Tag: interview

Some people need no introduction and Stefan is one of those people! But we were lucky and got to sit down with him and his wife Jessica, coincidentally their relationship started when his shoe first dropped so you get both takes on the process today.

Happy 10 years Stefan, we hope for at least 10 more!

First of all, thank you for sitting down with us and doing the interview.

No problem, my pleasure.

So a little context first. Why are we here?

We are here to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of my Nike SB shoe

Do you remember when you first saw the shoe?

Yeah, I even remember when I first saw the drawing of the shoe. I also remember when I got the first samples.

The first time I saw a drawing was at my wife Jessica’s house, it was when we first started dating and that is also probably why I remember it so well. It was fresh love at the same time as a fresh design. I remember it very specifically.

A fun fact is the first samples were, in fact, the way the shoe is now. I got in (the office) and saw the shoe and was like “Oh my god this is great” and I skated it and actually someone reminded me recently and said that I never even gave the samples back or even told them that I liked it.

I skated those first samples for about a year and never gave them back which actually let them know I liked them
(laughs).

The original Janoski as featured in our previous interview with Stefan.
The original Janoski as featured in our previous interview with Stefan.

Jessica, since you were there when he saw the drawing, what did you think of the shoe?

I liked it, the shoe was like a streamlined, classy, nice… clean, timeless type of shoe and I remember he was excited when he saw the drawings.

Timeless might be the best way to describe the shoe. Do you remember the first time you saw other people wearing it?

At first, it was my friends, they started calling me “I keep seeing your shoe everywhere!” it builds up fast and then I started seeing people with my shoe everywhere.

At the time I was living in New York so you are out in the streets a lot. Around the same time, I was out in Barcelona and every single person had them on… it started really snowballing. Every single day when I go out now I see somebody wearing my shoe.

Stefan on the right, his wife Jessica on the left.
Stefan on the right, his wife Jessica on the left.

That must be a special feeling.

I love it. We always see people on the street and say that guy is wearing my shoes and then Jessica will tell him “Hey you got some nice shoes on”. So many times it has happened when someone would come up to me and say “Yo man, nice Janoski’s!” and I would be like “Yeah, you to man!” (laughs).

Back in the day, people would come into my local shop and ask for some Janoski’s and not even know it was a person’s shoe. They just thought Janoski was the name of the model shoe.

I like the way you pronounced my name, the Polish way, proper Polish with a soft J.

Funny segue, I was meaning to ask about your Polish heritage, I remember a 411 around the world where American skaters with Polish heritage toured the country.

Yup! That was in 2001 I think. We went to Poland with Joe Brook & Anthony Claraval, Ed Selego, Kristian Svitak, Mike Ruczyk, Justin Strubing was there but he isn’t Polish he just came with us. Anthony Claraval also isn’t Polish (laughs).

That was one of my first trips to somewhere “different”, it was so long ago that I had a paper plane ticket that I lost and it was actually a really big deal!

I actually met a kid there on the streets who skated and his name was Stefan Janoski and he said to me “You are Stefan Janoski! – I am Stefan Janoski!” and I was like “What, nice to meet you!” (laughs).

 

411vm – Around The World 2

 

You being Polish is a big deal in Poland, they really keep track of which pro’s have Polish heritage.

That’s cool! I would actually like to go back to Poland, it was fun, it was such an experience for me because I was still so young.

How old were you at the time?

22 or 21. We actually went to multiple places, cities like Warsaw and Krakow. To be honest, it was such an experience, the whole thing was very different for me but a lot of fun! Yeah, 411 Around the world 2.

Michal Juras actually gave me that information, as I said the Polish know about heritage.

I actually brought like 10 boards on that trip because I just got sponsored and was like “Whooo, new boards every day!” But I only brought 1 pair of trucks and back then the axles on Indy’s and Ventures would bend.

My axles got bent the first day and there was no way of getting new trucks in Poland. So I rode bent axles the whole time in the end if you would kick my board it would almost boomerang. But I was so young and excited to be there that I didn’t really care, I would still skate those double sets.

Back to the shoe. Over the years there have been many versions of your model. Could you name them all?

Lunarlon, Hyperfeel, Mid-top, Slip-on, Air Max, High Tape, Velcro, Air Max 2, Remastered, Wallabee, crafted, Camo turtle neck thing and Woven. And every time I am amazed that they managed to make a new shoe out of my original Janoski design.

A very custom design of the original Janoski captured on the streets of Paris by Danny Sommerfeld.
A very custom design of the original Janoski captured on the streets of Paris by Danny Sommerfeld.

How involved are you in those adaptations?

Well, they have to show me everything and I have to approve it and lately, there are some really awesome designers working on my shoe. Every time they show me something I am just blown away and I love their ideas.

Every shoe they have been showing me lately has been a return to a classy and serious look for the shoe. I like that because when the shoe got really popular there were a lot of “Mall Colors” so to say. Janoski’s with polka dots and tillies for people who don’t have taste (laughs).

I like the honesty.

But now it is back to the type that you can save and wear ’em a year and still be stoked on the way the shoes look.

It feels like it has been tailored to your own style again.

That is exactly how I feel. It kinda became its own monster in a way, it went away and did this huge successful thing.

Jessica:

It kind off rebelled.

Stefan:

It did. The shoe kind of rebelled against me. Sometimes your kids do that, too. But, you have to support them anyway and be like “Okay, if you want to go to (X) go ahead but…”

(Laughs) You do you!

Which version besides the classic is your favorite at the moment?

I really love the Velcro… Alternative closure I mean, you know Velcro was the name of a company that developed the stuff.

I also love the Slip Ons lately, for skating they are just so good but I do keep going back to the classic ones. Actually, these new ones called the “Wovens” are some of my favorites that they came out with, in a long time. They are just beautiful.

The new remastered versions up on display.
The new remastered versions up on display.

Were you testing those out during this years CPH Open in Berlin?

The all black leather ones? Yeah, those are the coolest. Actually, I wore those so much that I had to leave them outside because they smelt so bad.

Jessica:
He actually tried to bring those smelly things back home after the trip and they were disgusting.

(Laughs)

Stefan:
Yeah, the thing is those stayed good for such a long time, I didn’t want to let them go but I had to. Because they are all leather they didn’t break they just broke in and became better and better.

It is also the type of shoe that you can wear on multiple occasions.

Oh yeah, you could go to a funeral in those or a wedding. Man, people are getting married in my shoes all the time. Someone just told me the other day at Republique “Man, me and my friends all got married in your shoe!” and a couple of my other friends wore them at wedding parties.

#janoskiwedding must be a thing.

Yeah, it is! It is cool because the people still looked dressed up when they are wearing the shoe.
To be honest, that was also one of the main objectives when we made the shoe, we wanted to cancel out the “chill shoe”.

Everyone wore their skate shoes for skating and afterward they would be like “Let’s get these things off!” and they would put on some “chill shoes”. And I was like why does your skate shoe have to be so bad that you have to go to the hotel and change before going out to dinner? That sucks!


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You actually follow that concept yourself as well, I can’t really remember you in any other shoes since the shoe came out. Back in the day some blazers maybe but…

That was before the shoe dropped, actually, since the samples came out 11 years ago I haven’t changed my shoes. I just like my shoe.

Today we are celebrating 10 years of the shoe but actually the shoe you have on now looked the same but it is not the same as the one that came out 10 years ago right?

No, it is not, it got a little souped up.

We didn’t really have to do much, no number 2 shoe or anything because we did it right the first time. We took the time to change little details. Take away some piping, add another stitch, we took away the embroidery and added perforation.

When we first made the shoe I wanted the least amount of everything, materials, the look, the absolute minimal between my foot and my board. With the remastered, we have just taken what we have learned and gotten closer to those ideas.

A sleeker shoe, a slimmer sole and so it is just the same but with minor details changed to improve it.

I actually heard from people that the fit is different, it is a bit better for wider feet.

I wouldn’t have noticed because I have really tiny feet but yeah I heard that is true. Somebody asked me that before and yeah we changed it a bit because that was the number 1 complaint about the shoe.

It might look the same but...
It might look the same but…

The original was tailor-made for your feet so it makes sense.

Yes, that is true and I have narrow fucking feet.

In the skate shop, people would complain about the fit but they would still buy them because they needed to have the shoe.

If you walk in them they mold but it takes a moment. Also, different materials have different fits.

You actually physically hurt a lot of people with your shoe.

(laughs) Yeah, toes, ankles… definitely I actually hurt myself too sometimes.

I guess we kind of turned a corner from the past into the future though with the remastered version. In a way, it is a shoe that made a heavy mark in skating and I can’t imagine the shoe business without the Janoski’s around.

I think that is great.

It is an achievement.

And you know, we didn’t think about using things from other designs, it was just me selfishly wanting a thing that Nike didn’t have at the time and no one predicted it to go like this.

I was surprised when the kids really started wearing it but it is a really good skate shoe not only a good looking shoe.

It even went as far as Shane O’Neill having his name on your pro model shoe.

That was really crazy… that was really cool. Shane is great! One of my favorite skaters and I have known him since he was a little “Nugget” that is what they used to call him.

It is always great to see your friends grow up to become the best skateboarder in the world (laughs).

So with you progressing and growing older in skating what is your role in skateboarding as time goes on?

Personally, for me, it is like you are trying to do it and then you hopefully do it and then the next step is to stay doing it. Many people become pro but not many stay pro for very long so just to still be a pro skater and doing everything is an achievement in itself.

There is not much longevity in skateboarding and there is not a lot of back up plans in skateboarding. People are all in or all out, some people get jobs at a skateboard company or you start a skateboard company but for me, it is still being a skater.

Right now is a fun time for me doing it but also watching the kids doing it and going on trips and to watch them struggle at spots where I already did tricks (laughs).

As far as longevity goes, your shoe is like a classic album. People keep coming back to it. Your generation and even the generation before you seem to have found their place in skating and are able to stay in it longer than most.

Look at Lance Mountain, he is still out there doing it and there are not a lot of his peers involved in skateboarding any more as a pro. Mark Gonzales obviously is the same but there is not a lot without owning or working for a company in skating. And I just want to keep going and see where it goes and right now it is going.

That is a nice goal, thank you for the interview.

2S5O3104_Garage Janoski_C.Chouleur

Photos by: Clement Chouleur
Interview by Roland Hoogwater

If you don’t know Ziggy Schaap by now you might not follow European skateboarding. Over the years he has been a Dutch mainstay, first and foremost as a photographer but now it seems he has found his way through the world of moving images. We have had the pleasure of premiering multiple of his video works in the last 2 years and with his latest video on the horizon, we wanted to ask him some questions.

Images by Ziggy Schaap & Martijn van Velden.
Interview by Roland Hoogwater.

Facetime rings… Ziggy picks up.

Hey man, how are you?
I am good, just came home, slept in Rotterdam, about to start working. Skatedeluxe costumer hotline! If you want you can call me via the Skatedeluxe line (laughs).

(laughs)… Let’s shoot, first question: Why did you make this video?
Why did I make the “No Service” video? Well, basically it was to get people to skate outside of the skateparks. Indoor parks are cool to practice and film for Insta but they do get repetitive and you can’t really make something there film wise.
So this project provided me with something to do during the winter time.

So I started thinking and concluded that there haven’t been many videos that have been filmed completely inside a (multiple) parking garage.

To me skating a parking garage is pretty Dutch. People do it often especially in places where there are no indoor skateparks and it rains a lot over here.

I also thought it would be fun to limit myself to one particular type of thing and the number and sorts of spots a garage provides.

Makes sense, so how many places did you visit during the making of this video?
We went to different cities… I think we started in Den Haag skating with Justin Wagenaar en Sebastiaan Vijverberg around station De Laan van Nieuw Oost-Indië. That day we skated 2 or 3 different locations and that is when I got the idea for the video.

So during the filming, a lot of people heard about the idea and decided to join our sessions.

I think the video is mostly Den Haag because we found a large number of underground garages there but we also went to multiple in Rotterdam, one in Amsterdam which was filled with spots, Utrecht, Leiden where we have the deepest underground garage in Europe, Antwerp, Tilburg & Haarlem.

No service_pascal moelaert_martijn van velden
What was the best spot?
Hard to say probably the whole area where we started in Den Hague because there a multiple spots, it is not a place where people really live, so fewer complaints but it depends on what you like.

The thing is there where “spots” but a lot of the places you can skate are curbs and mannie pads. Which some people can skate great but others don’t really like or can’t. So it depends on the skater.
How did you know which cities to visit? Or did you randomly go to places to check?
The one in Tilburg, for instance, I knew because I had filmed a “day in the life” there back in the day. Bram van Halteren showed me that garage because it was raining and we wanted to show his skating during his DITL.
Inside there is a long near perfect ledge and to top it all of, the police came and said that they liked what we where doing so we could stay and film uninterrupted.

We all knew a couple and as the project went on people like Bastiaan van Zadelhoff went in a couple to check for spots but we also went randomly looking for spots or used Google-Maps. In Haarlem, for instance, we visited a place and afterward, we googled Q-park and sometimes people add foto’s to the google thing and we found some spots that way too.

How long did the whole process take… start to finish?
I think the first clip was filmed at the end of November the start of December. So, a little over 2 months, which is pretty fast for a 12-minute video.

Plus a 6-minute promo.
True, I like that too but in some ways, it is not really a promo because I basically used all of Rob Maatman’s footage in the video so he is not a real presence in the promo. They both have their own vibe.

 

No service_ziggy schaap
What about the vibe of the project, obviously a parking garage is mostly void of sunlight.
Well, it did really take shape during the making of it but the VX camera truly has a different look when you take it inside. The video quality becomes crusty but at the same time that fits the environment because these places were dusty, oily and generally dirty. We often came home with our hands black with all kinds of dirt.

What about the limitations? Was filming on a sunny rooftop allowed?
We discussed that multiple times, the clip is called “No Service” because underground our cellphones would not be working but in fact, we were filming on a garage rooftop where we had 4g and 4 bars of connection. Only Rob really has outside clips but I felt it worked within the video, I did think about taking it out but it ended up feeling right to leave it in.

Is this video your version of Yoan Taillandier’s Minuit, where people start in the night and the last clips end when the sun comes up?
Maybe in some ways, it is, I actually edited some parts inspired by that video. An example is after the first part there is a segment where it shows the guys leaving the garage (3:08) and then we see some rainy shots and that ends with the guys going back inside. I don’t know if people will see that inspiration because it is abstract but it is there.

Now they will (laughs). What about the crew?
I never start anything with a crew in mind, it always seems to grow organically.
I actually never really filmed a project with Rob Maatman and Robbin de Wit before and that is always exciting to film with new people and see what they bring to the table.

