Were you sad when the whole thing folded, or was the business part of it becoming a drag?
The business part of it was rad. We could have done that part of it forever. We were sad because, as it was through most of our career, we put our whole life into everything we did. And for the industry to decide who’s getting blackballed cuz of who you ride for or whatever, is totally biased and unfair. It really makes ya question what you’re doing and who you’re doing it for. It took a while after the skate career folded to adjust to skating for ourselves, just for fun because when you’re around skaters who think they have so much to prove, you get the same way. The industry was fucked. We get respect NOW, lots of the tattooed skaters know who we are, it feels good to be recognized and to talk to tattooers who were skaters once who go, “I started tattooing cuz of you guys, I looked up to you guys when I was a kid learning how to skate.” At least we made a mark, if skating is a lifestyle, why was there so much focus on competition results? The “jock mentality” makes money.
What did you guys do for cash after Iron Cross closed down?
We had been tattooing for 5 or 6 years by then so we could make a little dough here and there. Knox was born and Steve was ordered to pay child support, only after ICS folded, he was givin’ lots of money and time to support Knox. When the company folded, Knox’s mom saw her “cash cow” disappear so we got jobs making armor for the government so we could have proof of income for the child support people. We got custody of Knox a few months later and raised him since he was 3. We also did more skate graphics: John Schultes Dogtown model, Steve Claar G&S, and many others later. Andy Macdonald Human skateboards in about ’94. We used to do lots of surf company graphics too — O’Neil, Quicksilver, Pirate Surf. We have also done tons of special project stuff… airbrushed a 1950 Pontiac for Sony Music’s Social Distortion promo… Offspring shit, Godzilla, tons of shit too for Capitol records… Less than Jake promos.
Did you keep skating or did you give it up for awhile?
Fuckin’ industry left a bad taste in our mouths so we sort of stopped skating solidly for 6 months. We still skated but to go to the park all burnt out from 10 hour days was hard and to see everyone still making “free” money, made us sick.
Tell us more about the job you had making armor for the government.
We had jobs at this factory which got multi-million dollar contracts with the U.S. government to do research and development in ‘ceramic armor’ plating for tanks, helicopters and shit. We made armor for the B-1 bomber, the Apache and Black Hawk Helicopters under the seats so the pilots wouldn’t get their ass blown off, the Space shuttle’s nose cone tiles so it could pass through the earth’s atmosphere and not burn up and some tanks. Steve was the powder processor and I was a machinist. It blows us away that we made the tiles for those planes, helicopters, tanks, and the Space Shuttle. These tiles we made could stop different sizes of projectile fire but if ya dropped them on the floor, they would shatter. It was called Ceramic but it wasn’t like dishes or pottery. It was more like lava that had hardened and then machined. We used to make Boron Carbide, Silicon Carbide, Al 203. We were exposed to these cancer-causing, fibrosis-causing chemicals and powders.
Art, how did it come about that you moved up to Vancouver? It must have been tough leaving your bro after all those years.
I ended up in Canada cuz I came up here to see my chick and thought that they could use a tattoo shop worth a shit, so I saved up lots of money, like $6000 and when you convert it to Canadian money, it’s like $10,000…and the shop kicks ass. Everyone in the shop is good and cool as hell. I married her. Not something I thought I would ever do cuz we used to fuck so many girls but she’s cool. Yeah, it was tough, it still is. To have someone around you don’t even have to explain how ya feel to cuz they feel the same way is priceless. Being twins is the best. But I saw opportunity and took it. He may come up soon to open another Funhouse…
How did you get hooked up with Ricki Rachtman, and do you still skate PoolSchool stuff?
We met him at the H.B., Master’s division contest, a few years ago, he told us about his company and we said “Sure, we’ll ride your stuff.” He’s cool and he’s a good friend to hang out with. He had his day too, y’know. It’s hard to be out of the industry you know so well and have to sort of assimilate into the real world. We still ride for him. Poolschool is great. We were supposed to get our own models but money is tight for Rikki right now so whatever…if it happens, cool, if not whatever.
(The Godoy’s have since models released on Cold War Skateboards, and later Factory 13)
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