The Kris Markovich interview.

IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHO KRIS MARKOVICH IS, YOU'RE AN IDIOT. From the early days of streetstyle, through the pressure flip doldrums and into the future, Mr Markovich has been hauling balls-full-speed-ahead attacks past the critics, business entanglements, and lost motivation that has sidelined so many of his generation. Facing 2002 at the reins of multiple emerging empires, Kris continues to push and challenge himself on the streets and in the board room. The next 10 years of Markovich promise to be equally interesting.

Were you one of those kids who was sponsored within the first six months of getting on a skateboard?

Actually, yeah, I think I was got sponsored pretty quick. I got sponsored by a shop after about three or tour months and I moved to Atlanta right after that. I went to the Hell Tour demo--John Grigley, Steve Rocco, and John Lucero. Steve Rocco put me on Venture.

How old were you?

Fourteen.

So you'd been skating for under a year and you were already on Venture?

Yeah, I started when I was 13. 1986.

What were your early skate days like?

It was jump ramp days when I got into it. I lived in these condominiums with this black top and there was this little slope into a flat part. I had pink and black Sims B-52s on a Jeff Phillips board, and I'd push down the slope as fast as I could and grab my rail and see how far I could slide. That's how I started skating, doing death drops off a dumpster. I never built anything. I didn't know how. Then I moved to another house and I acquired a quarterpipe from this kid. I put it in my drive-way we'd have contests to see who could do the longest axle stalls.

Who was the first skater you were blown away by?

In those days you couldn't just walk into a stole and get a skateboard magazine. It's netlike it is today where skateboarding is everywhere. I remember I got this magazine and it had this photo of Gonzales and he's flying off this weird wedge-spine ramp, doing this weird cross-bone air and he's reaching for the tail of his board. I tried to do that. I didn't have a jump ramp but I'd go to this vert ramp and launch off the side all day into the dirt. So I worked on trying that trick for a long time. I had people taking Polaroids of me, seeing if I could do it.

I think so because I skated every day. Most of my friends, when I first started, would just skate here and there and I skated all day, from when I got out of school until I had to go in. When I first started I skated vert. I'd start on the flat. I could do airs out. I could do everything, but I could never drop in. And this guy Sloan Bush, he had this ramp. He was full-surf guy. I'd go to his house and I'd skate and I could do those early-grab front-side 540s like that terrible guy would do.

Did you always seem to be progressing faster than your friends were?

Jeff Jones?

Yeah, Jeff Jones. And it came to a point where they told me I couldn't skate the ramp unless I dropped in. They were like: "This sucks. You're the best guy at the ramp, but you don't drop in." So I showed up one day, full session going on and I'm standing at the bottom, and they're like, 'Nope, you have to drop in." So I finally did it, and then I was allowed to skate the ramp.

Florida was pretty notorious as far as being pretty hesh and vert oriented. What was your scene like?

I was from Pensacola. They had the YMCAs there and it was really Zorlac. Zorlac in the '90s was really different from Zorlac in the '80s. They had the Zombu wheels and the Deadbolts and Scott Stanton skated one of the Y's and was pro for them. His whole crew was like dreadlocks, huge hip pads, T-shirts with screens all over them, and tons of sweaty pads. I was young and had to get a ride into town and I'd see these guys and be all, "These guys are pretty gnarly. They smoke pot! They drink beer!" I was always kind of scared of them. At this point I hadn't had avert ramp in a while, so I was skating street more. Pensacola had two different YMCA skateparks, one of which, Myrtle Grove, was more street oriented. So we went there and the guys at the vert park didn't like us 'cause we were the new school guys.

What pros did you look up to after you got more into it?

I still liked Gonzales, but I had seen this Santa Cruz video with Julien Stranger. He had a part and he bombed a hill and killed it. It looked like he had really loose trucks but still had tons of control so me and this one other friend tried to see how loose we could get our trucks and still skate. I basically got to the point where I'd put the bolt on one thread and then super-glue it on so it wouldn't fall off. You'd pick up my board and the trucks would just flop back and forth. So for like a year and a halt I'd have my trucks this loose and try and do my tricks as fast as I could go. We had this thing where we'd say, "Nah, we've got to do it like Julien would do it!" I'd never met Julien in my life and all I'd seen was this little video but we still thought, "We've got to do it like Julien!" Then, when I went to California, I actually met him and came back like, "You'll never believe...I met Julien." After that, we were all into Hensley and I was a little Hensley clone like everybody else. I had the cut- off cargo pants, Chukka boots with striped socks, shaved head. It's like how you see everyone looking like Jamie Thomas now.

In those days contests were pretty important. Were you serious about them back then?

I went to them because it was something to do. I never really thought I had to win them, but wanted to go to all of them because it was skateboarding. Luckily I had my dad behind me and he'd take me to all the contests. I played baseball and I broke my elbow and couldn't play anymore, so my dad got 100-percent behind my skateboarding. He was like: "OK, he seems to be really good at skateboarding. He's only been doing it for this long and he's already got people interested in him, so this is what he's going to do." So he took me to all the contests. The contests I traveled to I was nervous, so I'd keep to myself and just try and get my lines down and take my runs. As far as the local contests, Pensacola had a lot of them, so me and my friends would just dork around but we'd always get like one, two, three and four. Sometimes I'd win or it would be The Dude, Ricky Bedenbaugh, or Pete Kelly.

