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FREE 06

MAY JUNE 2016

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16 Kyron Davis 26 15 Seconds 34 Holy Stoked 46 Günes Özdogan 56 Supra Chino Tour 60 Tea in Team 72 Lucas Puig 78 86 Car Park 13 94 Daan Van Der Linden 108 Frank in Malaga 114 Blobys

Cover Daan Van Der Linden Backside smith stall in Mallorca Photo Jelle Keppens Contents Eniz Fazliov Backside tailside in Barcelona Photo Jelle Keppens

Airing of Grievances:

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

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Introducing David Gonzalez’s new signature shoe the Eagle SG. Globe’s Shogun cupsole adds greater support and flexibility with an added deep footbed for impact control.

DAVID GONZALEZ | THE EAGLE SG

Kyron Davis Interview by Will Harmon One of the most important, but often overlooked, aspects in skateboarding is the relationship between the skateboarder and their filmer. I almost think labelling someone ‘the filmer’ is sort of a derogatory term, because that person holding the camera is so much more than just that: not only does he point the camera for hours at you, he’s a great friend, he knows your ins and outs, your abilities, he motivates you, he picks you up when you’re down, he skates with you and he accompanies you around the globe. Skateboarders are eternally indebted to the people that spend time filming them. What would Tom Knox be without Jacob Harris? Or would everyone know who Leo Valls was without Yoan Taillandier? For the past ten months Will Miles has joined Kyron Davis gallivanting around in various countries to film a new part for Ky. With his wasteman days behind him (maybe) Kyron has finally pulled his finger out and filmed a full section whilst knocking out some photos for this interview. We spoke to Kyron and Will about their journey along the way.

no longer a wasteman

Switch crooked grind coming in normal Lyon

Photos by Nikwen

Kyron, how did you and Will meet? Can you remember?

Kyron Davis: I can’t really remember the first time, but I know we had mutual friends who’d go out and skate so through that we kind of met each other and that’s when the relationship started. (Laughs) Will Miles: It was probably some stinkin’ uni night in Dalston at The Nest or somewhere like that. Will, you haven’t been filming for that long have you? When/how did you get into it and would you ever consider it as a full time job?

then and when I came back Ben Raemers was selling a VX, the whole thing, with a bag, lens and everything for like 250 quid. So I bought that off of him when I got back. And how long ago was this?

WM: This was about two and a half years ago. And then pretty much the first month of having that camera Ky got asked to do a Grey part and Ky asked me to film it and I did that. And now I’ve quit my job this month as I’m going to work on a thing with Grey and Nike.

This section to accompany this interview was initially supposed to be for Will’s video right? Can you tell us what’s going on with that and why this part ended up coming out separately?

WM: Actually I started just because a load of us went on a trip to New York. I did digital media at university so I had learned how to use KD: I think it was because after the Gypsy Life cameras and we borrowed the Parlour (Skate video, Jérémie (Daclin) wanted me to get a full store) VX for that trip. And so I got really into it part. He was like: ‘just take your finger out your

When it rains, you go under the bridge, backside 180 kickflip Lyon

arse! Get a full one out; that would be good.’ So that’s basically the main reason. And then Will is putting out his video as well so we thought I could just do two parts.

KD: New York was fun because of Jordan. WM: Yeah each day we were in NYC we’d end up meeting up with Jordan Trahan and he’d show us around all day. Two parts, sick! So most of the photos from KD: He didn’t even need to, but he was just this interview are from Lyon, but where else being the biggest help ever. He took us to the did you guys go to film this part? best, cheapest bars. WM: So we went to Paris, New York, WM: Yeah he knew all the happy-hour spots Barcelona and Lyon. and Ky and I would just end up being fucked by Do you guys have a favourite location? 9:30pm. I remember we were skating and going WM: I actually enjoyed Lyon the most because over the Williamsburg Bridge, from Manhattan it’s a small city and it’s so easy to get around and to Brooklyn, and Ky had never done it before. there wasn’t too many people that we went out So we were drunk as hell skating across it and I with. That was the most enjoyable for me. see Ky fly past me switch just taking the whole KD: New York was amazing for me just because thing… I’ve never been before. You hear so many fun Aren’t there big cracks on that thing? stories out of there and skating there just seems WM: Yeah there’s cracks all over it and he had really fun. But probably my favourite trip would no idea and I was just like ‘that’s it, there’s no have to be Barcelona. We went with the way he’s making it!’ So he’s wobbling like hell Skateboard Café dudes and they are just like the and somehow he just came out the other end! funniest people on earth. It was good to crend a KD: You seen that Marius (Syvanen) crazy little bit and skate, but be just as productive. switch wobble thing? Drink loads of mojitos and skate loads! Yeah, but 95% of the time when you get those Any good stories from the missions abroad?

wobbles you go down.

WM: Yeah I have no idea how Ky made it. There were cracks too and he had to lift up each one.

Incredible! So when discussing potential titles for this interview/video part, one of your team managers suggested: #nolongerawasteman. What do you think he is referring to? Missing flights? Excessive partying? Do you know who said that?

KD: I think whoever said that, they are definitely out of their minds. That’s not really me; I’m not a wasteman. I haven’t missed a flight for at least a year so… WM: He’s not that much better. (Laughs) Weirdly last week I moved a chair in Lyon that apparently had been in the same place for the last eight months because there was an iPhone underneath it. No one else’s iPhone, nobody else was there. So I charged it up, guessed the

Frontside bluntslide to fakie Almeria Photo Marcel Veldman

password in 1-2-3-4, and Kyron was like: ‘There’s no way this is my iPhone. Not a chance.’ There was nothing on it at all apart from a photo of how to get to Luton airport to Harrow (where Kyron’s from). (Everyone laughs)

WM: Which means, eight months ago he got it, lost it that same day… You couldn’t even remember having that phone because you had it for such a short amount of time…

KD: Yeah exactly, I completely forgot about it. I was so stoked because I didn’t even have a phone and I do now. I got it in my pocket.

(Everyone laughs again) From the outside it seems like you (Kyron) can skate just as well, if not better on a hangover. Is this actually the case or does your partying get in the way of skating? I

want Will and Kyron’s answer to this…

WM: Weirdly enough he can skate better on a hangover, but actually stopping him from being awake until seven in the morning and him actually coming out is the harder part. So if you can get him drunk ‘til about two or three and then he goes to sleep, the next day he’s gonna be fantastic. If not, there’s no chance, because he’ll just be up all night. And the likeness that he or his girlfriend will have their phone on is zilch. Okay Kyron what’s your story?

Frontside wallride over the window Lyon

KD: I think I can definitely skate better when I’m not on a hangover. How often is that?

KD: Nine times out of ten I’d say. But yeah it’s definitely a lot easier to skate when you’re not hungover. Well recently… All right so Lyon we all skated and none of us went out. And we all skated better. So #nolongerawasteman?

KD: Yeah that’s almost perfect. Maybe we should call the video that. #nolongerawaste man2016 WM: New Year, new you. KD: Yeah exactly.

Kyron I feel like I’ve heard your dad used to skate… Didn’t he used to bring you down to Bay Sixty6 (London skatepark)?

KD: Yeah he used to work there for a bit. He didn’t want me skating at first because he was very protective and didn’t want me to get hurt. But he had two jobs, so when he went away I’d skate outside the house. And eventually he saw me skating, he caught me, and then he decided ‘ah I gotta take him skating now’. He couldn’t not take me skating. And why did you start? Because you saw him do it?

KD: Yeah I saw him do it. He stopped for ages when I was born and when I was a kid and one day we were in a Teletubby Park in Ladbroke Grove, and then you know those super cars, those remote controlled cars? Yes.

KD: So my dad and I were playing with that and there were a couple of skateboarders there as well. So we kind of like exchanged the remote controlled car for the a skateboard. And that’s how my dad started up again and that’s how I started to want to get into it. So does this make your parents more supportive of your skateboarding now?

KD: Oh yes definitely… They’ve been the most supportive ever since I can remember. My mum would spend countless hours outside skateparks waiting for me and taking me places. They’ve always been really supportive, all of my family. So big up mum, big up dad by the way!

OK Kyron you gotta tell us what happened the other day… I heard you sacked on a handrail pretty bad?

KD: OK so we were skating this spot right by

Big Ben, it was a war museum of some sorts. It was a flat handicap rail and everyone just got really excited skating it because it was so perfect. So I tried to do a back lip and I landed it kind of sketchy and then I was like: ‘fuck it, I’m gonna try it again. This is so fun!’ So I went for it again and I must have been a bit cocky, because I didn’t pop it high enough, and I sacked the rail super-hard. It basically hit everything at the same time: I fucked the side of my leg, my groin, my ball bag, my gooch and my arsehole all at the same time. And then instantly I turned around and I kinda smiled, because I knew Will had filmed it, but right then the pain started to

get me. I started screaming, I was nearly in tears and I just completely fucked myself. It took me like 40 minutes to even do anything; I couldn’t walk, so I just had to get an Uber straight back home.

a week. (Laughs) So he got in touch with me and Will and all my mates pleaded for me to go to the hospital. They were like: ‘You have to go to the hospital tonight!’ And did you?

KD: It took a lot of convincing, but I finally went in at like ten o’clock that night and they kept me overnight because they thought it was KD: I thought it’d be chill; my dick was just a bit an emergency. It’s called high flow priapism. So swollen. I thought it would just get better on its the doctor had a little look at it; he was own. So I ended up waiting for about a week and squeezing it and flicking it… then Arthur (Derrien) heard what had What your dick?! happened to me, and I think the same thing had KD: Yeah! He just kept feeling it up! So they happened to him, he basically had a hard-on for said it was pretty urgent and I ended up staying Yeah and then when you got back home you thought you’d just ride it out and heal up slowly right?

in the hospital for three nights. So when I was in out it wasn’t toxic, so they let me go. But I might there I went for a scan and they had to put a have to go back and get an operation soon. Really? needle through the side of my dick! Oooof! KD: Yeah I go back for an appointment on Wednesday to see. But the hard-on has gone KD: Yeah it went in and they contracted some blood. It was the most fucked up thing because I down; it’s not erect anymore. could see it all happening. So basically Arthur saved your dick? KD: Yeah. The swelling has gone down loads, What they didn’t give you anaesthesia or anything? but it’s still a little bit thick. But it’s all good you KD: No they just did it raw man! know. Did it hurt?

KD: It fucking killed! It was the worse thing ever. My girlfriend was next to me and I was squeezing her hand like I was giving birth. I was just screaming! No way!

So can you skate again now?

KD: Yeah I’m actually going to go skate around now. The doctor told me it would be good to be more active. I’m trying not to do any nollie heels though ‘cause I always balls myself a lot on this trick. Any trick that there’s any possibility that I can hit my balls again then I’m not going to do it. And also I’m getting a cup! You know what cricket players wear?

KD: Basically there was loads of blood, because the arteries pumped right to it, but it was malfunctioning so they didn’t know what to do. So they had to make sure that the blood getting Yeah! You are going to wear one of those? pumped wasn’t toxic blood. But then they found KD: Yeah I’m going to look into it man. It’s been

360 flip into the bank Lyon

Kickflip backside nosebluntslide popping out straight Lyon

the scariest week I think I’ve ever had ever.

