luxuryvehicle

[luxuryvehicle]

LV #1: Nile Gibbs

Jon Colyer: Alright Nile, basic info. Let’s hear your full name, your date of birth and your hometown, where you hail from.

Nile Gibbs: My full name is Nile Duncan Gibbs. I was born in Seattle, Washington, but I grew up on Bainbridge Island, which is just across the water from Seattle. I’m 24 years old.

JC: Bainbridge Island, where is that?

NG: It’s like a ferry ride away from Seattle, 25 or 30 minutes. Just a small, small island, where you kind of know everyone. That’s where I grew up skating though, we would just take big weekend trips over to Seattle to skate the streets or the local indoor park, Innerspace.

JC: When do you first remember coming across skateboarding?

NG: Damn. I want to say I was like 11 years old. Even before I had moved over to Bainbridge… Actually, I was probably like seven or something, and we had gotten X-Games boards as a Christmas present or something, my brother and I. My mom was going to take us to the old Seaskate, the second one that was built. We get there and we were just so fearful that we ended up just skating across the street in these little tennis courts. I don’t even think we got on our boards; we were just in awe of older kids and adults skateboarding at the actual skatepark. It wasn’t until years later that I had a neighbor who I thought was cool or edgy or whatever, he like smoked cigs and could fuckin’ ollie and do tricks that I didn’t even know the names of. I was like “Damn, this could be cool to try this.” For my birthday when I turned 12 I asked for a fuckin’ Element Bamagram skateboard, I printed it out off the Internet and sent it to my grandma to ask her for it. On my birthday I ended up getting a hand-me-down board from my cousin Bergen, but I was so stoked.

JC: Who did you start skating with, who were the first people you met that skated?

NG: I had a few friends in middle school that skated, one of them, we had happened to be in the same class in elementary school, we became friends. He already could skateboard, knew how to skateboard, and he would give me all his old shoes and shit.

JC: Who was this?

NG: This was Manny (Dancel). He always had old Adio’s and shit. I had an idea of what skate shoes were, like Adio’s and the I-Path’s with the strap. He gave me those and I was like “Damn, Air Force I-Paths!”

JC: (Laughs)

NG: So it was just like, me, him and my older brother Jordan skated too. I think we picked it up around the same time; he got a board a little later. Along with his older friends that skated, we became a crew.

JC: So Manny skated before you?

NG: Yeah.

JC: But Jordan skated after you?

NG: Yeah, yeah. Manny could already ollie and shit. I remember him showing me how to jump down stairs. I would just roll off stairs, but he could actually ollie.

JC: So growing up in the Pacific Northwest, where it rains a lot, what would you do to cope with that?

NG: Fuck, it was crazy, we definitely took advantage of every dry day. And when it wasn’t dry we had this undercover area that we would go to. Fuckin’ seven days a week it seemed like, every day in the winter after school.

JC: That was the LGI?

NG: Yeah, at my high school (Editor’s Note: Bainbridge Island High School). After awhile people kind of knew us, like teachers and whoever on the school staff. We were already the rebellious kids throughout our school careers, so they knew we’d be skating after class. And we also had like an old gas station we could go to that we knew closed at 4:00 or 5:00 pm, we would wait for them to close. It was called Hockett and Olson.

JC: A gas station that closed at 5:00 pm?

NG: Yeah, and an auto body shop. It was literally as big as this room, the overhead area. But we could skate stationary flatground and the little curbs there. It was across the street from the apartments I lived in.

JC: So with you guys at the LGI seven days a week sometimes, did the teachers and the custodians and the security guards just sort of know who you were?

NG: Yeah them and typical small town folks, you know? The police? They knew us, all 10 of them or however many there were. There were times when we would get our boards taken and we wouldn’t really know how to get them back, we thought once they took them that was the end of it. It got to a point where we would just run away any time we saw a police officer.

JC: Of course.

NG: The town was so little that they would just meet us at the next spot or even get there before us. It would be a gamble whether they’d take our boards or just give us a slap on the wrist.

JC: How many people live on Bainbridge Island?

NG: I think the population is like 26,000 or something.

JC: Do you think that small town environment had an affect on the way that you skateboard now?

