etnies

Twitch, what have you been up to, bud?
I’ve been Shaun White’n it lately, dude! In the last two weeks I’ve been snowboarding like five times. It’s been pretty fun. I haven’t really been riding that much. I compressed two disks in my back and didn’t ride for a couple weeks. Started riding again, then everything went down with Lusk, I just didn’t really feel like riding anymore after that and I’ve just been chillin’. I think I’m finally going to start riding this week and just get back in touch with things. I don’t have an event for a while so I’m just chillin’. I’m just riding right now to have fun.

I’m getting ready to actually get my foam pit working and work on some new shit for this year because I can’t be caught slippin’. Gotta have my game tight! There are a lot of dudes going for it, ya know what I mean? So, I figure I might as well do the same and buckle down and finally get in this foam pit I have that I’ve never even jumped into on a big bike. All I really want to do this year is beat Maddison so his mechanic gets mad all year, ‘cause his mechanic’s such a piece of shit! Hahah!

You sure you wanna say that since he’s putting together your wheels right now?
Yeah, he only works on a couple of my things, so I can call him a “dickhead” or a “piece of shit” or anything I want right now. He’s sitting here in the background.

Snowboarding huh? Where have you been going?
I’ve been going up to Summit and Bear a little bit. It’s super fun. I haven’t boarded in like five years. For a while there I was getting pretty good, and then I smacked my face and wrist and got weeded one day and I just put the snowboard away. Honestly I was like, “Fuck that, I’m over snowboarding!”

I can’t be getting hurt snowboarding when I ride dirt bikes! I think I’ve finally overcome that fear. I’ve just been going out and having fun. I haven’t been going crazy, but just going up and having a blast with me and Nate Adams and Potter and Luke and Andy Bakken, a whole bunch of us have been going up boarding when we get bored and shit like that. Taking advantage of our winter. When it’s raining we’re going snowboarding now instead of going out in the hills, so think I’ll switch it back up and start going back in the hills when it rains and get some photos. I need to start filming and doing some photo shit.

You have the new snowboard rack up in the garage. Looks like you have been busy around the house all day?
Yep, got the rack up, got the grass cut. The wife is going to be happy! Picked up some stuff from storage, cleaned up the garage, I think I’m in a good situation right now.

And since I’ve been here I think I’ve seen you do about 20 push-ups!
Man, I hang out with these damn Australians and they got these stupid games over there just like we got stupid games over here. Every time you say “mine” like if someone asks a question and you’re like “Oh that’s mine” you have to do 10 push-ups. They’ve caught me a lot today, probably in the last three hours I’ve done about 70 push-ups. I’m new at the game but I’m starting to catch on now, but I’d say by the end of the week my shoulder, my arms and chest are going to be pretty ripped from all these damn push-ups.

Who’s dog is that I hear?
That one is mine. That’s the little rat Jasmine, and then Bentley the little one-eyed…

You just said “mine”!
Quit it! That don’t count with you. You’re not Australian! If the Aussies were here I’d be doing push-ups right now, but I’m in the clear.

How about your new shoe coming out with etnies?
Yeah, I’m super pumped on the second shoe. The first one did pretty good, and I thought that was going to be it. Then they hit me up about a second one and after we got it and got samples it pre-ordered more than my other shoe sold the whole time it was out, so I guess people are really liking it and backing it. I’m pretty pumped. It’s something totally different. Last year I had more of a running, skinny-style shoe. This year it’s more of a skate shoe with a fatter tongue and a stash pocket. People are digging it, so hopefully it does well. And there are some sick colorways coming out so I can’t wait to get more of the samples.

What made you go with such a drastic change?
I just figured I’ll just do something totally different. I’m starting to get back into bigger shoes and Chapman and the designers said it would probably be smart to do something different. I did it totally my way the first time. This time I’m kinda going their route. I couldn’t be more pumped on it. I can’t wait to get the new colorways, I got a couple right now, but I need some new ones, so I need that shoe to hurry up and come out!

If you were to fight one guy in the Metal Mulisha who would it be?
I don’t know, that’s a tough one. Probably all of them!

Oh yeah, just one after another?
No, honestly I don’t know.

Ok, if there was a fight between Manly and Scummy, who would win?
I’ve actually seen them fight each other before back in the day when we were young as hell. It was about equal. But I’m probably gonna have to go with Morrison on this one because he’d probably take a cheap shot and bite him or kick him in the nuts or something, ya know what I mean?

