Home
20/08/02 : 4 videos added !!!
Media
Info
Other
Interview
Guestbook
Contact
Links
Author: Brecht Mahieu
Complete
Interview with Rodney Mullen
Rodney, what is your job at World Industries? Right now I deal mostly with the team, I do some board shapes, and this and that. When I started, Steve [Rocco] wanted me to have a feel for the company.I didn't know anything about anything, I's been at school studying all technical things. It's true I didn't know anything, I was scared to go into a bank. I hadn't been with people, I'd been isolated in Florida. I grew up in the country, so it was all quite a big leap. I started out with the financial stuff, I was a book-keeper for about a year. I did a terrible job, I got to know the accountant at least. So now you're mainly the team manager? Yeah, that's pretty much what I do. I talk to Steve about things for the company, and he treats me like a partner. I don't really do that too much, I stay at the little World skatepark late at night, every night. It's fun. Do you skate with everyone on the team and try to control it a little bit? Yeah, whatever control I have - they control me [laugher]. Do the kids go there and go crazy? They're pretty good. Well, they're a little rotten, yeah. I got fire extinguisher - I'll go there and they'll be burning things and climb around everywhere. They're just crazy. Do you have drug use going on at the park? No one's into anything hard, and if they were, it isn't scary. You just say, "Put it away [laugher]." But I'm happy with what I do, I never intended to do this. I've just been skating. I started skating for Powell when I was twelve, and entered a couple of small pro contests on the East Coast. Then three days after my thirteenth birthday I won a pro contest out here [in California] and beat Rocco. He was the champ, so we were kind of enemies. I was scared of him, and he was all, "You little shit, you beat me." After that he was always like a big brother to me. Stacy [Peralta] used to fly me out in the Powell days and leave me with Steve, and he'd take care of me. That's been the case all the way through - he still takes care of me the same way. When I first started out, there wasn't anything, you'd just skate around the streets doing little tricks. It was more freestyle oriented. This is when you first started skating? Yeah, that was 1977. I got sponsored for doing tricky stuff, and then the skateparks came, so I ended up skating a lot more vert-oriented stuff. There was a big snake run with four feet of vert in it, so I was kind of into that, but more like little halfpipe stuff. I was never like a big vert dog or anything [laugher], but I was pretty good at that stuff. For a while I did want to go more into that, the vert stuff, but my parents wouldn't let me because they said I'd get hurt. Your parents wouldn't let you? No, it was a big thing. I probably would have gone on with transitions. Of course, freestyle and the technical stuff seemed more boring compared to the vert stuff. If it weren't for [my parents] I would have done that. How did they implement this? Did they just say you couldn't skate these bowls and stuff?Yeah, it was always pretty strict where I was from. They said I could skate bowls and stuff, but if they ever caught me skating them seriously or wanting to compete they would take away everything. There were a lot of sketchy times. I think even now, I'm 26 and I have a steady job, I don't even skate for royalties. I've thought about quitting skating a lot, maybe so I could spend more time with my girlfriend or whatever. I think skating's been with me through so much that I still kind of hold onto it as much as I can. It took me away from a lot of things. [Without it] I might be over in Florida driving a tractor with a math degree or something. You lived on a farm? Well, it's not like Green Acres, it's a farm with horses and cows. It was pretty strict in my family. In 1981, the first time I got hurt, I was supposed to quit. I had to quit skating for four months, I was supposed to stop forever. My father said, "You've accomplished [a lot], you're so-called world champion, you've accomplished everything, so stop." He said skating was no good for me as a person, that I should be associating with more normal people [laugher]. No way! Yeah, so there's a lot of stuff that happened. Skating's just an integral part of my growing up. When you were younger and just freestyling, were you skating by yourself? I'd go to the park two days a week and see the same four guys or whatever. There weren't that many people around. I didn't have a car, and I went to a really small school. I went to the same school my whole life. I didn't really associate there, so I'd go home and skate in my garage and feed the horses and cows, or whatever. That was it, that's what I did. It's crazy to be where I am now among all these pros. These guys are so far ahead compared to where I was at their age. I'm intimidated by them because they know so much from the way they grew up. It's funny, I'm in the middle of all these things and it's hard to keep up with them. All these kids I work with are just so amazing. Who are some of the kids on your team that you really hook up with? Well, Dae Won - Dae Won's my friend, I love that kid. Hypothetically, if Dae Won and I were the same age and one of us had to stop skating, and the one who got to continue skating was the one who would be more influental and who would do more - the way that kid is, I would have to give it up to him. There are lots of amazing kids, Guy [Mariano]'s another one like that, he's an incredible person. Everyone loves Guy. It's funny how that kid is, he's like a little godfather. He's a magnet, everyone loves him. He's such a character. The