Interview | Swampy

You’ve mentioned skateboarding being one of the most consistent things in your life over the years. Let’s start with where you’re from?

I was born and raised in Lompoc, California. If you're not from California, people might not know it because its such a tiny little town. There's nothing to do out there for the youth except to run amok and find something with wheels to boogie on, which is what I did. They do have a skate park that’s been there since around 2000 actually. I’ve been on wheels for my entire life in various forms: scooters, rollerblades, Heelys, sometimes at the same exact time. Me and my brothers were absolute menaces at the skate park doing that shit. They both did BMX but one of them, Nate, had this cruiser setup. I think it was like a Mini Logo deck with some Independents. I don't even know what the wheels were but I would steal it for a little bit and cruise around town. From there a friend of mine got his first complete, which was an Element deck with Thunders. I borrowed that for a second and I was like, “oh, this is fun.” I got really interested in actually trying to skate around my 13th birthday, in 2006. I got my first complete, which was a purple and black Zero Chris Cole deck with tiger stripes. It had Tom Penny Fury trucks and I don't know what brand the wheels are,  they might have been Zero too. It opened up a whole new way of rolling around for me, especially because, I was like, “I guess I have this trick board, so I'm going to start doing tricks now.” If my math is right, it’s been almost 18 years of skateboarding since then.

Makes sense. How did you eventually end up living down in Long Beach? 

To answer your question: I have some mental health issues and shit, and living in Lompoc really got to me. Like I said, it’s very small and not conducive to people like me that have a lot of energy and need to get that energy out. I was having a really rough time and my brother, Nate, had recently got out of the military and ended up in Huntington Beach. He reached out and was like, “hey, do you want to come and hang out for a weekend?” I had never really been down to the Huntington Beach/Long Beach area. I had been to LA a couple times, but never out down that far. I stayed there for a week and just bounced around all the different parks and shit. I was like, “whoa there's so much skateboarding here. This is kind of crazy.” When I moved down here I didn't realize that this particular area of California is such Mecca for skateboarding. There's also a huge music scene down here. That was the main reason I ever came down to the LA/Orange County area; to go to shows that weren't available in the Central Coast. 

Fast forward a couple months and I'm couch surfing at my half brother ’s house for a bit but he did me dirty. He warned me that he was going to be moving out in a few months but then a couple weeks before the date, I came home from work and everything in the house is gone. He basically just dipped and I was like, “dude, what the fuck?”  He didn't even give me a phone call. 

I packed up my couple bags of clothes and whatever else I had and went skating that night. I was like, “all right, I'm just gonna go do this for a second and try not to have an anxiety attack over this.” I had already made a few friends out here so I started couch surfing from place to place again and living out of my car for nine months. It was really eye opening because I never thought that I'd be homeless, but it actually wasn't that bad. I was really fortunate to have my car and a bunch of homies, I just didn't want to overstay my welcome at people's houses. 

It’s probably the most I've ever skated consistently because I'd wake up in my car and be like, “alright I'm just gonna go skate over here all day and then figure out where I'm going to stay next.” It was a whole experience.

I could imagine. Any time I've ever taken a trip where stayed in my car for a night or two, I always woken up at the crack of dawn to minimize the time I actually had to be sleeping in the car.

Yeah, I have a really hard time sleeping when there's light out so that was rough. Eventually I found a couple different spots to stay at and now I've been in Long Beach for three years.

Let’s take a step back: when did you become Swampy? Do we get to know where the name came from? 

Kind of. I will say I became Swampy the second that I crawled out of the primordial ooze. (Laughs)

I actually didn't get the name until I moved down here. My friend Andrew had changed his Instagram handle to @fratdad and I thought it was such a funny, douchey name. I can't remember if I came up with the handle or if my friends made it for me, it’s been over ten years. I made my Instagram name @swamp_dad for a long time to go hand in hand with @fratdad. At some point, I stopped using my government name entirely and just was going by swamp dad. 

When I moved down here, I made friends with homies in Costa Mesa who were affiliated with this little skate crew called the Curb Cowboys. My friend Jack, was like “nah, that's too long. I'm just gonna call you Swampy.” I was like “wait a second, that is so much cooler.” I don't know why I didn't fucking think of that sooner!

