How did you meet Jay Adams, Tony Alva and the others?
I knew of them, of course. We saw each other in school and in the water, because we all surfed. But it wasn’t until the Zephyr surf shop started their junior team that we started practising and hanging out together. I remember being a sceptic beforehand, because I was convinced that Tony was an asshole. That view was really just based on the fact that he once stole my wave, that was something you just didn’t do.
What do you remember of the day you got picked for the Zephyr team?
It was like coming home. It was something I had always dreamt of. I was content with myself, for the first time I had accomplished something important. Surfing was unbelievably huge in Santa Monica, and Zephyr team was the coolest of them all. I had
already had some offers of sponsorship from other ventures, but heard a rumour that Zephyr had their eyes on me. It felt like I was going to be dubbed a knight.
Did you get surfing groupies already?
Everyone did. It was the single most cool thing you could be involved in. But it was an underground thing, surfing wasn’t widely accepted, as it didn’t produce anything. It was just dudes with long hair laying about in the water.
And what did your parents think of that?
They were cool. As long as I had good grades they let me do what I wanted. My parents were very liberal and let me and my brother have long hair, which automatically gave us an edge. We were cooler because all the other parents made their kids cut their hair.
You never had dreams of becoming professional skaters?
We wanted to become surfers. But in 1975 we entered this competition in Del Mar and when we won, it changed everything for us. And for everyone else for that matter. No one had expected that some street kids like us would have a chance. No one had ever seen anyone skate like we did. All of a sudden we got all these offers and realised that we had a chance of becoming both famous and rich through skateboarding. Then everything happened so quickly. I was just 16 and was flown to Australia for an exhibition show, it was my first trip anywhere.
There are a lot of photographs of you, already from an early age, both by Craig Stecyk and Glen Friedman. How did you meet the latter?
We were already 16 at the time and met this little 14 year old. He lived away in Brentwood and sometimes we used to go to his school to skate. He wanted to be associated with us and his masterstroke was to bring his camera. A smart move, a way of getting into our crew although he wasn’t that good of a skater. Eventually he became a great photographer and his pictures was published everywhere. But he was never really a part of our team.
Why did the Z-boys split up? Did you have a fight?
No, we always ask ourselves the same thing when we meet. I think we got too many offers of quick and large sums of money. Although we still skated together for a while after, all of us. The same pools. That I stayed on til the end was through loyalty. I never wanted it to end.
After starting your own company, you found Tony Hawk who today is the sport’s biggest superstar, partly because of his computer game.
Tony was 13 the first time I saw him. I already had Steve Caballero and Mike McGill in my team and Tony wasn’t really good enough to make it – yet. But you could see his willpower and he developed quickly. When an opportunity to get him in arose, my intuition worked to my advantage. It took a few years, then he became “Tony Hawk”.
Powell-Peralta’s “Bones Brigade” tends to be thought of as maybe the most important skateboard movies. Why?
It was the first one. It wasn’t only the first skate movie, I think it was the first real action sport movie.
Spike Jonze, the director, who did his own skate classic Video Days, can’t seem to praise it enough.
I know. He can’t stop talking about it whenever I see him and that feels really good. Personally I thought it would be popular for a year and then go away completely. I didn’t see it as something historical. Now 20 years on it’s kind of cool that it has become some sort of document of that time.
How did you come up with the idea?
George Powell and I wanted to reach a larger target group. A skate video felt like something innovative, something that could awaken people’s interest. I contacted a couple of filmmakers in Hollywood who turned out to be very patronising and didn’t listen to what I had to say. We gave them the boot and after our professional help was out of the window I had to do everything by myself. I filmed and edited it and surprisingly enough had some talent.
Why did you eventually do the Dogtown and The Z-boys film?
In 1999 Hollywood was tinkering with the idea of making a movie about the Z-boys. I wanted to give the story from our perspective before that idea materialised. It was also something I needed to do, I was going through a divorce and my career was seriously in a creative slump at the time. A documentary was a chance to have a retrospective look at my life and a way to learn something from it. I wanted to relive a time of my life, which was important to me. A time I spent with people I liked. And most of all, a time where I actually was proud of myself and of what I did.
Do you remember when you came up with the idea?
I was living in Malibu and had taken a walk up on a mountain. I was upset about the Hollywood plans to do a film and about my life going nowhere fast. When I got to the top I just thought I’d do my own documentary on the subject. And ran down.
What was your first step?
To secure all the old film clips and have meetings with Craig Stecyk. He was practically a part of the shop and also had worked with me in my company. We had been side by side for 14 years and he had so much material we went through.
How did it feel?
I was moved. Very moved. There is a fantastic light in those old pictures of the Zboys. A sort of clarity that almost feels manipulated, like when you see old childhood pictures of yourself that have lost their colour and become romantic. Like it’s not really real. But it looked like that. If you were out during the right time of day. I get real emotional every time I see them…
