GBA – Curtis Pearl & Jake Church
This was originally intended to be two separate First Lights for Jake and Curtis, which due to their ‘joined at the hip’ like existence of late then merged to become something of a joint First Light, before Rob sent over the photos and we decided that this would be the ideal opportunity to resurrect our old faithful Guilty By Association feature, but for the new Dr Who mag generation.
Anyway, if you’re as yet unaware of this pairing of Curtis Pearl and Jake Church, then for the sake of clarity, let us say that they are part of the next generation of Big Smoke youths who are a) pretty handy at navigating themselves about on seven plies of Canadian maple, and b) funny as fuck.
Enjoy their captured Saturday evening musings below now, then keep an eye out for these two in moving image form in the upcoming Yardsale video, which should be dropping into your eyeballs in the near future.
So…what are your full names?
Jake: Curtis Pearl.
Curtis:…(laughing) Jake Church.
How old are you both respectively?
Curtis: 19.
Jake: 20? 20…(laughs).
Hang on…who’s 20?
Jake: Curtis Pearl is 20.
Curtis: and Jake Church is 19.
What are your hometowns?
Curtis: Leytonstone, London.
Jake: Fuck…Stowmarket.
Where are you living at the minute?
Curtis: Leytonstone, still in East.
Jake: Far far South East London, wishing to be back in Lewisham.
Where are we right now then? Set the scene…
Jake: Bardens I guess.
Curtis: Stood outside Bardens.
Obvious one to get this going then – when did you start skating, one of you…?
Jake: I was 14 I guess, 14 or 15. I was friends with some kid who was a little shit but he was the funniest kid. One day we got hold of a skateboard and it was pretty jokes…pretty much, (laughs). I started skating with him but he fell out of it pretty quick.
Curtis: My uncle gave me a set-up one time round his house and that was it; a Blind set up, the sickest shit (laughs). I remember it had Ventures…
You already had skating in the family then?
Curtis: Yeah…well, I don’t know, they were just punks. They weren’t really skaters, they just had skateboards.
You haven’t got any change for me have you, bruv? – Jake: I haven’t got shit.
What do you mean you haven’t got shit? Of course you’ve got shit, man. – Jake: I haven’t.
Come one man, what you saying you don’t have shit? What a load of rubbish…come on man, bring me in. – Jake: Trust me, I haven’t got anything to bring you in on…
How did you two first end up meeting each other?
Curtis: Round Dan’s house.
Jake: Dan Kreitim.
What are your first memories of meeting each other?
Curtis: I remember playing ping-pong at Conor’s house.
Jake: I remember the first…then skating from Manor Park to New Cross to go to a party.
Curtis: To Lewisham, we went back to your house, we didn’t even go to the party; we gave up on that.
Jake: Okay, Lewisham. How many miles is that? 12 miles? I’ve got bare videos of us just skating shit.
Curtis: It was six hours at least, just skating.
Jake: It was so much fun.
You both ride for Yardsale though I think you’ve been there since the start Curtis. How did you first become involved?
Curtis: I knew Dan from around Mile End. He asked me to do an edit first, which was just me and Darius at Mile End, then we did the first Yardsale video from there. He just wanted to see how it would look and I guess it went well.
Jake, you got on Yardsale after Curtis and Darius and everyone, after the first video. How did that come about?
Jake: I dunno…I went to Asia for a while then when I came back everyone was like, “you’re on, you’re on now”.
Curtis: But you and Dan have always been family friends. Dan was just waiting for him to come into his own before putting him on fully. He was just giving him time.
Jake: That happened like a week after I came back from Asia.
You two are pretty well travelled for how old you are. Jake you talked about your solo Asia trip in the last Grey and you’ve both had coverage from pretty far flung places – how many trips have you actually been on together?
Curtis: None. But we’re about to go to New York.
Jake: Yeah, we’re going to New York in two weeks. I went to the States when I was younger, but that was a family holiday when I was about 11 years old. Went to Las Vegas and that sort of stuff.
So the next trip to New York in two weeks, who’s going on that one?
