This issue is a bit of a Sweet X SK8MAFIA special as we’ve got two double interviews with their riders. One with Eric Pettersson and Javier Sarmiento, the other with kickflip shiftying cover boys Wes Kremer And Josef Scott Jatta.

We’ve also cornered Cliché’s newest pro Flo Mirtain to ask him about working on Bon Voyage, how he feels about his new status and what we should expect from him in the near future.

As far as trips go we’ve got two pretty big ones in store for you. The first is this year’s Builders’ Jam in Bangalore with Stefan Janoski, Chet Childress, Lennie Burmeister, Rob Smith and many more. The second is an 80s launch ramp themed Parisian excursion with a few of our favorite European Converse riders including Pontus Alv, Jerome Campbell and Kevin Rodrigues.

There you go, now that you know what we’ve got lined up for you all you have left to do is pick up a copy before they run out!

I’ve seen Karsten around for the last 10 years, he started skating around the time when Oslo’s biggest skatepark was suddenly built in his neighborhood of Bekkestua. At first I thought he was just going to turn in to a skatepark rat, but I was wrong, he’s decently one of the raddest street skaters out there at the moment, with full-on power and speed. The last time I meet him was randomly in Paris this summer, whilst he was on a Lakai tour and I noticed that he was enjoying skating with bigger confidence than before, I realised then that he had stepped up he’s game to the next level. – Gabriel Engelke

Hey Karsten, what have you been up to since Berlin?

Yo Sem! Everything is good!  Just been skating a lot and hanging out with friends!  Normal stuff I guess!

How’s your elbow by the way? I remember it swelled like a balloon after that slam on the rail. 

My elbow is back to normal after the slam. The thing was that I had an infection in my elbow two weeks before the trip to berlin.

Stalefish. Ph:Nykwen.

Ah yeah, I remember now about the infection.

Yep. So it was really vulnerable and then when  I took that slam straight to my elbow it just swelled up crazy!

Do you actually live in Norway? Where exactly? 

Yeah I live in Oslo, the capital of Norway!

Isn’t it too cold to skate there now? 

It’s way to cold to skate! It’s freezing!

Do you have good indoor parks?

We have two small indoor skate parks in Oslo and they are so crowded all the time! We really need a new one.

Bluntslide. Ph: Sem.

And how’s skating and living in Oslo?

My city is pretty mellow! It’s not too big not too small, and it’s really good for street skating during the summer. I usually skate with a few friends I live with.

Do you share a flat with skaters?

Yeah, we’re four friends sharing a flat in the east part of town. And we’re all skaters, so it’s perfect.

During the spring and summer I try and spend as much time as possible in Oslo ‘cause it’s so good, but when fall and winter come I try to travel. Like right now I’m in Long Beach with Nassim, skating and enjoying life!

True that, I’m sorry I called you earlier today, I didn’t realise it was so early over there. So, How is Long Beach going? 

Ha ha, no problem man! I had to get up anyway. I’m going to stay here for one month!

Switch smith. Ph: Sem.

Is it your first time there?

It’s not my first time. I have a couple of friends over here so I usually go a couple of times a year. This would be my 6th time I think.

Alright, now I understand why your English is so good. Is it a personal skate trip or does Element want you to be there for some reason?

It’s both. I’m coming here to film for the upcoming Element Europe video and to chill and escape the Norwegian Winter.

And how’s the US this time then?

Well when I arrived at the airport and had to go through the border control. The lady didn’t like me, or something, so I had to go through another control and wait for one and a half hours before they decided that I wasn’t a terrorist and let me go!

Karsten is 22 and rides for Element, Lakai, Session Skateshop, Spitfire, Thunder.

My friend Steven was driving the car, my brother Fayssal was riding shotgun. My friend Blok (Kristof) was in the back on the right, I was in the middle and Koenraad was on the left. We were driving at around 90 km per hour when somebody overtook us quickly. And just when he gets back in front of us his car breaks down and we drive straight into the back of it. Fayssal, Steve and me were unharmed but Blok and Koenraad got a broken nose and broken eye socket between them. Blok’s scalp had opened from his eyebrow all the way to the back of his head. I thought I was going to see him die in front of my eyes – really fucked up. We had had a really good evening skating at Area 51 and then just five minutes from home that happened.  Everything’ s alright with both the guys now, so we can’t really complain, I could’ve just as easily gone through the windshield. A blessing in disguise…

I’m fine. Skating a lot, hope you’re good as well, aside from the shitty weather.

I’ve been staying over at James Craigs’ in Fullerton for about two weeks now. That’s the first part of Orange County, about 40 minutes from downtown L.A.

I’ve thought about that already, but for the time being I’m just going to keep going back and forth. I can only stay three months at a time anyway.

Of course, from the moment I knew it was possible to live from skating that was all I ever wanted to reach in life!

Nollie to fakie.

Of course, everyone imagines it a bit differently than it really is. I thought that everyone here went skating everyday, from the morning until the evening because the weather is so good, but there’s quite a bit more to it than just skating. There are always some things that aren’t so nice, but that goes for every job or anything else in life.

I guess that’s what every skater would want eventually. So, yeah, it’s definitely one of my goals. I can’t say anything about it really. It could happen next week, or next year… you never know. The board company you skate for decides when you go pro and then you’re pro for all the other companies you ride for as well.

The pressure that is put on you. There are always high expectations to live up to but things usually seem to work out for the best if you just skate and have fun with it. Also, the more you travel to the States the more trouble they give you at customs, so that’s always quite a process to go through. Then you still have to figure out where you’re going to sleep, and find people that are motivated and skate a lot. Then again, during the week there’s not a lot of stuff to skate anyway, weekends are the best.

Most of it is probably just me. I do it without realising. Everybody can do almost every single thing right now, so it’s hard to come out with something new, which is what I want to do. I don’t think it’s bad to put yourself under a little bit of pressure to become better, or do something you wouldn’t normally dare to do.

Frontside half cab flip manual.

The battle is always going to be there, but that actually motivates me to try new stuff. It actually gets a bit easier with time because you can estimate everything better.

When I go out and try to film every day for a week and I don’t like any of the spots or it’s just not working out, sometimes I get sick of it, but a day later I’m already skating again.

He’s a roofer. He works five, sometimes six days out of seven, from 6 in the morning until 5 or 6 at night and he still plays football and skates after work or on his days off. I could never do that.

He used to always win but now it’s usually me!

Frontside flips, nollie double flips…

There’s a couple of tricks but it’s always hard finding the right spot to do them.

Back smith.

Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. The thing is I’ve always skated a lot of transition, people just never saw me do it. Of course, skating with other people makes you skate different spots and learn different tricks as well.

There were a couple of other options but I had met Lewis (Marnell) six months before and he said I should come and skate for Almost. We spent another month and a half in the States together afterwards, he’d arranged everything for us that time, thanks again, Lewis. I didn’t know who to skate for because everyone was saying something else and then I thought, “Who do I want to skate for?” Almost!

I haven’t had the chance to skate with Rodney yet and when I’m out with Daewon we usually go to a skatepark or a mini ramp. The spots he skates aren’t easy to get tricks on.

Yes, lots of suggestions, I can’t really think of many things to do in a mini ramp.

My bag of tricks is pretty limited in a mini ramp, though, so don’t expect too much.

Front Blunt revert.

Obama won last night, I haven’t left the house yet.

Yeah, I always used to play that whenever it rained. I have no idea what my longest combo was, though. Maybe around ten minutes with the perfect cheat.

No idea. I’ve done a lot of dumb combos but I can’t really think of one.

Switch 180 5-o.

