CD: So tell us a little more about your band and your music. You're the drummer right?
KNOX: Yeah I play the drums, and I fuck around with the guitar a bit. My dad was a jazz drummer, so growing up in my parents' house there was always a drum set, and a guitar. My dad taught me how to play the drums and as a kid I would just put on the headphones with some Kiss or Led Zeppelin record on, when I was 8 years old, and just try to play along with it. When I got to junior high and high school I started jamming with kids who were trying to start bands, I just always played the drums. I never took any formal lessons, I just played by ear. I can't read music, I can just listen to something and play it.
CD: What's going on with the band(The Widders) now?
KNOX: Not a single thing. Our original line-up broke up in 2005, that was the Cacti Widders. It was me, Ryan Hum, and J.D. Goodwin. That album that just came out, that's the second lineup, The Widders. But we did 3 records as the Cacti Widders. A bunch of shows, touring the whole deal. J.D. the singer was going to start going to the fire academy to be a firefighter but he got a job with the forestry department, and from April to October he couldn't do anything, he was out in the forest fighting fires, or he had to be on call, so we couldn't plan any shows. The guy that took over was our rythym guitar player and he took over singing and lead. We went from being a psychobilly band to having more of a hard, Motorhead-type sound but still with the stand-up bass, and Clayton had a much rougher voice so we changed the name to The Widders, and put that last album out. But we had some personal differences. He had moved to L.A. which was fine, but we had a ton of shows booked, and he didn't want to drive to all of these shows. We made good money playing shows, we had been playing them a long time. We were slated to do the whole Thrasher Skate Rock tour, we had to pull out of that. It was kind of a nightmare, but finally the record did come out and we disbanded. The bass player and I still fuck around a bit. But now between skateboarding and the jiu-jitsu school, I don't really have the time right now. I miss playing shows, but it's a grind. Being on the road, playing nightclubs, it gets old after awhile, driving late nights. We were making good money but we weren't making a living off of it. We did it for almost 8 years and you just sort of get burnt. You're getting ready to drive to San Jose, you play the show and then you're getting home at 4 in the morning and you have work that day, it gets pretty rugged. We were struggling road band, but it was fun. We might start doing a show here and there, but for now it's done.
CD: Have you saved anything from the old days, decks that were special, have you collected any of that stuff?
KNOX: I have THE very very first one of my pro boards that they silkscreened. My original fire pit board. It's the #1 board, the first one, I took it. Sorry guys, this is mine. Still in the shrink wrap and everything. So I have that board, I have pretty much 1 of every board that Santa Cruz made for me. I don't have any of my Sonic boards, at that point I didn't give a fuck. I'm sort of bummed I don't have anybody else's Santa Cruz decks, Dressen's, or Jason's. I don't have any of that shit, I wish I would have saved stuff. When I was an am, I used to get stacks of the Jason boards, stacks of the Corey(O'Brien) boards, Fuck, I'd call up NHS, tell them I needed a box, a couple of boards, and Gavin would seriously send me 10 Corey boards, 30 sets of Bullet 60mm 97 durometer "church glass" wheels. My prime set up back in 1987, was a Corey O'Brien board, Indy 159's, church glass wheels, I seriously rode that forever, I wish I would have saved a couple of those.
CD: So how is it now when you call up and ask for a box?