NG: It got me accustomed to being able to wake up early, say its dry in the morning but not at night. I’m a planner, it’s been awhile since I’ve planned anything, but when I’m skating all the time I have things planned out. Since I was 16 too, I’ve always been trying to hold a job, so I’ve also learned to skate around work.

JC: Outside of your friends, do you remember the stuff in magazines and videos back then that had an influence on you?

NG: Yeah, along with getting my first skateboard, the first two mags I ever got, I stole from the Safeway nearby where I lived. One was a Thrasher, it had Jamie Thomas on the cover barefoot, grinding a rail. (Editor’s Note: December 2006)

JC: Yup, King of the Road.

NG: Yup. And then the other one was… Skateboarder or something? Another mag that’s not in business anymore. But yeah, I stole that and it was just on from there. I thought Zero was the sickest. Jamie Thomas being The Chief and all. Even though none of that really influenced how I skated, I just thought those were like, the top-notch dudes. Same thing with Tony Hawk, I thought he was super sick, but I never really wished to skate any sort of ramp.

JC: Do you remember the first skate video you saw?

NG: My first video was a local Manik video, it was Splash or something. My friend Manny had the tape and he brought it over to watch. He had older brothers who skated and I think they were trying to show us what was out there, spot-wise. It was probably the year it came out or the year after. That video influenced me for sure. A few months later Josh Anderson, who was a local pro for Manik, ended up being the first pro skater I ever met, and he has a part in that video.

JC: When do you first remember filming tricks? Who was the first person that filmed you?

NG: Out there gettin’ it? Shit, since I was a fetus, nahm sayin’? I been making it happen!

JC: (Laughs)

NG: Nah fuck, its probably still on YouTube. It was an old Bainbridge High School edit, some dude named Kyle, who was originally from California, was filming us with like a tiny mini-DV camera as we skated this little drop. It was maybe two feet high, but we would do every trick off of it, meaning like pop shove, kickflip, heelflip. I want to say that I varial flipped it, and that trick made the cut for the video. Then I definitely would try to go skate with him and try to jump off stuff.

JC: At what point did James Lorimer enter the picture?

NG: Oh yeah, Janky (laughs). Probably like a year or two after I started skating I started seeing this kid who was just insanely good, and could skate both switch and regular. He was really good at both and I just thought that was insane. He would film videos himself and had videos he made on YouTube, so I would low key always watch those. I figured out he lived in the area, and his name was James.

JC: And he had just moved there?

NG: Yeah he had also come from California, San Diego. He was the new Cali kid coming into our scene. He knew how to skate flatground really well and that was such a big influence on me. Also filming, just going out trying to explore and film tricks. It was so crazy to think that I could hang out with dudes who were like, four or five years older than me. Especially back then, when I was like twelve, these dudes were almost adults to me, but that didn’t really matter because we were all just skating.

JC: Yeah?

NG: Yeah. But when I met James we pumped out like four or five video parts nahm sayin?

JC: (Laughs) Just to keep the timeline straight, what year was this?

NG: 2006 or something? I was 12 when he moved there, he was probably 15. Then after that I got to a point when I was about 16 or 17 when, I wasn’t like over skateboarding, but I was meeting new people and having other friends who definitely did not skateboard at all, so I kind of started doing other stuff. I have an addictive personality or whatever they call it, where you do one thing and get super into it. For me, that thing became basketball for like a year. I literally didn’t pick up my skateboard for one year.

JC: I definitely remember that year.

NG: Yeah, because I would see you guys! I would see you and James just fuckin’ skating the LGI or whatever, and try to duck.

JC: We asked you “When are you going to skate again?”

NG: James was probably a little more mean about it, he wanted to beat the shit out of me.

JC: Yeah, and at one point we asked you that and you just laughed and said “Never,” then you walked away.

NG: (Laughs) It helped too, because it disciplined me. Nothing is really handed to you, and nobody has to give you any chances either. So it’s like, just go out and get it yourself. Playing basketball on a high school level too, I got conditioned. I came back and I could ollie higher, jump over way more shit.

JC: Sick. I remember James calling me when you came back to skateboarding, he said you beat him at SKATE just trading off with just his board or something. Still doing nollie flips and tre flips and shit.

NG: Yeah! Something like that.

JC: Going backwards a little, were you already filming with Ben Ericson when you stepped away?