Blind guys I was sort of more afraid of at first. I never really set my foot in because it was Mark's [Gonzales] thing. Mark and I never really hit it off too great. We'd try for a little while, but it would never really work. But the more I got to know 'em - they're so great. Rudy [Johnson] and Henry [Sanchez] - Henry's a little crazy, but I swear that kid is a perfectionist. You wouldn't even think because you hear all these crazy things. Rick Howard - I can connect with that guy so easily, Pat and Mike Carroll, all the Plam B team, and all the World and Blind teams. Eric Koston - I'm knowing him a little more. It's funny because I'm in this warehouse with all these people and I'm watching them skate, and I forget what I can do, and I'm kind of mesmerized with how good they are. If this place blew up with all of them in it, skating would be set back years and years. If the World Industries warehouse blew up on Friday night [laugher]! It would! Don't get any ideas. It's amazing to be with them and then I go home and Steve Rocco is cool to me - he gives me everything possible. Like he gives me a car. I'm supposed to be a ten-percent partner at World, right? But he treats me like everything is half and half. He lets me stay free where he lives, buys me cars, stereos, whatever [laugher]. Steve's like, "If I had just given you the money, you would never have done it for yourself." People like to say a lot of hard things about Steve, but if you're with him and show you care, he's with you to the end. That's how I feel. Of course, if you're an enemy, he's pretty tough. Mike Ternasky has done a lot for me because until we talked I was gonna give up skating, like after freestyle was over and I sort of conquered whatever I could. Everything [laugher]. Well, I was like, What am I gonna do now? I was just skating for myself and doing a little bit otherwise. Mike - he pushed me and he said, You're on Plan B, and I said, Alright, I'll be your team rider, but first I'll just film a little, show the team, and they'll decide. He said, No, you're on� He gave me a lot of faith in myself. I probably would have hung it up. I mean, I would always skate, but now I'm killing myself trying to film for the videos, you know. I would never have been that motivated. He's done a lot for me. I'm still happy with what I do. I still read at night because deep down I'm really a bookworm. Rodney, give a little history about the tricks with some sort of time table. Did you invent the impossible? Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that. I think I did that in '81 or '82. Helipops are from '79. Kickflips and flatground ollies are from '83. There are a lot of things that are just starting to come over. Pressure flips are from the 70's. Were you doing pressure flips in the 70's? Yeah, even other kids [did them]. There was this German guy who was doing triple pressure flips in '83. Those were all on freestyle decks -- seven and a half inches. Now we're almost there. How wide are your boards now? Well, I just made a seven-and-three-fourths, but now they're mostly under eight. What's your setup? Well, I just quit Indy after a whole decade. How did that come about? Oh, no particular reason, I just wanted some new trucks. No big deal. I just ride these mid-size Ventures and 38mm wheels. My board is 31 and three-fourths by seven and three-fourths, six-and-a-half nose, six-inch tail. Slick or wood? Wood, always wood. It snaps, it's more natural feeling. I'm not the king of the noseslide or tailslide anyway. But still, it snaps. The others just feel soggy to me. It's not a natural slide on the nose or tail. Even if I cut the tips of the slick, I don't like them at all. You feel everything on your board, and you can just feel it when it's there - it's like a shock absorber, it just doesn't feel right. Are there any companies you like besides World? From what I hear, Stereo and Mad Circle are good, ATM with Mark [Gonzalez] -- I don't know about New School, but Mark is amazing, so I'm sure he'll have something good to offer. Is there anyone who has really influenced you in your life? Yeah, I have all sorts of heros, but I shot for the big ones. People who've influenced my life -- Steve's influenced me because we're exact opposites. The way I'm made, I'm a little awkward and I don't fit into most situations. My mom knows because I'm exactly like her. It's crazy, my mom is dying. For about seven months she's had leukemia. Yeah, it's a real mental thing, too. I really see it. I'm made out of the same stuff she is. Well anyway, back to Steve. He's influenced me bacuase he's made me a lot more practical than I ever was and not afraid of a lot of things, because I used to be afraid of everything. Now I'm just afraid of most things [laugher]. Another person who's influenced me is Beethoven. I had this old girlfriend, she was a pianist and she knew all about the music guys. He had a temper and he was on his own, and that's what made him great. That's how I think I got special, I was on my own. But he was a hero to me. I remember this one story when he was in royalty's presence, and this one prince guy tells Beethoven that his symphony could be a little better here and there. Beethoven just freaked out and said, "What are you talking about?" and smashed this little statue of the prince's head with his cane or something. He told the prince, "You are what you are by right of birth, I am what I am by what I do." And as much as he hated that prince, and all the internal problems that he had, he let it come out in his music. That's how I was myself, I always had a lot of stuff bottled up in myself and skating was the way it came out. Not that I have any striking resemblances to the talent of Beethoven, but