It just rolls off the tongue so much better.

Eventually I changed my handle and just introduced myself to everybody as Swampy. I'm so used to saying it and hearing it, but then I'll be out playing pool at the bar against someone I don't know and they're like, “is that your real name?”

You gotta roll with it now! 

It's so funny; there are a bunch of other nicknames came out of it too. There’s Swamp dad, Bog Father, Moss Boss, Papa Marsh and Uncle Bayou, because I’m actually an uncle now. That’s the only super legit one that I can claim.

But you’ll respond to all of the above?

Definitely. If it's related to swamps or like anything like that, I probably will respond. It went from a nickname to an entire bit and now it involves all the gator imagery and whatnot.

I was gonna ask, is the gator your spirit animal?

I definitely think so. I'm not a fucking apex predator by any means, I'm a small aggressive Colombian man, but I fuck with gators. They predate dinosaurs, which is crazy. 

I’m also terrified of water and drowning and they'll chop your stupid ass if you fuck around, you know? I think they’re really cool and now it's evolved into an entire obnoxious bit.

I was going to say it’s become a whole character with all of the hype surrounding Heroin decks these days. What’s it like seeing your name on a board?

Honestly, I don't even like acknowledging it because I feel weird about it. I know that I skate really weird. I have some “normal” tricks but I don't do them a whole lot. I just like skating really fast and when I'm doing tricks, I like to add something silly and fun because that's what makes sense to me. That feels correct to me versus trying to heel flip down a three stair or whatever. That sounds so scary to me in terms of the risk versus reward factor. Actually, let's throw the stairs out of there entirely. Boneless hand varial to disaster on a transition is more my thing. It's like dancing.

I have a pretty similar thought process. There's no way you're gonna pay me to do any sort of a drop these days. I'd rather try to footplant or find some other weird way to get around it.

Exactly. I'd rather do a flamingo at the top of the stairs and a hop down each stair very slow and methodically. That's funny to me and that's kind of the whole goal. I want to have fun and I want to laugh. And a lot of this stuff that I do makes me laugh and just, I don't know if it can make me smile. I'm like, okay, this is dope. But, um, yeah. So. Uh, I've been doing that since I started skating.

There was a point where I was skating more regularly and doing drops/ledges and stuff but then I did my first frontside grind and I was like, “oh, I want to do this.” I watched the search for Animal Chin and I thought it was so goofy and fun. I started learning boneless, no comply’s, Bert slides and all that stuff. 

I got made fun of for years at my home park these select individuals. They would constantly talk shit on me for not doing normal tricks.

“Illegal tricks” as the kids say these days.

Every time I see that term I'm like, “man, you guys are so far up your own skateboard asses.”  That's some jock shit. I don't give a fuck what you think is legal or illegal. It's all toys we're playing with. Get over it.

I was getting made fun of for a long time and every time people would say something, I was like, "why are you so worried about what I'm doing with my board when you can mind your own business? I'm not affecting how you're skating why does it matter?” It's not like every time I do a boneless, you take a shinner from not landing a kickflip. That's not how this works. That was happening in my early teens at a really formative time in my life. Unfortunately, I heard it so much that I just believed that I was a terrible skateboarder. I still don't think I'm anything special, but obviously other people disagree with how I feel about myself. 

In terms of having my name on a board, it's crazy. This wasn't even the goal of mine and I keep trying to figure out how to word it because it always sounds like I'm being ungrateful. I'm so stoked because Heroin's been my favorite company for over ten years now. Fos is so down for the weirdness and niche stuff; I’ve always been really about it. 

We met in November 2019, right before COVID. We clicked immediately and became really good friends. I started going out and skating with him and he asked me to film a welcome to the team part. I was like, “fuck yeah, are you kidding me?” The thing is I had never truly filmed anything. I had only gone out with some homies to film YouTube montages, but never legitimately went out and filmed. I remember thinking I didn’t know how to film or if I even if I wanted to film. It was really conflicting and weird but I knew I I just had to do it. 