Yeah, I’ve always been a P-Rod fan and I guess I always will be. One of the best skaters in my eyes, not just his skating but everything surrounding it as well. I’ve got a lot of respect for the fact that he’s still as down to earth as he is. Impressive.

Not because of who he is anymore, but I’m definitely still impressed by his skating every time. I skate with him like I skate with anybody else, though.

Skating changes and styles change too. I don’t think it’s a conscious thing, though. If there’s anyone that doesn’t need to think about that it’s Paul. I wouldn’t say he has lost in style, he just changed.

The good food in Belgium. Year-round good weather in L.A. .

I miss everything my mom makes. When I’m in the States I eat pizza, hamburgers, French toast, Mexican food and a lot more unhealthy stuff.

Switch frontside salad grind.

No, I don’t, but it was cheap!

In Belgium we skate the skatepark every day and go out filming maybe two or three times a month. Out here in L.A. I’m going from spot to spot, day in day out. I can’t really say one works better than the other. Skating always comes and goes anyway. In Belgium it usually works out pretty well because I’m in my personal environment. Eating and sleeping at home does a lot already. There’s more to skating spots than just feeling good, though. Everything has to be arranged, the spot has to be somewhat decent, and in the end you need a little bit of luck to not get kicked out and land your trick.

The spots in Belgium are about as good as they are over here, but in the States a hundred tricks have been done everywhere, so It’s actually easier to come up with something in Belgium.

Doesn’t really matter to me, both are good.

I’ve never gotten to film or shoot a lot of photos in Belgium and I think that’s important.

To show that it’s possible too, I guess. That’s about it.

Half cab nose grind to switch 5-o

It was, actually, but it could’ve just as well all been shots from the States, too.

I liked it better before, waiting for a video to come out and watching it every day for six months straight. They still meant something to everyone, now there are five minute parts coming out that get watched for a week and then just get forgotten, because there’s already fifty new parts that came out.

Magazines and photographers have a harder time as well, because everybody just throws all the footage on the internet.  We can’t really change anything about it, we can just keep having fun and doing our own thing.

Hardflip (click on the photo to see the sequence). 

Portrait by Gaston Francisco and words by Alex

Hello, yeah, luckily I got the chance to go on a DC Oz and New Zealand tour. I’ve never been south of the equator and basically used my first chance to go out there. I would have loved to attend the Awards, but these kind of travel opportunities don’t come too often, you know? Besides the rad crew, it’s got best hillbombs, nice beaches and pie.

Hmmm, yes it was. I am very thankful to my sponsors for giving me this chance. Red Bull even went over budget to do our DIY skatepark – something for the local community. Besides the two video parts, which I actually did over about two years it was a cool year travelling, living in London, going to the US, China, Morocco. Every day has been a blessing, learning new things and carrying on.

Basically, I was studying business for 4 years, and in the end chose to go for a Business Management with Marketing degree. The main reason of this choice was that the name of the degree has two parts to it; it’s like a two in one you know? I am very happy I don’t need to go sit in the library no more, it’s quite some stress thinking about upcoming exams and deadlines.

I did 3 years in Barcelona and one in London, thus living in Skateboarding capitals, [I figured] going out on missions wouldn’t be hard, and travelling either, as I had good relationships with the tutors and the school in BCN was private. Actually studying Business is as easy as eating pie if you didn’t know. I looked at it as a battle with time, where I must get the most out of it, because time goes on and you can’t stop it. So in order to pass the exams I would study as much as I could during those days.

Frontside wallride. Ph: Chami

Herculean? Ha! The real problem came when I had to pay my tuition the second year, getting a degree is expensive mate! I wrote a fairly big letter to the director of my school to get a discount in exchange for promotion. I filmed videos for my University, they printed me stickers and I got a decent size discount and could continue my student life in Barcelona. I want to thank ESEI International School, the times were rad as the school was on the top of a hill in BCN and every night would be a 15-minute hillbomb back from school. I think going to University and getting knowledge is okay, it’s just a pity it costs so much and that it sucks you into the system that sometimes forgets sharing and empathy for the other. Treat your neighbor as you’d like to be treated, I say.

Yes, my family was doing really hard financially and we were seriously considering me not finishing my studies in Barcelona. But the director of the University was a very nice fellow and I had a feeling they would accept this kind of a bartered deal. I had to do some promotional talking for the University and a little bit of downhill bombing at the very end of the video. The video is a bit embarrassing, trust me! The bottom line though is that I got 30% off the school fee and that let me continue the gorgeous Barcelona life!

I was going to finish what I started. My sponsors understood my priorities very well, they are good folks I must say. It was just tough for me to go on tours for four days where the whole thing would be 10 days or two weeks. There was not much pressure, I’d like to think, although some people would always ask for few more final bangers, you know?  I think I started filming for projects fairly early to make it on time, especially with the Element Am video.

I got an e-mail from a friend saying that I got a few nominations, I thought it was awesome that people recognised my skateboarding. You know, it just hypes me up for more knowing that people like what I do, it is good encouragement!

Regarding my victory, as I said it is an amazing encouragement for future progress and creation. I guess I can say it fuels me for more; it raises my thirst for better videoparts. Besides that it means a lot to my family and friends who have supported me along the way. I used to go on very long drives with my parents across Europe to participate in contests and events, they would come skate the spot with me kind of. It’s funny to look back at it, all the arguments I had with my stepdad… I’m certainly happy I didn’t have to win any contests to get this award.

I hope and promise that this will not make a big-headed fool out of me, we all skate for fun, remember?

Backside powerslide front shov. Ph: Chami

I think Jesus is one of Europe’s best OG skaters and as a true G he stays cool, [he’s] always got a smile on his face and lives true like a child. I’m happy he got the videopart of the year!

The idea for my awards speech was to use some of the comments from the Readers’ Choice voting page. One thing and another it never happened but we had some interesting opinions voiced online. I’m going to give you some of the excerpt from one of them and I’m asking you to answer them:

There are different people in this world, there are different interpretations of skateboarding in this world. For some it’s a contest, for some it’s a form of rebellion. For me it is creating and inspiring the youths. Does Edgar remember how it was to be young and remember first contests, battles with his mates? I see this list as a celebration of good, as something that keeps the industry on their toes. It’s a good promotion of Skateboarding I reckon, appropriate for the digital era.

I voted for Jesus Fernandez as he is an OG and after all those videoparts he’s done and we have loved to watch, he filmed another full part. There are various things that matter, people vote for the European Skater of the Year and they vote for whom they wish, whether they prefer pure shredding or long term involvement, style and motivation. It is a personal choice I guess.

Pole Jam 50-50. Ph: Chami.

The people is not stupid. This vote has been totally manipulated.

Ha ha, John is absolutely right. Latvian people have been awarded as having the loudest and most supporting fans in hockey several times. This can be applied to any other sport or voting competition. We support our people, and the web’s tendrils were vibrating high during the Readers Choice votes. Besides that I also have a few friends that are good hackers and can manipulate the system, thanks for the support!

I want to say One Love to people, remember about the other skaters next to you and support your local skatescene. Thanks for this interview!

“Kolerian – The hate monger from river Isar” is what the spine message on Kingpin 88’s German issue translates to. It was the April issue with Kilian Heuberger’s interview entitled “Power Up” – Killah’s comeback after a severe ankle injury that had taken him out of the game for almost a year. – Well, that was the plan…

Right at the start of the conversation recorded in February, Kilian had outed himself as self-confessed hater, a skateboarding misanthrope. Him being one of the most possessed shredders out there needed no introduction.