So what will this mean after this? No more handrails? No more back lips?

KD: Maybe not do back lips ever again yeah. That’s the plan of action.

Wow what a gnarly ordeal. OK so Arthur said he remembered you saying you wanted to start a course to have a backup plan after skating? Is this true?

KD: I was in a plumbing apprenticeship in college. That’s when the Nike deal came along and they said they wanted to support me, so I

decided to stop with the plumbing midway through the course. WM: But you got the framing business now… KD: Yeah me and my mum and dad bought loads of framing equipment from a friend who was retiring. So basically at my mum’s house we got loads of framing equipment for picture framing so I’m trying to get into that. I’m trying to learn… Well I haven’t started any of it yet, because I’ve been super-busy with everything, but as soon as I’m a little bit free that’s what I’m trying to look into doing. Let’s say tomorrow if

Heelflip Lyon

I break my leg, I’ve got nothing… No grades…

Have the Cliché guys ever talked about turning you pro? Has there been any talk of that?

KD: Not really. The only talk has been Al (Boglio) telling me to pull my finger out my arse, but that’s about it. No pro talk. Well coming out with these two video parts, an interview in Free, stuff in Grey, it’s a step in the right direction…

WM: It’s a start. KD: Yeah it’s a start, a very small start.

When YouTube came out in 2005 it changed the skateboard game forever. Suddenly, kids didn’t have to be included in the latest 411 Video Magazine or the latest big skate brand DVD release to be seen. Anyone with a camcorder or camera phone could broadcast their video content out to millions on the worldwide web. So much more skateboarding video content from around the world was available right at your fingertips. And likewise, the introduction of video on Instagram in 2013 was another game-changer for skateboarding. Fifteen-second clips, easily viewable via

smartphones, became the new normal and a new way for skateboarders to get their names out there. But interestingly enough, the clips that usually go big on Instagram aren’t the insane hammers that you are used to seeing as the last trick in people’s video parts – it tends to be quirky, unseen, never-been-done tricks that go viral. We thought it’d be interesting to talk to some of those that have become ‘Insta-famous’ through these short clips so we reached out to Mike Arnold, Karl Förli, Ville Wester and Sam Bethune to see what life’s been like after their fifteen-seconds of fame. – Will Harmon

Photo Schenck

15 Seconds

How long have you been going to Bryggeriet?

Ville Wester: I’m on my second year, and it’s a three-year education. Do they discuss social media there in the classroom?

A little but not in the way we use it, more like the laws and stuff about it. You know school stuff. What do think about becoming famous in skateboarding via Instagram as opposed to the old school way of filming a full video part?

Ville Wester @villewester Ville Wester has become an almost overnight sensation due to his innovative manoeuvres at the Bryggeriet Gymnasium. Hailing from Copenhagen, Ville is inventing tricks every day and it seems that the skateboard world has taken notice – including one Pontus Alv, who has enlisted Ville into the Polar ranks.

It’s nice that you can reach out to so many people just by uploading an Instagram clip I guess. It is a lot easier to get recognised on Instagram if you do something different and new. I like the old school way too, with the whole process of filming a video part. I guess it’s more ‘real’ to do it that way, but you have to make the most of the chances you get and Insta is an easy way to do it.

because of one clip; it was more that things got crazier with every clip. I can see that when you have a lot of these clips, people follow you when they visit your profile because they want to see more. Tell us about Henry Forsnor (@Baeonci), he’s the one making a lot of the Insta edits right?

Yeah he is a really good friend of mine. We go to class together and skate almost every day. He is super good at filming with the phone and always down to skate. We just like to hang out and do stuff. Do you make the edits with Henry? Or does he do it on his own?

It’s different every time, but mostly we sit down together and make the clips. Sometimes we discuss what to do with the edit and end up making two different ones, it’s just more interesting.

Have you ever had a full video part?

Have you gotten any messages from brands about

I’ve had a few from when I was younger, but nothing really serious. I’m working on some stuff right now that I am looking forward to releasing. We´ll see how it turns out…

sponsorship due to your recent spike in social media

Was there a particular Instagram of yourself that made you gain the most followers?

There is a couple that got more attention than the others, but I don’t think it was

coverage?

Yeah, some brands have reached out to me, but I already got everything I need… Thanks to Sidewalk skateshop, Polar skateboards, Nike SB, Desert crew, Fast Skateboard Wheel Company, Alis clothing and Ace trucks!

Photo Ashley

Mike Arnold @mikearnoldeluxe Even though Mike Arnold’s full Skateboard Café part came out on Jenkem a few months before, it was the slappy front noseslide 270 with an extra spin on Instagram that made Mike Arnold a household name. Oh the power of social media…

associate him with a trick like that. And then I really didn’t know what Metro Mike Arnold: Yes, it’s quite a weird story Skateboarding (@metroskateboarding) with that one… I first did it at Stoke-onwas, but they reposted it. I was getting like Trent filming with Shank (James ten followers every second, it was insane. I Cruickshank). We were filming for the think I drank a glass of wine that night and Converse Blend video and I did it. But for by the time I finished it I had 500 more some reason I was wearing this really short, followers. Maybe 1000 more, I don’t know. tight floral shirt and it looked absolutely It was pretty strange and crazy, but yeah I stinkin’ on. Everyone said it looked like Jim definitely didn’t expect that to go so viral. Greco and I landed it and I heel dragged a Didn’t you get some weird direct messages or bit, but I couldn’t do it any better at that comments on your Instagram after that? time. So Shank really wanted to use this Well some kid (@rollersurfer) kept getting trick because it hadn’t been done before, tagged in to the Skateboard Café but I really didn’t want to use that version (@skateboardcafe) post of it. And he because of how bad it was. If I’m going to commented: ‘guys look, I know; stop do that trick I want to do it to a standard tagging me in this.’ So I went on this guy’s that I’m happy with. account and he’d done it in a skatepark You didn’t want it to go big without you being happy before. Have you seen the video of it? Ok the slappy front noseslide 540, 450, whatever… Had you done this before you did it at République?

with it…

No.

Exactly. So it got to the point where I was in Paris and I realised that the deadline for the Blend video was done and that trick was set to be in there. And Shank wasn’t really budging, so I just filmed one for Instagram at République. That was my only option of getting a decent version really.

(Laughs) He may have done it by accident and he’s wearing really, really short shorts. But fair play to him; he did it. I hadn’t seen it; he’d done it a week before by chance. How do you feel about Instagram blowouts? (Instagram of trick coming out before the magazine photo or proper video)

So I guess it was planned to have it come out on

That’s pretty much exactly what I did!

Instagram before a proper video…

Yeah but some people do it unconsciously.

Yeah we just kind of decided ‘this was the time, this was the place’ and Instagram was the platform.

Yeah that’s not cool at all especially if there’s a photographer there and it’s going to go in a magazine or it’s going to go into an edit someone spent time filming. If someone is there on their phone in the background filming and completely blows it out that can ruin the trick. If someone’s there properly filming it, then that trick doesn’t belong on Instagram I think.

Do you have special name for that trick?

We call it the ‘nine’, like the 900. Were you surprised when it went viral or did you expect that?

I was really surprised at how viral it went… Like Manny Santiago (@mannysantiago) of all people reposted it first. I would never

What’s more satisfying: having a trick of yours going viral on social media or finishing a full video part?

Finishing a video part for sure. A trick on Instagram doesn’t have much to it. It’s exciting for a day or two, but then it kind of gets lost. For longevity’s sake, the tricks you’ve done in the past are better in a full part. You can always pull stuff from a full part and put it on Instagram if you want.

Photo Hallberg

Of course there is some sort of awareness between us, but this is all just for fun.

Where are you from and how long have you been skating?

Karl Fredrik Förli: I am from Larvik in Norway and I have been skating for seven years now.

What do think about becoming famous in skateboarding via Instagram as opposed to the old school way of filming a full video part?

How long have you been going to Bryggeriet high school?

I´m finishing off my first year now, so almost a year. Do they discuss social media there in the classroom?

John [Dahlquist] keeps us updated and we check the new stuff out from time to time. But we don´t discuss it too much. What do you call that wallride nollie out spin trick that went viral?

Haha, the wallride spin thing was very random, but I think I just call it ‘the wallride spin’ or something like that. Had you tried it before or was that the first one you did (the one on Instagram)?

I actually never tried that trick before, so it was the first time on Instagram. When I did it I thought that I was just going to get a pop shuv-it or something like that, but then it just landed on the board and it was like a nollie bigspin I think. Lucky shot! It’s still hard figuring out what it was. Were you surprised when it went so viral?

Yes, I was a little surprised. The trick itself was a bit odd so it was funny. Is there any friendly competition from the students of Bryggeriet to see whose clip gets the most views/ likes?

Karl Fredrik Förli @kf3hunna Karl Fredrik Förli is a student at the Bryggeriet Gymnasium School in Malmö, Sweden. After performing a wallride nollie out super spin move (we don’t know what to call it) the clip went viral and Karl gained thousands of followers on Instagram.

I think it’s crazy, because it seems like back in the day you needed to film for a bigger project to get sponsored. Times change I guess… I think it’s dope that it has worked out for me the way it has with the help from Instagram. Have you ever had a full video part?

I have had some ‘mini parts’, but I haven´t had a part in 2016. This summer my goal is to film and travel around a little bit. Have you gotten any weird direct messages through Insta? Can you give any funny examples of DMs or comments?

Haha, yeah there have been a few. I have gotten a few from people that want to buy my worn t-shirts. That’s funny. It´s been good too, I guess without it I wouldn´t have gotten in contact with Cons… Cons, sick! And how did you link with Welcome Skateboards?

They saw some of my stuff and we talked a little bit over DM. They sent me a really nice package after a while and now I am the first European who rides for them. Who are your favourite people to follow on Instagram?

I think my favorites have to be Sean Pablo (@_streethassle) and Will Blakley (@lit___man).

So what do you call that trick you do?

Who do you like following on Instagram now that you

Sam Bethune: I don’t know I really don’t have a name for it. It all just comes from when I was younger – always skating fakie. Tons of people have called it a prevert, but I’m not sure, I just call it a full cab.

have it?

Sam Bethune @sammybethune

When Andy White put up the clip did the response motivate you to do more?

When the clip went up it was amazing. All these people from around the world decided to send me a message. Because I didn’t have Instagram when the clip went up, but then the next morning all these people had sent me messages on Facebook telling me how big it got. It’s amazing the whole thing how it blew up and that. So you made an Instagram after that?

Yeah I made an Instagram the day after. One of my friends set it up. It didn’t motivate me any more per se, well I guess it motivated me to go out and skate more. How about any weird direct messages? Any funny ones?

Ah not really. Everyone was really nice. Famous people?

Yeah Richie Jackson (@thefeatch). He was really cool.

