Free 15

FREE 15

NOV DEC 2017

ULTRAC USH™ LITE IMPACT CUSHIONING AN D DURACAP™ DU RA B ILIT Y

@globebrand | GLOBEBRAND.COM | est. Australia 1994

Sammy kickflip noseslide wearing Globe Fall apparel and skating the Los Angered II. Fall apparel and footwear available in better shops now.

WELCOME SAMMY MONTANO

0

0

0 0

0 0

THE DIME LEGACY OG AVAILABLE IN BLACK/CHARCOAL AND WHITE. THE DIME LEGACY S AVAILABLE IN WHITE/RED AND VOLCANO. FOR MORE DETAILS VISIT US AT WWW.DIMEMTL.COM OR 1-514-379-1440

EMERICA.COM / @EMERICA

SHOT BY ATIBA

000 00

/

/

Kiev Check-In

/ /

The Process

Booticelliiboys

The Nik Stain Campaign

Nassim Guammaz

>

/

Known Knowns

Cover: Yann Horowitz 50-50 yanked out to fakie Port Elizabeth, South Africa Ph. Sam Clark

Contents: Hugo Boserup frontside ollie Bagnolet, France Ph. Alex Pires

This is the first summer since I started skateboarding, more than two decades ago, that I wasn’t able to skate. This past April I was cycling to work one morning and suddenly from behind an illegally parked van another cyclist appeared. I collided with him head on. Next thing I knew I was on the ground dazed. ‘What was I doing there? What day was it?’ For two minutes I couldn’t figure out what was going on and then I tried to stand up: ‘Oh my god, my foot is fucked!’ I couldn’t even stand on it. The other cyclist I collided with called an Uber and it took us both to Homerton hospital. Turns out I had broken two metatarsal bones in my foot (otherwise known as a Lisfranc fracture). The other cyclist I collided with suffered a broken bone in his face just above his jaw. I stayed in two different hospitals for the next seven days waiting for surgery.

After all the initial ‘heal up mate‘ and ‘get well soon’ messages from my friends the first week after my accident nothing could prepare me for what came next: loneliness and despair. Suddenly there were no more calls on Saturday morning to skate, not many places for me to visit in a cast and crutches, I had to cancel trips, events for work, etc. The doctors couldn’t really tell me when I’d fully recover, or if I’d fully recover at all. ‘Your foot will never be the same’ the doctor told me. It was hard for me to make it to the pub and the doctor also recommended not to drink alcohol, as it would slow down the healing process. Here I am the editor of a skateboarding magazine, watching, reading and thinking about skateboarding every day and now I can’t actually do it. Suffice to say it turned my everyday life upside down.

Skateboarders are no strangers to injuries. And even though I didn’t actually injure myself skating I know what it’s like to be hurt. One of the only good things about being injured is that you’re not the first skater that it’s ever happened to, and you actually have access to this huge support network: other skaters.

After reading about this particular injury on random online message boards and forums (don’t do this!) it’s been really good to be able to talk to other skateboarders. In

the past six months I’ve reached out to skaters I barely knew (some people I only knew from following them on Instagram) because I’d heard they were injured as well. We talked about various things like exercising techniques, what to do with all your spare time, how the injury has affected their mental health, acupuncture, etc. and I have to say it has really helped. The main thing I got from talking to everyone was this: stay positive.

These days a lot of people say that ‘everyone’s out for themselves’ or ‘stuck in their own little bubble’ in the skateboarding world - so it was incredibly refreshing to receive kind words, advice and reassurances from other skaters who took the time to speak to me about their own injuries.

By the time you read this I still probably won’t be able to skate. But I know there are other skaters out there in the world just like me, dealing with the same thing I’m dealing with… So in a way that’s comforting…

Just don’t be afraid to reach out… As a skateboarder you’ll never be alone!

P.S. Thank you Steve, Alex, Juice, Jura and of course the Duffman! Oh and a big thanks to the National Health Service… Free healthcare is a wonderful thing and people should fight for it. The foot is slowly getting better… I’ll be back on the streets someday!

FREE 15 Editor in Chief: Will Harmon Photo Editor: Sam Ashley Associate Editor: Arthur Derrien Layouts: Ben Weaver & Seb Howell Drawings: James Jarvis Printed in the UK Free is published six times a year by FSM Publishing Ltd. freeskatemag.com @freeskatemag freeskatemag@gmail.com

Chet Childress Ph: Cameron Markin

My summer not skateboarding Will Harmon

DEALER ENQUIRIES UK: SCOTT.HOWES@DWINDLE.COM / SPAIN: LUIGI.S@DWINDLE.COM

‘There are

There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know.

But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know.’

The words of the former US Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld, from a briefing made fifteen years ago, famously bizarre; it’s undeniably gobbledygook of the highest order. I like it that much that I’m really beginning to wonder if I have already referenced it in some article in the past.

I’m almost sure I have, but I’ve gone and done it now. Apologies if this irks any readers.

The Rummy quote came up in conversation between Stu Smith of Lovenskate and myself when we were trying to figure out what the fuck I should write about. I mean, I’m a little rusty on the old keyboard these days, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste my eyesight and lower back on clacking out some we-did-this, yawn-a-log-tour-report just so you can skim over it to look at the pretty pictures. I might as well waste my time on something a little more involved, right?

Anyway… the reason this came up in conversation between myself and Stu is that the van time was healthy on this mission, and there was a lot of chat, discussions

Alex Hallford frontside air, Terrassa

Photography & words Alex Irvine

Car 13 Lovenskate & Witchcraft in Spain

Known Knowns.

that involved everyone, an interesting mix of personalities and an even more interesting mix of ideas and beliefs. Shit got deep. Existential even. Of course differences of opinion are always fraught with disagreement, but I’d like to think we’re all still friends at the end of the day.

So why write about this fucking quote again?

Firstly, I like this

statement for its unalienable truth, the bamboozling fact of it; I made the mistake of calling this statement ‘woo woo’ when I was chatting with Stu. Stu, this is not woo woo. Woo woo is bullshit packaged up as truth, often using scientific wording and theories to try and make it sound believable. Like when someone who isn’t a Quantum scientist is using the

Martino Cattaneo nosebluntslide, Port Sagunto

phrase Quantum Theory.

We’re dealing with actual, factual gobbledygook, not woo woo.

Rumsfeld was, in this delivery, talking about war. War from a warmonger’s perspective: explaining to the press and public what he knows about what they’re doing. Not the soldiers’ perspective about the killing, or a general’s perspective about the strategies employed — these are not his concern. He’s more like a regional manager warming up the AGM with some waffle before the annual report figures drop.

Exciting stuff.

I’m a sceptic; I enjoyed science at school, as it was calculable. I’m not very happy taking hearsay as truth, for the most

Martino Cattaneo invert, Madrid

part, and I find it difficult to engage in conversation when the subject isn’t provable. I have been called closeminded (by people who have proof). It makes conversations with the religious, the convinced and the alternate-truthers (better than conspiracy theorists?) hard but always entertaining.

So, I’ve set out my stall, you know, or can guess, my stance on any conversations that may or may not have taken place in the van.

Anyway, ‘known knowns’…

Well it’s kind of self explanatory, right? The world is round, an apple falls towards the ground, the Earth goes around the

Sun. Well, to most of us these are indisputable facts. But understanding how and why we know them to be true is the thing here. We know the world is round because Persian scientists calculated the height of a mountain from two arbitrary points using a clinometer and some algebra and figured it out.

Then European scientists translated, rehashed and eventually expanded on this idea proving that in fact: yes, the Earth is round and goes around the Sun. This led, in turn, to understanding in the science of our solar system and an explanation of gravity, proving that, as an apple appears to fall to the ground, so too the Earth

doesn’t just spiral away from the mass of the Sun. This idea was in contravention to the theist way of thinking at the time and punishable by death, which seems insane with hindsight; but serves as a good example to always be wary of someone telling you they know how it is without backing it up with more than a ‘because I say so’.

There are, of course

people who will dispute these facts as truth, but it’s hard to give a strong argument against it in this enlightened world. Even the most ardent flat-Earther isn’t going to be able to explain why their dropped toast lands on the kitchen floor and not the roof.

Some people’s ideas on how the world works are different of course, and I’m not saying that that’s

Sam Beckett gap to backside smith, Madrid

wrong, I’m just saying that I think it’s totally fucking wrong.

One conversation I like to listen in on is the more conspiratorial arguments.

Whilst I don’t deny some of the people who have power over us mere mortals are malevolent and that the truth may be a little warped historically, I can’t get with the idea that all the world’s scientists are in collusion about the realities of our known existence; that all the last halfcentury’s efforts have, instead of actually sending people out into the cosmos through fact-finding and technological advancement, have instead been spent hiding a hoax moon landing.

Or even more bamboozling to me is: some impassioned Christians believe that we shared the Earth with dinosaurs thousands of years ago (they died in Noah’s flood – okay!?) N.B. Others do adhere to the fossils’ existence as a hoax created by the secular, one backed by the devil himself.

––––––– I just wanted to check how many thousands of years they think so I Googled it ––––––– On answeringenesis.org I watched a short Young Earth Creationist propaganda video featuring Dr Terry Mortenson, his title helps to denote ‘truth’ here.

In this film, his fifth reason for ‘Why Shouldn’t Christians accept [the] Millions of Years [Theory]’ is that: ‘Rocks don’t say millions of years, it’s the interpretation [of those rocks’ data],’ before summarising, that the radiometric dating techniques should be rejected as they are, ‘based on anti-Biblical assumptions.’

That is to say that the scientifically proven process for dating of the sedimentary rock doesn’t fit the creationism story and must, therefore, be disregarded… Total, batshit crazy rationale.

Anyway…

Known Unknowns.

This admission, that there are things we

Jordan Thackeray backside boneless over the channel, Arenys De Munt

know we don’t know, has been used to prove and disprove points in debates by both the rational and the faithful. As well as in the van on this trip to try and diffuse conversations that got heated. The ‘we’ll never truly know’ card that was played a few times.

The secular say they can prove more than religion about the working of the world, the theists note that science can’t prove things

happen, the previous riddle still stands.

I suppose ultimately it should feel normal to have known unknowns, we can’t know everything, we can’t disprove the existence of a god anymore than we can prove the existence of a god. But that to me isn’t a reason to believe someone’s ancient best guess.

I mean we could prove a god’s existence easily, if we had more fact than say a book that he is supposed to have written, say Jesus comes back from the dead to say ‘hi’, or if say a god started up a Facebook page to make sure we were keeping on with being godly and dishing out holy advice, performing some miracles and

Sam Beckett frontside grind pull-out, Toledo

like love, consciousness and the origin of the Universe, or deny God’s existence.

Which is true. Science doesn’t have a spectre to fall back on when the answers to the questions get too tricky. But this is the thing: it’s okay to admit there are known unknowns, that’s basically the purpose of science: to, at least, seek an answer.

Trusting anyone who tells you they know all the answers shouldn’t be trusted. Any theist is going to have a hard time answering the riddle of: If God exists, then who made God? The big bang theory may not have all the answers but that’s fine. Even If God exists and willed that to

that. Of course the omnipotent one would have to have a Snapchat, WhatsApp, Skype, etc. too, and it all seems a little unlikely any god would find the time with all those wars to back and prayers to answer.

––––––– I just Googled some gods’ Facebook pages in case they’re out there making me look dumb ––––––– God: ‘Page isn’t available’, incontrovertible evidence of existence! God is busy with other things.

