Who did the graphics?
Steve, Art, and Justin Ashby.
Tell us about the graphics.
Art’s deck in ’89 had a lizard on it, then he went to a tin soldier in ’90. Steve had a bird on his model in ’89, then went to a crazed monster with swords in 1990. The monster was the “sickle weasel”—he was in a Sega Genesis game “Ghouls and Ghosts” which we used to play at the ICS headquarters in ’89–’90 everyday.
Nieder’s graphic was an old man, right? What about Ashby’s?
Yeah, an old man, that was the 1990. I can’t remember the other. Justin had a pig with a helmet on, it was rad.
Owen Nieder? The name is familiar but I can’t place what company he skated for before you guys.
Owen rode for Madrid. He was a local at Del Mar, he skated so fuckin’ smooth.
Did a Justin Ashby deck actually get released? I never saw the graphics advertised for that one and I know he was kind of a fuck-up.
Yeah, it came out, in fact it sold real well, we don’t even have one of those decks left. Justin was rad, he had this drinking problem but no matter what, he could skate like a motherfucker. We used to surf everyday at Cardiff reef and some days were huge. Justin had been drinking the night before and would paddle out the next morning, still all fucked up on a long board and rip! It’s not that he was fucked up one time and he was out, it’s not even the fact that he was fucked up, it’s the shit he did when he was fucked up. We could tell ya some funny stories man, that house we lived in… the headquarters…so rad.
How about the shapes?
Everyone who had a model drew their own. Amateurs helped with the shapes of the non-pro model decks. Lots of the team had their own shapes, we had Dave Bedore who did Uncle Wiggley’s wood shop, cutting out all these carbon/graphite and Kevlar 5-ply decks with Hell concave for the team guys. Most of ’em were verticalists and they rode the experimental decks, those decks wouldn’t last on the street.
What were sales like?
Great at first, 1000 the first month, 2000 the second month, 3000 the third… Then it dropped and sort of leveled off at a six or seven hundred. Due to the season, board sales were seasonal then, not sure what it’s like now.
What mags did you advertise in?
Thrasher, PowerEdge, and some little zines.
How much industry stuff did you have to do?
As much as we could stand… trade shows… it was all on our terms though. We were lucky we had H-Street pushing it, they were huge. The industry was all about phoniness, a lot of ’em would kiss each other’s ass and then talk shit later. “Call me, I’ll hook it up!” Ya call ’em and they didn’t wanna know ya! We always kept our word, right to the end. So we would do as much industry shit as we could stand.
What was it like for you guys who had been industry outsiders for so long to now be insiders? You still had scars from being dicked around by all of those companies, and then suddenly you were “one of them.” That must have made some of those guys uncomfortable.
Yeah exactly right, cuz even though lots of the guys in control of the direction skating would go (magazines) were cleaning up skateboarding, there were still threats. They knew what would make money; pink shirts, bangs combed over one eye. For the industry, it was good, look at how big skating is now…but nobody knew how to take us, nobody understood us because we never talked to anyone. Just cuz you’re not conforming to their image of skaters who love skating, dressing like them, wearing those lame clothes, they couldn’t see ya as an example for the kids. Even though we never did drugs or drank and we were tattooed but were skating everyday, traveling on our own cash, living in our car, homeless for a year through a winter… to the ’80s skate image, this spelled “vagrancy.” We could never be phony. This was “real” and I guess people felt threatened cuz we were unpredictable and we don’t fuck around.
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