Going Deep with Chad and JT - Ep. 80 - Tony Hawk Joins
Episode Date: July 12, 2019What up stokers, we have an epic episode for you as we have the legend himself, legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk, joining us for the pod. We dive into the 900, X Games, the early days of skating,... and relationships. Enjoy stokers!
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What's your dream?
No, it ain't
Just JT
What's your dream?
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What's your dream? What's your dream? First one, we're interviewing Tony Hawk. It was awesome. He's super smart and he was on it.
The second one is that the first 15 minutes of audio didn't record properly.
So we tacked that on at the end of the interview because it just sounds shitty.
But he actually talks about some really cool stuff in that section, like landing the 900 at the X Games and all of the work he put into Tony Hawk Pro Skater the game.
So I would recommend listening to all of it.
And yeah, enjoy the episode.
It's up right now.
Later Stokers.
We were talking about Tony Hawk.
I kind of wanted to learn more about your childhood and stuff and growing up in San Diego.
I grew up in Orange County, so not far from here.
Yeah.
I grew up in San Diego.
My dad was in the Navy.
He retired here.
And kind of normal, I don't know, middle class, suburban life,
public schools.
Uh, I started skating mostly because my, my friends were doing it as a hobby and my older
brother was a surfer.
And so he skated as well.
And, um, I got one of his hand-me-down boards and that's how I started.
Were you good right away?
No, not at all.
In fact, I remember the first time I got on the board,
I pushed down the driveway and was yelling,
how do I turn, how do I turn, how do I turn?
And then I ran into the fence and got splinters in my hands.
Really?
Yeah.
And I didn't think much of it.
Like, I liked it.
It was fun.
But I ended up going to the skate park on the invite of a friend of mine for the first time, maybe about six months later.
And that's when I knew that's what I wanted to do because I saw these literally guys flying out of pools.
Yeah.
And I was like, this is it.
This is what I want to do that at any cost.
Was that like Z-Boys style kind of time period? yeah and i was like this is it this is what i want to i want to do that at any cost was that
like z boys style kind of time period it was kind of at the tail end of that right you know there's
a lot of misconception that somehow like i was part of that there's like a direct correlation
i was nine years old right when those guys were superstars yeah but but definitely their influence
was part of that whole movement despite with skating pools and with doing aerials.
And that was it.
I mean, once I saw people doing aerials out of swimming pools,
that was like, I didn't...
Your eyes just went big and you were like, I gotta do this.
Yeah, I didn't want to play any other sports.
I just wanted to do that.
Nice.
How long did it take for you to drop in on vert?
It's weird to say in my era because we were skating pools that that sort of varied in depth
as they went up to the shallow end yeah so i just worked my way up to the the deep end okay
um and so i don't remember thinking like this is the moment i'm you know i mean it's not like this
this great separation of i can jump in on me or I can jump in vert.
It was just more like,
I can jump in on the deep end now.
And it wasn't so,
it was a different time.
Yeah.
It's hard to say.
If I had to guess what age I was,
I was probably 11 or 12 at the time.
Were half pipes around at that point?
Or was it just pools?
Not in the traditional sense.
There were a couple,
there were kind of,
there were novelties.
Like Pepsi had a demo ramp that they put on a float and it was clear and it was literally a half pipe.
There was no flat bottom.
Okay.
There were no decks on it.
Yeah.
So that's kind of what ramps were back in that time.
Yeah.
Um, it wasn't until I'd say early 80s where people started building backyard ramps that were proper that you could actually do tricks and do stuff maybe that wasn't possible in a pool.
Gotcha.
Would you skate to school?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially in elementary school.
Yeah.
In my high school, the first high school I went to, there was this drainage ditch that ran almost along the length of where I lived to the school.
So on the way home, I could ski the drainage ditch all the way down the reservoir.
At that time, skating wasn't really like people weren't doing it to be cool.
It was sort of like for the love of the sport, would you say?
When I started, it was more like a fad fad it was like yo-yo of the time okay and so kids would skate
and then they would grow out of it yeah um but if you kept skating then you were just marked as
as basically a nerd because it was like why are you still skating right it's like doing karate
when you're in high school everyone's like, it's normal when you're like 11.
Yeah, pretty much.
And also just that it wasn't cool anymore.
So it was hard to get any sense of validation or accomplishment, especially at an age when you're just trying to fit in.
But at the same time, I kind of found my crew at the park and I enjoyed it too much to worry about
what my classmates thought of it.
So those were your boys.
What kind of person were you in high school?
I was a good student.
I was in the advanced classes.
Nice.
I would have been considered a nerd,
but because I skated, it was like double whammy
of you're a nerd and you're uncool because you skate yeah
so for the most part i was just kind of a ghost through the hallways like i didn't really want to
draw any attention to myself because it was never a good thing what was it like you know because
you're pretty much professional by 15 right or 16 yeah well 14 but again that it was a different
era but it just meant that you moved up in in competition classes
you didn't no one was offering you a contract okay there was not some great celebration it was just
more like okay you can't cruise in as an amateur anymore because you're winning all the events so
you have to turn pro and so the way i turned pro was checking the box that said pro in the entry
form to the next one instead of the one that said amateur yeah that was it that was the barrier yeah that was it yeah and it was like no one there was one guy
peering on my shoulder like oh and cool you're pro what was it like when you you know travel to
go to like a contest win the contest then come back to high school like did you gain notoriety
within like really a little bit because i was in in Southern California, so there was some acceptance of it.
It was more of a surf culture.
But for the most part, no.
People didn't.
Some people knew that a skateboarder went to their school,
and maybe even some knew my name,
but they could not pick me up at a crowd, no way.
Right.
Were you beating pros right away when you got on there?
When I first turned pro pro i got fourth at
the first event i went to nice yeah yeah i mean i well it didn't have it like it wasn't always
stellar but i did pretty well and was that the bones brigade uh i was on the bones brigade at
that time yeah nice what's stacy peralta like for the people who don't know he directed dogtown and
or dogtown and the z boys and the bones the Bonesburg documentary. He's awesome.
He was really the first person that recognized my skills and my ambition
when most people thought I was kind of a joke.
Because I was really scrawny as a kid.
And so when I was skating, I had a really strange style,
but I had been creating all these different tricks
and I was learning tricks.
And he was one of the first persons to see me and say like,
hey, you know, just kind of inquire about what I was doing
and about a possible sponsorship.
And that was kind of a shock to my peers
because it was like, him?
You're going to sponsor him?
Right.
You know, and I was intimidated as well because it was already like steve calero mike mcgill rodney mullen like those
guys were on the team yeah rodney mullen interesting guy yeah he's a he's a genius yeah yes he's a
genius physically and mentally i heard him at the beginning of bones brigade he like describes
himself as a child he's like i didn't know I was allowed to speak.
I talked in whispers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, he had a pretty rough childhood.
Yeah.
I don't mean to make fun of it, but it's like.
Yeah.
It's like his intensity.
He was almost like a poet the way he was talking.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, he's he really is like on a different level of intelligence.
What was it like when you guys were just kicking it on tour together, or with all those guys?
I think he and I connected the most
because we were both pretty nerdy in that sense,
in terms of schooling and interests.
But also, he and I were creating tricks
and we didn't really have any other peers
to bounce stuff off of
because we were just sort of doing these things and no one,
either they couldn't or they didn't care to,
to try the things we were trying.
And so he and I would bounce ideas off each other,
even though he was doing stuff on the flat,
which is freestyle.
And I was doing stuff in the pools,
in the air.
We both had different ideas of what's possible in those realms.
And so he and I would sort of share,
share inspiration.
Well,
that's cool.
So for instance,
I created the,
the air walk move,
which is taking both feet off your board in the air.
He figured out how to do that on the ground to Ollie up,
grab his nose and kick both his feet out.
Wow.
And that was because I learned that in the pools and then he
used to do a trick where he would flip his board with his fingers this is before kickflips were
invented and so you'd have to do it with your hand and so i figured out how to do that in the air
in the pool so directly from rodney that's the finger flip finger flip yeah wow so you guys were
like creating a skating language together basically basically. Kind of, yeah.
But really, we didn't know to what audience.
We just loved doing it.
You know, it was very little appreciation at the time.
Well, yeah, because then it was pretty popular for a while.
Then it plummeted for a bit, right?
Right.
But I think that's the thing.
The isolating part of that was that skateboarding was this super got really small.
The community was very small.
And then for someone like me, I was an outcast of that community because of the way I skated.
So it was very isolating.
What made you an outcast?
Because I wasn't doing the cool, like I wasn't doing the big aerials and the big slash grinds like the you know the surfer dudes
i was just doing these tricks and they just thought i was a robot and so they used to call
me that they used to call me circus skater and just like a robot and so were you able to detach
from that stuff i mean throughout your career when like you go it was more that i had a couple
friends that that had the same sort of vibe and i just relied on them for validation and for support because
the world of skating was kind of older at the time too. So it was super intimidating. And if
you weren't cool, you're just out. So in the nineties, it's where it went through a little
bit of a lull. Uh, what was sort of your mindset going through that point of how to overcome that?
Or did you, were you just going to stick with skating no matter what?
Well, I always knew I wanted to keep skating.
I didn't know if it was possible to do it for a living,
especially in the early 90s.
I did whatever I could to make it work.
I mean, I was taking the most odd jobs as a skater.
One time I was a consultant of commercial where they had skaters but
they were younger than me um another time i uh i did demos in six flags parking lots
on a vert ramp three a day for 100 bucks but you know it made like i paid the bills yeah
and it made it work and it allowed me to keep skating.
And I kind of navigated that as best I could.
Went on a severe budget for my lifestyle.
It was like Taco Bell, like $5 Taco Bell.
Absolutely, Taco Bell and Top Ramen, like everything.
What were your parents and GF saying at the time?
My parents were supportive.