Disappointed I tried ‘Allah’ but it was a mere mortal. I can be assured of this, as the devoted like to remind us that the prophet doesn’t like his picture being bandied about, does he.

Tried, Vishnu too, let’s not forget about the Hindus, but it’s a tech-nerd’s page.

Buddha, ‘The link I followed may have expired.’

These deities are blowing it. Even Odin doesn’t have a page.

Unknown Unknowns.

Hmmm.

Tough one to expand on…

I suppose I think if your answer to the unknown is God then you’re scared not knowing what you can’t know.

Which is fine—if that’s your thing.

I’m just fine with not knowing that I don’t know what I don’t know: that which I will likely never know. You know?

Sam Beckett Smith stall tailgrab, Lleida

E L EM ENT BR A ND . C OM # J A R NEI S P R O

@ EL EM ENTB R AND

@ J A R NEV ER BR UGG EN

PHOTO B Y: R OG ER FE RR ER O / A RT BY: FE RN AN D O E LV I RA

WE LCOME TO THE FAM I LY PRO MODE L OUT NOW

The Nik Stain

Words & Captions Arthur Derrien Photography Sam Ashley

Campaign

Hugo Boserup, frontside flip

Looking at the shop in the background makes me wonder how many Cherry Bs these guys consumed while they were out here. I’d say at the very least three a day for ten days. That’s 60 between them. We even managed to get them some at a sit down meal on the last night.

They were hooked.

When I’d sobered up, given the context in which I’d come up with this master plan, I started feeling slightly dubious about the whole thing. Luckily convincing the Swoosh overlords somehow turned out relatively easy so all I had to do then Like a surprising number of was get in touch with Nik to see ‘ideas’ that fill the pages of if he was down. This felt a bit trickier. I can’t help but get this magazine, The Nik Stain Campaign stems from a Cherry B a little bit weirded out by the fuelled conversation between a idea of hitting up skateboarders bunch of skateboarders sat on a I’ve never met for the mag.

Especially if I really admire wall in south London. For some their skating. It sort of makes it was the trousers, for others you feel like you’re 14 again it was the high velocity smith grinds, but that evening everyone and trying to talk to a girl you secretly fancy on MSN Messenger. on the wall was fascinated by You try to play it cool, doing the man. Especially a certain your best not to sound too keen Kyron Davis, who freshly back or full on, you mention friends from a weekend in Paris with Nik you have in common (in this case for some Nike x Supreme thing, Ky) and once the message is sent was able to confirm that he was you’re left wondering if they as much of a legend off the even know who you are (or in this board as he was on it. ‘That case what Free is). ‘I hope he’s guy’s my G!!!’ As the inebriated available and interested…’ It’s fanning out went on, one thing stressful stuff. Luckily he was led to another and before I knew though, and exactly one month it I was promising Ky and the after I sent that enticing email, crew that I’d try to convince him and buddy Hugo Boserup (the someone at Nike to fly him over powerful Dane he shares a part from New York to film with Will with in the 917 video) could be Miles and get some photos for seen sipping Cherry Bs on the the mag. That way we’d get to wall that started all this. see him skate in person…

Hugo Boserup, nosegrind tailgrab

pissing it down probably seems amusingly overoptimistic… It didn’t take long for these poor In London what we refer guys to realise that in this city the weather’s to as ‘skateboarding’ never too bleak to involves A LOT of completely write off sitting around in pubs waiting for spots to dry skating. up. Hugo and Nik were introduced to the midsession half pint that day and for some reason it blew their minds. I guess showing restraint when it’s clearly

Hugo Boserup, noseslide

He did this one ten minutes after the nosegrind (see p.39 –>) and it took him about five tries. After this trip Nik was going back to his set building job in New York and Hugo to building skateparks.

Hugo had been off of work for almost two months, just travelling and skating: ‘I’m a bit

scared; I can tell I’ve lost a lot of muscle…’

Maybe the thought of going back to the 12-hour shifts working concrete in the freezing Danish winter had something to do with how hard he was charging.

Charlie Birch, ollie out to wallride

At this spot my friend Eddie was talking to Hugo about how cool it was that a group of people from Denmark, Norway and Sweden could

communicate with each other using their native tongue (even though it obviously isn’t the same language). His reply was: ‘I guess it’s kind of like when you guys talk to Charlie right?’

No Hugo, Charlie’s just scouse.

<< Nik Stain, nose manual

Nik cut his chin open trying to nose manual the world’s lowest step on the first day. He didn’t ollie properly, stuck and smacked his head on the floor. We had to take him straight to a hospital to get him glued up. Funny that later he ended up landing this… If you get a chance to go to this spot, try just riding all the way up and through the poles, it should give you an idea of how insane this is.

Kyle Wilson, switch frontside nosegrind

Fun Kyle Wilson fact: Kyle discovered the high jump at school and liked it so much that he ended doing it for three years. It’s pretty easy to see how that might have affected his skating.

Hugo Boserup, 50–50 to ollie over the sign

Like Nik, Hugo’s one of those guys that only has one speed — the one that makes him skate like he’s just been shot out of a cannon. He was hitting this thing so fast that the only option he really had was to fly out of the grind

as if he was skating a kicker — which is mental considering most people struggle to even make it to the top.

Hugo Boserup, frontside nosegrind

seconds after he was projected forward on the first ollie he did to test the water. Somehow ‘This ground is five minutes later he terrible!’ laughed Hugo was gliding through as he peeled himself off those cobbles like he’d the floor. He’s very grown up skating on perceptive. This was Coronation Street.

Kyle Wilson, switch kickflip I didn’t get to witness this one in person but I bumped into Nick (Jensen) and Tom (Knox) who were rushing away from the spot to get back to their dad responsibilities. ‘Mate we have to run, we should have left ages

ago but Kyle was doing the gnarliest trick ever. We’re going to be in the doghouse…

Get over there and watch the clip!’ I’m pretty sure that kind of compliment coming from those two says more about how crazy this is than anything I could write.

An interview with Mathias Thomer, France’s Olympic Skateboarding Coach

For a lot of us, right now the idea of skateboarding being in the Olympics is kind of like the prospect of a stinking hangover when you’re out drinking. You know it’s pretty much inevitable and will probably leave a sour taste in your mouth, but that doesn’t mean you do anything to alter quite how bad it’ll be. And that’s even after coming to terms with the realisation that it’ll go hand in hand with a lot of embarrassment…

he and his crew have been running what’s widely considered the best indoor skatepark in the country: Cosanostra. He’s even got a sock company that somehow puts out banging videos with Rémy Taveira and Oscar Candon (check out Savate’s Trompe Le Monde if you haven’t seen it).

But can the damage actually be limited? And why bother? What’s in it for him? What about for skateboarding as a whole? Could he have slightly lost his mind?

Unlike in most pub scenarios In an attempt to answer all these though, in the case of Tokyo 2020 questions and make a bit more it appears that I have a friend sense of this whole Olympic mess who’s actually trying to limit the we caught with Mathias: the damage. His name is Mathias recently appointed French Thomer. He’s a bit of a legend in National Skateboarding Team France and for almost twenty years coach.

Words Arthur Derrien

Can you start off by explaining what exactly your role is with regards to the Olympics?

a team set up with coaches, etc. by December.

It all happened very fast.

How did you end up with this position?

He was asked to do this by the French Ministry of Youth and Sports (Ministère De La Jeunesse et Des Sports) because he was in charge of the French Skateboarding Federation that was already set up before the Olympics were announced. That Federation was (and still is) the only official skateboarding organisation to be recognised by the state. That’s why they took the lead on this.

The Ministry contacted the French Federation of Roller Sports (and skateboarding) asking whom they wanted as their skateboarding representative and they picked this person.

He’s been doing tons of stuff to help popularise skateboarding in France and make it more accessible.

Mathias Thomer: I’m one of the three coaches of the French National Skateboarding Team.

Morgan Fabre and Alexis Jauzion are the other two. There’s also a manager/head coach called Florent Balesta that supervises the whole thing.

I think it’s because of what I’ve done with the development of Cosanostra Skatepark and the fact that I’ve been teaching skate classes since 1999… Five years ago I also helped develop a French skate school and registered it with the National Federation of Skateboarding.

What do these skate classes consist of then?

We aren’t training kids to be the best skateboarders in the world, we’re basically just teaching them how to progress and keep having fun.

Why do they need classes for this?

Fifteen to twenty years ago it was easier for parents to just let their kids roam free in the streets and learn to skate there.

Nowadays parents of kids that want to start skating from a very young age need this to be reassured. For some of the younger ones these ‘lessons’ aren’t even to actually be taught stuff, it’s just to have the skatepark to themselves since they are so much younger than the guys that use it during the normal hours. It’s also a way of skating without having their parents watching over them… But then yeah you do also have kids that are there to get better and to take part in contests and stuff. It’s a mix.

Okay… But how do you go from that to being a coach for the French National Team? Like who appointed you?

That’s the manager/head coach. He picks the three coaches and has the last call on who makes it onto the National Team. He found out in August 2016 that skateboarding was going to be in the Olympics and that he had to have

I still don’t quite understand… Who did he have to present this team to?

Who picked him? I’ve never even heard of this guy. Why is it not Jérémie Daclin or someone that the whole skateboard industry knows and respects?

Like?

Organising the French National Championships, creating the French Skateboarding School…

Hmm…

He’s also got the necessary state qualifications for this.

So are you guys paid by the state to do this?

Not exactly… We receive money from the French Skateboarding Federation to subsidise the trips we do.

So you don’t have a salary to do this?

No. If we take the French Team to a World Cup like we just did in Montreal then we’ll get money for that, but we don’t receive a salary.

Or if we organise a five-day training session at a skatepark or a particular spot then I’ll also get paid for that.

Wait a second… Training sessions? What do these consist of?

Everyone knows you won’t get away with smoking weed

It’s basically all the boys and girls from this potential French Team that get together to focus on one element of skating that will be needed to compete.

So for instance you’d meet up somewhere with loads of handrail spots and just practise skating them for a week?

Yeah. But we’re smart about it. Say if we know there’s a certain type of handrail at the Street League Barcelona course that’s also in a skatepark in France we’d just go to the one in France to practise, as it’s cheaper and easier. It isn’t that different from what you do normally in skating: lots of people practise on a spot similar to the one where they want to get something, it’s normal. And it particularly makes sense when you know they’ll probably only have fifteen minutes of practise before the comp and a million other people skating it…

Kind of like practising a trick until you’ve got it every go because you know you don’t have long at the spot where you want to do it… And what exactly does the ‘coaching’ you do consist of?

It consists of helping the skaters in building their runs for contests, taking into account their abilities, the course, the judges, etc.

Why the judges? Aren’t they supposed to be objective? Why should who they are matter?

At certain World Cup contests you have people

like Pat Duffy judging the comps. You know how the guy skates and what he likes so it gives you a hint of what kind of tricks he’ll like to see…

Then there’s also the fact that since these guys can do so many tricks it’s sometimes hard for them to select the most impressive/best ones. As coaches we’re coming from a more objective standpoint, which helps with this.

‘Maybe you should include this trick I saw you do during practice as opposed to that one because it’s better for keeping your speed or you have a better style when you do that one…’

Stuff like that.

That being said, skaters are not robots and at the end of the day what they do comes down to them; sometimes they don’t take our advice because they aren’t feeling it and that’s completely fine. It’s not like the skater is a puppet and I’m the puppet master pulling the strings, it’s more about exchanging ideas with someone about how to put together the best possible run.