NG: Not really. But actually, when I was like, 14 or 15 or whatever, James met this guy that had nice camera gear and shit. He kept saying he was legit, really good at filming, just seemed cool too. He was like an older dude, a little older than us. I met him and then we didn’t really film until like exactly a year later. I met him in the summer when I was probably 14, then we didn’t film anything until the next summer. It’s funny that it took a whole year for us to actually go skate, because we essentially lived only two towns apart, and the scene wasn’t huge.

JC: You were probably the only person in that area at the time that was really trying to skate, and Ben was definitely the only person who was serious about shooting skating.

NG: Definitely, but people are busy. I didn’t have a car, so either Ben would drive out to pick me up, or James and I might spend two hours driving to a spot to meet him, before that maybe just take the bus. In that time, whether or not we got anything didn’t even really matter, it was more that we were just out there skateboarding. We had a goal, but nobody was enforcing any sort of deadline.

JC: So when did you become fully re-immersed in skateboarding after stepping away?

NG: Probably days after my last high school basketball game, so I was 18. I went to 35th North and bought a brand new complete board. The same dudes were working there that were there when I left skating. I love that place.

JC: And you were back in the streets?

NG: Yeah! Just picked right back up. I started filming with Ben right off the bat and was trying to get back to where I was before I quit.

JC: You filmed that little “Welcome Back” part with James too at that time?

NG: Yeah, we filmed that part, which was basically just me sort of getting everything back. Then when that was done I just sort of picked up where I left off with Ben, nobody even really knowing that I had quit. We had probably a good couple minutes of footage that I hadn’t even seen at the time. That stuff never saw the light of day, which I’m totally fine with. But I’m sure it shows the stages of me growing up too, at like 15 or 16.

JC: Now those clips are like eight or nine years old!

NG: Exactly, and the video took about seven years to come out anyway. You can see the progress, sometimes I have short hair, sometimes I have an afro, then a flat top. Skinny pants to slightly baggier pants…

JC: Purple Axions?

NG: Yeah! (Laughs) So many levels.

JC: But like you said before, with Ben, it’s always more about the ritual of going skating and hanging out with your friends and exploring than it is about stacking clips at every session. I’m not surprised a video like that takes seven years to come out, but look at the finished product. Amazing.

NG: For sure.

JC: When did you move to Seattle from Bainbridge?

NG: It was kind of a weird time for me, because I was living with my brother and trying to finish high school. During my last summer before senior year I wanted to move out, because my brother was out of school already and it was getting too hectic at the place he lived. I decided to move out with a friend of mine, who then ended up having to go to jail over some stuff. He had a warrant that caught up to him and had to do jail time to straighten it out. It happened to be around the same time we had found a place, only the first or second month that we moved in. When he left I wasn’t really capable of paying enough money to hang on to the place alone, with no knowledge of when he might be out. On top of that, I had to start basketball with the new school year. So I broke the lease and ended up moving into my grandparent’s house in Seward Park, Seattle when I was 17, turning 18.

JC: But you were still going to Bainbridge High School at that point? Were you commuting to school?

NG: Yeah, so I commuted the whole year my senior year on the ferries. It wasn’t really bad at all. Essentially it’s a half-hour ferry ride and then about a 20 minute walk to school from there. It’s mellow.

JC: Was the school hooking you up with an Orca card or what?

NG: My grandma got me one, they might’ve been paying her back for it but I’m really not sure.

JC: You already mentioned this, but how did your initial connection with 35th North take place?

NG: When I was still really young, 15 or 16, I went in there for the first time. Before that, we had a skateshop very close to the ferry terminal in Seattle, Snowboard Connection. They eventually moved locations, making it inconvenient for me to shop there. Around the same time James and my other friends started telling me that 35th was the place to go in Seattle for boards, but it was further up from the ferry terminal on Capitol Hill. Anyway, the first time I went I was amazed by how sick it was. The owner, Tony, was there and really dope. Somehow he already knew that I was coming over from Bainbridge and taking the ferry, so he gave me a discount on the very first board I bought there.

JC: Did he know who you were?

NG: I guess so? From like Ben and James having YouTube videos or something. I think James and Manny were already going to 35th for boards so they probably mentioned me. I was 15, so that was right before the first time I did All-City. I’m sure Ben had said something as well, or showed him my footage to get me in the contest. Tony hooked me up with a deal though, not like I was sponsored or anything at the time, and he was just extremely friendly. I guess it was a blessing that Snowboard Connection moved (Laughs).

