Having been through a couple of premieres now, whose footage surprised you the most?

Well I saw a lot of the stuff go down in person, so it didn’t surprise me so much, but everyone is absolutely incredible. I mean I always love seeing Pedro Barros, the ultimate ripper of bowls and shit – I always loved Danny Way and Colin McKay at a young age, so I love seeing that kind of shit. And always Grant [Taylor] and Collin [Provost]. Everyone in the video has got sick shit. It was good seeing Milton Martinez’ stuff because I’d never really seen him too much, I didn’t know much about him. There were a couple of people I didn’t even know were in the video [laughs], everyone surprises me I think. Daan’s stuff is sick, then there’s an Australia section, a South American section…it was good!

I guess when you’re travelling that much it can be a whirlwind, seeing loads of destinations but without getting to really explore them…

Yeah! Everyone’s been on tour for fucking ever. But what’s good about it is, what Volcom does is say, “When are you available? Do you want to come here?” and it’s good, you know? And I had to obviously do all the Propeller stuff for Vans last year, so there was a lot of stuff happening in between that, but it was good because the riders pretty much got to pick where they wanted to go. That’s how videos should work – around other people, and not what people tell you to do.

So are you mostly based in The States right now?

I’m actually going to come and live in Europe for a few months. I don’t want to be in the States for a while, I have no reason to. I’d rather be here!

So going back to shows, how come Volcom’s ‘Getting Dusted’ series only lasted one episode?

What? What even was that?

There was one episode on Youtube – it looked pretty similar to Seven Day Weekend…

I can’t remember [laughs]. I’m pretty flaky on that shit – I’ll have ideas when I’m drunk, get one thing done and then my brain moves on to the next project pretty much straight away. I’m not too, umm, consistent in life…or in general. But when you’re a nomad you can’t really stick to a schedule, or keep hold of ideas that you’ve come up with when you’re drunk.

Your original move to the States saw you stuck in on the early Deluxe trips – the Gnarcotica Great Lakes Tour, the trips that made up Deluxe ’99 – what was some of the wildest shit you saw go down on those trips?

Those were fun! Cardiel, Quim Cardona, Keegan Saunders…for me that was insane. I was 18, it was the first skateboard road trip I’d been on and it was with the gnarliest dudes ever, all my idols. Bless Mic-E for putting me on there. Yeah I saw some wild shit, a lot of wild shit. There’s a lot of stories from those times, but I don’t know if they want to be told by anybody you know? People getting in fights, pillowcases getting filled up with Spitfire wheels to bash people…guns, people jumping off roofs into swimming pools that had pool covers on, naked…blood, girls, fucking a lot of shit. Shit you should see when you’re at an age of influence, so you know what not to do! Things to make you smarter in your older age I guess. But the stories, I don’t know if I want them on record – let me save them for the book!

OK then, instead of that question, what was one of the best Cardiel skate moments you witnessed?

Oh the cover! That shitty ramp that was swamped, it had holes in it, it was the worst. The van got stuck in the mud and he just got out and fucking murdered that vert ramp. Then the launch ramp – the cover I think was a crossbone or something, over the bins, but he backside 360’d it too, it was fucking insane. Then again every moment skating with Cardiel was great – good memories…

So going back a bit to the knee injury – you’ve had to recover from ACL reconstruction a good few times now, and like you said there have been some other solid injuries recently. When you’re stuck in the recovery process, what do you do to kill time?

Usually I have projects, editing or something you know? Making little skate videos and stuff. A lot of editing, a lot of playing pool, and a lot of physio of course. If you think about it I’ve had seven ACL reconstructions now, so I’ve probably done more exercise than most other human beings. So I’ll do my exercise, go to the pub, drink beer, play pool…do the exercise again. I dunno, I feel like I’ve had my fingers in a lot of pies – sexually and creatively [laughs]. That’s one thing that’s always good to pass the time! And filming tons of shit too, a lot of editing. Spending time in the music studio and stuff. Going to see bands, I love seeing bands. It’s second to skateboarding, but going to gigs all the time is awesome!

Yeah definitely! Following on from that nicely, what have some of your favourite Thrasher Skate Rock tour destinations been?

Australia! I organised and paid for the whole of Skate Rock Australia pretty much. Some sponsors chucked in some money, but it was pretty much out of my pocket. Phelps was pretty much like “Join a band”, and Nuge, Figgy, Richie and Tommy already had a band – called the LSDemons, which was instrumental – then Phelps was like “Yeah, just sing on it”. So we rehearsed for one week and I wrote all the lyrics to the songs, then I pretty much didn’t see them for a month so I just practiced over the live recordings. Then our first show, we hadn’t even been together for long and it was on. It was cool because they had a load of liquid acid.

I skate with this guy who builds skateparks in Australia called *name obscured by passing motorbike* and we’d had an argument a couple of months before. Then I saw him and he was like “Here’s a present” and gave me an envelope full of sugar cube acid, which we took for the whole trip. It was weird being in the suburbs of Australia where I grew up, on a weekday, with everyone tripping on acid [laughs], it was pretty sick man. I was meant to drive the van all the way, but the Nuge, somehow always takes that over. Somehow we got it done, and I think that was the best Skate Rock video that they’ve done; it really set the pace for the following Skate Rocks. I haven’t been on one since, not with that band, but new stuff’s on the horizon…

Good shit! So you’ve been with Baker since the beginning – how does it feel seeing it rise to the place of prominence within skateboarding that it has right now?

Oh man! Baker has just stayed the same pretty much. It was an idea from a bunch of pals who wanted to get away from the industry pretty much, and we took skateboarding into our own hands. I mean Andrew Reynolds left Birdhouse at the peak of it, to stop and give us all a chance – the boss is the boss for a reason – and to see Baker get to where it is? It deserves it. It’s stayed exactly the same, you know? We loved Anti Hero, stuff like that, it’s just a different way of, I guess I’d say modernising a part of Anti Hero in a way and just making sure that we keep the ghetto kids in the loop. It’s a multi-cultured team, made up of all the people that we think are real, so it hasn’t really changed at all. I mean people have left, people have faded away, but they’re still in the crew. It’s cool that Deathwish started, and it’s still all family – the Baker/Deathwish tours are the funnest tours I’ve ever been on. Everyone looks out for each other, everyone’s fucked up and everyone rips. It’s all laughs – Baker’s like a joke, we just think everything’s fucking funny. Andrew’s sense of humour, even now he’s sober, it’s all funny; he loves to hear the stories, he lives through us and we live from him.