Curtis: Just me, Jake and Dan, for two weeks.
Jake: It’s for the video though.
Curtis: Yeah, it’s to get footage for the next Yardsale video because that’s going to have London and New York footage in it. And LA footage, of course.
How was that last Yardsale trip to the States?
Curtis: I couldn’t skate. I couldn’t skate the entire trip. I had literally just broken my tibia and fibula and had four days in hospital, had surgery, and just couldn’t skate. I thought I’d be able to but couldn’t so…I just got waved (laughs).
How long for? That was a long trip, right?
Curtis: Two months or something (laughs), every fucking night. It was absolutely the best…it was good for my recovery anyway; I would definitely recommend it.
I bet you were feeling physically good after that.
Curtis: I got back and I was skating again, so I was stoked, (laughs).
Is there still talk of Yardsale doing boards? How’s that coming along?
Curtis: The boards are here in…a few days, right?
Jake: Yeah, the 11th is what we’ve been told.
Curtis: The boards have always been two weeks away.
Jake: Now it’s actually a legit two weeks, I hope. They’ve got arrival dates and stuff like that.
Who else is riding for it?
Jake: We can say, can’t we? Seb…
Curtis: Sebastian Tabe.
Jake: Blick Boy Seb. He’s sick. He tried to fight…
Curtis: Nah, nah, nah (laughs)…allow it man, not right away.
Jake: Yeah, he’s a wrong one.
Curtis: He’s definitely scum, (laughs).
Jake: Darius is still killing it.
Curtis: Yeah Darius is killing it, low key he’s killing it…just very low key, (laughs).
If you had to ask these two a question a right now, what would you ask?
Raemers: I’d ask Jake – what’s the best think about living in Suffolk?
Jake: All of the slags, (laughs).
What about Curtis?
Raemers: That’s a tough one. I’ve had knee surgery and I know you’ve had knee surgery but you’re a lot younger than I am, so how long did it take you to come back from that?
Curtis: A long time. I don’t know…ages, I guess I’m still not right.
Here’s a couple of questions from Rob Mathieson. Having grown up in the shadows of Jake Sawyer, Ben Dominguez and Jon Laidlow, how did those three legends in particular help shape you as a skateboarder? That one is for Jake, obviously.
Jake: They’re all G’s of course, they all have different styles, but I’ve not seen Dominguez skate as much as I have Jake and Laidlow though.
Do you remember watching those guys skate much growing up?
Jake: Erm…I didn’t see them skate that much at all growing up actually, (laughs).
And Curtis, how important was watching Rob Mathieson skate Mile End to you as a kid growing up?
Curtis: (Laughs) Well, I don’t want to be rude…
So Curtis – if you could pinpoint one thing that the people reading this need to know about Jake, what would it be?
Curtis: Watch ‘Londonz White Trash’ on Youtube. Just watch that, type it in.
And vice-versa Jake, what should people know about Curtis:
Jake: C*nt (laughs).
Curtis: Nah, not ‘c*nt’, my mum is gunna read this. Your mum is gunna read this…
OK, so what should Curtis’ mum know about Curtis then Jake, from your point of view?
Curtis: Be nice.
Jake: He’s okay to watch skating, (laughs).
Curtis: That is shit…
And the other way around – what should Jake’s mum know about him?
Curtis: Don’t spend too much time with him. That’s it.
I’d imagine she’s already spent quite a bit of time with him.
Curtis: Exactly. She must be over it, that’s all I can think. I would be over it…
Any last words from you both to wrap this one up?
Curtis: Shout out Dan, Sam, Darius, Froby, Shane, Seb, Yardy Family, Mile End kids, SB kids, Jerome, Converse, Lewis, LA Dons, my family and the NHS for fixing me up. Slam, Parlour, Gareth and Palace affiliates. And Rob.
Jake: BMT, Bromley, fuck with, XXX, SB heads, Mile End cracks, Paddy, Beni, Bags, your_mums_pearl_necklace, Jake Sawyer, Palace and affiliates, Ryan, Pacific Palisades and all the honeys waiting for us. Snelling and Blast Skates.