JC: What was the first time you did All-City Showdown? You did it quite a few times, what was your overall impression of the contest?

NG: I didn’t even really think of it as a contest at first. I was 16 the first time I did it, and it was on my birthday (September 2nd).

JC: That was probably the first time I had heard your name. Around that year of All-City was also the time I started commuting to 35th for boards from Poulsbo. Tony asked me about you the first time I came in the shop. I remember seeing your team’s footage on the All-City DVD and wondering how the hell I hadn’t met any of you guys yet. Not to mention I was blown away by Ben’s filming. He probably had some of the best looking clips in the whole contest, but he was just some dude from the boonies. When you think back on all your video projects while living in Seattle, which ones stand out?

NG: Back then I wasn’t even filming with a goal in mind. Like I said before, I wasn’t trying to get myself out there really. My thought process was more like “I want to go film, these dudes are cool, I’m into skating with these guys, I’m into these filmers, they’re just dope people, so I’m going to just film with them.” I just didn’t want to half-ass things really, have like a couple clips here and there. More like, why don’t I try to get as much footage as possible with like, these four or five dudes. You got 24 hours in a day, you have so much time to do anything you need to do. Go to work, try to get a clip before work or after work.

JC: Before the filmer goes to work? (Laughs)

NG: Exactly, and I didn’t have like a girlfriend or anything back then. The first real video “part” I had drop though was that sponsor me tape thing or “Homies” as James titled it. I really legitimately thought that that was what people did, they just upload their footage to YouTube and send their own footage to companies, like a mixtape. So that was kind of what I did, and then to make it a part we just added some fuckin’ music to it and called it a day.

JC: It’s good!

NG: Yeah, but a few months after that was when I took a break and wasn’t skating, so that’s pretty funny. I remember this though, on January 1, 2012 I wrote something on Facebook saying like “This year I’m going to skate more.” Like some New Year’s resolution bullshit, and then that was the year that I ended up not skating at all (laughs). It was New Year’s so I think I had been drinking the night before and just woke up and thought, “I’m going to do something better with myself.”

JC: Amazing.

NG: The video part that really stands out though as the first big one I had was The Outer Limits part, for sure. That was the first premiere I was really a part of, other than those All-City Showdown premieres. The dude who made that, Ben Ericson, is my favorite filmer in the Northwest. Just his vision and his talent are amazing.

JC: Absolutely.

NG: After that, it was on. Like, “I’m just going to skate.” At that time too I wasn’t really on social media that much. I didn’t pay attention, so I didn’t see as much of what was going on in the skate scene, or realize that what I was doing was excessive.

JC: What do you mean?

NG: Like filming too much, dumping too much content on the Internet or Instagram without a purpose. It wasn’t like a company or anyone was asking me to do that. So I kind of changed my vision or my train of thought after that.

JC: We were filming a lot together during that point. We did Luxury Vehicle around the same time as Outer Limits, and then we immediately did that night part for Amigos Skateboards.

NG: That was sick though! Like a month later we had the premiere for Luxury Vehicle and I had a full part in that. Those dudes, too, like Dane (Barker), Ian (Wishart) and Michael (Bala), were more of the dudes who I was actually skating with every day at that point. Whereas with Outer Limits we had all already started to drift apart. That’s why Ben started to get serious I think, in his head he was like “Were not skating as much as we all were before, such-and-such isn’t even skating at all.”

JC: I do remember the point when you told me you felt that you needed to move on from that project, it had been X number of years and none of the footage had come out.

NG: That’s why Luxury Vehicle was important too. I took filming for that part very seriously, because we had a set deadline and we knew when it was coming out. I watched you book the premiere and shit and just knew it was coming. That was a fun time, another reason to bring the whole skate community together to watch a video.

JC: There are a lot of good memories in there.

NG: Yup. Then we moved in together in December of that year and just said “It’s the winter, it gets dark early, why don’t we try to make something all at night?”

JC: That came out in March or April of 2016, right as daylight savings time was ending and the days were getting longer.

NG: Yeah, just cranked it out in like four months. That was really my first time interacting much with security guards too, being able to try to just sneak a clip in here or there before you get a full boot.

JC: Then we moved right into Aggressors with kind of a new group of friends that were around, you were riding for Amigos for most of that?