I mean, it was hard for them to see my income
shrinking so drastically because my income was was basically being cut in half every month because it
was all royalty based so people weren't buying as many shoes people weren't buying as many
skateboards um the truck company couldn't afford the salary they were giving you and then you know
i just watched my watched my income dwindle. So they were concerned just because at that point in my life,
I had two mortgages.
I had a son on the way.
And it was like, what the hell are you guys doing?
What are you doing?
You're going to find a job.
And I did actually at that time borrow money from my parents
to buy editing equipment because I knew how to do video editing.
And this is all before computers. So everything was like tape to tape. And I knew enough about
that to get freelance work doing that. So I actually did that for almost a year on top of
skating. And I was doing, so I was putting videos together for different companies,
So I was putting videos together for different companies, including skate companies and one video game company, ironically.
And eventually I took the equity out of my house and started a skateboard company because I thought that was my transition from being a pro skater to someone behind the scenes. And it allowed me to stay in the skate industry.
And I had a good eye for talent so I could put together a really good team.
Did you get that from Stacy or did you kind of,
yeah,
I mean,
he was the,
he was the catalyst cause that's what he did.
He was a pro skater.
He teamed up with George Powell,
started Powell Peralta,
found his own team and then did it.
So we were just,
I was just going through the same cycle.
but the hard thing was, is that
skating was so small. So it was very risky to start a skate company at the time,
but I saw that skating had come through so many cycles of popularity before that, that
it was sort of due for an upswing and I wanted to, to be in the right place at the right time.
Did you take the time to learn about business or did you just partner up with
someone who sort of had that expertise?
Who also put in his money. He was an ex pro skater,
but he had a business degree. Yeah.
So I trusted him to do most of that. Um, like the paperwork and the,
you know, the business plan and things like that.
But I definitely dove in and learned a lot of it because I felt like I should,
I,
you know,
I couldn't just be clueless to all that stuff.
Yeah.
You're like a super smart dude.
Well,
it was,
it was not something I was really interested in though.
You know what I mean?
I didn't know how to edit your like purchase order AP classes and net sales
and,
and,
um,
all that kind of stuff.
But at the same time,
there were only,
uh,
there were three of us originally for Birdhouse.
Wow.
We were all doing everything.
I did all the ads.
I did all the videos.
I was doing all the tours.
I was lining up every single thing, graphics.
It was crazy.
That's awesome.
Who do you think is the smartest person who ever lived?
I have no idea.
How could anyone answer that?'s tough but i'm always
curious what people think well i mean or how they answer i guess i feel like the default
design sign right because he beast mode yeah yeah he showed us the theory of relativity and
studied what we couldn't see what's that he like showed us what we couldn't see
yeah yeah that kind of stuff or stephenking, who kind of explained time and space.
Right.
I think the thing I gleaned from Stephen Hawking is that the fourth dimension is time.
And I think I never really understood that until I read his book and he made it clear.
Oh, that's interesting.
Time is crazy.
I mean, that's a very easy thing to say.
But I mean, like, I think it's the most precious thing.
And then also the way that we just have to move through it.
We're just all fixed.
You know what I mean?
We don't have much choice.
Yeah, you kind of get stuck in a rut, too.
How do you mean?
I don't know.
You get into a routine and all of a sudden time is gone.
Because it's like, oh, I did the same exact thing over and over and over and over until I got old.
But your life is so diverse, too, in your experiences, right?
Yeah, I definitely, I like to break out of my comfort zone
and that's something I learned
probably through the more difficult years
where I was just like,
I have to embrace all these different things
because I don't know what is going to work.
And I don't know what is the future for me.
And I can't just stay in my mode of,
I skate and I learn tricks and I get videos
and I make products.
I had to really figure out my mode of i skate and i learn tricks and i get videos and this is and i make products like i had
to really figure out that that you've got to expand your possibilities and you've got to
embrace new challenges did you party um not extensively i i definitely went through
you know we were young and skating was popular and we were whatever for lack of a better word
superstars in that area and in that world and we were in we were in our late teens so it was like
yeah it's a party but but i saw enough of my friends party so much that it affected their
abilities and that stuck with me i was like i can't i i have to skate i know what got me here
i know why I'm here.
Skating is the priority for sure.
Did you ever like wrestle with the temptation?
Like, was it hard to resist
or you kind of had that clear mindset?
Sometimes it honestly got harder into my older years
because that's when things really skyrocketed
in terms of popularity.
And some of my injuries were a lot more severe.
And so, you know, painkillers and all that stuff,
like that stuff just seeps into your,
it becomes addictive so quickly.
It grips you, yeah.
Even though you don't have any intention of ever,
you know, it's not like,
oh, I want those pills because it's making me feel good.
It's more like I need those pills for this pain.
And then suddenly you're like,
I don't need the pills for the pain i just
need them right and that's when it starts to get hazy and that's when you don't you know you don't
realize that suddenly you're you're you're part of the opioid problem yeah um and definitely i
went through a small phase of that where i had to make a very distinct realization that I don't need these.
I'm just doing these
because it's making me numb to everything else.
And you're running a huge enterprise at the same time too.
So it's like, you're kind of doing great.
It's totally self-defeating.
It's absolutely,
it's because you don't want to deal with things
that are uncomfortable.
That's the bottom line. You don't want to deal with things that are uncomfortable. Like that's the bottom line.
You don't want to come out of your,
you don't want to deal with reality.
And so you just end up sort of being numb to the world
through those alternatives.
Do you view skating as sort of a drug?
Like it's sort of that, the adrenaline rush and stuff, that's sort of a drug like it's sort of that the adrenaline rush and stuff that's sort of
your drug in life yeah i think i think that once i figured out that i could be creative
in skating and be innovative that became the buzz that i would always go after and and definitely
you have to have something to replace that at some point in your life because it's not gonna
last forever and and that was probably the struggle that I had in terms of when my pro career,
you know,
sort of apex and it was like,
well,
what is next and what is going to give me that fulfillment?
And,
and I had to really figure that out.
And that's definitely my family.
And that's,
that's,
you know,
what I've come to hold as the most important thing in my life.
And is, And that's what I've come to hold as the most important thing in my life and is what the very first thought I have when making decisions of things to do.
How many kids do you have?
I have four of my own kids and then I have two stepkids.
But three are now in college.
So we did that.
That worked.
Good job.
Yeah, success.
And then one is my oldest son, Riley, is actually like he is a musician he's a pro skater he owns a coffee shop he's in new york modeling for rag and bone right
now like nice he's he's fine right yeah and then the three of the boys are in college one more is
gonna graduate in a couple years of high school and daughter is, um, she's the only girl she's 11.
Do they think you're cool?
Um,
that's a good question.
I feel like you have so much evidence you could show.
Yeah.
But also I,
I definitely am the one to,
you know,
have to put the rules out there.
Right.
Um,
and the one to answer to,
if something is,
is troubling them
you're the taskmaster of the
yeah I think that
when I'm there and when we get to do stuff it's cool
I think that my schedule
and the time away from them
gets hard for all of us
and so that would be
probably the time when they think I'm not so cool
right
I'm not frivolous with my time when they think I'm not so cool. Right. You know,
I,
and I don't,
I'm not frivolous with my time or with what I choose to do.
Like I used to,
yeah.
And I used to be in a worse shape where I'm like,
yeah,
movie premiere.
Sure.
Let's go.
Oh,
trip to Italy for your charity event. Of course I'm going to go do that.
You know?
And now I,
I realized that that stuff is not important.
The importance is to really be present for your kids.
And so they know that if I'm gone now, is something that is high priority high priority were you worried about your
son pursuing a career in skating because i feel like in hollywood like some actors are worried
about their kids like going i wasn't only because he was so advanced when he was young yeah and it
wasn't any sort of nepotism it was like rather they can do these
giant crazy tricks at age 11 um and it's not because it's not like a job where you can hide
gave him an advantage or anything yeah people are snowed by his name yeah and if anything he had to
he had to prove himself even further yeah yeah because they thought he did have some sort of
favoritism and so um i wasn't, what worried me more was that
I did see him start to shy away from skating
around age 12, 13,
because he did feel those pressures
and he felt that attention and he didn't like it.
And so he kind of pulled away from skating,
but he kind of found it again
because a lot of his close friends had been skating all
those years and they found their own little crew and their own style of skating. They called
themselves the Shep dogs and started making their own videos. And suddenly he was his own skater in
terms of his style and his, his, um, terrain. So, you know, he's not skating half pipes. He's not doing McTwists and
stuff like that. He was just doing street stuff. And so, in that way, he forged his own path and
people recognized it. And eventually, he got a whole set of sponsors that had nothing to do with
me. And, you know, if anything, that shows that he has the acceptance and the validation.
So, it's sort of a core thing for you
is that you should do things that you love to do
or sort of find your own.
It seems like with skating or with anything you do,
it's sort of when you're in this mode of creation
or doing the things that you really want to do,
that's when you found the most success.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I think it's just more that i felt happiest when i was
doing what i loved even if it was for no money yeah and so in those in those more difficult
years financially i don't think of those as strife or struggle like for me i was still getting to do
what i loved for a living i didn't get to stay in the nicest places.
I didn't get to buy the fancy cars,
but I went to work happy.
And so I think that's probably the message
that I try to leave with people is that
if you really are doing what you love,
you're going to just enjoy working.
And that's far more important than going to a job you hate just to make a
bunch of money do you ever think what would have happened though if like the x games didn't happen
or something like that like if i guess you kind of trusted that skating would come back because
you had seen the like you mentioned the rise yeah i don't really i i mean there was definitely a
perfect storm of different influences and opportunities around the time when the X game started that, that all helped to,
to,
uh,
to raise the profile of skating.
So,
but it wasn't necessarily just the X games.
It was like,
no,
I mean,
that definitely helped that to help put on the map.
I think our video game came in just as X games was coming in.