KNOX: I still get fat boxes. NHS has never been shy on the product. I still get a lot of big boxes. That's the one thing about NHS, they've had their image ups and downs, their changing "coolness factor" in the skateboarding world, but they've always made good products, decks, trucks, wheels, there's no debate about their products, it's always been good. They've always had a hand in the research and development, always been looking for ways to make skateboarding better. Honestly. They really do think that way. It's really been so good to get such good product through all of these years. You know, people say oh, this brand is better than that brand, people just don't know, half of the companies' wood come from the same wood shop. And NHS always had their own wood shop. A lot of people don't understand how the industry works. Most of these "companies" are not manufacturers of skateboards, they are marketers of skateboards. Even big companies. Certain companies always had good wood. NHS always had good wood. You always knew what companies didn't . That's what I didn't get about World Industries back then. World got so big, but their products were always crap. Their boards snapped, they chipped they were dry. They showed guys that rode for them like Danny Way focusing boards in their videos. Kids would get pissed off, focus their boards, now they have to go buy another one. Lame. I always rode a 55 or 56 mm wheel, even back in the old vert days. The only reason I moved down was because nobody made a 55mm wheel anymore, I had to ride a 49. I never got into the Bullet 66's though, I couldn't understand that at all, like how can you ollie on that? I know all of the Santa Cruz vert guys rode them, Jason rode them, but even on vert I couldn't ride those. The reason i rode 56's on vert was because I like to get bonked off of the coping, that feeling of my wheels hitting the coping and popping me out. My whole goal for a while was to learn air to fakies, just like Jason Jessee's, so I put on the 55's and let the coping bonk me out far enough so I didn't hang up so I learned air to fakies. You want to talk about the hardest trick? That was the hardest trick. Just a big giant air, landing backwards. I wanted mine to be like Jason's, I didn't just want to go up and grab my nose and barely go above coping, I wanted to go sideways, stick my chest out, and come back in, and that led to a lot of hip slams. Seriously my right hip has so much calcium built up on it, it's all deformed now from learning air to fakies.
CD: What's the worst injury you've ever gotten?
KNOX: Just run of the mill really, broken ankles, broken legs, but the worst one maybe was when I broke my arm in two places at once. the humerus and both radius and ulna in one fall. I locked up on a body jar and went straight to the flat bottom with my arm behind my back when I fell and just snapped them. That's probably the worst one. Nowadays when somebody breaks a bone, it's surgery this and that, but back then, I went to the doctor, they would just bend your arm back to set the bone, put you in a sling and tell you to keep it like that for 8 weeks. Now if you went in with an injury like that, it's pins, rods, surgery to get your shit going again.
CD: Do you have any hardware on you then?
KNOX: Nope. None. I'm telling you, they didn't give you metal back then. They just put me in a plaster cast and stay like this for 8 weeks.
CD: Casts were good, now it was like, fuck I can totally skate with this, it's protected...
KNOX: Yeah, the first cast they gave me was plaster, I went back in because I was skating in it, and it was just falling apart, so they gave me the fiberglass one which was I guess cutting-edge at the time.
CD: Can you name a couple of your favorite current or past pros?
KNOX: I always hated that question, who are your favorite pros, or who's this or that. I respect all skateboarders. Some people might think a certain guy is a giant kook, but if a guy is out there riding a skateboard, and having fun, that's who I respect. Now, I do have a short list of dudes I've always liked how they ride a skateboard. Hands down my favorite skateboarder of all time is Christian Hosoi. He was the first real pro I ever saw skate when I was 12 or 13 years old and I went to Del Mar. That's the best thing I've ever seen. He is the single reason that the backside air is my favorite trick to do. Best backside air, best style, hands down, the most natural skateboarder ever. The best style, there is no debate. Eric Dressen, best frontside grind hands down. Chris Miller, street guys, the Gonz, you can't touch him. His part in the Blind video, I can watch that today and it holds up to even the gnarliest parts anybody is putting out today. Certain guys I've witnessed are just untouchable. I could go on and on, Steve Claar, Jason Jessee, best frontside ollies, ever. As far as modern guys, Chris Cole, bar none, just a machine skateboarder. Guys are gnarly now. You see a video and it's just gnarly, but you give a guy a year to film a project and he's going to put it down. But the guy who is going to do all of his shit on a daily basis, that's Chris Cole.
CD: What do you think of Danny Way setting the speed record by hanging off of a car?
KNOX: I watched it. First of all, I don't get it. I only watched the show (Fantasy Factory) because I had seen that Danny was going to be on it. Other than that I would never ever watch it. I don't see the fascination with it, same thing with the other show that he was on. Fucking gnarly though, I don't want to hold onto a car and go 80 miles an hour. To me though, it's just mass-marketing for DC, a half-hour infomercial for fucking DC, Red Bull, or whatever else. Would you want to hold onto a car and go 80 miles an hour? I've done it going 25, that's fast enough.
