Could you explain how you initially became involved with Skate After School?

About three or four years ago a friend of mine, Tim Ward, started collecting boards and old product; refurbishing it, building completes and then donating them to a community centre in a tough area. My friend Bobby Green, who runs Pyramid Country, helped take the reigns when Tim moved to Portland and asked me if I wanted to get involved. From there, we started doing consistent programming with a school in the area through a PE coach we knew. From there, we started working with a couple of other schools and quickly realised that it was evolving from just a community project into a full-fledged nonprofit project.

I went to what is essentially a business school for startups; they provide you with all of the infrastructure as well as a network of people to help your organisation. For us that’s school administrators, lawyers, people in the child welfare community, etc. I attended that program for six months upon which we received a pretty considerable grant for fifteen grand. We launched a crowd funding campaign as well, which raised another thirteen grand and a lot of awareness on our program. It kind of snowballed over the course of six months and we realised, “Wow, this is really turning into something.” We became a nonprofit through the Arizona Community Foundation and essentially started treating it like a business.

My friend Tim now works as a full time employee for Skate After School, he’s the Program Coordinator. I help run things and I’m a part time employee as well, I do most of the administrative work. Now we’re working with six title one, low-income, schools consistently year-round. Monday through Friday, we work with roughly two hundred kids. Beyond that, we do events and summer programming with local refugee centres and we also partner up with the nearby youth homeless shelters… It’s just grown into a remarkable organisation and I’m really grateful to be a part of it.

Thanks for the insights, Ryan. Moving on, you were in England for the first part of the ‘Tea, Tapas and Tres’ tour and also to film for the upcoming etnies video. Mike Manzoori is etnies’ main cinematographer and also handling this video. Were you aware of Mike’s position in UK skateboarding before this trip?

Yeah, without a doubt, (laughs). I think that out of all the people who are involved with etnies I was most excited to meet and become friends with Mike because he’s the person I looked up to more than probably anyone else on the team.

As Mike has been a sponsored skateboarder himself and obviously spent a good amount of time on both sides of the camera, do you feel that gives him a different eye for spots or provides a certain atmosphere when you’re out filming with him?

Certainly, and that’s kind of a skateboarder’s dream; that when you go skating you don’t have to curate the content you are producing. You don’t need to say, “Oh, this will look interesting because I’m gonna hit this thing here…” He gets it immediately. He has been filmed and he has been filming for years so he always just gets it right away. The little thing that’s interesting about a spot or the nuance that a typical filmer might not notice.

Do you feel that Mike having been in your position before takes any of the pressure off?

A little bit but also sometimes I feel on the contrary, it can be a little stressful, (laughs). Because Mike is still a really good skateboarder so when you’re having a bit of an off day it can feel a bit funny. There are photographers who are retired pro skateboarders and it kind of brings an interesting dynamic where you almost feel a little insecure. “Oh man, this guy is better than me and he’s filming me”, you know? (Laughs). But when I go to film with him in LA, he takes me to the spots that he wants to get people to skate because he knows that I’ll be into the weird crusty spots. He will be stoked to show me around and be like, “Oh, you should skate this thing!”

What was your impression of the skate scene here and how do you feel it compared to previous visits?

I will say that just in the time since I was there last, which was probably four years ago and before that two or three years, just seeing the influence of Palace and obviously Polar, to some extent. It’s just crazy, seeing how it has seeped into all of the cities. Not only in England but Europe in general. That was pretty wild to see because the last time I was there the skate scene was completely different. When we went to the parks it’s just interesting, the same thing happens in the States, but you see kids like twelve years old who are like fully decked out and have the whole ‘fit, you know? (Laughs), it’s a trip.

You can see that it is a worldwide thing that there has been a shift towards the more lower impact, creative and general style of skateboarding that the smaller brands put across. Would you say that’s any more prominent in the UK than it is back home?

No, it just depends. If you travel to the middle of the country there are pockets that kind of are… All those older brands that we grew up on are still huge as they should be, like Baker and stuff. I feel like in England, because the skateboarders are so much closer to some of those brands – I mean just through proximity those brands are really close to skateboarders it makes sense to me that they have a little more influence. I think that Instagram has been the great influencer as well, so the trends just come quickly and they’re all consuming, you know?

It can feel like a lot people in the States view British skateboarding as just what comes out of London when there’s much more to it. So, it’s good to get an outsider’s point of view.