And then that was sort of the tipping point where skating went into a
popularity that we had never seen.
But also, with or without X Games, I always felt like skating spoke to a younger generation
where it's exciting, it's daredevil, it's individual pursuit, it's artistic, it's creative.
And I always wonder, why doesn't the general public see that especially when i was young and when skating was so
chastised and i was like why don't they see that this is super cool and we don't have to follow
any rules and we you know you can do stuff that's crazy looking and and and self-fulfilling um but
it was just all it was all ball sports you know it was
all yeah baseball basketball um soccer football like that was it dude it's living west hollywood
like there's just kids skating everywhere just skater kids it's just part of it it's just part
i kind of don't like them i'm like an old man now i'm like off my block dude but yeah well i think i
think some are a little more uh gregarious with where they skate and and what
danger they put pedestrians in so i agree with you there but and they just give me a vibe like
like you're not one of us yeah yeah i think that's that's the strange shift now is that
the skaters are the cool kids at school right and that just was not the end and it's hard it's so
hard if i've got great hair like kids today where i'm like you don't understand i had to hide my skateboard at school it was the furthest thing from cool like i used
to get picked up by jocks and swung around while i was walking to class so when you see skater kids
now do you just go you're welcome no you see a skater kid with like a hot girl no if anything
it gives me more perspective like don't don't take it for granted right because everything
could turn again right
it could be rollerblades yeah treat everyone with respect that's all i gotta say that's what pulled
me towards action sports kind of was like oh i can be cool a little bit yeah me too i was in
i sucked but i was into dirt biking and it was like i'd watch those videos and like in between
them like doing like you know backflips with them like partying with girls and like a lot of those
videos are about the lifestyle and i was like this is awesome yeah and watching the x-men devil lifestyle there's something i always love that's so random
but the mountain dew helmet i forget who had it but i was like i want that helmet so bad oh yeah
some of the writers they all wear that yeah yeah it's not about the style and just like
i just love mountain dew wait ask him about a about jake brown oh yeah yeah so one of the
most memorable moments for us is the jake brown. And you were commentating on that, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So what was your sort of going on in your head when you first saw it?
Like, did you think he was a goner?
And how did you want to handle that?
Well, no, I can't say I thought he was dead.
Yeah.
No, I knew it was bad. i knew and i didn't i didn't
know if he'd wake up yeah yeah in that moment right um sorry i don't mean to laugh either
and we had never i mean it was heavy like i yeah but it was it was a weird time because
we i had just started doing commentary around that time yeah we we were not prepped or
did anyone tell us what happens if there's a heavy injury?
Yeah.
You know, there is protocol that comes with that, with being an announcer,
that you're supposed to follow.
Yeah.
And we had no training in that.
Yeah.
And so I got a lot of heat because he was laying there and I said something like,
I can't believe you made that 720.
And that was true.
Like he had never made that trick before,
the trick they did across the gap.
He had never done it before.
So he made it,
and because he was trying to recover
on the way up the ramp is what-
Launched him out.
Flying out, yeah.
And so I got a lot of heat after that.
Like, why would you say that?
I was like, I'm trying to feel dead air
while you're seeing this lifeless dude on the ground.
Like, I didn't know what I was doing.
Yeah, and you're trying to be nice to him.
You're giving him, like, credit for his accomplishment.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it was just a weird, like, that still kind of haunts me
that people think that somehow I was being callous about it.
Oh, really?
No, not at all.
Yeah.
I was like, I don't know what to say.
Like, it was frightening.
Yeah, it felt like you were going to die.
And we're live.
Yeah.
And, you know, and no one is in our ear saying, what do we do?
And so it was like, and then he got up,
which was also insane because any modern medical expert
will say, do not get someone up.
Yeah.
That's a great part about the culture of the sport.
Destroy their body.
Yeah.
But everything was the Wild West. I mean, that was it. Like with the skating, Destroyed their body. Yeah. But it was, but we, everything was the wild west.
I mean,
that was it.
Like with the skating,
there were no rules.
We didn't have paramedics ever for any event.
So the paramedics that were there were not the most highly trained,
more like skater friends.
Yeah.
They had a degree that were like,
yeah.
Sal Masichela is like,
they're the best medical staff in the business.
And I was a little skeptical.
I was like,
are they the best?
Yeah. But also, but, but there's something to be said for jake brown is he's so stubborn
and determined he may not let anyone right yeah keep him down like that's very likely so i can't
i can't blame them but it was just such a heavy moment and um and then for him to walk away was
absurd yeah he has always wondered about that.
You're doing commentary, and you're on the mic,
and then you're like, what do I...
I would have panicked, because I would have been like,
I hope he's not dead.
I got a problem with...
I always say the worst thing I'm thinking,
so I'd be like, please don't be hurt or dead, Jake.
I think the worst is that we cut to a commercial,
we cut to a commercial, and we came back,
and he was still laying there that was the hardest part
and it was like oh we're back cool
thanks for putting us back on the air
my parents were talking about that
they like told me about it
they were like do you hear about the
so that's how it widespread the whole
yeah yeah yeah
you know what though
had a big impact
I think there was an important
shift of mentality at that point because those guys have been toying with mega ramp stuff for a long time
well for a few years up to that point and they kept making them bigger and making them fast like
going higher and higher and that was sort of the line of demarcation what was like this is too much
this is too big it's too dangerous. The risk factor is too high.
And from that point on,
they focus more on tricks
at a manageable height.
And the height is still huge.
I mean, we're talking about like 15, 20 feet in the air,
but they weren't going for the records anymore.
Right.
And I think that that was important.
Like it had to happen.
Totally.
Yeah.
And luckily it was Jake that survived that incident.
Yeah, I remember like the crash reel
about Kevin Pierce, the snowboarder
and like the same thing,
half pipes keep getting bigger in snowboarding.
You know, how high they go
sells more viewers or whatever.
But it's just like at some point
you got to be responsible to the riders, right?
You got to interfere and be like.
But obviously there are different mindsets
and people are going to go off and do their own thing and try to go higher and bigger and whatnot
but i do feel like that moment was you know especially the ones the pioneers of that movement
were who were bob burnquist and um danny way they were both like all right let's just try to do
tricks right they got scared by what they created like a noble or something well it was just kind
of like all right that's the ceiling of height that's all we need to go right at this point we've reached
the human limit we've reached the limit and and then they started doing tricks that had never been
done because they realized like we still have 10 to 15 feet of air to do all these tricks that
we've never had before so you know that around that time like bob did a fakie to fakie 900
no one never done that what someone did a 1080
where do you get inspiration from like outside of skating like do you ever get it like you see
a movie or you listen to a song or like reading or like just life experiences i don't know i'd
say most of my like skate trick ideas come at moments of calm like if i'm just falling asleep or
i have a moment of silence in my house somehow.
And I think like, I think about skating or I think about something I've been trying and I was like, oh, what if this, you know, twist this or do that?
It's usually just sort of my own private moments when I, or if I'm skating and something goes
awry, like my board flips the wrong way.
And then it's like, oh oh what if i would have caught it
and brought it back like sometimes they're just happy accidents are you constantly thinking about
skating like are you unable to turn it off because like for comedy with us where it's like the
mindset it does consume me yeah you always have yeah and it's weird now because like i said i'm
older and i know i'm not gonna go break any records or anything but um but definitely there
are things that yeah that I think about
where I go, okay, next time I go skate,
I'm going to go work on that.
Who's your greatest rival?
I think, well, competitively through the years,
there have been different sort of,
they're not even rivalries because we all skate together
and like I said,
it's all this individual pursuit anyway.
But through the heavy competitive years,
for sure I was pitted against Christian Ossoy in the 80s
because Christian represented style
and big airs
and I represented tricks.
And so it was like people had to choose their camp.
And he was usually us first and second
through those, through like 84-ish to 88.
And what was your guys' relationship like?
We were fine.
I mean, we, you know, we enjoy,
I respected his skating immensely.
Like I wanted my backsteaders to look like his.
Right.
But definitely people had to choose.
And then this started to be like this thing
where he represented certain types of,
like certain products or or
he represented norcal and i represent southern california it's a norcal socal thing i remember
yeah and yeah yeah he was from la but because his sponsors were more northern california
they were like yeah well he was indie he was indie okay okay yeah so anyway that happened
and then and then through the x
games years it was more like me and danny way or me and andy mcdonald because we were usually on
the top from the standings mcdonald always wore yellow was that yeah yeah i remember that still
oh he still rocks yellow all the time yeah yeah he's got like a steve jobs specificity to work
yeah that's what's up do you ever have moments where you sort of psych yourself
because skating is such an incredible thing and it's so advanced do you ever like psych yourself
out where you're like wait a second how do i do this again you know i mean because like with comedy
i'll be like oh i'm supposed to make these people laugh how the fuck yeah we're both dealing with
that like when we have shows like we had a show a show in San Francisco on Saturday and like a ton of people
showed up to see us.
And me and Chad were just like,
are we sure they came to see us?
Like,
how do we make them laugh again?
I think my experiences with that have been when I set out to do something
new,
that there's like a new type of ramp and I commissioned to have some ramp
built.
Like for instance, the first time i ever
did a full loop ramp um no one had actually done it and so i had one built and i actually i the
funny thing is it was at a time when skating was kind of in a lull so i had to pay for the building
of it even though airwalk my sponsors said they were going to pay for it and driving up to it and seeing this monstrosity
of a loop, you know, like a Hot Wheels track that's 14 feet tall and thinking it's on me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, no one is coming to help.
No one else is like, it's not a, it's not some team effort.
Right.
Right.
It's like, how are you going to figure that out?
And then everyone's staring at me when I drive up, like,'t know good luck with that like i wasn't serious i have those
moments all the time like where if i'm like the most mature man on like a bus or something like
that i'll be like oh if something goes wrong on the bus it kind of i'm i'm looking around i'm like
i'm always like worried about crisis i'm like who can i turn to to like help and then i look around
i'm like i guess it's me, dude. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, when it's in a case like that,
it's like no one else even wants to try it.
