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| ICONOCLAST(S) NOLAN JOHNSON |
| BLKPRJKT |
Intro and sidebar: BLKPRJKT / Interview: Jason Celaya / Photos: MRZ
Guys get hoots for laying down a heavy grind through this WSVT corner. As you ponder this silent backside boneless to fakie, try to imagine the accompanying audio track.
Image is nothing. Or is it everything? The closest thing to the truth might be the following; The relevance of image is heavily dependent on context. In a perfect world, skateboarders would be judged solely on their skateboarding. Alas, we live in a highly imperfect world, and consequently some skateboarders end up suffering from "image problems". Once one's image is established, it generally becomes indelible, and wardrobe changes, sponsorship swaps, and hair re-configurations often fail to alter that image.
When we first encountered Nolan Johnson, our immediate impressions were that, for a fully armored proto-punk, he had the potential to really go far in skateboarding. But we were prone to negative foresight, and as time passed we began to wonder just how far he might go, given the fact that he rode the "wrong trucks", and that he rode for a board sponsor that had a maligned name and seemingly enforced a goofy dress code to enhance it's branding. Seemingly, as Nolan's skateboarding progressed at an alarming rate, his image seemed to be headed in the opposite direction. On top of his sponsorships, dozens of self-promotional video clips began to appear on several skateboarding websites, leaving many people to criticize this youngster for the image he was building. Even the sickest clips were often given a frigid reception by some, simply for the sake of being too many and too often.
Nolan's image has changed dramatically. Suddenly he isn't the kid rolling up to Washington street in full pads, he isn't the kid riding the board with some crusty old band's logo or leopard spots on it, and he isn't the kid riding the trucks that everyone laughs at, or wearing the vision street wear clown shoes. His image now is simply that he goes out and destroys everything, all the time. This interview should have been done almost a year ago. But due to unforeseen circumstances, we bring it to you now, late, but purer nonetheless.
Trix might be for kids. Dinky Donuts might also. But what on Earth would possess a young man to airwalk body varial this Dinky Donut. The king of RSM busting.
Once upon a time, you might have found Nolan wearing some pretty silly outfits, and since we all know that clothes make the man, the Dickies, flannel, trucker cap combo helps us all breathe a little easier. Lien to tail, or maybe to board, 9 ball hole.
CD: How old are you and where are you living right now?
NJ: born in 89 but I’m staying young till I die. I’m living in Seattle right now, it’s a very magical place with many amazing skateboard obstacles.
CD: Who are you sponsored by?
NJ: House of Kasai, Bones, Ace, Volcom (flow), Socal Skateshop.
---BLKPRJKT SIDEBAR: Okay, wait just a minute. Nolan was a little bummed because when I initially interviewed him nearly a year ago, he thought that the interview was "way too serious". Since we are on the subject of sponsors, we bring you the only surviving piece of dialogue from that interview, and quite frankly, Nolan, you were right, it was way too serious, but this shit was just too good to throw away.
---CD: So you came down here, dove into the scene and then you sort of hooked up with the Punk Rock Skateboards guys...
---NJ: Yeah...
---CD: And what was THAT like?
---NJ: Well I was just starting to get into punk music and I was thinking I wanted to get sponsored by somebody, so I made a sponsor me video, and the first company I sent it to was Punk Rock Skateboards, because I was really into punk rock. I had met the guy once, Brad Robarge, I saw him around a lot, but he never said anything to me until a year later, and then he just put me on the team.
---CD: So, did those guys take pretty good care of you when you rode for them? I mean, you did wear the team uniform right?
---NJ: Yeah, they gave me boards, that's about it. Oh yeah, he gave me a couple of Addikts CDs, that was cool I guess. Actually, when I first got on, he said "Yeah, we wanna put you on flow", and then we went to the place and we got all of this stuff, and then he hit up my dad for money for all of it.
---CD: Wow! That's sponsorship! Well at any rate, you did get some product from those guys, and a bit of exposure... You were running Trackers too for a while right? What's the story behind that, is that what you started on?
---NJ: Well, I actually rode Indy's before, I always rode Indy's, then I rode a couple sets of Krux trucks, and I guess those were good. But when I got on Punk Rock, they gave me a complete with Trackers on it. I rode it the first day and it felt really weird, but I just figured I had to get used to it because I was getting them for free.
---CD: Did it bother you that people gave you shit for riding Trackers?
---NJ: I thought it was really funny. And I thought it was funny that I could make people mad just because I rode Trackers...
---CD: Well yeah... The Indy versus Tracker thing started years before you were even born.
---NJ: ...But I just had to stop riding those trucks eventually.
---CD: Well you have to understand, that part of it is that you're not supposed to be able to rip on those. You're supposed to be some back and forth ass-clown, only Danforth, Lester, and Sam Cunningham get a free pass on that one...
---NJ: Haha yeah well, okay.
---Now back to your regularly scheduled interview.
As if ASR wasn't sad enough already. BooFuckingHoo you corpo losers.
Sometimes a fool with a bag of concrete can unwittingly set the stage for ripping. Janky tranny blunt.
CD: What setup are you currently riding?
NJ: House of Kasai board 8.25, ACE 44's, Bones 55mm stf, Bones swiss 6 bearings, old rusty randoms, really bad griptape.
CD: How overrated is dental insurance?
NJ: nah dude, I don’t know, my mouth is fucked….oh well
CD: I noticed you love to take your foot off the board a lot, is your foot too good for your board or vice versa?
