How did the money get worked out? Did you get all of the IC revenue, or did it go right to H-Street? Did H-Street deal with the distribution etc?
Well, it was a licensing deal. We said, “you can make ’em and distribute em and pay for ads and we’ll take all the orders, just until we get on our feet.” We gave it a year in the contract so basically, we got a high royalty, at the time like $4.00 a deck or $5.00, can’t remember exactly… but since we started with no money of our own cuz we couldn’t afford it, it was the only reasonable thing to do. The first few months of checks were great and we should have put it all into a wood shop and become self-sufficient. That plan was on the back burner because we wanted to get the team out there and have a strong showing first so the later checks would be huge and then we could implement our plans… but how were we to know things would go the way they did? Guess ya can’t trust anybody.
What does this ad mean?
The ad was in retaliation to Fausto (Independent) sending us a letter to stop our logo and company… The maltese cross is public domain. In the letter, they said that any likeness to the indy logo is a colorable imitation… then if that’s the case, so is theirs. I don’t think Fausto and them knew about the letter, I just think they have a law firm who looks out for them and gets bootleggers. How did our logo look similar? We were homeless then in that photo. It was taken in 1986 three years before Iron Cross, in Dallas when we had just quit Zorlac and were in talks with Kryptonics. That lake in the background is Bachman lake, the clown ramp is to the left of where we are standing.
Is that why you stopped using the cross and went to the eagle logo?
NO, the letter from the lawyer—NHS/Fausto, came during the first month of ICS being in business. See when ya put ads in mags, you submit ’em and then two months later, they appear in the mags. We changed to the eagle for the 1990 catalogue. You did something new each year, not like today, new graphics every month. There weren’t enough skaters buying boards to be able to change graphics all the time. Though the skull and bones logo was the best selling sticker of 1989, that’s what H-Street told us! It was gonna appear on everything but we kept the skull cuz it was cool as hell.
Did the IC team all live in one house? What was that like?
Not all the team, just Tilman, Justin, me & Steve and sometimes Jay Hitt. Oh yeah, and Rolando (from Australia) It was crazy as hell, I can’t get into all the things that used to go on…in the winter, it gets cool at night, we were living in Cardiff (North San Diego) where the ICS headquarters was. The new hell concave samples of all our decks had just come in and the whole house had some. Me, Steve and Tilman went fuckin’ around and we get home late and the house was full of smoke. One of the bills was late and it was a weekend and the power couldn’t be turned back on until monday so the house was cold and smokey. We found Justin and Jay hanging out by the fireplace burning Tilman’s brand new deck with trucks on it and wheels all melted…Tilman got so mad! That was one small incident, the girls, and other shit that went on we can’t talk about.
Did you try to recruit any other pro skaters for the team?
Danny Way was considering it, Schultes wanted on, we asked Jason Jesse but Santa Cruz was making him lots and he was under contract.
Did you do demos across the country? Favorite memories?
Demos during Iron Cross, just in Toronto & Australia. Memories are too many to name just one but the shit that went on at the headquarters was the best. I’ll tell ya one. We got these BB guns and when we ran outa BB’s we found that the cactus spines on the little cactuses in front of the house with balls on the base of them fit perfectly into the guns so we used to shoot each other with them. Well, Justin was passed out one night and we were playing “Squat team,” (ambushing each other with the spine-loaded BB guns) and I think it was Tilman who decided to shoot Justin with ’em, so he went right up to Justin’s face, like a foot away and shot him. It went in like a 1/2 inch, he didn’t move, so he kept shooting him in his face, like 8 times, the next morning, we got up to surf, we only lived 2 blocks to Cardiff reef, so while we were sitting in the line-up, who paddles out? Justin! He had picked out the cactus spines and had these huge bumps all over his face, like giant mosquito bites and he just goes “oi!” (That’s how he talked, he’s from Brighton), like nothing happened, he probably thought he just fell…
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