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1 6 Four days at home with Magenta 2 8 Where We Come From 3 6 Living la Vida Local, Etnies in South Africa 4 6 The Deserters Louw in Fuertaventura 5 6 Daggers, Drugs, Tanks and Kebabs by Laurence Keefe 6 0 I Genghis Khan’t Wait to Go Back, Carhartt in Mongolia 7 2 Interview: Nisse Ingemarsson 7 8 #pleasecharge Converse in the Netherlands 8 8 Interview: Axel Cruysberghs 1 0 0 Öctagon in Zaragoza 1 0 8 Buddha Hideout, Holiday in Cambodia 1 1 4 Les Bronzés in the Banlieue, Palace in Paris

FREE 01 July Aug 2015

Cover: Felipe BartolomĂŠ nosepick indy in Hoofddorp, Netherlands Ph. Sam Ashley

Contents: Daan van der Linden, backside tailslide in Athens, Greece Ph. DVL

Fred’s Story

Editor in Chief Will Harmon Photo Editor Sam Ashley Online Editor Arthur Derrien Graphic Designers Ben Weaver & Seb Howell Illustrations James Jarvis Free is published six times a year by FSM Publishing Limited. Printed in the UK freeskatemag.com @freeskatemag freeskatemag@gmail.com

by Will Harmon

Fred was new to skateboarding. At first Fred rode his new skateboard all around the streets by his house, but the pavement was all very bumpy and crack-ridden. After a couple of weeks of searching Fred found a smooth car park with perfect ground about fifteen minutes away. This car park was perfect for skateboarding. Soon Fred met a lot of local kids from his town as they had ventured to this car park themselves to skate. Fred and his new friends met at the car park every day after school and practiced their flatground tricks until it got dark. One day a man called Dante came by and said he owned the car park. Fred and his friends were nervous that Dante might make them leave their new favourite skate spot. But Dante didn’t mind them skating and said: “You guys can even build some ramps here if you like.” Fred and his friends couldn’t believe it! So a few days later the guys got together, found some old wood and built a funbox and a small jump ramp. Dante drove up to the car park one day, got out of his car, let out a big laugh and said: “Your little ramps are pathetic! Why don’t I give you some good materials and tools to make some quality ramps and obstacles? How about that?” The boys were ecstatic. Fred’s friend Alec had an older cousin named Oli from a few towns over who had been skating for years and knew how to build skate obstacles. Oli helped Fred, Alec and the other guys build some nice concrete DIY banks in the car park and a tight-transitioned quarter-pipe. With Oli’s help, the boys also built a cement manny pad with metal coping on the side. And Dante supplied all of the concrete and gave them all these tools; the boys couldn’t believe their luck! Soon skaters from all over were coming to this car park. Carloads of kids were coming from 150 miles away to skate the car park with a few DIY banks and obstacles. It was a full-on session going every weekend! Dante came by one weekend day, got out of his car and said: “Good gosh! Look at all these people here in my car park! Looks like we are going to need more ramps!” So Dante brought the boys more concrete and the boys summoned all their new friends and acquaintances to help build more ramps and obstacles. Now the car park had a bank-to-wall, an escalating ledge, two flatbars and a driveway. The car park really became famous after that. It was dubbed ‘FunSide’ and people were dropping in from all over, even from different countries to come and skate. FunSide continued on for two years like this until one harrowing day…

On a crisp, autumn afternoon Fred and his friends arrived at the car park to a terrible sight… Dante was there with three other men, they all were wearing hard hats and the men were smashing up the banks and obstacles with sledgehammers. “What are you doing!?” cried Fred. “My financial adviser has said that this car park needs to turn a profit. I can’t help you guys make ramps anymore as this isn’t bringing me in any money,” said Dante. “I’m gonna set up a video production studio here. There’s no room for the obstacles but you guys can still use the car park as long as you don’t get in the way.” Fred walked back over to where Alec and the others were standing. “Well he said we could still skate here,” said Fred. “But the best thing about this car park was the ramps that we built. Now they are all destroyed and gone!” said Alec. “Dante gave us everything for the ramps though! Why would he destroy them Alec?!” said Fred. “He doesn’t care about skateboarding Fred. He’s not a skateboarder so it’s not in his heart. He wants to make some video place now. Surely that will make him money so that’s what he’s going to do,” said Alec. Fred: “Yeah let’s not skate here then. Let’s go somewhere else.” So the boys left their beloved car park that day never to return. As the weeks went by the boys skated all over town in search of the best spots to skate. One cold November day the boys went down a decrepit access road towards what looked like an abandoned factory. The factory was boarded up pretty securely, but the front parking area was open and not gated off. The car park was paved, but not as smooth as their old spot. “This’ll do.” Alec said. The next day Fred, Alec and the others came back with brooms and shovels. They cleaned up the car park and collected rocks and bricks from around the area and made them into a mound. They put all their pocket money together and bought some quick-crete from the nearby DIY store. The boys built their first mini volcano to skate. It wasn’t pretty, they didn’t have enough money for the premium concrete, but they made it work – they did it themselves. Dante was not giving them supplies anymore, but it didn’t matter, they now knew they could make do on their own. “We did it D.I.Y. style Fred!” said Alec. “No Alec, we did it together. We did it D.I.O…. We Did It Ourselves,” said Fred. Welcome to Free skateboard magazine, a D.I.O. publication.

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Vivien Feil, frontside nosegrind

Photography by Sem Rubio

Four days at home with Magenta

My plan was to travel to Bordeaux to link up with the Magenta guys and get a feel for what daily life was like in their hometown. Bordeaux is home to the Magenta headquarters as well as Vivien Feil and Glen Fox. Unfortunately when I visited last October, I had missed Leo (Valls) as he’d flown off to Japan just days before. But luckily Soy Panday was down from Paris for a visit that week. I got to stay at the Magenta HQ and soon realised that the Magenta clique was much larger than just the names you see on the Magenta pro

boards. Magenta is really rollin’ deep in Bordeaux! For various reasons this article got shelved for a bit, but luckily it’s now finally seeing the light of day. So although the photos shot by Sem Rubio are from four days last October I talked with Vivien recently to see what had been going on with him and Magenta in the past six months. Intro and interview by Will Harmon

So what’s new and what has been going on with Magenta since I was last there in Bordeaux in October? Vivien Feil: Well a lot has happened actually. A big one was that Soy (Panday) got Cancer. When we found out this, we had to slow down a bit to deal with that and adapt. The good things is now he’s cured and he’s finally better. Now Soy has moved down to Bordeaux to help get things back on track and get some support. Also Tavu (Olivier Ente) has relocated here from Lille. He’s been helping us out. So many people come by here and visit to skate. We recently had Nikola (Racan) come from Croatia plus loads of other friends from Japan… Just so many people stop through Bordeaux. And when I was there in October your girlfriend was pregnant… Yes I had a second kid since you were here last! I’m really busy now, but it’s all good. How did your 5-year anniversary exhibition and pop-up shop go in Paris last week? Yeah it was awesome. We were right next to République so we could skate all day, hangout and drink beer. We had an art show with Jean’s (Feil) photos, Benjamin’s (Derberdt) photos, Soy’s art, Tavu’s art and some other friends. Richard (Hart) had a photo. It was really cool; loads of people showed up. We blocked the street! The opening night the neighbours were not happy, which is always a good sign! (Laughs) So was there a lot of the Magenta crew there in attendance? Lui Araki, who we support, came from Japan. We had friends come from all over, but not the whole team. Jimmy (Lannon) is hurt right now. He’s hurt his

over that we support. Liu Araki is one of them. He’s an older skater, an amazing skater from Tokyo that we hook up. We hook up Masaki Ui here in Bordeaux. Also Yoan (Taillandier) also hip. Ben (Gore) was a little tight with gets stuff… All the money. So we mostly kept it French. friends we skate with you know. If you are Gaetan (Salvignol), your sales guy, kills it skating with these at skating as can be seen in this article. I remember guys all the time, you before you talking about so many people being part know you don’t really of the Magenta family even though they aren’t a want them to have to Magenta Pro or official Am or whatever. Can you talk go to a shop to buy a more about the Magenta family and what that means? full-price board. Yeah well basically we hook up all our friends pretty much who are not hooked up by somebody else. There is a bunch of people, not only in France, but all

9 Masaki Ui, 50-50 grind to ollie crooked grind

When I was there last Glen (Fox) was working on his welcome part. Now that it’s out, the question everyone asks is: Was any of Glen’s footage sped up in that part? Well that’s the thing… No. That’s a big myth. The style of filming created the myth that things were sped up. But if the point of your filming is to convey the energy of skating and stuff like that well then if you film it really good it might look sped up, especially with the VX1000. But the answer is no, it wasn’t sped up. When people see him skate in person they’ll lose their minds! Gaëtan Salvignol, 50-50 grind across, up and out

So essentially you are building this big community of Magenta followers… Yeah sure, it’s just to get people psyched. We like to hook up dudes that share a similar common view about skating rather than just a few select dudes. I think with skateboarding, if you don’t have the community around it then you are going to quit eventually. So many people move to places just because there is a better skate community there. I think it is superimportant to stay stoked. I mean human beings do that - they tend to try and have a community of supportive and like-minded individuals around them. I mean if you are a brand and it’s going well then you can hook up all the friends. Why not!

How important is the relationship with the filmer for the brand’s video projects? It’s very important. The filmer has the way to carry the message and he also holds the key to how the images are going to look. He’s an artist. You know if you look at Yoan he’s not on a schedule for anything because he’s an artist. He does whatever he wants to do. He’s going to bring an eye to it; he’s conscious when he films. He’s not there going: “Oh this will work like that… This is fine.” No, he’s thinking how he can he get the best. He thinks about the little things. So he helps us. We can see that he has this energy when he films and that in turn gives

us energy. It helps us focus. (Editor’s note: Soy Panday once said that: “Yoan is performing a trick with his filming. Every movement is thought out and Yoan is thinking about everything in that particular image, not just the trick.”) It’s the same when shooting with a good photographer like Sam (Ashley) or Jean (Feil). Any good photographer is trying to find the way that things align and they are very conscious. And when you work with these people you have to be conscious of what you are doing.