Who were some at the skaters you met and skated against or with back then that people would still have heard of now?

Charlie Thomas, Duane Pitre, Sal Barbier-Sal and I were on Eppic together. Pete Kelly, but he's more known on the East Coast.

What was your first big road trip?

I flew to San Francisco to go the am finals in Reno. It was a really terrifying road trip. I had gotten on Dogtown and it was Jim Muir, Wade Speyer, JJ Rogers, Ray Dillon, and Bill Weiss. We drove out from San Francisco and picked up the guys and there were a lot of illegal substances going on. I was a little kid. I'd maybe drank beer a little bit, that's it, and they had everything in the van. We got to the hotel the first night and Weiss was out of hand, naked, running around the hotel, all these girls everywhere. There was a lot of debauchery going on. My parents flew out to watch me skate in the contest so I stayed in their room. My mom was like, "Oh Lord. This is what my son's going to be doing real soon."

Why did you decide to pursue skating outside at Florida?

Well, I didn't graduate from high school. I tailed an English test and didn't get my diploma. So my dad said, "You can see how you do in the contest and depending on that you can go to summer school, then community college, and then Florida State," because at that time the NSA amateur contests were a big deal. This was right when Justin Girard had quit Dogtown to go pro for New Deal, so Dogtown needed a new pro. So right before my run in the finals, my dad tells me that if I make top 10, Dogtown is going to turn me pro. He tells me this right before my run. Luckily I got second. Jim Muir comes up to me and says, "Congratulations. I talked to your dad. You're going to stay out for awhile. Back to the City is in two and a half weeks. You're gonna skate in that contest!" I was like, "What do you mean?" And he's, "You're pro now!" I was like, "Holy shit! Alright." I was just this kid from Pensacola. So I did that contest and went back home. I had a couple months before I turned 18 and the whole time I was there I kept calling my mom, "Yeah Mom, I've got a place I can stay. As soon as I turn 18, I'm moving out here." The guys at Dogtown are all, "We need you out here for photos. We can't have you back east. You'll get lazy and there's no photographers."

So it just got dropped in your lap.

Yeah. This was 1990. They told me, "Hey, it's not free money skateboarding." That's pretty much an exact quote. "It's not free money. You can work in the warehouse in the mornings and then skate in the afternoons. You work three or four hours in the warehouse and we'll pay you that way. It's not free money!" At the time they were pretty small, so that's how they were doing it. So they raised a stink when I ended up moving to San Diego. My family moved out to San Francisco to find a place and could not find a good apartment.

Wait. Your whole family moved out when you turned pro?

Yeah. Well, my mom and my sister and Ted Newsome. My dad stayed back to work for three or so years so we could afford to live out here.

This is going to sound weird to all the kids whose parents don't even want them to skate.

My sister was working to be a physical therapist, so she was willing to move out to pursue that and my mom had gone to college near San Diego, so she always liked it and wanted to go back. My mom was like, "You're the baby of the family and we don't want you by yourself across the country." I kept telling them, "As soon as I turn 18, Dogtown is going to fly me out there and I'm going to get a place," and my family is like, "Well, we need to talk to you about this." So we had a meeting and it was decided that my sister and mom were going to move out and my dad was going to work for awhile and then join us.

Was there a lot of pressure knowing your whole family was changing their lives around yours?

Looking back on it, yeah. I would never put that on them again. They were totally behind it, and me being young and just totally psyched on being a skateboarder and getting to go to California I didn't care. I was just a stupid kid. Looking. back now, I can't believe they did it.

But you couldn't find 3 place in SF?

No, not a good one; we were used to Florida prices and in San Francisco you have to pay a lot more to live in a bad neighborhood. So my mom decides we should take a break from looking for houses and go down to San Diego for awhile. We had started T-Bags by then and Steve Ortega had come to do a demo in Pensacola and really liked the stuff and my mom and dad, so we had been sending him stuff. So I called him and told him I'd be in San Diego. We were staying at a hotel and me and Ted went skating with Steve. We got back to Steve's house from skating and his mom says, "Yeah, your mom called. You got a house." We were there two days and she found a house in Carlsbad. So that was the start of it all.

The Dude told me I should ask you about your first board graphic.

My first board graphic-I was trying to carry on with the whole Dogtown Cross theme. It was this doped-out penguin. I'd been drawing penguins a lot and I drew this penguin with a backwards hat on and a big gold chain with a cross. My friend DJ is the biggest freak in the world. He's the greatest guy, but the biggest freak, So he sketched one out and we sent it to Dogtown. He also put it carrying an Uzi. So it was this doped-out penguin with a gold chain with a Dogtown cross on it holding an Uzi. If there's anyone out there that has one, please get to me because I need one so bad.

