved or was it still just a skeleton crew skating vert? I remember the SuperSessions at that indoor ramp. What was that scene? Where would guys come from to skate?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think I came in on Supersession V or VI. Peter threw it together and it\u2019s not a contest. You just go skate and make friends and alliances. Guys would come from Florida, North Carolina, the Northeast, California and Texas. Dave Allen would come from England. It was a complete melting pot from every corner of the country that would come out and ride. There would be 50 guys on deck sometimes and it was so cool to see. It\u2019s a bummer that place isn\u2019t there anymore, but those memories are forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was an all day vert session going down?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. It was always on Super Bowl Weekend. By the time you\u2019re done skating, you go watch the game. It was just skateboarding all weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Were there any particular sessions or moves that stood out to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember watching my good friend, Jeromy Green, skate and do a crooked cop and twist his body and go gumby and go five or six feet out. There were several dudes from the East Coast that ripped. Derek Krasauskas would come out and Bobby Taylor came out one year. There were so many good skateboarders. Andre, The Giant, from Canada, would come and do a thousand inverts. Jeff Hedges came one year. Alan at Speedlab and all of the East Coasters were so cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cIt was like unlocking a door. There were all of these other possibilities now. You can go faster and higher.\u201d<\/h2>\n\u2013 AJ NELSON<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What was the vibe at Supersessions in comparison to a contest vibe?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, I could care less for contests, but big snake sessions and jams on vert are great. You just get your run in and go and get down. Contests are cool, but I don\u2019t like planning runs. Any contest I join, it\u2019s because my friends are doing it or I get to travel to a new place. I\u2019m going to hit parks or ramps on the way and meet cool new people. If you take contests seriously, it\u2019s good to plan around them. I like to have fun on a skateboard, so I don\u2019t like to make it too serious. I like a jam snake session with a ton of people. That\u2019s fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you go to a contest, are there a lot of people that take it too seriously?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh yeah. There are definitely those guys and they have their place. I get it. They\u2019re probably doing it for sponsors or whatever they want to do. With any kind of activity, there\u2019s always one guy who is like, \u201cI\u2019m going to take the whole cake and you\u2019re not getting a piece!\u201d That\u2019s okay. It\u2019s motivation. It\u2019s like, \u201cWe\u2019re going to snake the shit out of this guy!\u201d We find ham in it, me and my boys. We\u2019re like, \u201cLet\u2019s just snake him and really piss him off.\u201d It\u2019s skateboarding. It\u2019s fun. It\u2019s a fuckin\u2019 toy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. You started off skating by yourself at this gnarly concrete park in Kokomo and now you\u2019re traveling and meeting other people. Did you have any idea that world was out there?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I never thought that I would leave Indiana for skateboarding, let alone anything. It\u2019s one of those towns where you\u2019re going to work at the factory or join the military. It\u2019s not like I had aspirations to be big in skateboarding, but, if you save your money, you can go to a lot of cool places. That\u2019s what I did. I\u2019ve saved some cash and bought a few tickets and filled my tank up a couple of times. It\u2019s always a surprise to see what\u2019s out there. It\u2019s just one thing after another. We\u2019re going here and we\u2019re going there. Next thing you know we were going to Vert Attack in Europe and it blew my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was that like? Was that the first time you left the country?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It absolutely was. I went with Peter Furnee. I told Peter that I wanted to travel and he said, \u201cGet a passport.\u201d I was sitting on a passport for two years and then I got the call from him and he said, \u201cDo you want to go to Vert Attack?\u201d I said, \u201cYeah.\u201d So I saved some cash and got a ticket. We flew from Indiana to Toronto to Copenhagen and hopped on a train and went to Sweden. We were skating the Bryggeriet park and it was complete culture shock for an entire week. It\u2019s almost impossible to describe how I felt. It was the most surreal fun time I\u2019ve ever had on a skateboard. Meeting all these different skateboarders from all corners of the earth was incredible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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LEFT PAGE: NELSON CRAIL. PHOTO \u00a9 DEVILLE NUNES. RIGHT PAGE: AJ FLAPPED EGGPLANT IN SO CAL. PHOTO \u00a9 DEVILLE NUNES<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How would you describe the attitude of European skaters?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Europe, skateboarding is treated like how we treat football and basketball here in the States. Skateboarding is so big there. Even pedestrians that aren\u2019t skateboarders look at it like, \u201cWe\u2019re going to go watch some guys skate at a contest!