NJ: Magnets.
CD: Who are your favorite skaters and why?
NJ: Jason Jessee - powerful style best tricks. Peter Hewitt- skates fast has powerful style and best trick choice... well that’s tranny, for street I like some new guys, Brad Crommer - he is killing it, such good style, Alex Olson, amazing style. I guess anyone with good style is good in my book.
CD: What is a potato gun?
NJ: Some dumb confusing trick I kinda came up with a long time ago. Its a body varial tailgrab then you switch to a lien to tail, its to hard to explain and too dumb to care about. I would rather do fs ollies and fs grinds.
CD: True or false: Mountain Dew makes your wiener smaller?
NJ: It doesn't matter, it tastes so good!
This back tail thing at Peeds is pretty heavy, especially when you consider the decidedly "on-topness" of it.
Same wall, different idea.
CD: What’s your favorite board graphic from the 80s?
NJ: I just like the Jeff Phillips graphic, but anything from Neil Blender is golden.
CD: You went to high school with a Ryan Sheckler for short time; did you guys ever try out for football together or share a limo for prom? Please explain your relationship.
NJ: Well not football but during lunch we would play Pokemon cards together and share a coffee.
CD: If you could do only 10 tricks for the rest of your life what would they be?
NJ: fs ollies, bs ollies, fs grinds, body jars, smith grinds.
CD: Everyone knows Lester is a nice guy, but everyone has a darkside… has he ever hit you?
NJ: Nah he just treats (when going out) for food and gets stoked on skating.
CD: You once spent the night with Steve Steadham… In a car… By yourself….. In a Denny’s parking lot. This is the most painfully awkward story I have ever heard. Please elaborate for those who haven’t had the pleasure.
NJ: hahahaha…yes, this was really weird to me. I was riding for Steadham at the time and he invited me to come with him to skate the new park in AZ at the time. We drove all the way there, just me and him and were both pretty much silent the whole care ride. We get to AZ at about 2 AM and park at a Denny’s and he says "you want to come in I’m going grab some coffee". I was thinking what else would I do, so I go into the place with him and sit there in the booth with him, super tired for about an hour and a half no talking while he was looking for houses in some magazine. I figure we are staying at a hotel or something ( I thought Steadham had a ton of money… I don’t know), but after sitting in this Denny’s almost falling asleep for some time he says "lets go" and we go out to the car and he says we are just going sleep in here tonight. (Laughing) So I was fine with that, even though it was awkward. Imagine coming to the Denny’s the next morning and looking into this BMW and there is Steadham with this kid just sleeping in the front seats of this car? We weren’t even hidden or anything… just in the Denny’s parking lot in plain view. Anyway I get like 4 hours of sleep and we go to skate this park and somehow I sneak in so I can skate the demo. I’m sitting up on the deck of the bowl looking around and there is a million moms and their little kids. It sucked. It wasn’t fun skating, it was a dumb pay park place, big facility, but I’m saying to Brian Pino that somebody just needs to fall super hard to scare out all these moms. I was kidding, but next run, I go in and I was just trying to do a high backside air and I pull out too much. I go to my knees and my knee pads stop right when they hit the concrete and my body flies forward and I went face first into the flat. Felt like a woke up in a stretcher I don’t even remember it all that well. Apparently I got up right after I hit, stumbled and ran out of the bowl. I don’t even remember that at all. Anyway, Steadham is supposed to pick me up at the hospital and he is still skating. They finally let me out of the hospital and I puked like 8 times while waiting. He gets to the hospital 2 hours after they let me leave. He tells me that he had to get some food and get his oil changed. I got in his car and fell asleep even though they told me not to. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. That trip sucked! I ended up skating the next day but my lip was bigger then my nose and I was super dizzy all day.
I wish Nolan wasn't rocking a 7 Seconds tee in this beautiful Culver Smithvert shot. I would prefer he wear a shirt that said something like "I spent the night in a car with Steve Steadham in a Denny's parking lot, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" It would be cool if it maybe had some crazy rasta lions fighting and maybe a ska 2-tone guy skanking on it too.
This is pretty much just some WTF shit, kick out tail slide well above any sane height.
This is some good shit right here, the old judo to fakie over the dorkway at Pedro, it's almost moto-X like in some strange way.
CD: What would you change about the current state of skateboarding?
NJ: There isn’t anything to change. Everything is being done right now. We have Louie Barletta for the guy that’s having a ton of fun, we have Duffell for gnarly skating, we have Guy Mariono and Mark Johnson for tech, we have Hewitt and Omar Salazar for full speed charge skating, we have Alex Olson for style. Finally we have Nike, Adidas and Converse to throw in some money, I don’t know. I’m down with how skateboarding is.
CD: What is with the upside down crosses, ox blood, and welcoming robots?
NJ: Upside down crosses they were popular back in 2008 this is 2009 boys. Get rid of the Satan stuff. Oxblood was clever wont work for 2009 though. Robots are the future… this is 2009 sorry. Check out our blog welcomeskateboards.com.
CD: Name someone no one knows but should.
NJ: Ah yes, my roommate Max Hohlbein. He is so gnarly but he works all the time and has a girlfriend. He doesn’t find much time to skate.
CD: Anything else?
NJ: I hope nobody reads this.
Air to fakie with proper flair.
Parting shot. The ever popular stale donut.
-BLKPRJKT / PHOTOS MRZ |
| Wednesday 25th 2009f March 2009 16:12 |
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