Gaëtan Salvignol, gap over to 50-50 grind

So how’s Glen doing? He’s doing well. He was in Paris, now he’s back with his girlfriend in Bordeaux. He’s been killing it: painting, skating and living the good life. And when I was in Bordeaux last Leo (Valls) was in Japan. Is he back in Bordeaux now? Yeah Leo was over there for months. Also Ben (Gore) went over there with Glen and Aymeric (Nocus). I think they had a great time. They were filming for Zach Chamberlin’s new video Sprinkles.

2 Oh Zach has a new video coming out? Yeah Sprinkles is coming out soon, sometime this year. So is Leo living back in Bordeaux or San Francisco? He is in Bordeaux now, but I think he is moving back to SF at the end of the year. He’s always travelling around. Ok Vivien in another interview I’ve read with you, you refer to “our skateboarding.” Did you mean the Magenta way of skateboarding? And if so, can you explain what that is? Our way or skateboarding… Basically from what I see would be to just follow what you love about skateboarding. Try to think

Glen Fox, road gap ollie to backside powerslide

about what first brought you to skateboarding. And try to stay away from the general trends… Try not to follow the trends like about what you are wearing or whatever because that really doesn’t matter. Try to understand why skateboarding is special to you and why you still are partaking in it after all these years. Think about your feelings and your emotions you had from the start and then try to work on your skateboarding based on this information - not from what it has become from everybody else. What did you see in skateboarding as a child, teenager, or young adult that made you change the course of your life? Usually your first instinct is the best. When I say “our skateboarding” I’m not thinking about a powerslide or a no-comply it’s just the general idea that… You know I am doing a lot of powerslides now because it’s a new thing; it’s exciting.

4 Vivien Feil, ollie over the bike onto the bank

Well Bordeaux has a lot of marble floors that are great for powersliding! Yes and I mean who cares who came up with it; it’s just skateboarding you know. It’s whatever you want to do with it. Also we are involved with the industry too and we’ve met great people within it and some not-so-great people too but that’s how it is. But we could tell we would not be skating long if we had to follow that mould. We wanted to create a mould that allows anybody to skateboard and really feel what it is. You don’t have to put yourself through the mental torture of learning everything by the book and perfect to enjoy what skateboarding has to bring. “Our skateboarding” would be a way to experience skateboarding in a way that you could skate forever. You

the plug

Masaki Ui, wallride nollie out over

2 don’t ever have to do anything to prove to anyone except yourself. Heavy! But well said. So what do you have planned next for Magenta? We got a lot of secret plans. Ha! (Laughs) No, but I don’t like talking about this stuff as it kills the vibe you know! We are going to take some trips though. We are thinking of heading back to the UK. We were just in Italy with the Chef Family. That video should be out in September. Soy and myself are also going to Switzerland… We are going to try and do a lot of small trips. I just want to try and skate a lot and not do too much office work. I feel ya. Gotta get out and onto the board! Yeah I think after five years you look back and you are happy with your success, but then again you realise you’ve been spending an awful lot of time in an office. So this summer I’m going to try and skate a lot. So five years of Magenta already! Wow, what do you think about it when you look back? Well it’s been a big learning process. Starting a brand all on our own isn’t easy. There is a lot of paperwork and you make mistakes, but you learn from it all. I think after five years you just want to go back to the way you were when we started. We just want to focus on the things we have fun with and try to skate a lot. You know we want to do what we are hyped on: make more videos, skate a lot and make some cool products.

Where We Come From. video

In the midst of logging and editing footage from the past four years we spoke to Lucas to get the lowdown on how he picked the crew, why he’s not bankrupt and what he’s got planned next...

Will Harmon: What made you want to make Where We Come From, an independent video, in this day and age?

Lucas Fiederling: Well I always did independent videos. Doing a video with your friends… Well that’s why I got into all of this in the first place. And then it kind of started to die out and I was always waiting for that company to give me a call and tell me to do the next welcome video or whatever. And then you work on a project and then the usual:

it gets blown out all over the Internet and then forgotten about in a day or two. I was getting tired of that and also I was not completely happy working with MSM (Monster Skateboard Magazine) anymore because we weren’t on the same page in regards to how things were supposed to look and we could never agree on music choices and whatnot. So I was feeling like: “Oh you are working in the skateboarding business and you are getting paid shit and at the same time you still aren’t doing what you want.” Also at this same time my dad passed away and it made me really think: “What do I do now? Do I go and study film and get into the film business or should I do one more skate video just because I need it?” So I guess you decided to do one more big video?

Well yeah I was on the bus of the last Cleptomanicx dvd-premieretour for their last video and I realised that’s what I wanted to do again. I wanted to have a product that you tour around with and show it to people. So I called Willow that day straight from the tour van out of a hungover decision to just go for another video - and he said he was in straight away. Then I called Niklas and it mushroomed from there. Everyone was up for it as

Lucas shows Axel and Willow the footy on a filming trip in Bangkok. Ph. Florian Hopfensperger

South Africa, Germany, Spain, Arizona, California, Thailand, Finland, New York, Holland, Denmark, Morocco, Greece, Belgium and Israel sound like the kind of epic filming locales for the next major shoe company video release. But unbelievably these are all the places Lucas Fiederling and his pals went to whilst filming for the independent

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thought: “Ok let’s do something for us where we can really do what the fuck we want.”

Well Willow and Niklas are good friends of mine and I guess Samu (Karvonen) got in it pretty quickly as I had seen him often around that time and I was a big fan of his skating. And actually (Mark) Frolich was supposed to be in there but after we went on a few missions and after living with each other and filming together for eight years we decided to just be friends and not work on a project together as we started to freak out on each other a little bit. So I thought if Frolich is not in it well I had to get (Chris) Pfanner as Mark and Chris were my two longtime Barcelona homies. So Chris was down to do it. And then with Marty (Murawski) I was a fan if him since his Filmbot Files part and we had been on trips back when I was helping out with the team management of DVS and Matix. And I wanted him to have a part on that level again so I decided to try and do it with him. With Eniz (Fazliov) I was taken on a Volcom trip to Mallorca back in 2012 when we had

So how did you pick the guys that were going to be in it?

Samu Karvonen, backside 50-50 grind to rollercoaster ride in Helsinki. Ph. Samuli Härkönen

everyone had been a bit unhappy working their asses off for a part and then somebody in the US edits it and they have no choice in the editing or in the music. So we

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No comply — Photo : Vincent Coupeau

because I was exhausted, I had a fever and I was heartbroken for a girl back in Germany but then through Samu I just realised: “hey this is not so bad. I’m out here far away, we are having a good time and I have these guys to talk me through it so I feel better.” That was the best thing about this video; it taught me a lot about myself. And travelling with this crew has helped me. These guys have been my second family for the past four years.

only been filming one year for the video. So after meeting Eniz there we realised we were like the same person when it comes to our ideas of what skating and a skate tour should be. We were the ones staying up the latest and watching footage. And I don’t even have to talk about his skating, so it was pretty obvious to get him in there. Phil was really the only guy I didn’t know that well before we got him in for the video. Basti (Bastian Loewen) got Phil in as he

worked for Carhartt for so many years. And now he’s one of my best homies. I didn’t pick these guys in a smart way with some big plan. I mean Axel (Cruysberghs) just came in last year and he’s going to have a full part. It all just came together spontaneously. Everyone has a unique style and personality and stuff. Everyone works really well together, but they are so different. Sometimes the unplanned way is the best way…

Yes, and something I realised while making this video… I was definitely going through some of the hardest times in my life dealing with family issues and losing people, but then I’d be on a tour with these guys sitting somewhere in Thailand drinking whiskey on an island after a week of filming. And I had been a hater

People have often misunderstood it - it was never meant to mean ‘where we come from’ as in what the skaters’ home country is, but it means more about going back to doing a fun skate video with a bunch of homies. It’s about going back to being kids and filming your mates with a camera. This is how skating was when we started. This is where we are coming from. It’s all about taking a trip and exploring all these cities with your homies and finding spots to skate. It’s that kind of vibe – taking it back to where we came from; how it all started you know! I see. So how will WWCF be released?

We will definitely make a DVD with lots of bonus and extra footage and a photo booklet. That’s what’s most important for me, have something in our hands to show our grandkids someday, and we’ll have premieres around the globe. I care a bit less about the online release and I will have to make some sort of deal to get at least a little bit of the money back. Like, I didn’t sell my house like Josh Stewart, but then again I didn’t have one in the first place

Eniz Fazliov, frontside 5-0 grind to fakie in Gran Canaria. Ph. DVL

What does the title Where We Come From mean?

Of course we are Lucas! So what are you going to do after it’s all edited and done?

Ah don’t ask me that! Well what’s next? Will you ever make a big video like this again?

I want to say no never again. First afford it anymore, way too expensive.

for sure no, of all I can’t as it’s just Especially like

I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of Lucas Fiederling. Well good luck editing and see you at the premiere!

Whoop whoop!

this vid where all the skaters live all around the globe and I ended up paying for a lot of things myself even though the guys helped a lot by financing their own trips etc. And the thing is, while I’m complaining and worrying about how much money I put into it, four years of work and how I can’t wait until it’s over and at the same time I’m very aware that… I mean this is my tenth independent video, so I remember at the end of all those videos having this feeling and then you have the premiere and basically it’s so much hype and good times that I’m like: “Ah let’s do another one!” I mean I always need a passion project. I don’t mind working in skateboarding and doing things I don’t always agree with, but I need that one project that fulfils my soul and satisfies or whatever. I need one thing that I can be proud of. I’m really scared that I’m gonna miss these guys. They all live around the globe and if I don’t have a reason I won’t see them much anymore. So to really answer the question well… I have no idea.

Niklas Speer von Cappeln, backside tailslide in Gran Canaria. Ph. DVL

nor a car or anything and I guess that’s the only reason I was able to pay for all these years of travelling and spending all this time on the video without getting paid for any of it. There is still a bunch of costs coming up too, the usual stuff like music rights, production and distribution, and we are most probably gonna release it through RedBull’s website. Maybe not the usual way to go for an independent video - but Helge (Zirkl) who runs the channel has been my friend for a long time. I would’ve had to take even more breaks from filming to make money if it wouldn’t have been for Helge and (Eric) Mirbach to buy our tour clips while being fine with us holding back the hammers for the video. So yeah, seems fair that they get to release the feature now. And yeah, I hope for Phil’s part we’ll make an exclusive premiere with Free magazine, if you guys are down?!

