Portrait by Tristan Buckland.
Interview by Alex Lamb.
So then Sam, can you introduce yourself?
I’m Sam Mason, I’m 22. I was born in Birmingham and then moved to Kendal in Cumbria when I was about two, but I’m currently living in Victoria Park near Longsight, Manchester.
Let’s talk a bit about growing up skating in Kendal, because obviously that’s quite rural, especially in contrast to Manchester.
Kendal is in South Lakeland on the way into the Lake District; it’s known as ‘the gateway to the Lakes’. I’ve been skating for about 12 years now. When I was about nine, I started going to this place called Surf the Turf, in Sedgewick. There was dirt jumps, wooden ramps, a four cross downhill dirt track that I used to do biking on. They had a mini ramp, so I tried skating a little bit there, but I really got into it when I saw Jack Palmer, Jack Mangan and Alex Owen skating in town, in Kendal. I think I just approached them, and they helped me get started. We didn’t have a skatepark for the first couple of years. The old skatepark got flooded and some of the ramps ended up in the river, so we just had bricks and bits of wood to make ramps, and we’d skate schoolyards, carparks, there were some ledges and a few bits at Kendal College. There wasn’t many other people skating in Kendal then, but the scene really picked up when the new skatepark opened in 2012.
When you lived in Kendal, did you have to travel about much in order to skate?
Our local youth club sometimes did trips to skateparks, and my mum used to give us a lift to Ramp City in Blackpool, or Rampworx in Liverpool, then sometimes we’d go a bit further, to The Works in Leeds. We started getting the train to Lancaster and Halton In Lancashire, then we started getting the train to Manchester in 2013, when I’d have been 14.
No holding back (the years) as Sam pop shove-its into a traditional Cottonopolis downhill ride out. Photo: Ian Williams.
Did you used to skate street when you visited these places, or would you purely stick to the parks?
A bit of both. We went to the parks to start off with, but I met Rybo (Ryan Hayes) in about 2013, and started going out skating and filming with him, so we’d travel around Wigan ways, Manchester and Liverpool. That footage became Lurkerco welcomes Sam Mason, a little video that we did. Rybo introduced me to everyone at The Black Sheep.
So did Rybo take you under his wing, in a sense?
To start off with, yeah. I skated with Eddie (Belvedere) as well. I was going through to The Black Sheep, going to different events and competitions, and got to know people. So when I checked Salford Uni in 2017, that has great music facilities and courses, it was just the right thing to do, to move to Salford.
You’re still at uni, right?
I am. I did my undergrad in Popular Music and Performance. I specialised in Performance and Recording, and now I’m doing a Master’s in Music Performance, still at the University of Salford.
You’re pretty musically talented, and have a big interest in music. What is it that you’re involved with, and what led you to where you’re at now?
I used to go to festivals from when I was about 15. I’d go to Beat-Herder in Lancaster, SolFest in Cumbria, then I started going to Boomtown and NASS. I just fell in love with the sound systems, and the dub, reggae music, and the jungle music. Before that, I started playing guitar in year three, and singing more recently. I run a reggae hip hop band called E & I Collective, which is an eight piece band based in Manchester; I’m one of three front vocalists, and I’m the rhythm guitarist as well. You can find our debut single on Spotify and Apple Music; Where Are We Going is the name of the track. I was gigging for a while before COVID, and recently have been playing with my band around venues in Manchester such as Band on the Wall, Off the Square and The Old Abbey Taphouse, as well as Folklore in north London, and at Solfest. Look us up on Instagram- @eandi_collective.
I sometimes still do hustle for the mic and have recently been getting back on it in dance, but I need to start getting more bookings. It’s great to be on stage expressing myself while also getting the crowd hyped.
Do you think your musical interests have any influence on your skating?
They’re both my main forms of expression and creativity; they’re both my passions. I do like fast and aggressive music, like drum n’ bass and jungle, some blues rock, and some of my skating can be quite aggressive in a way, but I’m a real reggae lover-lover, and a fan of hip hop and old school dancehall. Music has certain styles, certain flavours, but in skating you have to have your own thing going on.
Any pleasure at the fairground here? Nope, just a hefty ollie over a tall Bath handrail.
Photo: James Whitlock.
I remember you trying to drop in on that roof; that became a viral clip, at least in Manchester.
Oh, in (the Isaac Wilkinson produced 2016 The Black Sheep video) 01FUCKIN61? That was at CIS, on the roof of the Pilcrow pub. It’s funny because we went to a few skate premieres in there, then I tried dropping in on the roof. Another good slam of mine, I was trying to do a trick off a plastic bike shed. I fell through the roof and landed on the metal framework on my hip. I had some muscle and tissue bruising all around the hip. I was lucky that I landed on the metal frame where I did to be honest, on the hip area, because if it was on an arm, a leg or my head, I could’ve been seriously hurt. Simply Shredd…Simply Shed, on the roof (laughs).
Despite the lockdowns and restrictions the last few years, you’ve definitely kept pushing it the whole way through. What are some of the more memorable missions you’ve been on recently?
I went on a skate and camping trip with Will (Collins), Ben (Peel), Mike (Buśko) Magic (Wieczorkowskiand) and Adam (Przybyslawski) last year, and we went around Scotland, skated some cities up there - Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness - and we went to the Highlands in between, swimming in Lochs, having fires. Also last year, Eddie invited me on a four-day trip to Cologne in Germany, with Matt Hunt and Rhys Bickmore. The video was called Flucht aus England, which means ‘escape from England’; that was pretty fitting at the time.
I went to Poland in 2019, with Mike and some of the Glossop boys for the premiere of Mike’s UK-Poland video Connections, that I had a part in. The premiere was in a packed out theatre in Warsaw, everyone was drinking and smoking in their seats, there was a fog over the whole room…it was crazy. Then last year, we had our trip as well, where we did a lot of miles in the car, in the Audi.
Music has certain styles, certain flavours, but in skating you have to have your own thing going on.
It’s not just the Avenue video Play More you’ve been working on; what are the other projects you’ve been filming for lately?
With Mike, I’ve been filming a VX section in Manchester, Yorkshire and Edinburgh, and with Vic (Kretsis), I also have a part in his Manchester video, entitled Down Low. On our trip down south I also filmed some tricks for James Whitlock's upcoming Bath scene video Sulis, I’ve also got a few clips for the next Baghead Crew Satan video.
Have you always been associated with The Black Sheep?
Yep, I’m part of the Black Sheep family - shout out Tez Robinson, Harry (Paul Harrison) and Stu Reynolds, Sexual Stu, Eddie Belvedere, Jiri Bulin, Rob Smith, Harry Lintell, Seb Batty, Rikk Fields and Jake Giles - and thanks to Dave Snaddon, I get flowed DC Shoes through The Black Sheep.
Have you got anything final that you’d like to add?
Just that I want to continue to skate and make music, keep filming bits, and try and do some traveling, skate some new places, and get some new experiences. Thanks to all my friends and family for supporting me, thanks to Vic and Mike for filming me, James, Ian and Tris (Buckland) for the photos, and The Skateboarder’s Companion for the interview!
Follow Sam - @simplyshredd_