And so I have to overcome this,
all these doubts and even the fear of seeing it and just think like,
I decided this is possible.
I have to figure it out
and it's going to be hard.
And it was, I mean,
I got rocked a couple of times doing the loop,
but I figured it out.
How long did it take you to first attempt it?
Like, did you just go for it,
or did you sort of think about it for a while?
I went for it.
I put some...
Luckily, we were near a YMCA,
and they had gymnastics mats.
Okay.
So we just sort of stacked gymnastics mats in it.
And I ended up just sort of crashing
into the wall as it went over vert and then falling into the mats so um the hardest thing
about the loop it it it's not that it's that it's particularly hard you have to change your mindset
into it not being a trick because it's just a carve okay as in the simplest terms and so you can't
change your body positioning you can't pump the way that you pump a half pipe because that sort
of your pump is over after you know one quart of a radius so you have to figure out how to
sort of hold the pump all the way through until you
reach the ground again it's hard to explain yeah but it's very subtle and it's it's almost
impossible to change your thinking in those terms if you've only ever ridden half pipes does does
the notion of being first motivate you like you're like like with the 900 or with the loop the fact that you're kind of in like uncharted territory it's more about being unique i think that yeah i wanted
to do it sure i would have loved to but but it was more like no one was thinking about doing that
so it wasn't like some race to figure this out right it was more like oh that's something
different i think i can do it let's have that build it wasn't like a bunch of people like
we gotta do the loop go build a loop i'm let's have that build it wasn't like a bunch of people were like we gotta do the loop
go build a loop
I'm doing it first
you know
it wasn't like that at all
right
with the 900
it was a little different
because there were a handful of us
that were trying it
through the years
and yeah
any of us wanted to be first
but for the most part
we had all been trying it
for so long
it was like
we just wanted someone
to finally do it
because it was like
it was eating us up
you know the first time I ever because it was like it was eating us up you know we the first
the first time i ever tried it was in 1986 and i just landed on my back and then danny way was in
a video called risk it and he actually put it on the wall in 1989 he didn't make it and they cut
the video like right when you put on the wall but that showed it like that was a breakthrough for us
because that showed us that it's possible.
And then a handful of us
were trying it through those years,
like mid-90s.
Yeah, basically mid-90s.
And whatever,
there's a lot of folklore and false narratives
about how I came to do it.
But we were all trying it together.
They had many best trick events
leading up to the X Games.
You know what I mean? Like there's this whole story that was like i was spying on someone
to figure out how to do it it was like dude i bet we all were trying it at every best trick yeah
like there was no secrets yeah right um did you ever did you ever beef with rollerbladers
like at the skate park i tried rollerblading for a year because i was inspired by brink i really related to the front guy and the skaters every time i would try and
rollerblade they would just like they'd be like you better not drop in on this ramp like this is
yeah i didn't fall into that just because i came from an era of of being ridiculed just for skating yeah um and honestly in those years of rollerblading's
you know height that allowed more skate parks to exist because skating skateboarding was kind of
dying it was it was in a very low in popularity and because rollerblading came in skate parks
stayed open and built ramps and so that benefited us it
benefited me um and like whatever gets you active i don't care yeah you know it didn't matter to me
yeah um so no i didn't but but like i said i came from a different generation
and i was doing demos with like i was a special guest at rollerblade demos
so it was like team rollerblade and tony hawk
that's cool did you ever think how
well your name suits what you're doing oh yeah it didn't feel like that when i was in high school
and they called me bony cock so not really man kids are vicious they can come up with a nickname
for anybody very quickly yeah and then you have the tony hawk foundation that how many skate parks have you built around
yeah um is it international now or is it just within the u.s uh we have an international
outreach program but mostly in the u.s uh we've been going for 17 years now and helped to fund
i think over 800 parks at this point that's awesome um and those are mostly in the u.s we
do have an international outreach program with Skatistan.
And so we help to fund their projects in South Africa, Cambodia, and Afghanistan.
Whoa.
And one in Jordan.
I've said one.
Wow.
They're building one in Jordan.
So yeah, we trust their model and their projects.
And if anyone wants to do stuff internationally with us,
we will give them advice and resources,
but we don't give funding because we'd have to be established in those
countries.
Gotcha.
Okay.
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What up Lords of Stoketown? This is for JT specifically. I got a dilemma in my hands,
if you know what I mean. I'm trying to stop watching porn so that the only things I do
with my dong are dropping it, draining the lizard and introducing it to honeys. What's
some advice you charismatic Caravaggio
have on ways to wean yourself off of adult
entertainment? I'm a porn addict,
so I don't watch it anymore.
Wow.
I think you just have to realize
you're stuck in a cycle, and that it's not
giving you any true enjoyment.
You're just doing it because you don't know
how else to break out. And so I think that if you consider that you're really not doing it for pleasure, you're just doing it because you don't know how else to break out and so i
think that if you consider that you're really not doing for pleasure you're just doing it because
you have this addiction that's probably the the best on the surface explanation i don't know what
you know i'm not i can't say that i know about support groups or anything like that but there
are they exist for sure yeah i go to them to them. They're, they're solid.
Yeah,
for sure.
Um,
yeah,
I mean,
I,
I,
I guess that's the thing is that you just got to realize that you're,
you're trying to assuade some pain in your life through that distraction where it's going to be easier to just deal with reality and to,
to deal with whatever uncomfortable situations you're avoiding by just sitting around watching porn.
Cause it's such a waste of time.
I think that's the,
that's the thing is you see,
if you really think about how much time you've wasted doing that,
that's when it can hit you.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
They had to put it like that.
I got a couple of great American novels.
I just fucking lost to my hand.
Yeah.
I could,
uh,
there's videos on YouTube, you you know about like the negative effects
too or and then also it's inspiring like celebrities who abstained yeah like mike
tyson or jim carrey that would say that that always inspires me to stay away then that's a
big range of dudes yeah well i but also you know i also feel like i wouldn't just abolish
porn per se like maybe that you know some I also feel like I wouldn't just abolish porn per se.
Like maybe that, you know.
No, some people can.
Yeah, there could be a healthy relationship with it.
A good call.
The thing that concerns me more about having young kids and having porn so available to them
is that it gives them a false sense of how to treat someone else.
Yes.
And that's important.
Like, you know.
My man.
Yeah, it should be a mutual experience
and you should be really catering to someone else
as well as them catering to you.
Yeah.
And so much of the porn is like just for the dude.
Yeah.
It's like watching a getaway driver and being like,
oh, that's how I'm going to drive a car or something like that.
Yeah, yeah.
And if you get in a real life situation,
girls will be like, what the hell is wrong with you yeah and dude like i'm not your puppet yeah a couple practical steps too or uh i
have chad has um the password for my phone so it has parental restrictions on it so i just don't
even have access to it and then on my computer i have net nanny and so i can't look at it anywhere
and yeah well i guess those are are all strong deterrents.
And I forgot the password.
I do worry about like,
I don't want to tell everybody to like get off porn
because I really still respect the porn stars
I used to watch
and I want them to be able to make a solid living.
Wow, that's a really interesting angle on that.
I can't watch it anymore,
but I hope you guys are all doing well.
I still want them to have healthy lives
and to be employed for sure. He's well aware of their bios and their full. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Everything. I can't watch it anymore, but I hope you guys are all doing well. I still want them to have healthy lives and to be employed. For sure. He's well
aware of their bios and their full
everything. I'm a nerd.
What up, Chad? What up, JT?
I come to you seeking major advice.
I have this longtime best friend who I hang out with and
party with almost on the daily.
He has a sister who is one year younger than him
who always has had interest in me. Obviously,
I never entertain the thought because she's my best
friend's sister.
But over the past year,
puberty hit her like a truck and in an incredibly good way.
She's a Betty.
And now more than ever,
she's been hitting me up
and extremely open about wanting to hook up.
The whole squad is interested
and wants to take a dive,
but I am considered the ringleader,
so I feel obligated to do so first.
A little weird there.
The devil is tempting me.
Yeah, they kind of took a turn.
Yeah, but here's the major problem.
My bro goes absolutely ape shit if anyone so much mutters her name even if it's a positive thing i
told her how i can't do that to my best friend but she's starting to become irresistible and
frequent in her attempts to seduce me i need guidance to pursue to safely pursue this matter
sincerely well the whole idea that that there's a group of you trying to pursue that is and you're the
leader that that's a weird angle on that that's that's a more that's more disconcerting than a
lot of ego in that yeah that's more disconcerting than just uh well it's my best friend's sister
yeah um which by and far is going to complicate things no matter what even if you do or you don't that's
going to be complicated um so either don't or have a genuine heart-to-heart conversation with
your friend like hey your sister and i are really interested in each other and and you know have
that uncomfortable conversation and make sure if you do want to pursue her to like make sure that's
what you really want instead of being like yeah not because the leader of this team yeah you're
the chosen one yeah from your group not like kobe where it's like i eat first when he's like
playing basketball yeah it's like these are like people we're talking about he talks to his friends
like look i'm the head of the team so we vote you yeah the guys need me to do this yeah yeah right i gotta set
the tempo i've been voted i guess the worst thing you do is is to do it without the knowledge of
your friend because he's definitely going to find out and it's going to blow things up i had a call
i had a friend who wanted to hook up with another friend's sister and i was like i knew he didn't
really care about the girl that much but i mean they were both like adults and i was like i was
like dude don't do it don't do it and then he's like i'm gonna do it i was like well then i'm gonna hook
up with your sister and he was like i don't care and i was like all right well as long as you're
like not being hypocritical in your pursuit that's a litmus test yeah a little bit i mean you know
obviously if you're gonna date this person and it's your friend's sister you got to be
extra careful and and really like her if you're going to pursue it.
