Sidewalk Magazine – Issue 151 – April 2009
Photography by Leo Sharp
So back in 2009, you still had all of your teeth, right?
Yeah, this was before I lost the tooth. I had a fake one for a while; you remember that? It was like a bucktooth; I’ve tried to forget that era (laughs).
Was this First Light released after you won the DVS Hook Me Up comp?
Just after. I ended up riding for The Black Sheep before I won, though.
When you were filming for the DVS comp, was that a conscious thing, or was that just footage you had lying around that you turned into an entry?
That was 100% a conscious thing. My friend Adam Pow, I never used to buy Sidewalk, but he did. He saw the two-page ad for DVS Hook Me Up, where you could win a years sponsorship if you won. I’d never done anything like that, but he’d bought a DV cam to film the Ashford scene, and he said, “let’s do it”. We went so out of our way to get clips. One day we went to a secondary school that had a nine-stair rail, and I’d never skated a rail before. We asked some local gypsies to meet us there on mopeds; we gave them a £20 bag of weed and they gave us some bolt cutters that didn’t work. We prised a lock open for the gate of a tennis court so we had run out for this rail, and I ended up crooking it. I tried hard…
…and it worked. Not that you were on DVS long after you won, mind.
Nah, I didn’t get along with the team manager. He was a nice guy, but we were different people.
You were getting Jart boards off 2Dist (The Black Sheep’s old distribution company) before the DVS comp ended; was that because of your Hook Me Up footage being released online?
They had phoned the skateshop called Wrekless in Ashford, and told the woman who owned it, “we’re trying to get hold of this kid; if he comes into the shop can you tell him that we want him to come to Manchester to skate?” I was a little stoner; I didn’t have anything, not a phone, not an email. I went in to the shop to use a skate tool, and the lady was like, “I’ve got this note for you”. So I went to the park and said to my friend Adam, “these people want me to go to Manchester”, and he said, “you need to phone them”. I said I wasn’t going; I worked in McDonalds, I was on EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance), I’d never been that far away on my own, I didn’t know those people (laughs). Adam said, “no, you’re going”. He came with me, paid the petrol, and we drove to Manchester. I met Eddie (Belvedere), Tez (Terrance Robinson) Harry (Paul Harrison), and Lemon (Harry’s now partner) was actually there. They said, “go skate with Eddie and see how you do. If you do OK, we’ll give you some stuff”. They gave me one Jart board, and I cracked it trying a tre flip. I was tweaking out about it, and they said, “you can have another”. I couldn’t believe it. After that, I was on Jart flow.
A 17 year old Harry and his complete set of dentures kickflips an Ahfordian rail/bin set up.
2Dist started distributing iPath around then, which is how I guess you ended up there after your short stint on DVS.
They put me on iPath after Timberland bought it, and they got some deal where we were meant to get paid. Timberland put on a huge conference in Reading, which you came to, then I ended up coming on the Monkeys in a Van trip.
Oh yeah, tell us about that Timberland conference; that was insane.
It was beyond 5-star, it was on some golf resort, and Timberland had hired out this mansion and put a mini ramp on the lawn so we could skate. I was 17; it was the day before my 18th birthday. Kenny Reed was there, and I didn’t care at the time, but I swear to God, Wyclef Jean flew in on a helicopter and sung Lenny Kravitz covers. It was sick! You were doing a tour for Sidewalk with a load of unconnected people in a hired van, and Tez got you to come for a skate on the ramp. I barely knew you guys, but I was a little bit faded so I threw it out there: “come to my house tomorrow, come to Kent. There are loads of spots in Kent”. The next day, I get home on my 18th birthday, I was so hungover, and as soon as I got to Ashford, you phoned me: “We’re leaving Stockwell now, we’re on our way”.
I had to tell my mum, “some skaters are coming here, and some of them are a bit older than me, so it might seem a bit weird” (laughs). Then, boom! Stu Graham, Manhead (Josh Young), Benson, Neil Smith, Cubic (Colin McInnes), Vaughan Baker and Alex Irvine were all at my 18th birthday party. My homie from the skatepark, Chris Marsh, he said, “it’s like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater just turned up” (laughs). I didn’t think you’d actually come. I wasn’t going to do anything for my birthday, but as soon as I told my mum everyone was coming over, she said, “we have to go and get a cake!” Benson ate most of that, then Smudge, my dog, p*ssed on Manhead’s sleeping bag.
Where did we skate the next day? Didn’t we go to the park in Deal?
We skated Dover, Deal and Crawley. We went to Hereford, to the skatepark, and I ollied over a 16-stair handrail, sideways, with no run up. This is how much I didn’t know about skating at the time, I said, “an ollie is kind of sh*t, I’m going to melon it”. Everyone was saying, “nah, just leave it at the ollie, man”, and I was like, “nah, nah, I’m going to melon it”, so I did (laughs). Afterwards, I panicked. You thought you were going to Wales, so I said to Alex Irvine, “I’m tweaking; I’m kind of far away from home, this is all pretty loose…can you buy me a ticket back to Ashford?” and he did. I should’ve stayed, but I was so young, and so scared…it was still fun though. Then you guys sacked off going to Wales and went to Blackrod to stay with Tez.
We did, and Kenny Reed was there.
Oh yeah, he was. That was a few days after the Timberland event.
Do you remember the day you shot your First Light?
I do. Leo came all the way from Cheltenham to Ashford, picked me up from my mum’s house, then I tried a front 5-0 on a rail outside the leisure centre, and just sacked it. Leo was coming so I knew I had to do something sick, and I’d always looked at this rail. I was so nervous…I popped, tried to get into front 5-0, went over into lipslide, sacked myself right at the end of the rail, and scorpioned at the bottom. I remember Leo, before I tried it, being like, “you don’t have to do this” (laughs). I was so determined, but I ate so much sh*t. We carried on skating though, and I kickflipped the handrail, then did the lipslide to noseblunt.
Leo: What was your pet parrot’s name?
Bert. He’d sing Glamorous, La Cucaracha, and he’d tell you to f*ck off as you left the room. But yeah, that’s how the First Light happened. I still want to go back and skate that rail, though…
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