What about time, because of the lights there is less of a sensation of time, did you guys get caught up in some real late night sessions?
Well, a lot of the times we went in when it was light and because our cell phones did not really work we often ended up skating together for a way longer time. Obviously, we would still be able to tell time but you don’t really get disturbed by messages as much as you normally would.

no service_jelle maatman_ziggy schaap
In a way, you are more together when you don’t have people looking at their phones.
It did feel like that at times, also you had to be at the meetup-spot on time because you could depend on a quick message or call.

With the amount of fencing and security at some of these places, it was important to know the right way in. Even though we would obviously, drop a pin before going in things were not as usual.

Last year you released “Alles Wisselt”, The End & Memories all three have a concept behind them, this one does as well. Is that a coincidence?
Well… I have too many ideas and often I end up just doing something. “Alles Wisselt” and “No Service” both had a plan behind them but The End & Memories just happened. They are connected but not outspokenly so, for me they have to do with Love. “The End” has that song “Skeeter Davis – The End of The World (1962)” which is about the feeling when someone leaves you. Memories has a Leonard Cohen song which looks back on relationships of the past singing “won’t you let me see your naked body…” but with this video I kind of left that idea for a bit.

Alright, what about the music, this video features only Dutch music.
The first Instagram trailer did not have a Dutch spoken song but even at that stage, I knew I wanted to finish the video with a Herman van Veen song.

So two weeks back we were editing and Bastiaan van Zadelhoff put on some crazy Dutch tunes and proposed only using those type of songs. To be honest, between the rainy days, skating indoors it felt right to use Dutch music with this video, it strengthened it as a whole.
Did you learn anything weird about parking garages during the making of this project?
The Netherlands is known as a flat country but through this project, we found out all our downhills are hidden indoors.

Gx1000 could have happened in the low countries.

Closing question, you had a goal to do something in the winter and stay out of the beaten path (indoor skateparks) but at the end of the project, the sun started shining again. Where there ever times where you reluctantly entered a dark garage when you really wanted to skate outside?
That happened for sure! (laughs). We really had a couple of days where we would have skated outside had it not been for this. People were complaining “it is great weather, do we really need to go inside?” but we all knew we needed a bit more to finish the project so we did stay true. In the end, we really did survive winter the best way possible*.

I believe you, thanks Ziggy!

*Editors note:
Besides flying to a warm country

no service_pascal moelaert_justin wagener

Want more? Check out Ziggy’ full length “Likkie Wax” that we launched together last year.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHPq6-P6tqM

When you get a message asking if you want to interview Miles Silvas about his amazing 5-minute line you obviously say “Yes of course, when can we make it happen?”. But being the nerds that we are, you also ask “What about Colin Kennedy?” because we all know when it comes to documenting skateboarding it takes at least two to tango. So, being the lucky people that we are both Miles and Colin where willing to talk to us so we can all have a look behind the scenes of the /// One Stop video. Enjoy!

Interview by Roland Hoogwater.

Miles Silvas

Nice to meet you, man.

You too, man.

Thanks for making time so early in your day for doing this little talk. That’s really nice of you, so thank you for that.

Yeah, no problem.

So, let’s get to it. Can you tell me where the idea for the “One Stop” video came from?

I first heard about it from Colin Kennedy, he told me he had this idea for this commercial and it sounded a little crazy. He presented it to me and I was pretty hyped, it’s something different. He proposed it to Adidas and they were siked and yeah, it pretty much just went through. Colin was having the idea and then we got started with it.

So how long did it take before you guys got actually got started?

He told me about it, he sent me a mood board/presentation on the idea and then we were out in L.A. trying to do do it in the next couple months, maybe like two or three months or something.

For how many days did you try it?

The whole thing was probably three days. Because we went there and then we had to start around midnight or like later in the night because of the people, the city is always pretty hectic, so the later, the better. The streets get pretty mellow at night. The first night we kinda just mapped it out, where we’re gonna go and how it’s gonna work out and then the next night we started trying. It probably took like two or three nights of trying.

How many tries per night?

A lot of tries (laughs). I mean one of the nights I kinda got over it quick, so it wasn’t too many, but most nights it was pretty much a lot of tries, so when it finally worked out it was a big relief.

I can imagine the feeling you must’ve had when you walked down the stairs, like; “fuck, I did it! It’s over!” Must be quite a relief.

Yeah, finally! (laughs)

How much of the line was planned out?

Most of it was pretty planned out. The first night, we just went across the whole course just pushing, see how fast I needed to go for the filmers to follow me. They were asking me what tricks I wanted to do. The whole thing was pretty mapped out. I knew what I was gonna do in certain places because I had three people following me all the time, there was one filmer, there was one guy riding behind us focussing the camera and then a third guy, in case anyone would hit a rock he needed to get their board back real quick. So yeah, the whole thing was pretty planned out.

What was going on in your head during the line? I mean it’s a 5-minute long line, were you stressed?

The first couple tries were a little weird because it was new, but then once you start trying and trying… It was getting a little stressful but I was just trying to stay calm. I was trying not to think too much about it, or try not to think about how far I’d still have to go. It was pretty stressful, you just think about things that you don’t normally think about, like messing up on flat ground. Usually, you just do the trick and don’t think about it but with the line, I had a lot of distance to go so I was trying to stay pretty mellow and just go trick for trick.

How many times did you get to the last trick and didn’t make it?

I got to the end probably three times. It was pretty dark, we weren’t using any lights, but like the natural city lights. I didn’t really wanna try the trick until I got there because I wanted the pressure to make me try the switch back tail. I got to the end one time and I think I did one of the tricks before a little weird so then when I got to the last ledge I just did a switch back 50-50 and then when I was turning around to go to the subway and I hit a crack and messed up. I was like “Fuck!” so then we just redid it and I was like; “Alright, I’m just gonna do the switch back tail from now on when I get there.” I got there one more time, almost did the switch back tail, and then the third time when I got there I did it and we were done.

So you didn’t do the line multiple times?

No, it was the last night, I tried for super long and everyone was getting pretty tired. It’s kinda hard to notice in the video but when I kickflip over the rail, it was an ongoing battle because we kept on getting kicked out by security. So we didn’t have much more time, and during the make, the security is walking towards the rail. I managed to land it and complete the line. When I was done with the whole thing, it was really late, I walked back and right after we watched it back that whole block of streetlights all shut-off and the city got dark, so it was kinda perfect. The whole city stopped.

It was kind of a do or die.

Yeah, it worked out perfectly, we were all pretty siked that it worked out, ‘cus yeah the city went kinda dead after that.

Did you have one pair of shoes for all the nights? Or did you refresh the shoes every night to make them look as fresh as possible?

I think I switched the shoe maybe twice. The shoe stayed pretty new, I had to keep changing my clothes ‘cus I was wearing a grey shirt, you can immediately see when I start sweating. So I was often changing shirts.

Why this shoe for this campaign? was that something planned out?

Because of the name city cup, in the city… Kind of a thing that’s been in skateboarding for a longer period of time.
Adidas and Colin came up with the idea and they just wanted to bring back that kinda like long lines and like city vibes and stuff. And the shoe kinda has like an old school feel. I think they just wanted to put it back in that kinda situation, have the city cup be in the city, do a long line and kinda just have that cruising kinda feel to the commercial.

Is it something that you would do again? Try long lines like that again? Or was that a one time kind of thing?

I’d be down, I mean if someone else came to me with a cool idea for something to do, then yeah, I’d give it a shot. It was fun, it was something different.

It definitely is something different. As far as the music, did you have any say in that? How did that work?

I only saw the line once when I did it, and then I saw like a raw version of it but I didn’t know what music was gonna go in the background. I just talked to Colin and he was saying he was gonna put something kinda mellow in the background. The first time I saw it since I did it was like yesterday, so it was a little bit of a surprise but it was cool, I liked the music a lot.

The length of the line is longer than most peoples parts are so it’s kinda like you dropped a part in one line.

Yeah, it’s funny.

I guess you could say it shows a different side of your skating, you know? Like your in between tricks. Because you do a lot of single tricks in your parts, this definitely showed a different side.

Yeah, it was cool, I’m definitely glad it worked out and got to create the long line. It was a mission doing it (laughs).

Was there ever a moment where there was something weird happening? Like someone setting the trashcan you’re skating over upright again or something like that?

Nothing too crazy, security would kick us out from the rail spot, they were trying to do laps so we tried to be quick. Or just cars getting in the way or random people, one would hang out sometimes by the trashcan, just little things like that. One time the sprinklers would be on at the gap to ledge so we would have to wait for about an hour for it to dry up. Yeah, just little shitty things, nothing too crazy. Sometimes you’d get to the end of the line and then someones there and you got to restart.

How do you feel about the shoe? Do you like the shoe? Normally I see you in thinner Vulc shoes, this shoe is more a 90’s kinda cup sole shoe, with a Kareem Campbell kinda feel.

I like it a lot actually. I’m a little weird with shoes sometimes, having to film a commercial and not really ever skated the shoe before so I was a little nervous. Nah, it skates super good, I skated it brand new out of the box and it was already broken in. Like super flexible but durable, it felt really good. I like it a lot, and the way it looks, it’s pretty sick. I’m siked on the shoe, it’s cool.

You said you are kinda weird with shoes, what are things that you need in a shoe?

I don’t know, my foot’s kinda narrow, and for some reason a lot of shoes that I wear, my heel slips out of the shoe, and I hate when my foot moves around in the shoe. I just like my foot locked in. Yeah, I don’t know, I try a lot of shoes but these were good right out of the box, at first I was nervous to shoot a commercial or something with a brand new shoe. But the shoe fit my foot really well and it skates super well, so yeah, I was hyped on it.

I understand that every skater seems to permanently be on a quest for the perfect shoe. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.

 

miles_Lifestyle-4_lores

 

Colin Kennedy

Where did the idea for “One Stop” come from?

The idea didn’t come to me all at once. It came together over the last few years, in pieces. As you know, the stretch of Wilshire Boulevard that Miles skates in “One Stop” is home to some pretty legendary L.A. skate spots over the past three decades. The first time I skated that area was probably around 1995 and it has been an area I’ve revisited numerous times over the years.

In the last five years or so, that section of Koreatown became a meetup spot for my friends and I for when we wanted to get a late night skate session in. One day, it dawned on me that instead of skating each of those spots as individual locations, I could potentially string together one long line between them all but it would take a certain type of skateboarder to be able to pull it off.

That’s where Miles came into the equation. Over the past three years, I, along with the rest of the skateboard world, have witnessed Miles’ incredible gift on a skateboard via his video parts. Then, a little over a year ago, I was lucky enough to witness his gift first hand when we shot a series of video pieces for his board sponsor, Numbers. After shooting those pieces with him, I knew he was the perfect person to attempt this project with, not only because of his consistency and skill but also because of his temperament. He didn’t seem to get rattled by anything. On top of all of that, I’m a big fan of the oner/long take so any opportunity where I can incorporate that technique into a project, I try to seize it.

How many people were working on this commercial?

We were a very small crew of only five to nine people depending on the night. Most of the time, it was myself, Marc Ritzema (the DoP), Jacob Perry (1st AC), Danny Garcia (driver), Alan Hannon (helping with various crucial roles), Paul Shier (adidas Skateboarding Team Manager), Eric Anthony (adidas Action Sports Senior Brand Designer), and Zander Taketomo who shot still photos with his assistant, whose name was Austin, I believe.

Did you expect to be filming for four nights?

The entire shoot was five nights with the first night being just a rehearsal/walkthrough. On rehearsal night, everyone was equally excited and nervous. It didn’t feel real yet, meaning there was no pressure because we weren’t trying the line yet. Once we started shooting the following night, it all started to sink in.

At first, I was pretty confident that we’d be able to get the line within the first two nights of shooting and then try to up the ante if we were in the mood on the last two nights. By the end of the first night of shooting, I was still pretty confident that we’d get some version of the line by the end of the second night. When it got to the end of the second night of shooting and we still hadn’t reached the final gap to ledge, I started to realize how difficult this concept was to pull off. I reassured Miles that we still had two nights left of shooting so he didn’t need to put extra pressure on himself.

By the end of the third night of shooting, we still had not completed the line and a sense of tension could be felt but everyone remained optimistic, especially Miles, which was amazing considering what we were asking of him.

How did you secure certain objects like the fallen down trashcan (people picking it up etc)

It’s funny you should mention that because that was literally the only thing we had control over along the route. Alan was hanging out in his car next to the trashcan and whenever Miles would make his trick over the handrail, Paul Shier or one of the other guys at our minivan basecamp would radio ahead to Alan to let him know we were coming. Aside from that one obstacle being looked after, we had to deal with the rest of the headaches of the city as they came at us – pedestrians, homeless people, broken sidewalks, lawn sprinklers, and cars.

What were the major difficulties filming? (How did the filmer get up on to curbs during filming etc?)

In terms of filming the line, there were a number of things that made it tricky. Aside from all of the uncontrollable variables such as pedestrians and cars, there was also a handful of sections along the route where the ground was in terrible shape, one small miscalculation meant we’d have to start all over from the beginning. Thankfully, I fell victim to the cracks in the sidewalk only once, which forced us to start over. I felt terrible for doing that to Miles. There were also a few points where I had to step off of my skateboard while filming and either Marc or Alan would pick up my board and sneak around me to place it back in front of me so I could step back on it and continue to travel with Miles. Lastly, one of the things that made it difficult was shooting the entire line handheld without a fisheye. This meant I had to cradle the camera like a baby against my chest. After a few minutes into the line, my arms and legs would begin to burn.

What was the camera setup for this low light situation, and what made you choose that setup?

I knew we wanted to shoot this entire piece handheld and only use available light. After skating in that section of town numerous times, I knew it’d be possible to produce a clean image in low light with a compact, sturdy camera and some fast lenses to accompany it. My good friend and director of photography on this project, Marc Ritzema, has an Arri Alexa Mini package, which was the perfect camera for this type of shot. We met a couple of days prior to shooting and created the best possible handheld configuration with his camera, including accessories. We also rented some Zeiss Super Speed lenses to help us seek out the correct amount of light without adding too much weight to the camera setup.

Did you record audio via the camera or did you have an audio guy present?

One of the only drawbacks with shooting on the Alexa Mini was the fact that it requires a pre-amp in order to record any sync sound. Even with the additional pre-amp, the control over mixing the audio levels is very limited in-camera, therefore, shooting sound directly into the camera wasn’t a practical solution. We also knew that having a sound mixer on location wouldn’t be effective either so we rigged an external sound recorder to my belt and connected it to a shotgun mic that we attached to the camera. It wasn’t the most elegant solution but it ended up working perfectly.

What’s next for you? A one-take full length / do you think this idea could be expanded?

I’m not sure what’s next for me. I’m kicking around a few ideas. A one-take full length would be amazing but I think everyone involved would suffer a complete mental breakdown in the process. However, I do think it’d be fun to try and continue the “One Stop” concept in other cities that have clusters of skate spots between subway/metro stops. Barcelona, New York, and Paris are a few of the cities that come to mind.