South Africa isn’t really “Africa.” Sadly, it’s not a huge jungle with lions roaming around. Cape Town, our first stop on the tour, was just like most other cities by a beach. Sam Clark mentioned how people are surprised they have cars and buildings there when they visit. In South Africa everyone spoke English and the US dollar and euro were worth about ten times the rand. This was Africa? In Cape Town we stayed at this nice hostel attached to a bar for the first couple days of the trip. It’s no mystery what happened next… We all ended up in there one night and Owen Wilson was the bartender. Not only that but he skated and recognised some of the crew. Every round we bought he hooked us up with a free one and we took over the bar singing all the classic skate video part songs. Everyone got laid that night. Unfortunately, he wasn’t “the” Owen Wilson and none of us got laid, but we killed it. Shout out to Owen Wilson! From Cape Town we drove north to Johannesburg, about 1400 Km. We made stops along the way, but even then it didn’t look like “Africa”. There were fields and mountains, cows and horses, nothing you couldn’t see in the US or Europe. Things got interesting but I can’t say it was because we were in Africa.

Etnies in South Africa By Silvester Eduardo

Photos by Sam Clark

3 7

Living la Vida Local

Axel Cruysberghs, wallie to boardslide pop-out in Cape Town

216 metres? We don’t learn the metric system in the US but I knew a metre was about 3 feet. The jump was at least 600 feet tall! As soon as we got out of the van all of us went straight to the bathroom to piss. We were nervous. As tough and confident as these dudes were on the insane rails and spots they skated free of any safety equipment this became scary. We were reassured it was “safe”, but that didn’t matter. We were terrified. Within minutes we had paid and were strapped up with a harness. In 30 minutes we would jump. We waited in the lobby watching a monitor with a live-feed of peoples faces before they jumped. The lady onscreen was shitting her pants and our anxiety rose as we watched. In a panic she grabbed and pulled on the two guys who helped her to the edge pleading not to jump. We watched them grab her arms count to three and throw her off. Just under the monitor you can see the actual bridge in the distance. She screamed the whole way down and dangled at the bottom of the cord motionless. There was silence. David was not a fan of heights… “Fuck that,” he said. Sam agreed and they chilled. Our time had come. It was Axel, Barney, Albert, Oli, this random dude from Switzerland and myself. We embraced him as part of the crew because not one person he came with had the balls to join him. The guide led us out of the parking lot, through a small forest, and onto the entrance of the bridge. Right there, the fear hit us hard. The jump was from the middle of the bridge, and the only way to get there was in this small mesh walkway that looked like it would detach from the bridge at

BLOUKRAN’S BUNGEE – THE WORLD’S BIGGEST BRIDGE BUNGEE JUMP – 216 METRES.

Halfway into the trip we made it to Jeffrey’s Bay where we rented boards and surfed the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. “Surfed” in the very casual sense of the word: we caught the 3-foot leftovers of these huge waves only Oli Buergin (Etnies Europe Team manager) could handle. Before we got into the van for the next drive someone mentioned this insane bungee jump. It sounded sick, but we were tired and we didn’t know where it was. I fell asleep. An hour later, I wake up and we are in some weird parking lot. There were barely any cars. Instead there were a bunch of squatters selling souvenirs. Everyone else was excited, sitting up in their seats. Axel looked at me and said: “Are you going to do it?”. Before I could ask I saw a huge sign that read:

any minute. Every time you took a step it would creek and sway.   “It’s built that way” reminded our guide. “Don’t look down”. Of course we all did immediately regretting it. The trees and stream below the bridge were microscopic. We slowly made our way to the middle of the bridge gripping the handrails tightly every step of the way. Finally we got to the jumping point and saw some guides pulling on what seemed like a broken bungee cord. Albert asked what it was and the guide says: “Oh, they are just testing the line. A couple days ago we had one break.” “What?!”   The guide laughed hard and said: ”Oh and see the stream below the bridge?”   We looked down and noticed the stream. It was bright red.   “It looks like blood,” the guide said, “but it isn’t.”   At the jumping site they have a photographer to take pictures of you in what feels like the last moments of your life. Loud speakers play music that echoes in the valley below the bridge. Slowly you start talking to the guides, posing for pictures and jamming to the music. For a moment your tension eases and you forget about the jump. Then you hear them call your name. A guide sits you down and asks you if you are ready. Then they put the last harnesses around your legs squeezing them together, making it so that you can’t walk. Two men help you out of the chair and to the edge where there is a camera overhead. They tell you to look at it. Your toes hanging over the edge and they count: “1…2….3… Jump.” Before you can look down your legs respond to their count and you jump. Now you are in the air, weightless. Then you look down and you see the valley below. You move like a roller coaster rising up to it’s peak, slowly arching and then accelerating down. Tears stream from your eyes and the wind speeds past your head. Your body tenses up and it looks like your doing an upside down Christ Air. Not one thought crosses your mind and then the cord stretches tight and you bounce back up toward the bridge. It’s not over yet. You bounce again, upside down looking at the trees 200 feet below. Then you just hang there. The fear goes and you feel weirdly peaceful. A man repels from the bridge to pull you up and the whole crew is there waiting to hug you. We had all escaped death. Adrenaline was winding down and our thoughts were coming back. We looked at each other and all thought the same thing: ‘let’s do that shit again!’ We would talk about that experience that lasted minutes for years.

Silvester Eduardo, kickflip in Moorreesburg

Barney Page, frontside smith grind in Cape Town

4 1

Barney Page, frontside boneless in George

A couple of demos and drives later came the lion park. A glimpse of the “Africa” we all wanted to see. There was a huge sign:

KEEP THE WINDOWS OF THE VEHICLE CLOSED AT ALL TIMES.    We didn’t listen. We drove within an arms length of massive lions. A lion’s paw is about the size of your head. Not only that, every muscle on their body bulges out. “Maybe we should close the windows.” “Nah.” the photos for Instagram weren’t worth it if the windows were up. Instagramming was about as important as being there. One lion approached the car. The windows stayed open. He got closer about a metre away and stopped at a bush to scratch his neck on it. Seeing a lion that close scratching his head on a bush was pretty “Africa”. Everyone’s hands were out the window taking photos, just asking for it. A fly buzzes into the lion’s eye and he sneezes. All of the brave hands retreated with the screams of little girls. I have never seen a window close so fast in my life! Instagram was not worth it after all. Maybe it was. We opened the windows again just a couple feet down the road.   Later that day we took selfies with giraffes and ostriches. We got to chill with a Cheetah. He purred and licked our hands with his tongue that felt like a sheet of Mob Grip.

Albert Nyberg, backside 180 kickflip in Cape Town

We were tourists and this was “Africa.” We experienced all these luxuries for about $100. The essentials were the van and the playlist. The long stretches of highway made these crucial. We had the classic skate van. There was plenty of room at the beginning of the trip and no room at the end. There was no shortage of crushed beer cans, a skate shop worth of product, the remnants of gas station food, mags, dirty socks, banana peels, toenail clippings and piss bottles. There were endless sheets of grip tape and razors when you didn’t need to set up a board and none at all when you did. As soon as the van doors closed ”Living la vida local” and “Wrecking ball” were on steady rotation. The intro of either was enough to make everyone in the van die laughing. We played enough Johnny Cash for any prisoner. Sang Rihanna’s “Shine Bright Like a Diamond” until our voices became hoarse. David was the DJ. Him and Axel were steady twerking in the back of the van that became a disco. We had all the essentials and the luxuries. South Africa wasn’t “Africa” but who cares? We sang like drunk white girls, got wasted with Owen Wilson, jumped off bridges like James Bond and knocked out lions. Two weeks well spent.

Silvester Eduardo, frontside 180 kickflip in Port Elizabeth

4 5

Silvester Eduardo, frontside nosegrind in Cape Town.

David Reyes, frontside crooked grind in Bloemfontein

The Deserters Louw in Fuertaventura

Photography by Sam Ashley

Louw Skateboards was founded by Barcelona legend Enrique Lorenzo towards the end of 2013. The team is comprised of Octavio Barrera, Felipe BartolomĂŠ, Pol Catena and of course Enrique. In the spring of 2015 the team met on the windswept island of Fuerteventura to shoot what would be the first bespoke article for Free...

Octavio Barrera is no stranger to the islands of Gran Canaria. Ollie at the abandoned waterpark, Caleta De Fuste

This was the first Louw trip for flow rider Juan A. ViruĂŠs, a 20 year-old from Cadiz. Switch ollie from a strange angled wall into the street, Puerto del Rosario

When not keeping us entertained with old LA stories Enrique Lorenzo entertained us with his skateboarding. Switch crook, Puerto del Rosario

Madrid local Felipe BartolomĂŠ, ollie to frontside wallride, Caleta De Fuste

Roque is a small hamlet seemingly in the middle of nowhere; it probably has less than 50 residents. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not really anything there, except for this outdoor stage, ideal for Pol Catenaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s backside flip over the stairs

Being in La Oliva feels like you're trapped in a post-apocalyptic themed video game, mostly comprising of a deserted plaza stretching as far as the eye can see. Felipe BartolomĂŠ, wallride nollie out

Octavio Barrera, blindslide fakie nosegrind, La Oliva

Corralejo is scattered with abandoned zones, a result of tourists having tired of seventies and eighties era entertainment and moved onto pastures new. Pol Catena, kickflip frontside 50-50 at the diner

Right after Octavio Barrera landed this ollie up to frontside noseslide, a security guard for the Corralejo port enthusiastically kicked us out. The ring of cocaine surrounding his left nostril probably made this more amusing for all involved

Where do you draw the line? Once you’ve spent a week or so skating around war zones surrounded by Kalashnikovs and rocket 56 launchers without seeing anyone’s head get blown off, it’s easy to believe you’re Mr Invincible. However, when Patrik Wallner first proposed a trip around

the seemingly corrupt government and capture the capital. Not your typical package holiday! I didn’t want to have to be the whiney bitch to send out scared emails to everyone, but seeing as nobody else seemed to be bothered at

expert advice we should be fine there as long as things remained stable, but the political situation was indeed deteriorating. What if the embassies closed or the airport was captured? Every time I looked at a newspaper it had pictures of someone’s