We started filming and it took three years to finish Swolan. We had to go through a few different filmers because the first guy I went out with reminded me of the bullies that would talk shit to me. After our second filming session, I was like “man, you're the kind of person that makes me not want to skate. You suck the fun out of it.” I took a little breather and didn't film for a month or two before I started getting clips again. It was just going to be a ‘welcome to the team’ part for me, but then Nolan came a little bit later. We were going to do a split part but it turned into a bigger project with our individual parts and a team montage in the middle. 

At the premiere, I could tell it turned into a bigger deal than I had observed in the past with different videos they had released. I thought Fos was going to turn me and Nolan pro or at least Nolan. And so we're at the premiere. We're watching all the things and it's like really cool. Nolan’s ender part was one of the most insane parts I think I've ever seen. Being a part of it and watching him do some of those tricks blew me away. As it ended I saw the screen that said congratulations and I was like, “Nolan's going pro.”  When it said ‘Swampy is now pro’ I was like, ‘what the fuck?!’

You could tell it was a genuine surprise.

I didn't think that was gonna happen at all. I also have crazy stage fright and I didn’t know who more than half of the people in that room were. They handed me the board and it was such a surreal moment. I was trying not to have a panic attack up there. I went into a full body sweat and my heart was pounding so gnarly.

I’ve heard you mention that your local shop wouldn’t even carry Heroin growing up so it’s gotta feel like a full circle moment. What's it been like seeing the explosion of people out there skating the egg shapes?

It's really wild seeing my board skated by people all over the world. I try not to think about it too much because it stresses me out. I shouldn't feel this way, but it all stems from those people in my past talking mad shit and making me feel the way I did. Now I have this awesome thing but it feels like I don't deserve it, you know? Seeing all the eggs out there is really cool, but that’s been an internal struggle.

What about in terms of like your daily setup? I saw you recently brought the original Deer Man of the Dark Woods shape back, but you usually go between the Wide Boy and the giant Eggzilla. Do you ever swap them out mid-session, or do you just skate setup one day and then switch to the other the next day?

When I'm out skating at a park, I usually have a quiver. I carry seven full completes with me, almost all the time. I just have them in my car, but I never know what I want to skate for the day. If I have a specific trick in mind, maybe I’ll think about what specific board I'm going to ride, but I usually decide as I'm getting out of the car. I’ll open up my trunk and go with whichever one speaks to me at the moment. 

Sometimes though, I'll pick the wrong one. I’ll skate it for a little bit and then once I'm warmed up I’ll go from the 9.25” symmetrical egg to the 10.75”, because that's more of the vibe. I'll totally switch mid session and I get looked at like I'm insane when I say that.

I was about to say, I could never. I’m so resistant to change when it comes to switching up my setup.

I don't know what it is. I'm thinking maybe it's because my feet are so small that it's less about the outer edges of the board. My feet stay pretty close together when I'm zooming around. It all feels pretty much the same, it’s just the weight of the board that changes.

I know you’re always pumping hips and banks, but where do you think your sense of board control and overall balance comes from?

I guess that probably ties back to being on different forms of wheels my entire life. One of my favorite words of all time is proprioception, which is just knowledge of the body and where it is in space. I don't really think about it too much. I just hop on and the faster I go, the less I'm thinking.

That's a good way to look at it. The faster the better.

I get so fucked up when I'm skating slow I always get way more hurt.

I heard you describe your skateboarding as “doing a silly dance with gravity and a hard surface” and it definitely comes across like you’re just flowing out there.

I’ve refer to my skateboard as a mobile dance floors so many times because again, I have such tiny feet and I ride ginormous boards most of the time. It's just like a dance floor on wheels.

How about we talk about some spots. You mentioned you were just skating the curbs at Rosie’s dog beach. Are those the best curbs in town or do you have another go-to?

I think some people would think so but I really don't like double sided curbs, especially ones with sand and a rock ditch on one side - that sketches me out. They are good curbs, though. I think I did the longest boardslide I've ever done there the other day.

As for the best curbs, there’s a church down the street from where I lived in Huntington Beach that had pretty mellow curbs. They were long and the floor was decent so I skated the shit out of those for months because all the parks were filled with sand and wood chips. I would probably say those are my favorite curbs because they're really mellow but you can get gnarly. They're not super tall and they have a good angle on them. 

What about parks? It seems like Harbor City is your go-to; is that fair to say?

