Beyond Boards

Episode 54 with Aaron Meza, skateboarder, filmer and producer from San Francisco, CA. Together we discussed him growing up in South San Francisco and picking up his first board in the 80's, filming his friends skating at EMB and crossing paths with a young James Kelch who asked if he could film him, making the iconic videos "Finally" and "Penal Code 100A" for FTC, connecting with some of the World...

Episode 53 with Masafumi Kajitani aka Ame-San, skateboarder, journalist, translator, co-founder and chief-editor of VHS Mag.  Together we discussed him growing up in Japan, moving to Seattle, WA in the mid-80’s and picking up his first board over there, coming back to Osaka in 1990, watching the Japanese skate scene grow and evolve throughout the years, starting VHS Mag out of Tokyo in 2011, an on...

Episode 52 with Dani Abulhawa, skateboarder, artist and academic from Rugby, England.   Together we discussed her growing up in the Midlands and picking up her first board in 1998, feeling slightly out of place as a skateboarder for a long time, her journey with academia from completing her PhD to becoming a senior lecturer in performance at the University of Leeds, her involvement with NGO Skatep...

Episode 51 with Joel Curtis, skateboarder, musician and podcast host from Sheffield, England.  Together we discussed him growing up and picking up his first board in Sheffield in the mid-80’s, developing an interest for music at an early age, getting flowed Zero boards and Circa shoes for a bit, moving over to Landscape Skateboards when the brand was started, filming for the classic video « Portra...

Episode 50 with Jaime Owens, skateboarder, journalist, photographer, founder of Closer Skateboarding Magazine. Together we discussed him growing up skating in Florence, South Carolina, studying art and photography in college, moving to California in 1999, connecting with Aaron Meza and Mike Ballard at Skateboarder Magazine, filming for Jackass for a little bit, climbing up the ladder at Skateboard...

Episode 49 with Atita Verghese, skateboarder from Bangalore, India.  Together we discussed her growing up in Bangalore, her mom being her first inspiration to become a strong independent woman and create her own lane, picking up a skateboard at 19 years old and skating with the Holystoked crew, meeting with the Make Life Skate Life crew and learning how to build skate spots, starting Girl Skate In...

Episode 48 with Johannes Schön and Florian "Burny" Hopfensperger, skateboarders from Germany, creators of Pocket Skatemag. Together we discussed them growing up in different parts of Germany, meeting for the first time on a skate trip to Croatia back in 2010, working in the skateboarding industry, Johannes in marketing for German distributor Mosaic and Burny as a skate photographer for various pub...

Episode 47 with Kuba Kaczmarczyk, skateboarder and videographer from Warsaw, Poland. Together we discussed him growing up and picking up a skateboard in Warsaw in the early 90’s, getting interested in filming and making skate videos with his friends, releasing his first full-length video « Grey Area » in 2012 with a crew of talented skaters from Eastern and Central Europe, a few years later using...

Episode 46 with Ali Boulala, musican, model, former pro skater from Stockholm, Sweden.   Together we discussed him growing up and picking up his first board in Stockholm, his obsessive nature since childhood, developing an interest for music thanks to Bastien Salabanzi back in the Flip days, his early sobriety days and having been sober for nearly 10 years, working with Max Eriksson on the documen...

Episode 45 with Kristin Ebeling, skateboarder, musician and social worker from Seattle, Washington (also known as Occupied Duwamish Territory). Together we discussed her first encounter with a skateboard while she was living in Singapore as a young child, being bullied as a teenager and finding somewhat of a release through skateboarding, getting involved with Skate Like a Girl around that time an...

Episode 44 with Steffen Austerheim, skateboarder from Stavanger, Norway, former student turned skateboarding teacher at Bryggeriets Gymnasium in Malmö, Sweden. Together we discussed him growing up and picking up his first skateboard in Stavanger, getting sponsored and doing competitions at a young age, finding out about Bryggeriets Gymnasium in Malmö and convincing his parents to send him over the...

Episode 43 with Chris Lawton, skateboarder, co-founder of Skate Nottingham and Community Development Officer at Skateboard GB.  Together we discussed him growing up in Boston, Lincolnshire, moving to Nottingham in 1996 to study history and connecting with the thriving local skate scene, working in academia at Nottingham Trent University for a few years, traveling to Malmö and Copenhagen with his s...