Photo John Bethune

I like following Korahn Gayle (@ kaygeezeee) ‘cause he posts good videos. I A clip went viral on like all the guys that skate for Supreme Andy White’s like Tyshawn (@enwhytj) and Nakel Smith (@andygsswhite) And you’ve been doing that trick for a long time? (thatsonme). Of course Andy White (@ Instagram of this kid Yeah, I just have been doing full cabs since andygsswhite), he posts amazing videos, doing this unseen watching Andrew Reynolds but mainly I follow people that skate in wind-up before doing a (@andrewreynolds) do them. And then the Glasgow. caballerial – more I did them the more I thought I could Do you think Instagram is taking over skating now as essentially making it a add another spin to it. So I ended up opposed to the old way of a full video part? 540. It was almost like adding an extra 180. So it looks like a 540. Yeah I guess so I think. I never watched the wind-up of a figure Did you notice the way you were doing them was too much skating… I always just went out skater doing one of different than other people or did you think it was just skateboarding and watched my friends. I those jumping spin moves a normal full cab? just watched Glasgow skating. I never on ice. The relatively I just thought it was a full cab and then really watched a lot of videos growing up. unknown skater one day down at the skatepark someone Some of the stuff I’ve been seeing people performing these moves had an HD slow-mo camera and they filmed post up… It’s unbelievable. It’s definitely was Glaswegian Sam it with that. It was only then that I noticed taking over. Bethune. I did it differently.

Stokes

Volcom’s Holy Stokes! is the first ever full 4K feature skateboard video directed by the infamous Russell Houghten – a project that’s been a little over two years in the making. I have to admit, when I first saw those 4K RED cameras coming out of the bag on a trip, my reaction was why spend all that money on pixels if at the end everyone will just watch it on their phones… But it didn’t take long for me to get used to this reality; in fact 4K video has

Holy

Words & photography by Jelle Keppens

Victor Pellegrin, Backside 50-50, Barcelona. Along the way, we gave Victor a nickname: ‘doobie master’. I don’t think this needs further explanation. I remember Victor told me in the morning he was overwhelmed by the level of skateboarding on this trip, and he said he needed to step it up. In the afternoon we came upon this virgin hubba, which he didn’t leave untouched.

Axel Cruysberghs, bump to 5-0, Barcelona. You can’t just ignore Barcelona when you’re working on a skateboard video. The weather is nice, there are a lot of spots and it’s easy to get around. We got five minutes to skate this thing, because the lady from the store next to the wall was complaining about the noise. Good thing Chris Pfanner speaks Spanish and talked her into letting us skate for a bit.

pretty much become the standard in skateboarding now. Camera guys need to hit the gym in order to be able to film lines with a camera this heavy. And you don’t want to have your gear stolen!

Pranked. Daan Van Der Linden, channel transfer, Aix-en-Provence. Not a lot of people get the chance to skate this backyard bowl. It’s on private property, it’s well hidden and the owner will only have you over for a session if he thinks you’re cool and respectful. We were in Marseille when someone gave us the phone number of the guy who owns the place. We got ‘approved’ and the next day we drove to the secret coordinates where someone would pick us up and drive us to the bowl. It was built in the seventies, it’s rough, it has no coping, it has no flat, it has about a metre of vert and Daan simply killed it in that thing. Google the thing, it’s called: Holenite-pool.

Talking about stolen gear… It was on the eve of Daan Van Der Linden’s 18th birthday, we were on a trip in Las Vegas and celebrating with a dinner at some fancy Italian restaurant. After finishing dessert a bunch of the crew already went outside while the TM still had to take care of the

bill. Louie Lopez who was sitting next to the filmer on duty, Ant Travis, had noticed that Ant had left his camera bag under the table. We decided to prank him and snuck the bag outside through the back door into the other van, whilst Ant was unaware of what was going on. As the two vans were driving to the next spot for a generator night session, Ant suddenly realised he didn’t have his bag in the back of the van. Everyone played along and since we were already 15 minutes away we made him call the restaurant for someone to go check on his bag. Nothing of course! Ant started tripping, because it

Eniz Fazliov, frontside bluntslide, Mallorca. Eniz does mind blowing stuff and makes everything look easy. He’s a wizard.

Alain Goikoetxea, Japan transfer, Grenoble. Alain is, after Rune, the oldest on the team; he’s been with Volcom since 1995. Yes kids, he was skating for the stone from before your dad shagged your mum. Alain has probably had more video parts in his career then you have followers on Instagram. While everyone just skates these tits in Grenoble to the side, Alain just went straight over. Go try it yourself…

was Russell’s personal camera with the 6K chip, an expensive beast. He lost it when Jake, the US TM, didn’t want to turn around the van to go look for it. We told him he got pranked when we arrived at the spot. Must have been the worst 30 minutes of his life.

Hurry up and wait. Most people are jealous when you get to travel this much for skateboarding, but they don’t realise all we get to see is hotel rooms and the back of every 7-11 in town looking for spots. You get to travel to the craziest places, but actually you don’t

Eniz Fazliov, backside Smith grind, Marseille. Some days you end up not having any tricks done and other days it’s one after the other. This day was a productive one. We got seven tricks that day. French people always brag about their food, but when you ask them to take you to a good place you always end up eating pizza. I hate Pizza.

Harry Lintell, backside tailslide, Marseille. This was from the same day Eniz did his backside smith grind. Sometimes I have to hold my breath while shooting someone’s trick, usually because it has danger written all over it. In this case, you fall you die. Harry is still alive! I shot a couple of good ones from the bottom with my fish-eye on a different camera, but those photos got deleted after I lent the camera to someone who formatted the card and I forgot to copy the files to my computer before that happened.

really get to visit them or see the beauty of it. You witness the world through the window of the team van accompanied by the smell of freshly smoked herbs (you know what I mean). Some of the team riders are under 21 so when travelling in the US, you can’t even go out with the whole crew to grab a drink. The only place that lets them in are the full nude strip clubs, since those don’t serve any alcohol. Hard to understand as a European, as an

Chris Pfanner, kickflip transfer, Mallorca. It’s great to see evolution in peoples’ skateboarding. Chris has been to this place three times with a 4-year interval each time. The first time he did ollie, the second time he did ollie to fakie and the third time he did kickflip. I think this gap will be untouched for a while now.

Harry Lintell, feeble grind, Villanova. We woke up around noon, had breakfast across the street, drove one hour, got this feeble grind and drove back another hour, ate sushi and went out partying till 4 am. Life.

18-year-old you can get a full nude lap dance by a 40 year-old grinding your personal zone, but youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not allowed to crack a beer with the homies.

Daan Van Der Linden, fakie nosegrind, Lyon. Fun fact, Daan wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even on the radar when plans were made for Holy Stokes! But at the end he will probably end up having one of the gnarliest parts in the video. He has an endless bag of tricks, he skates transition like the best, jumps down the biggest stuff for fun, has tech moves up his sleeve and has a little porn stash.

6 4 After more than two years of constant travelling and filming, the adidas Away Days video is almost here. With the premiere in May we thought weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d

catch up with our good Swedish friend and adidas international rider GĂźnes Ă&#x2013;zdogan to see what the past two years of his life have been like.

Backside nosegrind revert Bilbao Ph. Sem Rubio

Interview by Will Harmon You just got back from Paris, how was it?

Günes Özdogan: It was nice, but a bit rainy. I was there for five days and it rained for four. Oh that kind of sucks…

Yeah but we shot a lot of lifestyle stuff; it’s going to be a montage in Away Days. So how long have you been filming for this video?

About two and a half years approximately.

You guys have been all over, what’s your favourite place you’ve been to for Away Days ?

Well I enjoyed Shanghai a lot. There’s good marble stuff everywhere there, but it’s not like the rest of China where you can only skate then do nothing, Shanghai is more like a metropolitan western city. It’s a really cool city; I like the scene there. You can just skate around and get good food at night too. Did you skate with Steph Khou there?

Yes we did. We hung out with him a bunch, but he was working a lot so we skated with him for one day I think. He showed us around; yeah he’s a G! Whose part are you most excited about in Away Days ?

Wow, that’s a tough one. I’m excited for the whole video actually. I can’t wait to see it. I think all the parts are going to be really good, but if I have to say any parts I would go with Lucas, TX, ah fuck Busenitz, Silas… It’s so hard. I think the whole video is gonna be great to be honest. I’ve heard a lot of these Away Days missions are really organised… Prior to arrival of the destination, there’s a photo list of spots already ready. Is this the case?

Yeah for some of the places we went to it was set up like that so we wouldn’t come to a completely new place and have no idea where to go. It’s always good to have for the ‘oh, I might want to skate this spot!’ Because sometimes the spot guides need help from the skaters as well. It’s hard for them to just say: ‘oh you might like this or that.’ Who takes the photos of the spots and stuff?

Well I don’t know, we just get the email from Jascha (Müller) and Matt (Irving) saying: ‘Here’s a spot list. Check this out. If you have something in mind don’t be shy.’ It’s really cool actually. Any JLB (Jet Lag Brothers) 6am skate missions recently?

Yeah for sure. Especially in Shanghai we were in the van at 9am every morning. I heard of some really early JLB missions going down, but the tours I’ve been on haven’t been that crazy. I think Miles Silvas was up

9 4 skating at dawn on one trip to Japan or Taiwan or something. But for sure jet lag always helps. You can get stuff done early. You come back at noon and it feels like you’ve been out for the whole day. JLBees don’t sleep! What’s the party versus skate schedule like on the trips?

Switch ollie Paris Ph. Sem Rubio

Well it’s mostly just skate. I mean we have beers here and there, but no one on the team is really in the party mode all the time. I think 95% of us have girlfriends. We’ve been kind of focused for this video really. So when the video is finished you are really going to celebrate huh?

Yeah for sure! I think it’s going to be wild with all the premieres and stuff.

Is the whole team going to all the premieres in all the destinations and stuff?

I heard the whole team is going to LA, New York and Paris and London maybe. And from there they are going to split up crews like there’s going to be a South America group and one crew will do Asia and others will go around in Europe I think. Something like that is what I heard. What are some of the most memorable moments from your Away Days trips? Any good stories? One for sure… When we were in LA we went to skate this hubba in a school. It was only Miles Silvas, Skin Phillips, Torsten Frank, Sem Rubio and myself. And we jumped over the fence that had barbed wire on it, so it felt kind of sketchy from the start, because it was not like a regular school with a normal fence. And so Skin was outside waiting in the van because he didn’t want to go in and we just barely started skating and we heard sirens all over the place. We were joking like ‘oh they are coming for us!’ And then all of a sudden 100 metres away we see Skin on his knees in front of the car with police with guns drawn on him.

What!

Frontside nosegrind pop-out Paris Ph. Sem Rubio

What did they think you were doing?

Maybe they thought we were burglars or something? Maybe someone walked by and saw us throwing all the tripods over the fence. You know the tripod bags, we were throwing cameras over, but maybe they thought we had tools or something.

Hardflip Seville Ph. Sem Rubio

It was crazy! We were like ‘whoa’, we just stood still and didn’t really know what to do and then more police cars came and they had a key to the gate. And then they just picked us one by one ‘okay you go to the left; you go to the right. Don’t look!’ We had to get down on our knees and turn our face down and look towards the ground. They began taking us to their cars one by one and as we were walking there we saw that they had road-blocked the whole road in front of the school.

Yeah I could see someone getting mixed up with that. So what happened in the end? Did you guys get arrested or was it okay?

In the end it was okay. The cop who I spoke to he used to skate and once they realised we were just skating they were kind of mellow. But they made us all sit on the sidewalk and say: ‘admit you did wrong!’ The chief was there and like 12 other cops. What part of LA was this?