SPECIALTY_Lifestyle-1_loRes 

We first met Romain in Berlin, he was at one of our events. I had known about him via his work first and foremost but also via friends like Hugo Maillard. His work spoke for itself. Fun, exciting, sometimes spontaneous and at other times very planned. A week after we first met we saw each other again, this time in Paris. We spent the day together and afterwards it was clear that we should work together, this interview is the first of many we hope. Romain is a secretive guy. He doesn’t like to spill the beans before the meal is finished but certainly we had have fun talking about all the things he already did finish. Romain is a hard worker so we are sure the things that are off the record today will be out tomorrow.

What have you been up to Romain?

R: First off, I have this English man staying with me.

Who the fuck is that?

C: (Laughs) I am a Welshman, my name is Conor (Charleson). How are you doing? I have been staying with Romain all week.

Nice to meet you, I’m Roland.

R: So, this guy is the apple breaker, he breaks apples all day.

How did that happen?

C: Basically you press the apple really hard…

I understand how you do it, I want to know how you came up with it.

C: I don’t know, I saw someone do it and I wanted to learn how to do it. So when I came to Paris I started doing it all the time (laughs).

R: Do you feel powerful?

C: Yeah, it’s a little incentive for girls out there, you know.

So you are single.

C: Yeah, you wonder why (laughs).

I would not be able to guess (laughs). But let’s get to Romain, the interview is supposed to be about him. What can you tell me about Romain? And don’t start with that “he is a nice guy stuff!”

R: Don’t talk shit, ha.

C: He is a bit of a romantic. He spent a good portion of the night with a rose approaching ladies in a bar.

R: Nobody wants me (laughs).

C: Dropping smooth sounding French lines… He is a romantic, a bit of an old-school romantic.

*****Off The Record*****

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R: Back to the interview, tell me what you want to know.

What is the favorite thing you have ever filmed?

R: I don’t know, that is a tough one.

Alright, I will give you some time to think about that.

C: Tell him about the Giddy series.

 

R: I have a couple of video projects going on at the moment and what doesn’t fit those projects became a series called Giddy. The Giddy’s just need to be fun, that’s it.

So it is basically a way for you to keep your hard drive clean.

R: Yes, but it is also because I think the footage needs to be seen. You filmed the trick because you like the trick. Ah fuck, I can’t answer this question.

Take a sip and think about it.

R: You want me to be drunk and say shit.

C: Why don’t you talk about the shit you don’t like?

R: The one video by Monster, We Are Blood? Ah, I don’t want to talk about it.

Okay. So, you moved to Paris a while ago, how is it?

R: The whole French skate media is here so there’s a bit of competition.

With whom are you in competition?

C: I have noticed that there are a lot of situations where there are multiple filmers at one spot.

R: Yeah, it happens… You want to go film with a group and somebody invites another filmer. If the other filmer is a friend, I don’t mind it. Like Olivier Fanchon or Victor Demonte, I don’t mind. It can be really cool to be together.

I think inviting a second filmer or photographer is kind of not done, it is a faux-pas. I have seen people trying to get the same angle.

R: And who is going to put out the footage? I feel like there is just a lot of skate-media in Paris.

Somebody told me, when you started filming, you did not have a lot of “good” skaters around and that pushed your filming.

R: That is not nice! It’s a compliment, but it is not nice to the skaters.

C: You did that with the VX, you can make a lot of things look nice.

R: Do you know Mickael Germond? I went to his house in Lyon about a month or two ago and he told me: “I don’t really want to film tricks with you because I am working on some projects with other filmers.” I told him: “That is fine, let’s just film some bullshit and if there happen to be some good tricks, I will give them to you for the other projects.” So we had fun and at the end of the week, he told me he was happy he could film “shit” with me and it would still look good. But I don’t like to say that because it feels like I am giving myself props.

Well, Mickael said it.

R: Maybe… I took the compliment but I don’t like being complimented. I don’t like everything I film, there is always room for improvement. You are never perfect.

A perfect segue way back into my first question! What is the favorite trick you filmed?

R: I think of one that stands out, not because of the filming but because of the trick. It was in Sam Partaix’s skate shop video. Greg Dezecot made the video and I helped him. So, for this video, I filmed Sam doing a backside tailslide on a bench in my hometown and it made a really great sound (watch it here, at 5:05). The spot doesn’t look that hard but you can’t really claim anything until you’ve been there. You know, videos are full of lies, the fisheye lies. You can’t really see the speed, you can’t see the cracks. But yeah, I like that footage but I lost it. Later I was making an edit of the stuff that did not make it in my last videos and the hard disk fell and broke. So I lost the footage trying to show the unshown. Maybe Greg still has it.

I think it is funny that you seem to focus on the sound as opposed to the filming.

R: It is not the sound, it is the trick itself! The audio shows that instead of perfectly putting his tail on the bench he chose to do it by force. That is what I like about this footage.

C: Why don’t you chat about your concepts?

R: I always try to have a concept but not all of my edits have one behind it. These days if you want something to stand out you need to have a concept or some really, really good skateboarders. Worldwide guys. I don’t mean that the skaters I am filming with are not good. You know what I mean, the type of skater that can do a fliptrick on flat and the whole internet will go crazy, even if it was badly filmed. Having a concept is fun for me because it makes me think and at the same time if this concept helps to show a skater to more people I think it is good for everyone.

It keeps filming interesting for you.

R: For now but it will probably change after a while and then I will look for the next thing.

Are the Giddy edit’s conceptual in nature?

R: At first when I started the Giddy series I wanted every one of them to have a different theme but in the end, I think they all end up looking almost similar to one another, same style of music same vibe. It is not what I wanted at the start but it happened.

I think Giddy#02 is different, that is my favorite.

R: It is my favorite too, I guess that has to do with the 3d camera I used and it was shot during the winter.

C: I am trying to work here guys! But your conversation is more interesting so it is distracting me.

What are you working on at this hour of the night? (01:00 AM)

C: preparing some lesson, I am a geography teacher. Teenage Londoners, a lot of fun! (laughs)

You can add to the conversation. Do you have an opinion on Romain’s filming?

C: I really like the one with your friends from Nantes, the one you shot in Bordeaux. That one has some really clean skating in it. I can watch that one more than once, actually, I would watch most of them multiple times.

Don’t be too nice to him, I would not watch every edit he did more than once (laughs). Some are better than others.

R: Churb you mean, that was an easy one to make. Except for the animation. We filmed for a week and at the start, I already knew I wanted to have an animation like that. One of the guys he studies fine art and he makes those visuals, visuals that I really like. I told him to create some drawing and I animated them, so the filming part was short but the animation took me a while.

Why was this edit not a Giddy? I remember thinking you were only doing Giddy’s at that point.

R: Why was that edit not a Giddy? Those edits have a different function, they are made up of footage that doesn’t go to a specific project. This was all planned, I wanted to do an edit about them specifically. I do remember telling you that I don’t want to do full lengths but I don’t recall telling you I only wanted to make Giddy’s.

Maybe I just made that up then. So what have you been up to lately?

R: Today we went skating with Victor Demonte and Armand Vaucher who are friends of mine and a couple of other guys. At one moment we lost them, later that day we met up again and they wouldn’t really tell me where they went. So after a while, I found out that they went to those gap to banks and Armand did an impossible in the bank. Twice actually.

C: That is nice, you didn’t get to film it but you did put them on blast a bit in this interview (laughs). You were pretty bummed about that!

R: Not really, I knew they went and filmed something. But when he came back we still filmed some really good tricks, so it is all good.

He did some makeup tricks for you because he felt guilty.

R: It is all good, Victor is a good friend so if it is for his video, I don’t mind. With other filmers, I would be a bit annoyed, yes.

****** off the record******

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C: Maybe you should call this interview off the record because half of it you can’t use (laughs).

R: I am happy to share things with you but I don’t want to say the wrong things.

C: Why don’t you talk about that trip that you have coming up.

R: I don’t know if I can talk about that (laughs). I might go with Vans on a trip to Israel. The idea is to film VX1000 and put that footage directly on Instagram.

So, no longer edit? Just the for the Gram?

R: Well, nowadays when you ask people “Did you see the video?” they say yes but in actuality, they never watch the whole thing or they saw the highlights on Instagram. With Vans, the idea is to do an edit every two days and put it out directly. There will be a longer edit with the biggest tricks included but Instagram is also a big thing on this trip. It is 2017 I feel that this is a normal development, everybody is on Instagram.

C: So what can you talk about on the record? That homeless guy?

R: No I don’t want to talk about him (laughs).

We can do an Instagram compilation about you saying “off the record” and “I can’t talk about that”.

C: Everybody talks shit, all cool skaters talk shit and if they don’t, they are probably boring. Or they do triple flips or something.

What about all those private links you send out?

R: I do an edit every day to show the skaters what they filmed.

C: Every single fucking day!

R: I think if you see your footage in an edit a couple of hours after you did it can make you feel good. Does it feel good?

For some I guess, it can ruin some tricks if you see them too often, you become overly critical. I am interested in knowing what kind of views those private links have though. Some skaters like to send stuff around or show it to others.

R: I can see that some guys show it to all of their friend’s others don’t care at all. Some don’t even watch it. Sometimes I might send the link out to 5 people and the video only has 3 views after two weeks. they don’t care. Other times I send it out to only one guy and the next weekend it has 25 views. Don’t show it to everybody guys!

So back to filming, do you prefer filming long lens or fisheye?

R: Long lens when I am lazy (laughs). No, but it depends obviously. I have more fun filming fisheye. The thing is that not every spot looks good filmed with a fisheye. Anything over 5 stairs looks better long lens. Between 5 stairs and flatground skating, fisheye works best. Banks are hard to film fisheye.

Does it change when you film HD (16:9) instead of VX (4:3)?

R: I did have an HD setup before but it wasn’t optimal so… To be honest, I haven’t filmed with a proper HD setup before but I’m ok with the way it looks when you have the right setup.

The VX breaks often though. How much money do you think you have spent buying those?

R: Let me think…. Maybe around € 2000, I have 7 VX’s at home but most of them have a defect. I got one of those for € 50, but I also bought a mint one for € 500. It depends, usually, I find broken ones and I repair them, that costs less.

C: How did you find a € 50 VX?

R: I found it on the french craigslist, it used to belong to this guy who made documentaries. He chose me out of about a 100 mails because he saw that I was in Paris and he’d rather sell it face to face. So I went to pick it up and we had a talk, he was happy to know that I was really going to use it. Originally he wanted to sell it to me for € 30 but I told him the minimum for me is € 50 (laughs).

You charged yourself more!?

R: Yeah, he was so nice, so I wanted to give him € 50 instead.

Crazy. How did you learn to fix a VX1000?

R: On SkatePerception (R.I.P.). Guillaume Périmony, Alex Pires and I have been going on there for 10 years. Every time we had a problem we would post about it on that forum to get help. At some point, I needed to to fix my camera. It was supposed to be an easy fix but it turned out to be quite the trouble. The forum had a tutorial on to disassemble and reassemble a VX. I asked a friend for help and we opened it together and saved it. Now I do repairs all the time. This week I just swapped my tape deck because it wasn’t working.

So not all the VX’s you have work?

R: No, Some are there just for parts.

Alright, so you really can’t talk about your upcoming projects?

R: No sorry, they haven’t happened yet so I don’t want to jinx them.

Alright. Let’s leave it at this then.

 

Giddy #05 is out now:

Click here for more Giddy’s.

 

Photos by Clément Harpillard

It is raining, Daniel (Pannemann) and myself are standing at the Heidelberger Platz skatepark. Even though the skatepark is covered by a bridge, small streams of water seem to have consciously made their way to almost each and every obstacle.

My phone rings:

Supra’s Marketing & communications manager: “Can you talk to the cab driver and tell him where to drop us off?”

Taxi driver: “Hello, I am at the supermarket now, where should I drop them off?”

Me “On the opposite of the Carwash, I will meet you there to pick them up.”

I walk over, introduce myself, and we start to make our way to the skatepark. Jim tells me he just went to the studio where Iggy Pop recorded his album “The Idiot” together with Bowie. I tell him that after this, the plan is to have lunch at their Berlin hangout spot.

“sick skatepark!” Jim says as we arrive, and it is but it is obvious that he hasn’t seen the small water streams yet. But after some cruising, he somehow manages to find a dry spot and skates that for about 30-minutes. Afterwards, we hail a taxi and we drive over to the famous Paris Bar.

As we walk in all of us are slightly overwhelmed, the waiter guides us to our table and gives us the menu. After we order, we talk for a bit until I notice I am not recording, I ask Jim if it is okay if I start to record our conversation, he agrees and we continue our conversation.

Jim_Greco_UmbrellaDE

 

Do you still play music?

Yeah, I play guitar, make music occasionally. I’m not a musician though but I just have fun with it.

It’s good though, you’ve had a long career and its good to have other outlets as well.

Yeah, painting and filmmaking are two things that I really like too.

I really like the films, I watched them a lot.

Oh, thank you, man.

I think I rewatched them both like 10 times.

Wow.

The first one was a surprise when it came out and then the second one was like “Hey is this going to be a yearly thing?”.

I’m working on some other stuff now.

Are you still making a new one as well?

Yeah well, this next one I make is going to be for Supra it’s going to be based around my new shoe. But I’m writing a film that has very little skating in it it’s like a full-length film, then I’m working on some projects with Jason Lee. We’re going to work on a film together also Jeremy Klein is making a film and I’m going to be skating in that. I am also helping out with the death wish video, putting that together.

How is that going, cause you’re doing your own boards as well, right?

Yeah, Hammer, I do like two drops of boards a year but it is more like an artistic outlet for me. It is a platform to put films and certain boards out when I want to put certain boards out.

So its kind of like creating your own vibe I guess?

Right, it’s not about making a ton of money.

Yeah, I know, otherwise, you’d probably do something.

Yeah, I just love the company and love making short films and putting out silkscreen boards that are made in America.

They are really silk screened right?

Yeah.

Wow, is the one you were skating silk screened?

That one is a Deathwish board but it is silk screened. Yeah, sometimes I silk screen my graphics for Deathwish too. I just like how the skate and they feel, certain graphics I feel need to be silk screened, they look better.

I really like that. It’s like making something that is mass produced more personal.

Exactly. I feel like it’s more alive when it’s silk-screened it’s more real. I feel like it’s a graphic that I grew up skating. That’s how they were put on a board, more than like heat transfer.

Yeah at the same time though it’s like you putting on the graphic. Which means it’s not perfect and you actually worked on your own board.

Yeah, I don’t do them myself. But I make the artwork and brought it to the silk screener than he burns the screens and I order a hundred or a couple hundred, however many I’d like to sell.

