Interview | Devin Bagnoli

How’s everything going man? How was Hawaii?

It was a fun trip. I surprised my girlfriend with a ticket on Christmas to go in February for her birthday. I didn't even bring my board. I was just on island time, chilling on the beach every day.

Hawaii is without a doubt the best place for a mental and physical reset. 

It was so sick, I just rented a car and drove a complete circle around the island.

In terms of your travels overall, you’re from Florida but were out in Colorado for a bit and now live in California. How did you end up moving from one place to the next?

Eight years ago, I lived in Florida. Before I skated full time, I was working in the motorcycle business and I saved up money for two years to move out of Florida. My sister lived in Colorado at the time and she had an open bedroom at her house. I was like, “fuck it, I'm saving up and moving out.” I moved to Denver for a year and got in close with all the 303 dudes over there. I skated with all those guys a bunch and got in their video, Love Hurts. That was the first Colorado video that I was in. I got a few sponsors from NHS shortly after that and then I was like, “well, I'm running with this. I guess I gotta go to California to make it happen.”

You gotta finish the rest of the trek across the country. Do you still bounce back and forth or are you posted up on the West coast now? 

I live out here full time now. I have a house that I rent with some friends but I go back to Colorado every few months, I'd say.

Speaking of the 303 Boards family, it seems like there is always something happening at the shop, whether its some sort of a release or a collab. What was it like being close to such a prominent shop?

303 is the busiest and sickest skate shop I've ever seen. Like you said, they're literally always doing a collab with the sickest brands. They're always working on some sort of video project and the skate scene out there is incredible. They have some of the fucking gnarliest skateboarders I've ever seen in Colorado. It's like a little hidden gem over there. I love it there. All those dudes at 303 welcomed me with open arms and treated me like family. They took care of me over there when I was living there and they still do to this day. They're the shit.

They are one of those legacy shops that’s become 100% synonymous with their city and the surrounding area. 

Absolutely. They do so much for their community too. They throw a bunch of events in Denver like Go Skate Day and King of the Hill in Boulder. They're just killing it in all realms. 

I wanted to ask you about one of their collabs from a while back: the one with Dickies featuring that wolf graphic you drew. Did they approach you looking for art for that one or had you already sent them some graphics before?

That was a few years back, after I had snapped my ankle really bad. I was down and out for a good bit and I was drawing a lot while couldn't skate. They reached out to me asking if I wanted to do a Dickies collab for them. I was like, “fuck yeah.” I drew that three-eyed wolf and it felt like the next week they sent me a mock up of a jacket and pants and all this stuff. A few weeks later it was in the stores. I was thankful - that one was super cool. It was something to be happy about while my ankle was recovering.

Your drawings follow the classic American traditional style in a lot of ways. Are there any artists or people that you get tattooed by that inspire you? 

I've gotten tattooed by so many different people and I've always liked traditional tattoos. I grew up in Florida and it’s very motorcycle-oriented down there. There’s a tattoo shop called Tropical down there that I went to when I was younger for motorcycle events and all of my first tattoos. Ever since those days, I've been a fan of traditional style tattoos. My whole life, I’ve always liked the darker style of things - deadly looking things and whatnot. I try to add my own twist and think “what if I was a tattoo artist? What would my flash look like?” I just try to add my own twist to what I think looks cool, but in a traditional style.

My favorite pieces are always animals or creatures where there’s an extra set of eyes or a second head popping out of it somewhere.

Have you ever gotten tattooed by one person consistently or do you mostly get them on the road? 

It usually depends on whatever town I'm in. I’ve a couple from my friend Michael Penhale in Denver, he’s done a couple of my tattoos and that I really like.

He also owns Curbside Skatepark out there! I’ve worked with him for a couple of years but only realized he was also a legit tattooer a couple of months ago.

Literally one of the nicest dudes ever. I've gotten some from my friend Jack Cody in Florida, he's done a couple big ones on my arms. Chris Norton from Florida as well. Wherever I’m at, there's always a homie who's good at tattooing that I'm down to collect a piece from.

