Zered Bassett: the doctor is in

BEING A SKATER FROM THE EAST COAST means having heart, pushing on rough ground in the snow, and taking hits in the frozen metropolis. Concrete is enough to make any skater quit and take up stamp collecting. But for some, that's just the way it is. Zered Bassett--Dr Z, whatever you want to call him, this kid is in it to win it. Peep game from the streets of NYC straight to the world stage, and respect the East.--Steve Randall

What up Dr Z?

What's going on?

Where you like skating at, Z?

Weak, already

So what was it like growing up skating in Cape Cod?

Growing up skating in cape cod was very different from skating in a lot of places. There's not too many street spots, it's mostly parks. There wasn't a big skate scene so you'd always be doing weird-ass tricks. You wouldn't see any pro skaters or anything. It was kind of out of the way from mainstream skating. It was different.

What was it like learning tricks at first?

I didn't really learn tricks. I'd just go around, do ollies, go up curbs; I'd just push around and try and do tricks. I didn't even know what tricks I was trying. I'd just try and throw the board around. Then I started skating with my friend Louis, who was from a few towns over. He was more technical. He was more into skating street but couldn't skate parks, and I was more into parks but couldn't skate street. So he taught me tricks and I showed him how to skate tranny a little bit. It worked out good. We met at the chatham park in my hometown.

That was your home park?

Yeah. We'd just hang out there and cause trouble.

What'd you do?

We'd get so bored skating the same park all the time we'd do some really stupid stuff. We were fucking around with fireworks one time and we set both trash cans on fire. We didn't even know they were on fire and we left to go watch skate videos. The owner of the park called my house. The whole park almost burned down. The fire trucks came and everything. So that was one stupid thing. Another thing-where I lived with my parents, there was an airport between our house and the skatepark. So I cut the fence at the airport with bolt cutters and skated down the runway to get to the park. It would take five minutes as compared with going all the way around, which would take like 15 minutes.

You're doing that to save 10 minutes? Did you ever get caught?

Yeah. It was a little airport. It's not like JFK or something; it's a little-town airport, but it gets busy One time a truck followed us all around and we had to hide in the bushes.

If you did that now you'd probably get arrested.

Yeah.

What kind of name is Zered?

It's no name. My father made it up. He thought it sounded cool.

A made-up name.

Yeah. A MacGyver name.

When did you start skating in Boston?

I got on Sixteen skateboards. That was one of my first sponsors. They always wanted to get photos of me and I was always just skating around town, so I decided to check out Boston, see what that was like and get some photos. When I first started going out I would just stay with random people. Then, after awhile, I'd stay with Steve Nardone. He helped me out a lot in skating and introduced me to a lot of people.

Where would you sleep when you were staying at Nardone's place?

I used to sleep on the couch, then I decided I was going to move in with him, but I was only 15 and my parents weren't down with it so I couldn't do it. But I was gonna move into this little closet room, like jam a mattress in there. We were gonna build a spot for the TV up in there and have a whole little kit, but it never happened.

Did you spend any nights in the closet?

I slept there twice, wasted.

And now you're out of the closet?

Stoops.

So you're on Sixteen, you're skating in Boston; what kind of events led up to you skating for Zoo York?

I started filming with Brian Brown's brother, Doug. He films for DC now. He ended up sending it over to RB Umali for an EST video. He saw it and was psyched, and showed it to Jeff Pang anc he was psyched. Then Jeff gave me a call. I thought about it for a while and have been down ever since.

So you've been traveling a lot?

Yeah, last two years. I've been traveling non-stop except for a five-month period.

Favorite place you've been?

Probably Hong Kong. They've got a lot of great skate spots you haven't seen in videos yet and a lot of good people out there. Brian at the skateshop 852 was really cool. He definitely showed us a good time.

There were lots of bootleg porno DVDs there, too.

Yeah. He knew all the spots for bootleg porno and bootleg Louis Vuitton. He'll hook you up.

What was your Boston crew like?

I skated with Eli Reed, Vanik Hacobian, and Robbie Gangemi. A little bit with Jahmal once in awhile. Jereme Rogers, I skated with him everyday for awhile. We had a pretty tight skate crew back in the day.

Back in the day? What was that, like three years ago?

Yeah. It seems like a long time ago.

What's your living situation now?

I live in downtown Manhattan, a block away from the World Trade Center with Billy Rohan and Brian Brown. It's good. There are lots of spots around the apartment. We've got a pool table, so we're not getting too bored. There's just no windows in the apartment, so we end up staying up really late and then sleeping really late because you can never tell what time of the day it is.