So how did moving to San Diego sit with Dogtown?

They didn't like it. They didn't want me in Southern California. This was a pretty weird month of my life. So Mike Taylor from Arizona was hanging around. Mike was pro for G&S--the newly formed G&S after everyone left for Alien Workshop. It was kind of shitty but Shannon May, Heintzman, and Blaize Blouin were still on. So Mike Taylor invited me over and I get to his house and it's really nice. I'm thinking, "Man, this dude is doing pretty good," and then this guy comes around the corner and it's Gator. He was staying at Gator's house! Gator's super nice, all, "Hi. How you doin'?" and the next thing I know I was skating with Gator every day. I was like a kid in a candy store. We'd skate this mini-ramp called the Ant Ramp and street skate and go to McGill's with Gator. Vision was kind of ending and Gator was going to ride for G&S. So one day I went with them to the G&S warehouse. At this time I had gotten a $150-dollar check from Dogtown and they said it was for K-9 wheels royalties. So John Hogan tells me, "We 'll pay you $500 bucks to quit Dogtown and then pay you $500 a month to ride for G&S." I was like, "You're joking." I couldn't believe anyone would pay me that much money to skateboard. I called them on the spot and quit Dogtown. That's when I got the fries model. It was a picture of McDonald's fries and the golden arches that said Markovich.

Is this when you got your first photo in a magazine?

Right before that I got a photo in Thrasher and a Venture ad and it said, "New Pro: Kris Markovich." Nobody had any idea who I was. So right when I got to Carlsbad I lived down the street from Ocean Howell and he was big time. Everybody knew who he was, and he was am. So I went down to introduce myself and he had no idea who I was or that I was pro.

Were you ever sell-conscious about it?

At first I wasn't, but after moved away and then went to Pensacola some of my friends told me all these rumors about people talking shit on me, saying I wasn't good enough to be pro. I heard Jamie Thomas was talking shit and Pete Kelly too and then when I'd see them it was like we were best friends. I think everyone who has such sudden success goes through the same thing. I'm not holding any grudges. It was part of being young, but I felt kind of betrayed. I thought everyone would be stoked for me.

You were one of the first skaters to really get nuts as far as big gaps. What inspired you to start going bigger in your tricks?

I had always skated bigger stuff. I had always ollied big things, It was like a novelty. I'd try to do tech stuff. I wanted to do harder tricks, but I think I skated too fast to really learn a lot of the more tech stuff. I'd kill myself trying to learn 360 flips 'cause I'd always try them as fast as I could go. I remember seeing Frankie Hill ollie big stuff and I thought that maybe I should have gone out to California earlier. I was a Hensley fan, but I was amazed by Frankie Hill. I thought that maybe if I'd moved out a few years earlier I could have been doing some of the stuff like what he was doing and get my name out there a little better instead of being pro instantly with no one knowing who I was.

Do you remember the first thing you did where people thought, "Oh no, that's too big?"

I remember seeing this huge gap. Sturt wanted me to ollie it with a motorcycle helmet on, like an Evel Knievel helmet. I went there with Sturt and I thought, "No, I don't want to ollie this thing." Then I saw a photo of Jamie ollieing it and I thought, "Oh shit that's huge!" That water gap was pretty scary. Now that people have done tricks over it I wish I had done something besides just ollie it, but at the time it was pretty scary. The double set at Carlsbad, the one Jeremy kickflipped, I had an Airwalk poster doing a frontside 160 down it. That was a long time ago and I remember thinking that I was going to land on the steps. It was definitely big for me at the time.

So what was your next sponsor after G&S?

101. I went to Europe and I was having problems with the team manager at the time. I was in Barcelona and the first day I got jumped and got the living crap beat out of me. I went to the contest and was talking to Danny Way and he told me, "Hey, you should quit G&S and ride for H-Street 'cause when we get back we're all going to quit and have this new team, NXT." That was what became Plan B. So he told me he was starting this new company. So Rick Howard was there and he had quit Blockhead and I quit G&S and we were traveling around together and had no money. We went to Titus skateshop and they still thought Rick rode for Blockhead. I had sold all my dirty clothes, my bag, everything. We went in the shop and Rick billed a ton of stuff to Blockhead anti we both loaded up. We had so much shit and we got on a bus and went to Le Grand Bornand and stayed with Rob Dyrdek. I ended up getting fifth and Rick got fourth at that contest, and I got $600 dollars cash and we had to figure out how to get to England because m y mom and sister were coming to meet me in England. We stayed with them and went skating while they went shopping and then Rick went home a day before I did. As luck would have it, he was there for the big meeting to have Plan B. They wanted me to ride for Plan B, but then there were too many people or something and Natas wanted some more people for 101; at the time it was just him and Gabriel. Rocco's like, "No, Markovich is going to be on 101." Jordan Richter was staying at my house at the time, so I was calling home and having him talk to Rocco for me. I got home and I called World Industries and they're like, "Yeah, you're on 101." So they sent me a box.

The World companies were considered the coolest companies at the time. What was it like on the inside?

