I don't usually call down to Australia often, so this one is gonna be a first for the mag.
Did I catch you in the middle of the work day?
I am working today, but it's all good.
What do you have going on right now?
I just actually finished doing a 21 hour shift last night (laughs)
That’s insane - you must be spent right now.
My family’s [heavy machinery] company had an emergency break down. They're doing some tunnels and stuff under Sydney, so we got a bunch of our equipment there that helps with the construction. We got there at five in the morning and we left at around 2AM. We had a complete break down and had to get it out of there within the day, which took a good amount of time.
You live a few hours away from Sydney, right?
I'm an hour from what you would call the district of Sydney, but it’s is a huge place, so there are some places where you can be up to about two hours away.
I’ve heard people mention that there’s no spots near where you're actually from so you kind of need to go into the city to skate good spots.
Normally it's around four hours of driving each time because we drive two hours there and then I drive home all the time after the session. So when I'm skating, I'm always normally driving into Sydney.
It sounds like you’re no stranger to long drives. You don't mind waking up early and spending the whole day out, do you?
Yes, if I'm going to drive into Sydney, I'm not going to get there and do nothing. I want to make the most of the day by getting there quick.
Since you’ve spent plenty of time skating both, how does skating in a city like Sydney compare to skating in the US?
Well with rails and stuff, I've noticed that the States have different standards - the way they have to make all the handrails compared to the Australian standards. You definitely see a lot of different stuff over in the States compared to here. They both have great spots but I do find over in the States, you find a lot more rails that almost like make no sense. They're either way too small for their intended purpose or something just doesn't make any sense at all. I feel like we (in Australia) have, higher standards. The handrails are normally a bit taller or they're just really steep.
That’s super interesting that you would recognize that based all your experience with fabrication.
Yeah I've got this little folder and I always take photos of rails that make no sense and are impossible to skate. From a fabricator’s perspective, you see some things that people are making and you're like, “this looks like it took months to make because it no one thought about what they were doing.”
You’re probably one of the only people that’s stepping up to a lot of these giant rails you’ve been hitting. When did you get into skating big rails?
I guess back in the day, I used to skate ramps and stuff all the time. My local skate park was just quarterpipes and a pyramid box. That's all it was. Eventually my dad built me a flat bar, so I started skating that all the time and found that I just liked skating the flat bar way more than skating the ramp. It all sprawled from there.
We had an indoor skatepark that eventually opened up in my area and they had a really good handrail there. The homies used to skate it all the time and over the years, we got bored of it. So we started setting up stupid movable obstacles at the end of the rail. We'd a regular flat bar at the bottom of the rail and try to grind from that rail to the flat bar. As a kid, doing those sorts of things and setting up all those weird obstacles is what inspired what I'm doing now in the streets - trying to find real life versions of those things.
When I was just skating with the homies all the time, we were limited with what we could find. Getting involved with Santa Cruz and going overseas and being on these trips has opened up a lot more potential where I can find the physically find these spots. That's the hardest part.
That's half the battle right there. Constantly being on the lookout.
In terms of technique, what’s the secret to ollieing from one rail to another?
When I grind rails, I'm always doing the cross lock. I feel like being in a cross lock stance is a lot easier to pop off the rail than locking heels. With locking heels, I feel like you don't have your balance - it’s like a whole different grind. Being cross locked is definitely the way to pop across to another rail. You can hop on a long 5050 grind and balance, then I feel like you can adjust your feet to do like a small little ollie.
I started off small and eventually just tried one day and it worked. The first one I ever did was kind of a really big gap. When I did it, I never got seriously hurt. I just ended up landing it and I guess I had a bunch of confidence from that one spot. When I moved it to different spots - in my head, I was like, “oh, I can do this like that last time.” It happened easily so I guess it's just confidence as well.
Confidence is key. I assume that means you prefer round rails versus square bars if you’re cross locking, right?
For sure. I've always enjoyed a circle rail more than a square, but they have their benefits as well. Either one. With square bars you can just stand there without even balancing - it just takes you down the rail. With a circle rail, you always have to balance.
That’s why I never feel comfortable skating circle rails. I can’t get my head around cross locking or staying on my heels.
It's actually weird for me because the idea of going heels vs cross locking only ever came to my attention recently. I never used to think about it and then people just started talking about it and I was just like, “I guess I'm just one of those cross lock people because that’s how I've always done them. I've never in my life thought about how I was doing it. I don't even think I can even remember the last time I landed in a 5050 and was on my heels.
Unless it's by accident probably.
Yeah, like when it flips over. With the initial locking, my brain just doesn't register heels.
What about when you’re skating kinked rails: do you prefer to take them all the way to the end or do you like to gap over the last couple steps?
That all depends on how big the kink in the rail is. If you're going down a bunch of kinks and then you hit the flat part, there's that last little section that goes down but sometimes you’re going way too fast to even do gown that last bit.
I'm always definitely trying to grind it all the way to the end. That's always the goal but it all depends. If I start cooking it and I'm getting to the last kink, I'm making that split second decision as I'm going down.