Okay but what you’re describing now is how you’re training them for contests that lead to the Olympics. What about when it’ll actually be the Olympics?

What do we know about them at this point?

Before I answer that question I’d like to give you a bit of context about the situation in France. In France sports are regulated by the French Ministry of Youth and Sports – so by the state. This means that when a sport

Look at Barcelona: we didn’t need the Olympics to ruin that

becomes Olympic they start giving special ‘statuses’ to some of the top athletes in that discipline. It’s called the Statut De Sportif De Haut Niveau (basically an elite athlete status). This gives you access to a special form of financial and healthcare support/ protection from the state.

What kind of financial protection/ support?

The main thing is that the state can secure you a flexible employment with some of the companies they have close ties with like La Poste (the French Royal Mail) or EDF/GDF (the French gas and energy companies) so that you can work whilst still going on all the sport related trips you need to attend. In the context of skating what it basically means is that you’d be able to go on skate trips and still get paid from your job as if you were taking it as paid holiday but it wouldn’t count as holiday. The state would be compensating your employer for the days that you have to be away from work to skate and you’d still get paid. There’s also something in place so that you contribute to your pension with a bonus…

Basically it’s an ideal situation. This special status doesn’t last forever though, every year you have to re-apply for it and you’ll only get it if it’s justified.

Who decides if it’s justified?

The head coach… He has to submit a list every year…

Based on what criteria?

He picks the criteria, but it’ll be taking into account national and international contest results.

So you couldn’t have someone on the French team with this status if they don’t do contests?

In theory we could because we pick the criteria but we’d then have to explain to representatives of the state why we picked say Lucas Puig.

(The French National Skateboarding Team is Robin Bolian, Aurélien Giraud, Vincent Milou, Joseph Garbaccio,

Vincent Matheron, Tim Debauche, Noah Mahieu and Hugo Westrelin.)

Which leads me to a question I’ve been dying to ask: Why have you have chosen these guys for the French National Team and this potential preferential status that comes with it? Why pick mostly people that are barely ever in videos or magazines, guys most of us have never heard of, over someone like Lucas Puig who’s considered one of the greatest skaters of all time?

Well for one the skater has to agree to participate…

Have you asked Lucas? Or Flo Mirtain?

Or Rémy Taveira? Imagine if that was the French National Team!

We haven’t, but would what we’re offering be suitable for these guys? I could ask them; I’ve known Rémy since he was a kid, he grew up skating Cosanostra. Same for Flo and Lucas, they both took part in the Teenage Tour contests we organised there when they were younger (Editor’s note: The Teenage Tour was a nationwide series of under eighteen contests that helped discover most of the Frenchies you regularly see in the pages of this magazine. It also involved getting countless American teams: Girl, Emerica, Foundation… to come and do demos all over the country). In fact that’s where Lucas first blew up… But would they be willing to play ball? Would they be willing to take part in all the qualifying World Cup events? And even if they were, would they be able to ‘perform’ in that context?

Skating in front of a huge crowd and having to land every trick is obviously not the same as filming a part.

So an Olympic team consisting of the French skaters the whole world loves to watch, the ones we’re the most proud of, is impossible? Does it have to be about winning?

We have to justify our team selection criteria to the French Ministry of Youth and Sports and they’ll be looking at whether or not this criteria is enabling us to pick the guys most

likely to win medals. So yeah I can’t really see how it could not be…

But for most of us skateboarding isn’t about winning. What if we tricked them and didn’t go to win medals? Instead we had the most stylish team of all time, full of actual French legends, it could have a massive impact in a very different way…

Let me take the USA’s Olympic Basketball Team as an example. In the 1980s Americans didn’t care about the Olympics, they’d send out people from the University teams. It wasn’t until 1992 that they managed to put together a ‘Dream Team’ that actually reflected the prominence of the sport in that country. But why did Michael Jordan accept to play on that Olympic team in 1992?

Because he’d already played in the 1984 Olympics back when he was just playing for a University team and nobody knew him. This ‘Dream Team’ came together relatively organically…

Before approaching the Rémys and the Flos we want to have something solid in place. It’s hard to make it appealing to them before having given it a proper shot. Plus given we’ve only existed for a year and that we’ve been asked by the French Ministry of Youth and Sports to pick the guys that are the most likely to win medals, we’d have a hard time justifying the criteria that led to us picking a bunch of dudes that never do comps.

You can’t just tell them ‘we chose this guy Lucas because he has a mean switch back tail’ since they don’t skate and you’re only just starting to set all this up… I get it.

You also need to keep in mind that only twenty skaters will make it to the ‘street’ contest in the Olympics. That’s four per continent.

Only four Europeans will take part in the street skating event at the Olympics.

How are these four chosen then?

It’ll be either the top four Europeans in a Street League style qualifying contest that should take place in 2019 or the top four from

an overall ranking from the WCF (World Cup Skateboarding) circuit that same year.

So even if we did get Rémy, Lucas, etc. they’d have to spend a year doing all these WCS comps in hope of being amongst the top four, which (given they’re already on the road with their sponsors all year round) just wouldn’t happen.

The guys we’ve picked that actually skate comps (like Aurélien Giraud) might not even make it in there. The whole of Europe now knows that this is how it’s going to go down and every country is like us, trying to figure out the best way to approach it.

And we’re still figuring it out. We’ve chosen to work with the top guys who are already doing these WCS comps because it seemed like the most objective/neutral way of deciding but that doesn’t mean nobody else is welcome. If someone who doesn’t usually do this sort of thing gets in contact with us and wants to give it a shot for a year we’d be down.

There’s also going to be a bowl category with a contest based on the Vans Park Series right?

In theory yes… It’s what the Skatepark Of Tampa dudes, Neal Hendrix and a bunch of people are fighting for with the Olympic Committee. What happened is when the Olympic Committee announced that they wanted skateboarding in there, the FIRS (basically the Roller Sports Federation) said ‘we’re skating, let us decide how it should be’ and that’s what all those guys, the actual skateboarders stood up against. They’re the ones that are making sure skateboarding is represented properly and that we don’t end up with slaloming or something.

And it wasn’t easy, it took about three years to convince the Olympic Committee that these had to be the formats… They didn’t want to be in the same situation as snowboarders with the skiing federation running their shit.

Do you think contests like Street League or the Vans Park Series are a good representation of skateboarding then? I can’t help but dream of a world in which skateboarding would be represented like it is in the Dime Challenge at the Olympics.

I’m convinced the Olympics will open a lot of doors for us, we just need to make sure we stay as true to our values as we possibly can

They obviously aren’t perfect in every aspect but given how hard it was to get to them to accept them I think you have to be realistic.

Also every skater in the world can find some stairs or a rail in his town. That format is universal; it reflects what people actually skate. It’s the same with the Vans Park Series format. Yes it’s a bowl, but it’s not ridiculously deep/gnarly, it’s on a similar scale to what they have in a lot of skateparks around the world. It’s not a mega-ramp. It’s accessible. It’s easy for countries to find people to be potential contenders for these formats.

Are other countries in Europe already

getting geared up for this in the same way that you guys are?

Of course! In Spain Alain Goikoetxea is leading the whole thing, in Germany I think Jan Kliewer is on it, every country in Europe is getting their shit together. In France we’re lucky because we had something relatively good already in place but in some countries they don’t have a federation, or if they do it’s a longboard one or something so they have to start from scratch.

Are any non-skating factors taken into account when you are deciding whom you want on the team? If there’s a skater that kills it at these comps but smokes loads or weed, will you be less inclined to pick him?

No, we just let them take responsibility for their actions when it comes to that. Everyone knows you won’t get away with smoking weed so it’s pretty straightforward. In fact I’m not worried about that stuff at all. On the other hand what I am worried about is the stuff that goes into the everyday medication some of these guys might take for let’s say asthma, or painkillers or whatever. They’re so insanely strict with what you can or can’t take and there’s such an extensive list of prohibited substances that it’s really hard not to let anything slip through the cracks. I can’t see skateboarders checking what they buy from a pharmacy if they sprain their ankle as thoroughly as other athletes… You can get caught out with certain kinds of cough syrup for instance! That’s why I’m not really worried about the smoking weed thing. They know that they can’t do it so it’s easy in comparison to everything else that needs watching out for.

Will there be a standardised uniform or will skaters be allowed to wear what they want?

It’ll be kind of like tennis where the athletes will be allowed to choose everything that affects their performance. So in skating this means obviously the board and the shoes but also possibly the clothing.

They will have to wear their country’s official kit for the opening ceremony when they walk onto the pitch though…

So dudes will be able to wear their sponsor’s gear?

I think so yes as long as they aren’t covered in big logos; it’ll have to be plain.

So unlike the contests they’ll be based on, there won’t be horrible

We’ll have the Olympic card to pull out every time we need negotiating anything with officials

Style’s an interesting one in this context…

Yeah, it’s really tricky. What exactly do you look at when you’re judging style? We know that Rémy Taveira and Lucas Puig have very different styles but they are both considered to have good styles. Let’s imagine style was to count for 40% of the overall mark, a lot of the training we’d provide would have to be around that; we’d have to get them to work on their styles.

And how do you teach someone to have a better style? Do you sit them down and make them analyse JB (Gillet) parts?

That’s exactly what you do. You educate them.

Obviously Aurélien Giraud can pretty much do every trick there is but what we can do is help him figure out the best place to do a given trick, show him the origins of certain tricks in hope of helping him understand how they can be done differently, show him some legendary examples of that trick, etc. This has to be done gently though; we don’t sit them down and say forget everything you know and copy this.

Did you hesitate at all before accepting to take on this role?

energy drink logos all over the place…

Interesting.

Yeah but they’ll have shoes, boards, etc. from their sponsors so it’ll still be good for them and the brand. It just won’t look like the Tour De France. Another thing that’s worth noting is that it looks like these guys won’t have to wear a helmet…

How will these comps be judged? Will it be the same criteria as SLS and VPS?

Same sort of thing yeah… The idea is that the criteria has to be as clear as possible so that it’s easy for skaters to understand what they have to take into account to do well, and easy for people who’ll be catching it on TV to understand what’s going on. The goal for all these guys negotiating with the Olympic Committee (Skatepark Of Tampa, etc.) is that the kid watching it in the middle of nowhere understands what skateboarding is, sees that it’s accessible and is excited enough by what he sees to want to do it himself. That’s why it’s judged on height, technique, style, the risk factor, etc.

No I didn’t hesitate because I work at a skatepark and I know how all this is going to be good for skateboarding in the long run.

With skateboarding being in the Olympics under the Street League format next time some clueless council tries to waste their money on crappy metal ramps the French Skateboarding Federation will be able to step in and tell them ‘no, this doesn’t reflect the current needs of skateboarders’ and show the course they use for the Olympics as evidence. Also skateboarding is an Olympic sport. Roller Blading, Scooters, etc. aren’t. It’ll be easier to explain that we aren’t the same thing and that the spaces we need have to be skateboard specific, not for multi-use. That’s why the fact that BMXing is also coming into the Olympics is a true blessing. Their BMX park will look nothing like the skateparks we’ll have, which means that people will no longer be able to get away with making parks that are meant for both.

Okay I see how this will be good for skateparks but what about for actual street skate spots? Say for instance if the council still wanted to tear down Hôtel De Ville and we were still fighting to save it. If we used these arguments don’t you think they might say ‘your plaza is going but we’ll

build you a nice Street League-style skatepark instead’ as that’s the reference they’ll have?

