‘Skateboarders are making skateboarding what it should be.’
A while ago, Brad Staba from Skate Mental passed by Slam Skateshop. We had the pleasure to ask him some questions. Here are some of our favorite answers
What’s the coolest thing about skateboarding today?
That there are so many people doing it. A lot of people never change.
I hate the past. I just love what people are doing now and I think that so many people are being creative and are doing what they want to do.
There was a long time where you had to do what you thought people wanted you to do. Now you can be who you want to be, do what you want to do. You don’t necessarily have to jump down 15 stairs. Somebody can do a no-comply and it just looks beautiful. It’s always been about the style and the person for me.
Do you have a local skateshop? What does your skateshop mean to you?
I ride for Ben-G in Amsterdam, for me that’s family. I don’t even consider it a skateshop, it’s more like a place I can go and feel at home. That’s how it was when I was a little kid too.
You go to a skateshop all the time, everybody is there. It creates a nice little safe environment.
What’s the hashtag #FAKIEHARD about?
Ha-ha. I do a lot of random captions. I never want it to make sense. At one point I was calling tricks different names and it always came back to fakie hard. It deserved its own hashtag. It probably deserves its own board.
Any message to the skaters checking this out?
Get off your fucking stupid fucking stupid phone and go fucking skateboard.
Your brain is going to turn into a computer or something. Fuckin go skate, fall. Go outside and push really fast. Hit a rock. Wake yourself up. You don’t need coffee. You just hit a rock really hard.
Check out the full interview below!