By Benny GWhere do you want to see your career go? You’ve kind of taken team manager-type roles already. Well, yes and no. With Body Glove, the whole thing is like one big family in each division, no matter what. Technically, they have a team manager, but if there’s a new kid they are thinking about taking on, everyone on the team has input. I’ve been recommending some younger kids who I think would be really awesome, but everyone has input, and it’s never on just one person. Obviously, they have more experience in diving and surfing, so they weigh heavily on us as the wake team to help steer the ship in the right direction. We convinced them to do the video Slick City, which was huge. They had a blast shooting it. It was funny because it was just a bunch of surfers shooting wakeboarding. We would go out and do a butter slide on the wake and they would be like, “Oh, that was sick!” To them it’s like a floater on a surfboard or something. It was really fun and refreshing filming with them. As far as where my career goes, I definitely want to keep the ideas flowing. I pioneered the idea of doing the Slingshot video Lipsmack that we’re doing. I think it’s finally time we do it. I’ve been putting a lot of my time into that, making sure it’s a success. For me, I’d really like to have tricks in there that no one’s seen me do and really just charge it. I want to make people think “holy shit.” I really want to knock it out of the park with that and then from there, who knows?
So you’re kind of the driving force behind Lipsmack?It’s been my idea for them to do a video for a while. Really, since we started, but I wanted to make sure we had the right squad of guys before diving into it. I feel like every brand should show their support and commitment to the industry and be proud of their team and want to show everyone what their vibe is. You don’t get that out of Web videos. They have such a quick shelf life, and you almost never rewatch them. Obviously, we want to showcase that our boards are good for everything, but we also want everyone to see how creative a team we have. The Shredtown guys do the craziest stuff that has never been seen before, and for the video it’s going to be very jib heavy with a lot of rails and stuff. We also have Oli Derome, who is great on rails and super-good off the wake. Lately, as we’ve been filming, he’s blown our minds on some of the park-type stuff. We went to the Philippines and he decided he wanted to land a double flip, so he went out and landed a double flip. It’s just cool he’s pushing it hard. It’s been awesome riding with the entire team and just to be able to travel so much. We’ve done the Philippines, Canada a couple times, Germany, Texas, the San Juans, Tennessee, Florida and more.
What’s the vibe? Does everyone have a part? No parts — team vibe all the way through. There’s kind of wake sections and rail sections and sections focused on style-oriented stuff and tech stuff. It’s been nice to have the motivation to shoot for a movie and set goals for myself. Hitting different and fun stuff — things people are afraid to hit because people may think they’re stupid, like the camel back rail. I say, “Screw it; it’s fun!” That’s been my main goal: Showcase everyone’s personalities. We want people to watch our video and think, “Those dudes are raunchy and weird and I want to hang out with them.” We’re not trying to make our guys look like untouchable gods, you know? We’re just trying to make wakeboarding look fun.
I’ve always thought the best videos are the ones where you wished you were there during the sessions or on the trips. Yeah, we don’t want to make wakeboarding seem like something it’s not. It’s fun and it’s full of characters. We’re definitely not going to have a voiceover in our movie describing what wakeboarding means to each of us.
It’s kind of a loaded question, but what in wakeboarding frustrates you? The youth in wakeboarding frustrates me right now. I feel like the next generation of riders is being brought up with the wrong goals. They see Harley Clifford doing every trick known to man and that’s all they want to do, but their mistake is they move too fast and pay no attention to detail. When they land a 720, they think, “Sweet, now I’m going to do a 900.” Instead, they should focus on trying to grab that 720 and bend their knees so they don’t look like a taco behind the boat with straight legs and folded in half at the waist. Then there are kids who work with coaches who encourage things like two-handed tantrums and whirlybirds so you have a better chance of landing the ugliest trick of all time. They think it’s only about landing the trick, but that’s all wrong. It’s about what happens in the air, which as of lately seems to be total chaos. If you want an example of someone who is coming up and doing things right, Josh Twelker is my suggestion. Kudos, my friend.
Do you see yourself in the industry after you’re done riding? Yes, but not just wakeboarding. I have my eyes on the entire action-sports realm. Whether it be marketing, television stuff or being that one guy who no one knows who he works for and how he makes a living. I’ll be there in some way, shape and form. I also have some things on the horizon that will help showcase the art that comes from action sports. It’s a business Jeff Logosz and I are in the process of launching called Art of Action.
You basically want to dabble in everything. Yeah, I just want to have a hand everywhere. It’s definitely going to be related to things like “How can I go to Hawaii and turn it into business trip?” I’ve had some really lucky opportunities, and I just want to figure out how to keep this lifestyle rolling.
Do you have any last words? Ride naked before you’re done riding.
Put a sock over it. Yeah (laughs).
How many times do you think we said fun in this interview? There’s no such thing as too much fun.
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