It was in the suburbs somewhere. It might have been Pasadena. It’s this hubba where Rowan Zorilla does a switch front shuv 50-50 on. So you guys didn’t even really get a chance to skate it?

No, not at all.

Wow, story!

Yeah another cool thing was having the whole team

together in Barcelona last year. There was like 24 riders there and all the media people and all the team managers; we were just such a big crew. We would meet up at Sants at eleven in the morning. It was kind of crazy to just see everyone gathered there. How did you guys skate spots with that many people?

It was kinda hard, but we split up into groups. That was how we had to do it, but it was cool to have the whole team together.

I know when I spoke to you last you said it was hard to get boards from Habitat. Since they’ve changed distributors again recently, can you get boards? Are you still on? How have you been getting boards?

Wow, I don’t really have any idea.

So you don’t talk to the Habitat guys?

They asked me for a distributor contact in Sweden, but I don’t know… I have no idea what’s going on there. I’m just getting boards from here and there. Do you want to try and get another board sponsor or do you not really care?

Yeah for sure I would be really down to get something proper. That’s what I need.

In 2016 do you think it’s more important to have a shoe sponsor or a board sponsor?

That’s a tough one. I think you need both, but if I had to choose I think it’s more important to have a good shoe sponsor. Usually they pay for all the travel and that’s what matters a lot. It’s been like that for ages. But yeah, I would say it would have been way worse if I were without a shoe sponsor all this time. Because it’s really hard to get on any company whether it’s boards or shoes. And you’ve ridden for adidas for a long time right?

Yeah it’s been like eight, nine years. Down for life! What are your plans after this video? Are you going to stay in Uppsala?

Yeah I will be living here, but I will always travel to skate as always.

What do you think adidas have planned after this big video?

They already got stuff going on; they have a plan for sure. They have projects in mind; it won’t stop. This is just the beginning!

3 5 Backside smith grind Stockholm Ph. Boon

Looking for a different path...? If you want to know more, you can subscribe to the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Descendantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; emailouts via www.descentskateboards.com

Will Creswick - 180 no-comply noseblunt

photo: Adam Todhunter

Dane Vaughan, Frontside 180 kickflip in Aix-en-Provence The Supra Chino Tour

Gang Signs Interview by Arthur Derrien

For Cocktails Photography by Nikwen

Dane Vaughan, kickflip in Aix-en-Provence

So Supra recently organised a trip from Paris to Barcelona to promote Boo Johnson’s, Dee Ostrander’s and Oscar Candon’s colourways of the new Chino shoe. The idea was to get all three of them skating a bunch of demos, attending a few parties and hitting the streets when the hangovers/weather allowed it. Nothing new here but it’s important to note that they were joined by two specimens that excel in all three of the aforementioned activities (especially the second one): Lucien Clarke and Dane Vaughn. In fact Dane’s presence seemed to have provoked some kind of weird chain reaction amongst the troops. It was basically his first time out of the country (at the age of 27) and by the time we met them in Barcelona it was easy to see that his infectious desire to experience everything everywhere had rubbed off on the others. They were on fire! Anyway we decided to catch up with Oscar once he’d recovered from the festivities to get the low-down on the trip and hear what he’s got lined up for the rest of the year.

What the fuck happened to your arm? (Oscar pops up on the screen with his arm in a sling) Oscar Candon: I took a fucking horrible slam and fucked my shoulder. Basically I was trying this gap in Paris and dislocated it. It was such a ridiculous slam. I’d gotten really close on a couple of attempts so I was like ‘okay, this go’ but when I went to put it down instead of landing it I fell straight to my shoulder. I didn’t have to pop it back in myself or anything (it popped straight back in on its own) but it fucking hurt. Sounds horrible. For how long are you going to be out? I have to not move it at all for two weeks but then it’ll be a little bit longer before I can actually skate. I’d say at least a month... That’s pretty bad timing as well isn’t it? Aren’t you supposed to be finishing up a Thrasher part? Yeah it’s supposed to come out in June but it’s practically finished. I’ve just got a few last things I want to do... It’s not great but to be honest I’m quite happy to chill for a little bit. It just sucks because I was supposed to go to the US in a few days. The transition from not skating for a month to trying to film your enders is going to be fun. Yeah that’s probably going to suck. We’ll see how it goes... Anyway let’s talk about this trip. This Paris to Barca mission was actually just the European leg of a trip that started in the US am I correct? Yeah we started in LA were we did a demo and hit a few shops in California to do some signings and stuff. Did kids out there recognise you? Most of them definitely didn’t come to the signings to meet me specifically but yeah some of

them did recognise me. Every now and then a little kid would come up to me and squeak: ‘I loved your KR3W part’ haha. Anyway then we went to Arizona after that for some more demo signings and then I was off back to Europe! Where it rained most of the time... Yeah. Which was kind of good though because the tour just turned into a bit of a party tour. Which is ideal if you

are with a Dane Vaughn that’s trying to live his first trip to Europe like it’s his last. Yeah haha, he was our hero on this trip. I’m so stoked to have witnessed that guy’s first time in Europe. The dude was down for everything! He probably slept for two weeks when he got home... He’d definitely been tapping into his emergency energy resources. Whether it was at night partying or during the day skating or doing whatever he was doing there wasn’t a second where he’d slow down. It was nuts! I remember him having a gang sign for

Oscar Candon, smith stall in Barcelona

Dee Ostrander, frontside air in Aix-en-Provence

Dane Vaughan, backside nosebluntslide in Avignon

each cocktail. Yeah basically it would be shit like that but non-stop. It was great. He was also pretty confused by everything that was going on around him, which added another dimension to it. He’d regularly ask some pretty absurd questions. Like what? I don’t know there were quite a few. I think at one point when we were in Paris he asked us if people still spoke French here after we’d told him we were in a different neighbourhood or something. Oh yeah Nikwen told me he’d come up with stuff like that. Like asking if Barcelona was a country... Yeah exactly. But I don’t want it to come across the wrong way... He had no idea what was going on but he was really curious and genuinely wanted to understand. He was going about it in the best possible way. There are some American skaters that come out here and have no desire to learn about where they are or engage with it at all. That’s way worse. How was it skating these demos? Not too intimidating? Well in the US it was pretty rad because we were with that Clint Walker guy who is insane to watch skate in person. Every demo would turn into a bit of a one-man show simply because of how ridiculous he is. And in France I guess it was fine, when you are at a park with loads of fun obstacles like that new one in Avignon, having to skate a demo isn’t really a problem. The fact that it was quite a tight crew probably helped as well. I don’t know about that, the more people that are out there skating the less you feel like everyone’s watching you. That Barcelona one was good then because all the locals were going for it at the same time as you guys.

Yeah that Barcelona one was rad apart from that fucking Mountain Dew truck that popped out of nowhere. What was that not part of the event? I don’t know, I asked someone from Supra and they said they knew nothing about it. Either way it sucked because the second it turned up all the kids that were

watching the best trick on the wallride spot ran across the course to get themselves one of those fluorescent green bottles. And then you’ve got those hideous things in all the photos... Surely they must have had authorisation or something. You can’t just show up at someone else’s event and pull that shit. I don’t know... I wouldn’t even care if it were any other brand. I just fucking hate those energy drinks.

Boo Johnson, lipslide in Aix-en-Provence

Putting the Tea in Team Lovenskate & Carhartt in India

There are few places skateboarding has not landed in, and for us, and what we do, the world is getting smaller and smaller. However, the fact that you can meet a guy on a DIY build in Bolivia, and two years later be drinking beers with him and his lady in their apartment in Bangalore, is testament to how the adventure is getting bigger and bigger. So, how did 12 guys end up in South India with Aloo Jeera down their shirts and concrete in their eyes? Well, we (Lovenskate) have been talking to long time supporter and tea enthusiast Bertrand (Carhartt WIP) for a while about doing another Tea-based project together. Having made teacups, flasks, and a skate-able mug together, the next logical step seemed to be to go to the source

Words by Stuart Smith Photos by Rich West

itself, the tea plantations of the Western Ghats, and why not help expand ‘The Cave’ skatepark in Bangalore and bomb some hills along the way!? The crew was heavy: Samu Karvonen, Ewen Bower, Lee Santer, Rich West, Aaron Wilmot, Matt Ransom, Denis Lynn, Alex Hallford, Alex Barton, Dan Hill, self appointed TM Mikey Patrick, and me. Now, the last thing you want to read is, ‘on day one we did this, and this private joke happened, and then on day two blah blah’, because everyone has been on a trip with their crew, and sometimes you just can’t do it justice in words. So what I’ll do is share some notes, some facts, and some wisdom. Hopefully it will help inspire your next journey to some far-flung corner of the globe.

Denis Lynn Boardslide Bangalore

Aaron Wilmot Invert SISP Skate School in Kovalam

Mikey Patrick 50-50 grind Bangalore

The Bus The Chaos

‘The roads here are insane! Imagine being an ambulance driver here! You want a rush?!’ – Alex Hallford on the streets of Bangalore.

‘Does anyone have a lighter?’ – Samu Karvonen

India is a big place, and the roads are long. If you’re going on a trip, it’s best to pay extra for a big bus and very patient driver who understands In India, one constant is chaos. It’s unimaginably that on the journey, to keep moral high, it is fast where you should be going slow and important to make regular toilet stops, and to desperately slow when there is all the room in the buy beer and fireworks. world to go fast. Crazy to think that the place Fags are cheap, but lighters are few and that gave us yoga and Ayurveda (the natural far between, so if you’re Samu, and you don’t science of health longevity and rejuvenation), is smoke, and the bus is several hundred miles the same place that allows you to drive the wrong from the next stop, make sure you just throw the lighter out of the window and make way down a motorway, set fire to your weekly rubbish on the pavement, let the holy cow graze everyone really fucking angry. on plastic in the central reservation, and will The dangers of pissing by the roadside in without question drag you naked out of the sea at Munnar are few and far between, the worst midnight and send you to bed! being potential elephant attacks.

Lee Santer Frontside crooked grind Bangalore

Samu Karvonen Ollie Munnar

Samu Karvonen Frontside boardslide pop-over Kovalam

Putting the Tea in Team

Munnar is as popular with honeymooning couples as it is with holidaymakers escaping to the mountains from the sweltering cities. It is also home to the vast rolling tea plantations, which supply the world. It’s not ideal for skateboarding, but where is the adventure in that? Luckily we had Tony, our hotel manager turned spot-guide and getaway driver. From the highest point in Munnar town, a Mosque, a Hindu temple and a Christian Church all face each other. A local told us: ‘The word Munnar means three rivers, and the three rivers symbolise the three faiths. In Munnar, all three faiths are equal, and exist in harmony.’ A thought as refreshing as the tea.

The Alcohol

Kerala has a state-wide ban on the sale of alcohol. But here, like everywhere else in the world, people love to get plastered; so they’ve come up with a genius way of getting round it. Picture the scene: ‘We’d like to order some beers please.’ ‘Sorry sir, we are not permitted to serve beer here, we only have the special tea.’ ‘OK, and what’s the special tea?’ ‘Beer sir.’ ‘OK, then 12 special teas please.’ ‘Very good sir.’ (Waiter returns with 12 beers in mugs) Rules are rules in India, and bribes are considered insulting. If you’re caught with alcohol, expect a heavy fine or worse. However it pays to always keep back at least 50 rupees from the beer shop to payoff the border control and to stop the police tearing the bus apart.

