It’s almost like they’ve learnt to skate for competitions, it’s training. Obviously there are exceptions in that world, like Jimmy Wilkins… – Yeah Jimmy Wilkins definitely – and your guy, Sam Beckett. Someone sent me a clip of him the other day saying ‘I think he took this from your book’. It was a line, with an alley oop frontside grind…it was a line I totally know. But not like a planned line, just a line I like to do. I’m 44, Sam’s in his 20s or whatever and the fact that that line is still legit now, that’s really cool. That’s the weird thing about vert, no matter how many 30 foot high 540s you do – I just watched one of them online, it did nothing for me [laughs]. I remember, not to brag, when I did a backside flip on vert, I only knew that Danny Way had done that. It makes you feel like that person, like “I’m at the forefront!” But I knew I should never do a double flip, I knew that would look fucking jacked.

There’s certain things, like when Metallica made that one album where you’re like “Oh god, why? You were so rad!” That’s something I definitely learned from street skaters – Mike Carroll’s front hand, his front foot, you just wanted to see a flip over something! Or the back tail, with the hand and the foot and it looked perfect. The long back tail on the ledge that was on top rather than flip in, flip out.

It seems like back then, there were less heroes and less influences because there was less output. Now, there’s so many…Beckett grew up skating with 45 year old guys when he was about 15, that’s what gives him his mature head and I think that’s what sets him apart. – Think about the videos he was watching too – he was probably watching old Rune parts, because that’s what he had. You’re not going to watch contest footage to get stoked, you’re going to watch the video part with the good song because it has some feeling to it.

Going back to your vert ramp, the Widow Maker, did it get many solo sessions or did you keep it mostly to when visitors were round? What was the gnarliest shit you saw go down there? – I skated it as much as I could, but I lived with Jake Phelps at the time and it was his ramp. I had to skate by his rules and if he came home and I had three friends from high school there he would blow a gasket. So I would skate there alone for sure, so much. In fact one of the first times I ever tried a 540 I was alone. I almost got my clock cleaned but I really lucked out, just by the way I fell.

That’s what happened to Ali Cairns, he had a vert ramp in his garden and he broke his leg and nearly died. – Wow! Yeah, I lucked out…so gnarliest things? No one’s going to know these fucking names anymore. I cut school to watch Joe Lopes and Fred Smith, they were the first pros that I met. I skated with Hosoi, he skated there one night which was totally crazy. Then there were just people rolling in, that had to roll in.

Did any people at the time known as ‘street skaters’ roll in? – Oh yeah, every single one man! There was a good slam on that ramp every single time there was a good session. If you rolled in and slammed, you got to skate. Jake wanted to see carnage.

Following on from that, you must have some good stories from living with Phelps? – You know, I just had to watch that slam of his and loads of people were like “That dude sucks, it’s good to see him slam.” I know a completely different Jake than most people know. We read Charles Bukowski, we read Hunter S. Thompson and we love them because they’ve been in the mix, they’ve been punched by Hells Angels, whatever it is…but when you’re in a room with that dude, you don’t like him. That’s what Jake is [laughs]. But when you’re alone with him, you get a different person. I watch King of the Road and I’m like, who is this dude? But I have a deep respect for him and his dedication to skateboarding. And he has a big fucking brain in his head! He has a vocabulary, he’s well read. I don’t think he really knew Thrasher was going to come around as much as it did and he never pumped the brakes.

So his dedication to it, the level of shit he puts in his body and how hard he still goes – how he can still grind a deathbox in a pool…he comes from educated people and he chose to be the mess that he is. I think everyone who’s semi-famous thinks that there is going to be a documentary made about them one day and there possibly will be one about Jake, you know what I mean?

“Think about the normal 54 year old’s day, he’s not fucking bombing a hill, without a doubt.”

I always think about his funeral. When I watched that footage, I’d just been thinking about having to speak at his funeral because he’d been telling me about this head injury that he had. He always compares himself to a cockroach or a sewer rat, but I do think about what I’ll have to say then. He was like an older brother or father figure to me at one point, so like I said, I know this part of him that no one’s ever seen and I’ll have to tell people that.

That being said, I’ve never wanted to punch somebody in the face so badly. I’ve never wanted to beat someone with a bat as much as him. But as I’ve got older it’s nothing but respect, because no one can live that life!

Exactly – if Phelps is going to go and bomb a hill when he’s 50, it doesn’t matter whether you like him or not! – Totally! And you think about the normal 54 year old’s day, he’s not fucking bombing a hill, without a doubt. And even if they did…I surf, there’s a lot of older dudes that surf and they’re kind of reminding you all the time, it’s a strange deal. Jake’s always done it, he’s doing it because it’s what keeps him alive. Nothing but respect for that. Thrasher started as this hardcore thing, they started trying to freshen it up through the 90s, tried to get more street – not just more street skating but, you know, more ‘street’ [laughs]. And then it came back around to exactly what it should be.

