What are you doing at this exact moment Richie?

I just skated back from the Army Surplus store- drinking a Yerba Mate, sitting in front of my office. I picked up a pair of Ben [Davis]'s and a pair of Dickies. The Ben's are massive dude. They're fucking huge.

Let's get into this Richie. What is "Lyssophobia"?

The word or the project?

Both.

The [definition of the] word is the clinical fear of going insane. There's this band that I used to listen to called Scarlet, and I'm a big fan of their music. That was the name of one of their songs. I would listen to the album and had no idea what it meant. I looked it up one day and was like, "oh shit that's kind of a cool word." That's also the name of the project with my friends and I. So, that's what it is.

What is this project that you speak of?

It's a homie video. Just a bunch of people that I like to hang out with, that also happen to rip. I spent about four years working on Skate Movie and took some time off after that. Originally when Lysso started out it was supposed to be Adam Bertolet and Dylan Witkin. I wanted to start on a small project that I could handle with two dudes. It just ended up being way bigger than I thought. I'm glad, cause instead of putting out something in a year or two I have a full length video with all of my friends in it. Rather than just some quick little fucking thing with two guys in it, you know? That's what it is.

Who's featured in the video?

It's Adam Bertolet, Dakota Villacana who's from Oklahoma- we call him "Dirty", Daniel Vargas, Nate Hoover- who was the latest addition to it. Eduardo Craig, Justin Martinez, Ty Hjortland and Dylan Witkin; then there's a bunch of homies in the friends' section.

With all of these Internet parts and Instagram videos, how important do you think a hard copy homie video like this is in today's skate world?

I fucking hate Internet parts man. I hate the stupid names they give Internet parts. I don't want to bash on anyone in particular, video-wise or whatever. People want to just see everything so quickly and I mean I'm guilty of it too. I feel that the way things are going now, kids are so immune to watching something and remembering it and having it be memorable. People owe it to themselves to take a project a little bit more seriously, because so much work goes into someone putting out a two or three minute part. It can take years, and for someone to just click on it once and have it be washed away in the next 2 days like, "oh I missed so-and-so's part but I heard it was cool, a new part came out today so I'm just going to watch that." That fucking kills me. The fact that companies and people just want to get shit out. It's not like TV, you can put something out whenever the hell you want, and to have a hard copy video, I think, is one of the coolest things that can be done. All people do is "oh I filmed with this dude for a couple months, I'm going to put out this shitty part" With all this B-roll in it. That's just not what I wanted to do. I intentionally wanted to make this a DVD project- even though I knew I was going to lose money on it. I think it makes people take you more seriously on what you're doing. You should be more inclined to want to have the hard copy of something, so years down the line someone can say "here's this video, I'm going to put it in a DVD player." It gives you such a different vibe, sitting down and watching something on the TV that you physically have to pop a disk into. The physical aspect of having a skate video is something that companies should take more seriously now. Who gives a fuck if everyone wants something now? The people making the videos should be the ones to say, "Hey, I want to do a hard copy video." How skate videos were back then was what made them so memorable. That's why people remember those videos to this day, is because they were able to fucking watch them. There also wasn't as many coming out back then, but there is just so much bullshit coming out everyday with terrible music and 80 angles of fucking B-roll for each shot.

No offense, but didn't you start out filming this video with 2 cameras and shooting B-roll footage?

Yeah I did, it didn't last that long. When the video first started it was just two people, which made it a little bit easier. But yeah I was filming a lot of B-roll, filming little portrait shots of someone at a spot. After a couple months I knew, I was like "fuck man, why am I shooting and filming like this? I don't even like these kinds of videos." I told myself, "We're just going to go handheld." I wanted it to almost be like a HD VX video- not in any other way except the fact that we would just go out and film, instead of shooting everything super nice on a tri-pod or something. Which is what I do, say, if I was working for someone else and that's the look they want to go for- yeah I'll fucking do that. [But] since this is my project and there's no one to tell me otherwise, I'm going to shoot [it] like I was going out with my friends and filming like I was in high school. At first I wanted to make a nice clean super professional looking video, "oh here's a tri-pod shot." But that's not the kind of video I enjoy watching, so why am I going to make that?

What was the hardest part for you about filming Lysso?

I think for me [it was] filming Ty and Daniel. I didn't grow up skating transition, obviously you watch transition skating all throughout videos but I never really paid attention to the way it was filmed too much. The other part was half the dudes don't live in L.A. That was tough, it took a toll on me. Having to drive up there [SLO] every weekend for two years or whatever. Besides that everything was pretty mellow, just a lot of driving on my part.

With you being out of L.A., how did you end up having Ty, Nate and Justin- who are from SLO- be a part of this project?

I met all of those dudes through Ben Cabreana. I was going out with Shaun Peterson a lot and he was coming back from a One In A Million trip- the one Ben ended up winning. His car broke down in Malibu and he hit me up for a place to stay when I was living in L.A. I picked him up and he had Ben with him. Ended up hitting it off with Ben and we became friends that night, so I would link up with him on my way back and forth from Watsonville and L.A. Just skating with him ended up in meeting Justin, Ty and Nate. It was all because of Ben, I thank him for everything as far as all of that shit goes.

