Beyond Boards

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,...

Episode 29 with Ruby Mateja, skateboarder, co-founder of Free Movement Skateboarding and Goodpush Officer at Skateistan.     Together we discussed her growing up in England, finding skateboarding as a young adult, her first experiences in various non-profits and charities such as Palestine-based organization Skatepal where she volunteered for a few months as a skate coach and met Will Ascott, with...

Episode 28 with Dutch/Algerian Barcelona resident skateboarder, photographer, musician and all around artist Louisa Menke.  Together we talked about her growing up skating in the Netherlands, becoming the first European woman ever to turn pro back in 2003, developing her interest for art and photography aside from skating, traveling to Afghanistan, India, South Africa or Palestine to name a few an...

Episode 27 with Viktor Telégin, skateboarder, co-founder and CEO of Stockholm-based watch and eyewear brand CHPO.  Together we discussed him growing up in Stockholm, his love for skateboarding, football/soccer and snowboarding, working at WeSC and Quiksilver/Roxy for a few years, starting CHPO with his partner Johan Graffner in 2013, the brand's values focused on inclusivity and sustainability amo...

Episode 26 with French skater, artist and entrepreneur Lucas Beaufort. Together we discussed him growing up skating in the South of France, his first job as advertising manager for French surf & skate magazine Desillusion, transitioning into freelance illustration, partnering up with other artists for the LB project, making the documentary « Devoted » dedicated to skateboarding media, his most...

Episode 25 with Jonathan Lomar, skateboarder, filmer and documentary filmmaker. Together we discussed him growing up skating in Sweden, picking up a camera and filming his friends, getting involved with Sweet Skateboards (ancestor of Sour Skateboards) and moving to Barcelona, filming the first Sour Solution video, studying documentary filmmaking and making his first project "Made in Skene", his la...