What a coincidence that you’re here in our hometown of Redondo Beach. How long are you down here for?
I'm going to leave tomorrow, but I came down three or four weeks ago. Volcom wanted me to come down to the warehouse to say what's up and shoot some product shots. I was shooting with a surfer named Kobe Hughes and we started chatting. Then Richie Olivares, the surf team manager was going to Mexico so they offered me to hop along with them. I have an open door policy right now so I was just like “I will for sure go to Mexico with you guys.” I stayed for a couple weeks with some friends I met so I just got back.
I was just stoked on an opportunity to come down to California and link up with some friends, skate some pools and get out of the rain a little bit. It’s starting to pour pretty hard and get cold in Washington.
You’re just going with the flow.
That's the gift I’ve been given right now so I have to do it.
If the opportunity presents itself, you’d be foolish not to jump at whatever life throws your way.
It's hard to say no. Recently, I have said no to a couple occasional trips to some contests and stuff, but I feel guilty every time I say no to a free trip.
Does Volcom try to get you to skate a lot of those events?
They just want me to be happy, but sometimes I do get invited to some of those events through the grapevine and I don't mind them. I think they're fun, but the reason I go is just to stay longer at each place. I'm not going to just do the event and leave. I like to see where the wind takes me.
That’s why I was a bit surprised to see you pop up at the P-Stone Cup earlier this year. Did you just happen to be in Oakland that weekend?
Pretty much. That Lower Bobs event is really special, it's definitely not like any of the other contests they're throwing these days. It's homies only and it's for P-Stone. It just gets my friends together and I feel super honored to be invited to it. It’s more like a celebration of life. It’s definitely different than any other contest I've ever skated because it doesn't feel competitive, it's just constant entertainment. If you feel like skating, you can skate. If you just want to hang, there's absolutely no pressure at all.
It sounds like a good balance between celebrating the memories but also getting fired up by the session, which looked like a heavy one.
Yeah, everyone skates differently, but there's a lot of energy in there. When you drop in, the lines are fast so you just try to go fast. I did see some people skating it really creatively though, like Rowan Zorilla and Louie Lopez. It was just so fun to see people's individual styles there. It's not like everyone’s dropping in and doing the same fucking run every time.
A lot of those transitions look massive, so people have to come up with different ways to approach them.
It's definitely a challenge to skate that place, so it’s also pretty cool to watch everyone else. Some people like Raney Beres have it really dialed; he has super good lines and power. Then watching Tom Schaar skate it you're like, “damn, it's sick to see him skate a DIY instead of a classic vert ramp”
Seeing people skating things outside of their normal element is the best.
Woah dude, it's crazy. I said Raney Beres’ name and he just texted me a Polaroid. I haven't said his name in a long time and he seriously just sent me a photo out of nowhere.
What’s it a photo of?
It's Elijah Akerley doing a sweeper grind, then someone doing a frontside ollie, then me doing an Andrecht plant in Lincoln City.
That is a wild coincidence because we just interviewed Elijah yesterday, so he’ll be in this issue too!
Dude that's awesome. I'm about to go on a trip with him.
What a small world.
But to your point, Raney is one of the best to watch because he can just sit on a grind forever.
He's probably one of my favorite skaters. He's got quite a layback and the sickest inverts ever.
You’ve got a pretty mean handplant yourself. Is that a byproduct of you coming up skating the Dope Planet ramp?
Well I learned how to eggplant from this guy Turtle Tom. He’s from Arizona and his real name is Luis Ouida, but we call him Turtle Tom. When I first started going to the Dope Planet, he was just sitting on one fucking arm doing eggplants over and over. He did eggplants to fakie and all these sorts of different inverts. For me, I had a broken wrist when I was younger and I didn't really ever trust myself to put all my weight on my left hand so I was like “damn, what is that one?”
He was the first guy to introduce me to the upside down world. I was really envious of that world because I always wanted to do inverts, but you need some guidance in the technique. He gave me some steps to get into them and I started learning them on the very bottom of the ramp. Eventually, I got addicted to trying them and I finally learned how to do eggplants at the Dope Planet.
Aside from him, I looked up to my friend Keenan Witte, Jesse Lindloff, Nolan Johnson and Lukas Miller. There was a lot of guys from the northwest that could do inverts - especially all the old school Grindline dudes. It was just one of those things I always wanted to learn.