some of the things that made him great were that he was isolated and bland in a lot of ways. He was sort of a hero. There are a couple of writers I like a whole lot. There was a time when I read a lot of philosophy, when I stayed in Norway for four months. I was really into being a brainy guy, I wanted to be as smart as I could. I started with the basics, Conti and Descartes, the early guys and the rationalists. Then you get the reactonary guys like Nietzsche, and he shows you that you don't know anything about anything -- just do, just do, conquer. Then when I was like, "I understand that", I got more into existentialism, like, "Why are we here?" because I was really down about a lot of stuff. I was really depressed and I had a suicidal girlfriend. So that made me think of it [laugher]. So I read a lot of Destoyesvski and Kafka, more philosophical writers. Those are dark writers. Yeah, they're really dark people. I read some of Sartre, the French guy. Anyway, those type of guys I was into. So then I figured, what do I have to live for? Everyone's running on a tradmill, you know. So just keep running, and try to have some happy little thing -- just for that moment -- because there's no big prize at the end. So I was in Norway and wanted to forget a lot of things that are happening here, like violence and stuff. So I came to do a demo in Las Vegas -- that's truly hell, hell on Earth. Everything's prostituted, everything's wraped. It's the anus of the universe [laugher] .It is! I was there and seeing all these Midwestern people chasing something that's just not there. So, I was losing my mind, sort of, and I saw this guy at Carl's Jr. He was this true professor-type guy, he played all these number games. He was writing journals like, "If I'm gonna die tomorrow what better reason do I have to stay up all night and write what I have to say." This guy had a lot of professions and I looked up to him and stuff. From what I could see this guy was really a genius. So I looked at waht he was doing, and he was really angry about the state that human beings are in and why we don't care for each other. I was still all hung up on suicide and killing each other and myself or my girlfriend or whatever. I was hung up on people killing themselves and I asked him about it. He sort of snapped -- a lot of people in his life had done that. I was looking at him, and he was a little crazy, but he wasn't as crazy as he pretended to be. So I went over to his place -- I followed him over to his place -- I followed him over there. I was kind of scared. He was like a 60-year-old guy, so I wasn't that afraid of him. I got into his place, and it's sort of like where a crazy person would live. There was a mattress on the floor and like 50 cups of coffee in the refrigerator, and that was it -- and some catsup [laugher]. I was thinking, "Wow, he's pretending pretty hard to be crazy." So the phone rang and he's talking to this girl, his daughter. He's all, "Why don't you come and see me? I love you." But he's being kind of hard on her. Because the guy's so bright you can tell she's intimidated. You can tell he's running her in circles because she doesn't want to come. So he said, "Rodney, talk to her." And I was like, "What? Who am I?" And the next thing, I had a phone in my hand. So I talked to her, and she sounded like a timid baby girl. She couldn't have been more than twelve. Something happened and she was sort of dazed. She wasn't dumb, something was just wrong. She wasn't retarded in any sense. Off to the side I ask how old she was. He said 37, and she has a kid who's sixteen. I'm like, "Damn." This is where it dawned on me that god's watching, or something. Look at what this guy had started. He told me his wife killed herself because of him. I shook his hand and said, "You're scaring the heck out of me. This girl on the phone scared me, too. I gotta go." I shook his hand and he said, "Please, don't leave." I said, "No. You don't understand, I gotta leave." He says, "What do I owe you"? I said, "Nothing. I figured I owe you because I see you as a real genius, and this is something I wanted to be." He took off his glasses and looked at me so hard with these pale blue eyes, and he said, "No. I'm nothing. You see me, I'm a destroyer. I destroyed my daughter and her daughter, I destroyed my wife, I destroyed everyone around me. Why? Because I wanted to do good. We're two guys thinking along the same lines." And he said goodbye. When I said goodbye to him I didn't want to shut the door. It was like leaving someone you love. That was something. I'd been through so much of this stuff. In Norway, I met a few people who were truly a little crazy because I was looking for those people. Man, it made me realize that I had to come back and just do things, skate, have fun, and make some money at what you can do, but don't take everything on like life and death. I listened to what Nietzsche and Dostoyevski said about weighing all these hard things and trying to find the most meaning in everything. Now I'm starting to realize, "Damn, man, that's why they lost their minds." Because it's so easy to do that and it doesn't take a genius to do it. It's nothing to be proud of. Now I enjoy being with thise guys [the World Industries team]. Maybe I'm older and I don't relate as much, but I see them for what they are, and they see me for what I am, and that's all that need to be done. I just skate and I'm having fun. What do you feel is the general public's view of World Industries? Anything for money, anything for ego, stuff like the graphics with naked girls and cigarettes. It's sort of like this, I've got an uncle who's all into the occult. I spent a lot of time reading about that stuff and talking to as many devil