Daggers, Drugs, Tanks and Kebabs By Laurence Keefe

all, I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page and everyone at least knew the situation there. I even threw the Arabian Peninsula including out a last ditch attempt to Yemen, the home of Al Qaeda, I abandon the Middle Eastern started having second thoughts. hell hole trip and instead get I didn’t really know much about everyone to spend their money Yemen so I started doing a bit of on a Brazilian vacation where research. It’s a country bordering we could chill on a white Saudi Arabia and we were planning sandy beach sinking cold ones to go to the capital city Sana’a before while looking at some big ol’ visiting an island called Socotra not bronze booties bounce around far from Somalia. Not the friendliest playing volleyball. My prayers part of the world… Most of the current fell on deaf ears… news stories were about tourists A few months went by getting kidnapped by terrorists and the start of the trip drew or speculation about an outbreak closer… I’d been assured by of civil war as various militant or some of the other members terrorist groups struggle to overthrow that according to local

head getting chopped off in an Islamic country and it was really starting to make me feel sick. Friends were giving me tearful goodbyes as if they’d never see me again and I couldn’t help but think that maybe this time we were really going too far. By the time we arrived in Oman, the first stop on the tour, half of the crew had already dropped out and during the days building up to arrival in Yemen, the situation went from bad to worse. There were news reports of the President being shot at, his aid being kidnapped and the Yemen state news agency

C A L L K E E N

and TV station being seized by the Houthi militant group. Our Yemen expert changed her mind, told us not 58 to go and fled the country herself. Even the agency that was helping us out there sent us a mail saying, “I presume you have all cancelled your trip”. Nope. We’re far too stupid for that. The last remaining American decided to bail at this point, understandably, as the locals probably weren’t too happy about the recent US army drone strikes. But the rest of us we’re quite happy to march on into possible torture and/or death. Our Russian friend Gosha Konyshev would meet us on the connecting flight in Doha to spend a day and night in Sana’a before heading to Socotra for a few days, later returning to the capital for another day and night before moving on to Jordan. If the situation got any worse, we were planning to stay safely in the airport. This is where everything went wrong… Our first flight was delayed, meaning we missed the connection and poor Gosha was stuck on a flight to hell alone! After several lengthy illogical connections

at the crusty Sana’a airport amongst the stray cat fights. All of our luggage had been lost somewhere along the way, meaning we would spend the next week only with the clothes we were wearing, whatever we had in our hand

luggage and one skateboard for the whole group. Gosha had already taken a tour of the old town with a guide, and instead of telling us about tanks, guns and chaos in the streets, he excitedly talked about a camel in a room making oil, everyone carrying daggers, some kind of drug called Khat and the best kebab ever. Maybe Yemen would be fine after all! Sure enough we spent our time peacefully in the city. The locals were all friendly, bar the first person we saw in the street that barked “DEATH TO AMERICA” as we I didn’t really walked past him. The know much about cityscape was epic Yemen… Most of and a falafel wrap only cost 25 cents. the current news Khat must be pretty stories were about addictive because every male over tourists getting the age of 20 has a kidnapped by cheek swollen to the terrorists size of a tennis ball from being stuffed full of the bitter leaf. It tasted like shit and did we could arrive in Sana’a in nothing for me though. There the middle of the night but were spots and the kids were Gosha would have to meet hyped on skating. We quickly our local contact alone and forgot where we were and either wait for us in the wandered around alone freely airport or brave the city. taking pictures and skating. Luckily we found him waiting

As we took off for the island, I couldn’t help but notice flying over a burnt out fighter jet on the runway. The tanks and machine gun checkpoints were also a reminder that something was going on there that we had no idea about, but we were on holiday and all trying our best to push those thoughts to the back of our minds and relax. Finally we arrived in our own paradise, Socotra. Actually it’s probably only for the fact that the island is solely accessible by two flights a week from a city where tourists are kidnapped for ransom on the regular, that nobody goes there and the natural habitat is perfectly preserved. The place looks like an alien planet, with upside-down trees, potato style elephant plants, 50-metre tall sand dunes and all kinds of strange animals. It was really perfect for a skate trip, because even the biggest town on the island didn’t have tarmac, just rocky dirt roads. This was a real holiday. Camping on the beach, swimming in rock pools, fishing, eating freshly slain halal goat, hiking, chilling with dolphins and having baths in natural hot spring water was the routine. So what’s my point? I’m definitely not trying to encourage anyone to go to these places because I think we’re oblivious idiots for going there. If we keep these trips up you might see us on the news one day, blindfolded in the orange jump suits with a 16 year-old Jihadi trainee sawing our heads off, but if there’s one thing I’d like to pass on from these experiences, it’s that however much we are constantly fed hatred through the media to make us feel better about sending our armies to troubled places for political purposes, people are the same everywhere. 99% of the world population is only concerned with survival, having a family, living well and being a good person and it’s only the remaining 1% that is waging war, stealing oil, sending out the hate propaganda and chopping heads off. People are cool, everywhere. Don’t believe the news!

KRIS VILE KRIS KRIS VILE VILE NOLLIE HEEL NOLLIE HEEL NOLLIE HEEL

Photo: james griffiths Photo: james griffiths Photo: james griffiths

HANDCRAFTED PREMIUM EYEWEAR HANDCRAFTED PREMIUM HANDCRAFTED PREMIUM EYEWEAR EYEWEAR

MELONOPTICS.COM MELONOPTICS.COM MELONOPTICS.COM

Gers Just Wanna Have Fun

Carhartt in Mongolia

Ulan Bastards

Additional photos by Cyrille Weiner

Is it still a Texas Plant if you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t tail grab? Deshi is probably not caring and thinking of his next beer run. Bulgan

Skate photos by Percy Dean

I Genghis Khanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Wait to Go Back

62 One of the 653 tricks that Jerome Campbell landed over the last two days of the trip: handrail ollie, Ulan Bator

Text by Seb Carayol

It took me 25 years, one month, four days (I counted) from the day I set foot on a skateboard, in June 1989, until actually going on my first skateboard tour. Mind you, I could have before, especially after eighteen of said years writing for a vast array of skateboard magazines, from the best to the worst. It just never happened, save for a strange

Ten years after, Mongolia revisited

Nimes-Barcelona trip with Tom Penny, Benjamin Deberdt and Seb Charlot back in 1997. But I don’t think witnessing Tom not changing socks for a week qualifies as “a tour.” Plus, I had heard the tales, you know: “Soand-so needs to find the sketchiest neighbourhood in any given city to go score coke” -type of thing. Great! Finally, nurturing the obvious Communist in every Frenchman, I was never at ease with the idea of writing about a couple weeks worth of product placement. More seriously, if you want to think about it in journalistic terms (I know, I shouldn’t… It’s skateboarding), tours have barely ever had an actual “reason” to go somewhere. They usually are not here to document anything that exists there before or after the tour. They came, they saw, they conquered, they left. What actual story is there to all this circus? None. Anyway, so, I was ready to die by that stance, in one of these luxurious mansions by the Caribbean Sea that my no-nonsense vision of journalism bought me, when my gold-plated phone figuratively rang… Ten years later, the guys behind the Dirt Ollies book/ Mongolian Tyres film, depicting the adventures of a phalanx of skateboarders lost in Mongolia, wanted to go back and see how the country had evolved, using skateboarding as a reading chart, or, if I wanted to sound like a pedantic savant-wannabe –which I certainly don’t mind– as “an architectural marker.” Interestingly, the mission would be embarking as well two people who had zero experience in skateboarding: Nicola Delon, an architect, and Cyrille Weiner, a Parisian photographer known for his landscape and architectural photography. Other than them, a cast of top-shelf skateboarders (Sylvain Tognelli, Joseph Biais, Jerome Campbell, Igor Fardin, Phil Zwijsen, Deshi), a pro skater/filmer (Rogie, of Heroin videos fame), plus ace photographer/MMA fighter Percy Dean would complete the 2014, 2.0 version of the great Mongolian adventure. Eager to buy the whole resort my mansion was built in, what did you think I did? Off to my first, company-funded skateboard tour I went, wondering

(coal, copper, rare metals, uranium, etc.), both a blessing and a curse, with tales of anarchic growth and profoundly traumatising society changes. From the dirt roads of 2004 to the construction sites’ dust of 2014, this decade of (r)evolution fully deserved a new examination… This is how, one bright July 2014 morning, our motley crew found itself, still jetlagged after an old-school 13-hour flight (hello, gas tank refill in Turkmenistan!), skating the front yard of “5th School,” a brand new addition to Ulan Bator’s skateboardfriendly real estate peppered with benches so skateable that each one even incorporates a metal bank. In true “European powerhouse” style, Phil Zwijsen decided to officially kick start the hostilities with a bang: by trying to destroy, going Mach 2, a green handrail/electric box combo with his hip. The hip lost. Always on the hunt, Sylvain Tognelli had in the meantime used every research tool he could get his hands on (such as: getting invited to a party by a Tinder match) to find a very decent riverbank while walking home at night, following said party. And so on… Revisiting very few of the spots from the first trip, besides a bank to wall that left one irate owner with enough money to repaint it ten times, the few days in UB before hitting the road to the steppes were spent between the Black market (where the finest of

a giant, X-Games-calibre (minus the safety, and skate-ability) skatepark in the heart of the city, right behind the Wrestling Palace. It took two years to get a trip organised, and for Western skateboarders to reach the structure only to find out that the skatepark had been demolished three weeks before their arrival. Ten years later, Mongolia has become one the quickest growing countries in the world, thanks to its underground treasures

streetwear knock-offs compete in size with the yurtselling section), Ubering Mongolian-style (anybody is allowed to be a taxi in UB, which could have you travel with a car bumper accompanying you on the back seat), and skateboarding with a few locals. Among them, Eddy Pureev, an UB native who grew up in New York, had the aura of a streetwear-clad Godfather, for he runs an NGO helping kids to start skating, as well as UB’s non-licensed version of the X-Games, set in a fascinating, clunky, Soviet-Era amusement park. If Eddy was the Godfather, his “Capi” would be Bill: a fully tattooed, potty-mouthed American slang master obsessed with trying to take the crew to strip clubs in order “to touch Mongolian titties,” and Bill’s

how I’d be able to pack that many free “pocket tees” in one suitcase and, more importantly, how we’d be able to purchase crack cocaine for such a large group in the country that bears the smallest population density in the world (1.8 inhabitants per square kilometre) since, as rumour has always told me, most of the time on a skateboard tour is spent buying street drugs. Well, I was up for a big disappointment. From touching the ground at Ulan Bator’s constructivist-chic airport until we left, no sketchy drug deal took place. Instead, everybody was game to bring their contribution to what was more than just a bunch of demos, for a journey that took us from Ulan Bator to Darkhan, Amarbayasgalant, Bulgan, Erdenet, Tsetserleg, Elsen Tasarkhai and Kharkhorum over the course of three weeks, searching for spots, living with a nomad family, exploring bone-chilling mining towns and sleeping in a sand dune desert. Before getting into that, though, let’s go back to 2004, with a very simple question: why Mongolia? It all started two years prior, when visiting German archaeology student/ photographer Jo Hempel was made aware of