But when the mag went to retail in early April and Kilian was holding his collection skate photos in hands for the first time, he had just successfully cheated death and was layed up in a hotel in Salzburg, Austria. Flat on his back, having just woken from a multiple day coma; the right side of his body paralysed, his faculty of speech slimmed down to the word “Ja” (Even “no” was gone at that point!). On March 30th an inherited blood clot in his brain had burst, a ticking time bomb detonated; mid-session at a comp in Austria.

Kinked boardslide.

A twist of fate? Maxed out on the karma-credit overdraft?

“It just got into me,” Kilian says, approached about the fateful day, and it’s up for speculation what he is really insinuating. “I remember I fell, but got up and went on to make the trick…” But climbing up the ramp reaching the deck he felt dizzy.

Robert Klausner, Kilian’s Austrian skate buddy who was standing on top of the deck later stated, Kilian had looked as if he’d had a bunch of mushrooms for breakfast that seemed to be kicking in heavy, “I looked right through him and seemed fully baked.” Kilian was

carried off on a stretcher, lost consciousness in the helicopter, and awoke in the hospital days later. It was a shock to everyone but most of all, to his greatest helpers in these tough times, his then girlfriend now current wife and his brother. “Suddenly I woke up, turned around over in my bed a few times and went on to vomit out around two litres of greenish slime.”

Ollie.

Yet, even such zombie-esque moves would never prompt Kilian to question his return to the plank – in whichever possible way that might be, ignoring the negative outlook from his doctors, who set regaining the ability to walk as a high goal.

“What if…? – there’s no point in asking such questions”, says Kilian, who profoundly believes that for whatever obstacle set in front of you in life, there is always a way to conquer it.

Challenges that make you stronger in the end. And whoever knows Kilian as a skater – ambitious, unweary, stubborn – will not be surprised by the fact that he managed to work his way to regaining control over his legs, step by step, over six month of rehab. – Though, it was, he says, “no chicken feed.”

“The way priorities shift in such times is unimaginable to outsiders.”

Backside 180.

Setting foot back on the board the first few times was hard. Little ollies, little 180s, that was it. Where, coming back from such a blow, the sheer act of riding again might have given exaltations to the less determined, Kilian was still having a hard time with it. On the darker days he was questioning his fate: “In those moments everyone quarrels, doubts and questions: ‘Why me?!’”

What made it all a lot harder, was knowing you were once able to do all this. You know how to work the trick, it is just that your body needs recalibrating in order to achieve coordination. A frustrating experience for someone who once was able to pull magical tech-moves, terrifying rail manoeuvres or contest winning stay-on runs out of his hat, even when he had just pulled his head out of his arse from a long night out. “It was my current wife who pointed out to me, how glad I should be just being able to spent time on the board at all.” Enjoying the little things, instead of going ape shit chasing yesterday’s status quo. Something that remains a challenge for Kilian to this day: “What makes you better?” He asks himself, speaking slow and reflecting. “Isn’t accepting things stagnancy in the end? And who would want that?!”

Looking at Kilian’s skating today, you notice a focus on the more simple moves. More tranny, easier moves, quick satisfaction. “A fifty on a rail just comes much quicker than a nollie flip crook on a curb. It is a much simpler movement, all you need is guts.” And like someone who has won a test drive in a Ferrari and now wants more, he adds: “…but one more nollie flip crooks would certainly be nice!”

Even without a Ferrari Killian’s then girlfriend would take the drive from Munich to the Salzburg hospital daily, sometimes accompanied by his brother. Because what’s a two hour drive if a whole lifetime together is on your mind? “Her support helped a great deal,” Kilian says thoughtfully and loaded with meaning. These are the things that make or break a relationship and the knot was tied soon after, and also the bond to his brother was reaffirmed. However, ministration is obligating. Brother and wife raise demands: helmet at all times – too high a risk. “Reckon they wouldn’t want another go at all this shite.”

Frontside tailslide.

Sure, at first sight a helmet is far from being representative of limitless freedom and give-a-fuck-attitude. Yet, looking at helmet-crowned Kilian standing tall on serious rails says nothing but: who cares?! Really… there are more important things in life. Kilian puts it bang-on: “you skate because you love riding.” Nuff said.

Somehow or other, he has never been fond of easy excuses: wrong board or wrong wheel size have never been an argument used by Kilian, “you can adjust to anything.”

Accordingly, the lesson “hate-monger Kolerian” is drawing from the past two years doesn’t come as much of a surprise: It is humbleness; “being pleased with just a little.” This stands true in private as with his skating, leaving the past’s pathological ambition behind.

Had the whole thing never happened, Kilian would unarguably be skating better today. But at the same time he would be, “a whole lot more unhappy,” Kilian sums it up, quick to not call it a twist of fate or stating that it is karma-related, reassuring only that the incident had no negative. “It didn’t do no wrong.”

“Ultimately,” he states, “it comes down to the fact that I dealt with it. That’s why this challenge was imposed on to me.” And slightly reaching for composure he adds: “I guess I had to learn that my skating hey-days were over.”

Clearly, a matter of figuring out his priorities. Yet, maybe much more a matter of viewpoint, as the photos on these pages should indicate.

And one thing is for sure, chance, karma or fate – which ever way you twist and turn it: this dude lives and breathes skateboarding and lets nothing in this world get to him, not even the unearthly: “I for sure won‘t find God because of this… not for such trifles!”

50-50.

Alain Goikoetxea’s Volcom part.

I’m pretty sure Koston was referring to free online sections like this one he said “I hate for people to think skating is so disposable: those 5 minutes of footage are a couple of years of someone’s life” in his recent web interview. Alain’s one of Europe’s most well respected pros and to he’s been stacking up amazing footage for what seems like at least 4 years to make this happen. To think that these 5 and a half minutes Cardielesque savagery will probably be forgotten by most of us the minute we click on the new Suciu is painful. That cab back tail alone makes it deserve more than that to sit on the hellaclips front page next to some kid’s sponsor-me footage…

Benoît “Beñat” Stevenot in Anagram’s “Crazy Extreme Skate”.

I was unsure whether or not to post this because it’s more or less a leak from Anagram’s “Crazy Extreme Skate” video (that you can buy here), but I’m so intrigued by this guy that I just couldn’t resist. Plus it’s been online for almost a month and nobody seems to have complained. Seven or 8 years ago I was still convinced this “Beñat” from the French Basque Country was just an urban legend. I kept hearing stories about a gnarly looking skater with an earring who could do switch heelflip bluntslide pop outs and other crazy manoeuvres that I had a hard time believing. The fact that he was also supposed to be a butcher, skate reebok classics rather than skate shoes and not care being sponsored just added to the mythical character’s persona. Luckily for us he really did exist and he even ended up getting (Nike, Anagram and Hélas) which meant that people started filming him and 3 years ago French skateboarding was officially introduced to “Beñat”. The best thing about this is that his skating turned out to be exactly as I’d imagined it to be: violent. I can’t think of anyone else with the same sort of style…He brutalises ledges and stomps everything so insolently that you almost forget how much precision and delicacy it takes to do tricks like the switch backside 180 to front crook to fakie.

The Secret Basement video.

What I like about this one is that although it’s all filmed Vx and edited to a lot of nineties hip-hop, it doesn’t take the slightly contrived “90′s/raw/less is more ” approach too far. What I mean by this is that they don’t use the fact that they are skating good looking that most of us will never have seen before as an excuse to not do hard tricks. Marcos Gomez, Gerardo Anaya and Günes’ parts are particularly sick but the standard of skating is pretty  impressive throughout the video, especially considering it’s the first time we see anything from a lot of these guys. Bobby Puleo and Chewy have even got a few tricks in the friends section… I wish we would get to see this side of Spanish skateboarding more often!