Speaking of traveling and being into motorcycles in general, you had a bike that was stolen not too long ago right? Did you ever end up getting that back?

No I didn’t and it sucks because that was my favorite bike. That was one of those bikes that I put together with one of my best friends at such a young age I told myself I was gonna keep that bike my whole life. I kept it for a long time and then it got stolen right out of the parking garage of my apartment at the time. You had to have a code to get in and I even had it chained up to a pole even in there. It's been spotted a bunch of times but never been found. 

I was going to ask if it ever popped back up anywhere, but that’d be impossible to track down.

Dude so many people have messaged me like, “I saw your bike riding down this road” or “I saw your bike here” and I'm like, “Dude, fuck. Call somebody or when you see the guy punch him in the face, I don’t know!”

I assume you’ve probably replaced it with another daily driver by now.

Yeah, me and my same friend in Florida who helped me put that bike together put another one together. It’s the exact same bike: a Harley-Davidson Sportster. It's definitely not as flashy and shiny as the other one, which I'm kind of stoked on because it doesn't attract too much attention now.

You’re keeping a low profile these days. 

I love the way it looks and it’s a lot less to keep up with. I don't have to clean it and polish it as much.

I think I saw in another interview that you’ve been to all 50 states, was that mostly on your bike?

I've been to every state except Alaska. The majority of that is in a van but I've done probably ten different states on the bike.

Have you ever taken it fully across Florida to Cali?

I've done Florida to Georgia and then Colorado to California so kind of, but not really.

There’s nothing too remarkable until you hit the Rockies anyway.
One more point on Colorado: in your most recent Burn It All Down part for 303, I noticed you rocking a couple Gatekeeper shirts, plus you skated to “How Flowers Grow by Scowl. Did you pick the music for that part?

Yep. 

Amazing choice. How did you get into hardcore?

Growing up in Florida, all my friends were a bit older than me and all of them listened to hardcore and death metal. When I was growing up, even my mom listened to heavier rock and roll so I've always been a fan of that style of music. When I was a teenager trying to figure out what I was into and whatnot, all my friends were into it and I loved listening to it. 

Then they took me to shows and I was like, “oh my god. This is that shit.” It's like skateboarding. It's high energy and it brings a community together too. I just fucking love it and I've always been a fan.

I agree with you there. The parallels to the skateboarding world are endless.

Funny enough, about that Scowl song, I actually went through a divorce during the filming of that part. I was sad and I had to figure my whole life overnight. I listened to that, How Flowers Grow album during the whole process of healing and rebuilding my life again. That song seemed to make sense because skating was helping me get through it. I was getting stoked as the video part was getting finished and I started coming out of that sadness phase. It felt like such a fitting song. I thought it was a hard song musically but it had a good meaning to me as well. I grew as a person during the filming of this part and got through some real life shit by listening to that song and skating.

Makes perfect sense: “rеturn to the dirt, watch the seeds as they grow”

Let’s talk about bump to bars. Obviously you have a ton of pop, but what has to be right in order for a bar hop spot to work?

It's kind of hard to answer this question because growing up in Florida, I feel like there's never a perfect bump to bar. They are all just no bump, all power kind of bars. But, I grew up watching Blake Carpenter and he can fucking pop over everything. Being a little kid and seeing that, I was like, "dude, that's what I want to do.” I was always trying to pop over things, even if it was just the flat ground.

I guess moving to California was when I really experienced the perfect the perfect bump to bars. I was like, “wow, these ones actually have a nice incline to them”

“No wonder there’s a million schoolyard clips out there”: 

Yeah, it works for a reason. When I lived in Florida, I only ollied over them. In California I could actually do flip tricks over those ones.

It seems like you got the flip tricks down now. Another one I also saw you do that stuck with me was the ollie fs body varial in your OJ part. How did you get those on lock?

It's funny, in Florida I had a friend who was really good at ollie body varials and he taught me how to do them. He also taught me how to do late shuvs. Like I said, the bump to bars in Florida suck and I was only doing ollies over them. Then I thought, “body varials are basically like ollies, I just have to switch my feet over at the last second.” I always save body varials for the bump to bars that are too tall and that I might not be able to flip over. 