Not at all! On the contrary, all this would help your case. You’d be able to use the fact that they have similar ledges and banks on the course they use in the Olympics to argue it.

That’s why it’s good so that it replicates the streets.

It’s still just a replica though. If we want skateboarding to stay in the streets shouldn’t that be how it’s shown in the Olympics? People kicking us out can easily say they’ve seen skateboarding in the Olympics and that they know it’s supposed to be done in those skateparks with stairs and stuff, not in the actual streets.

I don’t think the Olympics will be any more detrimental to us street skating than a big video part that blows out spots. Look at Barcelona: we didn’t need the Olympics to ruin that.

The buses full of skaters, mobbing out spots and inevitably making them busts: we did that all by ourselves. I skated Barcelona in the early nineties, I saw what it was before it got blown out and believe me it really could have done without everyone in skateboarding deciding to film their video parts there.

Plus a kid that discovers skating through the Olympics will probably start skating in skateparks; we won’t see street spots flooded with beginners.

Is that a good thing though? Obviously growing up skating street teaches you a lot of stuff that growing up skating in a skatepark won’t.

I think them learning the basics there is a good thing, then they can take it to the streets. It also often reassures parents if their kids start something like this in a slightly more structured environment. And look at those skaters we named before: Rémy, Lucas, they all started skating in skateparks…

Rémy started skating in your skatepark yes, but didn’t Lucas start skating at Place Occitane in Toulouse? I could be

wrong though…

Yeah but he blew up thanks to the Teenage Tour, a contest that was at Cosanostra Skatepark…

Hmm…

Honestly every big name skater you know has put time in at his local skatepark before taking it to the streets. If they put time in at the skatepark as kids it only means they’re even gnarlier when they take it to the streets.

I wasn’t talking about the skating itself, but about everything else you learn from growing up skating street.

Spending time in the streets, where you share the space with others, you witness (and learn from) things you wouldn’t be confronted with in the contained environment of the skatepark.

Yes but it’s not because you grow up skating a skatepark that you can’t then learn all those things when you move on to the streets. That’s exactly what Rémy did: he decided that we wanted to try the tricks he learnt at the park on real spots, so he took them there and adapted. You land a trick at a spot you have to understand the ‘rules’ of the spot (traffic, pedestrians, all sorts of stuff…) and that’s when you learn the most. But I didn’t have to take him by the hand to get him to leave the park, he got to a point where that’s what he wanted and it’s the same with most people. And if they don’t make it out of the skatepark, then it’s their loss. They’ll never experience the feeling of landing a trick on a spot that feels unique.

Why do you think the Olympic Committee decided to include skateboarding in Tokyo 2020?

I think it’s mainly because skateboarding is relevant or has the potential to entice people from younger generations. The hammer throw is great but it’s the sort of thing they’ll show at three in the morning and will have a hard time getting people to watch. If you get a Street League-style contest on TV,

even if it’s in the middle of the night, you’ll have a lot of people watching…

Also (and I’ve been saying this for years), skateboarding is an activity that can be done pretty much anywhere, with people, or on your own and at any given time of day or night.

Something like the hammer throw you’ll be able to practise a few evenings a week and usually that’s it because you have to be in a very special environment to do it. That’s why so many people give up on traditional sports around the age of sixteen when school, Uni, work, etc. makes it impossible for them to fit it in. Skateboarders don’t have that problem, they can skate whenever they want, which is why a lot of the time skateboarders skate their whole lives. The Olympic Committee’s greatest desire is for people to do sport for extended periods of time as opposed to it being a phase, that’s why we’re so interesting for them. They want to see people active their whole lives. You need to keep in mind that originally the Olympics was a way of motivating people to do sport and exercise for military purposes. It was so they’d be strong and healthy for combat if it came to it.

Is there anything at all that worries you about all this and what it could do to skateboarding?

Let’s start by reminding ourselves that the Olympics are on for fifteen days every four years. The skate contest will probably last three hours over those fifteen days. So no, not really… We’ve seen all sorts of contests come and go, some that worried a lot of people, but skateboarding is as strong as ever. Remember when the X-Games first appeared? Everyone was convinced that they would ‘kill’ skating… We’ve had skateboarding videos games, TV shows with skateboarding (Bam, etc.) shown on TV everyday for years!

This is three hours every four years.

So for you, apart from injecting money into skateboarding, it’s not going to change that much…

Basically yeah… In France we’ll be able to give skaters this special Elite Athlete Status I mentioned earlier. We’ll be able to impose

standards on people building skateparks. We’ll have the Olympic card to pull out every time we need negotiating anything with officials.

To people that don’t understand skateboarding it gives what we do a lot of credibility…

Athletics went through the same thing. Watch that Free To Run film, it’s all about this. In the 1950s people in America would get stopped by the police for jogging in the street because they thought it looked suspect, like they were running away from something or they had something to hide. You couldn’t just go for a run in Central Park after work; that was unheard of. Especially if you were a girl…

I see the parallel you’re making…

Is there anything you’d like to add?

Just that if it was slaloming or the megaramp or something at the Olympics I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. There’s good people leading this and simply the fact that we’re talking about street skating and bowl skating is already a huge step in the right direction.

And if you’re still worried just keep in mind that the chances of that three-hour contest being live on TV are pretty slim.

They usually struggle to show the women’s football live on TV in France and I’m pretty sure that’s higher on the list than skateboarding.

Which is why you’re convinced that the impact it’ll have on our culture will be minimal…

Yes… And definitely outweighed by the benefits of being able to get more funding for skateparks and having the possibility of offering this Elite Athlete Status to support skateboarders in their careers.

You know all this stuff with the Olympics reminds me about when people were hating on the Teenage Tour. I got ripped apart for backing it. Now looking back on it, think of how many big French skaters came out of that thing… Lucas Puig, Steph Khou from Hélas, Flo Mirtain, Rémy Taveira, Joseph Biais… I’m convinced the Olympics will open a lot of doors for us, we just need to make sure we stay as true to our values as much as we possibly can.

Vienna

Sometimes life gets so intense, or busy, or just in general time flies by and before you know it you’re handed an interview of a guy whom you’ve known for over a decade and been on many trips and skate sessions together from the start, and you read he just moved to the same city as you and he hasn’t even called… It’s crazy how this works… I remember it took forever before it was tomorrow and now I blink my eyes and another year has passed. And I’m sure Nassim is feeling that too, although he’s only 23, he’s been around in our industry forever, but time moves quicker the older we get.

The both of us used to live in Rotterdam, or actually, Nassim lived a few metro stops away in Spijkenisse, but you get my drift. At that time the Rotterdam skateboard scene was pretty tight, and I’m sure it still is, but like Nassim I’m too lazy to go back there. But we used to go on daily skate missions in my infamous blue Volkswagen Transporter together, with some of the usual suspects in Rotterdam: Tim Zom, Ricardo Paterno, Sami El Hassani and whoever else jumped in when a spot was available.

But as time went by Nassim became more recognised and started travelling, well probably even more than me — most likely a ton more by now. So our times together are not that frequent anymore and perhaps since I became a parent, I’m not even available as much as I used to when I’m in the Netherlands. Travelling is great, I mean absolutely amazing but when at home you have to make the most out of it, especially when you have a family to take care of. And while Nassim might not have one of his own, yet, he would always take care of his mom and sisters as long as I can remember. So every now and then we run into each other on another continent. Exactly a year ago today we ventured on a trip to Tokyo together for Element, and that might have been the last time we shot a photo. Time sure does fly…

I’m slightly drifting away at the moment,

but the point I’m trying to make here is: ‘Nassim, give me a fucking call and let’s go skate!’

Oh and another quick note: someone turn this guy pro please!

— Marcel Veldman

Photography DVL

Nass im

Guam maz

Boardslide to fakie

Interview Benny Komala

Rotterdam

Frontside smith stall

Frontside 180 nosegrind

Bilbao

Ph. Brian Gaberman

Nassim: You recording?

Benny: Yeah.

I really hope you’re not going to ask stupid questions, Benny.

No, no, I won’t. I have thought this through carefully. I‘m not going to put you with your back against the wall.

Ha ha. I’ll probably do that all by myself, don’t worry.

How are you doing?

I’m doing good, how are you?

Pretty good. You’re on a trip right now, right? With whom?

With the Vans Europe guys: Victor (Pellegrin), Kris Vile, Polo (Paul Labadie), Davy (Van Laere), Paco, Nestor Suki, Albert Nyberg. And Pfannman is on the trip too, but he just went away for a couple of days; he’s coming back. Also Dustin Dollin is coming.

Davy is taking photos?

Yeah, Davy is taking photos, talking shit, complaining…

Did you know Davy was the first pro skateboarder from Belgium? That he was pro for Death Box? Yeah, I know.

You’re filming for Vans over there?

Yes, we’re working on a Vans video.

It’s coming out early next year, I think.

Do you still film for fun too? Or is it strictly business these days?

No man, it’s all about fun. It can’t be all about business. Fuck that.

When you’re home and you don’t really have to do anything, do you still call Sami (El Hassani) to go film, for example?

Yeah, definitely. It’s all about skating, eventually. I guess, when you go on these trips, it’s about business, but you just have to make sure you skate and get footage. Just get tricks.

If you skate, everything is good. If you don’t skate then, yeah, you’re going to meet the business side.

Ha ha, yeah. Look at me, fuck.

(Editor’s note: Benny is a long-time shop owner of Amsterdam’s Ben-G) (Nassim laughs)

You’ve been travelling for a long time now. For the past few years, ever since I’ve known you, you’ve been travelling. How does that affect your life at home? Does the road feel like home? What is home to you?

That’s a very good question. I’ve been

asking myself that question too. I guess it’s the road.

Yeah? You still like it? You’re not over it yet?

Nah. I can’t be over it. I don’t have a choice man; I have to love it. I love it.

What happened today?

Today… What happened today? Today Albert Nyberg did a crazy-ass trick, out of a wallie. That was pretty crazy.

Some cop got super mad at us and just lost his shit. But it’s been pretty mellow, actually. We’re in Cyprus right now and it’s fucking sick out here.

There are so many spots. Good spots everywhere.

What’s your dream crew to go travelling with? Let’s say you can do one more trip and you can choose anyone, for the last time. Who would you pick?

Fuck, last trip. OK to start off, I’ll take Tim Zom. I’ll take Evan Smith.

I’ll take Doobie (Victor Pellegrin); I’ll pick him. I’ll take Pfannman. Who else? Fuck, there are too many people.

My crew would be thirty deep.

It already sounds like a solid

crew.

I don’t even know where I would go.

Yeah, where would you go?

Where would I go? Probably Athens or something.

Athens, really? I’ve never been there, but it must be good. It’s not too old?

It’s super cheap and it’s really fun.

There are a lot of spots, good vibes.

Alright. Let’s talk about skateboarding a little bit. Are you a skate nerd? Do you ever get into skate history and watch old footy, classic parts from, say, Matt Hensley and Jason Lee, Gonz? Do you ever go through that phase?

Uh, yeah. I’ve watched all those parts.

I’m not sure if I watched Matt Hensley, but I’ve definitely watched a lot of old parts. But I’m not somebody who’s geeking out on all of that. I just watch it and think ‘Alright, those guys were doing their shit in those times.’

Who did you check out when you were younger? What was the first video that you saw that blew your mind and got you hyped to keep skating?

For me, in the beginning, it was Darkstar.