Deshi, wallride to fakie, to full-on green wall re-painting, Ulan Bator

cousin Misheel, who happens to be the 30year old Director of Business Development at Forbes Mongolia magazine. Yes, THE Forbes. When we met Misheel, as we needed to have a reliable translator for the countryside part of the trip, he showed up in a suit-and-tie. “Serious guy,” we thought. Turns out, the wolf

the fanciest kit you can imagine, only to almost kill himself during a downhill in Bulgan, then suffer a mild case of urban home sickness–all the while, ending each of his sentences with “man!” (Pronounced as in “Gucci Mane”). Our team and life now complete and blessed by the Misheel presence, we were ready to hit the road, with Rogie and several crewmembers still daydreaming about Shanz 3. Shanz what? Oh, nothing: just an all-girl band that randomly came on

Part Mad Max, part Crocodile Dundee, Davaa soon become one of us, and was equally fascinated by skateboarding as we were with his ability to fix anything was dressed in sheep’s clothing: presented with the opportunity, Misheel promptly brushed off the impromptu holiday issue in a very professional manner (“I don’t give a shit, I’ll fucking take a fucking week off, man”), jumped on board our Sportime bus with

stage at The Loft club to interrupt the hours of Lil Wayne-induced annoyance with 15 minutes of stellar, leather-clad, glow in the dark lipsticked, covers of Abba and Saturday Night Fever songs – all on that long, traditional Mongolian guitar called the shanz. No biggie. En route, then!

Phil Zwijsen is going to hell, or be reincarnated into a lame animal. Unauthorised ollie high over theÂ Amarbayasgalant monastery Â

68 In Mongolia, your choice of driver is crucial. Ours, Davaanyam, grew up in a herders’ family from Khuuvur before having to migrate to the city after losing their livestock to a “zud,” a particularly severe winter. Part Mad Max, part Crocodile Dundee, Davaa soon become one of us, and was equally fascinated by skateboarding as we were with his ability to fix anything, or to know the Mongolian anarcho-bucolic road system like the back of his hand. The smooth operator par excellence, Davaa lives life pedal to the metal, regardless of the size of the pothole in front of him - he’ll just veer right in front of it to slide over. He’ll start smoke bombs to chase mosquitoes. He’ll plough through abyssal ponds. He’ll never sleep anywhere else than in his beloved Hyundai County “Sportime”.

Soothed by Daava’s driving skills, the long bus hours in the infinite steppes, or between a city’s gas stations (banks guaranteed!), ditches, and abandoned mines, were spent mainly listening to one sole song, Ohio Express’ “Yummy Yummy Yummy”, avoiding bags constantly falling from the Tetris-like stack in the back of the Sportime, and trying to find the most possibly retarded titles for the new book/ film. Highlights included, but were not limited to: “I Genghis Khan’t Wait to Go Home, Camela Anderson, Unexpected Ponytail, Fuck Yourte, Cold Showers, Steppe by Steppe, Broken Back Mountain, Broken Hearts and Camel Toes, The Strange Case of Benjamin Mutton, Gers Just Wanna Have Fun,” and “Ulan Bastards.” Having said that, what was discovered in regards to Mongolia’s galloping, anarchic urbanisation? Well, friends, this will be for the book. For now, all you need to know regarding our excellent Mongolian adventures can be summed up by a few highlights… Let me check a few random notes… Darkhan bears the weirdest public park, consisting of a two-mile trail to nowhere, only interrupted by giant plaster rendition of the 12 astrological signs - not sure how this will influence

Joseph Biais, lipslide in the world’s favourite gloomy town: Tsetserleg

Igor Fardin, frontside wallride right under the Ulan Bator airport

Misheel admitted: he never actually asked permission, but “needed to see somebody skate that fucking temple”

Ölziit, and the nomad family we stayed with, taught us a few valuable life lessons: how to cook a lamb stew using river rocks, how to built a «ger» (yurt), and how to comically go number two, at night, in the rain (meaning: holding an umbrella), perched on two slippery rafters over a pit of doom–the 6ft x 6ft makeshift hole used as the outdoor family bathroom, 200 yards away from the camp. And like that, the three weeks could go on and on: being awaken by kids riding camels in the dunes of Elsen Tasarkhai? Check. Seeing Igor Fardin kill the roughest ditch, all-terrain style? Been there, done that. Witness Jerome Campbell going on a rampage, only to break his foot one hour and one mile away from the airport on the

all-marble, perfect skate plaza 50 yards away from your bed-sans-breakfast guest house when you think that there’s no hope in this town? Exactly. Bulgan also hosted a few nerve-racking events, that all ended okay: Deshi getting almost impaled in a ditch, Misheel’s leather jacket and shoulder offering to the ground of a downhill ride, and Joseph’s spectacular front board victorious battle against a huge supermarket rail.

last day? ABD. After all, it was my first tour, and the smallest detail would leave me all wide-eyed, from Deshi’s considerable beer consumption, to Sylvain being able to detect WiFi anywhere, to Percy becoming the poor guy that everybody wants to wrestle (all because he knocked out his opponent in 15 seconds during his one and only actual cage fight, back in 2008). Anything, everything worked its magic on me during these three weeks in Mongolia. So fun, it left me almost regretting not to have tried to find crack cocaine in the sketchy part of town.

his karmic balance, but Deshi surely wallied the whole bull’s head. Besides its amazing octagonal-banked railway station spot, Darkhan incidentally hosted an epic karaoke session that left the world stunned with Percy Dean’s rendition of “Uptown Girl,” and of the troop’s choral cover of “The Eye of the Tiger.” Amarbayasgalant’s monastery is so spectacular that it empowered an overly excited Misheel to go ask the monks inside if we could skate the roof of one of its high-perched structures. Weeks after Phil’s successful gap ollie, Misheel admitted: he never actually asked permission, but “needed to see somebody skate that fucking temple”. Arriving to Bulgan in the rain, after a depressing attempt at liking the mining town of Erdenet on the way (despite its Lenin mosaic on the side of a building), sounded like bad news - on paper that is. Because what are the odds to find an

From Dirt to Dust book and Out of Steppe documentary available now! Photography: Percy Dean and Cyrille Weiner / Writing: Seb Carayol Cinematography: Stephen Roe / Featured Skateboarders: Joseph Biais, Jerome Campbell, Igor Fardin, Sylvain Tognelli, Yoshihiro “Deshi” Omoto and Phil Zwijsen

Ten years after, skateboarding the urban revolution of Mongolia (2004 –14)

www.carhartt-wip.com Jerome Campbell, BS wallride – Photos Percy Dean & Cyrille Weiner

Before we get into this there’s something you should know: this isn’t the big Nisse interview some of you have been waiting for; that’ll probably come a little bit further down the line. This is a quick look into the current carefree (and enviable!) lifestyle of the youngest member of the Sour team. A lifestyle

that predominantly consists of hitting the streets of Barcelona to finish “the part” whilst completely ignoring the precarious financial implications that come with quitting a sponsor that pays you in order to help start something you believe in - quite an admirable way of “living the dream” if you ask me.

Nisse Ingemarsson

Arthur Derrien: So the first thing I was going to ask you about is the role you seem to have taken on at Sour. You are more or less in charge of the art direction right? Nisse: Yeah I guess. I just really enjoy doing it even though I don’t really know anything about Photoshop or any of the other programs. So you are just picking up that stuff as you go along? Yeah a little bit... I usually just come up with something with the others and then send it to Isaak (ex-Sweet filmer). He’s the one that turns something that looks really bad into something that looks really good. He basically fixes what I do so that it looks properly done. That sounds like a good arrangement. You get the props for coming up with the idea but Isaak does all the hard work! Haha, yeah except it’s only me coming up with the ideas. All the others are usually right behind me discussing ideas while I’m sitting at the computer. Oh yeah because you live with some of the others guys from the team right? Yeah I live with Daniel Spängs and Gustav Tønnesen. The way we usually do it is Björn (Holmenäs) comes over with beers and we sit down and try to come up some ideas. A lot of the time we just

end up drinking loads without really getting much done... But when you do come up with something you are into? What comes next? I send it to the whole team via the Facebook chat we’ve got going and they give me their feedback, tell me what could be changed/perfected and we decide if we keep it. And how’s it all coming along? When do you reckon you’ll get the boards in? Björn is saying that we would should have the boards and some apparel back by the 15th of June, when we come back to Barcelona from this trip. Right now we only have the samples... That’s good, it means that in theory by the time people read this they’ll be able to get their hands on some Sour gear. How’s the trip been going so far? It’s been really sick actually. I really enjoyed the “Back To Varnhem” contest we flew out to Sweden for. It’s a contest on a real street spot and the format is really sick. First you do a trick down a small hubba, then hit two flat ledges, then turn around and do the same line the other way around. You do that back and forth three times and then it’s a jam. They also add stuff to the plaza every year. This time they had some new

All photos by Alexander Olivera

granite manual pad/slappy ledges down the stairs that were really fun. After that we are spending a bit of time in Malmö/Copenhagen and then it’s back to Barca! How long have you been living in Barca now? For about three years. I moved out here the fall after I finished school. It’s basically been a three year summer holiday... Living the dream! Was it ever the plan to stay out here for this long? Not really, me and some of the boys just came out here for a bit, stayed through the winter and ended up getting a place on a two-year contract. Then we got another place, but we’ll be moving out in July before the Sour Solution premiere in Berlin. And after that I’m going to have to get a job... Damn that’ll be quite a change for you. I was actually wondering how all you guys could afford living that lifestyle. Especially after you guys (admirably) sacrificed the money you were each getting from Sweet to start your own thing… Right now I get a bit of money from Emerica but it’s tough. Plus every now and then a bit of money comes in from a contest or selling some boards, shoes etc. I’m just trying to stay alive until the end of July (when the Sour video comes out) then I’ll get my life together. What does getting your life together consist of? Moving back home? Going to university? I don’t know... I really don’t want to think about that right now. I do need money but I want to keep this lifestyle going until there’s absolutely no way I can make it work anymore. If I did go back to studying I’d make sure it would be something I’m really into though. Like something that could help you with the art direction side of Sour? Yeah for example… I just have too many friends from back home that study subjects they hate just because they are going to get “good” jobs out of it and I can’t help but think: “yeah sure you are going to have money but you aren’t going to have fun at all!” I bet seeing you and your three-year summer holiday must be quite painful for them... What about the video? Are you happy with what you’ve got? I heard had enough for a full part ages ago. I do have a lot of footage but I just want to do one more thing - something special, haha! And for how long have you been working

on it? About two and a half years now. That’s why I really want to get it out. I hate watching some of the first few tricks I filmed for it... Yeah that is quite a long time for a video, especially by today’s standards. Plus you went through the whole Sweet to Sour transition mid-filming... Yeah but that was just a relief. It feels so much better now. I couldn’t take hearing: “that shirt with the massive question mark, that’s a Sweet shirt right? Oh yeah you