What about Potter and Garland? Roommate vs. roommate.
Potter and Garland… I’m gonna have to go with Potter. Potter is pretty strong. But so is Garland. Garland might be one of those guys who is a sleeper. But he seems so quiet that he’d never even get in a fight. It would take a lot to piss that dude off. I’ve never once seen him mad or irritated at all. He always has a smile on his face, so I’m sticking with Potter.

And you’re their landlord…
I’m the landlord. I’m about to up their rent with building all these BMX jumps and getting code enforcement over there! But I told them it’s all good. I don’t even care. I’m gonna go over and hit the jumps with them.

So you’ve been on Mulisha since the beginning. How about that video I showed you at the office of you winning the 1999 Vegas contest?
Yeah, I was pumped because I haven’t seen footage of that in 10 years. I can’t believe I’ve been riding freestyle for that long. I remember thinking then, looking at Deegan and Ronnie, damn those guys are kinda old, and they were only like 21, 23 at the time. And now I’m 27. That was over 10 years ago and I was riding a 125. It’s just gnarly to see what I’ve come from to now, and I’m just pumped to still be on top. I’m not one of the dudes that just fell off. I did for a little bit, but stuff like that happens. Now I’ve got my game tight, ya know what I mean? I’m just pumped to still be on top of the podium and battling with all the new dudes.

There was that time in between when everyone was like “What’s up with Twitch?” Now you’re back. What was going on there in between?
I would say I was just young and dumb. I ended up winning a couple contests and got the most money I’d ever seen in my life because I grew up basically with nothing. So I would say it was just one of those phases you go through. If you grow up broke and you all of the sudden get money you pretty much spend that shit on whatever you want and whoever is with you is having as much fun as you are. That’s what I ended up doing for a couple years when I was getting paid. I think it took all of my sponsors to drop me, but etnies and Mulisha were the only dudes that stayed with me. I think they just saw it in me. They knew I had it. If I wanted to do it and I was serious about it I could do it. I think I just finally got to the point in my life where I was like “Dude, I got a kid now and I ain’t just fending for myself. I need to be a man and step up and take care of business.”

I saw all these dudes killing it at contests and I just knew. “I’m a way better rider than that dude,” ya know what I mean? I ain’t letting fags like this beat me. I just got to the point where I was so pissed off. Everyone always doubted me, always saying like “He’s good, but he could never be on top.” I just finally thought to myself, “Fuck those dudes, I’m gonna do what I do and go out and ride my bike and have fun and I know it will pay off in the long run.” And it did.

That’s pretty much what your movie is about.
Yeah, basically it’s in my movie, so there it is.

I read an interview with McGrath about an Ocotillo trip you guys did. He was giving you props, saying he was stoked to ride with you, and you were jumping shit before him that he was scared to do. That’s got to be a pretty good feeling to hear that from a legend like McGrath?
I was pumped when I got the call. When McGrath and Victor hit me up to do a little trip with them I was just like, living a dream as a little kid. I’ve always looked up to Jeremy McGrath when growing up riding. I think that’s one reason why my style is so good at riding, because I always used to watch McGrath and study tapes of him and watch his riding style. I always loved the way he rode. He was just so smooth and made everything look easy and really good. He always had sick style on the bike and I think that’s what I focused on a lot growing up, just trying to look good on the bike and have good style.

To get the call from them to go out there and have fun, I was just like, “I wouldn’t miss this for anything in the world.” When I read the article I was pumped too because when you look up to a dude of that caliber and how gnarly he is, it was cool to get props from someone like that. That meant something to me. Definitely stoked on that.

There’s some gnarly shit out there.
Ocotillo’s sick! It’s super gnarly, technical riding and it takes skill out there. You can’t just come out of a corner and hold it second gear pinned and hit a jump. You don’t have a tape measure out there. You don’t know how far a jump is or if a lip is taller than a landing. You gotta wheelie over three sections of rocks to get to the jump. It’s just different and it definitely takes a lot of skill to go out there and ride. I saw McGrath do a couple things that were sick. I hit the same jumps, but just the way he hit it, like seat bounce in and hip to the left. There was this one jump… seriously, it looked like a video game it was so gnarly. He would come into this little section, hip right and seat bounce and hip left and it was so sick looking! Watching the jumps he picked out and the ones I picked out, it was super fun because we had similar style jumps we like to hit, and there wasn’t anything we hit that was just straight, definitely cool.