(Laughs hysterically)

Frontside crooked grind

Vienna

Rotterdam

Frontside 5â&#x20AC;&#x201C;0 grind

Sounds crazy, I know.

Darkstar? Okay.

It was that. I started skating in 2004.

So it was that video, the Darkstar video and Osiris’ Subject To Change.

(Victor Pellegrin comes in from the background) Victor: Battallion! Gailea Momolu!

Yup, Gailea Momolu, yup. And then The DC Video, I was watching that one a lot. And then Habitat, Mosaic was one of them too. Those videos got me really hyped. During the winters in Holland I was watching those a lot.

Who were your favourite skaters back then and who are your favourite skaters right now? Is it different or do you still like the same guys?

You know what the thing is? The more people you meet, the more skaters you meet, it just broadens your skate vision. In the beginning, for me it was Anthony Van Engelen, and Josh Kalis, Gailea Momolu, Brian Wenning and Eric Koston too, for sure. Also Andrew Reynolds. I was watching This is Skateboarding a lot. Then I started watching the Zero videos a lot, too. Dying to Live, stuff like that. Geoff Rowley… Right now, one of my favourite skateboarders is Evan Smith, no doubt.

Yeah, how could he not be your favourite skater, right?

Yeah, no doubt. Evan Smith, Grant Taylor, Wes Kremer, um… Who else? There are so many good skateboarders.

Yeah, there are too many to mention. Do you check a lot of the new stuff? Like all the parts that come out?

These days it’s too much. Do you check everything or do you just check Instagram and check it out on YouTube when you see something interesting?

I actually do check out the new parts that come out these days. Even though I feel like I’m still missing some things, I watch most of the stuff. I see a lot of stuff on Instagram too.

But I feel like Instagram ruins a lot of things, because you see all the enders. When you go and watch the clip, at the end you’re like ‘Fuck, I already saw this.’ It ruins it for me, pretty much.

That’s life, that’s 2017, right?

Yeah, I feel like a lot of people these days don’t even fucking bother to watch

the video part. They watch it on Instagram, they see the tricks, and then they move on to the next thing.

But even on Instagram, you see the broad view of where skateboarding is these days. There’s so much variety in the types of skating. Even in street skating, you’ve got the quick feet skating, the body varial stuff, you’ve got gnarly tricks; you’ve got all sorts of skating. Does that affect you? Do you ever feel the urge to put a quick body varial in your lines just to keep up?

Hmmm… No.

(Laughs) You just skate the way you want to?

Yeah.

You never think ‘Maybe I should flip out of some shit’? Do you feel pressure to keep up with the evolution or are you like me, thinking: ‘That looks gross, who cares?’ and move on.

Honestly, I think these days people are just trying to get famous on Instagram and get hooked up that way. Because all these companies are only caring about the views you get on Instagram and whoever gets the most likes. So kids these days, they know they just have to…

(Victor Pellegrin chimes in again) Victor: Hey, follow Doobie, man.

Just follow Doobie.

Hey, just let me do this real quick, and then I’m free to go.

So, yeah, I don’t really feel like I have to… I don’t know, man, I just skate. I skate and try to have a good time and I’m living my life. I try not to be bothered by what other people are doing. I don’t know if that’s the answer that you’re looking for.

I was just wondering if you get inspired by seeing certain stuff or…

It’s more about the parts that inspire me; it’s not about all the new stuff.

If something speaks to me, I would try to do that but I just think of what I can do. If someone’s doing something crazy, like Shane O’Neill, or sex change stuff, I don’t know, whatever.

If I don’t relate to it I don’t feel like I have to do it or try to be like them. I just try to do me, you know?

Okay, cool. I was wondering: Did you make it to the Dutch Olympic team?

Were you selected?

No, no.

Murcia, Spain

Backside 180 to fakie 50â&#x20AC;&#x201C;50

Fakie heelflip

Limassol, Cyprus

No.

Would you go if you were selected?

Why not?

It doesn’t feel natural.

No? I mean, there’s different ways to look at it. It’s the Olympics — you could make your momma proud, right?

My mom is already proud.

Yeah, I know, but still… So you wouldn’t go if you were selected?

Pffft. I don’t know man. Fuck. I don’t know. If there’s was a chance where they’d be like ‘Okay, you can go to Japan and skate in the Olympics’, I would probably go. I’m not going to do all of the extra stuff though.

Yeah, good for you… I would do it too, man. Why not, right? I’m for the Olympics; fuck it.

I don’t think you’re really sure about that.

No, but, I can imagine… If you were selected and you could go, why would you not go? Fuck it, it’s just another contest, basically.

I would go, I would go.

Okay. You just made the move from Rotterdam to Amsterdam. How do you like it so far?

Fuck, man. Amsterdam is crazy.

Amsterdam is fucking crazy.

Why did you move over here?

Because I just felt like I needed a change. But, um… I kind of feel like moving back to Rotterdam because all of my friends are out there, but I don’t know. I just feel more at home there. I just party too much in Amsterdam, and only skate on trips. I’ve been there for two months and I don’t know man.

It’s too much.

Aw, that’s what I told you, man.

I know.

(Laughs)

You were right. You were so right.

Who are you skating with in Amsterdam?

Ha ha. Nobody’s fucking skating!

Nobody. I mean, some guys are skating, but I don’t really have a connection with those guys, so I’m just out there partying, waiting for the next trip to come up.

Nobody skates that much in Amsterdam, that ’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, not to move over so you would still fucking skate.

Yeah, but, to be last two months, there, I’ve only weeks. I’ve just whole time.

really honest, the since I moved out been home for three been on trips the

You haven’t been trying to get footage on all the famous Amsterdam spots yet?

No.

How different is your daily routine compared to the one you had in Rotterdam, where you used to live? Is it very different?

Ooh. Kind of, yeah.

Do you miss your old crew? Who was your old crew in Rotterdam?

All of the Bombaklats guys. Sami, and Tim… Ali, all of those guys. They’re all in Rotterdam and they’re skating a lot. I’m in a group chat with them on WhatsApp and I always see that they’re going out skating and I’m in Amsterdam, you know… and I’m like: ‘Fuck!’

Hungover… Ha ha ha.

And I’m too fucking lazy to go to Rotterdam, it doesn’t even make sense, I just moved here and I’m going back to Rotterdam? What am I doing?

You lived in Rotterdam for a long time; you grew up there. So why do you skate for me, for an Amsterdam store and not a Rotterdam store?

Because the store I skated for in Rotterdam… I’ve been skating for Ben-G for seven years, now. The store that I rode for in Rotterdam sucked, the owner sucked, so… I didn’t have a shop sponsor for a while, for a year or something, and I remember you telling me that if I ever wanted to skate for Ben-G I should just hit you up. I remember very well, one day I was in the metro, heading back home to Rotterdam, and I was like ‘I should ride for Ben-G because Tim rides for Ben-G and Benny seems like a cool guy and Ben-G is a cool shop.’

Aw…

That’s when I called you and you said: ‘Let’s do it!’

You said you’ve been partying a lot, so are you more of a bar type of dude or do you go rave around the clubs and dance?

Dude, if I go out, I go dance.

Yeah? You’re a clubber? You go to De School, Social Club, all of that shit?

Backside lipslide to fakie

Vienna

Rotterdam

Frontside nosegrind

Backside 50â&#x20AC;&#x201C;50 to backside 180 out

Limassol, Cyprus

Uhh, yup. With my flatmate Chris… He introduced me to all of that stuff in Amsterdam and it’s no fucking good.

It’s not good for your skateboarding?

No, it’s no good.

Do you try to balance skateboarding and partying or do you just go with the flow and see what happens?

That’s the hardest thing to do.

Finding a balance? Yeah, it is. But do you try? Are you like ‘I’m not drinking this week’, do you work out, or anything to improve your skateboarding?

I haven’t lately, but I try.

Let’s talk about music. What gets you pumped these days?

What gets me pumped? Um… Fela Kuti.

Fela Kuti? What is that? Some African shit?

Yeah.

Do you listen to that while you’re skating? Or you’re not a headphone skater?

I don’t really skate with headphones that much but I listen to it in my free time. I listen to a lot of rock and roll. I listen to a lot of rap.

When you go out, you go to hip-hop parties or you’re more into house music and stuff like that? Techno?

Hip-hop.

So, I have a few guys from Free that I So, uh, one is: ‘What new-found interest in Oh.

questions from the have to ask you. prompted your religion?’

See, now it’s getting deep, but I’m going to ask you anyway.

All right, good question. Life man.

Just life, and I guess my roots.

Of course.

Where I come from, you know. Where I come from just called me… I’ve been confronted by it a lot of times in my life and yeah, fuck man… Fuck this shit.

Is it more from your mom’s side, from your family’s side?

From my mom’s side, from my family’s side, from my relatives, from my friends… I make friends that are very religious, you know, and I start thinking about it…

And you’re getting older, getting more mature about it, I guess?

Yeah, yeah. It’s something that I’m still figuring out, you know what I

mean? I don’t fucking know, man. It’s life, man.

It’s true, though. There’s something out there, I know for sure. I don’t believe in a certain god, but I know there’s something out there. So even if it’s God, or Allah, or whatever, or Buddha… I understand you. It’s something to think about, definitely.

It’s the thing that we talked about before. It’s the balance. When you find that balance, then you have those answers… Do you know what I mean? When you’re in that balance for a period of time, then you know what it is. But it’s finding that balance, and it’s different for everybody. There are people that have the balance and they’re like ‘I don’t give a fuck about religion, and I don’t care about it.’

But I think religion comes from that balance that you find. People have found that balance and they’ve based their philosophy on… That balance. They believe it comes from something else. I believe we come from something else, we come from something bigger than us. Who are we? We’re just human beings…

There’s more to this, I feel like the body that we live in is just temporary, we all know that. Because things fade.

For instance now, with skating, we have the power and the ability to skate, to party, to do everything we can do because we’re young. But those things fade. But what always remains is you inside of your body.

I totally get you, I’m forty-one years old now, skating is not something I can do on a daily basis, and neither is partying, so there’s a certain balance you need to find at some point in your life, I totally agree on that.

That was a good answer Nassim.

How do you see yourself when you get older? Do you want to stay in the skateboarding business or do you have any other interests already? Do you have any clue?

Fuck, I have no clue, Benny. I have to disappoint you; I’ve got no clue. I’ve got to figure it out man. I’m just trying to keep skating — just keep skating and enjoying life. And then after that I’ll figure it out.

Hopefully just stay in skateboarding and be around skateboarders so I can keep having fun.

Overcrooks

Vienna

O3EPO – Even In Siberia There Is Happiness Felipe Bartolomé – Frontside 50-50 � Photo: Alexey Lapin www.carhartt-wip.com

Mitchel ‘Mitta’ Linger crooked grind

The B ootic ellii boys

Booticelliboys are a skate squad that — not unlike many other skate crews — focus on skateboarding, drinking, parties and friendship.

Their association being one without any lucrative purpose, they offer one thing

Mees Van Rijckevoorsel wallride nollie out

The Amsterdambased

that many other, commercialised skate crews lack: a catchy tag-line — a short, memorable description that gets stuck in people’s brains, offers information that is easily remembered and,

Finn Visser ‘t Hooft taildrop to 50–50 grind

leaving them enticed and wanting more.

‘Your favourite boys.’