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skate for Sweet right?” anymore. Have you got anything lined up with Emerica? I’m not sure. Last year we did two trips that were really fun. It’s good sometimes to get in the zone of a proper skate trip where you feel like you have to skate every single spot. Quite different from going out filming with the boys where you are constantly getting the beers in and it feels like a vacation. Which one do you prefer? I’m not sure really. Both have their

good sides. Obviously it’s not quite as productive but if you are out with the boys taking it easy sometimes you end up almost accidentally getting something you really like. On intense skate trips it’s hard to always feel in the mood for skating: sometimes you are tired, sometimes you are

bored of it... I was actually going to ask you about that. Do you never get bored of skateboarding? Living in a skate house, in Barcelona, skating everyday etc? Not really haha. And if I do start feeling a bit burnt I just take a day off and go to the beach, just to make sure I don’t have a mental breakdown.

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pleasecharge Surely you’ve seen this hashtag by now on various Instagrams… Well it’s been a plan of Converse’s all along and it has brought forth the official #pleasecharge European Cons Team edit, which is on the interwebs right now. We wanted to learn more about the pleasing and

Rémy Taveira makes use of one of Arnhem’s many banked spots with this wallride melon grab off

the charging so we spoke with the man behind the editing and most of the filming: Ben Chadourne. Whilst you look at the photos of the team’s last filming trip to the Netherlands have a read through what Ben has to say about the project.

Ben Chadourne interview by Arthur Derrien Photography by Sam Ashley Can you explain the idea behind all these #pleasecharge trips?

Okay so #pleasecharge is going to be a twenty-minute skate video, filmed over the space of three months. It’s not quite a fulllength as it was filmed over such a short amount of time but it’s not a tour video either as it’s the footage from seven different trips. Each trip was usually between seven and ten days long... The idea was to properly introduce the European Converse team without it necessarily being the big “Cons Europe Video”. Where did you guys go?

Las Palmas, Madrid, Bordeaux/Bilbao, Paris, Berlin, London, and Amsterdam was the last one. How is it going to be released?

It’s going to be released on DVD first then online part by part. We’ve got a bit of a weather theme going throughout the edit so when the DVD will be given to shops it’ll come with a barometer that tells you if the weather is good enough to charge or not. Will there be any full parts?

Yeah, Harry Lintell, Felipe Bartolomé and Rémy Taveira will have their own little sections as they went on more trips than the others. In fact I’m pretty sure Rémy went on every single one of them. Everyone smashed it though. I think most people probably won’t realise it was filmed over the space of three months. Rémy must have been destroyed by the end of it...

Yeah he was. On the first trips he’d get really excited and skate every single spot but towards the end he was a lot more selective. He was aware that his body couldn’t take much more...

Felipe BartolomĂŠ, ollie from bank to bank in Nijmegen

On the last trip he’d even leave his board at the hotel on certain days, just to make sure he wouldn’t skate. Same goes for you actually. You went on all of the trips as well right? Are you not too run down?

A little bit... I wasn’t initially supposed to go on this last one because the deadline for the submission of the edit was really soon after it, but I ended up going anyway. Since I’m kind of in charge of this project I thought I might as well be there for all of them - even if it meant working a little harder to finish the edit on time. Plus I did have James Cruickshank filming with me on all the trips. Not being the only filmer really helped. The fact that all the dudes on the team are quite responsible and relaxed was also a plus. The tensions you sometimes have on skate trips can really add to how mentally drained you feel at the end of them, but there was none of that this time. Everyone was really mellow. By “really soon after” how long exactly do you mean?

Just 10 days.

Wow. That’s how long it takes some people to put together a 15 second Instagram clip. They weren’t joking about the charging...

Definitely not. But that’s the whole point of what we were trying to do. When they see this kids are supposed to think: “Wait when did they film this? The Polar stuff Kevin’s wearing only came out the other day!” Can you tell us a little bit about the #pleasecharge Instagram edits you’ve been making? In a sense this video is the extension of these right?

On each trip I’d just film as much as possible on my phone, sometimes even stuff we were filming properly, and at the end of the week I’d make an edit from the best stuff that I knew wasn’t going to be kept for the video. Would you do it directly from your phone or on your computer?

On my computer.

Why did you guys call this project please charge?

It comes from a random story about my flatmate Paul (Grund). When he was in Berlin for some Kenny Anderson shoe launch thing, Kenny, who’s sponsored by some speaker company, decided to give him a mini-speaker because he thought he’d skated well or something. He brought it back to Bordeaux but when he tried switching it on he realised it was completely out of battery and the speaker went “please charge”. It said it in quite a funny voice so he recorded it and started using it on Instagram. Then I started using it as well and added a thing that said “please charge” in white on a black background at the end. I guess Ches (Neil Chester, who does the European marketing for Cons) and Converse thought that it could work well with the idea of charging for three months to film a video. I really enjoyed making these quick paced, dynamic edits for Instagram so when they started getting a really good response it only made sense to develop the whole thing. If your next question is “Will the proper video be edited like that?” the answer is no. Edits like these work really well for Instagram because you are only looking at the screen for 15 seconds. I think you’d quickly get quite dizzy from watching a ‘real’ video if it was edited like that from beginning to end. There will be a few brief ‘references’ to that style of editing though.

Sylvain Tognelli, backside nosepick in Rotterdam

Everyone from the USA loves hamburgers. We told Aaron Herrington the only way he was allowed to get at this one in Arnhem was to jump this crusty handrail situation first

Amsterdamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Noah Bunink threads the needle before pole jamming off the rail to clear the stairs in Schiedam

I don’t know if you started this trend but half the skateboarders on Instagram seem to be making edits like that these days.

Yeah I noticed that and that’s great. Quite a few kids even started using the #pleasecharge, which means that we must be doing something right. Although a lot of them probably have no idea it’s all part of the build up to the release of a longer edit. Is that a bad thing?

No not necessarily, in fact I think it was kind of always the plan. Surprising people with an edit and getting them to think “ah so that’s what all that #pleasecharge business was about” will probably have more impact than making a million teasers and over-hyping something up. Do you think you’ll be getting more filming work from Converse off the back of this?

Yeah I reckon so. I like the brand and a lot of the dudes on the team have been my friends for ages... I’m already supposed to being going on their big One Star European tour this summer. Is making a skate video for a big brand like Converse any different from working on independent projects?

Yeah it is a little bit. Anything Converse branded has to go through their legal department before it can be released, which means that you need to be super careful with what goes into the final edit: no cigarettes, no alcohol, you can’t show the faces of random people who might be walking past the spot you are skating, etc. Did you have to leave any clips out because of that?

Not really. I realised this early enough for that not to happen but I did have to make a conscious effort to film things differently. I’ll give you an example: when I was in Bilbao, Jerome was trying to ollie a wall some guy was really close to. It was sick because the dude had no idea Jerome was about to jump

over it so I zoomed in on his face when he was getting the run up for it, and as he caught sight of the skateboarder charging towards the wall he pulled a really funny face. I was quite happy with the way it came out but Ches explained to me that that would never get OK’ed by the legal department, so I ended up re-filming it. What about the music? I bet getting the rights for whatever you chose to use must have been a mission as well then.

Not really actually as we didn’t use the typical skate style of putting music to moving images. I worked very closely with Jean Louis Huhta, the Swedish artist that we used for Kevin’s Cons CTAS Pro Black Mono edit so it was fine. On the other hand it meant that I had even less time for the edit... What do you mean?

Well the way we work with him is that I edit the whole thing without music, I send it to him and he composes something that works with the edit’s pace/ rhythm and sends it back. I then tweak a few little bits and bobs and it’s good to go! Until quite recently you’d still regularly have footage in 5Boro videos (Join, or Die is a good example). Are you still skating as much?

Yeah. As much as I can really. I skated a lot on the first trip to Las Palmas, then a little bit less on the next one, then a little bit less on the next one etc. until I basically stopped because it became too hard to combine filming with it. I did manage to film a few clips though. Maybe I’ll stick them in the credits, haha. I never thought it would happen but I’ve actually gotten to the point where I’m as passionate about filming and making skate videos as I am about the act of skateboarding.

We sent Sylvain Tognelli to The Hague for his crimes ofÂ skate spotÂ massacre throughout Europe. He was tried, convicted and then caged; unfortunately this only encouraged him to commit further offences

Axel Cruys The main interview of Free’s first big issue goes to Belgium’s Axel Cruysberghs. I assume he came out on top because he had a bunch of impressive recent photos available to choose from, which is always a good starting point for a magazine feature. On top of that he is European, young and very focused on the

act of skateboarding, which isn’t very different from this magazine in particular. When I get Axel on Skype to do this interview it is evening in Belgium and morning in Long Beach, California, where he has just got out of the shower and looks fresh and ready to go skate.