Kilian Zehnder – LiveLifeSkate Part

I know a lot of you are going are probably going to ask yourselves “why is this in here? He’s just another super-kid skating a bunch of bland L.A spots…” Well I think there’s a little more to his skating than that. For instance I quite like his slightly stiff legged style and you can’t say he doesn’t have a good trick selection (front crook pop-over to fakie?!). Plus have any of you ever tried getting footage in L.A? When people say it’s hard to get stuff out there because of the hours you waste sitting in your car and the amount of times you get kicked out they aren’t exaggerating: it’s a nightmare. Personally I find it amazing that this 19 year old from Zurich managed to film an 8-minute part in L.A, no matter how easy it looks for him. It’s not like it’s 8 minutes of filler either, he’s doing switch frontside feeble pop outs in lines!

‘A Golden Egg’ by Jesse James and Chris Atherton.

I’m not even going to attempt to describe this thing…

Thanks to the wonderful world of social media I’m sure all of you already know about the Koston 2 shoe launch Nike organised in London a few weeks ago. Well not only did they kindly invite us to the event, which for me meant spending the afternoon drinking beer, skating an indoor bowl and playing mini-golf rather than staring at my computer screen, but they managed to fit us into Eric Koston’s tight schedule for a 30 minute interview. I think it’s fair to say that he’s one of the, if not the professional skateboarders who get’s the most media attention, so meeting him in person was quite a strange experience as I’m sure you can imagine. Not just because it was intimidating, (although I was indeed shitting myself) but also because knowing so much about the guy without having actually having met him felt very strange. I found myself recognising his voice, mannerisms and facial expressions as if I’d known the man all my life, yet I was a complete stranger to him. Something about it felt almost a little perverse, as if I had been unconsciously stalking him for years.

Until now I had always been the first to complain about the “marketable personalities” the skate industry creates for some of our favourite pros. It has nothing to do with whether or not I think the “stoner guy” or “hyperactive/loud guy” images are genuine, it’s just that what gets me stoked on a certain skater is his approach to skating and the way he’ll push or kickflip, not how he’ll act off his board (a little paradoxical for someone working for a skate magazine I know…) Anyway, meeting Koston made me change my position on this. Can you imagine how difficult it must be for these rock star status pros to keep their public and private spheres separate? Having a bit of a “funny guy” persona to hide behind actually sounds like a pretty good way of not exposing too much of yourself.

There’s evidently a lot more to the man than what we can gather from seeing him clown around in Chomp On This or read out the rules at The Berrics. Whether or not it’s something that can or should be explored in interviews is a different story…

Hi Eric, can you briefly tell us what brings you to London?

I’m here for the Koston 2 launch event that Nike Europe have organised… They’ve put together a little mini-golf course so it should be fun!

Have you been going all around Europe for these launch events or is it the first stop?

Well I did a big one in L.A and kind of a soft one at Tampa Pro where we premiered the commercial and released the pink shoe but this is the only one I’m attending in Europe.

You obviously play a major role in the promotion of a shoe but how involved are you in it’s actual production/conception? What about with other products?

I’m actually really involved with the production/conception process of quite a lot of other products, particularly with Fourstar. We aren’t a huge brand so when it comes to manufacturing we can’t go for anything too expensive though. Basically we try to find the best materials we can within our budget and adapt our prices to our customers. Skateboarders aren’t exactly rich right? Well a small percentage probably are but I guess we don’t take them into account… Of course there are always products where we push the envelope a little bit, but we are usually quite careful. We’ve created a template that we run by.

When, it comes to designing shoes it’s very different though, I’m involved in every step of the process.

Have you had a chance to visit the factories that make your shoes then?

No I haven’t actually, it’s the only thing I haven’t had a chance to do yet. I’ve met the owner of the factory though, he’s a pretty funny guy. I actually know a few of the guys that there, I’ve been meeting them at the Nike headquarters in Portland every now and then.

Do they know anything about skateboarding?

They do to a certain extent; I mean they really try to get it you know? They even built a ramp in the factory! It’s actually quite a funny story. So the factory is in Taiwan and originally this guy Lorenzo that works for Nike sent plans for a miniramp out there because they wanted to build something to teach employees how to skate. That way they would understand what they are making. So he sent them plans for a small mini ramp, thinking it would be ideal: they would learn how to drop in and then work their way up from there. You don’t start on a vert ramp right? So they started building it but the owner of the factory thought it looked too small and decided to tell the guys building it to make it taller without consulting anyone else. A little while later one of the guys who takes care of choosing materials for the factories (he’s a skater, he used to work at Girl warehouse years ago when we first started) went out there. Apparently he showed up at the factory and saw the ramp and was like “ what the fuck is this?! Why did you build a huge vert ramp?!” I think it wasn’t even a well-made vert ramp either; it was some weird-looking dangerous vert ramp.

Were any of the employees actually skating it?

Well not when this guy showed up because everyone had been discouraged by the gnarly slams and broken wrists they had witnessed… When Lorenzo asked the owner of the factory why he’d built such gnarly ramp he just answered that the one on the plans just looked too small (even though he obviously wasn’t going to try and skate it himself). In the end Lorenzo managed to get it cut down to a miniramp so that they could actually learn to skate safely…

I think they also make snowboard boots in that factory and a few of the employees once told me that they’d just come back from snowboarding trip to New Zealand. At least Nike are getting it in that sense, they realize that it’s important for the people who work in their factories to get an understanding of skating. Not that many people are aware of this but I think it’s pretty cool

You’ve been coming to Europe for years now, do you feel like people have approach to skating here?

I don’t know it’s weird… I’ve noticed that in Europe you get certain types of skaters that will predominantly come from a country. For instance you get tons of really tech skaters coming from Eastern Europe or in Germany you notice that a lot of the skaters seem to value precision over style… Actually now that I think about it, it’s not really the case anymore. Things have changed; you get all types of skaters in every country now. I guess in the nineties and the early two thousands it was that way but skating has become a lot more well rounded. These days all the different styles of skating have become accepted, this means that skaters from a country don’t feel the need to fit into a certain category anymore. I’m not saying the phenomenon is specific to Europe though, it’s a global trend, the same thing is happening in China, Australia, Japan…

Have you ever been influenced by any European skateboarders?

Yeah when I was younger there was a dude from here that I remember seeing in a Powell video: Curtis McCann. I was pretty young but I remember seeing that little guy from the UK ripping. In that video it was the first time I got a taste of skating from abroad and I just thought it was sick. Plus he was an am, of a similar age as me…

Then after that he had some stuff in that Underworld Element video that was also really good.

It’s funny that you’d say that, Stevie Williams also mentioned Curtis Mcann when I asked him the same question… Do you still keep up with European skating?

A little bit. If videos are online and stuff then definitely but…

But you’re just not a geek?

No it’s not that… I think I’m still a geek, it’s just don’t have time to be full time geek. I have two kids now so at home it’s hard for me to get my computer out because they know I’ve also got cartoons on there. If I get my laptop out when they are sitting on the couch next to me they’ll start stomping on the keyboard until l put on whatever Disney cartoons or movies I’ve got stored on there to keep them occupied. They’ve taken over…

Haha. So just like most of us, you pretty much only watch the skateboarding you find on the Internet… Do you think this new way of enjoying videos has affected the skate industry?