Words Bram De Cleen

Photography DVL

when formed correctly, helps the audience understand the bigger picture,

Booticelliboys’ origin, mission, fields of expertise, and current projects, I decided to interview Finn Visser ’t Hooft, one of their most outspoken members, and my personal favourite…

Bastiaan Van Zadelhoff blindside fakie nosegrind

Othmar Van Rijswijk backside 50–50 grind

Having enjoyed the month of August in Amsterdam under the welcoming wing of one of the boys, I have to admit there could be some truth to the bold claim.

To enlighten you further on the

Go on then…

My name is Finn Visser ’t Hooft, it is the month of October; I don’t know which day exactly. Wow, Ottie has lost his mind completely.

What happened?

He just got into it perfectly on his third try. (The interview takes place while Othmar Van Rijswijk tries to flip back lip a handrail)

Finn, I’m going to ask you some questions about the Booticelliboys. When I talked to some of the other guys the responses I got were that the Booticelliboys were into partying, a welcoming bunch, and that you focus on spending nice days in the city, with fun being more important than getting tricks.

The Booticelliboys started as something really small.

Mees, one of our friends, a long-haired, tall guy, always spent a lot of time on the water, doing sailing classes, etc. At a certain point, he moved from ’t Gooi (a region southeast of Amsterdam) to Amsterdam. Long story short, he had a little boat in the canals. The boat was called the Booticelli (pronounced boaticelli).

Like the singer?

No, the artist. Botticelli. It was just the boat’s name. Some of the guys went for a ride on the boat.

You can probably feel it coming already. All of the boys who went on the boat ride became The Booticelliboys.

The originals were Mees, Simon, Jamie, Zeb and Nosa.

Those were the guys on the boat. Soon after the boat sprung a leak, it was a big drama. The boat didn’t last a long time.

But the crew was born.

So there was a little squad. I had lived in Amsterdam for a year or two, three, by then. But I didn’t really know the guys yet. At one point, I bribed them, bought two cases of beer, invited them over, and we ended up at the hospital. Mees’ bike wheel got stuck in the tram rails and he had a big gash in his chin. Hospital, stitches, Nosa got kicked out of the hospital, and we had to hurry because the club was going to close. That was the first time I really connected with them.

You instantly mention drinking and going out. Is that a big part of what you guys do?

Basically, yes. Or no, wait… We’re all good at drinking, but mainly, we are friendly guys. When we meet somebody who fits in with us, we make them feel comfortable and take care of them. It’s all about feeling. We got Paulo from Italy, Rihards from Latvia, Niklas from Finland and also Glen from Jersey. We make sure they get a good place to stay in Amsterdam and we just help each other out. Bastiaan

Rihards Bondars gap to backside lipslide

That is your origin story. Perfect.

Who are The Booticelliboys? Who were the originals and who is part of the current crew?

still lives in Haarlem but he’s an exception.

What’s a typical Booticelli day like?

The main idea is skateboarding, right?

Definitely, our skating days are usually Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, which are the party days as well. Most of the time, everybody is hungover, but those end up being the most productive days. I am pretty strict, so when everybody wants to meet up at two o’ clock, I say: ‘Eleven, stop crying,’ and we go out.

theme?

Skating hungover is a recurring

It’s not something we really want or want to brag about but it happens often. We’re not trying to be some kind of Piss Drunx or anything like that. We’re mostly just cultivating our own friendships, that’s the most important part. When we see each other we hug, we like heading out into the city together.

Othmar Van Rijswijk wallride

If you’re not going to be in town for a while, you let the other guys know… If it’s somebody’s birthday, you show up.

The skating mainly happens in Amsterdam, right?

Yes, preferably within the peripheral. I think more or less 85 per cent of what we filmed for the new video happened within the boundaries of the ring road. Sometimes we go on a trip to a different city, Rotterdam or The Hague or something, but not often.

Everybody always says Amsterdam is hard to skate, or that it doesn’t have a lot of spots, but we don’t have anything to do with that. Amsterdam is filled to the brim with spots, and we try to tackle all of them.

You are about to drop a video, what will it be called?

We don’t know yet. We were thinking about ‘The Sound of Success.’

What was the idea behind that?

There’s this type of music, Yacht Rock (Yacht rock refers to the highly polished brand of soft rock that emanated from Southern California between 1976 and

Koen Mulder backside 180 nosegrind

Okay.

Actually, that is what the Booticelliboys are. There are a few rules, friendship is highly valued, and besides that, we are good at drinking. We get the most hyped when someone is really working and going for it though. You have to work and show initiative, to tackle things. We skate, we work and we drink. No laziness.

You guys throw parties too…

We have a couple of talented DJs in our group.

There’s a Booticelli DJ squad, they like buying records, and they are good at what they do. It went from throwing a party once in a while to a party every month, and it’s still growing. The name ‘Booticelli’ is becoming quite famous for parties.

It just happens. I want to stress we are not trying to build a brand or anything like that.

You did make a couple of shirts.

Yeah, we did, and they sold really well, but we’re not trying to be a brand. We’re just friends.

boys’?

Who came up with ‘Your favourite

Let me ask Simon. (‘Simon, who came up with the tag line?’) Simon did. It’s catchy, right? You claim to be someone’s favourite boys. It’s a big claim saying we are chill guys, but we kind of are.

Ha ha.

It sounds arrogant, but most of the time we are pretty chill.

Othmar Van Rijswijk kickflip backside lipslide

1984. The term is meant to suggest the kind of smooth, mellow music that early yuppies likely enjoyed while sipping champagne and snorting cocaine on their yachts.) But, actually, I think we’ve let that idea go already.

The idea was… No, we’re not going to do it. I don’t know what the video will be called. Maybe just ‘The Booticelli Video.’ ‘The Sound of Success’ sounds a bit arrogant, ha ha. The idea was to use a lot of yacht rock tunes.

Eniz Fazliov Gap to frontside wallride Helsinki Ph. Justus Hirvi

>

>

Evan Smith Kickflip Barcelona Ph. Gerard Riera

Scott ‘Horsey’ Walker Beanplant to fakie Tottenham Ph. Sam Ashley

>

Silas Baxter-Neal Smith grind Berlin Ph. Sem Rubio

>

>

Patrick Zentgraf Switch frontside bluntslide Berlin Ph. Sem Rubio

>

Jonathan Drab Boardslide pop-over Oslo Ph. Lars GartĂĽ

>

Simo Mäkelä Backside nosebluntslide Helsinki Ph. Alex Pires

>

Marcel Weber Gap to nosegrind Bergisch Gladbach, Germany Ph. Hendrik Herzmann Dom Henry Switch crooked grind London Ph. Sam Ashley

>

>

Viliyan Todorov Switch frontside nosegrind Barcelona Ph. Gerard Riera

The National Skateboard Co. in Kiev

Vaughan Jones nosebluntslide

V E i K

CH

EcK-In it, the Dublin born to cobble something Phil Evans (Denis’ acceptable together. adopted Malmö based carer) hasn’t seen or heard from him for the best part of a week, and with the print deadline fast approaching, the responsibility has fallen on yours truly

Words Ryan Gray Photography Sam Ashley

The original idea for the text element of this article was to interview the always effervescent Denis Lynn and get his perspective on Kiev, the spots, the people and the skating that went down on the trip, but as luck would have

How did we come to be drawn to Kiev in the first place? Well, we have Thomas Henry Harrison to thank for that Eastern European master stroke. He’s been working on various film projects in Kiev for the last year or so, and through his work there he met the Ukrainian skateboarding legend Vadim Yuza who showed him some of the spots on offer in the city. Vadim also schooled him to the fact that the last team to visit Ukraine was supposedly Ipath something in the region of fifteen years ago, when the hemp fuelled footwear operation was at the height of its pre-Timberland power.

Since then, skaters from across the world have certainly passed through (including the UK’s very own Josh Cox and Scott ‘Horsey’ Walker a few years back), though nothing that constitutes ‘a team’ had visited the city for a long old time indeed.

With that in mind, in late August we decided to round up who we could and jet off to Kiev for a week of Ukrainian exploration, taking with us Tom Harrison, Josh ‘Manhead’ Young, Denis Lynn, Vaughan Jones, Dan West,

Cam Barr and recent flow addition Josh Gregory, with the legendary Neil Smith flying into town for the final 48 hours of the trip.

With all the press that Kiev has had in recent (and not so recent…) history, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it wouldn’t be that safe a destination for a ten-man squad in search of skateboarding heroics and cut price beers, but – during the time that we were in town at least – that couldn’t be further from the case. Despite the heavily reported revolutions, annexations and all the rest, we found the atmosphere in the city itself was exceptionally calm, and aside from the odd baffled look, one punch throwing security guard and one stick wielding elderly lady, our obviously quite imposing presence pretty much went largely unnoticed – or unacknowledged, at least.

Choosing the country’s Independence Day to skate Maidan Nezalezhnosti (which translates literally to Independence Square) – home to most of Ukraine’s revolutions and political rallies over the years – was

Dan West backside tailslide

Josh Young frontside blunt

probably a bit of a dim decision in hindsight, though the near constant stream of armed soldiers barely even batted an eyelid as Manhead battled his way through a frontside blunt on the cobbled base of a statue celebrating space travel. In fact, one young soldier briefly joined in the session, managing a stationary kickflip in full Ukrainian army attire before bidding us a good night and running off to rejoin his troops.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quite startling to think that only three years prior to our visit, the whole of Maidan and the surrounding area was basically a scorched war zone covered in makeshift barricades and homemade tents as the people of Ukraine fought to remove President Yanukovych.

Today, soldiers get hyped on front blunts and bang out kickflips. Three years might not seem like a long time for most, but in some places,

Tom Harrison ollie it can make a whole world of difference.

Like any major city in Eastern Europe, there are monuments everywhere – some you’re safe to skate, some you’re not. Manhead skating the aforementioned statue base caused us no issues whatsoever, yet a few days later we were skating another statue base, this time in a park at the top of a hill which was erected in the memory of either religious figures or royalty (depending on who you asked) when we drew the attention of everyone from caretakers to passing middle-aged women.

Some stood and stared disapprovingly, some

made irate phone calls and took pictures of us as they hung about in the distance, but no one actually tried to talk to us. When our guide Sasha turned up to meet us, he offered us the following advice if anyone tried to speak to us about skating this particular statue – ‘Just tell them to fuck off!’ – I guess he didn’t feel that whomever the monument was built for was all that important.

Standing a mellow 203 feet tall, the stainless steel Motherland Monument is something to behold. The monument, comprised of a woman holding up a sword in one hand and

Josh Gregory nosegrind

a shield that displays the state emblem of the Soviet Union in the other, sits atop the Museum of the History of Ukraine in World War Two. Now, the grounds of the museum also house various spots, but this was one zone we were both kicked out of by security, and not welcomed in by the grounds staff. Still, we got a handful of clips near the entrance to the museum where we were informed skating was allowed. The towering monument got a few obligatory airings on Instagram and Vaughan managed to see the session out without being introduced to the sharp end of an irate gardener’s rake.

We met our fair share of locals in Kiev, all of whom, despite the fact they were under no obligation to humour us whatsoever, took time out of their days and battled the language barrier in order to hook us up with spots. Vadim Yuza, who Tom knew from his previous worked based Kiev excursions, was out of town for the first few days but put us in touch with Pavlo Dyachenko, though the lions share of the spots we hit came via the two Sasha’s – Sasha Groshevoy and Sasha ‘the legend’ Protsenko. The latter took a fist straight to the face from an overzealous security guard as he tried to get a closer look at

Denis Lynn frontside boneless

an unfinished marble based construction site we randomly stumbled upon, and the punch was quickly backed up by the appearance of a metal pipe which was also swung in Sasha’s direction. The sight of twelve skaters running from a building site caught the attention of a passing police car who stopped the lot of us and had us all sitting on the curb until they got to the bottom of what had just happened.