\u201d It would be like, \u201cLet\u2019s go watch the Cubs play!\u201d They treat skateboarding with such high regard and respect. It\u2019s a way of life there and it shows. The skateboarding is unbelievable with all of the different kinds of skateboarding. The street skaters are gnarly and the vert scene is unreal over there. I met a lot of really cool guys from Russia and Germany and all over Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did they tell you they wanted to come to America and check out the scene here?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh yeah. It was back and forth. The funny thing is that some of those guys speak better English than I do and I\u2019ve lived in America my whole life. We\u2019d trade stories and, even though we speak different languages, we all speak skateboarding. We all understood skateboarding and where places were and what things were. The divide was our language but, when we spoke skateboarding, we understood it. They were like, \u201cI want to come skate the Combi.\u201d Or \u201cI want to go skate Kona.\u201d They wanted to come check out all of these places. I didn\u2019t know a ton about skate spots in Europe, so I\u2019d just listen to them and share my own the best I could. They are no different than we are. They just skate and have a good time. They\u2019re just across the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s so cool. Who else was out there?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I flew over with Peter Furnee and then Bucky Lasek was there and Ben Hatchell showed up and Auby Taylor was there. Rodney Mead was there and he did his run in his kilt. It was all WWE wrestling themed. I wrestled in high school, so I did my last run in my wrestling gear with my headgear on just to play the part. It was a fun weekend and there were a lot of good skateboarders there. Lars Stout, one of the locals there, skates that ramp all of the time. Noah Albrektsson is another one of the locals there. There are so many good skateboarders over there. It\u2019s hard to name them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did Nicky Guerrero show up and skate?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicky Guerrero was there and it was a treat to watch him ride. It was like he wasn\u2019t even trying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s so casual. Besides riding the vert ramp, did you go check out Sweden?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was winter there and it was freezing cold, so we kinda stayed close. We skated the Copenhagen park with the outdoor vert ramp. The Vans outdoor park was there in Malmo for one of the Vans Park Series and we skated that. Other than that, we were on the ramp all week getting in the sessions. It was unreal. I had the time of my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you make some new friends?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Absolutely. We text and DM and FaceTime and stay in touch and it\u2019s been awesome. That\u2019s why vert is so different. I don\u2019t think there is that tight of a camaraderie in other forms of skateboarding like there is in vert skating. It\u2019s great. I love it. To ride vert, you have to be dedicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s right. When I first started seeing you skate, I was like, \u201cWho is this dude?\u201d Didn\u2019t you go to in California in 2018?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. I had planned to live out there and I was there for about a month and it just didn\u2019t work out and I ended up having to come back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you want to go out there and be part of the scene and get in the industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just wanted to do something different. I drive a little hatchback, so I packed it up until I couldn\u2019t see out the back window and I headed west. I stopped and stayed with a friend in Nebraska. The next day I drove to Colorado and stayed with my friend, Austin Skiba, and skated the Rosy bowl and the Arvada park. I hung out there for a few days and checked that out. The next night I stayed in Vegas and that was terrifying. I never want to go back there. It was weird. The next morning I was in Huntington Beach. While I was there, I skated the Vans vert ramp all the time, when it was at headquarters, and I met Grosso and became pretty close with him. He was one of the guys I looked up to. It was great and I met so many people and it did a lot for my confidence, doing something on my own and driving out there on a whim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FOR THE REST OF THE STORY, ORDER ISSUE #78 AT THE JUICE SHOP\u2026<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AJ NELSON INTERVIEW BY JIM MURPHY PHOTOGRAPHY BY DEVILLE NUNES AND PETER FURNEE Born and bred at the gnarly Kokomo Skatepark, AJ Nelson has been comin\u2019 in hot every session. Whether it\u2019s a concrete park, a big vert ramp, a backyard pool, a DIY spot or a jump ramp in a parking lot, AJ sends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94807,"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":[3818,14255,14262,29],"class_list":["post-94804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-interviews","category-skate-2","tag-jim-murphy","tag-juice-magazine","tag-skate","tag-skateboarding"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/AJNelson1-2-copy.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94804","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=94804"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94811,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94804\/revisions\/94811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}