Like maybe with the intention of dating.
With the intention of dating.
For sure.
I soft pedal it sometimes.
All right.
Dear dudes, the girl I'm talking to now is someone that I've been on and off with for years.
And even though we're currently talking again, her parental units absolutely hate me.
What are some ways I can raise their stoke and help them learn to like me again?
Well, he doesn't give any insight as to why why they don't like him so I would say be respectful
to them um be uh productive you know right have a good life that you can talk about yeah yeah like
have a have a life that you are proud of and so that you're likely to present it as such.
I don't know.
That's a pretty lofty request
to not have any background.
This is from the movie Summer Catch,
but mow their lawn.
Like if you just volunteer to mow their lawn.
Yeah, but see, that turns into
sort of an Eddie Haskell thing.
Right.
That's my era.
No, I get it.
You're just playing to the,
but maybe you're not really that person
you're presenting yourself to be.
Right.
But if you do it every day for a summer,
it's going to be hard to discount.
Okay.
Well, that's one approach.
Well, we should find out if he really likes mowing lawns,
so then if he's actually into it.
Are your kids dating?
Yeah.
Yeah.
The older ones.
When they bring over a person, are you tough?
No, I'm not tough.
I mean, I'm approachable and I try to be, I guess, for lack of a better term,
liberal to open ideas and their ages and what they're really going through
and not be in denial of that kind of stuff like my parents were.
I'm just trying to get to know them and to to make sure
that they have a healthy approach to their relationship because you know with my older son
like he's he's has more complications with women who are adults and and you know there's a lot of
things that go with that and and i've actually had better conversations with him in his later years
now than i did before.
For sure.
Like this,
these are real life challenges.
These are things you have to push through if you want to maintain an intimate relationship.
And,
you know,
on the surface,
that stuff seems super easy when you're young and whatnot.
And now,
you know,
he has a better understanding of why some of my relationships fell apart and
why I went through all this journey and whatnot.
Did you find it difficult with skating and stuff,
that sort of life?
That was part of it,
but I think I just wasn't prepared emotionally to have true intimacy in my early years.
I wasn't raised like that.
My parents were not that warm like that.
It wasn't a house if I love you
and that kind of stuff.
So I didn't learn and my parents didn't,
they got along, but you know,
it wasn't true loving relationship.
And so I just didn't learn that stuff.
So I had to learn that later in the hardest ways.
I feel that sometimes.
Like there's like a disconnect from that my, from my parents,
I think. Yeah. I mean, and you, you have to, you have to learn to embrace those challenges and not
be, not just distract yourself with something new or something else and to really be present and,
and, and work through things because ultimately it's way more rewarding. I mean, I've, you know,
I'm, I'm a little old to be figuring that out,
but that is what I have found in the last, say,
like six to eight years
where I realized that true intimacy
is far more rewarding than glitz,
than the new thing, the next thing.
Yeah.
In intimacy, it's like,
it requires so much vulnerability.
Yeah, that too. And relinquishing control prepare it to to put yourself out there but also the at the same time
it you get it back and that is that's the best part i'm learning about that how to be more
vulnerable and honest and i found it to be actually really fun because before i would have like a wall
up and i was like and i was like oh vulnerability like ew like i'm just gonna be tan or whatever but now
i'm starting to be more honest and stuff and i do find it to be a lot more fun and life just is a
little bit more and you're using all of yourself yeah and the conversations are better you know
i'm not like hiding something it's more like uh there's i can feel more of a connection yeah yeah i definitely when you when
you let go of hiding stuff it's it's so liberating yeah and suddenly it just feels like everything is
more vibrant yeah it's interesting yeah i had this big secret that i was a virgin until i was 24
and i thought i was gonna die never telling anyone that and then then I went to therapy and I unloaded it to my therapist.
And it just felt like the weight of the world fell off my shoulders.
I was like, I don't need to put this burden on myself.
And nobody else really cared that much.
Yeah.
I mean, my boys obviously thought I was a little dorky.
But it wasn't like damning.
They still liked me.
Couldn't you use that to your advantage, though?
Where you put it out there and you're like,
I haven't.
And people are like,
all right.
Then you're the focus of attention.
Let's figure this out.
I was like,
let's fix it.
Yeah.
All right.
What up guys?
So I need a girl's bathroom.
What up guys?
So I need some advice on how to relate with my coworkers.
You see,
I'm a full-time PhD student and full-time stoker,
but every time,
but every,
but everyone I work with is a total nerd.
I mean, real big-time
full-on nerds who play Dungeons and Dragons every weekend night have never even tried to chug and
definitely don't pool. Recently, I had the honor of serving as a groomsman at my boy's wedding in
Texas to get the squad fired up. Basically, he meets a girl on a flight. They make out on the
flight because he was wearing a funny cowboy hat. And they have some double vodka sodas
and he gets rubbed down.
When he gets back to work on Monday,
I was fired up to tell the story
to all my coworkers.
Upon hearing my story,
which is objectively a major stoke factor,
they were not fired up at all
and actually appeared mad.
Before I knew it,
I had five angry nerds scolding me
for being disrespectful
to the other people on my flight.
I don't understand
how i can continue working in this environment please help um how to continue working yeah i
yeah i mean uh i think he means just like how's a lot of there's a lot of layers to that yeah
how can he coexist with these dudes if he's got such better stories
that they can't even wrap their head around anything?
Yeah, I guess.
But there's also...
I mean, who knows if anyone even knew
what was going on on the plane.
I have a lot of questions.
Yeah, I'd say for this guy...
I think maybe there is also the argument
that they're projecting against him
because they wish that was sort of thing was
happening to them right um maybe maybe not but maybe he left a detail in that was disrespectful
right about this girl it's an interesting question like is his there's a lot of facets to it right
is his version of the email cutting out some details from the story that is what made it
off-putting to his coworkers that is that could be disrespectful. And in that case,
more power to those guys for
setting him straight. He could just revel
in the fact that he shares
this enjoyment with his squad.
And so he can kind of be like, alright,
sort of like what you were saying, how you found your crew.
That just sounds like such a teenage boy
fantasy brag thing.
There's a line in the movie
Broadcast News where William Hurt's talking to Albert Brooks and he's like, what do you do like fantasy brag thing there's a line in the movie broadcast news where like william hurt's
talking to albert brooks and he's like what do you do when your life exceeds your wildest dreams
and albert brooks looks at me goes you keep it to yourself oh yeah yeah yeah good call and like i
mean you dude you had this great experience the fact that they're not reveling in it with you i
mean that is a little bit of a bummer but i think you just got to accept that people live different
lives and maybe they just can't wrap their head around it.
And I think he kind of wanted them to just tell him that he's awesome.
Yeah, he was definitely doing it for high fives.
And they didn't do that.
Which isn't a cool thing to do either.
You guys don't think I'm awesome.
I'm out of here.
Yeah, yeah.
See, that's the thing.
Was the angle more that I use this girl or was it more like, no, this was mutual.
Yeah, maybe tell the story in a more romantic,
beautiful way.
And we're getting married next week.
Challenge yourself to tell the story better next time
or to experience it better.
And then you might get a better response.
Win the nerds over.
A lot of ins and outs, a lot of what have you.
And then I proposed to her on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Throw in some Dungeons and Dragons details. And then we went back to my place and played dungeons dragons
now i dig it yeah i dress like a knight all right just one or two more how do you get the boys to
venmo you back for drink without sounding like a mega douche should you call them out if they
keep doing it after you let it slide once for a drink? Yeah, if your boys aren't paying you back
after you cop them some drinks.
Huh.
I guess you could...
I know how Venmo works.
I guess maybe you could shame them on Venmo.
Oh, good call.
By emojis.
Yeah.
Right?
I like that.
Because it is its own social network of sorts.
Yeah.
You could comment on their...
If you see some transactions, be like, oh, you sent $10 to Matt?
Yeah.
Figures.
You got all these disposable funds because I'm getting none of it, dude.
Pizza with Shelly?
Must have been nice.
And then also, I think you just stop getting them drinks.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, fully once.
Yeah.
You're like, nah, dude, that fund has been sealed.
No help here.
All right.
Yo, big dogs.
Want to congratulate you guys on an amazing podcast.
I'm 17 years old, big leader in the community, love entrepreneurship and our boy T Rob and constantly think about starting businesses for a while though.
I have had no spark at all for dating, not gay though.
Okay.
All of my dogs have girlfriends, matter yeah but i don't feel
pressure to date because of them i think i just need to be patient and find that beautiful angel
but my mind is just constantly on a rager my question for you guys is simply what do i do
how do i ignite that fire back into my heart for dating and meet beautiful girls i'm tricky in that
i want to have a girlfriend but have no spark thanks so much you guys are a blessing what is do we define rager as
someone that's going out and raging one night stands or he just wants to party i think he's
part of the party just party well i think maybe you've got to realize that your life
could be more fulfilling with someone in it that you love that you can share your life with um and that maybe you could also share in their life and provide things
for them he's 17 too yeah well but i'm surprised that at 17 you lose interest in dating right yeah
i mean dating can mean all kinds of things it doesn't mean you're stuck with one person
so um just i don't know what can you say like it's it's amazing out there it's um
you know having relationships even if you're gay like to to be sharing your life with someone else
um in the most smallest ways can be far more rewarding than just thinking you're okay on
your own all the time for sure yeah maybe he has a skewed idea of what dating is like or having a relationship is like because i
feel like a lot of people might like shame it be like oh then you're like stuck you're like in like
jail or whatever they don't really see the true benefits of it so maybe like what you're saying
yeah well that's that's but that harks back to you just have to embrace the intimacy of it yeah
and if you're not embracing the intimacy of it, you're distracted and you're just looking
for the next thing.
Yeah.
And then that's just the relationship killer.
And it seems like his brain moves fast.
You know, he's talking about entrepreneurship and starting different businesses.