Despite Sasha’s pleas to the contrary, we were obviously deemed to be in the wrong but we were surprisingly sent on our way without any further hassle.

So why was Sasha Protsenko deemed ‘the legend’? If you’ve spent any time with Denis then you’ll know that Denis likes to hold Denis in the highest regard, but when Sasha first appeared rocking some Technicolor Dream Garms, produced a joint out of nowhere and proceeded to drop-in grind any inclined edge

in sight, you could tell Denis’ plinth was shaking a little. Throw in a fabricated tale about Sasha simultaneously pleasuring multiple ladies at once and it was a done deal – Sasha had outdone Denis in the legend stakes, whether he knew about it or not. Luckily for Denis, Sasha was only with us for a day; he left us in an abandoned amphitheatre and went off to Qatar to work, leaving Denis free to saddle back into the leading legend seat again.

Anyway, a massive thanks to all of you guys, Yuri, the family who own the ‘blue house bowl’ and everyone else who gave up their time to show us around Kiev, sent us pins to spots or let us steal their bright green block of Girl wax – Дякую.

Josh Young frontside 180 Owing to a multitude of reasons, this trip was the first time that most of the team had been together since the premiere of the video last summer. There were still a few notable leaves of absence this time around – Gregoire Cuadrado had used up all his holiday from work earlier in the year so couldn’t get the time off, Mackey was on family holidays, Danijel Stankovic’s relentless summer work schedule didn’t allow him to grace us with his presence, and Tom Tanner is still recovering from a knee exploding Liverpudlian misadventure last winter. Oh, Evz wasn’t anywhere to be seen either. Everyone else was present and correct though, with the latest addition to the flow roster and owner of the finest moustache/ slick-back combo in the south of England,

and wearing a hat he’d acquired somewhere which proudly sported the fitting slogan ‘one beer please’ the whole time.

Never one to let trivial things like ‘finances’ get in the way of a good time, Denis Lynn arrived in Kiev as penniless as the day he was born, and pretty much remained that way for the duration of the trip. Food was earned by dropping in on a variety of perilous structures, cigarettes and beers were donated by the nearest charitable humans whenever the need reared its unstoppable head, and Denis gnawed through the week one day at a time with his usual mix of comedy observations and full volume banter. Much to Kiev’s surprise, Denis stayed on in the city for an extra few days after the trip too, before heading back to Malmö to carry on the windowsill project with Phil Evans.

As you can probably tell by the photos on these accompanying pages, plazas are in abundance in Kiev; it seems like every second block has one, and most of them house something that constitutes a spot. As we were in Kiev around Independence Day, a lot of the plazas around the centre of the city were overrun with scores and scores of families, and gaggles of lurking teenagers. One of the first spots we skated was located at the Friendship of Nations arch, where, whilst Jman was getting stuck into his frontside nosegrind, the whole area was taken over by a Ukrainian teenage celebrity who was holding a ‘meet and greet’ session with fans. Myself and Sam – sat on the floor, cameras in hand – were evidently invisible to the ever-expanding crowd who soon surrounded us, completely

Cam Barr backside 180 kickflip

Joshua ‘Jman’ Gregory, also thrown in at the deep end, selling his motorbike a fortnight before the trip in order to pay for his own flight. Well, truth be told it was a toss up between a flight to Kiev and a ticket to Boomtown Festival; the flight to Kiev ultimately won.

The chaos that surrounds Cam Barr is something to be appreciated too. How he has made it out of his teenage years is beyond me, and how on earth he’s survived venturing to such far-flung places as Kiev is a miracle too. On the first night he thought he’d lost his phone and wallet, separated himself from the rest of the crew and was found whimpering in the corner of a student bar. He launched verbal assaults on Manhead and Sam Ashley, found himself getting head-locked by Smithy, and ended the trip on a personal high by (unintentionally) head-butting a window out of the AirBNB. All of which was performed under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol, you’ll probably not be very surprised to learn. Cam’s not shy of getting the beers in for the boys, though he should probably know by now that trying to keep up drinking with Denis when you can’t handle your liquor is probably not the wisest idea going. One day he’ll learn. Maybe.

Dan West also racked up two tricks on the first day, claimed he wouldn’t be able to skate for at least another day or two due to sore legs, and proceeded to celebrate by drinking a boatload of beers and a bottle of champagne to himself until 6am. Then he spent the next day deeply sleeping on the floor at whatever spot we found ourselves localising

Vaughan Jones bluntslide into the bank blocking our view of the spot whilst they persisted to get selfies and hang on to this Bieber-a-like’s every word. Another plaza that saw us pass through on several occasions was across town, at Park Zankovetskoy. This plaza was in a more residential area, was frequented by local skaters of all ages and had a way mellower atmosphere than the others. On the final day though, as we were waiting with our bags to head to the airport, the police rolled through and ticketed Vadim for drinking in public. For the whole week we’d spent in Kiev, it had not been mentioned that drinking in the street was illegal, so at any given point in the day, one or more of us could be seen strolling about with an open beer in hand.

Obviously the whole crews’ grasp of Ukrainian was pretty rudimentary at best, so despite the fact that everyone at the plaza was drinking, the police ignored the rest of us and only saw fit to ticket Vadim.

‘He needs to hand out ten tickets today; I’m the ninth.’

On the days where we didn’t have guides, we’d venture out on our own and see what we could find. Some spots we had pins for

– the church roof/bank set-up that Vaughan noseblunt slid for instance – others, like the two bump to bars that Manhead and Harrison skated, we just found by chance. The kinked marble ledge that Vaughan bluntslid was located outside a closed down theatre, and judging by the amount of people who would stop to take photos of the main entrance, or quickly get a selfie out the front of it, it must have been a huge deal at some point. Josh Cox back-lipped the out ledge then rode into the bank when he visited a few years ago, and we were told that in the time since, the spot had been demolished, so we were surprised to find it still standing and still very skateable when we were working our way back to the apartment one night. Maybe it was meant figuratively – ‘Josh Cox destroyed the spot with his backside lipslide’? Either way, it’s still there. Good luck one-upping Josh though…

When it comes to travel, Kiev has an efficient subway system and a network of buses and trams that cost somewhere in the region of 2p per trip. We didn’t realise until the final full day that Uber fares were so ridiculously cheap that it’s impossible to comprehend how

Denis Lynn lipslide

anyone involved turns anything that resembles a profit. The whole week weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d been walking miles on foot each day, or forcing our oversized crew onto buses from the 1960s that comfortably carry about eight passengers, when the whole time we could have been crawling through the city in a fleet of Daewoo Nexias for a matter of pence. Oh well, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hindsight for you.

We piled into a convoy of vehicles on the final full day and followed Vadim to some skate-able bridge supports on the outskirts of the city, though our taxi driver figured himself as something of a maverick and split from the group, dropping us off in a motorway lay-by and leaving us to trek half a mile to the spot on foot, unwittingly passing through some sort of military base where Sasha had to

me. All that’s left to say is a massive thanks to everyone in Kiev who helped us in any way across the course of our trip, and nice one to Denis for vanishing right at the point that this article needed to be written. Your timing is impeccable as always.

The full edit from this trip (along with a whole load of other footage we’ve somehow managed to amass since the video came out) will be dropping on the Free website at some point in the near future. But for now – до побачення.

Dan West backside nosebluntslide

explain exactly what we were doing to a solider who didn’t take his hand off his gun then entire time. Luckily he didn’t take the guard dog off the leash either; he just stood there looking confused as five skaters made their way over his fence and across the neighbouring train tracks towards the riverbed.

The final spot that we hit was kicker to bar located outside the entrance of the world’s smallest camera shop. The owner was fine with us skating it after he had closed, but given that he shut up shop at 7pm and by 8pm it was fully dark, we were on limited time to skate the thing. Between negotiating with bemused residents and disgruntled security guards, Harrison gave his coccyx one final beat-down and Manhead held on to the nosegrind right to the point where it was made clear we had outstayed our welcome.

Talking of outstaying your welcome, I reckon that’s enough Kiev themed rambling from

Josh Young frontside nosegrind

SWI T CH F RON T SID E WALLRIDE

MAGNUS BORDEWICK NUMBER S E D I T I O N . C O M

wallie Turin, Italy

Gabriel Engelke

The Proc ess:

Ludo Azemar on life as the Antiz fi lmer

Photography Fabien Ponsero

least choosing to live and travel slightly differently in order to keep their dream alive. Which is why to accompany these photos of the crew in lesser-skated parts of Italy, Slovakia and Germany we chose to catch up with Antiz filmer Ludovic Azemar. We figured that if we were to paint an honest picture of the ‘Antiz way of life’, the guy who’s chosen to live out of his bag for the past seven years to make their videos might be a good place to start.

Interview Arthur Derrien

Whenever we get sent photos from Antiz trips a part of me can’t help but think: ‘Really? Another one?’ Yet somehow they always come through, finding photogenic, untouched spots where you’d least expect. It’s hard not to wonder how they do it though.

How can they still afford to be constantly on the road after all these years? I don’t know how often you see kids skating Antiz boards, but to me something doesn’t add up.

The answer is sacrifices – or at

Thanos Panou frontside nosegrind pull-out Zilina, Slovakia

How did you start filming for Antiz? Was it through Rémy Taveira?

Ludovic Azemar: Yeah. I was filming a lot with Rémy when I did my Color Your Memories video and he’s the one that put me forward. The first trip I went on was The Drive (Kingpin’s King Of the Road thing). Paul Labadie couldn’t make it so I went instead of him; it went really well and I’ve been travelling with them ever since.

When was this?

In 2011.

Damn so six years… Can you give us a list of the places you’ve visited with them?

It’s mainly just Europe really but we’ve been all over: France, Portugal, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, Romania, Austria, Slovakia and a lot of eastern Europe, Croatia… Germany obviously… Oh yeah and Morocco, which was incredible.

Basically we’ve more or less spent time everywhere in Europe apart from the UK.

Why is that?

I think it’s because they don’t really have any English riders and that

the tours are kind of organised around where they sell boards. I don’t think many shops in the UK carry their boards…

OK yeah I was going to ask how the destinations were picked because it seems like you guys are constantly on the road.

Yeah we do about five or six official trips a year. Julien (Bachelier) organises them taking into account the stuff I just mentioned. But then we also organise smaller side missions, like the one I’m about to go on to Barca…

That’s so much travelling…

Yeah that’s why we stay in Europe. We’re all usually pretty broke so we pick places that aren’t too expensive to get to.

What so you all pay for your own tickets? What about the other expenses?

Yeah we all take care of our own tickets. For accommodation we either sleep on the floor in the distributor’s warehouse, in tents or in the van or something so that it’s free. Antiz pays for our food out there so we don’t

really have to spend our own money other than on beers and stuff. I like it that way, it means that in the evenings we all cook together, everyone helps out – it reinforces the feeling of being a ’family’. It’s super low budget but no one is complaining…

How old is Antiz? Also how many people are on the team?

It’s 15 years old and I’d say about 15 people currently skate for the brand. And apart from a few of the guys in Lyon, nobody lives in the same city.

That’s why these five or six trips a year are essential; we need them to see each other regularly and keep this sense of unity. Keep it tight.

Fifteen years of doing five trips a year is nuts. Especially with such a big team… Trips must be hectic.