The School

‘No School, No Skate!’ – Vineeth, teacher at SISP Kovalam School is amazing! The work that Sebastian Indian Social Projects (S.I.S.P.) have done to promote learning and accelerate social change is insane, and what a way to do it! Joining forces with HolyStoked (Bangalore) and the 2er Crew (Germany) they have created a safe environment where parents are happy for boys and girls to play together (something sadly still frowned upon in much of India). Can you imagine if your school had turned its top floor and playground into a skatepark? The only thing you have to do to make use of it is go to school.

The Cuisine

When you tell people you’re going to India, the first thing that comes out of anyone’s mouth is ‘deli belly’ usually followed by a fart noise. Perhaps it’s because we stuck to the busy locals, where the food is prepared fresh and regularly and perhaps it’s because we spend so much time picking ourselves up from the dirt, that we have bombproof immune systems. So by some miracle, none of us got sick – none of us except Mikey, who got diarrhoea, from a KFC. Matt: ‘Denis why are you wearing a beanie!? You’re in India!’ Denis: ‘Because it just goes with my outfit. Sometimes you gotta sacrifice comfort for style?’

Samu Karvonen Nosegrind Munnar

There are the heap of other factors that make Kovalam so incredible: constant warmth, idyllic beaches, great surf, fresh coconut water straight from the tree, hoards of 40+ divorcee cougars out to get their hands on you... I’m not joking; the place is crawling with them!

skate, it’s essential. Since the ‘Make Life Skate Life’ park in Bangalore was shut down due to some horrible legal business, Shake and the rest of the HolyStoked Collective have made it their mission to provide space where they can not only skate, but where they can give lessons, build a skateboard hub, and show India that skateboarding is a positive force. So far they HolyStoked have secured an undercover spot with some ‘Nothing owes you nothing’ wooden ramps in a metro station, and expansion – Denis Lynn to ‘The Cave’ skatepark in the suburbs continues. Right now, DIY is hotter than a 50 Rupee If you’ve got to get it done, do it Masala Dosa. For some however, if they want to yourselves!

Ewen Bower Smith grind Bangalore

S w i t c h

b a c k s i d e

h e e l f l i p

i n

S t u t t g a r t

So we got in touch with Lucas to talk about Away Days and the interview went on for way longer than expected. So to keep it all in, let’s get right to it. It’s not like this guy needs an introduction.

Lucas Puig

Hey buddy how are you? Lucas Puig: I’m all right... Just in Toulouse doing a load of physiotherapy at the moment. Oh yeah I heard you hurt your knee again... Yep. Tore my ACL again, same knee as last time. So you’re getting another operation?! Yeah, but since the Away Days premieres are quite soon I can’t get the operation right away. So you’re just getting it after the premieres?

Yeah and in the meantime the doctors told me to do loads of physiotherapy so that when I do get the operation I won’t have lost all of my muscular mass. I can’t really do any sport between now and the operation so I’m strengthening all of the muscles around my knee so that it holds. For how long are you going to be out? About seven months. I’m going to have to be patient... At least I know what to expect since it’s already happened to me before.

I’m not going to have a nervous breakdown… Plus it’s skateboarding, there are risks. And it could have happened at a worse time. At least you’ve basically finished filming for the adidas video. Yeah but when it happened I was still devastated. It came at a point when every time I’d go out filming I’d get footage, I could feel that I was going through a good phase and then boom I fucked myself. I remember

Interview by Arthur Derrien

Photos by Sem Rubio

thinking ‘damn it’s over, I’m done, I’m actually too old for this now’. But then I came to my senses and realised that the last time it happened to me was three and a half years ago and that I’ve been skating non-stop since then. It was inevitable. I maybe could have tried to skate a bit less, take better care of my body, eat healthy, do more physio, etc. But you know how it is; once you start skating again you’re transported back to when you were a kid. You don’t want to hear about

stretching or physio or anything like that, the only thing that matters is going out skating with your friends. Did the knee give in because it was still fragile from the last time you hurt it? No that’s the ‘good’ thing about this. According to my surgeon it was unavoidable given how I’d slammed, even with a brand new knee. Do you get access to high profile sports

doctors or physiotherapists through adidas? I think I could if I wanted to but I have everyone I need in Toulouse right now. I have a good surgeon and I go to a rehabilitation centre that all these footballers and rugby players use. I bet that’s interesting... Oh yeah. Especially being the only professional athlete there. They all have normal full-time jobs, families and stuff but are REALLY serious about their sports (even though when they play them they play them at the lowest possible level). I guess that’s just because football and rugby are those kinds of sports. In comparison I’m super chilled about it so when they see me they’re always like ‘what are you doing? You’re a professional athlete, why don’t you ever do any press-ups? You should be working on your upper-body muscles, you need to be a lean, mean killing machine!’ I constantly have to explain to them that it’s not what I’m there for, that I just want to be healthy and keep skating for as long as possible. If only they knew how most skaters treat their bodies... Yeah! They’re already outraged when I tell them I’ve skipped breakfast before coming in. Two worlds colliding. Yeah. The best is the weird looks I get. Like they’re torn between jealousy and confusion. I’m a real enigma to most of them. ‘How did HE make it?!’ You happy to be back in Toulouse for a bit? It seemed like you were really non-stop on the road for this one. Yeah it was quite intense... Plus you don’t even get to skate that much when you’re constantly travelling. It’s a bit frustrating. We only started skating a lot on trips towards the end. Yeah but you’re kind of special, I swear you skate way more than most dudes out there. No honestly it’s just that when

a o b l i B n i p i l f l e e h e d i s k a c

You did look like you were having fun with your JLBees... Can you explain what that stands for? It stands for Jet Lag Brothers. It’s this sick little thing Günes started on an adidas trip. He’s made hoodies and stuff but we keep trying to get him to make more. Was the constant jet lag ever an issue for you on trips or did you somehow get used to it? It was a bit for me because I put quite a lot of pressure on myself. If I’m on an adidas trip it’s to film and nothing else so if I can’t skate as well as I’d like to because I’m rinsed I get a bit bummed. It’s not the end of the world though. I’m getting flown around to skate world’s best spots so I can’t exactly complain. It did seem like you went everywhere for this one... Yeah I mean we hit Argentina, Brazil, Chile, The States, Spain, Croatia, London, China... That’s insane. Yeah... What’s sick is that they figured out that with such a big team it would make sense to split us into crews of people that skate the same shit. For instance they’ll organise a trip to Shanghai with a bunch of dudes that want to skate ledges because there’s loads of marble there - or a trip to the Basque Country with the dudes that skate bowls, etc. You don’t really end up with people that don’t skate the same spots as you. That’s pretty smart. Yeah it’s the brand’s German side. They are really good at the organisational side of things. So when I saw you in Barca last time with the whole team that was an exception? Yeah totally. It was the only time we did that and you could tell it was difficult to manage. It was worth doing though. Seeing Mark Gonzales and everyone there in one place was incredible. How did they decide who was getting sections and

there’s a lot of you on trips a big chunk of time gets taken up by waiting for people. Sometimes I’d feel like I was 14 again, just lurking at a spot eating crisps until everyone would show up... I hate looking at how many trips I’ve been on and how much I’ve chilled on each of them as opposed to skating/filming. Makes me feel like I’m not making any progress. So you find it easier to film at home? Yeah if you’re at home you just go to the spot were you want to try the trick with the filmer, lose your mind over it for a bit then it’s done. No distractions. Most of the time when I show up at a spot I know that the lines I really want will take over an hour and a half to do, so I often end up simplifying them or taking a trick out when I’m on a trip. Because you’re afraid of ‘wasting’ other people’s time... Kind of... It just puts you in a tough position, especially if you don’t really know if you can actually do the trick or not. Believe me when you’ve got Mark Suciu and Dennis Busenitz behind you waiting to tear up the spot, you don’t really feel like telling the filmer “want to film? I’m going to play around with a few of these, maybe I can do it”. But you’re satisfied with what you managed to get though right? Yeah definitely, especially since they’re just keeping the very best stuff. Although sometimes I can’t help but feel like it might not reflect my true level, like I should have set the bar higher. I bet when you see my part you’ll think ‘it’s cool but he can do better than that’. I doubt I’ll say that, haha. Either way we’ve been on loads of trips so watching it is going to bring back so many good memories! Having the crew out with you when you are trying something is the best. It brings a different kind of hype than when you are trying something alone. It can be so motivating.

who wasn’t? The main decider was just how difficult it is to film a proper full part just on trips. I think a lot of the guys from the European team will have shared parts but with only the very best stuff. They’ll do it in a way that makes sense though, like they’ll group the people that actually skated together over these last three years... Then yeah obviously there will be some full parts too as some of the guys really fucked shit up. Who impressed you the most? I’d say Miles and Tyshawn... I heard Gustav Tønnesen

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got some mad stuff. Yeah I mean anything he does is incredible. He’ll show up looking a little tired, you’ll expect him to chill but by the time you leave he’s filmed the best thing that can possibly be done at the spot. Did they regularly show you how Away Days was all coming together? Yeah. Right now they’re in the final stages of the editing process but before that we had this system in place where we’d mark our footage. A would be for the bangers, the tricks you really want in your part, B for the stuff you don’t mind them using, the ‘filler’ I guess and C for stuff that can go

straight to the Internet. And they are going to stick to what you’ve said? To a certain extent... I mean you know how it is; it’s hard to be objective when it comes to your own footage. You tend to give yourself a load of Bs and Cs when really the stuff isn’t that bad. What about music? Did you get to pick your tune? Yeah but again it’s not as straightforward as that. Adidas being the huge company that it is, things get extremely complicated when it comes to acquiring rights to songs... Plus

a lot of us wanted to use hip-hop tracks from mixtapes, only we couldn’t because the artists don’t have the rights to the instrumentals they use on those. So we could only use ‘official’ songs that have been on albums, stuff that’s on iTunes. So if you want hip-hop it kind of has to be something relatively famous... Pretty much yeah. Adidas have been pretty secretive about the way all this is going to be presented. Can you give anything away? That’s normal though, you want to

F r a n c i s c o S a n i n f a k i e t o b l u n t s l i d e f r o n t s i d e k i c k f l i p N o l l i e

keep it a surprise! All I can say is that it’ll reflect the brand. Adidas is European and I think that’ll definitely come across in the way the video is made. It won’t just be banger after banger, there’ll be a lot of emphasis on the skaters’ personalities and probably some sort of little storyline. Another thing is that quite a few of us have our own brands and that’s something

adidas have really been trying to support. Günes has JLBees, Nak and Tyshawn have Hardies, Blondey has Thames, Jake Donnelly has Dads... You have Hélas... Yeah and for instance when we were filming the intro they told me to wear loads of it and even to get a box sent so that all the others could rep it as well. That’s crazy. Brands

usually do everything they can to get their riders wearing their products exclusively. Yeah, here it’s the opposite. They’re encouraging us to use this video to boost our own companies. That’s what I was getting at earlier when I said the video was going to reflect the brand. You can tell they see things differently. Why try to hide