I'm not sure. You knew you had the best shit. You knew the best dudes were on your team. I was probably cocky, I don't really know. I'm sure you could find someone who'd tell you, "Yeah man, those guys were dicks." I went on a little demo tour through Illinois with Sal Barbier and we just dorked it the whole time. We were like, "Hey, we're on Plan B and 101--pffft--it doesn't matter." I don't think we did one serious demo. Sal's the funniest dude on Earth, so we just laughed the whole way.

But four years earlier, you would have been killing yourself at a demo.

Yeah. This was when the lazy trend came in.

Who were your best friends at this time?

I lived in Carlsbad. I was hanging out with Ocean Howell. I was hanging out at the Blockhead house. I'd see Dave Metty a lot. Ricky Bedenbaugh came out for awhile. I hung out with Marc Hostetter 'cause I was on A-1 Meats.

Did you ever rob the World warehouse?

Yeah, I had a Honda Civic and I backed it up to the warehouse. This was when the World warehouse was in Torrance and they didn't have anything close to an organized inventory system. I got a 10-board box and strategically placed wheels, stacking them in rows, and this was when wheels were 49, and I filled a whole box. I got tour or five boxes of boards, a box of clothes...Blind jeans were the shit at the time, so I got a box of them.

Were you much of a board focuser?

Oh yeah.

What was your record for the most boards focused in one day?

Eight or 10. Yeah. Dyrdek lived across the way from me. By the way, Rob is one of the most underrated skaters in the industry, for people who don't know. So I was leaving Rob's house, wearing some boots or something and I said, "Hey, I'm gonna go home and then go skate." I had just set a board up and did a little pop shove-it oft the curb and the tail snapped right oft. I looked at it and said, "No, I'm gonna go home and smoke weed." It didn't matter then; boards were nothing. I'd set up a board and roll out of Street Life and firecracker down the steps and it wouldn't sound right and just, whack, focus it. I didn't even think that maybe I could just take it off and give it to a kid. You just broke boards for no reason.

How were outsiders treated when they tried to come into these cool circles like EMB or World warehouse?

Horribly, but by the grace of God I managed to get off on the right foot with the guys at EMB. Wing Ding had come to my town to do a demo and had broken a truck and I had Ventures in the car so I gave him a new set. So then when I showed up at EMB he was sitting in the group with all the guys and is all, "Hey, what's up!" in front of everybody. Also, Kelch was kind of about to get on Dogtown and I gave him one of my proto-type shapes. I knew Greg Carroll and had met Jovontae through him. I could just as easily been one of these guys who came out from Florida and got tortured. It sounds all bad, but you've got to think about it. This is their skate spot. They made it what it was and they had to run from the cops and avoid getting tickets and all that. Then on top of that they had to deal with every human who rides a skateboard wanting to skate that place, coming from the ends of the Earth to skate EMB. They made that spot and then had to deal with not being able to skate because every dude in the world is ther e. Really, if you showed up and weren't an asshole, which isn't very hard to do, if you think about it, you wouldn't have any problems. It they didn't like you, you were tucked. Hell, I can see why they don't like you. Look at you!

You were one of the first dudes to rock the really big pants. Can you remember the occasion where someone handed you an enormous pair of yellow pants and you said, "Perfect!?"

The way it happened for me, my mom always made clothes--that's how T-Bags started--and I used to always rip the crotch out of my pants pushing. Back then there were no loose pants. All there was were Levi's. You could maybe get away with sweat pants, but that was it. So my mom staffed making me pants with lower crotches, but when you have regular pants with a low crotch it looks funny, it looks like MC Hammer pants, so they staffed getting a little bit baggier. So that turned into T-Bags. I just wore oversized jeans. That's horrible you're pinning it all on me.

It's nothing to be ashamed of! You influenced a whole nation. What were the biggest ones you ever rocked?

I remember I wore some Fuct shorts, because Natas did those for awhile. And I remember going over to this ghetto area where they were being made and getting the first batch of Fuct shorts and being, "Oh my God, these are so rad!" They were that thick-brushed denim, mustard yellow. They came down to the middle of my shin and I walked out of there like I was the coolest dude in the world. Those were probably the biggest ones I wore.

Where did you get the name T-Bags?

As much as people want to think that it's something vulgar, it's not. My mom had this exercise clothing company a long time ago and it was called Body Bags because the shirt had a draw string at the bottom and it turned into a bag that you could put the pants in after you were done working out. So later she was making me these big pants and people saw them and started wanting them for their shops. She wanted to name them something that had to do with her original company name and I though maybe Team Bags, because, at the time, there were a lot of companies that were like Team something. So I said Team Bags and she thought I said. T-Bags and it was a joke, and then it kinda stuck.

Talk about your fake Foundation ad.