Not everyone goes on all of them; we’re usually in smaller groups.

Although on some big ones it’s at least ten of us, in which case the group dynamic creates a different kind of energy. It gets everyone hyped.

Yeah that’s definitely not a problem we face, ha ha. In our case there’s no hotel, so no lobby and often no showers… The sleeping conditions are usually so precarious that being out there skating is more appealing than staying ‘in bed’. Everyone just wants to pack up the tent and bounce the second they wake up.

Where’s the sketchiest place you’d say you’ve slept?

I can’t really think of anywhere particularly sketchy actually… We travel with camera gear and stuff so we’re always pretty careful with where we sleep as a group. I personally had a phase where I’d go out drinking more and sometimes I’d find myself sleeping in the street.

How?

I’d somehow loose everyone and have no idea how to get back to where we were staying. I slept under the van once when I didn’t know where else to go. That was a bit sketchy…

Under the van?!

Yeah I just spotted it and thought ‘the van, it’s home, it’s safe…’ I texted Rémy to tell everyone I

was under there so no one would drive it first thing when they got up. Trust me, you sleep lightly and not for very long when you’re under a van…

What about on the opposite side of the spectrum? Any memorable nights for good reasons?

When we went to Morocco we spent a night in the desert. It was magnificent, one of the most incredible nights of my life… Dallas, Rémy and me rode camels for hours through the dunes under the full moon until we found the spot where we were crashing. We had some food when we arrived, slept for maybe two or three hours, then woke up, climbed a dune and waited there watching the stars slowly disappear as they made way for the sun to rise. It was unreal.

Another one that comes to mind was in Greece when we camped inside a

Uryann Raudet frontside bluntslide to fakie Zilina, Slovakia

I usually tend to associate trips in large numbers with waiting hours in the lobby of a hotel for people to wake up, shower and get ready.

Thanos Panou frontside smith grind Povazska Bystrica, Slovakia

No they don’t. But they do set aside some money to pay me at the end when I finish a video.

How do you get by then?

For starters I don’t have a proper home, which means that I don’t pay rent. If I do have to pay something it’s never a full month’s rent it’s just chucking people I’m crashing with a bit of cash…

I get a bit of money from the state and then recently I’ve been getting some work outside of skating.

Doing what?

It’s pretty random: I’ve been filming and/or editing beauty product

For how long have you not had a proper home?

I’d say six or seven years.

That’s a serious sacrifice just to make skate videos…

Especially when you know the kind of money you could be making if you weren’t doing skate stuff.

Do you ever feel like it’s not worth it?

I’m obviously not making Antiz videos because I want to make money – or because I want them to make me famous or to get lots of views or something. I make these videos because I love the process of making them. I wouldn’t be making these sacrifices for any other brand; I’m making them because I’ve found the best people ever to travel with. People I share something special with… If I weren’t

Milan

What’s your financial ‘arrangement’ with Antiz? If they can’t afford to pay for people’s tickets to go on tour I’m assuming they don’t pay you a salary…

videos. It’s basically making oneminute clips for brands like Bourgeois to use as Insta stories or YouTube adverts… I don’t know how to do half the stuff I’m supposed to be doing so I’ve found myself on set watching YouTube tutorials about how to set up certain lights but it’s good, I’m learning loads. The contrast between doing that for five days and earning a month’s wage and what I usually do is pretty funny.

Pietro ‘Pepe’ Tirelli layback wallie

huge full pipe. For some reason I remember that time quite vividly, with all the different generations of Antiz riders chatting around the fire before going to sleep. I think it was Quentin (Boillon), Rémy (Taveira), Sam (Partaix) and Julien (Bachelier). To me they all represent different periods of Antiz and had very different perspectives on some of the memories we’d shared.

Thanos Panou 50â&#x20AC;&#x201C;50 grind Banska Bela, Slovakia

doing this for Antiz I’d ask for a day rate, etc.

Yes I have to make certain sacrifices, but at the end of the day I get to travel non-stop to skate incredible, often untouched spots with my friends, accumulating unforgettable memories of places I’d otherwise probably never visit. It’s worth it. I know I’ve lived some of the best moments of my life with these guys.

Being in the van with them is what feels like ‘home’ to me.

I also see making these videos as almost a personal project. Sure it’s for a brand and Antiz is the one bringing us all together as a group, but no one is telling me what to do.

I’m free to do whatever I want. I have the same freedom as I’d have making an independent video like Colour Your Memories.

What about everyone else that skates for Antiz? Are they all making similar sacrifices or do they have jobs, flats, etc.?

No they have jobs and flats. But they can because as I said they aren’t on every trip, I am.

For how much longer are you planning on living this way?

I’m hoping to have a slightly more stable situation with my own flat and stuff in the very near future. You just can’t live out of your bag forever and even though I know the friends that I stay with are happy to have me, always being dependent on other people to get your stuff becomes tiresome.

And spending two years non-stop working towards a 20-minute video also doesn’t always feel that rewarding…

Especially when they’re forgotten as quickly as they came because of the way we consume skate videos nowadays. I’ve made six or seven big full-length videos now, I’m ready to try a different format and with it a slightly different life.

I don’t regret living the way I’ve been living one bit though and I could probably even happily keep going, I just think it’s important to switch things up.

When you talk about a different format, what sort of thing would you be interested in doing?

I’d like to do more stuff like the Carhartt Azzurro project I worked on with Mauro (Caruso) in Gibelina, Sicily. Stuff like that where it’s shorter clips that are more than just filming a bunch of tricks in a city and making an edit. Clips you put a lot of thought into, even at the initial stages before anything is filmed.

Almost like with music videos or short films.

We’re also so flooded with skate content that a two minute clip with a really good idea behind it will probably do better that the thirty minute fulllength you spent two years filming…

Absolutely.

Last time I saw you you were having a bit of a rant about the skate industry. What pisses you off about it?

It’s a mixture of things, part of it is that although you think a lot of people in it are your friends, you realise everyone’s out for themselves.

It also feels like people are really stuck in their own little bubble,

Uryann Raudet frontside hurricane Wuppertal, Germany. Ph. Clément Le Gall

convinced that they are on top of the world. And it changes people… I’m sure it’s the same in a lot of industries but it hurts to see it in skateboarding when I’ve been so devoted to it for so long.

And social media probably plays a part in this: people becoming so obsessed with showing off their lives

and stuff isn’t helping. Everyone is so desperate to put themselves out there and be seen that sometimes it’s hard to stay positive. It’s just too much…

Why not just delete it and ignore that side of it?

It’s more or less what I do, I’m barely on there but you know how it is, it’s such a huge part of skateboarding

these days that it’s virtually impossible to get rid of completely.

Milan

Samu Karvonen crooked grind pop-over

Can you tell us a little bit about getting your camera nicked and everything you went through at that time?

We’d just finished the last Antiz video and I was in a period where all I wanted was a new life and to possibly move away from skateboarding a little bit. I was feeling quite lost at the time and it’s obviously a hard transition to make… I was trying to branch out and apply for different things and getting turned down constantly. All that disappointment and failure was tough on the morale.

Anyway I was getting the train really early to Montpellier to film something for Live Skateboard Media. I remember being pretty tired; I’d barely slept… I drop my bags in the luggage bit like I’ve been doing for years, sit down and wait for the train to start moving. Just before it sets off I see a woman drop her bag off next to mine. I remember thinking ‘weird, I could have sworn there wasn’t much space there…’ but not giving it much thought beyond that. Seconds later I’m fast asleep and when I wake up at my destination this woman’s bag is where mine was and mine is nowhere to be seen.

‘Was there not a big camera bag there when you dropped your stuff off?’

‘There was but a man took it off the train just as I was looking for a place to put mine…’

And that was it. She couldn’t have known it wasn’t his bag. I must have been spotted with tripods and a bag that obviously contained expensive camera equipment and followed to my train… My laptop was also in there; I lost everything. I was fucked. No more travelling, no more skate videos, I was going to have to get a shit job, a flat… Life on the road was over.

I wanted change but I definitely wasn’t ready for something so radical.

Especially given my confidence was already at an all time low at that point from getting denied every time I’d try to get work outside of skating.

It hit me hard…

Shortly after that my best friend started one of those online crowdfunding things in an attempt to raise money for a new camera. I think at first it was just a private thing that was supposed to be secret but Rémy got

wind of it and was like ‘fuck it, who cares if it’s a surprise? Let’s open it to everyone in skating: he’ll get loads of support’. From my understanding that’s how it went down.

And it really got around…

Yeah the response it got was insane. I really didn’t think so many people had my back… I’ve been making skate videos for years but I’m not a big name or anything. I wasn’t expecting people to go out of their way to help me like that. I was so overwhelmed by the whole thing that I didn’t really know how to react…

Maybe skateboarders aren’t so selfish after all.

Yeah… In the end they managed to raise enough to get me get back on my feet and before I knew it I was on the road filming skateboarding again.

Which is ironic given this whole thing started with you trying to slowly move away from that. You went full circle and it wasn’t even your doing.

Yeah it was weird. A bit of me thought ‘well if all these people want me to keep making skate videos maybe it’s a sign, maybe I shouldn’t give up

on it completely…’

So I didn’t, but with the new gear I was able to buy it was easier for me to get jobs outside of skating.

It was the perfect outcome. It helped me realise that I never want to stop making skate videos (even if it gets to a point where I’m only doing it as a hobby on the weekends) but that I do want to meet new people, be involved in different kinds of projects and generally just learn about new ways of working. I’m convinced doing different things is a good way of staying excited about skating.

@NATIVESKATE

Mail order: 0191 261 22 29 Email: sales@nativeskatestore.co.uk Native Skatestore, 50 low Friar Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 5UE.

WWW.NATIVESKATESTORE.CO.UK

£59.99

£44.99

£45.99

£54.99

£49.99

£49.99

£44.99

£56.99

£59.99

£59.99

£129.99

£59.99

£56.99

£54.99

£39.99

£39.99

£39.99

£39.99

£39.99

£39.99

£59.99

Basic eagle £29.99

Goatwitch £29.99

Hotline £27.99

Share Some Love £31.99

Circle logo £74.99

Dots £72.99

Combi TC £54.99

Psychedelic £74.99

Goatwitch £49.99

Adi-Ease UK 6-12 £54.95

X MHAK UK 6-12 £64.99

Seeley UK 6-12 £59.99

Griffin UK 6-12 £74.99

Griffin UK 6-12 £59.99

Porter UK 6-12 £54.99

Speed kills £21.99

Goudy £39.99 Beginnings £79.99

Growth £34.99

£63.99

Combi £24.99

£59.99

Curve visor £34.99

£63.99

Adult headwear £44.99

£59.99

Reserve patch £37.99

£59.99

Academic £32.99

£59.99

£39.99

UKs leading skatestore Orders over £80 in UK ship free We ship throughout Europe

BUILT BY SKATEBOARDING BARNEY PAGE SKATING THE MARANA VULC

BACKSIDE 180 NOSEGRIND

| PHOTO RYAN SHERMAN

IN THE INTEREST OF A MORE SIMPLE WORLD, NEW BALANCE BRINGS YOU A LESS DIFFICULT CHOICE. It is hard these days to navigate between facts, science, religion, and politics. Jake Hayes makes his life decisions easier, giving him more time to focus on kickflip height, style and precision.

Introducing the NM346.

A little more than a mid-cut, slightly less than a high top.

Black or White, N-Dure or Suede.

Keep them clean, ride them dirty, the choice is yours.