Those ones when you’re going full high jump mode.

Exactly.

I’ve heard you mention that doing all these crazy fly-outs at skateparks has also helped you learn how to fly over bars and stuff.

Yeah, I used to just set things up at the skate park and try to skate over them. That was my favorite thing to do when I was younger and I still love doing it.

Is there anything else you’ve been working on in the park that you’re trying to master for the streets lately?

I've been trying more handrail tricks. I used to skate handrails a lot when I was younger but I fucked up my arms pretty bad. I broke both of them and had surgery on both of them so that kind of traumatized me.

Now I'm trying to learn as many flip into rail tricks as I can. I'll find a good bump to rail at a skate park and try to learn a bunch of different flip-in tricks and then see if I can maybe do it down a rail. I like to switch it up because I feel like I can skate a good chunk of things but a lot of people seem to only acknowledge me popping over things. That's why in that Burn It All Down part, I tried to like incorporate a little of everything. I had some bowl clips, there were some manual tricks and I skated one gap to handrail in there.

That gap to 5-0 definitely stood out to me as well. I was like “damn he’s hucking it too”

You know what’s crazy about that clip? That was my first time ever doing 5-0 in the streets. It scared the shit out of me to try that because it was a pretty big stair set and the gap to rail alone is frightening.

I did a lipslide first try and I thought “I gotta get more on it.” I had  just learned 5-0’s at the skate park, the week prior. I was like, “if I just gap out and go fast maybe it will work.”  I literally did it first try. I got really lucky.

That one was on a circle rail too, right? I can't even wrap my head around that.

Yeah. When I was younger, a 5-0 on a circle rail seemed like the most terrifying thing you could ever try. All I thought about prior to learning them was “the second I try this, I'm gonna slip out on my heels and break my back on the rail.”

But when you figure them out, they have the best pinch spot right in your heel and you can hold them for so long. They're so fun but yeah, they can definitely get scary if you miss that lock in.

I just had the same conversation with Rob Pace in the last issue about how round rails seem scary but once you get into a cross-lock, it’s actually more secure than slipping out from your heels on a square bar.

Oh yeah, it actually gives you more stability.

Here’s another topic: you recently got yourself a pro deck for Techne - cheers to that! Did you have some input on the skeleton biker graphic?

I was pretty involved on that. Colin [Grover] from Techne reached out to me and he was like, “what could you imagine your first graphic being, if you got to pick it?” I reverted to a back tattoo that I've always thought of. I've always wanted to get a fucking reaper ripping through a graveyard on a motorcycle tattooed on my back. He was "dude, no way - that’s exactly what I was thinking.” The artist who did the graphic, Tim Baron, actually drew that motorcycle using a photo of my first chopper (the one that got stolen) as a reference. Then he asked if I had any color palettes in mind and I sent him a couple. I don't know if you know the band Windhand, but I sent him this purple and black album cover and he was like, “got it. I know what you're aiming for.” He came up with this masterpiece that I was really stoked on. He nailed it.

When you said Windhand, I was thinking of the Griefs Eternal Flower cover, but I can totally see the homage to their self-titled album now. 

What's next for you now? Got any other video projects that you're working on for them?

I think my next video part is going to be a Techne part for sure. I definitely always want to be working on a part at all times. My favorite thing to do is put out video parts. I'm constantly filming and then once I feel confident that the timeline is looking good, I’m like “who wants to grab ahold of it?”  But I really want to put out like a part for me. Like a good full part.

As long as your body is up to it, that’s the name of the game: to just constantly be stacking.

When you start getting old is when you stop.

What’s that Jam Adam’s quote? “You don’t quit skateboarding because you get old, you get old because you quit skateboarding…”

I think that's it.

Well that’s not a bad note to end it on. Any shout outs or thank you for the people out there? 

Shout out all my homies, everyone who's rocking with me and my family.

Photos: Daniel Cabral & Chris Ray

Originally published in Issue 3 - May 2024