What other guys do you like to ride with or watch that motivate you?
Natural terrain dudes. I like to ride with Potter. He’s really good. He’s got skills. You can tell he grew up riding BMX and he knows how smooth you’ve got to be out in the hills. Maddo, he gets tired of hitting the jumps we’re hitting and he just tries to look for something fucking ridiculously huge. We’re like, “Fuck, alright, Maddo hit it so we all gotta hit it now… it’s possible now that Maddo did it.”

It ain’t New Year’s Eve buddy!
Yeah, Maddo is the guy when people are scared to hit a jump at a contest he will go and hit it in his first practice. Everyone will be like, “I’m going to wait to go out after Maddison rides.” Or someone will ask, “Who’s going to be the first to hit that jump, Maddison or Mason or so and so.” It’s always Maddison. He just goes for it! And Lusk. Lusk was super good at riding natural terrain shit. He was just like me. We liked the same style jumps. We would always look for jumps that we wouldn’t hit. We were like, “Fuck I’m going to hit this thing and maybe Lusk wont hit it or I won’t hit it.”

It was fun riding out there with him. You can always tell someone’s style from the first time they hit a jump out in the hills. You can tell if they’re a squid or not. When people are going for it and getting all sick with good style, I think that’s sick. Lusk definitely had that. I’m going to miss riding out there with him, but I’m fortunate I got to ride out there enough with him.

I would say the best memories I have with Lusk is just being out there in the desert filming for my movie. We filmed a lot of stuff and had a lot of fun. Other than that there are not too many guys that can go out to Ocotillo and find gnarly jumps. So I’m definitely pumped on the dudes I ride with when I go out there.

Talking about Lusk, this has been really hard on everyone. Losing a good friend and it has to hit close to home since he died doing the same thing you guys do every day…
It’s definitely gnarly. We all take that risk every day. We all know we take that risk, but we don’t ever think about it. It’s never happened before in freestyle. We have never thought, “Well I’m going riding today, I hope I don’t die,” ya know what I mean? And now that this happened, especially someone so close to all of us, I think it’s a big reality check. It makes you think about what you’re doing. I know after that happened, I’m to the point now where I don’t really care and I’m going to pick and choose the events I ride. If it’s somewhere sketchy and I don’t want to go, I ain’t gonna go anymore. I used to just go because I wanted to make everyone happy. Now I don’t really care, if people don’t want me to ride for them or fire me because I don’t want to do certain events where I don’t feel comfortable, then maybe we shouldn’t be together anyway. I’m at the point in my career, and I’m not at the end by no means, but I’m picking and choosing the events I want to ride. I’m over it.

Losing Lusk was gnarly. The dude was such a cool guy. It’s crazy he was doing a trick that he could do with his eyes closed, he could go out and that could be his first jump of the day, just bust a seat grab Indian air flip bigger than anyone in the whole crew that is doing it. For him to go down on something that he does all the time is like, honestly, you’re like “Wow.”

Out of all dudes to die, you would never think it would have been Lusk. The dude was just so strong and always like “I’m here to win and I’m going to do what I have to do.” I’m happy that he went out on top. He did everything he wanted to do and he met all his goals. There is not much more he could have done at X Games except back it up with another gold this year. I’m pretty sure he would be pissed off if he went out any other way besides riding his dirt bike. Way better than getting hit by a car or something stupid, at least he went out doing something he loved to do, and that’s cool and I respect him for that.

He was the dude that motivated us to ride certain days when we were over it and shit like that. It’s definitely different without seeing him here riding, hearing his dumb ass quotes every time and talking shit if you’re not doing something. “Quit being a pussy! Just do it, you know you can do it!” His personality is definitely missed. It ain’t the same riding at the Compound anymore for sure.

Like you said you’re not going to ride sketchy contests. Do you think it’s going to help safety overall and make people think smarter?
I think it’s going to help a little bit, but you still have those guys that are just going to go because they want that money and don’t really care. Yeah, I could use the money, but don’t want it that bad. Do I need it that bad to go risk my life for it in some dirtball-ass country? Naw.

Mulisha is getting more into MMA. Are you a fan?
Yeah, I love MMA. I think it’s sweet. I’m looking forward to going to some fights this year and watching.

"I’m just pumped to still be on top of the podium and battling with all the new dudes. I’m just pumped to still be on top of the podium and battling with all the new dudes."

"...I’m to the point now where I don’t really care and I’m going to pick and choose the events I ride."