I definitely see through that. For me, Vase was the best video that came out last year and the best video that came out in the last few years, just in terms of offering a fresh perspective on skating without feeling too contrived or trend orientated. It’s perfect timing too because as certain brands get bigger, people start to look for something new.

What do you believe will make Welcome, and the other brands of that structure, stand the test of time?

We’ve kind of been dealing with this at Welcome. I feel like it comes down to just supporting a really great skate team and putting out quality videos. I think of Baker as one of those brands that has stood the test of time and they’re still bringing on people like Rowan (Zorilla) who are a perfect fit for Baker but also feel current and relevant. They have really moved through that gracefully because Reynolds and whoever has created this culture keeps Baker relevant.

You were officially welcomed to the etnies team quite recently and their video is set to be released next summer. Is it daunting picking up a new sponsor when that sort of project is already underway?

Yeah, I got on in January and my ankle was sprained the first month or two. I filmed a little ‘welcome to the team’ clip in pretty much five days so that was kind of my intro. It is a little daunting but I don’t really think there is this expectation that everyone is going to have a full part in the video. As a lot of companies are moving away from feeling everyone has got to have a full part and an hour and a half long video with fourteen full parts. It’s nice because it removes the pressure from that. Still, we have another seven/eight months, which for me is quite a lot of time. If I’m not injured and I’m travelling I don’t feel too much pressure.

When you first became involved with Sole Tech you were riding for éS. How did the transition to etnies happen?

I was super removed from skating, going to school full time and starting to run Skate After School. Kelly Hart hit me up when they started éS and I was thought it was perfect. It was pretty low expectation, I was getting stuff from Vans at the time but just getting flowed shoes on the low and wasn’t really trying to do anything over there. éS restarted and that grew really quickly, I think people liked the heritage aspect of the Accels and stuff. We did a few little campaigns for some of the shoes and that was really fun, I met Don Brown and just got involved there.

Pretty quickly I think those dudes realised they wanted éS to be more of a sporty, hip-hop brand which obviously is not really my aesthetic. I was totally understanding and had met Oliver Barton on some éS stuff we had done and he basically asked, “Do you want to try and ride for etnies?” There was a spot that had opened up; it was really strange how I got on. Since Axel (Cruysberghs) quit to ride for New Balance Numeric they were like, “Hey, we can put you on but through etnies Europe.” I was just trying to do anything and was super down but I don’t think that ever really happened, I don’t know how it exactly worked out for me. I think it was October when I left éS and started skating in etnies. I skated with those guys a few times and they decided to move forward with me. It worked out well and there’s a little more opportunity to travel which is nice and they’re working on a full-length video which is really great.

There is also a Welcome video coming up, how has it been handling both at once?

I’ve been filming for that video for the last year so we’re pretty much done, or at least I am. There are a few dudes who need to get some more footage but I pretty much wrapped up filming around summer, we just went on one last trip, I might go up to LA in August to film a little more for it but I feel like they are two totally different beasts. Filming for the Welcome video has been very DIY, independent video style, going out with a VX. I skate mostly with my friends and it’s super low budget. Whereas filming for the etnies video has almost exclusively been on trips, obviously it’s a much bigger production but it’s fun. I’ve definitely put everything I have into the Welcome video so I feel there’s a little less pressure filming for the etnies video because there’s not an expectation to have a full part and it’s mostly done while travelling. We go skate and if we like the spot we will film a trick, feels like very low stress, which is nice.

Having already stepped away once, is having a plan for life after skateboarding really important or are you just trying to enjoy things more this time around? Has being part of Skate After School made you consider going into teaching or something similar?

I’m trying to enjoy skating as much as possible but also, I stay really busy with my life outside of skateboarding as well. I get injured a lot so by necessity I dabble in different things. There’s a lot of anxiety coming with being an ‘older’ professional skateboarder I guess. I’m twenty-eight, not super old, but definitely a few serious injuries could be catastrophic to my career. I think it’s important just to build the kind of muscles that you’re going to need when you have to go work at a normal job, (laughs). You don’t want be in the position where you have never even experienced it.

For sure, I have a lot of connections in the education sector and even just what we have done with Skate After School, it might be that in a few years time we have grown into a statewide or national organisation and I can do that full time.

Sorry for keeping on the phone for so long, that’s everything. It’s been real pleasure talking to you Ryan. Any thanks you want to throw out there before we finish?

No, it was great; I had a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone in England for showing us around, we had a good time.