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that someone has their own brand? It just adds to the skater’s identity. We’re not robots... Sounds like they are being really smart about it. They really are. And they make time to explain all this to you. When you put too much pressure on yourself to get tricks they sit you down and explain that there’s more to it than that, that for them capturing the vibe is just as important, that I can relax. I can’t wait. What about the Hélas video? Oof... There’s a new mixtape coming out very soon but the big Hélas video won’t be for a while, we really want to release something proper. It feels like even more of an ambitious project than the adidas vid, haha. The fact that we’ve got about 75 dudes on the team probably doesn’t help... So yeah, we’re going to take our

time with it but when it does come out it’ll be a heavy one. So what are you going to do for the next seven months then? Get my driving licence, do some work on the flat I recently bought, hang out with my girlfriend, take care of my mum, Hélas... The last chunk of that time will also be spent getting into shape. I’ll be cycling, running and stuff. I won’t be doing anything as cool as skating, but I won’t be bored. It’s good, you’re being positive about it. Yeah. It’s just that sometimes it feels like the world stops turning when I can’t skate... I think about skating so much that when I try not to think about it, it does something horrible to my brain. As I said earlier you do skate a lot. Even at the actual session I feel like you spend

more time on your board than others. Yeah it’s true, I’m always giving it everything I’ve got. Maybe it’s time to start taking it easy... Unless you’ve got the Luypa Sin syndrome that allows you to keep going full speed ahead forever. Nah he’s an anomaly. I really don’t understand how his body can still function... Any plans for when you get back on your board after that? I’ve been focusing on adidas for a while now so I’ll probably start working on some Cliché stuff again. It’ll be nice to get back in the van with those guys, share a six-pack with Flo, listen to Gégé’s (Jérémie Daclin) stories... Thanks, I think we’re good. See you in London for the premiere!

Ben Grove Kickflip Manchester Photo Reece Leung

Niklas Speer von Cappeln Backside tailslide Hamburg Photo Friedjof Feye

Hugo Maillard Nollie backside flip Morocco Photo ClĂŠment Le Gall

Jelle Maatman Backside smith grind Munich Photo Leo Preisinger

British

Car

Car 13

Park Review Words and photography by Alex Irvine It’s wet outside; the sky is grey, a torrential drizzle with no sign of letting up. You’re looking for somewhere to skate and the choices are few and far between. It’s a story that, whilst not exclusively British, is definitely one that has had a unique binding effect on the collective UK skateboard mind-set; solidarity in misery, the ‘this’ll have to do’ reality of the majority of our island’s skateboarding inhabitants. These lots hold a fond place in our hearts; if such a concept truly exists, it exists in the appreciation of the diesel-fumed mist of a greasyfloored multi-storey car park. A dream-world of possibilities and near misses with upset, saloon-driving weekend consumerists; spot-less playgrounds that serve merely as flat-ground training camps, leaving your wheels coated in black sludge. In all honesty I thought my time with these relics of skateboarding years passed was through. Until, that was, fellow Brit, Tom – of Rock Solid distribution – let me in on his idea: to make a tour of the UK exclusively skating these toxic, yellow-green, urinesoaked nether-worlds. It would have been rude not to steal his idea and commercialise it into a star studded tour de force – so I stole it.

(Disclaimer: we definitely didn’t tour the whole UK.) Whilst sourcing a few facts I stumbled across a site that offered a history of the car park, albeit a brief one – a relief in hindsight. It holds tales of car parks from the 1900s with elevators that move your car around not you, of valets that tend to your car even bringing it to you on request. A far cry from the modern reality we encountered.

8 The majority of car parks in the UK are owned by NCP car parks, a smaller arm of Parking International who, pretty much, owns the car parking world. In the UK these places are better known as the ‘Multi-storey’. Skinny-laned, sixties architectural relics, with skinnier still parking bays, whose winding up and down ramps leave you no room for error in your manoeuvres. The sole upside to this tight-arsed use of space is that these ramps sometimes have reinforcing walls or crash barrier railings, which can turn spot to a keen, nonautomotive four-wheeled explorer.

Jake Collins, wallride yank-in over the channel, Leeds

This frugal use of space is the first point of separation from our continental brotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s version of the municipal car park, possibly the first reason why a UK tour might actually be feasible. No minimalist design here â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as Brutalist as you can go. Of course, it soon transpired that a lot of the best spots in car parks are on the top floor and

immediately makes you think: is it really a good idea to undertake a pre-spring trip round this island? A redundant question however, as we did it anyway. These days the British version of a safe place to leave your car is, overall, a pretty depressing affair. Quite why the multi-million,

Sebi Dorfer, wallie, St. Helenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Sam Beckett, frontside ollie, Basildon

possibly billion, pound, multi-national company can’t afford to replace light bulbs or remove dust or clean up piss from the stairwell is beyond me, but I suppose that’s part of the charm? This marks the second point of separation from the car park’s continental cousins: these places are disgusting, not like something from a car advert.

This unkempt look merely serves to make skateboarders fit the environment better though: a junkie injecting smack in your stairwell or noisy kid waxing your kerbs? Your choice. When you’re lucky, playtime can go on unhindered well into the night in these spaces, until the kind of time of night normal citizens scurry about, fearing to venture far from the safety of a emergency exit in case a ruffian undertakes a

Rikk Fields, lipslide, Grantham

Steve Forstner, wallride up, Nottingham

Hollywood-esque abduction. The arrival of an out of shape do-nothing security guard being worn by his out-of-the-catalogue, baggy, grey suit, kicking you out for no good reason can really ruin your session, day, or year, depending on how committed they are to the cause of no fun and how local your spot is. The modern, health-and-safety flair of a hi-vis does nothing to lighten the mood of being given the

boot, but does serve its purpose: it’s difficult to ignore their presence when they’re wearing one. Despite our trip falling on Easter weekend – which I was expecting to mean security-free sessions for days – we were forced to notice a lot of them. Did it stop us? Would it stop you? Unlikely. If you want to talk

Jake Collins, hurricane, west London

Rikk Fields, backside nosegrind, south London

reappropriation of public space, or seeing the world through a different prism – such are the skateboarder clichés – you’d do worse than to note the humanising effect we have on these (not so) sterile spaces. Whether the norms like it or not we make these spaces ours! Unless they call the police – then you scram. Anyway… The British Car Park Awards 2016 took place in London on 04/03/16. None of the featured car parks received any official accreditation or nominations. But here are our nominations for a few of the award categories from our week on the road:

Best New Car Park – Fuck a new car park. Too many CCTV cameras. Best ‘old’ one was in St Helens. Homeless crew sleeping at the bottom. Banked ramps the whole way down. No cameras. No security harassing us. Best Car Park Refurbishment – The one in Richmond. They recently replaced the shitty rubberised floor with a new shitty rubberised floor. So even though it’s soft underwheel, at least it’s smooth. Young Parking Professional Award – The guy who filmed the make of Jake’s front feeble to use as evidence of criminal damage. Pro dad-cam shit. #Instablowout. Parking Person of the Year – The lady who came in hot, kicking us out as though the spot was an instant bust, when we were already two hours into the session. The Front Line Award – Boss Lady in Waitrose who called the cops despite us already having departed her patch. Causing us to make friends with TW9’s finest. Serious overkill. Parking in the Community Award – All the fully mobile types using the disabled-only car park in Nottingham City Centre. Especially the roider who came back to top up the meter while drinking a beer. Real fucking noble of you. The Lifetime Achievement Award – To the guy in Preston who reminded us that it is his job to scoop up the carcasses of skateboarders who fall off the edge of his building, for reminding us just what matters in life: his job.

Steve Forstner, double channel ollie, Ashton-under-Lyne

Photo Sam Ashley

‘I hear that Daan kid is the best ever…’ I’ve heard this phrase or something like it numerous times from visiting American pros when someone mentions the name Daan Van Der Linden.

Here in Europe I think we’ve all known Daan is the best for quite some time, but when people in the States start saying it, well needless to say he’s made an impact. Daan’s gotten the cover of The Skateboard Mag, Kingpin, A Brief Glance and now Free all in the past couple of years… And he really does deserve the spotlight. But I get the feeling being in the limelight isn’t what Daan prefers. For most people riding for big brands like Antihero, Vans, Volcom and Spitfire would cause a lot of stress and pressure, but not for Daan. He just cracks open a beer, drops in and lives like there’s no tomorrow. We caught up with Daan (and by no means was this easy – we basically had to kidnap him) this past winter in Berlin and had a hungover conversation about the life of this 19 year-old Dutch prodigy. Ladies and germs, this is the Daan Van Der Linden interview.

Will: So are you psyched you won European Skater of the Year?

Daan Van Der Linden: Yeah, of course! Will: Did you have any idea?

No, I thought Karsten (Kleppan) was going to win.

Will: Yeah you didn’t have a big video part in 2015 like he did, how do you think you won?

I guess a lot of kids on Instagram saw a lot of me on there. I don’t know… I think a part counts for more. Arthur: Are you working on a new part now?

Yeah for Volcom.

Arthur: Sick. I’m thinking that will come out around the same time as this interview.

Yeah, I think so.

Will: Ok so Alex (Deron) from Element was telling me about this guy from your hometown that was like a mentor and he taught you a lot about skating?

Yeah it’s this guy that really loves skateboarding and he broke his legs, both legs, just being drunk and whatever, so he can’t skate like he used to, but he would hang out during the sessions when he had his broken legs. His name is Wouter Bosch. I don’t know, he is like a skate teacher to all the kids at the skatepark and he just gives good tips. He would help you with foot placement or tell you if your balance was off and whatever. I grew up with him skating and he helped introduce me to skateboarding. Will: So do you get to skate a lot in Holland or are you always just going on trips now?

I try not to skate in Holland, but it’s hard… It’s addictive you know?! If my friends go out, I have to go out and skate too...

Will: Arthur get off Tinder, pay attention! Daan what about the ladies, do you ever go on Tinder?

Sometimes when I’m in a good region or whatever. Will: Do you have a girlfriend and stuff?

I don’t do girlfriends. I’ll do that when I’m 30. (Everyone laughs) Will: So how did you hook up with the Antihero dudes anyway?

Interview by Will Harmon and Arthur Derrien

I’ve always wanted to skate for Antihero because I like the company. And I was riding for them through a distributor in Holland and I think maybe they sent footage through to DLX. I don’t know seriously. Will: So when was the first time you skated with those guys?

I had met Grant (Taylor) on some Volcom trips. But then the first time I met more of them was at the Bowl-aRama in Spain a few years ago.

Switch frontside flip Nicosia, Cyprus Photo DVL

Boardslide Limassol, Cyprus ph. DVL

Nollie frontside crooked grind Limassol, Cyprus Photo DVL

Invert Biarritz Photo Jelle Keppens

Arthur: Are they actually as fun to hang out with as it looks?

Ah man Frankie (Frank Gerwer)… That guy is like a movie actor; he’s so funny! Arthur: Just that face is enough for me… And his nose!

Will: But then he couldn’t ‘cause Daan was ESOTY? Arthur: No not even that, just because Daan is like a kid and all. But luckily the TV still worked in the end; it was just a bit bent. But yeah, Julian saw the whole thing and he told me that story.

