Heads - skateboarder Josh Kasper - Interview

Thrasher Magazine, Oct, 2002 by Michael Burnett

JOSH KASPER

"THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THIS INFORMATION HAS EVER BEEN DISCLOSED"

So just to set the record straight, what's this rollerblade thing? Is that true or made up?

Yeah, I used to rollerblade.

Did you skateboard first?

Yeah, I probably skated first. Yeah.

And then just gave it a shot?

Yeah. I gave it a shot, I guess. Had some fun with it.

Were you good? Did you get sponsored?

Nah. No, I was just goofing around.

How did it come that people made a big deal about it?

I don't know! Oh, man.

I just wanted to get it out in the open. Did you ever lose sponsors over it or anything like that?

No, no. I remember at one Slam City Jam contest Tas made fun of me quite a bit. It was right after I left Platinum to ride for Blind.

Sounds like it was more than just the 'bladin' he was mad at. What did you do in skateboarding that started getting people's attention?

It was probably, well, I was working at a skateshop, Awesome Sports, out in El Cajon. I was living with a friend that filmed all the time and we used to go up to Carlsbad and I skated that gap a lot. I had skated that gap forever, but it was probably the 360 flip that put me on the map.

'Cause nobody had done that before?

Yeah. Except that a year from now some kid will probably do it switch.

And then you got all kinds of attention. You had sponsors calling and people talking...

And Rodney Mullen coming down to watch my sponsor-me video.

Really? is that what happened?

Yeah!

Were you nervous?

Totally! That's the man right there!

So all of a sudden you had Rodney Mullen there in your living room?

Even worse, it was in my friend's cramped little bedroom! He comes in and it's like three of us on the couch, looking at this little 13-inch TV with Rodney all smashed in the middle. And I'm on the side of him sweatin' bullets!

How long were you on before you turned pro?

Probably a good seven, eight months. I got on in the summertime. I met Miguel from TSA at a video premier and somehow they got a sponsor-me video; I think I sent it up to them. They put me on flow, then Creager saw it and showed it to Rodney. I got on Blind. Then seven months later after Trilogy came out, they turned me pro.

That's pretty quick!

Yeah, totally quick! I guess they were getting a lot of requests at the time for a board. Blind was just Ronnie and Lavar then, and they kind of needed to fill the team up.

Did your life change dramatically?

Yeah! It was crazy Coming out of Santee and never dreaming you could be sponsored to being on the best team with Rodney Mullen as your team manager! Your teammates are Creager and Lavar! It was a dramatic change.

Did you freak out and feel the pressure after your life changed so much?

Yeah, I felt a little bit of pressure. I lived with Chad Knight and we just skated all the time and we pushed each other really hard. But also at the time was the first time I had ever drank, at 20 or 21. I did a little bit of partying, but I stuck with my friends from high school too. We'd go to TJ and party with the boys and that sort of thing, but I tried not to get too out of hand.

I know you've had some bizarre medical problems in the last year. What happened?

You mean the motorcycle accident?

Yeah. What was that?

Man, I wanted to work with Harley Davidson so bad. I wanted to get sponsored by them, 'cause the thing was I was doing so many demos at the time. I was like a rock star going into the demos--everybody cheering and all this stuff. I thought, "How sick would it be to start getting a motorcycle and riding into these demos on a rad Harley bike, like a $50,000-dollar chromed-out Harley?" So I met this guy at Eagle Rider down in San Diego and we were going to work it out so I would go on one of their trips. So we went down to Mexico and I was supposed to meet this marketing guy from HD. The first day was the worst storm that we had since El Nino. I didn't even have a windscreen and I made it through three hours of hell. We made it to Ensenada, kind of partied that night, and the next morning left to go to Rosarito. Two minutes into it I went around a turn, hit some sand--we were real close to the beach--ended up falling off and pinching my sciatic nerve, fracturing my spinal column, and just doing all sorts of dama ge.

What was the recovery time like?

About three months.

Did you get mad at yourself getting hurt not even skating?

Yeah. I was kind of bummed. I felt like I was doing my job, though. I was looking for other sponsors and trying to advance my career. Blind, of course, had my back 100-percent.

Big snaps

A lot of skaters don't like doing demos. Why do you like them so much?

It's just getting involved with the kids and the tricks that you've worked so hard for over the years and being able to--it's kind of like showing off. It's not a new trick, but you're doing it over a new pyramid. Gosh! I don't know! Like a benihana where you look back and point at a kid in the crowd and get a group of kids totally into it! You get the whole crowd psyched! Even when you're falling you can hear the whole crowd go, "Aaahhh!" and it just echoes and everything. It's kind of like a show, to me, and I just have a lot of fun with it.