You mentioned demos in Australia and Canada. You didn’t tour the U.S? How were the tours? How long were you there, where did you skate, how were the people, how was the food/nightlife etc? Was it like being a rock star with groupies etc?
We didn’t tour the U.S. on any company’s bill, they all had different priorities. We went in our Chrysler, we would go places and just show up and hang out with the locals and skate. No hype or advertising and to get paid, on company bills, we went to Canada and Australia, so fun. Canada was rad. We had lots of fans cuz Skull Skates was big here and at one point, we had a model by them, so a year or two after Skull, we still had fans in Canada. Australia was great, we saw the New Christs, one of our favorite Radio Birdman “offshoot” bands and skated with some really cool guys. Borgy and one eyed Chris… They were gnarly, like a skate gang. They took us to all these places to get girls, see bands and skate. We saw shit that most of the other pros on that tour would never see, just cuz our image and lifestyle matched these guys. We have been all over Mexico skating too, from ’79–83, Guadalajara, Mexico City, and several small towns in between, coastally… surfing and stuff. We were born there and speak the language.
Was there pressure to enter/do well in contests to promote the brand name?
Never through our career did we feel pressure to do well in contests, not for Iron Cross anyway. In the previous days, we didn’t train the way others did, working on their lines and shit. We just skated. H-Street wanted me to, and Circle A didn’t care if Steve did and we tried, but training and stuff like that takes all the spontaneity out of skateboarding and we felt that it made ya a skate robot.
How did Iron Cross end?
At the end, sales were low but the organization was still ready to go. We had spent so much on ams and other promotion that we didn’t put enough away to start our own distribution or woodshop. That was our fault so we tried to clear out the stock we had by selling what we had at our headquarters directly to the kids — a sort of “ICS club deal.” In the end we never really got the full story. I guess Mike Ternasky, Magnusson’s partner, was planning Plan B to fuck Tony. Ternasky was the businessman: he was responsible for all the goings-on—paychecks, company business moves, who they’re gonna promote. Tony Magnusson was mostly concentrating on beating Tony Hawk in contests, so he washed his hands of certain responsibilities. Knowing that Ternasky was that way, we should have seen it coming that we were on the outs. Soon the stock was gone not only from our headquarters but from the H Street warehouse. They went behind our backs and sold all of the remaining decks as completes to price club stores for $20 each and our graphics were put on cheap Action Sports decks. We lost a lot, we trusted them, so we didn’t feel that we should be on the lookout to get squeezed out, we did graphics out the ass for them, big sellers too. We were going, “where’s the loyalty?”
So do I have this straight? You went to bed one night the co-owners of a skateboard company, and you woke up the next morning and found the company and all of its stock was basically gone? You must still be pissed at Mag and Ternasky.
Fuck yeah, and mad at ourselves too cuz we didn’t have the financial means to go after them. We don’t understand business ethics like stepping on people on the way up the ladder. We had so many people who were ready to take matters into their own hands so we could wash our hands of the dirty work but we aren’t that way. We figure people get theirs sooner or later. See, those guys had such a good thing going and I was actually proud that I was affiliated and Steve was too, cuz we could do whatever graphics we wanted for H-Street and they loved ’em all. God damn, this interview is bringing up all kinds of small but funny memories. Symbolism in graphics, hidden statements around the end of riding for H-Street, then anyways, they fucked each other over and important other people as well.
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