Who makes the boards then, besides the silkscreening? I know they are made in the U.S.A which is very rare.

A factory down in Alabama actually and they’re there… actually, I think its South Carolina not Alabama, sorry.

You have your own friends that are not per say the best skaters right now or where ever but putting them next to you or with you, how it really is, it’s quite nice.

As skateboarding becomes more and more professional you see a lot more focus drifting away from being with your friends. I think with you and Jeremy Klein skating together or making a movie with Jason Lee it’s like Skateboarding being preserved.
I don’t know if many young kids know about the history.

Yeah. Now they’ve got youtube to tell them what the history is. Some of us grew up in it, with magazines and our imagination, now they have youtube and Instagram to teach them. It’s a little bit too invasive at times.

Do you tend to look at Instagram a lot?

I do. I look at Instagram every day, I’m not going to lie.

Right, you don’t have to lie (laughter). It’s normal everybody does it, even if you don’t want to you sometimes even go on Instagram.

But if I’m making new films I don’t really watch new videos that are coming out until I’m done with the films.

I know that feeling, it’s a like when we make the magazine we don’t really look at other magazines because sometimes you get the feeling of “this has been done already” and it is an unproductive feeling.

Right, and you want it to be as honest as possible, as honest as possible to your vision, without your vision being altered.
I want to keep it pure to what is my original intention is.

Yeah, that’s true. It is good maybe to stay away for that time then.

For me, that’s what I usually do. This way, if something even has some similarities to something, that’s out, I won’t be deterred from doing it because it’s a hundred percent honest.

That’s the thing, that the most important thing. Being deterred from something even if you’re initial feeling was like I need to do this it can be kind of stupid in a way. Maybe you just stay away from it then and be able to do it. Yeah, I really agree with that.

Jim_Greco_PortraitDE

 

How much influence do your friends have in the movies that you make, like Jeremy Klein for instance, I pretty sure he’s pretty opinionated for instance.

Well, everything that he’s done on a skateboard has influenced me. Just watching him, growing up watching him skate, getting to meet him at a young age skating with him. As far as my movies go I’m the one that makes all the choices and the editing, I compose the shots and do everything and its kind of my vision on how its put together.

I was thinking about the shot when you drag the Bench and I really thought that was amazing because that’s something that normally would have been cut like three times. Everything is set to be like a minute, and the fact that you were just dragging the bench, I think it was super good. It’s the same with movies it cuts out so much “reality” when you actually cut the shot.

People are in a rush sped up the process because they’re in fear of kids having a small attention span now. I want it to go against that. Show that no you can have a movie that doesn’t have to be like seven minutes long with just trick trick trick, time-lapse photography, a quick cut of a homeless person, it’s not about that and there’s a way to do it in a way that you can express your self in a way you want to and show what really goes into things.

Yeah, it’s the same I guess when you show multiple tries also the tries that you don’t make. Or not even only you but also the other people around you like more having a feeling of a session almost. Instead of alright this is a trick were in were out, this is how its been for a long time.

Because it’s not reality-based if you make the trick every time. When I went there to try the 270 to lipslide I told them it doesn’t matter if I make it or not, it is really about what is going to happen here.  In the end, I came close, I probably could have continued to go there and really do it but I don’t even carwhetherer I make it or not.

I think that’s good.

Cause that is the reality of it.

Yeah!

With the dragging of the bench, I wanted to show, that this is not a spot, that was transported here this is really how I skate this spot. It is being dragged by hand down the street in broad daylight in front of all these cars and people and that’s the whole idea behind it.

Yeah, it’s like a good feeling that people can relate with that’s not shown that.

Exactly.

That’s what I think is really good about your films, there’s a sense of time, you need to take some time to be with it. You know when I’m watching it, the scenes they go on and it forces me to stay concentrated. And the music is also quite different to a lot of other skate videos, I guess it is a movie project with skateboarding in it.

Thanks, that was a tough thing to find the music for it, it was tough.

No without you I don’t think I would’ve found the Cocteau Twins, you picked some really amazing songs by them. It was not a band that was on my radar before that.

Thanks, Jeremy introduced me to that band being young and reading interviews of Jeremy Klein talk about this band the Cocteau Twins, and me being influenced by him at a very young age. I bought some CD’s of the Cocteau Twins and I would always listen to them before I even met Jeremy just because I read about it in an interview and then he skated to them in his Birdhouse part, (his Ravers part) he skates to Iceblink Luck from the Heaven or Las Vegas album. Which is the album I chose a song for in The Year 13 film, *Cherry-Coloured Funk.

*Cocteau Twins – Cherry-Coloured Funk

Jim_Greco_ParisBar_Detail

Yeah, that song is amazing!

And then we also used it in The Way Out, Blind Dumb Deaf.

That one is amazing, such a good song to skate to, before that you have another song that more relaxed and then all of the sudden there’s a pretty big session starting, it works.

Yeah, that had a nice flow, that one worked out.

You also used, Se Telefonando*, I think the song is called?

*Mina – Se Telefonando

Yeah, Italian pop music.

Does that have to do with your roots maybe?

Yeah, I got into Mina from watching Martin Scorsese films, Scorsese is great with music I learned about a lot of bands from watching his films!

It is also not that common to have music with other languages in skateboarding there’s a lot of English music, that’s quite cool to have some non-English music. It’s also, well I don’t know how much you think of it, but its also a tool to show people what you are into, to inspire people.

(food arrives. food and sauce talk)

Back to your own skateboards how do you think of the graphics, via painting?

Yeah a lot of them will be ideas that I have in my head, paintings I make for hammers USA.
I worked on a really good new one for Deathwish that depicts the battle to stay clean or get loaded, it kind of shows what’s going on in my head.
You know and there’s a Phone on the bad thought side and a skateboard on the good thoughts side and the good thoughts are bright with light and the bad thoughts are swirling in the background in the darkness, I had a really good artist oil paint the perfect picture of this.

Wow!

Yeah, I have it on my phone, I would show you but my phones dead. But it is a special graphic, one I am really happy about, we worked very hard on it.

That’s good. Do you get excited when you are skating those boards?

Yeah, yeah.

I guess its more exciting than logo boards.

Yeah, and for another one there’s a painting of Miles Davis.

Everyone likes Miles Davis right?

I like Bitches Brew, it’s a really good one.

Yeah, you have to get into it for a bit to feel it but it’s good music to think too.

For me, it is to create, paint, skate. I often like put on random classical music records when I paint too. They are really cheap records from Amoeba, a local record store. When I hear classical music for some reason I can paint, it helps me paint.

What do you paint with? Do you paint with oil?

Oil paints, oil sticks, acrylic.

Do you have a studio or do you do it in your house?

In my house. I have a loft that’s just a rectangular loft it is an open floor with open space.

Wow, probably with good lighting?

Really good lighting.

It’s quite important. That’s nice. I think it’s always pretty important to have the studio or if it is a loft it’s still your studio, to have that quite close to where you live. So when you have the moment and you’re like okay I want to do this you can immediately go do it.

Yeah.

The spots you skate are they close to your house?

Yeah pretty much, a lot of the spots I skate are very close by, within skating distance. The brick transitions are a few blocks from my house, the curbs I skate are around my house, the bench is kinda far from the house, you got to drive its in South. But yeah downtown L.A. is like a big spot, I like to skate the city like a spot. Go and skate from spot to spot.

I noticed that change where you were not skating big spots just going and skating. More like the feeling when you’re cruising I guess, not going to something that has a name.

Yeah, it is more of an accurate picture of what skateboarding is really like. Once again wanting to show that side of it. Introduce a degree of real-time into it, in sections.

It’s nice that it is all around your house. Normally unless you have a certain thing you want to do your not going to go and drive that far, your like okay, you grab your board and have some fun.

Yeah, it’s cool. It’s definitely a blessing to live in L.A. I have all the spots around.

But you didn’t grow up there, right?

I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. Close to New York City, an hour and a half train ride away. Lots of stuff to skate in New Haven.

Do you still go back sometimes?

I do yeah, twice a year. Yeah, fun.

I can imagine its probably quite different I mean, being from the east coast, right?

Yeah, the weathers pretty brutal. It gets pretty cold in the winter and hot in the summer. You get four months of good weather.

Do you miss that sometimes in L.A.? Seasons?

Ahh, I miss it I like fall and spring. So, I can definitely feel when there’s a change in weather between fall and spring, winter and summer. Winters never bad though for me in L.A. summers sometimes can get gnarly.

We were in New York last year in summer and I thought it was pretty intense. So humid and it is pretty…  I don’t know, if L.A. is that smelly but I would say that New York smells, it smells like hot trash!

(laughing) How long were you guys there?

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A week, a little bit more than a week. It was amazing.

Yeah, heading out there on the 17th for a week to film to film Keith, Shredmaster Keith, I’m going to shoot him for is part in the Deathwish video.

Ah ah, he’s on Deathwish. That’s a good pick.

Yeah, I’m want to capture him in his environment. Kinda how he skates New York like a city like a spot a city as a spot.

It is very much possible in New York because we would just run into random things you could just skate. And the city is quite good to cruise I thought it would be harder to roll through but its okay.

Yeah, a lot of fun spots.

And it just looks beautiful.

It does. Yeah. Berlin looks really good, on footage.

Yes, it is, it’s really good. It has not the same vibe but some people say it’s like New York in Europe. A lot of graffiti.

Yeah, the architecture is nice.

It changes a lot, there is a big difference between the West and the East.

Yeah, East is a little more crusty, right?

Yes, but it’s also got the more spots. It is pretty cool you can drive into random sites with fences around and most of the time they won’t bother you. Yeah, you can just find some spot or put some stuff together.

(more food arrives)

So how has the (Supra) tour been so far?

Good.

Was it three cities?

No, four.

How have you liked it so far?

Love it, I love Europe, it is great. I like Berlin a lot and I liked Paris, Brussels was a beautiful city too. A lot of stuff I liked. next year I’ll go to Italy to shoot a thing for my new Supra shoe.

I’ve never been to Italy, I want to go, you’ve probably been before right, to Italy?

One time, to Milan, but I want to go to the south.

Yeah, go to Naples?

Yeah.

Do you know where your roots in Italy stem from?

Naples.

That’s cool, I heard some good stories about the city actually.

Yeah, it’s going to be cool, shooting there.

So are the new shoes going to be dress shoe-inspired?

Yeah, similar to the one I did a while back with Vans. I tried to do this before, like thirteen years ago.

Was it the Escobar maybe?

Yeah exactly, it was my third shoe but the execution was focused more on an athletic last and now we are doing a more dress-shoe oriented last but one that’s athletic enough to work for skateboarding. Just enough. We wanted it pointier. Basically, I just wanted to be able to skate it and hang out in it and not rush to take my shoes off, because I like wearing dress shoes more than anything. I just wish I could skate in them you know.

That’s so hard though.

And I like how dress shoes are lasting. I typically wear loafers but there are too many slip-ons out there right now to do one.

Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s like slip on time somehow right now, it was gone for a moment and it has come back now.

I like skating in like leather because it protects my foot and lasts long. But the first one will be in suede, blue suede. Like Elvis.

What color is the sole?

Blue. Like all blue.

That’s sick. I think its quite cool to have tonal color shoe.

Yeah, I like that.

I’m pretty excited to see it. Have You been trying on some samples and stuff?

I squeezed my foot in a sample (size nine) but I’m an eleven. So I can’t really.

Lucky people who have a size nine foot they can try their own shoe.

I know sample size right.

As far as clothing goes, you don’t have a clothing sponsor any more right?

Nah, nothing out there I’m really hyped on, to be honest. Except for like Levi’s, Levi’s is really cool I wear the Jeans. I’m going to work with Supra on making some clothes, something special.

Special items?

Yeah, special items, they asked me to help out.

I think clothes are pretty important, they are overlooked sometimes, a lot of the skaters look the same.

I love skating in nice clothes.

Me too. It can cause problems sometimes though when you find a new shirt and slam.

Yeah, I know. Anytime I find something like a new shirt I just ruin it right away, like the fastest.

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Are you still shooting on film for the next film?

I shoot on a combination of film and HD.

Do you filter everything through film then?

I chose a different process, I take the HD and make a 35mm negative print of the HD and bring that down and digitize it back in so it exists on film.

Wow, I also saw that Kodak was involved in the last one somehow?

Yeah, they were involved, they were definitely stoked. I talked to them about working together.

I’ve heard they’re a little tough with budget stuff?

They are, it’s odd.

(Jim takes a look around the bar)

I can’t believe that shot of Gazzara. Did you ever see him in Killing of a Chinese Bookie?

No, I’m going to write that down.

John Cassavetes. Did you ever see him in Husbands?

No.

Watch him in Husbands it’s unbelievable. In The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara) he plays a guy that’s recruited by the mob to kill a Chinese bookie to fulfil a debt for gambling and I drew a lot of my influence from John Cassavetes, you can see a lot in Cassavetes, you’ll see a lot of similarities in Cassavetes work.

I’m going to go away from this with a whole list of movies and songs. That’s cool. I like the fact that you’ve seen a lot and know the names. It makes a difference.

Yeah man, its good to have those influences and hopefully I expose other people to them and I they can draw the same influence from it.

I’m definitely going to check it out for sure.

I’ll be in L.A. fucking going to bed waking up and going skating. Waking up and picking up my car. I’m getting my car painted right now.

You are getting your car painted.

Yes, because the paint job was so bad for so many years and it had a dent from somebody hitting it. So when I was leaving for this trip I priced how much it was going to do for paint job and bodywork, and it was going to be ten days so I was like I’ll just drop the car off the day before and when the trip is over I’ll go to sleep when I go home, wake up and take a cab down there and pick my car up. And it will look like a brand new car.

That’s smart. What color are you getting?

The original color, it’s like a blue, it’s like a blue like that (light blue). It was in The Way Out, I don’t know if you’ve seen the film. Its the car I drive. Its a 78 Cadillac, Deville, two doors. It’s beautiful, so nice.

What color Porsche would you get if you could get one?

A Porsche?

Yeah.

A brown one or navy blue.

A brown one. That’s nice, a brown colored car you don’t see that often.

No, I saw one in L.A that I like. Brown with a tan leather interior.

Would you get a new one or a classic one?

A brand new one. I like the Rolls Royce too. Wish I had a brand new one.

Did you ever drive a Rolls?

No, but I see them and they look really cool.

 

Supra’s Marketing & Communications Manager: Guys I just paid, we need to go or we are going to be late to our signing.

Ok, I think we got it anyway let’s go to the signing. Thanks for the time Jim! 

Scan 100

Text & interview by Roland Hoogwater

Photos by Daniel Pannemann

Polaroid by Jim Greco shot during his time in Berlin.