NG: Yeah, I was out there repping the local brand. Amigos was so sick.

JC: I remember getting out of town a lot more around then too.

NG: We started taking lots of trips around the Northwest. Portland, Bellingham, Tacoma, just hungry to explore, see what else we could do besides skate the same downtown spots over and over.

JC: Then at what point did you start thinking of moving to California? And why San Francisco as opposed to Los Angeles or someplace else?

NG: Well we had to leave our living situation; we only signed a nine-month lease. I wasn’t getting burnt out on skating in Seattle, but maybe just burnt out with skating only in Seattle, if that makes sense. I always envisioned like, maybe moving to California for a while just to see what it had to offer. There was always something in the back of my mind like “Maybe you could do something more with skating down there.” But really, it was just to try out living a different life from where I was born and raised. I was still really young and didn’t really have any responsibilities besides just taking care of myself, so why not go? I didn’t ever really think of moving to San Francisco until I met Tony (Vitello) over at Thrasher. Tony at Thrasher and Tony (Croghan) at 35th North are good friends. Croghan knew I wanted to move to California and just sort of brought it forward to Tony Vitello, who said like “Yeah he could move to San Francisco and stay at such-and-such.”

JC: So that was enough for you to bolt?

NG: Yeah that was enough, and I had never been to San Francisco before that. I didn’t know anything about it, besides it being the mecca of street skateboarding, and I really didn’t even know what that meant. But then I stepped into Double Rock and saw Chico Brenes and Myles Silvas. It seemed so surreal.

JC: Was it always in the initial plan to stay?

NG: Well with him allowing me to stay at Double Rock I figured “Oh I’ll just stay down here for a couple months and then once the weather gets better in Seattle in, say May or April, I’ll move back.” I figured I’d pat myself on the back and go back to Seattle. I didn’t even necessarily think I’d be working down here or anything. I had saved up some money to couch surf, even though I really didn’t have any friends down here at all. Tony and my other friend Tet, those were the only dudes I even knew. One thing led to another and I’m still here. It’s been two years, a little over.

JC: How did you end up working for High Speed?

NG: When he told me I could stay at Double Rock, I actually had no idea that it was right across the street from the headquarters. I got there was just like “1303 Underwood Ave, that’s Thrasher right there!” It was kind of a struggle right when I first got down here because we (Editor’s Note: Nile and Ian Wishart) lived in a skatepark. There was no motivation to find a job because literally we would walk out of our room and just be in the skatepark. Then it turned into like “I’m gonna go skate with such-and-such instead of trying to go get a nine-to-five job over at the café.” But that could only last for so long, you know? All my money was going to shit, I had maybe a month left of savings and I decided to get a job at Whole Foods, and then I ended up finding a really shitty place with you…

JC: Yup.

NG: Then we got a slightly less shitty spot out in Glen Park. We let that run for a little bit and while that was all going on I was staying in touch with Tony (Vitello) on a friendly basis, hanging out or skating. Eventually he was like “Hey, I have some stuff you could do here and work part-time.” As soon as he said that I was down, I would rather do this than almost anything else I can think of. At first it was just little stuff like cleaning out a room or organizing books here and there, mags, shipping stuff out from the warehouse, whatever there was that would allow myself to stay longer within the mag, I wanted to do whatever I could do to help. Tony got the idea to start a skate store, a Thrasher store, and wanting me to be a part of it. At that point I knew I was definitely going to stay in San Francisco, if not for skateboarding just to be a part of that.

JC: You were basically their first staff member for 66 6th.

NG: Yeah. I don’t know, but I was for sure one of the first dudes Tony spoke to about potentially working there. I was just in awe, I was like “Holy shit, this could be something really sick.”

JC: How did you get involved with GX?

NG: I knew that Ryan (Garshell) lived out here and filmed all those videos and shit. I was always super into his work as well, I admired his filming and how he goes about putting out a lot of footage of really good dudes that skate in San Francisco. Like the second day of me going out skateboarding in the city I met Ryan and Al Davis and Brian De La. They were all hanging out with my friend Tet, who showed me around the city at first. The city is so small you just see a lot of dudes around. Ryan was working on a video, and the first time I got a clip with him he asked me if I wanted to put it towards that. From there we just started filming more stuff. At first he was like “I’m putting out a video at the end of the year,” which was four months away. Four months led to another year of filming.