I don't really know. That was a weird one. I rode for 101 at the time but I almost quit to ride for Foundation. I loved 101 and Natas, but I didn't feel like I was going anywhere. I had a lot of ideas, but he was the artist, it was his company, and he had a direction he wanted to go and I didn't feel like I could have much input. I don't want to own everything or anything like that, but I've always wanted to have certain freedoms to do what I want to do. At the time I was a kid so I'm sure I didn't communicate it too well. I went down to talk to Ted about riding for Foundation and I was going to ride for them, but first I needed to talk to Natas. Then Foundation came out with the happy penis board, with my name on it and then ran a Foundation ad of me ollieing a double set. So I was like, "Whoa!" I wasn't sure what was going on. How did you explain it to Natas?

I just told him what had happened straight up, and he just told me, "Well, why didn't you tell me? Let's just work on some stuff to make you happy." So I was like, "What was I thinking? I don't wanna quit World!" So we did the 101 ad to get back at them where it said, "Foundation boards, once again available through World Industries." That was kind of a little weird thing.

What tricks did you do back then that have gone on to become standards?

I don't know that I really invented anything that has become standard. I learned bigflips back then. Grant Brittain asked if I could do 360 kickflip backside 180s. He said, "Hey, can you do those? We're doing an article on flip tricks and we want you to do that." I was like, "Sure, I can do those!" I had never done one before in my life. So I showed up at the spot two hours early and learned the trick. Then he showed up and I got a sequence of it.

A lot of people criticize that time period, with the small wheels and big pants, as being a bad time for skateboarding. What's your take on that?

Oh, it was horrible. I was in that, but I thank the Lord that I never got caught up in pressure flip days. Of course, I learned them, but there were only a few guys like Jovontae and Mike Carroll who could do them right. Brian Lotti could make them look good so they weren't like the toe-drag New Deal nightmare. They were just illegal. You couldn't do them fast and you couldn't pop them high. I learned how to do pressure flips, but I could already do inward heelflips and it's pretty much the same thing, except you can pop and inward heelflip high. I could do them better than pressure flips, so I kind of went with that. Not like I wasn't as guilty as the next guy of other horrible stuff. In the 101 video I do a switch heelflip and I'm pretty sure my griptape hits the ground and it was perfectly legal at the time, It was a disgusting time in skateboarding. I'm amazed skateboarding even survived, It went from Blind Video Days-amazing--to complete shit a year later.

Do you remember when the video camera became a regular fixture on the skate scene?

I can remember going to skate the Carlsbad gap because it was just something to skate. There was no photographer or cameraman around; it was just skating. Nowadays Little Bobby won't even go skate unless he has a filmer and a fisheye lens. It kind of kills the whole deal. No matter where you're at there's a camera around. It's like you do it once, "Oh, I did it!," and that's that. It used to be more like, "Oh yeah, the other day I kickflipped that gap, so let's go back and get a picture." It wasn't a staple thing to have around...maybe video cameras got cheaper. I'm not sure when, that started.

So how did 101 end?

I talked to Rocco, because I just wanted to get out from under Natas. I wanted to switch over to World. Being young and wanting to do my own stuff, I butted heads with him. I wanted to make a graphic poking fun at Scott Stanton 'cause he was this gnarly guy and had always given me and the street skaters around Pensacola a hard time. I wanted to do a skull graphic with Markovich written in Metallica letters and do a Zorlac rip-off graphic. I remember telling that to Natas and he said, "Oh, great. You'll sell all two of them," and it totally crushed me. We ended up making it, with a toothbrush jammed through a skull and it was one of the best-selling boards at the time. It was just really weird; I just wasn't into it anymore. So I wanted to switch over to World and Rocco wouldn't let me, so I just quit altogether. I was riding for Union wheels at the time and Mark Oblow approached me and we made this business plan and took it up to Metiver and presented it to him to make Color skateboards.

Who was the line-up?

Kyle Yanagimoto, Caine Gayle, Que Nguyen, Jeremy Wray, Jason Dill, Jason Maxwell, and Mike Santarossa--it just kind of morphed into Prime. A lot of shady stuff started going on. Metiver didn't treat Oblow good at all. He was treating him like shit. Then I had this seven color Hendrix graphic. The thing was, they would make the boards in San Diego, screen them there at this place called Colors, and then ship them up to Freedom, California, or wherever Color was. So the extra shipping added to the price of the boards. Metiver told us, "OK, Kris and Jeremy can have seven color graphics and everyone else can only have two or three color graphics." So the dudes at Color called Metiver and told him that this Hendrix board of mine had this many colors and was going to cost this much and Metiver's like, "Well, just leave a couple colors out." He neglected to tell me about this, and the board shows up with these black blobs where the colors were supposed to be. So stuff like that and just how he treated 0 blow, plus t here was a discrepancy with money. These boards were a hot item for a quick second but we weren't seeing any money. He told my parents, "Yeah, just wait, soon Kris will be making like $10,000 a month!" He was living in the '80s. He was always cool to me; I'll give him that. But then I started talking to Rocco and he wanted me to quit Color, and Jeremy and I would go and ride for Plan B. He was like, "Yeah, maybe you can start a wheel company and be in charge of that or Oblow can work on that," but at the time I had just put Mike Crum on the team. I had just turned Caine pro and I didn't just manna leave them behind. I didn't wanna just bail and do something for myself. So we switched it over to World and wanted to keep the name Color, but Metiver wasn't having that. He kept it around for a few months and then it became People skateboards. Our new company was Prime.