CD: Have you ever gotten hit by a car?
KNOX: Yes. On a bike though. I was on my bike and we were riding to a pool, because it was really far and we didn't want to skate all the way there. I'm cutting through this gas station and I'm going around the corner, this car just hits me and knocks me off of the bike. I'm sitting there sort of dazed like "what the fuck?" I look at the bike and both of the wheels are taco-ed. The driver asked me if I was okay, and I said "yeah, I'm alright". I picked up the bike, there was a big dumpster there and I just threw it in the trashcan and skated off.
CD: In your Thrasher interview you said that you fix airplanes for a living. Can you fly one?
KNOX: I don't have my pilot's license, that's a weird one, my wife just asked me this same question today. I know how, because I've been in them so many times. If the pilot died, he had a heart attack, I'm pretty confident I could land it. I'm not talking about a 747 or anything, I'm saying I could land a King-Air or a good-sized turbo-prop, no problem.
CD: You're the guy we want to travel with, you can play the drums, kick people's asses if need be, AND land the damned plane if the pilot dies...
KNOX: I've just been around so many pilots, I mean taking off is easy, you just throttle it and pull back and you're in the air.
Quick randoms:
CD: What's your favorite trick?
KNOX: Simple. Backside airs.
CD: Favorite movie?
KNOX: Goodfellas.
CD: Beverage?
KNOX: Acai'.
CD: Bands?
KNOX: That's a tough one, I'll just say Slayer because that's what I've been listening to for the past 4 days in my car.
CD: What's your favorite escape?
KNOX: Escape? What the hell is that? You mean like get away? Fuck. I don't ever get to escape.
CD: Video game?
KNOX: Fuck...(laughing)
CD: That's the answer right there...
KNOX: First of all I'm a pinball guy, but if I had to play a video game I'd play Galaga.
CD: What's your favorite pinball machine?
KNOX: Taxi, or the original Black Knight, not Black Knight 2000. It was one of the first ones to have the split-level playfield, but Taxi, I used to play that one for hours.
CD: What's your favorite hair-grease?
KNOX: Black and White, but I don't need it anymore.(laughing rubbing shaved head)
Finger Flip Lien to Tail. That one pool.
CD: What's your favorite skate gang?
KNOX: I'll have to say the S.S.G, the Skurbs Skate Gang. San Jose had S.S.G. Sacto had S.S.D. That was Ricky Winsor and those guys. Visalia had it's very own skate gang. In the early to mid-90's it was the VSL, the Visalia Skate Locals, and it started out as just skateboarders, but then it turned into a legitimate gang. There were dudes that were in it that didn't skate, and they would just do crimes. It ended up getting listed in the Visalia police department's gang files as a real street gang. It got gnarly. Then there were no more skateboarders in it, the skaters had fallen away, Originally all of the Visalia skaters like Karma, and Richard Paez were in it, but by '95 or '96 it was a registered gang with the police department, with legitimate gang members. It was a joke at it's inception, it was like fuck all these cowboys and rednecks that are picking on skaters, let's just start our own gang. VSL. Skateboarders banding together, and as skateboarding got more popular the younger kids coming up just sort of latched onto it. They sort of started making it into their own thing. Any other street gang is the same way probably. The younger kids start coming in and push the older dudes out of the way. The older dudes had a code, some sort of respect, but the younger kids don't have any of that. I think it's its just the evolution of how a gang goes. It's was crazy. There were all of these crimes going down, committed by guys that weren't even skaters but the skaters were taking the rap for all of the shit that was going down. These guys ended up being at odds with the nortenos, and just regular street gangs. Guys in the VSL started selling drugs, all kinds of real gang shit.
Old town.
CD: Favorite Ice cream?