It has, absolutely. It’s something that was bound to happen and whether or not some people helped it doesn’t really change anything. It’s happening because that’s what the world is doing and as skaters we have to evolve and adapt. We manage to do so when it comes to other things you know? One of the main problems about the way things are now is that since parts come and go so fast a lot of the time people don’t get the shine that they deserve. When a free part is thrown out there it doesn’t really show the time and energy that was put into it… It’s like “that was Tuesday and now it’s Thursday and this is some other dude”. It sucks because I hate for people to think that skateboarding is disposable: those 5 minutes of footage are a couple of years of someone’s life; this section is something that he killed himself for… That’s where it’s a little brutal. I’m not the biggest promoter of free video parts. We’ve always sold videos because it’s the only way we could break even. Especially with Girl videos, we’ve got a huge team, do lots of travelling, each video takes 4 years to make, and costs from half a million to almost a million dollars to produce… I think Yeah Right took 4 years and when you add up everything it cost a million dollars; and that was a long time ago. Skate companies can’t afford to take such a heavy hit and that’s why they have to sell their videos. It enables them to make sure it’s a win… There aren’t that many board companies that can produce major videos like the Girl ones without without going out of business, it’s just too expensive. I can understand it when it’s just short clips here and there but when people are giving out full street parts I really don’t. To me it’s another product and that’s why I think we shouldn’t be going in that direction. We don’t hand out boards for free on the streets do we? It may sound greedy but someone had to pay for that to be made and there is no way to recuperate those costs. Unless the board sales shoot up in such a dramatic way that it covers the spending but that never happens and it’ll kill us all in the long run.

I’m not saying there aren’t good sides to it though. For instance the fact that your skating can be instantly delivered to a kid who will probably never get a chance to see you live is great. He can pull out a video part from one of his favourite pros, watch it as many times as he wants and be psyched. So yeah there’s a good side and a bad side to this phenomenon.

What does it say on that kid’s board? (Photo: Sam Ashley).

Few pros have had such a long and productive career so I was wondering if you did anything special to take care of your body. Do you have a personal trainer or go swimming a lot or something?

I don’t but I kind of want one though. As I’m getting older I’m starting to feel more and more shitty. I guess all I do is try to skate as much as I can and stretch. I use a foam roller and other things that help loosen up my joints and ligaments but that’s it. One thing I used to do was Pilates. I did that for a year actually; I really enjoyed it but ended up stopping because I couldn’t find time for it. I should really start making time for Pilates again… So yeah, that’s the one thing I did for a while and I thought it was pretty helpful as far as making my body feel okay. I wasn’t ollying any higher or anything but I felt physically better.

What about for the business side of things, do you have an agent or someone to help you out?

I don’t, I used to have an agent a long time ago but I fired her. I didn’t think it was necessary… It was cool because a few weird opportunities would come along but sometimes they would just be a little too weird…

Like what?

I don’t know, things like drink sponsors and stuff like that… Suddenly I started realising that there are things I want to be associated with and others I don’t. If opportunities come my way then great but I want to be able to make my own decisions… I like the way my career is going with the sponsor I currently have and I don’t want to change anything. In the past I’ve accepted sponsors that have compromised my integrity a little bit just for some cash. Did it, felt bad, quit it and started asking myself “why did I do it?” I guess you have to live and learn. That’s why these days I’ve been trying to keep things simple. Although I would need help with organising some of my stuff, I’ve got a lot of shit to handle on a daily basis.  Sometimes it takes me two days to get back to someone just because I have so many emails to read… What I’d really need is a personal assistant. The thing is I’m so used to handling things myself that’s it’s hard for me to give those chores up to someone else. I’m going to have to do it at one point though, I need to free up my own time because it’s getting harder and harder to skate as much as I want. Balancing my family, the business side of things and actually skating can get a little bit challenging at times. I think I’ve figured it out though but it’s still a bit of a rollercoaster ride so something to steady it out would be great…

Moving on to something completely different, can you tell us about filming for Menikmati with French Fred? He’s quite an iconic figure of European skating and you witnessed some of his innovative filming first hand.

The funny thing about Fred is that he’s the first filmer I’ve worked with who after seeing me try tricks here and there decided to put together a proper trick list. On that list he’d put either tricks that I’d attempted and should go back for or just ideas of stuff he thought I should try. He had everything laid out for me… I remember that at first I was like “wow this is weird” but then I realised that it made sense. It was strange but it made sense. Usually I’d have an idea in my head and just go for it that day, see if I got lucky and if not whatever, but it was different with Fred, he had a battle plan! It was was cool though, particularly towards the end as we were trying to finish it up it would help me get things done. I had a checklist and it was like “get it done… got it! Cross it off the list and move on to something else”. It felt like a little game where I had to keep checking off my list. Looking back on it today, I think it probably helped me focus a lot more… It may not sound like it but it was actually really fun, those were good days.

I also think he brought a whole different perspective to skate videography.

Like with the way he filmed your nollie heel nose slide down Whilshire (rolling long shot from the top of the stairs)?

Exactly. When he started filming it like that I remember him telling me not to worry, as I’d skate up to the rail looking confused. I think I must have answered something like: “Ok, but what the fuck are you doing? Well this is how fast I’m going so don’t crash into me…” He had to time it and stuff so it was kind of odd but after a while it was all right. I thought the way it turned out looked sick too. It was the first time I’d seen anything like it… Back then almost everything was just filmed with a fish eye, down low to get the bottom stairs in. Even if people would shoot a trick long it would usually be from straight on by standing the bottom of the stairs. You’d never see anyone rolling at the top of the stairs! I’ve heard people refer to that way of filming as taking the Fred angle or doing a French Fred.

What projects are you going to be working on in the near future? I’ve heard that you were going to be involved in a Supreme video, what’s the deal with that?

Yeah I’m involved with that, Bill Strobeck started working on it last summer. He’s been filming most of it on a Hvx (Panasonic) but he might be mixing it up with other stuff. He lives in New York but he recently spent 3 months in L.A because it was too cold out there. I don’t really know what to say about it, I know he’s working on it with quite a few skaters…

Like who? I didn’t even know Supreme had an official team…

It’s a pretty big mix people: Guy Mariano, Scott Johnson, Dill, Van Engelen, Dylan Reider, Javier Nunez to name a few.  I know he’s also been filming a lot with this kid from New York called TJ (Tyshawn Johnson). Even Tyler The Creator filmed a line! It’s going to be quite an interesting mix of guys from different generations, which is cool. I spent a lot of time in schoolyards though… I’m a little bit tired of picnic tables.

I’m also working on a part for the Nike video. I think it’s supposed to be a series of 3 videos with a solid group of dudes in each one. I’m not going to be in the next installment, so I should be in the last one but I really don’t know how they are going to fit everyone in there. I think they were 7 in Chronicles vol.1; they should be 7 in the one that comes out at the end of the year and that leaves everyone else for the last one. I think Daryl, Theotis, Donovan, Piscopo, Luan and a few more should be in this one but people like Paul who were working on other video projects (Plan B video) will be squeezed into the last one so it might end up being a pretty long video. I don’t think we can wait another 5 years to put it out though. We’ll probably have to decide on a strict deadline and release it as it is otherwise it’ll never be finished… So yeah, basically I’ve been mainly working on the Supreme video and trying to get a head start with this Nike thing.

Do you reckon it’ll be your last part or are you going to go on like this forever?

I don’t know. Actually I want my last part to be Chomp On This 2. Everyone wants another Chomp video! We are all really keen to do it too but we just don’t have the time to get started with it right now. A few of the guys can’t even skate anyway. Ty for instance just had to get ankle surgery…

What happened, did he hurt himself skating?