What kind of checks were you pulling in around these times?

In the 101 days I was making around $2,000 a month. In the Prime days, that's when it got good. I started making, like, $4,000 a month. It's funny, though, because if you look back to the '80s those guys made a lot. It's not like I would ever put myself on the same level as guys like Gator and Hosol, but those guys made a lot more than we ever did. But at the time, for being 22, four grand a month was really good.

What was the situation with trying to kickflip Wallenberg?

Retarded.

Do you think you could've made it?

I pretty much did. I rode on it for a second and then fell on my ass. I should have gone back a week later, but I couldn't walk the next day. This isn't an excuse, but if you go to Wallenberg, the ones that I landed on, I got to go off the left side where it's flush with the white. On the right side it slopes down so you have to ollie early. So there was this tunnel of people and they were shifting, so some of the tries I didn't even get to go off the good part. I was just too worn out and couldn't move. I'm stoked that Danny Gonzalez and Frank kickflipped it. That's gnarly. I actually went and tried it one other time. I had skated all day in SF and I was wearing Hensley's shoes, which are basically Converse low tops. I went to Wallenberg and I ollied it and thought, "Yeah, could kickflip it," and tried it once and my heels completely blew up.

So after Prime, the sponsor you went to was Element?

That was a weird time, because we had finished making the Prime video Fight Fire with Fire and it was an amazing experience. We all skated together and went out filming together and one guy would get something and we'd all get motivated. Everybody on the team worked together. We'd do everything together. So the video came out and then everybody took a little break. Then when we started working on the next video, nothing was the same. Everybody had kind of gone their separate ways; not that they weren't into it, everybody was just doing their own thing. Oblow was starting to take photos a lot and film Super-8, and had started Coffee clothing and was really into that, It just didn't have the same feeling and it was weird. Right towards the end of that my dad died and I freaked out. I didn't know how to deal with that. I had to be strong and be the man of the family and the backbone, now, for a little while. I felt like if I was going to survive and pull it off I was going to need a positive environment with peo ple around me who I knew were my friends. I just didn't think anybody at World really cared. I had an incident with Rocco at the trade show. Looking back on it, it a trade show and he was super busy, he had his own stuff going on. But at the time, my dad had just died and I'm dealing with that and then one week later I'm at the trade show and I was needing attention from Rocco and he just seemed really insensitive. He wasn't, he was just really busy. But I said, "You know what? I quit. I can't be around this." And I quit and didn't have a sponsor for awhile. I was gonna quit skateboarding. I didn't know how to deal with death. I'd never dealt with anybody close to me ever dying. My dad was my best friend and he died. I didn't skate for two weeks and was thinking, "Man, skateboarding is so lame right now. I don't even want to be any part of it." Then one day I thought, "What am I thinking? I love skateboarding! Skateboarding has taken me around the world." I found myself going skating and decided to figure out who I could ride for. Johnny Schillereff was friends with Oblow and so I was hanging out with him a little. I had met Steve Douglas and he was cool. At the time, Giant was just OK. They had New Deal and Element and Mad Circle, which was the best thing they had. They couldn't really sell Element boards at the time. It was a time when they just weren't good. But I thought Johnny was cool and he said, "Well, we've got to talk to the team." So I started to skate with Dave Duren. We went to' this rail at UCSD and I felt like I really had to bust out for Dave, so he'd put in a good word for me. I felt like a little kid again. So I got on the team and it was cool. They treated me good and it was a really good team. I didn't go on there to be on the gnarliest team--I had just left World, which was pretty much the shit--I went there for friendship and support. I became pretty good friends with Reese, but for some reason Johnny Schillereff never liked me at all. I was just a cash cow for him. Looking back on it, I still feel like I was a naive little kid. Johnny was just really fake, really fake to everybody. That's just the way he is. So I had gone to Japan with Reese and Dimitry before when Susan was over there modeling and it was just complete party time. I didn't do a thing and was just a drunk jackass the whole time. So the next time we went with the Element team for a 411 travel thing, I wanted to make it up to them. I didn't drink and I just skated all day everyday. So I guess I was playing the part of the sober asshole and I had some words with some of the guys on the team. I know Kenny had problems with Ricky over some video thing and they were talking shit on him, and I called him out on it. Kenny and I hadn't gotten along for a long time. He's a great skateboarder but we just didn't get along. I had words with some of the other guys and I just thought, "Why am I on tills team? The egos are too big around here. They're too into themselves." I had a talk with Donny, who is great, and he wanted me to stay on the team. I'd love to be on a team with Donny, he's such an amazing skater, but I had to quit. I got in touch with Tod and flew home to LA, drove straight to San Diego and hammered out the deal. They threw a party for me that night, for getting on Foundation and I got super drunk, ripped open a Corona box and drew my graphics. The next day I left for Paris for a week. When I got back they had my boards done and an ad. They had taken my picture at the party and made all those masks for the Being Kris Markovich ad.