You’ve been with Real right from the beginning – how did that first come about, and what’s kept you there for so long? – Well I’ve tried to quit or retire, but you know Jim’s a friend, Tommy’s a friend…it’s cheesy to say but it is a family. I’ve been there since the beginning, I skated with them when they were forming the team and the question came up. I’ve always dug Real. There have been times when I haven’t always agreed with their ideas, like when Zero was really popular our graphics got really ‘Zero’…like what I was saying about Thrasher, there are these dips and then they get to breathe again.

I got extremely distracted by bikes, I would skate but I don’t have the proper personality to be focused on one single thing. Financially that’s a really fucked up way to live. If you skated, did contests and promoted your sponsors you’d at least get your $5000 a month to live. I don’t have many sponsors, I don’t even know who to call at Vans anymore – I just go to the store and buy them. I don’t care about it so much, but I said to Real years ago I wanted to retire. They said how about, when you come up with an idea for a graphic or we want to do something with 4Q, we just do it. I’ll see footage of Ishod and Kyle and those people and think fuck, I can’t be on a team with these dudes! It’s funny – and I’ve said this in so many interviews – when I skated every single day, broke bones and skated my ass off, at the end of the day I was a vert skater. That was accepted, but I know it was a struggle to sell a vert skater’s board. But then when I got into the bike thing, there were all these 30-somethings that are into bikes and they knew me from skating. They were like cool, I want that board! So all of a sudden my board started selling [laughs].

And you’ve got the ‘wall hanging’ generation…reissues, kind of like the one you’re skating now. – Oh the Thiebaud board? Yeah, there’s all these silly shapes. I don’t ever ride a shaped board, I just thought that (points at his board) would be way different. I thought I’d just head out here, cruise and then have the ultimate excuse when I suck [laughs]. But the Real thing, I don’t really understand how I get to be a part of it still because they have one of the best teams! Also I always travelled with Anti Hero which was kind of weird; I didn’t go on Real trips but I’d go on Anti Hero trips because Julien would invite me. Obviously with Julien et al, any kind of gesture or ‘fucking yeah, come on’ is huge, so I would travel with those dudes a lot. And Real was cool with it, I’d be riding a Real board and promoting both brands. But it’s a mystery in a sense that it still works!

“I’d rather be poor and build my own bikes, skate this vert ramp with my buddies and not have to wear a Red Bull shirt or do any corny shit.”

I don’t get paid for skating anymore unless we do one of those boards and shit sells, which is how it should be. I see people like Steve Caballero, I’m sure they make a ton of money from skateboarding and now they’re into motorcycles because that’s what is popular. Someone like that is into whatever is popular, I don’t ever want to be that person. I’d rather be poor and build my own bikes, skate this vert ramp with my buddies and not have to wear a Red Bull shirt or do any corny shit.

Horsey: Can I ask – you did that picture or video of you, your dirty hands, saying “Steve Cab’s hands won’t look like this at Born Free”. Was that just a joke because you’re friends? – Not at all, that was a dig. That was a dig just because I’m kind of sick of a red carpet being rolled out to this person, I think it’s really off balance. “You can race in this race, Indian sponsors you” – some of us have spent the last 15 years bleeding over these things. Now that Pearl Jam is popular I’m going to start a grunge band, now this is popular I’m going to do this, it just kind of waters down what we do. None of that comes easy, but you can go buy Chase’s knucklehead and ride around and look cool now. I know I’m fucking with a legend right now, but I so believe in Lance Mountain, the legends I looked up to, I love Grosso because he has an opinion.

There were skaters at Born Free, like Jimmy Wilkins came up to our stall, bought a 4Q t-shirt and skated with it on during the contest. But Steve, and the same with Christian, once came up and said, “Hey man, we’re into bikes, it would be good promotion if you built me a bike.” It’s that entitled mentality, that’s what I have a problem with. I don’t want to race flat track because I don’t want it to feel like skating where you wait to go; like how the X-Games was, everything skating shouldn’t be. That was a dig only because…she knows, she’s gone to bed and just the frame is there, then it was put together and it was a hard night. Then we go to watch the Wall of Death and we’re in a fucking line a mile long. Steve Caballero waves as he goes past and they walk him right to the front, give him a hot dog and a coke. I’m like, “fuck you, man!” I’ve been here for eight years, a part of this since day one driving down in a car with no air conditioning to have something to put in the show from the time it was in a parking lot. But it’s cool now so here’s your per diem, here’s your handout. I just disagree with that.

I think about it like this; I surfed 160 times last year, in a year period. This year I’ve surfed 85 times since January. You’ve never seen a surf post, you’ve never seen me promote surfing. Elissa Steamer has this towel company that I surf/skate for, but I’ve never showed up anywhere and asked for anything from surfing. I think if it was that dude and that mentality it would be like, “OK, I do this now – where’s the free wetsuit, where’s the free board?” I don’t want to come across as a bitter asshole judging some legend, but I do have a problem with it. Kooks like kooks, that’s what someone said to me recently. If someone’s really popular and they’re kind of a kook, it attracts the dude with the sunglasses on the back of his head. Then holy shit, we have this many more kooks in it.