So he's obviously a little precocious and ahead of himself because he's 17.
So I think, dude, just relax.
Like you might have that spark more than you think.
That can not benefit you in the end
if you're only focused on a career because that is another thing that will just kill a relationship
like you're workaholic and no time for anyone else and then when you do make time you don't
really keep you don't keep your promises in that sense and then you go back to just working
non-stop and and it's hard it's hard to keep that balance. That's the biggest challenge of my life is balancing my time so that I am present for my family,
but I'm also effective in my job.
Tony, I think that's a good place to close it.
That was a beautiful segment.
Dude, you've been awesome the whole time.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for coming in.
This was so awesome.
Thanks for coming down to my ramp.
Yeah.
Guys, it's awesome.
Guys, check out the ramp
if i could skate at all i would do it yeah i was looking at that vert that's like four feet of vert
you said we charge it that's crazy yeah well like i said my ramp's bigger so it's a little easier
yeah i was when i was a kid i would i was skating and i would go up to the half pipe and just look
down i'd be like i can't do it. Right. I dropped into the edge.
Yeah. I dropped in like a couple of times.
I broke my wrist and my career.
Oh, that'll do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I should have stuck with it, but water polo came surfing.
I don't know.
Yeah.
You had other passions that percolated.
All right, you guys.
Well, thanks for having me.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for doing it.
Yeah.
Appreciate it.
Cool.
Great.
Thanks.
Thank you, dude.
So we're back uh so stoked we're
just talking about how stoked we were about we're doing the beefs and legends and babes without tony
hawk and uh we're just so stoked on him he was a beast we were both nervous that's the most nervous
i've ever been doing yeah yeah when i was first talking to him when we first met him i was i
started talking about the uh his half pipe and pipe. And, uh, I'm like,
yeah,
that vert now in my head,
I'm like,
why are you talking to Tony Hawk about how scary vert is?
Right.
For me,
it wasn't even his,
like,
it wasn't even his legend as like a skater and stuff.
It was like,
he's very,
as a person on top of it.
Very smart.
Yeah.
He has a lot of command and,
uh,
he's smart guy.
Super smart guy.
Really cool dude.
So,
well,
so many accomplishments and just, yeah.
It's cool how I love his core message of like,
he just followed what he loved
and it wasn't for like the fame really.
It was like, he's just doing what he loved to do
and just cultivating that creativity and stuff
and just that progression.
And it feels like he's still progressing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, Tony, thank you so much for doing the pod, dude. It was a real dream come true for us. stuff and just that progression and and it feels like he's still progressing yeah yeah so i mean
tony thank you so much for doing the pod dude it was a you're a legend real dream come true for us
and thanks to al magical for uh setting it up thank you al yeah um all right chad who is your
beef of the week uh my beef of the week is uh slim jim because i love slim jim so it's an actual beef of the week oh yeah that's a play on i'm
playing with the words a little bit did joe do that last week too he did okay right on yeah
damn it uh i just remembered maybe that's why i was in my dome but i love slim gym it's always
there to keep me in ketosis in times of need um you know oftentimes i'll be out and about running around doing whatever you
know just like looking for different shampoos or different um types of t-shirts i can wear
and i'll be like oh fuck i forgot to eat i need to eat and what comes through in the clutch every
time slim jim thank you slim jim i know people say you're gross but i don't think you are i think
you taste delicious and i ignore all that stuff that's actually in you because you keep me in ketosis.
So thank you.
Beautiful beef.
What's your beef?
My beef of the week is Kobe and Shaq.
Oh, I mean, this is one of the greatest beefs in sports history.
And it's because they were teammates.
You know what I mean?
And it's these two alpha dogs jostling for control of a team.
And they both had claim to it because Shaq was the most dominant player in
the NBA,
but Kobe was a harder worker and it was probably the toughest shot maker in
the league.
And it worked for a while.
They won three titles.
You know what I mean?
I mean,
there's only a couple other teams that have done it and they were always
fighting over like,
you know,
Kobe being more of a passer.
And like I said,
Shaq working out more and they just couldn't figure it out.
Shaq goes to the heat Heat wins a title without Kobe and the NBA salivates over this and sets them up as the
Christmas Day game Christmas is always the biggest game and they have it Lakers versus
Heat and I remember watching that just be like oh of course Kobe scores the most points but the Heat
win and then a couple years later because Kobe's in the uh wilderness for a while with Smush Parker and a bad team.
Sorry, Smush.
He ends up getting to the finals,
but loses to the Celtics.
Then Shaq in the off season does a song at a club.
He gets up on the stage, grabs a mic and goes,
Kobe couldn't win one without me.
Eat my ass.
And also blames Kobe for his marriage.
And then he's like, just eat my ass,
eat my ass, eat my ass.
But then Kobe comes back, wins two titles,
and they now seem like they're friends so i think they just needed distance from
working together for them to really appreciate how they both wrote brought up each other's level
and they just did such goofy stuff like kobe one time was on tv and they were asking him how him
and shaq's relationship was and he was like it's fine and they were like well did you ever call him
to like apologize about this stuff he goes no i don't have his number everyone's like you can't get shaq's number dude just weird moves by both of
them but it was fun growing up in socal and watching them win titles and uh yeah it was a
it's a big time sports beef dude uh have we covered on the pod chudwin's story about shaq
i don't think we have his mom so our buddy chudwin his mom
uh is at the end of a game his mom was approaching shack to get an autograph for his basketball
for her son's basketball and she's like excuse me um mr o'neill would you be able to
uh sign my son's basketball he's like shut your. Whoa. Strider has good experiences with him when he valets his car.
Yeah.
I told Strider he's a good looking dude.
How do you have that be like the first thing you say?
Right.
Shut your ass, woman.
Shut your ass.
Yeah, I obviously had my personal issues with Shaq where he kind of like
disrespected me and some other fans trying to get his autograph.
But then I've also heard good things about him. Like on the set of Shazam, I heard he worked his
ass off or Kazam. Yeah. I feel like he's known generally to be a good dude. Yeah. I think he
lost that night. That's why he's pissed. Yeah. When he launched a big podcast, his podcast,
he had Kobe on as his first guest and he introduced Kobe as the greatest Laker ever.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So it's cool that they could come so far.
Good use of shut your ass, too.
Yeah, he loves ass because he told Kobe to eat his ass, too.
It's a big ass.
Seven foot one, 400 pound booty.
Booty ball, bro.
Chad, who is your babe of the week my babe of the week is the uh school
level in tony hawk 2 nice yeah uh fitting yeah no i'm i'm my legends and babes are kind of like
in the theme of tony hawk because we're in his hawks lair hawks lair um dude that's it's gotta be one of my favorite levels in tony hawk 2
i love the video game so much uh tony hawk 2 i think is my favorite you know i'd say underground
was legit like super legit and i loved it but i mean tony hawk 2 really that's what that's what
got me into the games that's what really captured in my interest especially the school level and i
don't know it's not like the most extreme level you know it's not like they have like huge ramps and stuff
it's it's more like how it's i think how it's so you're like oh i'm at a school and i'm just
shredding it up and they um there's just something about it that i loved it was just like it was so
simple yeah you could do so much so much with it I'd have to play it again to give you guys more detail
because I haven't played it in probably like 12 years or something.
But I just want to give a shout out to that level.
It's legit.
And the video games in general.
They're babes.
They are so hot.
Dude, I would do tricks for like 10 minutes,
like one combo because you do the manuals, you know.
I do like kickflip, manual, dark slide,
people grind, smith grind, you know, for like 10 minutes and be like dude i play for hours just switch off with
a buddy and just keep going yeah it's amazing who's your babe my baby of the week is close to
what you've been talking about burger meat dude you know yes chad's got me accepting who i am to
myself and i am keto although Although I had a banana yesterday,
but, uh, one of the staples of my keto diet is burger meat. I order burger patties all the time,
oftentimes with cheese and I love them. It's a great dish and nobody really fucks up a burger
patty. You can get it almost anywhere and you're in good shape. Even at the airport. I mean,
obviously my favorite is the flying Dutchman from in in and out but i love burger patties from far and wide and uh i'm just glad you're in
my life you sexy motherfuckers that was beautiful chad who is your legend of the week my legend of
the week is the x games dude um when i was a kid growing up my favorite time of the year, and yeah, I'm talking over Christmas, was watching the X Games.
Is someone skating right now?
Yeah, I think Tony's kids are.
Wow.
Or his boys.
His bros are skating.
It's pretty wild, guys.
Man.
I want to go skate.
We're literally watching the X Games.
Yeah.
My legend is out the window. Yeah, it it's happening behind um it's my favorite time it was my favorite time of year
growing up to watch like those those like it was like a week or two the best sponsors taco bell
mountain dew other sponsors so many cool events it was summertime people were getting extreme people were getting
you know bob burnquist uh tony hawk freaking um who are some of the dirtbaggers travis pastrana
who's that brian brian deegan cory hart dude i just loved watching all of it i love taking it
all in i love the style i love the feel i love the fact that it was just hot is in the middle
of summer and people were getting extreme,
and it got me extreme.
Everyone there was cool.
Everyone was cool.
And it made me just want to get outside and freaking rip it up.
And, dude, when it would come down to the finals,
I was always the most into vert bike, like vert BMX.
It would always be Dave Mirra, rest in peace, and Jay Miron.
And then it would always come down to the final run,
and you were like, it was just sitting there with bated breath like, holy shit, like who's
going to pull this gold off?
Well, what do you think of motocross?
Do you think it was like too inaccessible?
Racing or the jumps?
The jumps.
No, I like the jumps.
They're cool to watch, but like, was it kind of like you're like, it's too sort of fantastical.
Like there's no way I could ever do anything like that.