Granted, you came up in a very volatile time for skate business. As evidence of that, most of the companies you rode for don't exist anymore. But what did all the times you quit have in common, if any?

I think it's just a feeling I get. My dad used to tell me to always be loyal and I agree with that, but after this much time in the industry, I know that bottom line, no one is going to be loyal to you. It doesn't matter if you're best friends with everyone at the company. If you get hurt and can't skate for six months, for the first month they're gonna be all, "Yeah, yeah. We're all behind you, get better." But after that, if you don't have photos to supplement the time you are out, they're gonna kick you off. Somebody's gonna take your place and you're gonna be out. I've seen it happen many times. I've had legitimate reasons to quit, but still, you have to do what's going to be best for you. Bottom line: It's a business so you have to take better offers and opportunities. You're an idiot if you don't. That's why I don't have a problem quitting companies.

What made you want to start your own company?

I was riding for Foundation and everything was great, but it was weird, in one week I got three different offers to do my own company somewhere else and I got this one offer that was completely ridiculous--so much money. So I started to think and I talked to Tod and he told me it I had a better offer to take it. I said, "But I just got on Foundation. I love Tumyeto, I don't want to leave Tumyeto, but is there anything else we can do?" Tod didn't want to start a new company but he's all, "Maybe down the line we can start something." That was before I got the really ridiculous offer. So we had another meeting and I'm like, "Look, let's do something." I didn't make any demands or ultimatums. I didn't want to be the owner or get more money, maybe just get paid as creative director and still skate for Foundation. I just got together with Dorian and came up with the name and some ideas, I came up with a million board graphics and ad ideas and it just ballooned. By the next trade show it was going full force and I s witched over from Foundation. It wouldn't have happened except I put so much work into it.

Of the three pros on Hollywood, Staab was probably the most unexpected. Why did you pick him in particular for the team?

I was hanging out with him at a bar in a weird town on the Hawk tour. I loved Kevin as a kid, but you never saw enough of him. I had seen him around Encinitas when I lived there and always liked him. So I was hanging out with him in this terrible bar and he's wearing his bright leather jacket and we start talking. He had been ripping the vert ramps on the Hawk tour and I told him I had started Hollywood and maybe we could hook him up. He's all, "Whatever, let's talk about this when you're sober." So we started talking about it a little more and I said, "I don't know how much I can do for you. Maybe just board sales or whatever." I talked to Tod and he was into it, so it just came out of left field. I'm stoked on Staab. He's great with the kids and great when he tours with Hawk, so we just did it.

How do you know when an am should turn pro?

I don't know. Don's freakin' better than I am, so...

Don's pro?

Yeah. Don's our next pro.

Well, congratulations Don.

Yeah. Good job, Don.

What would a team rider have to do to Vet kicked off?

Something pretty gnarly, 'cause I've done some pretty stupid shit in my time. Basically it would be the pot calling the kettle black. I can't really do anything. The only thing I can think of is if someone on the team got me arrested, got Susan arrested or got someone else on the team arrested or just stopped skating. Really that would be the only thing. Right now, there are so many amazing kids out there. So, not skating would be the only thing. Honestly, I'm too good of friends with the guys on the team, It would have to be somebody else coming down on them, like someone above me telling me, "You've got to get rid of this guy."

What's the best way to stay sane in a tour situation?

Pharmaceuticals and headphones.

What's the worst blow-out you've ever seen?

Everybody getting in a tight with someone else on the team. Getting into the van and it's just complete silence because there's so much tension.

Is there any truth to the reports that you require permanent shotgun?

That's weird. Not at all, On long tours, I'll sit shotgun because I don't sleep and I've had the nightmare of near accidents from the driver falling asleep. I went on a Duffs tour with Dimitry and caught him swerving into the median at 80-miles-per-hour because he fell asleep. After that I decided I was going to be on guard in shotgun. Hell, if I can get it I'll take it. I'd rather sit shotgun than be pressed up against some sweaty dude.

What's the downside of being a take-charge kind of person?

It you don't do it yourself, it'll get tucked up. A lot of dudes in skateboarding wouldn't be able to figure out how to go buy socks if you didn't point them in the right direction. Luckily the guys on my team are good at taking care of themselves, even though they're hessian dirtballs. They might not seem like it, but they're all pretty intelligent. At the same time, they're kids. They don't want responsibility. They want to have fun and fuck around. The downside of being in charge is you turn into what Jeff Taylor calls the "dark man." It's the dark man syndrome. You've got to wake everybody up. You've got to tell them, "OK guys, you've got to stop partying cause we have to be at the shop in the morning." You become the asshole.

Have you had any great rivals over the years?

No, not really. There were comparisons with Jamie and me, but since then he's pretty much surpassed me tenfold in what he can do on a skateboard. Maybe I don't like a lot of the stuff he does business-wise or the way he acts or does things, but I'd be a complete idiot if I said I didn't like the way he skateboards or respect what he's done. He's just gnarly. There was a little bit of rivalry, but then he took it to another level.