I think he hurt himself a little while back when he was filming. He had to get an operation but whoever performed the surgery did something wrong and just made it worse. If you watch some of the behind the scenes stuff from Pretty Sweet you can see that he’s filming in a wheel chair! Then again right before that he was skating the mega ramp! I’ve seen clips of him on that huge quarter pipe… It’s pretty gnarly. I guess we can say that Ty has got the first clips for the long lost Chomp video! Actually that’s probably even Chomp “ender” material to be honest…

Out of all the people in Copenhagen, Hjalte is probably the one who spends most time on his skateboard. If you’re going skating, you can always throw a text in Hjalte’s direction and be pretty certain he’ll pedal up to the spot in his Carhartt camo-pants. But Hjalte is much more than just one of Denmark’s best skaters. To tell you the truth, the man is so bursting with energy some might say he verges on ADHD. Aside from skateboarding, he plays football for “Motor 08” and wrestles the Atlantic waters on the schooner Opal. On board this fair ship, he has crossed the Atlantic, sailed the Caribbean Straits and swum naked with dolphins. If one day you find yourself in Copenhagen beholding a broad Viking with a red face and high-pitched laughter, hacking it full-speed, you can be sure it’s The Beast getting about. Yeppah!

- Nis Andersen

“If you’re pro and don’t have any goals, chances are you will get nothing done. With Hjalte, if you tell him you need things, like ‘We need photos, we have a deadline for an ad, we need an interview’ and so on, he focuses and thrives on it.”

– Pontus Alv

Walking into Bryggeriet Skatepark on a November Tuesday, I find the park in full swing. Leaving what appears to be a session at its peak are Hjalte Halberg and Pontus Alv. 

Front Board. Ph: Emil Hvilsom.

Done skating?

Yep. We’re done.

We take a seat outside the teacher’s lounge of Bryggeriets Gymnasium.

I’ve been told you don’t mix skating and chilling.

That’s true. I don’t mind chilling with skaters, but I sometimes prefer chilling with other people. If I’m in a skatepark, it’s mainly to skate. If my board is there and there is stuff to skate, I can’t help but want to skate it. I skate until I’m worn out and then it’s time to go home. That’s the best, actually; when you kind of get into a trance and you just skate, skate, skate and you sweat more and more and you get more and more warm until you’re completely fucked and then… straight home. I love that. You switch off completely. It’s almost like meditation; you’re mind is a blank. That’s rad.

How old are you and how old were you when you realised you look older than your age?

I’m twenty-five now. It’s funny, because all the way up to tenth grade I was the smallest guy in my class, then, in tenth grade, I just exploded and became massive.

Did you have any scores to settle?

Ha ha. Revenge-time.

Want to talk about graffiti?

Not really. I guess when you start skating or when you start painting, you never think you’re going to support yourself by doing it. You do it because you like doing it. I never thought I would make money from skateboarding. Ever. I got sponsored really late as well. All my friends got hooked up, but I never did. I was the kid who was just going fast back and forth all day long. I never thought this would happen. I’m completely surprised.

Back three. Ph: Nils.

Well then: welcome to life as a professional skateboarder. How is it?

It’s good. In the winter, I’m not so hyped on pro life, but overall it’s good. I just had the best summer of my life, travelling and skating. We had the Polar v. Palace tour in Malmö/Copenhagen. I’ve been to Costa Rica and New York as well. We rented an apartment there for two weeks. Amazing.

We have been on a lot of Polar camping tours too. We bought some pop-up tents; the ones you just throw in the air and boom: Polar Camp.  We travelled around Sweden filming for the Polar video. There should be a promo out by now actually. I went to London to film with one of my old Danish friends Emil Hvilsom for this really sick Danish project too. It’s called ‘Vores KBH´ which translates as ‘Our Copenhagen’. It’s out December 1^st.  Pontus and me will have a shared part.

How are you dealing with the winter?

This is my fist ‘pro skater winter’ and I’m not used to it. I usually work hard all winter, go on trips in spring and autumn and then stay in Denmark in the summer. This is the first time I need to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do with myself.

The truth is I’m really bad at doing nothing. I hate it. If two days pass where I don’t know what I’m doing, I get really foul-tempered. I really can’t do that whole thing where you sleep until two in the afternoon and think that’s cool. I need to have something that fills my day or else I go mental. So, lately I’ve been getting up on weekdays, thinking: “What are you doing? Get a job, earn some money. It’s raining every day. You can’t skate in the winter in this country.” You wake up on Monday, it hits ten and you’ve got no one to call.

Pontus: Welcome to pro life.

Frontside 180. Ph: Nils.

So you’re getting paid from Polar now?

Yep. Together with money from Nike, Carhartt and so on I can pay my rent, but I’m not rich or nothing. I’ve been working for about two days a week as a substitute teacher, but committing to more regular hours is hard when you travel all the time. I’m interested in pedagogics, but I dropped out of high school, so I need to catch up on that.  I’ve always wanted to work with kids, though. I worked almost three years in a kindergarten and have done skate-courses and so on.  I never, ever wanted to work in a skate store. Never.

I guess I need to develop another interest. I’ve started playing guitar a bit. [ironically] Maybe that’s what I’ll do after pro life, be a singer/songwriter, ‘Oooooh Yeeeah!’ I’m getting my driver’s license too.

I kind of think this is a problem, actually. I need another life than skating, so I don’t drain the fun out of it. Pontus found his filmmaking; I’ll find something too.

In between trips when the weather is shit I’m just trying to stay in shape. I’ve been swimming a lot. Went to the sauna today, actually. Early in the morning. There is a really good sauna in Christiania. Unisex.

Spa-lifestyle?

Actually, the first time I stayed over in Malmö after Polar was started, Pontus woke me up and said, ‘”Get up, you’re going to the masseuse.” I thought he was joking, but nope, he was serious, so there was nothing for it but going down there. Before breakfast: Thai massage.

Tell me about your sailing trip. 

My best friend Magnus’ parents spent their whole lives building a boat; a schooner. After sailing around the world seven times, they finally grew too old to sail it.  Then their sons took over the boat and Magnus became captain.  Two years ago he arranged a one-year round the world trip. It went along one of the classic trade routes: down to France, Portugal, then to Africa, Cape Verde, Brazil, the Caribbean, New York and then home. I was on the leg from Spain as far as New York and then flew home from there. Four months on board, working on the boat.

Front crook. Ph: Nils.

Fishing?

We did a lot of fishing there. Lots of fish. The biggest one was probably a 35 kg golden mackerel. We harpooned fish from the boat too, the water was clear enough to see the fish. And there was a pig called ‘Uffe’. When we crossed the Atlantic to Brazil, we bought a little pig that sailed with us from then on. Uffe got to eat the fish we caught every morning.

Did you eat Uffe?

We had planned to, but coming into Brazil, they are very particular about importing animals.  Unless you’ve got papers on your pig, you could go to jail or end up in a hairy situation. As soon as we got in, we gave the pig to a poor family. They were so stoked to get a fish-fed-fat pig they could eat. Either that or it has fucked up Brazil’s pig community forever.

Pontus: Was it strange being away from land for so long?

It was a little sketchy sometimes. When you are in the middle, it’s at least eight days each way. You can’t escape. We were seventeen people sailing, though, and there is always something to do. You work a shift and then chill, then work another shift. I read a lot of good books, cooked food and enjoyed the weather; there was always something to do.

Did you bring your board?

The captain is actually a really good skater. He used to ride for City Fellas: Magnus Maarbjerg. Every time we went ashore, it was session-time.

So you like travelling?

I’ve become addicted actually. If I stay at home too long I get restless and start thinking, “I can’t just be in Denmark all the time, there’s all these places I need to go to.” I’m going to Portugal on Tuesday.

Back tail heelflip out. Ph: Veldman.

What is it you like about travelling?

That it’s new. It’s a challenge. You don’t know what’s going to happen.  At home you are so comfortable and in your usual habits, but when you travel, you constantly have to adapt and take in new impressions.