Interview by Bram De Cleen Portrait by Vincent Coupeau

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Backside tailslide. Las Palmas Ph. DVL

Hey Axel, what are you in Long Beach for? We’re trying to film stuff for a new Volcom video. They’re already working on something new after True To This? Yes. I don’t know the name yet. You’ve been on Volcom for a long time, and Etnies as well, but you never had a really solid board sponsor until now, right? No, not really, they were solid brands, but I was always on the European program. What brands have you skated for so far? I used to get boards from Flip when I was really young. Right, that lasted for quite a while, right? Yes, it did. I was really young though, and I couldn’t really make it over to the US very often back then, so nothing ever really came from it. After that Alien Workshop sent me stuff for some time. That was a European deal as well. Like Eniz? Yes, I think so. You skated Antiz boards for a short period, too, and even had some tricks in their video (XV years). Why did that end? I really liked Antiz a lot, and still do, but I wanted to try to get on something bigger and more serious I think. That’s an honest answer… If I had stayed there that would’ve been it

I guess, and I would have never really known what else could have happened. It seems to be working out; you’re getting boards from Toy Machine. What’s the deal over there? Are you officially on the team? Not really, I’m going on a tour with them soon, to see how it all works out. That seems like a good start. I heard that Ed Templeton picked you out personally after seeing you skate. Is that how it happened? I’m not sure. I got an e-mail from the team manager saying that they were down to send me boards. Was that after you won the Volcom Damn Am contest? No, actually it was before that.

Smith grind to pop out over the stairs. Helsinki Ph. Sam Clark

Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always done very well in contests in Belgium and Europe, but California is on another level concerning skatepark contests, right? Yeah, definitely. Were you extra proud to win that contest, because of that reason? Yes, I guess it felt a little bit more special. Is it like I imagine it to be, with really impressive skaters trying and doing the hardest stuff, really going for

the win and practicing their runs, etc? Haha, yes it is; it is pretty intense. During the qualifiers I skated outside more than in the park. I just went in for my run and got back out. The park is at the Volcom headquarters, so thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a little flatrail and some other stuff right outside.

Impossible to 50-50. Brussels Ph. Vincent Coupeau

Frontside bluntslide. Las Palmas Ph. DVL

When I got to the hospital they told me I needed an operation that night because my appendix had burst. A You had a pretty couple days after the severe injury in America a surgery I was still little while ago, can you tell getting sicker and that storyâ&#x20AC;Ś sicker and then they I was on a Volcom found out that the cut trip in the States. from the surgery had One morning I woke up gotten all infected really sick. After so they had to take three days of not scissors and cut my being able to eat or stomach open without drink and puking all anesthesia. After a the time I became so week in hospital I dehydrated that I flew home and needed couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t move anymore. a second surgery. Two An ambulance picked months after I was me up in the hotel. back on the board.

Intense! You used to be the little skatepark kid but youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been skating a lot of street the last couple of years as well, and you came out with a really solid Etnies video part recently. I really liked it but I guess in this Internet day and age parts like this donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really have the impact they might have had say ten years ago, do you agree? Yes.

Frontside walljam. Barbariga, Croatia Ph. Kristijan Smok

50-50. Cape Town, South Africa Ph. Sam Clark

This last year the two videos that got the amount of attention and replays that almost all videos used to get were maybe Supreme’s cherry and Vans’ Propeller. Is that something a younger skater like you still desires? Having a full part, to a special song in an anticipated video? Yes, definitely. Etnies’ A, B & A was filmed in about a year. I would love to spend a longer time on one project, and choose specific spots for tricks, and have the time to really make something complete. If you could go back in time and have a video part in Propeller or cherry or any other video from the past, disregarding sponsors, which one would it be? Hmm. I would’ve had a part in the Vans video then. Why that one? I look up to a lot of the guys that were in that video and really looked forward to seeing it when it came out. I pre-ordered it on iTunes, I woke up from the notification e-mail from iTunes that my download was ready and jumped out of bed and got really excited about it.

I guess that is a modern day version of going to the skate shop to get the new video - or actually, the modern day version of downloading it for free. Tell us about meeting Lucas Fiederlingâ&#x20AC;Ś How did that happen? I met Lucas on a Volcom trip to Malaga. He was the filmer on that trip.

Feeble grind. Brussels Ph. Jelle Keppens

So at what point was it decided you’d have a part in Where We Come From? Are you hyped on your footage? So I went on couple trips with Lucas and the other guys in the video. In Bangkok I filmed quiet a bit so we decided that I could maybe try to film a part for the video. I’m stoked on the stuff I filmed. I’m happy with the stuff I got. I wish I could have filmed a bit more, but yeah, it’s all right.

Crooked grind pop-over. Gran Canaria Ph. DVL

Have you had a choice in the song you skate to? Yeah I did. It’s hard to find a song you like and can use for the video. Luckily Davy Van Laere knows a lot of music. He helped me out with that.

So do you think your part in WWCF will be that big part you always wanted? It’s cool that this part is in a ‘real’ video with a premiere and everything. I’m stoked and I hope people like it. What’s next for you Axel? What have you got planned for the rest of 2015? I’m filming for Volcom. I have a Toy Machine trip next month and just skating and travelling really. Cool, anyone you want to thank? Thanks to all my sponsors, my family, Liesa and my friends.

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Edouard BS Smith

Photos by Maxime Verret

They used to follow the path they had been told. At some point, they were only individuals living within it, day after day, task after task. Then, they met but couldn’t escape. By that time, Zaragoza still stood as one of the main broadcast points but at the same time it remained accessible. The Vertical Hörizon dominated the area and individuals were holding on, building over and over. Rhythm became harder and harder and more and more of them were disconnected then deleted, one after the other. Geographic space intensified as the whole area became more deserted than ever. The point was to bring and broadcast their own features over there against the whole thing. They had to make it there. Free will was on its way; hope would be brought back.

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Blood was the biggest question to me. I mean, how could there be blood? I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t persuade myself with the idea that blood, as a material, could have been programmed too. Blood was too real. Blood is too real. The waiting time has been long since I started to think about this theory. I remember my first night as an insomniac minute after minute. Like every night, I find myself lying down in my capsule but not entering in to sleep mode as usual. First destabilised, I quickly felt like if I were born again. I could totally control my thoughts, my moves, my breath. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Edouard Depaz

Joseph Wallride

Day after day, I was converting more and more tasks, mechanically – living life as a ridiculous part of the crowd. As soon as we started talking about a solution, I couldn’t think about anything else. I felt like the only way out for every one of us was to focus on this whole collective energy around our secret project. I could feel anxiety in every single finger. Escaping from this whole atmosphere, this Vertical Hörizon – that was our goal. — Joseph Biais

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I met them, one after the other. I knew exactly where we were going to. There wasn’t any in-between. At some point, I realised we were getting close to a unique vision, this would be our own program: Radical Disöbedience. We suddenly became more than totalitarian. Unceasing Commitment. We all knew there wasn’t and couldn’t be any physical way out, though we couldn’t comply. That was our turn. We would make every single thing that could help us escaping from Surveyör. Our main weapon consisted in interpreting geographical space within an architectural logic. Free will was on its way. — Valentin Bauer

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Val Noseblunt

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Bram BS Ollie

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We were always building. I was always building. I felt like I couldn’t stand this whole life. I understood I didn’t have any purpose. I wasn’t leading my own destiny. I suddenly got that I had emotions. I could even use the word “feelings”. As we were building higher and higher, I was digging my own grave. I was empty, already dead inside. I was lost but at my place at the same time. I needed more than data converting. I wanted to experience what free will would taste like. -Bram De Cleen

All photos by Guillaume Perimony Words by Jarne Verbruggen

Bangkok Once upon a time (December 2014), Michael Mackrodt, Guillaume Perimony, Michael’s girlfriend

Anna and myself (Jarne Verbruggen) went on a skateboard expedition to Bangkok and Cambodia. Michael, Guillaume and Anna were already in Bangkok. I was going to meet up with

them somewhere in the city, probably where they would be camping. But when I arrived in the airport, I realised I couldn’t take money from the bank, and my phone wasn’t working. I couldn’t go anywhere at first. But luckily I met this Belgian guy on the plane, he was very nice and loaned me 20 euros (around 700 baht). I never paid this sucker back though… Joking! Can’t do that with my fear of flying. Then three cabs and four hours later I finally got to the right place. I actually still had enough money to survive for a week there, apparently. First thing I bought apart from cab rides was fresh pineapple and watermelon. It was crazy different from our fruits… Best shit ever actually.

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Before the trip started, I imagined Bangkok to have a lot of marble and girls. We found heaps of that beautiful marble, some of it untouched even! We were kinda proud and happy for that. The amount of girls was also pretty amazing. Well, actually the amount of people was. It can get pretty hectic in a lot of places. Just like it was getting also kind of hectic in my head sometimes, when you didn’t know if some girl was 12 or 21. Asian people stay very young looking.

Maybe because they are cramped together a lot so they receive a lot of love from each other. Probably not, because it’s more stressful I guess. I haven’t seen anybody getting younger from stress. I’m gonna blame it on Buddhism. Jarne Verbruggen Backside 50-50 grind to ollie out in Bangkok, Thailand

Siem Reap Cambodia Now this is kind of a horror story. We were searching spots on motorbikes in Siem Reap,

which is really fun by the way, especially because there are no rules whatsoever. You just got to drive and not hesitate. Hesitation = pain, or death. Luckily the horror had nothing to do with our driving. I guess skaters fit well in this kind of traffic. Also you get to drive like a Michael Mackrodt Full-pipe jam in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

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jock and nobody cares. Feels good. At one point we drove into this Buddhist school. I spotted a pretty perfect ledge. It was low and not too long. When I started to wax it (and wax it a lot with red wax because it was pretty old) a lot of people showed up to watch me front flip to my face or cheer if I would make something. After some waxing time there were at least 50 people watching already. But the ledge never did really grind. So we got back on our motorbikes and drove off. I still remember the people’s faces like: ‘Why the hell are you driving off now?’ Some of them even put their thumbs and eyebrows down and showed them to us. I felt so bad. I really wanted to give them the show of their life you know… no I’m joking, but it felt really bad to leave that place without even standing on my board. I’ll probably never go back there though, so I got over it. Just hope nobody put a spell on us. It sure looked like they did.

Phnom Penh Cambodia We had planned to visit the Cambodian Skateistan, located in the capital Phnom Penh. The first dinner we had in Phnom Penh, some kids came to us trying to sell some wristbands and other stuff. It’s pretty insane, these kids are five or six

skateboard under the table. He pointed at it and clearly wanted a go. I gave him my board, and two minutes later there were ten kids on it. But literally on it! All at once they hopped up and my board just disappeared. It was nice to see these kids super amped and having fun, for 30 minutes. Then, they had to get back to work

years old and can count to ten in English, and say please and thank you. They could speak just enough English to sell stuff to tourists. When they spotted us as obvious tourists, they came our direction and then this one kid noticed a

because we were leaving… You realise what these kids would like to be doing but unfortunately can’t. So Skateistan is a real good thing there. I hope they can keep doing what they do and can get more and more kids to skate!