I was going to mention Lukas as well because our friend, Dave Waite from 35th Ave, mentioned that he had a big influence on you. What else about his style did you pick up on?
He showed me how to let go and enjoy. He doesn't give a fuck. He doesn't ride for anyone, he doesn't make money from anyone and he’s not trying to be sponsored or fit in. He’s just super primal and he has the best time on the skateboard. He's just exploding with energy and it was super contagious to ride with him. Our trick selection is different but similar.
When I was a kid, I would always just do melon early grabs everywhere. I couldn't do a stalled Andrecht, but I could do mini frog hop Andrechts so I just early grabbed everything. I guess I stood up taller when I was a little older and started doing street shit so I kind of forgot about all the low gravity skating. But then when I skated with him, he's the lowest-to-the-ground skater there is. He stays low so he can do way more spins and survive way more slip outs.
Between that, there’s his artwork and his knowledge of nature. He’s just got this primal style of living simple. He was also one of the first ones to invite me into the Dope Planet to hang out.
Would you say he helped usher you into that scene?
Yeah and I had a bunch of friends in there from 35th Avenue because there was an older crew that I looked up to. Josh McLaughlin worked there and lived at the Dope Planet, along with Trevor Stokes. There were a lot of guys from Federal Way that moved into the Dope Planet but originally, it was this crew with Nolan Johnson, Max Holbein, Pat Thompson and Josh Schneider, Eric Winkowski and John Paul Slater - basically a handful of dudes that had been living together for a long time. They're the ones that started this new Sorcery place. Then the Federal Way dudes moved in and it eventually turned into the Dope Planet with the new mix of people.
I didn't really know about the Sorcery dudes like Sam Cole and Isaac Cole that much, but they were really sick underground skaters. They don't give a fuck about sponsors or any of that, they just skate and live. It’s super inspiring because they have so much fun on their skateboard. They get creative and they're super good builders, so they would build things like a ramp that went into the bathroom or ramp that went through the shower.
Sounds like stuff you would never see anywhere else.
Exactly. They were super good at machinery and skills that you don’t just learn, you have to be around them naturally.
That's part of the beauty of skateboarding; you learn from a lot of people from other walks of life that you otherwise wouldn't be exposed to, especially the folks that are more low key and don't care about anything except having fun.
They were riding cruiser wheels all day, skating long distances for fun and they had a darkroom where they would develop their own photography. It was mind-boggling to me and I became so involved with how cool it was.
I loved hanging out there but I didn't really stay there that often. I would always figure out where to stay the night somewhere else but then the drive started getting really annoying. Lukas and Josh were some of the first guys to be like “yo, you can just crash here whenever you want.” Lukas offered me the couch in his room so I started hanging out with him all the time. He's super good at artwork so I was learning art too and every single moment of the day it felt like my ADD was taken care of. There was always something to do, always some entertainment or experiment. Even when we were chilling, I never felt bored. Lukas also had a big influence on me because I started traveling around with him a little bit. He was in Hawaii and I got to stay with him for like two months and it was just good times.
Then we started skating the same way because he was always like, “follow me, follow me!” You can't really follow him unless you're getting low and surviving. It was like “okay, he meloned that, I have to melon that. He did that transfer; I can't do that without doing a method, you know?
If you're copying someone's lines, you tend to pick up on the notes that they leave behind. Seeing that example in front of your eyes makes all the difference.
Do you still skate with that original crew?
That crew is super spread out now. They’re all over the world now, but I'm all over the world too. We don't have a great connection, but there’s another whole crew at the Dope Planet that's holding it down and they're really creative too, so it's fun.
One of my good friends, Gizzard [Julian Bustamante], is an artist and he lives there. He does the Girl graphics now, so it's super fun to go there and to paint and listen to music. It’s still such a creative space.
Sounds like the ultimate studio.
If ever I'm feeling down, I go there. If ever I'm feeling lost, I go there. If ever I want to hang out with friends, I go there. If I'm weirded out, I go there. It’s always going to be like that, so it's pretty rad. When it first hit, it hit hard so I was like “fuck dude, this is what I need.”
It sure helps to have a home base like that.