What’s going on in Copenhagen? There are so many new spots cropping up all over, it’s insane. What’s going on with that?

They’ve ben developing the new harbour inlet and the town-planning department is currently set on building trendy, multifunctional spaces where they try to combine everything. ‘Modern playgrounds’ around basketball-courts and so on. Around Nørrebro, which used to be a bit ghetto, they’ve been building all these squares and public spaces designed for children and young people. There is one square surrounded by all these white banks and another one with a massive quarterpipe. Just now, they built this massive hip, which is sick. There’s new stuff all the time.

Is Copenhagen in danger of becoming a new Barcelona?

Nah. The weather isn’t good enough. But after CPH Pro, a lot of people have started doing tours here. Because Malmö is right next-door, a lot of companies do combined tours. It’s funny, because they tend to stay in Malmö and then do Copenhagen as a one-day trip, rather than the other way around. I think Malmö has had more of its spots seen in videos so people go there. You know; from Pontus and all his D.I.Y. shit [laughs].

Frontside ollie. Ph:Irvine.

Tell me about Jarmers Plads. 

Well, first there was always Faelledparken, but then, if you wanted to be ‘dope’ in Copenhagen, you had to skate Jarmers [Laughs]. At first I hated it; the ledges were so high and the ground so shit, but with time it got better and better and now I think it’s the best spot in the world. I skate there all the time.

People that come there react like I first did, but the ledges grind and slide better than anything. You just have to give it some time. It’s still the meet-up-spot. It’s all good vibes too. You can just come there and skate.

Since the bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö was built, the two scenes seem more intertwined. What do you think?

I think it’s because of the Bryggeriet skate-gymnasium. A lot of Danes come here all the time now because they go to the school. But there are still not that many Swedes in Denmark.

I was thinking about this yesterday and I think Copenhagen’s scene right now is really, very good. In Copenhagen, all the concrete-heads also skate with the ‘pretty boys’ and the nice kids. It’s mixed. There used to be a bit of beef between the rock kids and the hip-hop kids, but now it’s really good. There is no beef and a really good feeling of community.

Tre flip. Ph: Nils

How come everyone knows who you are? Are you ‘the face of Danish street-skating?’

Nah. That’s just in Sweden. Maybe in London too, from the connection between Polar and Palace, Jerome and so on, but not really. It’s true, though, I am one of the few who get any money from this. It’s me and Jonas Skrøder, apart from Rune, as far as I know. In Copenhagen I never get that “Ooooh, I’m famous” feeling.

Pontus: We’re working on it…

Well, Pontus has been pushing me a lot. Right when I got on Polar, he placed ads in all the magazines all over Europe, so of course you become a bit known, but I don’t think I’m very known, to tell the truth. It may also be that I was born and raised Copenhagen and have hung out with everyone who comes to visit, so that’s probably why people outside Denmark would know me.

How did you and Pontus meet up? How did you and Polar come about?

I’ve always known who he is. The first time I came to Malmö, I was crazy scared of Pontus. He was skating mad fast and doing nosebluntslides into people and screaming. He seemed crazy and I thought, ‘What a jerk,” right? But then I got on Carhartt and we started running into each other and ended up on one of their events at Sibbarp where he asked me for some footage for In Search of the Miraculous.  I ended up getting him some tricks that made it in, but it wasn’t until we went to New York on the Carhartt trip that we really hung out. That’s where he told me about the board brand and asked me if I wanted to be part of it.

Pontus: Hjalte was one of the first riders and it’s been good to get you out there and see you grow into it.

Yep, you’ve pushed me in a good way. When I got on, I was lacking a mission. I had Enjoi flow and it wasn’t clear where that was going. Carhartt is good, but that’s one tour a year, you know. But then Polar came and you were like, “We’re going to do this,” which whetted my appetite and we just started filming like crazy.

Kickflip from the “bump” to the curb cut. Ph: Nils 

Pontus: When you run a company, it’s your job to give the skaters you support, goals and direction. A professional skater without goals is lost.

[Hjalte] So they don’t turn into depressed alcoholics [laughs].

What does Polar add to skating. 

Hmm. We just follow our own heart, really. We make it less complicated, less polished. It’s not just that we don’t do HD and all that, but it’s the approach to tricks and skating overall. I don’t think Pontus would put a mad-tech skater on or a ‘strictly hammers’ skater on. It’s about basic skating, good speed and stuff that you get stoked from watching. It’s hard to really put a word on what it is that is special about what we do. But I do think it is unique. I think we’re doing something genuine: The graphics, the riders; everything. I really do think the company stands out. It’s simple. That’s one of the things I like about it: It’s accessible.

The whole team are homies too. We’re not all like that guy [points to Pontus, laughs]. Nah. He’s cool. Everyone on the team are nice guys.

What’s Pontus like as a ‘boss?’

He is really dope. He is clear on the need to produce things. He is tight.  And he is right to be too. He is a boss in a good way while he is also a homie.

What’s Next?

Polar: The Movie. It’ll be my first real videopart, so it’ll be blood, sweat and tears. The Kingpin interview, of course. It’s been quite hard, actually. Photos are hard for me to pull together. It’s easier with video. I can get footage fast, but photos are always a battle for me. I skate more lines and skate fast. A lot of what I do is skating fast and doing manuals, ledge-tricks and so on. That’s fine for video, but not so great for images. I can get sequences, but I don’t want too many sequences. You can put that in: This is why it’s taking so long, Alex!
No worries, I’m sure. Cheers, Hjalte. 

His section in VoresKBH:

A Japanse version of the interview can be found here.

On the cover of this month’s issue we’ve got Adrien Coillard taking out Geoff Rowley on Lyon’s famous hubba for the second time. Yep, the little guy who casually gap to bluntslid the beast in issue 110 went back for more.

In related “Bon Voyage” news, we covered Brophy, Flo, Joey, Pete Eldridge and Sammy Winter’s trip to China. The article should give you a good idea of the standard of skating we can expect from this new Cliché video. Only 4 days to go!

Since Element Europe are also working on a video (Hold It Down) we decided to send Sam Ashley to Morocco where Karsten, Nassim, Madars and Phil were out on a filming mission. Needless to say they absolutely killed it. With a crew like that what else would you expect?

We even managed to fit in Michi Mackrodt, Kenny Reed and globe trotting photographer Alexey Lapin’s recent  trip to the Balkans.

As you can tell from the titles on the cover we’ve also picked the brains of some pretty funny characters this month. I’m sure a lot of you will find the Pearls Of Wisdom with the one and only “Give your life to Christ”  Christian Hosoi quite interesting.

Samu Karvonen gets the first interview slot and tells us about organising a skate flea market, why he eats food from dumpsters and what he knows of Quicksilver’s plans for the Euro skate team. The second goes to Element Europe’s Jarne Verbruggen who came through with 16 pages of all terrain savagery. Finally we’ve got an Effect with Tom Day. Those of you who (like me) haven’t seen very much of him before this are in for a shock. This guy destroys some seriously unwelcoming terrain. Can’t wait to see the footage of these tricks in Heroin’s “Video Nasty“.

Now that you know what’s in there, go and get yourself a copy!

Photos by Jean Feil, words by Arthur Derrien.