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Jarne Verbruggen Switch ollie

Michael Mackrodt Wallride in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

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Les Bronzés in the Banlieue The good thing about the Palace guys is that they’re not into overselling their trips before they’re doing them. There’s no hashtag invasion plan whatsoever. No pressure. Brady just called me up oneweek prior and asked if I would be keen to join them for a week. From then on we just found a housing solution for the guys (thanks Jack and Felix!) and it was on. The only idea being that we should try to keep it suburbs only for a change.

Words and photos by Alex Pires

Danny Brady, ollie transfer

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There’s all kind of suburbs in Paris, mostly depending on which end of the city you’re going. Some are really posh and rich, and some quite ghetto. When it comes to the most ghetto ones, people usually are scared to go there in the afternoon. A bad encounter could easily occur; especially when it comes to all the photo and video gear we’re known to carry around. So when it came to finding locals from Paris to show us around in the suburbs, some were quite reluctant to go there so late in the afternoon. Fair enough, TM Brady just declared then that for these “no go” zones as Fox would call them, all the guys should wear tracksuits only! Not everyone followed the rule, but I must admit it quite paid off since none of us got in trouble the whole week.

Blondey McCoy, gap to frontside tailslide

“Tracksuits only”

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Ping Pong Lunches

The Football obsession

I’ve never seen skaters so obsessed with football. Especially when there would be Champions League games the same night. They would pick whatever restaurant, no matter the food, just as long as they had a big enough screen to watch the game. That one day PSG was playing against Barca, I even suspected Brady to have focused his board on purpose in order to be on time for the game. Strange thing being, in the town we were, the only place that seemed decent to eat and watch the game was a pizzeria owned by a handball maniac. The owner could not stop switching channels between the PSG game and some apparently super important handball French championship finals. He made everyone miss two goals that night. I can’t even imagine their reaction if it would have been Manchester playing against Chelsea. Then again when it comes to skate those sketchy spots, the Palace crew’s love for football helped us out since they would often end up playing football with the local kids afterwards. I even went back there with some other crew weeks later, and some of the kids still had a real good memory of them. They would ask us “are you the guys from Palace?” even if the only thing they had most likely said to skaters before then was the usual “are you Tonywok?”

Most of you might think those guys sleep in 5-star hotels and such, but it’s far from that! They’re just your regular skate crew. They slept on our friends’ floor the whole week and every lunch would pretty much consist of the same routine: find a cheap supermarket nearby, buy a shitload of bread, ham, cheese and share all of that on the first ping pong table we would find. Of course, whenever vegetables were involved in the mix, we would think of supplying Guillaume (Perimony) with a good amount of candies so he could keep on filming.

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Juan Saavedra, Spanish grind

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Perimony: the scooter spot expert

Benny Fairfax, switch kickflip

Most of the spots featured in this article are not the regular type of spots you see people skate in Paris. And we owe most of them to Guillaume’s knowledge. He’s one of a kind when it comes to find those gems. He even confessed that he sometimes lurks on some weird scooter Facebook groups to find new ones. You just have to get lucky with the rough ground once you show up there. Good thing we were out with English skaters, they’re used to it. Guillaume has all the knowledge and techniques. He even got us back to Paris one night in a very special manner. We were in a town far in the suburbs, and the last train was leaving then at that very moment. We were all running down the stairs to catch it when we heard the signal of the train closing its doors. When we reached the gate we saw the train was still there and Perim had his hand stuck in between the two doors waiting for us. He opened them like Schwarzenegger did in that Terminator movie so we could get back to town on time. Merci Perim!

“Lines only”

The first purpose of this tour was to gather some more footage for their upcoming collab with Bronze. I think it may be out by now. And this is again what I meant with the way those guys deal with such things. Not only did they not market the tour with a shitload of hashtags all over Instagram like most of the brands would do, but they were also not putting themselves under the pressure of shooting a shitload of photos for any article, which sometimes can destroy the mood of a trip. They even told me it would be “lines only” before coming to town. But then again, they proved themselves wrong and as you can see next to this text – actions speak louder than words.

Juan Saavedra, backside 360 ollie over the channel

Blondey McCoy, ollie

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When I was first asked to host the Palace boys on their Parisian tour, admittedly I was a bit nervous. There had only been a few shared experiences in the past – one of which included a bachelor party in Berlin for five days at the world’s sketchiest hostel. I could write an entire novel about that place, much more than I could write about the entire city of Berlin... My clouded memories included Brady stumbling up at a party that was somehow along the river and didn’t really have an indoor element – although this might

122

Danny Brady, blindside kickflip to fakie

I’m not sure how to end this so I’ll let Jack who put the boys up that week finish this off...

sound quite normal in Berlin, it was definitely not the usual party environment I had been accustomed to back home. I guess Brady had already been in Berlin for a few days trying to party, I mean get clips. Either way, the group of roughly twenty-six males searching for all forms of intoxication was my initial introduction. High/low points included Shawn Powers falling into the river and somehow ending up in a scene from the movie Blade with blood dripping down the walls of a basement. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no angel, I definitely was part of the 10am crawl

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down the street to the plastic wrapped bunk beds at ‘The Generator’ hostel. This time around, in Paris, I was living and working on a painting in a much less hostile environment and wasn’t sure if I was ready to return to the antics of the summer two years previous. I was in for a shock – not only was the potential wild card (because of my having never met him) Benny Fairfax one of the most gracious guests to ever step foot into my life but the loudest I heard Blondey get was while approving or disapproving of the current clips on thrashermag.com. I found myself trying to let it be known that I wasn’t a crunchy old dork and joints could be lit inside, however, them Palace boys were making each other tea as the night cap while I was trying to get blackout faded. Brady was on schedule with the filming routine; organising the spot checklist and making sure everyone was out the door before afternoon – as well as searching for Lucien who wasn’t coming, was going to come, might be on the train, maybe is in Paris? He wasn’t staying at mine but was equally as much of the mob once we found him at République a few days in. Rory had been working through an ankle injury for the previous seven months and therefore had the full stretch routine every morning. I mentioned the organised stretches on the yoga foam as an aspect of pure professionalism to my next guest in the apartment, Alex Olson, who said that must be related to their culture’s relationship with football. Either way, it actually did end up feeling more like having the “Class of ’92” than a bunch of wild house-music ravers. It was truly a pleasure to have the crew staying at my place and I would recommend it to anyone safe out there in need of a banging session with the boys who know how to get proper mash up without turning into mentalists.

Rory Milanes, nollie frontside 180 into the bank

(Jack Greer)

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PAUL RODRIGUEZ 9 ELITE

THAT’S

— JB

PAUL RODRIGUEZ FRONTSIDE KICKFLIP

You may think these shoes are ugly, but I bet your feet don’t think they are ugly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my friend. It’s really what’s inside that counts. What’s inside these shoes? Zoom Air! Like little fluffy clouds in your shoes to catch you! I tell you what, the way you skaters treat your feet these days is criminal! Jumping down things, scraping up against sandpaper. Having some nice pillows—a mini mattress to lay those feet down on—seems like a beautiful thing. I dare you to post a picture of your feet online and see how many people “like” your feet. Nobody wants to see your messed-up skater feet. If your feet could speak to you, they would look up at you and say, “Have you lost your damn mind? I’m not feeling this anymore. This relationship is over.” Treat your feet right. Treat your feet like a lady. Ladies like pillows, so get your two gnarly, hairy, smelly-looking skater feet-ladies some pillows. —JB

T HI S S KA TE R WA S TA L KIN G T HE O T HE R DA Y A BOU T N IKE S B M A KI N G TH E MO S T HI DE OU S PA IR OF S HO ES I N TH E I ND U S T RY.

Well you are correct, my dude, you do see amazing skaters who are being filmed with pricey cameras. That’s their job! You just pointed out another advancement in the histor y of skateboarding. Congr atulations! Back in the da y, skateboar ding was long-hair cavemen, carving down the middle of the dusty road on a plank of wood with four balls of clay just to keep it rolling. You would be lucky if you could even find a picture of it. We’re talking about the advancement of modern technology in some skate shoes. Don’t you want your shoes to be the cat’s pajamas? That’s what those cavemen would say: “I need my feet to feel like the cat’s pajamas.” I didn’t know what those cavemen meant then, but I do now! I want everything around me to be the cat’s pajamas. You know you can’t stop the world from evolving. You think if the earth stopped rotating you would continue to do those moves the same way? We need the world to turn, my man, so that your wheels can turn. As the world turns, skateboarding, cameras, skaters and shoes—all of it, man, all of us—change! Hopefully before the world stops turning you will allow your feet to enjoy some cushion so that you can keep pushin’. —JB

— JB

WHAT’S UP!

NIKESB.COM

—JB SMOOVE

WHAT’S UP WITH THESE SHOES? THIS O THER SKATER DUDE WAS SAYIN G THAT THESE NEW NIKE SB SHOES LOOK LIKE RUNNING SHOES. You ask, “Why put running technology in these skate shoes?” Well, I see you skaters all the time, jumping and flying through the air, flipping and twisting like it’s some break-dance contest in a fast-food parking lot. At least those break-dancers put a piece of cardboard on the ground to soften it up a bit. You follow me? These shoes have got Zoom Air in them, son! It gives you more cushion for your pushin’! Don’t you want to have something to soften that load? I see you skaters out there getting chased by the authorities! You don’t jump on your skateboard and skate away from them all fast like you do when you’re on the street, trying to jump on curbs, down handrails and over cars and parking cones. No! What you skaters do is you pick up your board and you run! You don’t skate from the authority! You run from the authority! So you can thank Nike for doing you a solid and killing two birds with two shoes. —JB

I H EA RD A DUDE TH E O TH ER DA Y JA BBERI N G A BO U T TH ESE SK A TERS W EA RI N G TH ESE CRA ZY SK A TE S HO E S , BEI N G FI LM ED A LL DA Y BY EXP EN SI V E C A ME RA S . JUS T FUSSI N G A ROUN D W I TH TH EI R BOA RDS, E A T IN G BURRI T OS A N D DRI N K I N G I CED COFFEES.

YOU NEED SOME AIRBAGS FOR YOUR FEET BECAUSE OF THE HARD ASPHALT YOUR ASS FELL ON.