JC: You guys went all over the place filming for Roll Up.

NG: Yeah we fuckin’… we went on an East Coast trip where we went to Philly and we went to New York. I had already been to New York City but I had never been to Philadelphia at all. It was super sick, I didn’t really get much there but there was fuckin’ 15 of us, it was so insane. Whether it was everyone trying to skate the same spot at once or just trying to get everyone out of the house and ready. A lot of the homies were definitely trying to go out and party and enjoy themselves. I don’t blame ‘em. We were out here across the country, gotta make the most of it.

JC: You had some clips in the video and people responded really well to them. People were singling you out on the SLAP forum as having some of their favorite clips in the video.

NG: I got a handful of clips nahm sayin? (Laughs) I didn’t imagine he would even use as much as he did just because he’s critical, which is good. Quality over quantity, there’s no reason to have an 80-minute video when it could be 40 minutes and speak to people just as well.

JC: One thing I remember from that premiere is that the whole video is super damaging. It’s just one insane clip after another. You stand there for 40 minutes but you’re just being pummeled by raw footage of insane hill bombs the entire time. It’s the exact opposite of watched “BLESSED” or something.

NG: Someone said they counted, and there are 45 hill bombs in the video. That made me wonder how many clips total made the cut. Like if it’s 100 clips total or something then the video is half hill bombs. But that’s fuckin’ SF.

JC: Who’s your favorite roller to watch?

NG: Probably Matt Finley, that dude is super fun to watch. He has a good bag of flatground tricks. He wasn’t able to get out filming a bunch while I was around because he’s been injured a lot, so it was definitely magical every time I got to watch him skate. Jesse (Vieira) was definitely fuckin’ insane. Especially because he’s not only a risk taker, but also talented enough to really fuckin’ do all those crazy things. Imagine how much footage he must have had the will never see the light of day. That dude can skate whatever the hell you want him to skate or whatever the hell he wants to skate.

JC: Like Geoff Rowley.

NG: Yeah, Jesse was a beautiful sight to behold in the streets. As a person as well, beautiful.

JC: What’s up with the movie you’re in? How did you become a stunt double?

NG: Yeah lemme plug. The Last Black Man in San Francisco, out June 14, go see that shit! Nah, that was insane. Fuckin… just over skating at my local park, SoMa. It was one of those days that I wasn’t really expecting to skate at all, I think I had work in the afternoon. I was supposed to meet up with whoever and they bailed, so I ended up at the park for like 20, 30 minutes. There was no one there of course, it was pretty early in the day. This guy was there, on his phone talking about who-knows-what forever and just looking at me and everyone else at the park, just eyeing everyone. I was like “Who the fuck is this guy?” Eventually he like yells at me and tells me to come to the gate. I said what’s up and he was like “Yo were filming for this movie, you really fit the description of the main character who skateboards.” I had a flat top at the time and he asked me “Is there any way you could pat down your hair? Because the character doesn’t have much hair.” I told him that I could figure it out and I took his crumpled up business card. They needed me in just a couple weeks, the shoot was happening immediately. At the end of the conversation he was like “Oh by the way, we’ll pay you.”

JC: I would hope so.

NG: And then to persuade me he started listing off other skaters and actors in the movie: Daewon Song, Andy Roy, Danny Glover, Mike Epps. Soon after that I went over to his office and he told me the same thing again “You might have to cut your hair, let me see what your hair looks like patted down.” I told him I really wasn’t interested in cutting it unless they were going to pay me a decent amount of money. We came to an agreement on that, his initial offer was more than I thought he would be willing to pay. I ended up cutting my hair into a little-ass nappy ‘fro.

JC: Wow.

NG: Then when it came to start shooting, the script for what we would be doing wasn’t really all the way developed. It was all written, but it was extremely flexible. The other stunt double was a little bit older and wasn’t willing to do quite as much with skating, he wasn’t out there trying to bomb these sketchy-ass hills so they also had me doing some of his work. I was totally fine with that, but then it turned into like me being at work and them calling me like “Hey can you meet up within the next half hour? So-and-so isn’t able to perform this stunt and the last day to shoot this is today. We’ll pay you for a full days work!”

JC: Was it fun? Do you see a future in that for yourself?

