Let's kick this off with pools. There are so many wild-shaped ones in the Cult part. How did you even find all of those?

It's been crazy because this has been the craziest year for pools in Vancouver I've ever seen. They're just fucking everywhere. I don't know if it's something to do with housing crisis, just how fast things are being flipped. The blue E pool, I was walking my dog with my sister, her fiancé and my mom and we found that. I rappelled from a second story with a rope into that pool at 1:30 AM, opened the door, and then we got about six sessions on it.  

The indoor square one that was really good to ride–we had eyes on that thing ten years ago, and the building just looked rundown. And then I went by there this past winter, and I looked in the window and I could see the pool.  I would always just try the door because it's a maintenance room. I went there like three times and the doors were just locked.  And then one Sunday, the door was just open. There was probably seven of us and we rode it for an hour. And then I opened a window that you could climb through, and we got nine or ten sessions out of it because they couldn't figure out how we were getting in.

That one with the island in it was one of Dean Dickinson's pools, and I've been trying to hit that for so long. I was finally rolling through Portland, and we just hit it. My knee is all fucked right now, But I just strapped it up, because that pool's crazy. 

So that was the most recent clip? 

Yeah, it was from last Saturday (a week before the video was released). I think it's also the amount of work you put in, will be the number of pools you're going to get. I've just been kind of tweaking out on pools lately. 

You got the setup for draining them.

Yeah, we've been running electric pumps also. I can run three off my generator; we can pump a pool in four to five hours from the top. That's been a game changer because now we can hit pools that have no power. You can't really run gas pumps in Vancouver; it's just too loud. The U.S. is different.

There were quite a number of pool ladder setups.

I guess there's a bunch. This is the season for ladders, I guess. It's weird how pools are like that. I don't know why, but right now, the trend has been we're finding really good shallow ends. 

That DIY barrier setup was a good way to wallride your van.

That was just filming with Gregson. We came across that spot, and I got two big ass dents in my van now; it kind of sucks (Laughter). I wallrode it on two separate occasions. 

Let's talk about the Ovrkill bowl. The last couple of years, you've really dove into the DIY building end of concrete.

Yeah. A few years ago, around Covid time, I built a quarter out of brick, and that was the spark. It's been a progression of it. We've been looking this whole time to find a spot to build something. The past winter was finally what made us do it because we don't have anything to fucking do. We just started building this bowl, and we just took it day by day. This is the first project that got me obsessed with it.

 It's not just a typical DIY project. To go from building a couple of quarters to a full bowl with a cradle is a huge jump.

We had all this knowledge on how to do stuff, especially with wood. It was, "This is the next step", you know what I mean? We could have just built something chill, but I think there's something to be said about just kind of, "Let's just go for it." That's the funny thing, in these videos it just looks like a skatepark. I think there's also something to be said about standing up a ten-foot-tall template for the first thing that you put in place; no matter what you do, make it looked fucked. The dream was to build a cradle; I'd been saying that to anyone who's ever talked to me in the last fucking four years. I think you have to take advantage of the situation you're in. We found a spot where this is either going to work or not work. And day by day just took it there and then it fucking works. I think a lot of it was the ignorance of what we were doing was so over your head that now you have to pull it because you called it out.

I think there's also something to be said about building something fucked. This is a rebellion towards things that can't be done. It's the argument that laws, and codes and people not wanting certain things will never get this. So you almost have to do it and take advantage of the opportunity that you're in to see it through. From that comes something like this. Also, the amount of people on that thing that knew what they were doing with skate parks and concrete was insane.

Your backyard ramp–how did that come about?

That just came about because we moved into a house that was a tear-down in Vancouver. And, and then there's a shitload of access to free wood. And then in my head,  “I'd never really built a whole corner by myself.” I've seen Jason (Watts) do it, and I just wanted to do it. So that backyard is just me wanting to learn how to build bowl corners. Over around four months I found a bunch of material; it was all free. It was crazy. The landlord never found out about it, the neighbors love it. 

 I got some skatelite on it. And then the landlords, they went to offer the whole neighborhood a deal to move out; it's a slap in the face. And then when everyone didn't accept that offer, they noticed the ramp and realized that they can use the ramp as leverage to get us to move out. So, now it's just been a three-month battle with them saying we had to tear it down and then kind of bartering with it. So, we always knew it would be gone at some point. We'll see what happens with that. But there's a good chance that any day now, I might have to start tearing it down.

 And the ramp is also very seasonal.