One of the best things about skateboarding is its diversity. I can’t imagine there being another niche culture out there that offers such a wide spectrum of personalities. Do Sammy Baca, Wade Desarmo and Leo Valls really have anything in common other than the actual object they choose to have fun with? Well, not really. Their approach to skateboarding is so fundamentally different that it’s almost not the same activity. Yet they are all part of this same world, and I’m sure a lot of people would be able to admire all three of them on their individual merit.  Skateboarding wouldn’t be the same without the people who whole-heartedly dedicate themselves to a certain approach, and that’s exactly why interviews such as this one are so valuable. If someone has spent years unconditionally devoting themself to a vision, then they are bound to have a lot of interesting arguments to justify it. Leo Valls is a perfect example of this. His skating is the result of a thorough thought process and we are lucky enough to have him break it down for us.

Yeah I’ve been away quite a lot, I spent half of last year in SF, and then I went on that Magenta trip to Japan (featured in issue 109). After that I came back to Bordeaux for a bit and left again to go to New York… Now I’m back at home, in France, and it’s just rainy and cold. I can wait to get out of here…

Well my wife is American and she has to finish university in San Francisco, so we live there for half the year.

After we got married in 2011, I went to the American embassy to apply for a one-year tourist visa. The interview went really well and the immigration officer granted me a visa that allows me to go back and forth (between France and the States) as much as I want. The only condition is that I’m not allowed to stay in United States for more than six months at a time. For the moment I’m satisfied with the arrangement because I like coming back to France after having spent quite a long time out there. On the other hand, I’m not saying I won’t apply for a green card once we’ve decided where we want to live. Finding a new apartment every six months can sometimes be a bit complicated…

San Francisco I is a very pleasant city. Its hills, its architecture and its colours make it seem unique, especially from a foreign perspective. It’s a city where skating revolves around speed, control and simplicity. You learn to powerslide rather than push and to let yourself go. It teaches you to really enjoy how everything feels. Hill skating was quite common in the nineties, yet it seems to have gone out of fashion around the year 2000. I feel like it’s an aspect of skateboarding that should be developed. Even if the scene is quite divided, like in any other major city, it always felt welcoming. I feel well integrated and I’ve met some great people such a Ben Gore, Evan Kinori or Carlos Young…

Bordeaux, on the other hand, is a much smaller city; it’s quite dense. Its renovation, that started just over ten years ago, created a lot of new spots and with them came whole new generation of skaters. Its marble streets, its old buildings and its lights are part of its unique charm. These things are what I like about Bordeaux. They make it standout from any other city and they are the reason why it attracts so many out-of-towners. In a medium sized city with so many little spots, it’s easy to cruise around and let your creativity express itself freely.

I grew up in Bordeaux. My whole family lives there, along with my childhood friends and I know the city inside out. Everything is easy here, whether it’s skating or just going for a drink with friends. Vivien Feil even recently moved out here and has set up an office for Magenta. That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel like I need to be out of the city as often as possible, but Bordeaux remains my home no matter what.

I try to go to Japan every year. Throughout my trips, I got the chance to visit most of Japan’s major cities as well as exploring the countryside.

I also quickly became friends with some Japanese skaters; some of them even came to visit us in France. The bond we have is built from our common vision of skateboarding, a vision in which the aesthetic side prevails. Currently, in a time when the skateboarding isn’t going anywhere – in terms of technical progression, the Japanese are showing us that there is a lot still left to explore, from an artistic point of view.

Japanese culture is extremely complex and very difficult to grasp. Going back there is always an interesting experience. You learn a lot from these trips, and your return home is always quite thought provoking. Japan was deeply scarred by the Second World War and, as a result, after became very Americanised. Certain aspects of traditional culture remained, particularly those linked to art and craftsmanship – in Japan, everything has to do with mastery. Whether it’s martial arts, design, food, tea or skateboarding. The Japanese have tried to recreate American skateboarding, except it has been filtered by their culture. They produce their own interpretation of it.

I’ve been to Japan with Soy several times, he’s the one who opened me up to this side of skateboarding in the first place; he helped me understand the phenomenon. Not only have these trips inspired us, but they also gave us bearings, enabling us to compare the experience with what we were used to seeing. I strongly recommend whoever reads this to go over there and form your own opinion about the place.

I think that it’s important for each of us to try to understand why we spend so much time wandering the streets on our skateboards and how we can gain something positive from it. Turning pro really made me think about this, and I feel like it’s helped my vision of skating has mature over the last 3 years. For instance, I asked myself a few basic yet fundamental questions: how do people perceive what I put out? What is going to satisfy me and make me evolve? How can I offer something original, something that will help me standout?

I realised that if you take a step back and think about what you are doing, you can really give your skateboarding the direction you want. This reflection can help you get rid of certain rules you impose upon yourself, in turn allowing you to progress.

Being pro means skateboarding for a living. To be able to do that, your skating needs to interest enough people for companies to decide to support you financially. Right now, lots of pros and ams that are technically good athletes receive this support from major companies and it allows them live comfortably. I think this is a good thing.

Now, if we consider skateboarding as an artistic activity, then the clumsy concept of someone’s ‘level’ loses all of its relevance. I, for instance, find it appealing when someone’s skating has a unique aesthetic, something that really transports you into his world. This can be done through spot selection, by moving in a certain way, by speed, by rhythm or by trying to express a message. For example Bobby Puelo’s skating is the result of a thought process, just like Takahiro Morita’s or Gou Miyagi’s.

Now, let’s compare skateboarding to other artistic activities such as painting or music. Unless an artist’s technical abilities are ground-breaking, for his art to be of any interest/relevance to the art world, he has to make it stand out by offering a new artistic vision, by inviting people into the unique world he has created, by exploring new areas of his discipline. Where would painting be today if people had only explored figurative painting and its technical aspects? That’s why I think skateboarding becomes particularly interesting when it’s conceptual and abstract.

But sadly, it’s not an easy task as skateboarding is surrounded by this ‘extreme sports’ culture that makes people want to see skaters go higher and further etc. But I’m happy to see that, today, more and more people understand what we are doing, particularly with Magenta, so I thank them for their support.

These days everything goes live on the internet faster than you know it, the sheer amount of skate videos that come out every single day make it necessary for us to put out clips regularly. The aim of these short edits is to get people to pick up their boards and hit the streets as quickly as possible.

We pour a lot of energy and devotion into each of our videos, so it made sense for us to keep putting them out on DVD. We feel that it’s important to give some of our projects a material form, so that some of the people that are really passionate about what we do can possess the videos as objects.

By the way, our next DVD is going to be called ‘Soleil Levant’ (Sunrise); it will be longer than the previous ones and will feature the whole team.

Yes, it’s out of choice, it’s because the VX creates an atmosphere that suits our company, it allows us to give the skating and the editing a certain dynamic. That doesn’t mean I’m not open to any type of camera, it’s just that its easy too get caught up in trying to do something really tech, and forgetting that what your are doing actually has to have a direction, has to reflect a certain vision.

To me, the most important thing is to establish a real connection with the filmer or the photographer, making sure that you share the same vision; it’s the best way to have a coherent result. I need to have my say and even help with the editing, no matter how complex a task it can be.

I’ve always watched a lot of skate videos; I like to know what’s going on. That includes all of the videos that came out in the nineties; they influenced me enormously, as well as the recent super-productions that have come out since. However I believe that if you are really passionate about something, it is your duty to dig up stuff that’s less accessible, to search for that special something that was so hard to get a hold of, rather than simply enjoy what you can find anywhere, as it is inevitably destined for a more general public. If music is your passion, it’s unlikely that you’ll be into mainstream music.  It’s the exact same thing with skateboarding. A lot of underground projects are released every year, and they are exactly what I enjoy.

For instance, in 2012 Josh Roberts from Perth, Australia released ‘Domingo’ and Ryuichi Tanaka from Kobe, Japan released ‘Strush’. These are just two of the many creative gems that comfort me in thinking that underground skateboarding is still alive and well.