NG: Honestly, it was so fun. Something I never thought I’d be able to do or experience. If there’s more work where that came from, sign me up. I’m down! I might have to go skate the park more often.

JC: Maybe you should just hang out at SoMa everyday.

NG: Psych!

JC: What are your favorite things in the current state of skateboarding?

NG: Fuck dude, all those dudes from Europe, Atlantic Drift! It’s been awhile since they put anything out. That’s probably for the best, I’m sure they’re working on the next one. Nah but they put out some really good edits in the last couple years. The Isle video Vase is also one of my favorite videos of all time. I also love seeing new Ishod (Wair) footage. And he always pumps out clips on Instagram or whatever, even if its skatepark footage, I always love to see what he’s doing.

JC: What’s wack then? What stuff do you NOT like?

NG: Instagram is definitely the worst BEST thing there is. It’s like, you could use it in a good way, but in most cases it just oversaturates everything. It’s so easy and so convenient that it just makes everything so bland and excessive. It’s hard to keep your relevancy up or even stay up with consumption, let alone avoid all the bad shit that’s out there. Instagram is just the forefront of it all, you have all these fools trying to trend set and being super blatant about shit. Skatepark clips too, you have so many of them now and they’re so extreme. For me it’s like SoMa park footage, every time I see that on my feed I just scroll right past. You can only watch it so many times.

JC: We spoke on this subject a couple years ago, just on how approaches to social media use change over time. I used to think that posting a lot on Instagram, especially when I was trying to make my full-length videos, was a really good way to market myself, and my product. I think we can agree now that by posting less you’re actually making people care more. Unintentionally, by avoiding Instagram, you’re creating a bigger demand for your footage.

NG: It’s good to be mysterious. You definitely don’t have to put your personal life on the Internet. But if some lonely-ass kid in a small town with nobody to skate with or talk to about skating wants to use Instagram as a way to connect with skateboarding, I’d say that beats just being lonely and depressed. For the most part though, I just see people on there trying to glamourize their lives.

JC: Well said.

NG: I remember when you started deleting it off your phone to take breaks. I was wondering “Why would you even need to do that?” But now a couple years later I realize that you can start to depend on it as some source of pleasure.

JC: To wrap this up, who are your top five Seattle skaters?

NG: I mean, Cory Kennedy. He’s up there, he’s a hall of famer. I’d say Jordan Sanchez as well, I grew up admiring him, seeing him skate in Adidas and shit from the start of it all.

JC: The Campus Vulc?

NG: That shit just looked so sick. In terms of Seattle skate figures I always enjoyed dudes like Marshall (Reid) who seemed like they were in control of it all. He owned Manik and it seemed like the whole Manik vision came from him. I admire that. There’s also some kid I just heard about who’s on the come up right now. I think his last name is Gass?

JC: Never heard of him. (Laughs)

NG: He can skate, he’s kinda cool.

JC: One more.

NG: Brandon Taylor, he was super sick.

JC: How about Bay Area skaters?

NG: Chico is sick, 44 years young and still ripping. Al Davis if he’d stop getting hurt and skate more. Those dudes are older too, and with age comes responsibility. Also Drake Johnson, Jesse Vieira again, Matt Finley again, Simon Jensen too, he’s finally getting some shine.

JC: Last question: What’s going on with your knee?

NG: It’s fucked man. I partially tore my meniscus but I think there’s something else going on with it as well. After this third month of not skating it’s feeling pretty strong, but I’m getting a second opinion on it soon by another doctor who will hopefully tell me when I should be able to skate again. Right now they’re telling me it will be healed in another month.

JC: I’ve never known you to be a guy who takes much time off when you’re injured either. Usually you just push it the second you start feeling better.

NG: Ah, you know what? That reminds me, add Sean Greene to the list of my favorite Bay Area skaters. (Laughs) That dude is a fucking powerhouse. Fastest dude, best flatground, he’s not young either. 30 years old now, maybe 31. That whole GX crew is probably a lot older than people realize, San Francisco is a hard city to make it in if you’re not somewhat of a mature adult who can handle yourself. It’s an older city, for sure.

JC: Anything else?

NG: Well right now I’m fuckin’ unable to skate, so I’ve been looking forward to doing other things aside from skating. I think it’s so boring to be described as only a skateboarder, there’s more shit to do.