 

Happily, I received an invitation to beautiful Paris to join the launch party of the Hélas X adidas collaboration and even to meet one of my favorite skateboarders for a little chat. Not far from the more than well-known Place de la Republique I met Lucas Puig and his Hélas fellows Stéphen Khou and Clem Brunel at a nice restaurant in a smaller side street. After I had introduced myself to everyone and ordered some food and something to drink, Lucas and I took seat in a quieter part of the restaurant.

Interview & photos by Paul Röhrs

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Hey, Lucas! First of all I have to admit that it is really an honor for me to meet you. Somewhere I might still have a poster from a Fourstar demo in Berlin years ago with your autograph on. So, I always have been a big fan and still am!

Oh, crazy! I’m appreciating man! Thanks!

Well then, let’s start with the basics! How are you?

I’m really good man! I can’t complain. I’m finally able to skate again, we have this collab with Hélas and adidas and yeah, I am happy to be here right now.

Nice to hear that! Since your knee is healing and getting better each and every day let’s briefly talk about this accident. What did actually happen?

Yeah sure! Well, I tore my same ACL already for the second time. So, I got the typical ACL surgery again and had to go through a lot of physical treatments for months.

I know from a friend that it can get complicated if you tear your ACL more than once.

Yeah, I mean as you see with a good surgery and rehab two times is still repairable, but I think I should try not to fuck with it for a third time. (Laughs)

How did it happen? Usually the worst things happen doing the easiest tricks.

Exactly man, I just tried to ollie a couch for a cool looking picture for my instagram. I put the couch in front of a little bump. Then I tried to ollie it once and I was like “man, this is harder then I thought”. So, I went a little faster and then my back foot got stock and I quite uncontrolled landed only on my front leg with all my weight on it and then it just snapped. So yeah, you always get hurt on the stupidest moments. So, watch out! Shit like this happens when you don’t really pay attention to what you do because you think it’s easy, you know.

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When you were injured you, of course, weren’t able to skate, which is as everyone can imagine a very tough time. But, on your instagram it seemed like you were using your time out for some new activities. For example, you started surfing. Could one say, that there also is something positive about having the chance to step back from skating for a little while?

You know, when you are skateboarding all the time, the other life that exists around you is just paused. For example, I lost my driver license and actually needed it back again, but I just haven’t had the time to do so. When I hurt my knee, I was kind of forced to take this break that I also needed to finally do my paperwork and all the annoying “regular life” stuff. And when I was done with everything, I just needed to do something cool, you know!? Since I couldn’t skate I was like “man, what can I do to just be outside?” So I started fishing and stuff to be outside with my friends, instead of playing PlayStation all day.

How are your feelings about that Cliché is out of business now?

When I first got the news I was shocked man. I couldn’t believe it.

So, it was surprising for you, too?

Yeah, I mean for everybody! It wasn’t like they planned to shut down the company they just had to. So yeah, it was really sad and it took some time for me to realize it. You know, we all grew up together. I have been riding for Cliché since I was thirteen. I even had my first skate trip with them.

Yeah, and I mean you have been super loyal like you never even thought about taking the next better offer and switching to another board brand.

Yeah, since we all became really good friends it didn’t felt like business at all, and thus I always felt being at the right place even if there sometimes have been also tough moments. Now I think these 15 years have been the best time of my life, and although it is really hard to move on I am more than happy to have shared all these great experiences with them. So, I try to see it that way, you know.

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Switch Fs Slappy Noseslide 270 – Place de la Republique

How does the new chapter of your life is going to look like? I can imagine that you already got plenty of offers on your desk right now. Will we see you being introduced on a new team soon or are you probably planning to start your own company like you already did with Hélas as a clothing brand?

No, I’m not going to start an own brand because Hélas is already enough of work. I already got some new offers on which I’m super stoked on, you know. I’m just going to take my time to do the right decision and then let’s write a new chapter and hopefully go for another 15 years!

Sounds good to me! Well, talking about Hélas, tell me about how this collaboration with adidas came about. Who had the idea first?

Well, of course, riding for adidas was the main reason that brought us the idea. We are always thinking about new collabs and this time it just took a couple emails and both sides were like “fuck yeah, let’s do it!” So, my friend started to work on some graphics and also adidas had some ideas and then we brought everything togther. Boom! Tennis style! I think this theme is fitting for both companies pretty well, too.

Do you have any other companies in mind you would like to collaborate with?

Yeah, for sure! There are a lot of stylish companies out there. But for now we are happy to have this one with adidas. So, we will be focusing on this one and maybe do a second one and then we’ll see what happens then.

Before Supreme collaborated with Lacoste, I always thought this would be cool with Hélas.

Yeah man, when we started Hélas and still were this little company we were like “Yeah, one day we will be working with Lacoste and shit like that!” (Laughs) It was our dream, you know. But now, Supreme already did it and I really like it. Who knows, maybe one day we will have a big collabo like this as well. But for now, as I said, I can’t be any happier. Adidas is big for us, you know, it’s insane!

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Skating-wise, what is the next thing coming up for you?

We are going to work on some new Hélas edits for sure! And when I find a new board sponsor there will be something released for an introducing. I guess, it might not be a full video part but still something to look forward to for sure! You know, at first I just want be able to skate 100 percent and then I can focus on something proper.

You are already doing good on your instagram man! It’s incredible to see you skate like this as if nothing ever happened!

(Laughs) Yeah, but you know, it’s just instagram. There is no stress, it’s okay when I go slow and skate little curbs and shit like this.

Yeah, but still you keep it really creative!

Well, I guess I had too much time to think about new tricks! (Laughs) I always try to go forward and progress, you know.

Last but not least, what’s your latest French rap thing you became a fan of?

Kekra just released a new album and it’s really banging!

I even heard some rumors that we might see him tonight as secret act for the Hélas X adidas party?

(Laughs) Yeah, he might come! I don’t really know. (Blinks one eye)

So, you have some connection with each other?

Well, we start to have some, yeah!

Then I am curious for tonight! Thank you very much for your time and see you at the party!

You are welcome! See you later!

I have the feeling that I stumble over the name Sarah Meurle quite often lately. Besides her skating and photography it seems to be her open-minded personality that causes people’s attention worldwide. Recently, she even got interviewed by the Dooonuts Mag, which is, if I’m correct, a magazine from Seoul, South Korea. The reason we like to share this interview with you is first and foremost that we appreciate her work a lot and secondly we like you to read it as a preview for her little contribution in our upcoming print issue as well. Shout out to Dooonuts, too! Read the full interview here (English version included).

Thumbnail by Sofie K Austlid

Photos below by Sarah Meurle

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“ANTR’S MIX” is a video by Tom Weimar, which he’s been working on since summer ’16. Watch the video below and read about the process of making it in this interview with Tom.

Can you quickly introduce yourself?

I’m Tom, 23 years young and I’m filming skateboarding in the Rhein-Main area for about ten years. Right now I live in Darmstadt with a fellow student and my cousin, on the 9th floor of a pink apartment block, and study the master’s program “Medienentwicklung” in my first semester.

How did you come up with the name “ANTR’S MIX” for the video?

It’s because of the soundtrack. I asked my friend ANTR, who is part of Leipzig’s female DJ collective “Girlz Edit”, if I could use her “T a l e s” mix for the video. For me personally, it’s very important to support your creative friends. And music is a fundamental part of skate videos. If I don’t really like the soundtrack, the skating can be as good as possible, I won’t like the video in the end.

Who did you film for the project?

Only people who I enjoy skating with. But it’s not even about just having a good skate session, you know? I want to spend my time with these guys, have good conversations. This is why most of the people in the video are really good friends of mine. Frankfurt’s Bonkers Crew with Kert and Tim Thomas, as well as Arno, the legend from Wiesbaden (laughs). A real underdog who is always hyped about rough spots, sketchy tricks, and fast pushing. Then again, people I don’t know too well just joined the sesh and ended up getting some footy as well.

Okay, you already kinda gave the answer for my next question but: There are so many different skaters in the video. From skating handrails to just pushing on the street. So is it the most important thing for you to support the homies?

Yes, absolutely! It has always been important for me to have an egalitarian approach to my videos. Not just to film one because of status or sponsors. Everyone can join the session and film tricks!

How long have you been filming for “ANTR’S MIX”?

We filmed for one year, well, one summer actually. But I never filmed with the thoughts of doing a “big montage”. I was just taking my camera with me to see what happens in the end.

How much time you spent editing?

That’s funny. In December I went to Leon Rudolph’s “U Already Know” Premiere in Kassel and after that night I was sick for a whole week (laughs). But at the same time, I was motivated to create something, so I edited the video in two days. Instead of uploading it to my Youtube Channel directly I asked my friend Marius(Znüri) from Klubsoft to collaborate and add some artwork.

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VX1000 forever?

Well, haha, I really thought about this question a lot in 2016. My VX got fucked more and more, but a HVX is just too much for me. It’s too big, too heavy… So I really thought about just switching to my mobile phone and focusing on weird Instagram clips (laughs). Luckily my friends convinced me to get a new VX, so I got one for my birthday and, yeah, I will keep going!

So you’re not going to have the Instagram Account of the Year in 2017?

Sure, I could try real hard to become an Internet celebrity. But I don’t think so (laughs). No seriously, I really found out that when you are out skating with the VX you explore so much more spots all around the city than you do when you just film with your phone. One time I read in a skateboarding magazine that Wiesbaden had no street spots, which is completely bullshit. You can truly skate every corner in the city. Look at Arno (laughs). And carrying the VX kinda pushes me to do that.

Did you travel somewhere to go film or was it Frankfurt only?

Wait let me think… No, I had so much other stuff to do working for my bachelor’s degree and giving skate workshops for refugees every weekend, that’s why I couldn’t do big journeys. I went to Erfurt for some days, but well… Most of the footy is filmed in the Frankfurt Rhein-Main area. Hauptsache Hauptwache!

Any last words?

Yeah, I would like to thank you (Paul Herrmann) and the whole Place Crew for this interview. It was a pleasure! In addition, a huge thank you to every skater who doesn’t stay in the skatepark, Martin from Bonkers for supporting all they guys and the scene here in Frankfurt. I think it’s this support that makes someone like Tim go hard like he did last year, skating Hauptwache full speed for hours while others already opened their second or third beer… I Can’t wait for next summer!

Photo’s and interview by Paul Herrmann.

It almost feels like the whole year the echo of the adidas Away Days video did not fall completely silent. Now as it finally went online on youtube also the remaining small group of people that might not have seen it yet (if there are still any) have the chance to watch it. We talked with Patrick Zentgraf about how he together with his friends Kai Hillebrand and Sandro Trovato got the honor to play a small part in such a big project and what it meant to him personally.

Interview by Roland Hoogwater
Photos by Danny Sommerfeld

How did it happen that you and three of your German Adidas teammates got tricks in the Away Days video?

About a half a year ago Torsten Frank got a message from the people over at Adidas, the idea was that Kai (Hillebrand), Sandro (Trovato) and me would all film one trick for the Away Days video.

Do you know why did they choose you guys?

Some of the american guys over at Adidas had heard about us and I guess they liked what they saw.
Basically we often skate, tour and chill together so they wanted to catch that vibe by including us in his part. On the other hand it could be that it is because of Adidas’s German roots and they needed some Germans to show that (laughs)

Do you know in what part of the video you will be in?

Well as I said we all skate together so our tricks will be in Lem Villemin’s part, not to fill the timeline but to show the kind of flavour we have together. It is not just a trick though we also landed in Lem’s intro, you see us pushing through downtown Frankfurt together. Lem really liked the idea as well so we started filming some tricks and along the way Torsten would comment on our trick and as the video progressed he basically started to give us more of an idea what kind of tricks would fit well with Lem’s footage.

So what direction did Torsten give you?

Go tech (laughs).

I heard that you also met some of the higher ups.

Yeah! I met some of the higher ups at Adidas we talked for a bit and they told me you get what you deserve if you put the work in so to then be given such a golden opportunity is something I wanted to give my all for.

So did this opportunity change your attitude and motivate you?

I am just really thankful to have this chance and I feel really good about being able to have a trick in a major video but at the same time I don’t think my expectations changed, I mean it would be nice to turn am but in the end I’ll just take it as it comes and keep it moving.

Alright keep it moving then!

https://youtu.be/SOsrt_TSIxA?t=32m39s

How does it feel to be so well connected that you can go to any location in the world and be at home? That might be a bit hyperbolical, but I feel like whenever I go somewhere, Sara is just right around the corner, and always surrounded by her friends and family. I would say that there is no one in our whole community, which is skateboarding, with a “family” as big and even a surname (Parson-Texas) as widespread as Sara. Sara has a big heart and is always sporting a smile on her face; once you’ve met her, it is impossible to forget her charisma. I talked to a few people from the industry to see if anyone has ever profiled her in an interview or article, and it seems like that we have all been slacking off, guys. I mean all of you. We went over to hang out where Sara lives, and she told us that she hadn’t left the house for three days. This is not an interview but a documentary about a afternoon at the Parson-Texas building. Here is the first feature with Sara. Enjoy.

As Henrik and I entered the apartment, Sara and her sister Moonia (not actually blood related) are using an old slideshow projector to look at photos of Sara’s dad and uncle following a nomadic tribe through an Asian desert about 30 years ago. We sat down on the couch in the living room to join in on the wonderful story. Sara told me that her dad had an exhibition in Paris with the photos, and that they had “mad sponsors” for their trip. Some of their images actually looked like scenery shots out of a Wes Anderson movie– I was quite impressed and immediately understood where Sara’s zest for action comes from. While my eyes were scanning through the living room, they stopped at a bottle with an inlaid snake inside. I didn’t even really question why, but I was caught, and I walked toward the corner where the snake was sitting in the bottle. “Oh yeah – the snake! That thing came out of nowhere. We actually just bought it because it was on sale. Unfortunately it died a few weeks later, because of a cold.” In that moment, I realized that I had yet to turn on the voice recorder to document our afternoon.

We were listening to a playlist of French and German female new wave, post punk just as I started to record our conversation:

by Daniel Pannemann
Photos: Biemer

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(Sara is talking about the preparation for the next Shitfootmongoland) “… and I think if we would print the whole conversation, that we have had with Irvine for year and a half it would be worth a book… we really have fun doing it. It’s a good thing for everyone! We all go crazy for like a good two weeks. Working our asses off. But it is totally worth it.”

When do you start working on it?

Yeah, I mean… we already started, kind of. There is always shit to do. There is going to be a mini ramp this year and they’ve already started making plans et cetera. There is more space this year, and they have a new garden as well, so we are trying to get more people to show stuff, more exhibitions and shows. It’s going to be cool! They are also building a new wall inside the gallery, so there is more space to hang things. We are also trying to get Richard “French” Sayer involved in the whole project, he just had a show in Sydney I believe. He’s so sick!