You’re going to end up on the concrete one way or the other.
And we're going to fuck off and go to the next spot anyway.
Everybody says that you pull up at these spots and start skating with no warmup or routine. Is that true?
I think I've always been like that. The thing I've been doing a lot recently is I’lI get out of the van and do a couple kickflips on flat ground. I feel like once my kickflips start working, I just start trying to grind the rail. I don't know why that makes any sense, but that's what I always do.
I tend to do that at the end of the session - just stomp one good kickflip to really close things out.
On the topic of confidence, there are clearly a lot of psycho handrails where you're the only one skating them. Is it weird to have an audience when you’re trying it or does it not bother you?
It doesn't really bother me. There’s always people looking for spots for me and I've been taken to countless rails. Sometimes I look like them and I'm like, “dude, if I try grinding this, I might die. This is a death rail.”
I never really get nervous with that sort of stuff because I know in my heart, when I'm looking at that rail, if I really want to do it, I'm going to try it.
I've always had that mentality where if I know I want to try something, I always try to give it 100% commitment - straight off the rip. The more you sort of trying, the longer you're trying to do the rail, the more chance you're probably going to get smoked on it.
You gotta get in and out. What makes a rail too gnarly for you? Any dealbreakers?
Oh man, so many different things. One thing that I don't like in a kinked rail is when the kink has no transition to it. When your trucks hit the flat, they just bounce off them. There are other kinks where, when the kink goes down to flat, they have a small transition in them and it's like a lot smoother.
That has it’s downfall as well because if they have the transition, you're going a lot faster down the rail. If they have no transition in the in the kinks you're going to go slower, but if they're steep, you just explode off the rail.
I could imagine the angle that it pitches you downward at shoots you into the flat too fast.
Yeah, it’s too aggressive. Your board just explodes.
This one is a basic question but I gotta ask: what's your favorite rail trick?
50-50 for sure - 100%. If it was up to me, I would only 5050 grind for the rest of my entire life.
Frontside or backside?
Honestly, I don't care. I like either one.
When people ask backside and frontside; either one is scary for me. It’s always been the same thing.
You gotta get both trucks on the rail.
I like finding a rail and instead of getting super tech and doing something that is beyond my ability, my enjoyment is seeing if I can take it to the end.
Are there any tricks you wish you had more consistently?
Maybe flip tricks into rails. I can do the basics but I wish I had that extra confidence. I try my hardest and I can do some of them but in the streets, the shit's scary as hell.
100%. Fast forwarding to earlier this year, you got the nod to move up to the pro ranks - congrats for that! How does it feel to have a board on a legacy brand like Santa Cruz?
Unbelievably stoked. There’s no feeling like it. It's the ultimate goal for a person that's trying to do anything with with skateboarding. To come from Australia as an international rider, I was introduced to the brand relatively early and then just got turned pro. It was super quick for me and I’m super stoked for all the opportunities that those brands have have brought to me.
Were you ever worried about being from Australia holding you back or that you wouldn't have gotten a legit look being out there versus in the US?
Definitely. It's so hard for international skateboarders to get recognized from the mainstream industry. To finally get somewhere with skating is something I'm super stoked with.
I can imagine. Even being from the east coast originally, it felt like California was a world away, even though it was in the same country.
Yeah - there’s a little saying that goes, “you’ve got to make it twice to be a pro skater.” You have to be good enough to get seen by like the Australian distros to either get flowed or get you introduced to the main brands. Then you've got to take the next step and show them that you are financially stable enough to go over there and maybe connect/meet with them. There’s just so many hurdles to jump through to finally get to that part. When you’re living in the States, you’ve just got this one thing that you're trying to impress. It's just the brand.
I know a bunch of young Canadian rippers that feel the same issue of having to get accepted on a regional level before cracking into the US. Clearly you made the right impression having gotten the pro deck plus the Thrasher cover back to back.
Yeah, the cover was a surprise.
Especially the fact that it was a sequence!
That was something I was very proud of. I didn't know this until I went on the Am Scramble trip but Burnett said that was the first sequence cover of Thrasher ever.
Really?! Then you’re definitely the only one to have landed it after Ducky’s sequence bail on the Jan 2024 cover.
To wrap things up, what else do you hope to to in the future now that you have your name on a board?
I want to put out as many video parts as I can and leave the biggest mark in skateboarding I possibly can. That's really the only goal. Anything else that comes is a bonus. I want to enjoy skateboarding as much as I can, stay as relevant as I can and keep doing it for as long as I can.
Anything specific to 2024?
For now, I think Santa Cruz will be going to China and Japan. Then I'm trying to make my own little mission out to Canada for a couple of weeks. I'll probably jump over into the States and go see some friends and see what else comes pops up throughout the year. I’m trying to attend some of those Hellride events and also Copenhagen.
It seems like there are more and more of those popping up by the day.
I haven’t been to too many of them. Every year I tell myself I’m going to go and I always end up getting stuck doing some other shit. This year I'm going make them a priority.
Photos: Wade Mclaughlin
Originally published in Issue 2 - January 2024