I never thought I was going to live there, but I was like, “dude, this is the dream.” At one point, Eric Winkowski was staying there for a bit and he moved out. I tried to take his room but then I left for a trip instantly. I was paying rent for three months and I was never even there.
Sounds like you can't sit still for too long. Is that a fair statement?
Right now, it's super gnarly. It’s the best times of my life but it's also heartbreaking sometimes.
Good thing you’re involved with the Crailtap crew. It always seems like they place such an emphasis on travel.
Dude, they're the best.
What was the last time you were out with those guys on the road?
I'm not really sure, actually. They did just go on a trip to Des Moines. I should have gone but I was traveling so much and I had just made it home so my mind and body and soul were super cooked. I was just like “dude, I can't fucking move.”
I think the last legit full Girl trip I went on was an East coast tour. We did a bunch of cities back to back around Washington DC and Baltimore. Cory Kennedy and Rick Howard were on it; there were a lot of classic heads on it for sure.
Those guys must have stories for days. What’s the vibe like on those trips?
I think everyone's just so fortunate to be out and about with their friends that it's just good times, no matter what. It’s endless comedy. When you get the right people together, they start fucking around and it's just contagious. Everyone's just being a kid again. It really feels like childhood because skateboarding keeps you so young.
I think trips like that are so far from people’s day to day lives that it’s easy to get into the mindset of enjoying the moment with everyone else in the van.
A lot of good stuff happens when you're happy. It's definitely nice to go on Girl trips because you get super in-tune with your skateboard and you get super comfortable cruising around and skating classic spots. We always go to some nice plaza that maybe Rick or Sam [Smyth] or Mike [Carroll] was at before so you’re tapping into these old school feelings.
Niels Bennett, Griffin Gass and Manchild [Tyler Pacheco] are inspirational too. They carry on that saga really well because they respect those same things. It’s always super fun to hang out with Breezy [Breana Geering] and we’ve been filming with Daniel Policelli lately - he's super fun to work with.
At night, I’ll usually go out a little bit or take it easy depending on the crew, but it's hard to even go to sleep because you're having so much fun. You're just like, “should we fuck around outside another three or four more hours and then wake up and do it again?” It's super relaxed though, there's no pressure. You're not going to a fucking 30 foot handrail in the morning, you know you're going to have a good time. Every day should just be cruising around and having a good time - simple pleasures and no expectations. Every tour has been super playful.
That’s certainly how it’s always come across in the videos. Everything from the music to the b-roll always makes those trips seem so easygoing.
Naturally you're going to push your limits, but that’s just skateboarding. We’ll be at this bump over can spot and we're all feeling good and then all of a sudden someone's trying to backside flip over it and you’re like “maybe I'll try a frontside flip.” Then, all of a sudden you're either in a battle or you land it and it's all really natural. Good things happen when they happen naturally.
Niels and Manchild are super cool because they approach things casually but then they get gnarly. They’ll be like “I've always wanted to do a backside 360 flip over a trash can” and you’re like “well this is a pretty good opportunity to try it.” Then boom, they’re in a two hour battle, sweating their ass off and getting out the generator lights. It’s like, “this is a fucking Girl Skateboards film now, this is how it happens.”
How do you decide what gets used in the tour edit versus what you might want to save for a video part?
It depends on your vibe for that trip. There's a lot of stuff that affects your skating. Maybe you're going through a breakup or there's something happening in your life that you’re channeling through your skating and all of a sudden you have an opportunity to try your hardest and push your limits. When you have a good group of friends supporting you, that's when the time is right to enter a battle. Some days you battle a trick every single day and you’re really determined to get some good stuff and push your limits.
I want to watch footage that I'm stoked on, you know? Usually what you put in the trip edits is somewhat easy because it’s supposed to be portrayed as fun and casual because that’s how it is. But then sometimes you battle a super difficult trick and you’re so fucking stoked you landed it that you don't want to just put it out the next week. You have to cherish that moment and put it in something that you’re going to remember for awhile.
That's a great way of putting it. When you’re driving around the middle of nowhere and you know you’re never going to get the opportunity to skate whatever it is again, you might as well go for it.