I could see that, but I felt closer to them
because I actually dirt biked a little bit.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I had more of like a,
I mean, it was all a stretch of the imagination for me,
but with dirt biking, I was like, all right, yeah,
I hit jumps before, but with skating,
I can't even like, you know, I can't drop it.
Yeah, I guess that's a good point.
Yeah.
Did you dirt bike?
I dirt biked five times. my parents were not down it's dangerous
as fuck dude everyone i know got hurt yeah i my first time i went my buddy sean took me and he
had me like sit behind him on the dirt bike and he was just hauling ass and i was like what the
fuck are you doing dude it scared the shit out of me yeah i always think that the most wild people
are the people who are amped when the other person is driving yeah like if someone else is driving like a maniac and you're like yeah
go go go yeah like that's pure like uh psycho junkie and it makes you think about the amount
of trust you have to put into someone to ride on the back of a motorcycle. You know? The person driving is dumb. The person behind them
is loyal to the dumb person.
Yeah, he has loyalty to dumb.
Dude, I had a friend, Joe Black.
He's my dad's age, but he would race in the
Baja 500 and they blast on a
dirt bike for like a whole day. He's doing
90 miles an hour through the dunes.
Boom!
Hits a horse.
Sorry, guys. I know that's sad, but he smacked a horse so me and my brother come
visit him at his house full body cast just drilled up to his neck with a medical wrap
and then he like punctured his lung they had to like airlift him out of there he cracked like
three of his ribs did the horse explode so i go how's the horse because fuck the horse it's dead sorry guys i know it's a tragedy i love horses so much it's my favorite animal
but it was funny when joe said that that is funny he never cursed either like he would get mad at me
when i was a kid if i said like shoot it's funny that body got fucked the horse dude he's like
fuck that horse it's dead um. Joe is an action sports maniac,
so I'm thinking about him a lot.
When we interviewed Tony Hawk,
I'm still jacked on it, guys.
Hello Zone?
No, no, no.
Joe Black, who actually has the same name as Brad Pitt in the movie Meet Joe Black.
Chad, who is your legend?
Yeah.
Okay, my legend of the week is Mr. Sands.
Mr. Sands was my seventh grade English teacher,
and at the time,
I thought he was the coolest guy who ever lived, and now in retrospect, I realize what a weirdo he was.
Like he would do bizarre things like get high in his car, but also be high in class, I think,
and just like derail the subject for the day. And then she'd be like, guys, I've seen an alien
before. And then we'd all be like, really? And then he goes, yeah, I was driving down the highway
and down the other highway came two bright lights that were 12 feet above the air.
And he'd start drawing it on the board. And I'd be like, this is the best fucking English class
of my life. But he also had a temper. So once in a while he would cuss. He broke a ruler in front
of Samar's face. She was a little annoying, but you know, a teacher shouldn't do that.
And he was just totally irresponsible, but in a way that was very relatable, like he lost the
grade book. So he's like, I'm just going to give all of you b's and i was like fuck yeah because i had f's but the a students
were like that's bullshit and me and all the other f students were like shut up shut up so we got the
b's in hindsight obviously they were right mr sands totally responsible and then at lunch he
didn't want to hang out the other teachers so he would just let the kids come into his class and
he let us set up an xbox and we would just chill in his class at lunch and play. But he ended up getting fired because he threw a chair at one of our teachers, Mrs. O'Connor. Yeah, bummer.
but I have to tell the truth.
At the time when you were my teacher,
you were my favorite.
And when you told the class that you were leaving after throwing the chair at Mrs. O'Connor,
we all cried and I meant those tears
because you were the man.
Thanks, Mr. Sands.
Chad.
Chad's checking out the skating.
It's hard not to watch
because there's just a bunch of people ripping.
I feel like we're the nerds and they're the cool kids.
Yeah, for sure.
No, they don't give a fuck about podcasts
These guys don't listen to podcasts
They listen to vert
Yeah
They like hang out with each other and like build experiences
But I love podcasts
Oh this kid's good
Yeah he's ripping
Oh nice rock and roll dude
Comes into the quarter pipe
Oh monster 180
Solid Dropping in here comes teddy debasi
oh he's got good pace he's coming up the wall oh with the coping classic nose stall we are in
skateboard nirvana right now my friends i wish you were here if you could borrow my eyes i would be a
happy man for you would be seeing some of the most epic skating that has ever been done
boosh
oh with the casual grace of a leopard
oh and the hardcore strength of a mule
chad what is your quote of the week?
My quote is, um, it's from Lords of Dogtown.
Dude.
Dude, he's got the inner ear problem.
Suck my inner ear, J-Boy.
Epic comeback, dude.
Fire comeback.
He really got him. He's like, he's got the inner ear problem he's
like how about you suck my inner ear which i don't even know how you do that no i don't either but
that's what i think makes it such a spectacular burn is that like you're basically saying my butt
but it's more clever all right my quote is from a knight Tale. I was shocked to find out A Knight's Tale didn't
make back its budget on its box office grosses, but it's a cult classic. I mean, everyone remembers
it. And I always really liked James Purefoy who played the king in the movie or the prince rather,
Prince Edward. And we don't realize this until about a quarter of the way through.
And then he says this when Heath Ledger isger is stuck in the uh the stocks because they find
out he's not a knight he goes what a pair we make huh both trying to hide who we are both unable to
do so your men love you and if i knew nothing else about you that would be enough but you also tilt
when you should withdraw and that is nightly too because earlier in the movie heath ledger found
out that he was prince edward but he still went against earlier in the movie, Heath Ledger found out that he was Prince Edward,
but he still went against him in the joust
when everybody else dropped out.
And he was like, no, if this prince is in this tournament,
it's because he wants people to respect him as a jouster.
I'm not going to give him carte blanche
just because of his title.
Let's go.
And like he said, you tilt when you should withdraw.
And that is nightly too.
So what up, a knight's tale?
And rest in peace, Heath Ledger.
R.I.P., dude.
My dog. Boom clap, Stokers.
And thank you to Mr. Tony Hawk.
Thank you, Tony Hawk, for coming in. Stokers, thank you for
listening. Make sure you come in with those fire
reviews. Should I
lay down a review of the week right now?
Hit it, baby. Because we love those reviews,
baby. They help us
in more ways than you guys
know. I'm always checking the number to see how
many reviews we get and i'm comparing it against other podcasts uh they say compare and despair
but sometimes if you're in front of someone it actually feels kind of good so this comes from
this is subject line ah dude ah by trash i just want to say this is subject line, Aw, Dude, Aw, by Trash.
I just want to say this is the best pot out there right now, my dogs.
My stoke tank has never been full list consistently.
Every time I hear Chad and JT, they just fill my life up with positivity.
Thank you, dude.
Me and my bros have never been so stoked,
and it's all thanks to Chad, JT, Strider, Joe, and Aaron.
Stoked that you included Aaron. Aaron, beast, dude.
Thanks for reminding me every week, after week, to get after it and never let a schmole bring you down. You dudes are my legends
of the week. Thank you, dude. And thank you for the review. And Stokers, thank you for tuning in.
Thank you, dudes. And we miss Aaron, but also big thanks to Jay Farney for
the filming today on the Tony Hawk podcast. We could not do it without him. The setup we have
here looks like a Michael Bay movie. We got like five cameras going and no issues.
So that's my dog helping out.
We're about to pull off a massive stunt.
And you can see where I'm pointing.
Guys, you have never seen Jay Farney,
but imagine at the other end of my finger is Jay.
There's a sign in here that says Big Tuna, Texas.
That's Jay.
That's awesome.
Jay, you're my Big Tuna, Texasas jay's from texas population huge
huge all right guys that's it for episode 78 9 yeah or 80 yeah one of them we've been doing
more lately so we're losing it one of those episodes we're getting up there fellas and
ladies thank you dudes crosshouse legends boom clap st, legends. Boom clap, Stokers.
What's up, Stokers of Stoked Nations?
This is Chad Kroger coming in with
the Go Deep with Chad JT podcast.
Thank you so much for coming on the pod.
Sure, thank you.
Also, congrats on the
20-year anniversary of the 900.
That was yesterday, I believe. Oh, June
27th, yeah.une 27th okay thank
you cool cool yeah yeah that's uh that was actually one of my first memories is watching
the 900 oh yeah yeah oh that's awesome did everyone at the games know you were going to
go for it that year like i didn't know i was going to do it so oh really yeah it was it was
very spontaneous um i mean i had been trying
it off and on over the years and and gotten really close actually like land one broke my rib as i was
coming down um and so by that time in my life i'd kind of given up on it because i'd gone through
so much injury and and struggle with it and then when that night came around, it was the best trick event.
So I had something in mind for the best trick because I had done it before,
the Southern Trick.
Is it 720, right?
720 burial.
Yeah.
Burial 720.
And so that was my only plan.
And I made it early into the event.
And so then it was like, what's next?
Right.
And I think the announcer said something
too like why don't you try my note and i was just like oh not that thing again you know it was really
more like all right well here's what it looks like that was that was my mindset i was like i'll try
it and i'll show you how they work but but then you have a dog on a bone um i think i think what
happened was uh at that time especially in, there weren't that many good ramps.
And that ramp was especially fast.
And it helped a lot for doing a trick like that because it gave me more height.
And also that it wasn't – the ramp was true in the sense that, like, each wall was the same.
So you could take it for granted.
You didn't have to adjust at all. And between those two things,
that gave me the advantage to actually be consistent
with my spin and with the technique.
And then at some point I was like,
wow, I'm getting a lot closer.
Right.
If I try to land it again, I might break my rib.
But if it's going to happen, it's going to happen now.
Wasn't the slight tweak you made,
like a shift in midair like a weight
shift is that what you found um to land it or yeah it was mostly because the one the the times that
i had tried to make it in fact the one time that i really got close was like 1995 or 96 i put it on
the wall and i was riding down and i was just leaning too far forward. So I crumpled into the flat bottom. And I did that too during the X Games,
but I didn't get so hurt.
