What's up man? How's the trip going?

It's cool, met up with these guys in Vegas but then I got sick. I got tonsillitis; didn't eat one damn thing yesterday. And I drank like, probably a glass of water. I've just been spitting and spitting and spitting… it's messed up. I had to go to urgent care. Cause I went to the pharmacist like "yo can I get some shit?" They're like "you have to have a note" or whatever. So I had to go to urgent care, which was directly across the street from the pharmacist- so that was tight. Just paid that out of my pocket, which wasn't that bad cause we got per diem. Like, free money basically. So then they were like "oh yea you got tonsillitis", so I've just been on these pills. The first thing I ate was today so that's pretty tight.

Damn that sucks. Well thanks for doing this, hopefully you feel better soon. So you're from Cincinnati right? Where are you living these days?

New York, I've been in New York for two months but I have a place in San Francisco, in the Tenderloin.

So you split your time between the two?

Yeah, the wintertime in New York is brutal so I'm in San Francisco [then].

It's gotta be hard to skate with all the snow on the ground.

Yeah usually just go to the bars, go get drunk, go to coffee shops, find a winter wifey, hang out with women… shit like that (laughs)

(laughs) So between all the GX stuff, AYC and Cons, you're just bouncing around all over the place these days huh?

Yeah we're working on a full-length GX video. So whenever we go and have the edits come out from the places we've been skating we take footage that we want to save and put it away, for the video, of course. So that's been happening… I'm not exactly sure when the video is supposed to come out but we're pretty much almost done with it. I just went to Asia with Converse for the One Star tour, which was pretty sick. Went to Bangkok, went to Seoul, Hong Kong, Shanghai… I'm pretty sure that was all. It was pretty fun. Then [the last] AYC trip, we went to Hawaii- that was a while ago. But this trip has been pretty fun, got in on the tail end of it. Met these guys in Vegas, Didn't gamble, didn't lose no money. Got sick, got fucking tonsillitis.

That's rough.

Shoulda gambled, maybe my luck woulda been better. (laughs) put all my per diem on black at the roulette table or something.

Coulda come up dude!

Yeah, come up for sure.

Are AYC trips a lot different from GX trips?

Hell yeah! What?! The GX trips are sick cause it's like, my boys and like we sleep in the same bed with each other and stuff like that. It's rugged, but it's all good cause we're boys- like if one of us doesn't have money or something we're just like buying each other stuff, we're like family you know what I mean? It's like, "Oh you need some money? Here. Oh you wanna get something to eat?" "I'll get you back" "Nah fuck it, it's all good. You can have it, I don't care." It's like that. Or [if] one of us didn't get a plane ticket to go; we'll all just chip in and buy a ticket for that person. AYC trips- my first trip was Hawaii and we had this balling ass house. And it was like- strictly skating, got the photos, got the footage, [then] go to the beach and hang out. GX trips we're in the trenches of the city, lurking around all day. In the hood, almost getting robbed sometimes, getting kicked out of spots. Meeting girls while we're skating, going to hang out with them at night. It's a big difference. But both trips are tight cause I can do either one, I'm down for either ya know? Sleeping on the floor to sleeping in the W hotel and ordering ballin' ass meals- I'm down. [I'm] always grateful for everything, good or bad.

It's cool you get to experience both sides of the spectrum, from the more high-budget AYC trips to GX, which sound like fully homie trips.

Yeah, homies to the fullest. So when I go on other trips and hear somebody bitching about the littlest thing I'm like, "Man, you don't even know how good you got it." Then they're like, "What do you mean?" I tell 'em, "Come on a trip with us, you'll probably go home" (laughs)

You were on that Chile trip right? How was that?

It was awesome. We had it really good there. We had a van, we had a nice place. Daniel Fuenzalida is from Santiago, Chile and his mother has an apartment there. She had family in the countryside so she went and stayed with the family and we had the apartment to ourselves. It was nice, we had tons of spots. We went to Valparaiso and Vino Del Mar which are like, unreal. It was a really good trip. I think that edit just came out, but the next two edits that come out are Taiwan and Japan.

That's rad. Does Thrasher help you guys out with that stuff?

Yeah, Thrasher's been helping us out a lot; Converse helps us out a lot, OJ Wheels too.

Cause you and Dela [Brain Delatorre] both ride for OJ and Cons right?

Yeah, me Dela and Jake [Johnson]

That's sick. You're pretty tight with those dudes?

Hell yeah. Those are my boys, man. For sure. We stay in touch everyday, almost. We got like a group chat that we just like text [each other] constantly all types of shit.

That's cool, having a good crew. That's what it's all about, just skating with the homies and shit.

And when it changes, that's when you know the difference. And you don't like the other… I mean the other thing- the other scenario, where you gotta be in a van with guys you don't even know, that has to happen if you wanna keep doing this for a living and be able to pay bills and stuff like that. I just bite my tongue and get in the van and skate as much as I can.

So you went pro, what was it- last year?

It was the beginning of this year.

And how old are you?

I'm 31.

So were you thinking that was gonna be something that was gonna happen for you? I mean, not a lot of people turn pro at 31.

Nah hell no, that's really rare.

Were you stoked or what?

Yeah, I was so hyped. I got sponsored by Habitat when I was 24. Then I got hurt and didn't skate for like a year cause of an ankle injury. I just had to get it cleaned out; I didn't have to get anything major done. Like bone fragments were all inside my ankle hanging out and shit. But I could still skate on it; it would just get really sore. It would hurt so bad after a while. It feels amazing right now, like it feels amazing ever since I got the surgery. So, I was in Cincinnati like "alright, I gotta get outta here, there's nothing happening here." So I went to San Francisco and I lived with Ryan Garshell, the filmer for the GX1000s. So he's like, "come out here, you can live with me. It's all good." So I got a one-way ticket and I've been there ever since. I wanna say I've been there almost two years… yeah two years in February. Then the pro thing happen just cause, ya know, at it. Skating, skating, skating. Coverage, coverage. Then that happens [going pro], [I'm] pretty psyched.

Has Habitat changed much since the move from DNA to Tum Yeto? Is [Brennan] Conroy still involved?*

Yeah Brennan Conroy is the TM. He was the TM of AYC but he moved on. Joe Castrucci does all the designs and everything himself now. It's a small team of people that work for them now. The boards are still the same, we haven't changed the wood. And it's out of Tum Yeto, which is a little different cause it was in my backyard when I lived in Cincinnati. Dayton is 45 minutes north of where I'm from, I would just drive up there and hang out or do whatever, it was really close. But it hasn't really changed, I have to keep reminding myself "oh yeah it's out of Tum Yeto." Like, when I get boxes it isn't a Toy Machine logo on the box- it's a Habitat box; it's just out of Tum Yeto.

It seems like Habitat was able to keep pretty much everything the same through that change. Which is cool cause Alien didn't really have that same fate.*

Nah, but they're out of Tum Yeto [now] too.

Yeah, that's rad. So the GX video, are we going to see DVD copies?

Yeah, I mean it's a Thrasher video. But GX filmed it all, and it's all of us. It's full parts from me, Jake [Johnson], Yonnie [Cruz], Brian [Delatorre]… then we've got like, secret stuff that I can't talk about.

I'll have to wait for the video.

People are gonna be hyped. It's gonna be cool.

*Habitat is now distributed by Facility Distribution