Man, I can’t even remember singing or anything. Seriously what karaoke room? Arthur: So when you got he bottle of champagne the Everyone keeps talking about this other night (at the Bright Awards), what happened karaoke room, I don’t even know about with that? this. I don’t remember; I must have been I got a bottle of champagne? having a really good time or something. He knows! Ha ha!

Arthur: Yeah you sprayed it in like one second. You and your brother were going crazy with the champagne. Oh and even better, you know how earlier you said you may have smashed a TV or something but you weren’t sure what happened?

Yeah?

Arthur: I know exactly what happened! So I bumped into Julian Dykmans and he was all like: ‘Ah yeah Daan was singing this song and lovin’ it’ in the Karaoke room and then the song ended. Then you had the mike and you were in front of the TV and when the song ended you chucked the mike into the TV! The TV cracked and Julian went for you like: ‘I’m gonna fucking punch his head in!’ Frontside feeble grind Geneva Photo Jelle Keppens

(Everyone laughs) Sam Ashley: Ok so let’s imagine you did go to a karaoke room, what song would you sing?

‘Breaking the Law’ or something.

(Everyone laughs) Arthur: Yeah that’s probably what you sang. Oh and your brother was on fire Daan! Will: Does your brother skate as well?

Yeah, we grew up skating together. He’s really good at skating. Arthur: When’s the video part dropping?

He doesn’t like to film. He used to be sponsored and shit though… He rode for Santa Cruz and stuff, but he changes up a

lot you know what I mean? He goes through a lot of phases my brother. One day he’s like ‘yeeaahh!’ He likes this and then the next day it’s something else. He’s very impulsive. Arthur: What are his big phases?

Well right now he’s going through the Gucci phase.

Arthur: The Gucci phase! That sounds like a sick phase.

Just wait until you hear Gucci Mane on the speakers all day! Ha! Arthur: That’s why he said ‘Free Gucci!’ On stage when you won the ESOTY award!

Yeah! He’s in jail that’s why he said that. Will: So how long have you guys been skating? You must have started from a young age…

I started when I was five. Will: What made you start?

We grew up in a very farming type of town and there was like nothing around. There was never anything to do. But we had this guy in the neighbourhood and one day he came out with a skateboard. We played Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and

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stuff, so, I don’t know why, but we just liked it.

Will: What was the first skate video you remember seeing?

It was a Flip video. Flip’s Sorry, that was my first video. So when I first started skating, for three years I just skated in front of my door, by my house, because I was so young. We didn’t know about a skatepark, we thought that was only in America and stuff. But then after a few years, when I was nine I think, we found a little skatepark that was pretty shit. And then a year after that, our friend Wouter, he was our babysitter, he showed us real parks. Will: What does your family think of you going all over the place since you’ve been doing it since you were quite young?

They’re stoked; they are really happy for me. Will: Is there a particular place you like going the most for skating?

I like Athens a lot. There’s good people out there, a great scene and good spots. Overcrooks Barcelona Photo Jelle Keppens

Wallie 50-50 grind Athens Photo DVL

Tight squeeze ride through Lisbon Photo DVL

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50-50 drop to 50-50 Nicosia, Cyprus Photo DVL

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It’s usually good weather there as well… What else do you need?

He’s got a Lambo.

It’s called an Amica. It’s for people that are disabled or a… In Holland we say the drunkies always use it, because you don’t need a licence. And if you’re really drunk driving the thing you have to drive in the cycle path.

I think they are just influenced by money. You know if someone’s gonna say: ‘Hey I’ll give you 100,000 euros if you put this sticker on, whatever…’ For them it’s nothing, but there are also a lot of kids and skateboarders that look at that and think: ‘Oh yeah he means that, he’s about that brand. He does it because he likes it,’ or whatever and that’s why it creates more kids that are the same way.

Will: True. Do you still have that car? That real little one?

(Everyone laughs)

Like they can’t take your licence because you don’t have one; you don’t need one. So you can just be as wasted as you can. I hit a person once… Like a kid. (Everyone laughs) Will: So you don’t have that car anymore?

Nah, it got stolen and someone burned it down next to the highway. I had to carry all the shit and take care of the situation, because the police found my car on the side of the highway on fire and shit. Just Google: ‘Amica 1250’, that’s the one. It’s like a riding shoe. Will: How many skaters have you fit in there?

Max is like four I think. The previous owner was a really fat lady and usually there is like two seats only, but she was so fat she couldn’t sit in the chair so she made a bench – so we had all the space. Four people on the bench, we just crammed everyone in there.

Arthur: Imagine pulling up to the club in that thing! Will: Quite different than Nyjah Huston’s whip.

Will: What do you think about some of the skaters in America that enter Street League and buy crazy cars?

Will: So have you had energy drink sponsors approach you?

Yeah, I’ve been asked. Will: And you said ‘no’?

Yeah, I said no. It doesn’t have anything to do with skateboarding. That stuff basically just fucks you up. Arthur: It just hurts your body and doesn’t get you drunk: useless!

Yeah it’s better to get drunk and hurt your body; at least you get something out of it! Arthur: I bet if you won Street League you wouldn’t buy a super expensive car… He would buy Gucci for his brother… Will: Nah, Daan would just take all the homies out and party for a week!

Yeah! Money is in the world to spend. Arthur: You could get a new Amica 1250! Amica tour! Get all the boys… Will: ‘Everyone gets an Amica!’ (Everyone laughs)

Yeah everyone drunk in the cycle lane! Will: So Daan I heard you are getting a Vans colourway... Are you stoked?

Yes I’m very stoked!

Will: Does it have anything special on the insoles like Sam Partaix’s tattoos he had on his slip-on colourway?

It doesn’t have anything that specific.

Will: Well I’m hyped for you, congrats. Well I think this about does it. Is there anyone you’d like to thank?

Photo Sam Ashley

I want to thank Jeroen Sars, Ant Travis, Jake Smith, Remy Stratton, Grifdawg, Jamie, Julien, Johnny, Job, and everyone I forgot.

Frontside ollie Athens Photo DVL

Rob Maatman backside nosebluntslides for the crew

Baby On Frank (and Adam) in Malaga Words & photography Fabien Ponsero

Board

Tommy May, wallie melon

A few weeks ago, right in the middle of winter, Frank, being the great company boss that he is, rented an apartment in the south of Spain to bring together some of his friends and colleagues. On the agenda were of course all sorts of festivities, some chilling, lots of sun and maybe a little bit of work here and there. So the whole squad composed of Rob, Tommy, Dallas, Sebi, Austrian backup Murl Mahringer and Tobbe the filmer were all brought together to enjoy ten days of warmth. Only hiccup was the absence of our dear colleague Eniz who was unable to make it because he was stuck in Helsinki. This get together was slightly different from your average skate tour in the sense that we were all living with the Rockvam family composed of Dallas, Maria and their one and a half year-old superstar Adam. You have to admit that you don’t often hear of seven dudes on a skate trip, plus a friend, plus a couple sharing a house with a family. I can see

how on paper this setup may seem like trouble but at no point was the shared family life ever a problem. In fact, if anything Adam’s smile and energy would usually put us in a good mood for the rest of the day. Not to mention Maria’s gargantuan healthy breakfasts that helped us through our unusually early wake-ups... The funny thing with Adam

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Sebi Dorfer, wallie

load of people he’d never seen before. I reckon having grown up around all these skaters is also partly what has given Adam the confidence to run around freely amongst them during the session. Already addicted to the wooden toy, it shouldn’t be long before he’s proudly rolling alongside

Dallas Rockvam, switch ollie

is that he wasn’t just about in the house when we’d get back from sessions, he was actually ‘on the tour’ as in he’d come to spots and stuff. It might sound surprising but to us it seemed perfectly normal: despite his young age Adam has probably travelled more than most of the people reading this article. The Rockvams own a fire truck that they converted into a van so the little guy has been on the road pretty much since he was born, which is probably why he wasn’t at all phased by the fact that he was suddenly surrounded by a

Rob Maatman, backside smith grind

his dad. It was also quite interesting to see everyone’s reactions to the presence of a toddler amongst all these skaters. Most people tend to relax a little when they see that you’re with a pushchair... And for those that don’t initially, all it usually takes is for them to catch a glimpse of Adam’s disarming smile. That’s right; hide your daughter’s because this little guy’s definitely going to be a hit with the ladies. Being the great entertainer that he is, Sebi also found a way to get noticed during the first few sessions. He managed to slip out on a trick and shoot his board across the main avenue that runs parallel to the beach, knocking over a motorcyclist who obviously hadn’t seen it coming. Tobbe, our filmer, and the only other person present at that point, instantly packed his bag and fled before the police could be called. The funny thing is that the police were never

called. In fact the reaction that followed was quite the opposite: slightly shook, the man explained to Sebi as he was getting up that it was in fact his fault and that he should have paid more attention when he was riding his motorbike. He also explained that although it was quite damaged he had no intention of drawing up a report and even less of calling the

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cops... Given the circumstances Sebi got away pretty lucky with this one, but it was only a matter of time before his karma would catch up with him. Later that day he met everyone at our evening hangout spot where he started messing around with some frontside 5-0 fakies on a slippery bank. After just a few tries he again slipped out, this time slamming flat out like a crêpe. After a few minutes of convulsing on the

floor he managed to pull himself up but the slam kept him off his board for the rest of the trip. I guess it goes to show that karma has nothing to do with religion as all this happened to poor Sebi right in the middle of the country’s Holy Week celebrations. The South of Spain is extremely religious and day after day we’d slowly see the whole city get draped in the colours of the Church. Practically every shop or restaurant we’d come across had some sort of window display paying homage to Jesus or the Virgin Mary and I have to say it’s slightly disturbing to be surrounded by so many images of grief, blood and crucifixion. I don’t know if Jesus is supposed

Rob Maatman, frontside noseslide

to represent love but all the imagery that surrounds him certainly doesn’t seem to... That being said all these paintings and decorations were nothing in comparison to the processions that would flood the city. Most of the citizens take part in them and they seem extremely important locally. For us, poor non-believers that we were, seeing all these people, full of religious fervour, dressed like members of the KKK following floats with crucified models of Jesus was quite terrifying. Then again we haven’t seen the light so maybe that’s just normal. The other slightly bizarre thing that happened during our stay in Malaga was the piling up of garbage throughout the city. For some reason I thought that sort of thing was unique to Naples but I was clearly wrong. The city’s bin men had been on strike and by the looks of it, it hadn’t just been for a couple of days. For instance right in the heart of the old town, a place full of

tourists you’d find these insane 15 metre long/3 metre high ‘works of art’. Aesthetically they weren’t that great but they gave the city a certain charm with all the tourists posing in front of them for their next Instagram posts. For Adam all this mess ended up being quite beneficial as Dallas managed to find him at least four or five new toys amongst the rubbish!