How is it working with Pascal? (Owner of Urban Spree)

I feel like it took a while until it finally clicked and we had to get used to everything as well, but now it’s like easy, I’m just asking like “Oh, hey can we do this and that?” And he’s just like “…of course, no worries.” He’s very hooked on street art. And usually those people can be a little weird. But Pascal is cool, haha!

That’s exactly the Pascal I know. What do you mean with street art?

I don’t know, I kind of hate the people that do street art. They can be so weird. But it’s more like the scene. I have a lot of friends doing street art actually and they are cool and they don’t give a shit. But there are some people who are really into it and they are the worst people. I had an American friend over from Oceanside, he was doing a show with Lucas Beaufort. And he was invited to this street art festival at Teufelsberg in Berlin and so we went together. We came there and literally 80% of the people were the biggest assholes! I was seriously so shocked. I can’t even really explain myself. Maybe it’s because they are between contemporary art and urban whatever-bullshit-weird-stuff, haha. But they all think that they are the shit. People are not really nice. But, yeah… fuck it! Urban Spree is going to be nice! I hope a lot of people will come!

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I think you guys proved your point now. People will give you more and more credit, because you survived and you are still going. And that usually takes a lot of time!

Yeah, there are lots of new brands coming as well. And people that tried to come last year are coming for sure this time. Because last year everything was very last-minute. They didn’t really have that much time to decide. People had their doubts about how it’s going to be and know they could make a picture of the whole scenery. It became such a big thing, though. It was a good shit show, haha.

How is the relationship with BRIGHT?

Yeah, I mean it’s cool. Of course, because Julian Dykmans, our friend, is working with them. And at first we met up to decide whether or not to come together and work in conjunction. But it think we have a different approach and work ethic. We are totally different anyway, and that is cool. But that’s the thing. It is not a competition at all! I heard people starting to call it “the anti BRIGHT” and shit. And that never ever came from us! But, if you wanna call it that, I mean you can do whatever you like. We call it Shitfootmongoland! Haha.

How the hell did you get that name actually?

Alex came up with that. He said something between the lines of “ah, that shitfootmongoland blabla…” Let’s just leave it like that. And for a few months we just called it like that for fun. But then there was a point at which I started the whole artwork for the events and I was like “…ok, guys! How the fuck do should we call it now? What is the name?” And nobody came up with a name! Haha. We had no idea. And then at some point we just thought about actually calling it Shitfootmongoland – we had no idea, like what the fuck!? Haha. Skate-fair bullshit Berlin!? – No way. And this is how it came out – pretty stupid. And now people just call it Shitfoot, that’s good. Haha!

As we were talking, we wandered around the room and found her work space, which is the definition of an organized mess. We took down some curtains to take a few photos.

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Henrik: Can you switch the seats, Daniel and Sara?

Yeah of course, is this better?

Henrik: This is where you work?

Yeah, I mean for now I’m working in the living room because of friend is living in the studio. There is so much stuff laying around. In my room as well, there is so much shit!

Where do you store all your photos?

Ehm, there are a couple of boxes here, and some are in my bedroom. Let me see, I can bring them all over… I have a lot of them printed already, in this small French format. Which looks so cool! Almost like a Polaroid or something. It’s this weird size that makes it look cool I think. I’m looking at a table of at least a thousand photographs and a couple of unopened boxes with probably the same amount.

These are all yours?

Yeah, and there is more. For sure! Actually it’s cheaper to let them have developed in Paris. I always try to bring a lot of films back to Paris, whenever I go and bring back some copies.
The format is nice, it makes you want to keep them! Everyone goes to this one camera store to develop their shit, even for big exhibitions. It’s so much better and super cheap!

I thought everything is more expensive in Paris, right!?

Yeah, usually it is but for that kind of thing it’s cheaper! Here, in Germany, if you get your film developed they all look like they have been in your backpack for at least a decade and as if you took the shots on a school trip. They have this look, you know! Even if you go to that one funny one, which smells like dog inside, I think it’s called Foto Braun. It’s actually not that nice, compared to the one in Paris.I was going through a lot of copies, and she didn’t mind. She said that it’s a mess anyway. The Photographs show a lot of portraits of her friends, in between a shooting for KREW in London, in Helsinki, in Paris, in New York, in the French countryside at a wedding. Looking at all of the images you can, over and over again that Sara knows a lot of people, and more importantly, that people enjoy being around her. She has an eye for a good moment and the fundamental intuition to capture it. In between Sara’s images of friends and family, you will find Evan Smith, Marius Syvanen & Wes Kremer, who for Sara are also family. I stopped browsing the images when I came across a photograph of a castle.
From the back Moonia screems: “This is Chateau de Parson-Texas!” (laughs)

It’s going to be hard to only pick a few shoots for this article, Sara.

I don’t know, but there is more, haha. There is a lot of different stuff.

While we were talking about photography, Moonia started to prepare a few things to tattoo Johannes Schirrmeister (The Guy with the BS Smith in our David Hockney article).

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Moonia: Sara has her own way of organization. You think it’s a mess, but it actually all makes sense. That one time she went away, and she left all her stuff in my room. So, I decided to just clean it all up, try to organize it and everything. But then, when she came back, she got super angry because she couldn’t find shit! I totally destroyed her organization.

Sara shows me her very first films. 

Look at that, this is Paris in ’95! And this is me. (laughs)

This could be today actually!

Yeah, because it’s Paris. I still know all of them. This one guy you see there, he ‘s in Jail. But we still have contact. He’s got his Facebook account, an iPhone and everything. He’s actually doing fine I think, haha.

Usually I find it very uncomfortable to go through another person’s stuff, but with Sara it seems to be cool. She doesn’t care and she seemed to be hyped to show me her life. The doorbell rang and it was the postman.

There was a time, when our house was just full of boxes. Since we live on the first floor and no one seems to open their door, we get all the packages for this building and the one next to ours. From each and every floor. He knows that there is always someone here, so he just drops all the boxes off at our door. The worst time is Christmas, man. I think you can imagine, haha. But the guy is cool, it was ok for us. We got the space! That’s a good way to get to know to your neighbors, haha. We know them all now! We always have company!

Talking about company, I think this is probably the most important thing for the whole Parson-Texas movement. Spreading positive energy and keeping friends and family close.
We had a few more conversations until Johannes came to the door to get inked. We all went through tattoo books to get inspiration from artists of the 1950’s. For me it was a pretty crazy afternoon, but I kind of got the feeling that for Sara, it was just another casual day.

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Do you remember your first roommate? The one-of-a-kind mess he could leave behind? The mess that only one person could bring into this world? This is the portrait of your roommate. The tomato sauce on the dishes, the coffee stains on the kitchen table: All of this is a unique expression of someone’s past presence.

The same goes for a photo, for example. I explained it a lot of people like this. Look at a Danny Sommerfeld photograph. There are plenty of shots in this issue. Very often, besides dogs, old people, and bananas, you see Danny himself in the shots, although he’s not physically present in the photos. He brings the moment to life in his own way of capturing it.

A portrait doesn’t have to be a mug shot or a full body shot. It can be a lot of things. You can take a portrait of a landscape as well as of a war, or of a situation or even one of love.
We gave this issue as much personality as possible while keeping ot dreamy and abstract. This issue is about each and every character in our world that we find interesting enough to feature, allowing the subjects the space they deserve to shine.

For our “One From Five” article, we asked five photographers if they could send in one photo. The only allowance was the world of a “portrait” as a guideline. The first reaction from all of them was, “yeah, of course. That’s easy.” Five days later it turned out to be the most difficult task ever. “Only one shot?” they came back asking. “Yup, just one!” We responded.
You’ll find the result in the pages of this issue. For the longest time I wanted to print an interview without a single word in it. Just because most of the time the skater is not able to catch up with his body language. A good photo can be ruined by only a couple of words. Here’s Dane Brady from Portland/Oregon, with the first interview, with both question and answer captured in just the photograph, minus the typical skater chitchat. That’s all you need, if you bring as much to the table as Mr. Brady does. Same goes for Jerry Hsu, Sara Parson Texas, Giorgi Armani or K-Rod & Jon, a piece that even has a romantic twist to it.

All of these people are easy to draw because they have such a strong character. Give it a try: Draw your person of choice, in your eyes, buoyant with character, and you will know what I mean.
The guy featured on this issue’s cover might be new to you, but for us his visual presence had a big impact on this issue. Almost like a muse, he appears throughout this issue. For us, he’s pretty easy to draw. Get the point?
Alright guys, get your pens out and we all hope you will enjoy this issue. Thank you!

by Daniel Pannemann
Photos: Matt Price

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Emile Laurent

 

While making this issue, we made a list of possible articles. Each one of these articles needed to be a portrait of some sort. So when Manuel Schenck asked us if we wanted to interview Kevin, we wanted it to be a portrait of a special bond, a portrait of a friendship, and that is where Jon’s story comes in. Most of you have probably heard the name Kevin Rodrigues before, but some of you may have yet to come across the name Jon Monie, unless you are french, of course.

Before we traveled to Paris to work on the Parisian issue, we did not know that much about Jon. We started to hear his name mentioned here and there, but not much more. Eventually, while in Paris, we ended up meeting him one night at Chéz Justine, where he works. We started talking and he ended up telling us a couple of stories about young Kevin. Jon basically saw Kevin grow up (on a skateboard.) They both skated for the same skate shop (Nozbone) and they became friends, a friendship that lasts to this day. The original idea was to show the history behind their friendship, but instead, Jon, Kevin and Manuel Schenck (the interviewer) sat down and created something totally different and unexpected. We don’t really know what to say about it, so we will just let one of our favorite artists speak for us:

“Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity” – Marcel Duchamp

To summarize: we feel strongly about this portrait but in the end it is you, the spectator and reader, who ultimately completes the portrait.

Intro: Roland Hoogwater
Interview & Photos by Manuel Schenck

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How did you guys meet each other?

Love begins with the glare of a soul who expected nothing and ends with the disappointment of an ego that demands everything.

Jon, what did you teach Kev?

Where there is a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.

So you gave him some advice?

Expect much from yourself and little from others and you will avoid incurring resentments.

You both differ in age right?

There are days, months, endless years when it happens nothing. There are minutes and seconds that contain a whole world.

What are you doing right now, Jon?

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

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Jon Monie – Wallie (April 8th 2010) Photo: Jean Feil

Do you see each other a lot?

In nature, everything always has a reason. If you understand why, you do not need experience.

You work in a bar, Jon. Is it not difficult to not drink too much?

Any obstacle strengthens the determination. He who has set a goal does not change.

You see Jon quite often at the bar, right Kev?

You have to become the man you are. Do what only you can do. Become who you are, be the master and sculptor of yourself.

Kev, you skated for 5boro before you started skating for Polar. How was that change?

Our youth love luxury, have bad manners, mock authority and have no respect for age. In this age, children are tyrants.

Do you still see the guys from 5Boro?

Experience shows that those who have never trusted anyone will ever be disappointed.

How is the Polar family doing?

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but whether we rise every time we fall.

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Kevin Rodrigues – Wallie FS Grab (December 27th 2015)

Are you working on some new projects?

Diseases that come from the wickedness of a woman’s heart are: disobedience without modesty, anger, backbiting, jealousy and a low intelligence.

You skate for Supreme now. Did that change anything for you concretely?

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Back in the day you visited New York together, how was that experience?

We can beat his opponent through love and not hate. Hatred is the most subtle form of violence. Hate injures the hater, not the hated.

What happened with your Instagram account Kev? Are you or are you not in the game?

Others say the secret is treachery, others say it is her foolishness.

What are you doing when you’re not skating, Kev?

I object to violence because when it appears to produce the good, the good that results is only temporary, while the wrong product is permanent.

What do you want to do in the future?

The madman who is chasing the pleasures of life and is disappointed; the wise man avoids evil.

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Kev, what would you like to say to Jon?

We do not yet understand life, how could we understand death?

And you Jon, what would you like to say to Kev?

May everyone have a chance to find precisely the way of life that enables him to realize his maximum happiness.

Give me your last words.

Jon – A man should never be ashamed to admit that he is wrong; for in making this confession, he proves that he is wiser today than yesterday. What do you think?

Kev – It is no coincidence; everything is a trial, a punishment, a reward, or a foresight.

Thanks you two. If I may I would like to conclude this interview with a phrase that sums up the whole.

“Stupidity has only two ways of being: It is silent or it speaks. Silent stupidity is bearable. ”

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As I was waiting in front of the HVW8 Gallery in Berlin to meet Jerry Hsu for the first time in my life, I again went over the notes I had written on a rumpled piece of paper. I knew I had to ask the right questions in order to get a deeper impression of who Jerry is and how his mind functions. It began to rain and I had to take cover inside of the gallery, where some of Jerry’s expressive photos had already been hung up on the white walls, while others still were packed in boxes. While looking around, I felt like the whole room was filled with love, while also charged with related but at the same time totally opposite feelings of sadness, and even hints of quiet pain. On one side of the gallery, an adorable naked girl was portrayed sitting in a tub, while on the other side, a man on a lonely street was captured throwing away a fresh bunch of flowers into a trash can while walking by. Somehow Jerry seems to have an eye for quiet and mundane scenes that, on a closer inspection, depict a much deeper theme than what might appear at first glance.

As it turned out, the photography already told me much about Jerry’s character. He is a friendly and calm type of person who was once described by Marc Johnson as “cool breeze”. What was struck me was the way in which he he answered my questions with focus, self-reflection, and consideration. I had initially planned to do an interview that would focus mostly on Jerry’s photography, but as soon as I touched upon the topic of skateboarding, the conversation was guided by Jerry’s excitement in this direction as well.

When we were done with the interview, Danny shot some portraits of Jerry with what seemed like an ancient Polaroid camera. Both photographers naturally started to do some kind of nerd-talk about all sorts of cameras, after which we embarked on a little walk through Berlin, following Jerry as he tried to shoot something with Danny’s Polaroid that we could use for this article. Unfortunately, the camera died after the first shot, but seeing how carefully Jerry scans his environment and searches for motives in order to capture an image was a one-of-a-kind experience.

Interview by Paul Röhrs
Photos by Danny Sommerfeld

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Having seen former exhibitions of yours, like “A Table For One,” in which you depict people eating alone, can you describe what your current exhibition, called “A Love Like Mine Is Hard To Find” is concerned with?

This exhibition is sort of a mixture of both my old and new photography, as it is a mixture of my street photography and the kind of the more intimate, sentimental portraits that I do like of my wife, friends and other people. You know, I tried to give the whole thing a certain mood, which is a more sentimental one. I would say it is kind of like a diary, which depicts just my daily life. But furthermore, I wanted to give it a feeling. So it is kind of somber and also kind of a little bit humorous, too, which both I feel like are themes that are in my photos a lot and I just wanted to do a broad sort of exhibition about those things.

