Samu Karvonen Life In The Eastern Blog
November 17, 2008 @ 10:22 AM
“I was so stoked when I walked out of the office with my first 3 Blueprint boards!” As fate would have it, Samu remained the whole Blueprint flow team in Finland for the next two years, leaving him pretty lonely. So when the opportunity presented itself, Samu jumped ship to ride for Harri Puupponen’s Aste brand. Aste at the time was getting a bit mouldy with the riders aging and pursuing other things in life, so it was a perfect chance for Samu to take over and remake the company a bit more in tune with his own ideas. For the past 3 years Aste has been Samu’s canvas to try out ideas for board graphics, videos and other creative aspects that come with a skate company.
Samu’s enthusiasm for filming and producing has prompted the naysayers to dub him somewhat of a sportsman. It’s a minefield in skateboarding, where you need to be productive to please your sponsors and to get somewhere in the first place, while at the same time appearing not to care and certainly not to try too hard to make things happen for yourself in the eyes of your peers. It’s a paradox really. Ray Barbee put it quite nicely: “You can’t eat keeping-it-real. Keeping-it-real doesn’t taste very good.” And if keeping it real means getting wasted nonstop and blowing off skating to nurse a hangover with your curtains drawn, then that isn’t Samu’s gig. Sure, he enjoys a pint like the next man, but you’ll be hard-pressed to catch him diving in a bottle when there’s some fresh concrete around.
Samu isn’t shamed to admit that he wouldn’t mind living off of his skating for a while either. His first contract with C1rca on a European level from the start of this year takes him a little bit closer to that goal. He ran into Julien, the C1rca Europe team manager and marketing tycoon randomly in Barcelona one day. Julien had already seen some of his footage that the Finnish distributor had sent him, so he told Samu to get in touch if he was ever back in town. Said and done. When Samu, Eniz and crew travelled to Barcelona last year, Samu sent Julien a little email to let him know he’d be around and down for a skate or a pint when ever. It just so happened, that the C1rca Europe team was in Barcelona at the same time. “I ended up skating with them every other day and with my friends from Finland every other day pretty much.” Did he have to tell his old friends to piss off every second morning; he had new friends now? “It was Eniz who told me to forget them and go skate with the C1rca dudes!” Few months later Samu was on the team, on his way to something new once again.
Samu rides for Blind Europe, C1rca shoes, Quiksilver clothing and Lamina skateshop.