worshippers as I could [laugher]. So I looked hard into that stuff and it's scary, but only in the sense that it's not as grandiose as drawing huge pentagrams or wearing goat horns or something like that. It's something that lurks around in all of us. Anton S. LaVey us the founder of the Satanic Church, and he's like 60 and getting older with a big car collection, but he's not dead. He says, "Believe me. I will be at your deathbed. Convert, for at least I changed the world." I'm not gonna back down from that because that's inherently good. So much of that stuff is libberation of what's really there -- don't be afraid of sex, [don't] be afraid of this or that. So I think people view us kind of like that. At least we change things. Maybe not necessary for good or for bad, but only in the sense that change is good in itself. Sure, it's natural. Yeah, the more you do it, the better and stronger you are. Maybe not always. Steve truly does have morals. In a lot of these things, like the cigarette board, dumb people want to see whatever bad they can. I'm not saying we're a moral pillar, either. On the whole, we do some pretty crazy stuff. Rodney, why are you always riding orange boards? I have a lot of superstitions and phobias. Orange boards are just lucky, just like those Slayer shirts. I always make stuff [tricks] with those Slayer shirts on. "I Love Slayer" shirts. Yeah, all through this and the last video. But you have an "I Love Salman" shirt on [laugher]. I know, I took it from Rudy. In general, whenever I'm doing the hard stuff, I always take my Slayer shirts wherever I go. Same with these pants, I have lucky everythings. Always at a contest I would have a lucky shirt and lucky pants, those green Plan B pants anf these brown Blind pants now. Tony Hawk was kind of like that. He would never put a sticker on his shirt because it would screw up his run. That was back when everyone was doing that. So I kind of got into in and made a little dare to myself, and I put stickers on my shirt and I blew it. It's just a psychological thing. Is that the only contest you ever lost? It wasn't that contest, it was just one run in another contest. Then I tore them off and went on, because you get two or three runs. I've always been so much into that, even as a kid. Walking down the street, not stepping on cracks. I'm really serious about that stuff. In your entire pro history you only lost once. Is that right? Yeah. I got second once at a spring contest in Del Mar. Per [Welinger} won. I think it was '83 or '84. Over the Christmas break that year, that wwas one of the times my father told me I was gonna have to quit skateboarding forever after the coming summer. So I go, "Okay." And there was a lot of weird stuff going on for me. It was an awkward age anyway, sixteen or seventeen. I was kind of screwed up, because back then contests meant so much to me, and that's all I had. Like when I'd go back to Florida after a contest, I felt like I was going back to hell, back to school, back to the horses and cows in the country, back to isolation. So every bit that was outside my Florida life meant a lit, and that impression stuck with me. I used to make tapes of the radio stations out here, and I'd bring them back just so I could think of the life out here. Anyway, I lost that spring. I got an offer to go to Sweden and teach summer camp all summer long with Lance [Mountain] and Tony [Hawk], I think. I remember skating out there, taking everything so seriously. I did my runs over and over and over again -- everything. Oh god, I worked so hard. So there I was. I flew back for the last contest of the summer at Del Mar, it was late August. I won the contest. To me that was everything. That was the last contest I'd ever be in, that was the last time I would ever skate in public, and to me it was kind of like the end of my life, you know? Then I would go to school to be an engineer or whatever. But I don't understand why your father was like, "This is it." Were you doing well in school at the same time? I was always a 4.0 or above. Then what was his problem with you skating as long as your grades were still up? Because of the social thing, there were a lot of family problems. Mostly he wanted me to associate with different people. He did see the beauty of skateboarding, like most parents. I can't put him down because he's my dad. But that's the way it was, and it was really strongly enforced. So I went back to school after that. I put away all my trophies and everything. After a few months I started to go crazy. Did you skate at all during that time? I smuggled it. Powell sent me a board to my grandmother's house, and I skated like once a week for an hour or so. It was so hopeless. I know my father noticed some changes in me because I would never come out of my room and just did my work. It was really weird. I just kind of stopped eating, too. And there is this guy, Fausto [Vitello], he's a tough guy, he's kind of scary, and he runs Independent [trucks]. I was always scared to death of him because he seems truly tough. At this time he said, "Rodney, can I write your father a letter?" And I said no because it was only going to make him madder. He didn't do what I asked, and he wrote my father the most incredible letter, and no one ever showed me that letter until I saw it a year or so later. It was this plea for me to be able to skate. So my father took me aside after about the fourth month and said I would never be allowed to compete again because that would make me take it too seriously, but I was allowed to practice for fun. So that was the way it went. Pretty soon he backed down from that and let me compete as I got older, when I entered college. So, that's why I hold onto skating so much now.