KNOX: Vanilla. Ask my wife. Once in a while I'll get coffee, but yeah, I'll eat a pint of vanilla right now. It's got to be Ben and Jerry's though. I don't like Hagen Dazs, it's too dense. I'm a vanilla connoisseur.
CD: What's been your favorite road trip?
KNOX: There have been way too many, I've never been on a bad one.
CD: Would you rather be buried in a box or an urn?
KNOX: Fuck. I don't know, I guess in a box.
CD: We have a picture of that, by the way...
KNOX: That's right! I guess you're going to be putting that in there then...
CD: No way, we're never running that photo, it's just too creepy-looking...
KNOX: Yeah it might be like a bad omen or something. You made me get in a casket and take a photo of it.
CD: Ray Barbee told us we shouldn't run that, it's like "oh man, don't say stuff like that, what if something happened?"
KNOX: (laughing) Right?
Frozen 5-0 on a rugged and ancient curb.
CD: What do you think of contests in general and the jam format?
KNOX: I think they are kind of blown out. I was around at the very inception of the jam format, it's not anything new. It was when they decided they were going to cut it to 10 guys and then just have the jam. Now, here's the deal: the original jam format, had 10 guys in the jam, numbered 1 through 10. The first guy drops in, boom, if he misses his first wall, the second guy drops in, and it follows an order. That's totally fine with me. But the fucking "alright, half-hour, 25 guys, GO!" Fuck that, dude. It's stupid. First of all nobody ever gets the bowl to themselves, and so nobody can skate at their best. You can't skate at your best when you're looking over your shoulder, because you're worried about the guy who is going to run over you, or, you just don't give a fuck, and you're just going to plow into people. Now if Ben Schroeder drops into the bowl and I drop into the bowl, fuck it, I'm out, I don't want to run into that train. It's not worth it for the 500 dollars the Masters guy is going to win. That is just a bad fucking deal, I don't like it. I mean, it's fun to watch, I love watching it because guys are just going crazy, almost running into each other. But is that really everyone's best skateboarding? I mean isn't a contest about who is shredding? Obviously okay, that guy is ripping while avoiding all of these other people, but he's not really doing his best shit because nobody can, in that environment. Somebody is going to get really hurt. That last Combi jam was fucking ridiculous, guys just nearly getting killed. Magnusson running into Buck Smith? And 2 years ago Lance and Cab? Man, Lance and Stevie shouldn't be running into eachother. And with the guys who are really good at snaking going against guys who aren't really into that trip. It might be a 15 to 1 run ratio but the guy who maybe only got one run is the best guy out there with the deepest bag of shit but he didn't get a chance to showcase it. Why should a guy have to go through a bunch of near injury shit to showcase that stuff? I don't really like that kind of thing.
CD: Lucero is always claiming, but what's your take on who invented the slappy? Gavin and Corey were doing those a million years ago at the Skurbs.
KNOX: That's a good question... Man, and that's a hard one for me to answer because if I say it's one way, then the other guys are gonna say "naw man, we did it first". They are all my good friends and I have to give John props for actually innovating a lot of street stuff. So, I'm going to have to say it was at the same time, in opposite ends of the state, because a lot of tricks happen like that...
CD:(laughter) Well, that's diplomatic...
KNOX: Yeah.
CD: Can you still do a switch heelflip?
KNOX: Gimme 10 tries, yeah.
CD: What's the hardest trick you still have in your bag?
KNOX: That's a hard question, some people have a harder time doing something than other guys. Some guys might have a problem doing a rock and roll, but a switch 360 flip to that guy is easy.
CD: What's the hardest trick you've ever made, the one where you just rolled away thinking, "I can't believe I just made that"?
KNOX: I've made two 540's on vert in my whole life. I just never really wanted to do them again, I just wanted to be able to say I did it, and did it more than once, because once is a fluke. But I didn't do them mute grab, I did them backside grab, behind the foot. I mean it's still a 540, some guys do them mute, I did them backside grab. I used to skate vert, I rode vert everyday for a really long time. But, fuck, we were doing both. Vert and street. That's just what we did. We were skateboarders.