If you don’t mind, I would like to get more into detail with this. Tell me some more about the work process. What I am especially interested in is how you decide the moment when you feel like you are finished? You know, because in my imagination, it is really difficult to find a point at which to end a project like this.

Well, for this kind of project I did not shoot anything new specifically for it. So all the photos already existed and I looked at a large selection and tried to find a story in the photos. I kind of looked at the space and just tried to fill it up with just the right amount, you know, like not too much and not too little. So the process of this show is more like in the theme, finding the photos the work well together to send the message that I want to send. So that is how it works as far as like taking the photos, which of course is a totally different process.

So the message is a really personal one?

Yeah, it is like about my love or my obsession with my environment or all the things around me and I tried to interpret those things in a way that hopefully will make sense.

Would you say photography changed the way you perceive the world around you, or did you always have the same way of looking at things and now you just take photos of it/them?

Yeah, I think the photographs are just a manifestation of how I see the world. But let’s say photography has also made me more aware of my environment and it made me more thoughtful about the potential of small things. You know, I try to photograph this a lot, things that are small or settled but that have a life of their own.

What does a situation need in order for you to hit the shutter release on your camera? What inspires you?

I don’t really know! (Laughs) It is funny because I just really try to work on instinct. So a lot of it is just guesswork. Sometimes from a hundred photos that I take there is probably only one that is something I really like. I would say it is a combination of luck, anticipation and hope. I just sort of look around and I kind of know what I like. But sometimes it ends up shit or stupid. (Laughs) You never know what’s going to work so you just have to try a lot and figure it out later. So editing is very important, too, in all forms of art. Not everything you do is going to be good. So you also have to be able to choose what is good. You know what I mean?

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Since we always present a concept within every print issue, this one is going to be concerned with the different techniques of how to portray the character of a person. We thought about the idea that in photography, when someone shoots a picture of a scene or even another person, the photographer his or herself is also transmitting his or her own character across into the photo. Would you say this is right? Do you sometimes see your own character within a picture you have taken?

I hope so! (Laughs) Well, I think that that is sort of objective. You know, you always want to create a story or a feeling when you make work like this and usually as a photographer that’s you because it is about you and what you are putting into all this stuff. So one of the most important parts of making art is being able to, well, not inject but sprinkle yourself in. But be settled because you don’t want to be too heavy handed. You know, just sort of gently put yourself into the work. Yeah, that is definitely important to me. So, I have to really stare at stuff and really think about whether it might work for me or not.

Do you think someone has to be born with certain innate talents or character traits in order to be a good photographer, or is it something that can be achieved through practice?

I think a little bit has to do with what you are born with but most of it is just decisions you make in your life. You know, because for me I was more interested in art and stuff when I was very young, probably when I was in grade school. And then becoming a skateboarder you are exposed to so many different types of people, artists, photographers and, you know, just this whole world every skateboarder understands. I think it is mostly about the path you go on in life. I think everyone has a lot of potential but it just depends on their choices in life and in what direction they want to go. I mean for me I just really went for it, you know. I just really experimented and found out that this is something I really enjoyed. So it is less about genetics but more about temperament and personality. I know a lot of people that are great, have great eyes but they don’t want to put themselves out there like that, which is fine, too.

So you mean that the circumstances formed your profession as well as the people you met along the way?

Yeah, I mean you can meet one person in your life and that totally can change your whole perspective about anything, art or work or like whatever, you know.

So you met the right guys and made the right decisions in life?

Yeah, I think so! (Laughs)

Could you name some people that have influenced you in doing what you do today?

Yeah, just from being a skateboarder you naturally meet a lot of photographers and they taught me how to use cameras and they showed me other photographers and so on. I would say, for example, that people like Ed Tempelton were very influential just because he was a skater who also was very interested in and also made a lot of art and photography that then again was interesting to me. So he really inspired me to keep going and moreover to explore that part of my life. He also taught me that my life does not have to be just skateboarding and that I can do so much more with it.

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With exhibitions like this one, you kind of changed your status from being a professional skateboarder to being known as a photographer. How did this change of profession come about, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of being a photographer over being a skateboarder?

Well, I would actually say that I still see myself as a professional skateboarder more than a photographer actually. There definitely were times in my life where skateboarding has been less important, but as this particular time it is very important to me. I am filming for a new video and so I am very focused on it. Although, being a photographer is very important to me, too, skateboarding is definitely right now taking a priority. But I don’t really know how much longer that will last because, you know, I am just getting tired. I just can’t really skate on that level that much longer I think, although it would be nice. Becoming a photographer was also a dream of mine, and I am very lucky and fortunate today to even get the opportunity to dip my toes into the water. You know what I mean? I would not have considered myself to be a professional photographer, but rather say that I am just a guy who takes photos and is lucky enough to do stuff like this.

What are you currently filming for?

Oh, I am filming for a new Emerica video. It is kind of a smaller one and it will be done this fall. It’s me, Spanky, Andrew Reynolds, Brian Herman and Figgy. So that’s what I’ve been working on for a couple of years. It has been really awesome but at the same time really hard. It is funny, because for a long time I kind of wasn’t really interested in skateboarding anymore. I just kind of fell off and I think I needed to do that. You know? And when they asked me like if I want to be in this video I was like “yeah, let’s try it!” That actually kind of reinvigorated me. You know, it was so cool because I just felt like a kid again watching skate videos, trying to find spots and making lists of tricks. It was great, you know, like skating was new to me again. It was my rebirth! So I am really happy about this project because it gave me back something I had lost for a while.

Is it also motivating for you that it might be one of, or probably even the last, part?

That is hard to say, but this part has been really hard to do because I want to skate on a certain level but my body just can’t do what it used to do. So I would say that this might be kind of the last part that is on a certain level of skating. You know, I might film for more parts but I am not sure if I could do this again because this one has been pretty tough and I am still working pretty hard for it. But at the same time, I don’t know, let’s assume next year someone were to be like “Oh, we want you to film another video part.” I don’t know if I want to just be like “Sorry, I can’t do this no more because I can’t do what I did before.” However, I guess it would be kind of nice in any profession to stop when you are at your best. But at the same time it is hard to notice when you once you have reached this point.

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When I happened to be in Copenhagen for the CPH Open, I met up with Marius Syvanen in a small Danish pub. Marius is one of those type of people you can already tell from their outer appearance that they have traveled the world and have seen quite a lot. He seems to live an enjoyable life far off the stressed and hectic world, which has given him a very carefree and humble character. As soon as we had been done with the interview, he drank down the rest of his beer, took his board and skated the curbs in front of the pub as if there would be no better place to skate in the whole world.

Interview & photos by Paul Röhrs

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First of all, tell me about your roots. I read you originate from Helsinki?

Yeah, just a bit outside from Helsinki. My parents and me moved to the States when I was about five. I still have the rest of my family in Helsinki and I come back to visit them for a couple weeks every summer. I just came here from Helsinki right now and this was the 22nd summer in a row that I go back and forth.

Have you ever thought about moving back completely?

Maybe later but now not really man. San Diego’s weather is hart to beat.

It is a well-known fact, that in San Diego you became close friends with the guys from Skate Mafia. What do you say about the enduring rumors about you being on Skate Mafia for real one day?

Haha! Fuck yeah! I am the TM! But you know, of course this always has been a joke. People have saying this to me for so long like Wes and Tyler. Even on my first photo in a skate mag I had a Skate Mafia board. This was like ten plus years ago man. They are my dawgs! Straight up for sure! But still, Habitat for life!

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I just have seen the Levis documentary about the building projects you and the rest of the team did at various places in the world. Tell me a bit about it. How is it to travel the world and build all these skate parks in those sometimes rather remote regions?

Yeah, that’s an epic experience for sure! It’s a give back to communities that don’t really have going so well, you know. It’s like get there and support skateboarding to literally give back something.

Some people might wonder that you actually are a pro skateboarder and now you seem to pursue a rather ordinary job building something with your own hands.

Haha! That’s definitely right! But it’s fun and I learn a lot! Joey Pepper really knows how to do everything proper and kind of like shows us how to build all these things.

How is it going right now with the Levis projects?

We just finished a project in Detroit, Michigan, and we are talking about something possibly in Finland for next year and maybe Vietnam. We definitely will keep on going!

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Then I saw this clip of you guys went to Patagonia, which is pretty far south. Tell me about it.

Oh, yeah! Argentina! Man, that was definitely incredible! I guess no professional skateboarders have ever traveled down that far in South America. It was wild man! We went to all these cities that were super poor so it was pretty rough most of the time but we still found some shit to skate here and there. One day we also went to this national park, I can’t remember the name of it, but there was a bunch of penguins on the beach and all these seals and stuff, then suddenly killer whales came out off the water onto the beach to fucking eat the seals. Dude, that was crazy! It was raw nature, although it was still some kind of tourist attraction.

Last but not least, as you are pretty much of a traveling man I heard you are also into photography. Is that correct?

Yes, for sure! I love photos! They help me to remember all these trips, events and experiences, which sometimes would be lost because I have a bad memory. Haha!

Thank you for the interview and I wish you a good stay in Copenhagen!

Thank you, too! Let’s get some beers man! Cheers!

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One day before the Street League event in Munich, I had the chance to meet Sean Malto for a quick interview in the relaxed atmosphere of the SHRN store’s backyard. Among other things we especially talked about his recovery, his friendship to Mike Mo, and also the rumors that he is off Girl. Sean is a really nice guy and it is good to see him being back with such a confidence!

Interview by Paul Röhrs
Photos: Daniel Wagner

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I read about that you traveled a lot during the time you were injured. How was it like to experience other countries without being able to skate?

Yeah, well, when I did get hurt and get surgery and was forced to not skate I did not want to stop traveling. You know, I love traveling. Obviously, I love traveling for skating but if I couldn’t skate like of course I want to go hang with my friends. I don’t want to be like cooped up in a house. I’d loose my mind. So yeah, I did ended up going to went on a Europe trip through a few different cities in Germany and then I went to Australia, too, for like two weeks. Then I ended up going to Spain for only a few days but all those trips just like made the time go by a little faster. You know, in my head I was like “come I just wanna go hang with my friends, this gonna be sick to go travel” and when I got there I just got frustrated that I can’t skate. You know, because for us the quality of a city is based on how good the skate spots are. But yeah, it is still cool to see other sides of a city besides the best handrail it can offer or ledge spots and stuff. It was cool like to visit restaurants and see shops and being just like an average tourist.

So you mostly followed your friends on their tours or did you also travel alone?

Basically just followed them on tours, yeah, whatever they did. I did not go on a lot personal trips because I just tried to surround my self with people.

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As you said you visited a couple cities in Germany, is there something you particularly enjoy to look back upon?

Oh yeah, I had a lot of really great experiences in Germany! I drove a Porsche on the “Autobahn”! That was amazing! I think that maybe was in Stuttgart years ago on a Girl trip when we were filming for Pretty Sweet. The distributor hooked up three Porsches and we took them to the “Autobahn” and could go as fast as we wanted. That was insane! That is really one that sticks out in my mind just from any trip.

You know Denny Pham right? Do you know he is sometimes called the German Sean Malto? What do you think about this?

Oh, I did not know this! Hey, I am honored because I love his skating and I think he is an awesome dude, very talented. That’s really funny because I went to Thailand with him and been on countless Nike trips with him… Yeah cool, I am totally fine with that comparison!

Ah, yeah! He just told me the story how you met in Thailand!

Yeah, this was probably three or four years ago. I was in India for two weeks with Mark Suciu, Partik Wallner and Sebo Walker. The trip was coming to an end but we all were kind of like “let’s go to Thailand” because it is just close and we could hang out and skate there a little more. So we went out there and met up with Denny and just had a good time.

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Talking about friends of yours. I know you and Mike Mo have been close friends since you both got on Girl and now you both went through very bad injuries. He probably was hit even harder than you were. So are you both still in contact with each other? I am asking because Mike Mo is not able to really go skate I think but you are?

Well, obviously, you know, our friendship goes beyond skateboarding. I talk to him once a week at least and I still see him as often as possible. He is my best friend and so I check upon him and always talk to him but it does suck because he was my road dawg like we traveled a lot together and me and him roomed together every trip. So not having my roommate there and not having my skate buddy is sad. But, you know, his health is getting better. He is progressing and hopefully he’ll be back to is original self very soon, which I am excited about. There are just a couple little things but once they are healed up he gonna be 100 percent. It’s gonna be awesome because he definitely is one of my favorite skaters as well.

Good to hear that! How about you? How is your recovery going?

Oh, my recovery is good! You know, I think healthwise I am 100 percent but mentally I am still like… You know, there are things that scare me that probably wouldn’t scare me before. I am a little like worried when it come to dangerous situations in skating but my health feels good, my ankle feels good… So it is just skating, you know, pushing myself to get rid off this mentally. I ate a lot of shit. I fall a lot. Knock my teeth out, broke my collarbone a couple times, had knee surgery… But whatever, that is skateboarding.

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You know that there are rumors about you being off Girl?

Yeah, I just found that out! I think it is really funny because I went on a trip with just some of my friends that are just on other companies but I just want to hang out with them and that kind of led to these rumors. All I can say is, that I am still very much in love with Girl and I am very satisfied with where I am. So I don’t have any complains. See me at the park tomorrow and I’ll show off my Girl board as always!

Well, last but not least, as you are next to Karsten Kleppan and Stefan Janoski himself the face of the recent Nike SB Janoski Hyperfell campaign, how much have you been involved in the developing process of the shoe?

Well, obviously Nike always tries to listen to the voice of the athlete. They do this in every category and so with skateboarding it is the same thing. You know, we have a good dialog with the designers and we are always talking about how to keep progressing and making awesome shoes that look cool and perform well. So the Hyperfeel is just one of those things that kind of came together perfectly. It’s cool that it feels like a slip-on but it has the protection of a normal shoe. That is what I like about it the most!

So thanks for the interview, I wish you all the best for the Street League event tomorrow and have a good time in Munich!

I have to say thank you! And, yeah, see you tomorrow!

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Since I got to know Denny almost ten yeas ago, he is on a constant rise. As he is the skate buddy who “made it”, I followed every step of his career and although I am all too aware of his qualities he still manages to surprise me whenever we meet causing me to speculate where all this might lead to one day. Well, only god knows! But let’s find out how Denny himself sees his near and far future.

Interview by Paul Röhrs
Photos: Benni Markstein

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Where will you be in…

…one second?

I will sit on the couch between my girlfriend Sara and our cats while watching the European Football Championship round of 16 game Switzerland versus Poland.

…one minute?

I will watch the first half of the extra time.

…one hour?

Probably drinking beer at the summer garden of the Nike SB Shelter while watching the next round of 16 game Wales versus Northern Ireland.

…one day?

Most likely hanging around at one of Berlin’s skate parks before I of course going to watch Germany against Slovakia at the summer garden.

…one week?