I'd have to say Tony Hawk. I go on the Internet and I see these message boards where people say he's a sellout or whatever, but Tony's done more for the sport of skateboarding than anyone. A big reason why these pros are driving the cars they're driving and making the money and buying the houses is partially because of what Tony's done. He opened it up and brought the big money into skateboarding. There's a downside of it by bringing big business into skateboarding, but the upside is there's more money, more parks, more contests, more places to skate and skateboarding's more accepted. Tony's done it right. He's had his ups and downs and stuck with it. He's the best that ever touched a skateboard and he's opened doors for a lot of people.

What fellow pros' careers do you admire?

You're in great shape, but I remember some photos were you looked kind of heavy. Have you ever been fat?

Yeah. I think I was...I probably was. I've never been tall. I get that all the time, 'Hey, you look a lot taller in the videos." I used to be skinny as a rail until I was like 23/24, then my metabolism changed or whatever, and I started packin' 'em on. I was drinking a lot of beer at the time. I'm sure that didn't help.

How'd you remedy the problem?

I just started watching what I ate; I eat really good. I skateboard a lot and I don't drink as much anymore.

Of course it's tough. It's a big step, but it's Susan. You know what I mean? I knew she was the one. The hardest part was talking to her dad about it, but he was great. He made it real easy. He's like, "It's about time you asked!"

Was it a tough decision to get married?

What's been your worst experience with a photographer?

Dan Sturt throwing film at me. I was taking a sequence photo a long, long time ago when I rode for 101. I had these two benches together and I was doing a lipsilde pop-up to noseblunt slide. I lipslid the bench a couple times and was warming up while he was setting his flashes up and he's like, "Don't do it! Don't do it! Wait 'til I'm set up!" So second try I land it perfectly and he's still setting up. It took like six or seven rolls of film and after the sixth roll he rips the film out of the camera and throws it at me.

I'm gonna play the Devil's advocate. You're starting a new shoe company called 88. Why does the world need 88 shoes?

Every shoe company has their one model, their one shoe that's really simple and plain. We're making a whole line of really plain, really simple skateboarding shoes--no bells and whistles, just really good shoes. Every company has their one simple shoe, and then all the rest are really wild. There's wild shoes everywhere. We're just working on a good image and a good skateboarding shoe.

If he's man enough to do it! I wanna settle it this way because I don't want to beat the shit out of him and have him sue me. If he's man enough to do it, I want to do it legit. He's a bad drunk and he talked shit and we had an altercation. I won't even say I beat him up, but I did what I did to him. I'm walking up the street, Susan's walking a few feet behind, someone was getting a DUI, and as I'm looking in the police car Fernandez just drops me, full sucker punch. He laid me out. I wasn't even looking. That's fine. That's great. I had just roughed him up and it showed he had the balls. That's not even why I want to tight him--he did this in front of a group of cops so he's immediately in cuffs. As he's getting walked over to the police car in the cuffs, my wife comes up and slaps him in the face full force. They grab her and put her in the other car. They had me up against the wall and they asked me if I wanted to press charges against him and I said no. I told them I'm a pro skateboarder, he's a pro skate boarder, and we've got enough problems as it is; I'm not going to retaliate against him. It was no big deal. Meanwhile, Fernandez is in the back of the cop car screaming about how he wants to press charges on my wife. That's where he tucked up. And that's why I want to get in the ring with him, but I don't think he will. What are the conditions?

Without getting into all the details, is it true that you want to publicly box Chad Fernandez at the trade show?

I said I'd put up the pink slip on my car. But that's irrelevant. I don't think there really should be a wager. If he wants to do it right, he should get his sponsors and I'll get my sponsors and we'll set it up like a celebrity boxing match, like a three-round thing. Get in the ring, make it a real deal, and have the sponsors put up a purse. Whoever wins gets that purse. Honestly, I don't think he's man enough to do it. It's funny 'cause after that night people called me up and I got thanked. People called me up to thank me for beating his ass.

These are some general philosophical questions: What is your greatest fear?

Being alone.

What is your most prized possession?

Susan.

What quality do you most admire in a friend?

Honesty.

How do you want to die?

Peacefully.

What is your greatest regret?

Not spending more time with my dad.

What has been your proudest accomplishment?

Marrying Susan.

What is your greatest strength?

Persistence.

It you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Being judgmental.

When are you the happiest?

In the evening time, sitting on the couch watching a movie with Susan.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?

All my tattoos.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

The sun.

Friday night record?

Right now, Cheerleader.

Sunday morning record?

I have a compilation of country: Skynyrd, David Allen Coe, The Highwaymen.

Favorite video?

Questionable.

Favorite photo?

Backside slide at the Flower Shop banks in Encinitas. It was in an Australian magazine.

Favorite graphic?

Slickbottom 101 graphic making fun of Sal's lowrider graphic.

Favorite shoe?

Van's Chukka Boot.

Favorite year?

1990.

Friends forever?

Susan, Charlie Thomas, Ricky Bedenbaugh, Todd Heying, Ted Newsome, and Blake Hannan.

What do you want your legacy to be?

That I was a giving, generous person.