And so in that moment, I thought,
well, what if I shift my weight while I'm spinning?
And luckily it gave me that time to think about that.
And then when I did shift my weight,
I ended up falling backwards.
And so I just kind of
split the difference.
Oh.
And that's when I found
the words.
How long would you
have kept going
that night?
Uh,
either until I was
in an ambulance
or on the podium.
Two options.
Yeah,
that was about it.
I wasn't going to give up
because I was tired.
Yeah.
Or on TV,
you're like,
oh,
they're still on.
I didn't really,
that wasn't a concern
because the time was up
for the event.
So in my head,
I was just doing it
to make it finally.
Right.
I really thought
we were off air
because it was a live event.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And it was a 20-minute session
and so I had gone,
but the time had expired.
And that was fine.
Like, that wasn't the goal.
Right.
But they ended up running it live over time just because they saw that happening.
Yeah, it was great TV.
It was amazing.
I remember watching it too.
How long did they extend the time?
That's a good question.
I'm not sure.
It was probably five or ten minutes.
Okay.
When you pull something like that off, how do you celebrate?
It's weird,
especially in skating,
through the years,
there's so many tricks that I've really wanted to do
and most of the time I haven't been able to do them.
And you have been expecting it for so long
that it's just more of a relief.
It's not like this,
oh my God, I did it! It's like, ah, finally, you just got just more of a relief. It's not like this oh my god I did it. It's like
finally you just got it right behind you.
It's a weird, it's validation
and you feel good about it but there
isn't this great celebratory thing.
I mean there it was because
the context of the event
and the crowd and my peers
and stuff like that but I've done plenty of other
tricks here on this room
where I was
trying it for, I don't know, maybe
months or a year, and then I did it, and it
was just like, crap, just check that one off
like an over-
Do you have sort of the mindset of whenever you
sort of, you complete the
900 or whatever, are you immediately
kind of like, alright, what's the next trick?
Or are you able to sort of fast thing it?
Yeah, after that, not long after that, I started trying variations of it.
I started trying different grabs.
I tried to varial it.
I couldn't.
But definitely, that was always my mindset.
I mean, at my age now, that's not really the –
like nowadays, it's sort of like I want to try something
that maybe is a little more technical.
It's not high impact.
It's not a lot of spinning. And I want to try something that maybe is a little more technical it's not high impact it's not a lot of spinning
and I want to do that
and I don't think of like
that's the stepping stone
to something else
it's more like
I'm just happy to be
learning a trick
at my age
yeah
just like mastery
but it's not like
a spectacle as much
yeah it's more for the
it's more like
for the hardcore skaters
to appreciate
right
you know the
the nuances
of the difficulty factor.
For sure.
So what kind of tricks are you pulling off now
or the new ones that you're learning?
It's more sort of lip trick grind stuff.
Okay.
So I have a couple things in mind that I've been wanting to do recently
that just require this sort of,
the best explanation I can have is like a coping dance
where I'm just trying to
shift from one grind to another
while still sliding across
and doing it
like blindside so it's backwards
and I don't know
it's hard to explain
if you want to know the details, the trick I want to learn
is alley you
frontside lip slide to
kick it into a backslide.
Gosh, yeah, that's what I want.
For sure.
I think I can picture that.
And it's like, to the layman,
to the non-skater, it's going to be like,
what is he doing?
Shifting around when coping,
but the difficulty factor is high.
Sort of like riding a switch.
A little bit, yeah.
And it's also just more that you can't see where you're going, the difficulty factor is high. Right. Sort of like riding a switch, like. A little bit, yeah.
And it's also just more that you can't see
where you're going,
can't see what you're doing,
it's all in the feeling of it.
Yeah.
That's cool,
so.
That's kind of where I'm at
with my skating,
sweetie.
So you grew up around here?
I grew up in San Diego,
yeah.
San Diego,
yeah.
Are we,
no,
we're not in the city,
are we right now?
We are in Vista currently.
Okay.
This is my office,
this is where my ramp is. It's badass. Yeah. A huge ramp, guys, for those of you. Are we right now? We are in Vista currently. This is my office. This is where my ramp is.
It's badass.
Yeah.
A huge ramp, guys, for those of you who don't know.
Yeah, I actually bought this.
I bought this building before it was built and had them change the height of the ceiling
before they built it so that we could put the ramp in here.
Oh, cool.
And I actually bought it for the ramp because this ramp was always on tour.
And that was the only time we
ever got to ride it was when we were on the road and then when we were home it was just in storage
and i said why do we have the best ramp in the world i don't get to ride it unless we're on the
road right so i got this building and then all the businesses here kind of fell into place have
you ever touched like the bars when you hit uh my friend touched that pipe. See the lower pipe? Yeah. Wow.
It's about 20 feet above the...
Yeah.
He hit it with his nose.
What?
On purpose or on accident?
On purpose, he's aiming for it.
Nice.
How did he come down from that?
Quickly.
Did he land?
He made it.
Oh, beautiful.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
So this was on the Boom Boom Hop Jam tour?
Yeah, this is that radio.
Oh, wow.
Nice. Our buddy Strider went to that. I wasn't allowed to go.? Yeah, this is that radio. Oh, wow. Nice.
Our buddy Strider went to that.
I wasn't allowed to go.
I was in trouble at the time.
Oh.
He went to City, last week.
I think Anaheim?
Okay, yeah.
Diva played.
Yeah.
Oh, the band?
Yeah.
Nice.
Whip It Good?
Yep.
Dude, they're great.
Yeah.
They're one of my favorites.
Well, your music, we wanted to ask you about Tony Hawk Pro Skater.
Did you help curate
the music for that?
Because it had
such a great soundtrack.
Yeah,
yeah,
yeah,
for sure.
I wanted to represent
skateboarding culture
and skateboarding soundtrack
and so,
as we got down the line,
especially after
the first two games,
then the,
you could put more storage
on the discs
because they went
from CD to DVD
and it was next up to that and so we were able to put a lot more songs on it discs because they went from CD to DVD and whatever was next after that.
And so we were able to put a lot more songs on it
and so the soundtrack was much more rich.
And I just kept throwing out suggestions from my past
and from the stuff I listened to at skate parks and stuff.
So that's what I wanted to represent.
The newer bands that they had in it,
especially like the first two,
for instance, Goldfinger,
Mill and Cullen, Power Man 5000,
that was all more on the
music side of Activision to get.
My contribution was more like
the Black Flag, Dead Kennedys,
Primus, Buzz Lightyear,
that kind of stuff.
Gorilla Radio always comes to mind
whenever I think of the game.
Oh yeah, Rage.
Everyone has their song.
The people who are in the game, they always have that one, like, that's the song.
It's not that.
It's Ace of Spades.
Or it's the gold finger, pretend I'm Superman.
Yeah, that's the one I remember the most.
Because I'm no Superman.
Yeah, that's it.
And I want to talk to you about getting your name on the game.
Because I heard that was like, it almost didn't happen
but because it did
the amount of, I guess it's kind of
gauche to talk about, but the amount of money you made
was way more because of that?
Yeah, it wasn't
there wasn't a discussion that my name wouldn't be on it
it was more that
there were a few different companies
trying to do skate games at that time
and one actually approached me about
being involved
and that game did come out
it was Thrasher Skate or Die
but I was in early
talks with them and then
Activision called me because they
heard that I had been talking
to this other company and they said hey we are
also working on a skate game why don't you come check it out
and so I went to Activision and when I saw their demo of what they were doing even though it
was based on a different game it was actually the character that i was first played was bruce willis
with a gun on his back because the the engine was um made from a game they had already done
called apocalypse that featured him.
So the first incarnation of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was
Bruce Willis skating through a desert
with a gun on his back.
Wow, that's awesome. That's a cool game too.
Well, I mean,
that's just because they're, you know,
using the Karakus just to get through.
But when I
saw that, I thought, this is it.
This is the direction because the controls were intuitive.
And I knew that with my resources and my connections that we could make something that really spoke to skaters.
Yeah.
How directly involved were you in the design of the levels?
Mostly, I was more involved with the design of the levels that included real skate spots
yeah so my input would be like we gotta do san francisco yeah we gotta do china banks
we gotta do the wharf you know what i mean like that would be my but then some levels are just
made up like school is made up and that's their deal. So that's kind of how... I always thought that was based off Hollywood High.
Is that not true?
I think my buddy just told me that.
No, I don't think so.
I mean, there was one...
One of the schools had the Leap of Faith.
Yeah.
And that was based on an actual school skate spot
here in San Diego.
Okay.
But the rest of it wasn't designed
around the exact same school.
Okay.
Gotcha. Do you play video games?
I used to for sure these days
my biggest
the most
let's see
the most I play is with my daughter
playing Super Smash Brothers or Mario Kart
right
more just to bond with your kids
yeah because the other kids,
you know,
they're playing Fortnite
and they're playing
NFL
and it's not even that,
it's just more like
the time suck.
Right.
I wish I had that much time
to play,
but I'm usually off and running.
Yeah,
I don't have one either
because I think I would just
use it too much.
Yeah,
I mean,
I love it.
Like,
if I was their age,
that's exactly what I'd be doing
for sure. You know, I'm just not at an age where I can. For sure. I mean, love it like if I was their age that's exactly what I'd be doing for sure
you know
I'm just not at an age
where I can
for sure
I mean
and it's amazing
like the technology
is insane now
yeah
do you have a desire
to build another game
create another game
uh
always
sure
if the right
opportunity
comes along
yeah
um
I
would really love
to remaster
our old games too but but that's going to
require a lot of
negotiations because I haven't
worked with Activision in a while.
Cool.
Wait, should we check this?
If you need advice
These guys are really nice
You wanna know
What to do and where to go
When you need someone to guide you
There's no place to have a girl beside you
Go in the dream
Go in the dream Let's go in the dream Go in the dream We'll see you next time.