Episode 42 with Eric Swisher aka Chops, skateboarder, copywriter, creator of the Chrome Ball Incident.  Together we discussed him growing up and picking up a skateboard in Ohio, starting a blog in 2008 to  share scans from old skateboarding magazines and naming it « the Chrome Ball Incident » (a reference to Neil Blender), starting to do interviews with pro skaters in 2010, keeping it going until...

Episode 41 with Michael Burnett, skateboarder, photographer, journalist, editor-in-chief of Thrasher Magazine.  Together we discussed him growing up and picking up a skateboard in Texas, going to college in Boulder, Colorado to study journalism, making zines with his friends, getting his foot in the door at Thrasher in 1994, then becoming the editor-at-large and eventually the editor-in-chief, sta...

Episode 40 with Gordon Eckler, skateboarder and co-founder of the "Skate Trivia" games.  Together we discussed him growing up and picking up a board between the island of Guam and Maryland, getting sponsored and moving to California as a young adult, transitioning into graphic design and marketing, coming up with an idea for a « Skate Trivia » game born out of a game played between skaters during...

Episode 39 with Imke Leerink, skateboarder, social media and marketing manager from The Hague, Holland, founder of Girls Shred.  Together we discussed her growing up and picking up a board in Utrecht, starting a myspace account called « Girls Shred » back in 2007 to connect with girl skaters near her, moving over to Facebook and Instagram to keep developing the community worldwide, doing events, m...

Episode 38 with Charlie Davis, skateboarder and musician from Edinburgh, Scotland, founder of NGO Skatepal. Together we discussed him growing up and picking up a skateboard in Edinburgh, traveling to Palestine for the first time in 2006, drawing inspiration from Skateistan’s work with youth in Afghanistan to launch a similar program by the name of Skatepal in 2013, crossing paths that same summer...

Episode 37 with Ben McQueen, skateboarder and tattoo artist from San Francisco, California. Together we discussed him growing up and picking up a skateboard in Indianapolis, getting into tattoos, moving to San Francisco, the process of tattooing and the many links that can be found with skateboarding, starting his book project "Let it kill you" dedicated to that very subject, meeting with and inte...

Episode 36 with Yurii Korotun, skateboarder, producer, skate teacher and mentor from Ukraine.  Together we discussed him growing up and picking up a board in Klavdievo near Kyiv, working in film production for a few years aside from his skating career, moving with his family to Hanover, Germany right before the war started in Ukraine in February 2022, giving skate lessons to young kids (among whom...

Episode 35 with Aram Sabbah, skateboarder from Ramallah, Palestine.  Together we discussed him growing up skating in Ramallah, meeting with Charlie Davis in the summer of 2013 and getting involved with his NGO Skatepal which was just getting started (aiming to support young people in Palestine through skateboarding), studying cinema in Tunis for a few years, coming back to Palestine after completi...

Episode 34 with Raphaël Zarka, skateboarder, writer, sculptor and all-around visual artist from France.  Together we discussed him discovering skateboarding in the South of France where he grew up, studying art in Winchester and Paris and becoming a visual artist, his various books focused on skateboarding from historical, archaeological, physics and artistic points of view to name a few (all avai...

Episode 33 with Kirill Korobkov, skateboarder, team and brand manager and all-around fixer from Moscow, Russia.  Together we discussed him growing up and picking up a skateboard in Cheboksary, the development of the Russian skate scene in the 90’s, his first gigs in the skateboarding industry as a writer, meeting and traveling with Patrik Wallner and the Visual Traveling crew and becoming their ma...

Episode 32 with Léo Valls, pro skater from Bordeaux, France.  Together we discussed him growing up skating in Bordeaux, his first sponsors, traveling to and living in Japan and California for a few years, getting on Magenta when the brand was launched, skating for DC shoes, developing skate urbanism initiatives in the city of Bordeaux, teaming up with his wife Lauren to create a skateboarding rela...

Episode 31 with Walker Ryan, professional skateboarder, writer, podcast host and founder of Old Friends.  Together we discussed him starting to skate between California and ex-Soviet Georgia as a child, going to college and turning pro for Organika, traveling around the world with Patrik Wallner’s Visual Traveling crew, starting Old Friends as a hat and clothing brand, evolving it towards fitness...

Episode 30 with Sourya "Soy" Panday, French-Indian skateboarder, artist, co-founder and artistic director of Bordeaux-based board brand Magenta Skateboards.  Together we discussed him growing up between Orléans, Belfort and Grenoble, getting shoes from Osiris and I-Path back in the day, traveling around the world with Kenny Reed and trying to figure out his own path in the skateboarding industry,...