Did you end up filming a lot out here in San Luis Obispo? There isn't much skate coverage going on out here besides locally. How was that? Everything here is pretty untouched.

Yeah, we did a lot of filming up there. That was one of the things I really enjoyed. I fucking hate skating all the spots in L.A. that everyone goes to. I don't want to watch a video that has all the hot spots in it. So I hope that people notice there are spots you don't see in every video. Granted we do go to some hot spots, but filming in SLO was more fun for me because we have a lot of our friends up there. Like taking a mini road trip you know. Hop in the car with whoever can go that weekend, get wasted, wake up feeling like shit the next morning and try to sweat it out before the sun goes down. You get to go to spots that are a little more cutty, more creative. In L.A. you're going to spots that have been murdered so hard. You've got to fight for whatever you can get. Up there it was a little easier for someone to get something, and a lot of my friends had a lot of fun going up there. People that normally didn't get to go up there got to go and hang out with like the Waffle House crew and everything. I'm hoping that some of the SLO dudes get a little bit more recognition now and for skating their own spots too.

You said Nate was the last person added to the video. When did you decide to throw him into the mix?

Late man. Probably summer of last year. He wasn't even in the credits up until the last few months when I was putting the video together. I had been roughing things out in the last year; it was probably about November when I started to get more serious about it with the rough-cut edits. I was sitting on a lot of footage of him but didn't really technically know what I was going to do with it. Didn't know if I was going to put a couple clips in and maybe do something with him after the video, or what. But he's always such an integral part of the crew and sessions. It would have been weird for me to make this project without Nate being in it. He was always there; he was one of the main guys. It's sick that he's in there, its really fucking cool to me. He's one of my favorite dudes to hang out with, fuck yeah Nate Hoover.

So the Premiere is this Saturday. Is the video all finished up?

Yeah I sent it out this last Friday. I was up until about four in the morning, quality controlling and everything. Left work on lunch, didn't eat, and dropped off the DVD. Probably one of the most bittersweet moments I've ever had. It was great to get that off my shoulders. I work at a post photo agency full time. So I would work on a computer all day than get off work and go home and work on Lysso until 2am everyday. Throw a couple stoner park sessions in when I could. Go to work, go home and edit and that was it for 4 months. That coming to an end was great. The actual video coming to an end actually sucked for me. Like "fuck what am I going to do with my life?" This has been my whole existence for the past 4 years. I'm still in that weird grey area where I'm like "fuck dude, I still can't believe this is over." We filmed something for the Transworld website over the weekend. I think Justin was like "this is like our last trip, this is like it." It was kind of a bummer; I think I had post skate video depression after Skate Movie too. It's cool having it done, but I'm going to miss part of all of this as well. I kind of naturally drifted away from the Skate Movie guys after the video. It happens when you're working on a project spending every day with these guys. People move on a little bit. They want to work on other projects with another filmer or whatever, it's normal. I'm already starting to be like "Man, when am I going to skate with Daniel again like this- or when am I going to skate with Dylan again like this?" We were all always hanging out. Those guys are like fucking family to me though. I'm not going to lose contact with them but when Skate Movie came out, like Clint started to film for Ambig and that video. David Loy started going on a lot of Birdhouse trips. Certain friendships will always naturally taper off after you spend a lot of time on a project. The friendship remains but the constant hanging out is the thing I'm going to miss. I'm hoping I get to skate every goddamn chance I get with these guys because this is such a tight knit crew. I don't know, we'll see how it goes. These guys probably want a break from me; I'm a fucking nightmare (laughs). I drive everyone crazy, hopefully in a good way.

With the video all wrapped up, whose part are you most hyped on?

That's really tough man. I really like Daniel's part because he's never really had his own full part; it's kind of cool seeing it. For me maybe Ty because it's the last part. I think that's the part that people are going to react to the most. I think a lot of people are looking forward to Daniel's part though. We spent a lot of time on that one. Same with Ty's too. It's really hard to choose because Daniel wanted something cool and upbeat for his part and Ty wanted the complete opposite so I kind of like those two parts together. I love everyone's part though you know. Yeah I'd have to say it's between Ty and Daniel, I can't really choose man. They both have such different vibes. Ty's part makes you want to go skate and Daniels part is just fun to watch.

You got any last words before we wrap this up?

Stop using crappy radio music in edits. Shits terrible. I don't know I can't really think of any last words. I hope that people can check out what we've worked on for the last 4 years. I hope everyone likes it. That's really all I have to say. I made a video I think I would want to watch, and hopefully it's a video that other people want to watch too. I'm glad everyone in the video got to come together and just go out on trips and missions man. It was some of the best times. Packing into the car with those dudes, couldn't have asked for a better crew to spend my days and nights with crammed into my apartment. Thank you all for putting up with this shit for the last 4 years. Thank you Skate Warehouse for helping out too.