I am going to be in Munich to watch Street League there and hopefully meet some good friends that I haven’t seen for a while.

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…one month?

I am going to be on tour through Switzerland and Austria with the SkateDeluxe team.

…one year?

Since there will be neither European Football Championship nor World Cup, I am pretty sure you might find me skating the “Bänke” or “Polendenkmal”.

…five years?

Then I’ll be 31 and finally start learning how to skate transitions properly.

…ten years?

I will assist the extension of Berlin’s Dog Shit Spot, which in 2026 will continued to be built out of the ruins of the “Berghain” club.

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…15 years?

I will play the very last round of S.K.A.T.E. against archrival Yannick Schall at “Polendenkmal”. Winner is going to take it all.

…20 years?

After I lost all my belongings to Yannick and had to start from scratch I will invent the revolutionary “Phamski”, a multifunctional device that is going to make the heart of every do-it-yourselfer beat faster… or so…

…25 years?

After my loss against Yannick and the “Phamski” turned out to be a total flop, I of course will not surrender and finally will reinvent myself as a physiotherapist.
Due to the declining techno scene since the end of the “Berghain” club, I moved back with my family to the outskirts. Here we regularly throw nice garden parties so come by! Future looks bright!

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“Carter it is fucking Friday the fucking 10th!” As we sat down to talk about our favorite Dill moments, we realized everyone seemed to love the intro from Alien Workshops “Photosyntheses” when Jason get’s a call from Chris Carter to put the heat on him to get footage because they wanted him to have “last part”. The rest is history. The Dill we met in Paris is a different one. You can almost say he seems to be grown up…in a very Dill way of course. This man is a good-looking, very polite man and one of the most influential figures in skateboarding worldwide. Jason Dill is leading the cool guys and everyone wants a piece of him. Here is a talk with the one and only Dill-Man about République, Bill and Paris in general.

by Benjamin Deberdt

There have been rumours going around Supreme was interested in opening a shop in Berlin. Is this ever going to happen?

That might just be a rumour… about a year, year and a half ago, I spent a little over a month there. I love Berlin. The Paris store is now open. We had a great opening and I hope people are happy to have us.

Who is the woman in the photo-print from your last FA Board?

The one and only Michelle. Passport photo, 2008. First loves last.

Does Chloë Sevigny have her board set up at home?

Yeah, she keeps it right by her front door so all her friends see it when they walk in… ha, no, I dunno. I know she has one or two of her decks…yeah Chloë, you’re the best!

Strobeck seems to be in love with this one Kid (Leo) from République. What is so different about the French youth culture?

Bill has a very large set of eyes. He sees little things that maybe most people don’t take the time to see. Actually what Bill does is meet a kid like Leo at République and tell him “hey, you’re pretty cool”. That goes a long way when you are 14 and an adult says “keep doing your thing”. He told me all about Little Leo– this epic kid I’m gonna meet at République. I met Leo and he said “Hey man” in a way that almost mimicked an American twang, and sure enough he was as cool as Bill said. We took him skating with us a couple times outside of République. Him, JB, and another kid from here, they’d just come skate if it was a mellow day. They say the funniest shit… Little Leo is just funny. He’s a good kid… Nos, the little guy at the beginning of the Pussy Gangster video is an epic epic kid. Liam and his brother Tom, August, all of the République kids. I just like how these kids live and skate and that they all have certain things that make them particularly special.

And what’s so good about République?

Anywhere there is one collective spot where people can skate near the center of any city is a good thing…and it’s Karl’s spot motherfucker. [Karl Salah]

So, could you see yourself living in Paris? Do you speak the language?

You know I don’t speak French, silly. Live here? Shit I’ve been here a month, I’ve got over two more weeks to go… I think I could live here though. I’m starting to get beat over the head with ultra modern Americanism at home: the pending elections, daily shootings in public, fuckin’ assholes all over the television and in the news, bad looks, freaked out faces… show me a populist city that’s not mega freaked out these days. I really like it here, although since I speak so little French, I get discriminated against for being American and not speaking French almost everyday here. I completely welcome it. It’s my fault for not knowing how to order a meal in the native tongue…only an American asks for extra ice. Hate me… Comme si comme ça!

How is it going out skating with Kevin Rodrigues?

Oh man Kevin is cool. I like Kev. Who doesn’t? He’s just doing his thing hard and running his own deal, I really like what he does on a board. I have had a really great time skating with him, Roman, Greg, Vincent, Manuel, Val, Alex, all them dudes have so much fun when we are out skating…it’s hard to explain and I kinda hate the word “fun”, but these motherfuckers have FUN…them Bloby’s. It was quite a filming trip here to Paris watching the FA kids from Sage to Nak to Tyshawn and KB skate with them. Made me feel old but happy for skateboarding’s future.

Who is your favourite European skater at the moment and why?

I’m gonna have to still pin that one on Lucas Puig…cause he’s really just too ill. He does it again and again. His tricks are like bullets or some shit.

The best thing about having a Supreme shop in Paris?

Lots of things. My old buddy Samir [Krim] being so heavily involved and his history alone when it comes to this city. Also just what will come of it being available to the younger dudes in the years to come…I think people will be surprised how it will develop over time. I’d like to thank Samir for telling me to come back out and film…thanks bud.

You look very healthy lately. Is it the French food? Haha.

I do? Ha, thanks, ummmm… I eat at Chez Justine a lot…shout out to Jon Monie (French skater and owner of the bar).

Although Thomas Busuttil is a very versatile person, he considers himself first and foremost, a skateboarder. The reason might be that for him, everything he does is somehow linked to this lifestyle.
His passion for photography started about eighteen years ago when he was living in a small city called Beauvais, which is located 80 kilometers north of Paris. He got to know Yoann Kim there who was also a skateboarder and living on the same street as Thomas. Today Yoann is one of Paris’ most well-known skateboard photographers.
While in the beginning, Thomas preferred to skate in front of Yoann’s camera, over time he became interested in shooting photos himself. Through watching and following Yoann’s photography work, Thomas was influenced to start photographing too. He got to know the different formats and all the materials being used. Thomas dove into the world of infinite possibilities behind shooting the “right” photo. Today, Thomas is the man behind the De PARIS Yearbooks, which are published annually and depict the lives of skateboarders in different cities, not only Paris. As Thomas is currently working on the next edition about the French capital, we thought it would be the right time to do a short interview about his upcoming project. 

by Paul Röhrs
Photos: Jocelyn Tam

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Thomas, I know you do a lot of lifestyle and street photography, but do you shoot skateboard photos, too?

No, not really. Sometimes I do, but actually, I don’t want to pretend like I would be better than other skate photographers here in Paris because they already do an amazing job and invest a lot of time in it. When I shoot skateboarding I like to not be recognized as “the” photographer. You know? I like to participate more as a guest and do my own thing. I don’t really want to show myself up.

You were born in Nice and then lived some time in Beauvais. What changed for you when you came to Paris?

That’s right. My first six years in skateboarding were in a rather small city where we did not really have any spots. That, of course, changed with moving to Paris. I also met a lot of guys from the scene here. The Parisians are very open-minded which is totally different to the smaller cities I was living in before.

Do you have any other professions besides skateboarding and photography?

Actually, I have been doing everything from being a skate-teacher to working for magazines, being a photo assistant or a film director, to being an actor in commercials.

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Would you say that with the De PARIS Yearbooks you found the thing that you actually wanted to do?

I was waiting for a long time to find a project that fits me and that demands my total dedication. I always wanted to do something around media, image, skateboarding and photography. So I started the company.

How did the whole thing about the De PARIS Yearbooks come about and what is the idea behind it?

It began after I finished working for à propos and Soma. I just wanted to work with the skateboard media image and I really liked publishing but at the same time, I really wanted to do it with my own ideas. I found this concept of the De PARIS Yearbook very convenient because it can be applied to every city, every year and also to different subject matter. So, we do skateboarding now, but maybe one day it would be also interesting to make it about other topics like the environment, for example. I also wanted to create something relevant, something that could help the city, something that won’t be absorbed too fast and after one month it’s done. To me, it is of great importance that it is a book, which depicts a given city at a certain time.

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Have you been inspired by other photo-books?

I really did like the connection with Anzeige Berlin and à propos, which both have kind of the same format. They’re doing their own thing and I think they both also transport a similar feeling, but I wanted to give this feeling a larger space, which is why I decided to do a whole book instead of a magazine.

Putting together such a work is very complex, at least in my mind. Tell me something about the process. How long does it take, what are typical problems you have to cope with and what keeps you motivated?

It’s a good question. I think I am doing this because I believe in it. I am really hard on what I am doing and that makes it even harder to really like something I created in the end. I always try to be as honest as possible with myself and if I really like the work I did I feel… well, “proud” might be the wrong word, but I probably feel satisfied about the progress because I always want to improve myself every time. It is a really personal work. I do not want to express myself with it but it is something coming from inside me, something that I want to share. It takes me almost a year to finish a book. Sometimes it can be stressful finding photographers, doing sessions, trying to help build DIY spots because it is not enough to just put the photos together–you also have to be outside and be part of this life and the city to get an authentic feeling for what you are going to do. We recently went to San Francisco and we really had a good time with the guys over there. I think sometimes you do not even need to spend three or more months in a city to get a feeling from it. If you are lucky and connect with the right people at the right time, you can share many things in like one or two days already.

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As you have to choose from hundreds or maybe thousands of photos by an innumerable number of different photographers, what does a photo need to have so it makes its way into the book? What inspires you the most?

A photo has to tell a story and transport a feeling. I also don’t need too many pictures of the same spot. It is more about showing what kind of possibilities a city has as a whole, how we play with the given environment and how is the connection to the people around us. To give an example: let’s say we have a scene of an empty boulevard which normally is never empty but fully crowded when you want to skate there, but it is the right timing and that is what makes it interesting. So, it is more about someone who is passing by, or a hot girl is watching someone skate. You know? It is about the little stuff going on around a scene. This is what creates an authentic feeling.

As this is not going to be the first yearbook that is concerned with skateboarding from Paris, is there something new to it in regards to the concept or the layout?

It is actually the same concept as last year but we do have a new art director. This year it is Nicolas Malinowksy, who was working for Ill Studio and Chill Skateboard Magazine before. As everyone contributing to this project is coming from the skateboard scene, he also does. He is a great guy doing a really good job and has lots of nice ideas. We try to have a similar layout as last time but it still will be a little different. We also have new portfolios by new photographers we invited such as Marcel Veldman, Kab, Kevin Metallier, Vincent Coupeau, and Pierre Prospero. We also tried to make a full video that is not only about Paris but also about London and Berlin.

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From your perspective, what does a finished yearbook mean to you personally? What feelings do you have when the job is done?

I have bad feelings (laughs). I only see the mistakes I made. When the first copies arrive I just see all the defects and cannot even enjoy it a bit. That is really tough. But a friend of mine told me something that really fits this situation: “You don’t get high from your own supply.” Although I cannot immediately enjoy the feeling of having something done after another week passed I could take a step back from it and then I am kind of like okay with it. I come to the conclusion that it still is a good work, that we have always tried our best and most importantly, did everything the way we wanted. What makes me really happy is when people take some time to look through the book and precisely concern themselves with it. Furthermore, we want to do something for skateboarders but also for people that are probably just interested in the culture. For me, it is a success when let’s say a skateboard kid shows the book to his or her parents and in a way they could get an understanding of the culture and enjoy the book too. I can tell a small anecdote related to that: We have a very conservative French newspaper called Le Figaro, which actually never would talk about street photography or skateboarding or anything like that and they asked me if we could do a feature in their newspaper. This would never have been thinkable before but if you start to share your thoughts with other people they might start to understand.

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Tomorrow the first full length of the Favorite Skateboard Company premieres in Munich. Honestly, I really cannot remember if there has ever been a German full length that got me into such a mood of excitement. Reason enough for me to invite my old friend and editor of the video, Nico Kasterke, to our office in Berlin and have a little chat about the process of making “Daggers”.

IMG_6577-2How important was it to produce a full-length that is going to be released as a whole and is not split into single online parts?

Well, that is really important for me that the video will be presented as a whole. I grew up with full-length videos. You know, today single online parts became the usual because it is much easier to produce them. But to my mind, a full length generates a much stronger impact. Therefore, we tried to find a possibility to properly show the whole thing but still without thrusting DVD’s into everybody’s hands. For that reason, we found a smart solution having a website that is designed only for the video, which is much better than just having a Youtube link and that is it. Having an own artwork and stuff gives the thing a whole different character already.

How did the collaboration with Favorite and yourself as the editor of the video came about?

I know Thomas (founder of Favorite) for quite some time now. One day he called me and asked if I would know someone who could do the edit of the Favorite video. He knew that editing a project like this would actually not be possible for me temporally. But right in the first second as he asked me this question I knew for myself that I wanted to do it so bad that I said to him that I would be willing to do this.

IMG_6567You already had experiences with both editing and filming a full length. What was different this time?

That is right! Actually the whole process was very similar to the Chinchilla Video I did years ago. Back then I was not living in Berlin and I could only go out filming with the crew when I was in town. For the Daggers video it was even harder because I am having a full time job now and most of the team riders live far away. So I knew right from the beginning that there would be only a few sessions where I might be able to realize some of my ideas while filming.

So one could say it is more a video that was edited by you but the footage came from various hands?

Yes, although my filming amount increased a lot towards the end of the project, which I have not noticed at first. But as I was working on the trailer I figured out that still a lot shots are my own.

IMG_6566How long have you been working on the video?

The first tour was Paris in May 2014, which is not too long ago actually. Thus, we were working on it for quite accurate two years.

If one watches the trailer it seems to be quite obvious that a special focus is drawn on Daniel Ledermann. Does he have the last part, too?

Probably! (Laughs) In any case Daniel put in a lot of effort and delivered some of the heaviest skateboarding that has ever been seen from a German. It is just unreal that he did the Bigspin that double set in Athens only because I wanted to have it for the trailer and three tries later it was done.

IMG_6573If you think about all the trips you went on with the team, what experiences come to your mind at first?

Oh man, it is definitely the team vibe for sure! It is so great to see how everybody supports everyone! That was really amazing! Besides that, what also comes to my mind is that one night in Thessaloniki. We were drinking and suddenly everybody wanted to get a gang tattoo and via some curios connections we got the address of a guy who was living more outside the center of the city. As we arrived we first of all ordered twelve gyros pitas and then one after the other got inked a dagger in the backroom of the odd apartment before we went on to party the night away, everyone having plastic wraps around various body locations. On the next day we had to get our flight back home and Mario was still so drunk that he tried to get through the security zone with a couple of canned beers and two knifes in his backpack, which of course got him the fullest devotion of the security agents. Now you got an idea why the video is called “Daggers”. (Laughs)

 

Interview by Paul Roehrs 

https://place.tv/tag/interview