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All photos by Alex Pires, in Paris

Blobys The idea for this one was to take a look at this Parisian crew’s group dynamic and show how they interact with each other. It’s not the easiest thing to get across in an interview, especially when it has to be conducted in another language and the subjects have their own rare dialect of that said language (I’m not fluent in Blobys), but we thought it was worth a shot. As skateboarders they’re obviously all pretty unique, but to us it’s the way they’ve grown to feed off each other’s energy that really makes them stand out. It’s rad to see how a group of childhood friends have come to be recognised for their own individual merits by drawing

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inspiration from each other. We’re not saying that you’ll see Karl (Salah) do early grab wallrides any time soon but being around one another is what keeps them motivated. It’s what keeps them bouncing around ideas

for new tricks and it’s certainly part of what’s led their popularity (particularly on social media) to spiral out of

control. Anyway a couple of months ago we managed to get them all to meet at their favourite bar for a chat. It was loud, it was a little messy, but hopefully it’ll give you an idea of what the Blobys are actually like. Interview by Arthur Derrien

Arthur I know you guys have been asked this a few times but let’s get it straight once and for all. Why are you called the Blobys? Greg Cuadrado and Vincent Touzery Kev’s good at explaining that one! Kevin Rodrigues Wait what? My version’s not a lie is it? I swear we did used to do that. (Everyone laughs) Greg and Hadrien Buhannic No it’s not haha, you’re actually good at telling that one. Kevin Ah okay haha. Well it comes from when we were kids... We were between 12 and 14 right? Vincent I dunno it depends… Val (Valentin Julant) was probably at least 18 already, haha. Kevin Anyway we’d always sleep over at Hadrien’s house and sometimes we’d do this thing where we’d wrap ourselves up in our sleeping bags and fight. We called them Bloby wars. Greg Yeah and around then we all took part in this French video contest thing called ‘ La Rue Est Vers L’image ’ for which we needed a team name and we gave that. I guess it just stuck...

Greg Cuadrado 360 flip

Who were the initial members of the crew? I guess us (Greg, Roman, Kevin, Hadrien, Vincent) minus Karl. Plus Salim (aka Croco) and Mathias (Labelle) right? No, no, no, let’s get this straight: it started off with just me. Which is why you are now the leader haha. Which is why it’s still more or less is just me. They surrendered the name to me. Arthur What about you Val? You are from Paris originally. Val Yeah but not from the centre. From La Défence... Arthur Ok... Val Oh wait the way I met them is actually quite funny! Everyone Oh yeah the beanie story! Haha! Val Ok so every weekend I’d skate this stair spot at La Défence with the guys from my area. This one time we get to the spot and I wanted to skate the 7-stair but there was a massive shit at the bottom. Like it was huge. So I look around to see if there’s anything I can use to clean it up and I notice a beanie on the stairs so I’m like ‘fuck it I’ll just use this’. So I do, but as I start jumping down them I see a load of skaters heading towards the spot. It was Hadrien, Greg and a bunch of others guys. Maybe even Kev? Fuck I don’t remember... Anyway they show up and ask my crew: ‘Who used this beanie to clean up that shit?!’ After overhearing the conversation I man up and say that it was me. Only it was loads of them, some even quite famous in Paris and all pretty intimidating... I was convinced they were gonna beat me up or something haha. Arthur Nothing happened though? Val Nah I confessed and they were like ‘okay you told us the truth’ and it was fine. Arthur And you even ended up becoming best friends with some of them... Cute. What about that

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Roman Gonzalez Rock to rock ollie

Arthur Val Hadrian Greg Arthur Greg

Kevin

R oman Gonzalez

Thomas Leclerc kid? He was a bit younger but he killed it in your first video (Blobysation – look it up!). Does he not really skate anymore or something? Hadrien I think he’s just more into music and graphic design these days. Greg Thomas is one of those guys that’ll just be the best at whatever he tries though. I heard he’s killing it with what he’s doing at moment. He’s selling quite a lot of work and stuff. Arthur What about Croco (Salim)? Hadrien He’s a locksmith and lives in Brest now. Arthur Okay and what point did Karl enter the picture? Karl Salah I arrived in Paris like two years after you guys did that video competition thing didn’t I? Val I just remember Karl doing switch flip back tails.

Karl

Arthur

Hadrien

Arthur

Hadrien Buhannic Wallride nollie out

Arthur

Karl

Arthur

Roman

Karl

Arthur

Val

Vincent

Val

Kevin

Vincent

Greg

Arthur

Yeah I just remember seeing him skate and being like: ‘who the fuck is this guy?!’ We met him through Damien Bulle when he used to work at Nozbone. You were skating loads when you were in Lyon, but barely at all when you were in Paris right Karl? Yeah when I got to Paris I actually wasn’t skating at all. That’s why you were saying that stuff about the cruiser board that’s in the Hélas office Hadrien? Yeah, one of the first times we met Karl he stepped on that thing and did a knee-high nollie flip first try outside a party. I didn’t really know he skated and remember being like: ‘wow, okay, so that’s how it is...’ Did these guys kind of get you back into skating then Karl? I don’t know... I’d skate with Damien every now and then and they’d be around often. Slowly I started linking up with them, then Luidgi started giving me Cons shoes and little by little I’d start skating more. After that I started going on some Converse trips with them... Funny how you went from not skating at all when you moved here to being the first one at the spot and skating every single day. Yeah it’s weird, the first few times we saw him we knew he used to be sick at skating but he didn’t look like a skater at all. As in his clothes and stuff... That must have been at least like seven years ago or something though because it’s when Damien first started working at Nozbone. I bet you all worked at Nozbone at one point or another right? Probably... I think even Vincent did two days there once. Shut up! I was there for way longer than that. It was like two months or something! Yeah two months during which you took a shitload of days off ha! Oh yeah I remember! You even thought you liked it a one point. I did! From 10 to 12 you’ve got shit to do so time flies, then at one everyone arrives and you’re stoked because you get to hang out with them and after that well... Yeah I guess you’re bummed because you see them all head out for a skate... So you’re bummed from half one to seven, haha. And right now which ones of you work and which ones get to just skate?

1 1 9 Kevin Rodrigues Wallie up then wallride

1 2 0 Kevin Rodrigues Fakie early grab wallride

Karl

I help Clément (Brunel) out with Hélas at the office a bit... Hadrian I do a bit non-skate video stuff. Arthur And you work at the Supreme shop Val? Val Yeah. Roman I do some work with my dad. Arthur And Kev, Greg and Vincent you guys make enough from skating to just do that. What about this Bloby language you guys have? Can you explain what the deal is with that? Roman What do you mean? It’s normal. Everyone has their own words that they make up. Arthur I’ve known some of you for almost ten years but I still don’t understand some of the words you use. I don’t know how normal that is... Greg Yeah I guess we do take it quite far sometimes. Roman But it just comes naturally. Karl Yeah basically if one of us mispronounces a word then often we’ll be like: ‘wow the way you pronounced that is hilarious’ and then we will all say it that way until it then

mutates into something else and so on. Or someone like Paul (Grund) will take one of our words, go back to Bordeaux, come back, say it differently and then we’ll start saying it like him... Arthur Can you guys give me an example and explain it? Greg Okay let’s look at the etymology of the word ‘jasooon’, haha. It means ‘I’m hungry’. Slang for ‘I’m hungry’ in French is ‘j’ai une dalle’ and we said it enough times quickly for it to start sounding like our pronunciation of ‘Jason Dill’. From then on it just became ‘jasooon’. Kevin That one’s logical. Greg In fact I’m surprised that nobody else came up with it, haha. Arthur Similar deal with ‘marku’ then? Greg Yeah. When we say ‘on se marku’ it means ‘lets go’. It started from the expression ‘on se pète’ (French slang for ‘let’s go’) and went through a bunch of transformations until we were saying something similar to ‘Mark Suciu’ that we then contracted into ‘marku’. Karl That one went very far... Kevin It usually just comes from us simplifying the words to make them easier to pronounce. Kev

Vincent Touzery Frontside 360 ollie

1 2 2 Karl Salah Backside nollie flip

Karl

Yeah saying these ones feels better than saying normal words. Val The problem is that you then end up using way less words... Kevin It’s pretty useful though, like if you’re trying to talk shit on someone. I wonder if when we’re 30 we’ll still be speaking like this... It would be pretty funny. Val Easy guys, 30 is in three years for me... (Everyone laughs) Arthur For how long have you been filming all of these dudes Hadrien? Hadrien Fuck I don’t even know... Ages. Like everyone we just started off with one of those tiny cameras and I slowly got more and more into it. Arthur But you didn’t film that first Blobys edit that was submitted for that video competition thing we mentioned earlier (La Rue Est Vers L’image)?

Hadrien

No I was skating in that one. But right after that we skated and filmed at Austerlitz (stair/ledge spot by Bercy) every day for about three years. Vincent Ah those were the days... We even built ourselves a little hut there. Arthur What?! Vincent Yeah it used to get really windy there so we built a place for us to chill, haha. It was sick, we used to all huddle up under that thing. Arthur What did you build it out of? Greg Just bits of wood and crap we’d find on the spot. We had to pretty much rebuild it every time we wanted to use it... Val I bet the people working in the offices opposite the spot used to trip out on us... Roman We also found a way from the spot into this secret corridor bit underground in the metro station. There wasn’t really anything to skate in there but we’d go when it would get too cold/windy...

Kev

Wasn’t there footage of Youcef (one of their mates) skating naked down there? Val Yeah that was for that ‘King of tro-mé’ thing. Skating naked underground was one of the challenges. It was like a King Of The Road but just in the city’s metro stations and four crews participated. We had loads of weird challenges to do; it was so much fun! Rémy Taveira’s brother organised it... Roman Oh yeah and in the end they self-proclaimed themselves winners because they were the only ones that actually made a video! Haha. Arthur What’s the deal with those Blobys t-shirts? Who drew that logo? It’s sick. Val Kev did. Kev Yeah I drew it on my iPhone, haha. Arthur What, with just your finger? Kev Yeah. Then I walked to the top of my road and got it printed on a jumper. Then we stuck it on a load of t-shirts... We want to do more but we don’t really know where to begin. Arthur Can you tell us a little bit about this edit that’s coming out on our site? I could have sworn at first it was supposed to just be a short clip and it’s turned into a half hour mini-video. Hadrian Yeah we were planning on putting it out sooner but didn’t and then went to Barcelona and couldn’t not put that footage in there. We basically got a bit carried away with it. I think I might take some stuff out but it’s tough... Val You can probably start by taking out all of Greg’s footage, haha! Arthur Have you guys been getting stuff with the HD Camera since you finished working on that? Hadrien Yeah. Arthur What’s that going to be for? Hadrian We don’t know yet... We still need to get all this VX footage out so we won’t be releasing the HD stuff for a bit. Arthur All right I’m gonna go for a piss.(Greg picks up the phone that’s still recording and speaks into it) Greg Fucking hell he’s really doing our heads in with his stupid interview isn’t he boys? (Everyone bursts out laughing) Greg So stoked that I just thought of doing that, haha. It’s a joke Arthur don’t worry. (Arthur returns) Arthur Anyone got anything they’d like to add? Alex Pires Do you guys ever trip out when you see ‘The Blobys’ written everywhere? It must be weird seeing it being mentioned on the Transworld site and stuff?

Vincent Kevin

I don’t know... So many skate videos come out every day that it doesn’t really feel like that much of a big deal. Well I tripped out when I saw Maxime Géronzi use it on his Instagram to describe a trick. I think it was like a 50-50 to rainbow rail or something and he called it a ‘50-50 Bloby out’ because it was a bit unconventional.

Valentin Jutant Slappy bluntslide

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