It's super gnarly when you're traveling with a crew like that and you find a spot that you want to skate and you know it's now or never. Sometimes on these trips, you'll go to a city for two days and immediately leave to go to the next city. We might get the money to do this type of tour but we don't have the funds to stay one place for six days and then stay at the next place for six days. Sometimes you’ll have a random outside sponsor that hooked Girl up to pay for a trip, but usually we only have $10,000 worth of budget, and that can barely last us a week in the van with 10 people. Sometimes I stress out about footage and spots but at the end of the day, you only do it if you want to do it. That's what sick about Girl.
Skaters are usually willing to make the most out of any situation so even if the trick doesn’t work out, it’s more about the experience of trying it that matters.
It's pretty interesting. I am super fortunate to be riding for Girl thanks to Rick and Mike and Sam. Also, Dave Waite pretty much guided me into this, so I owe a lot to him too. I don't know why, but maybe he just wanted me to have a good life and was like, “here, go this way.”
That’s really all it comes down to. Aside from the natural talent factor, a lot of guys that run shops, like Dave, just want to enable skaters to support themselves and be happy living the lifestyle.
Fuck yeah. I know Dave sent my footage to Sam and I think that was the start of it all. I had footage and then there were some other photos that went out to Toy Machine and New Balance too and I was like “whoa I'm just down for Girl and Lakai.” It's surreal but I'm not going to take it for granted. I'm super stoked to have this high and ride it.
I said this in the last interview too but I always bring up people’s Instagram names and bios. You seem to be living up to that Tom Penny quote on your profile: “Life's a dream come true”
Oh yeah, Tom Penny is a huge inspiration to Niels, Manchild and I. On one of our first Girl trips ever, we called it “The Tom Penny Tour.” It was our first trip overseas together so it was our first chance to do a full European tour on our own, just like how it should be done. We asked Sam to push our tickets back for a month and we just figured it out. Niels is a pretty good traveler and was killing it. Manchild and I were hanging on by a thread and it was pretty funny because Niel's was like, "you guys got to pull it together, I can’t be the only one getting the trains and everything.” We were struggling but Niels is very knowledgeable. He's a professor and he speaks German so he kept us going in the right direction. But pretty much the whole tour, we were just going “where do you think Tom Penny would be if he was here?” It was like instead of the search for Animal Chin, we were doing the search for Tom Penny.
Did you end up running into him?
We got really close in Barcelona. It was our final stint and we ended up sharing this fucking closet space. All three of us were in one bed, right next to MACBA. I think we were getting charged a lot for it because I don't think they wanted three dudes in there. We were just trying to have long nights and avoid going back to that place as much as we could. We ran into some friends and they invited us over to their house for a party and when we got there, there was a Tom Penny photo hanging up right in their kitchen.
Sounds like it was destiny!
They told us “he was here in this kitchen last week, he lives here a lot” and we were just like “fuck we were so close we could almost smell him!” Still to this day, any time I hear about a Tom Penny spot I want to go because you know it's going to be something fun.
The best part is he’s still out there in the streets so the search can continue.
I've met him a handful of times now and I’ve skated with him a little bit, just with very little talking. I don't think I've ever really had a conversation with him, but I've been in his presence quite a few times now and every time it's surreal. I think about Manchild and Niels and I’m always like “we fucking made it. We're getting to see him in the flesh now!” That's why that quote is forever on my bio and I'll probably never change it.
Even recently, I was cruising around the Basque Country and hanging out with this dude, Hugo Morales. He's an old school snowboarder and he was the team manager for DC for a while. He’s actually the godfather to Wes Kramer’s kid and all that because they go way back. Anyway, he was like “there are so many Tom Penny spots here” so it’s like the tour is still happening. There’s just so much inspiration that comes from the purity of his skating. He does beautiful tricks and it’s not easy shit.
Much respect. Aside from Tom Penny, is there anyone else out there that you look up to or wanna give a final shoutout to?
That's hard, man. I’d say Cardiel, the Deluxe crew, everyone from the Beauty and the Beast tours, Cory Kennedy, Raven Tershy, the Trunk Boyz, the young Anti-Hero dudes, the GH crew, the Volcom surf & snow teams, Silas Baxter-Neal, Mike Rave and Jimi Hendrix. There's so much shit that hypes me up. Life’s like a smoothie of your favorite things.
Photos: Omar Alabbar & Taylor Ballard
Originally published in Issue 5 - January 2025