Harbor City is my favorite park within 20 minutes of me.

Living in Redondo Beach, I’d have to agree.

It's super fucking fun. The homie Evan [XXX] is the one that really pushed the city to get that park built. He put so much thought into the obstacles and the flow of it all. Nothing is too big in that park and it's got everything you really need to, like, learn how to skate. But also you can like, definitely get buck as well.

I really like to zoom around and that park is great for it because you can just go in a sort of a pretzel shape. I like to hit the “H” quarter pipe, come back down to a little one foot quarter pipe and over into the middle section with the three foot quarter pipes. Then you can just shoot back out, hit the manny pad and repeat that process. I could spend so much time there.

I also like the Volcom outdoor park in Costa Mesa and the Manzanita park in Anaheim. Those are definitely two of my favorites. Most of my real jobs have been within ten minutes of both of those parks so I spent a lot of time there after work and skate until  the lights go out. I have a lot of good homies out there too so it’s a good vibe for the most part.

Shout out to the OC!

The new Silverado is pretty sick too but again, I like to go in circles and everybody skates that park like it's a grid. They just go back and forth so I’m always accidentally snaking people, but whatever. That's just how it is.

Shifting gears a bit, I wanted to ask about your taste in music as well since I saw you also went to that Ceremony show at The Palladium the other day. How did you get into the hardcore scene? 

I started going to shows in my hometown right around the same time I started skateboarding, which again was a very pivotal time in my life. Me and my homies would skate all day and then at night, we'd skate to the venue and watch all these rad mixed bill shows. That’s where I learned how to mosh and stuff too. It's all connected. I've thought about this quite a bit and if I had to choose between skateboarding and music, I'd pick music without even hesitating. I obviously love skateboarding, but music is something that I can experience all day. Whether it's raining or if I have a bum foot or ankle, I can still listen to music. 

I got into hardcore specifically because of this band from a bit north of my hometown called Waste Them All. They don't exist anymore, but they came to play one of the shows and they were the first actual hardcore band that I saw.

I remember it was so like it was funny because right before they played, the vocalist was like “sorry guys, we’re not a very mosh-able band” because most of the bands would play good old metalcore stuff. But they started playing and they were so aggressive and raw. They opened up hardcore to me and I really went down that rabbit hole.

My friends and I would pack in and go down to Camarillo or to Chain Reaction to go to hardcore shows. It's been such an important part of my life because it’s another great outlet for aggression. I love hardcore and the ethos behind it. It’s helped me to become a better person between the mentality and the morals. Obviously there's shitheads in hardcore too, but they can fuck off.

You took the words right out of my mouth. I only started going to shows more recently, after the pandemic, but once I caught the energy of being in the pit, I realized it was exactly like going to a skate jam in a lot of ways.

It's going to sound kooky to someone who takes hardcore really fucking seriously, but sometimes when I’m moshing and I'm throwing a haymaker or a spin kick combo into someone’s direction, it feels like I'm doing a line in a bowl or something like that. It’s all super connected and bringing it back to concept of proprioception, it’s just about  knowing where my body's at, but with like a badass soundtrack behind it.

Wanna name a couple bands that make up your soundtrack these days? 

A couple days ago, Despize from Scotland just put out their first LP called Scotland's Hardcore - it’s super heavy and groovy. Sinister Feeling is a good one too - they are more of a powerviolence band.‘92 is also really cool, I have some homies in that band. ‘We Still Know’ by Collateral is another solid LP.

We’ll have to shout some of them out on the playlist in this issue. 

Any other words you’d like to say about your approach to skateboarding or life as a whole these days? 

I just think people should not take playing with literal toys so seriously. It's a piece of wood with some wheels, everybody can agree with that. It's just fun and that’s the way it should be. Don't be so focused on trying to make it. Just do it because you love it. That's the only reason I'm doing it still.

I’m with you there. I think I’ve reached the point where as long as I touch some coping or something, that's more satisfying than trying to learn something new every single time I go out.

Just go boogie. Maybe try skating a stupid big board like Eggzilla and have fun with it. That's the main point.

Photos: Dave Mount & Taylor Ballard

Originally published in Issue 3 - May 2024