Yeah, it rains for fucking over six months in Vancouver; we didn't ride it once in the winter. I really don't want to have to take that thing apart yet. That thing is so gnarly to take apart, so we'll see. 

Bush whacking at "that ditch". Photo: Dolecki

"That ditch" part two. Photo: Dolecki

What's up with the Japanese spot that's painted like a packaged loaf of Wonder Bread? 

It's a lot tighter than what you think. It's really hard to ride. And you can only really ride it to the right. It doesn't work to the left. 

How was riding the legendary Hat? 

We just went down one Saturday, and then the homie Nick wanted to go and ride it. I had no idea that thing was that good. It’s amazing, and scary. You're definitely floating in the air.

Talk about about the ditch in Mexico.

 A skate homie who Gregson linked us up with just got us into there. You need to have a sort of government ID to go into this gated community. They kind of turn drainage ditches into skate parks. That ditch is fucking crazy. 

How was the Combi Bowl session?

They were going to tear down the bowl and Vans finally allowed us to come in there and sprocket-chunk the shit out of it. And they only gave us one session because the bowl was unridable after, so it actually helped with their demolition costs. (Laughter) It was really good for skating, and really hard to ride on a bike. It's just different ways to get speed. We only had one session, though.

Let's talk a little bit about South Korea and Japan trip. What was your motivation for going there? 

That was just, honestly, the cafe spot. It popped up on the internet and then it was just kind of, “We got to fucking go there one day." And then when we saw that a couple of the Shredd Bikes dudes went there, I was joking with Gregson, “Hey, do you want to go over there?” “Yeah, fuck it.” I was surprised he wanted to go because I was just planning on going regardless, just to go see that place. We started getting spot lists out there and it seemed like there was weird, obscure transition shit everywhere. And then we ended up just texting a bunch of people, and the trip got way bigger than we thought. And then it just turned into whatever the first Ovrkill trip would be. Probably not a place to bring 8 to 10 people. (Laughter) the citizen policing was the only thing that sucked.

 Let's hear more about the café building mission.

 So we went there during the week and we were, “Alright, we're going to get up at 4 AM just to make sure." Everything that we heard was, "Oh, it's chill, it’s chill." So we show up. It's about 5 AM and the sun rises. I'm eating an egg, I was drinking an orange juice, and I had like an eight-course meal set up on the bench. I don't know why. But in my head, I wasn't treating it as though we could get busted, like an idiot. It literally took us three hours by train, a fucking 12 hour flight. This is what we're going there for. Lil Jon's getting it right away. In his head he was thinking, "What the fuck are you guys doing?" And then everyone's kind of trying to start to figure it out. It's hard to ride; you definitely need a few hours there. It's a bakery, and a car pulls up a half hour later to fucking start baking. She ended up calling the manager. And we only really got one shot at filming a line. Just first try and it worked. And then the dude kicks us out. But it was just a weird situation because we brought eight people there and I only filmed the one thing. And everyone else didn't really get to ride much. And then we got booted and ended up running from the cops. It was just pure chaos. The cafe didn't open until noon, so we thought we’re going to be fucking chilling. And then it just went sideways real fast. Thankfully we got something. So 5 AM turned into a fucking pure shitshow.

How about the Japan bobsled run?

The thing's wild. The straightaways were so fast.  That was the one spot we didn't really get kicked out. We kind of hung around all day midday.

The Death Bowl was hit also.

We got one session at 5 AM. And that was it, the end of the trip. Everyone was almost too fried to ride. There's something weird about riding in the morning, but we thought we would get another day there and then it just didn't work out. We wanted to go again the next morning before the flights, but then it was raining so we didn't get it.

The bowl is falling apart; there's no deck. It's hard to drop in. It's in this beautiful area in the fucking middle of nowhere. There's no public transit to it. There's no anything. If you get hurt there, you're fucked. It's just an abandoned skatepark. We're fucking filming a 6 AM again. (Laughter) Traveling that far for these hit-or-miss spots was pretty fucking ridiculous. You're maybe getting a 30-minute session or getting six hours. It's pretty fucking crazy. Thanks to Andrew Mapstone for helping make the trip happen. 

Drying attempt in the dead of Vancouver winter. Photo: Dolecki

Nighttime Death Bowl carve. Photo: Dolecki

How long did you film for each part?

Both were about a year and a half. The oldest clips were Mexico in November 2023 for the Cult part, and Swampfest 2024 for the Vans part.  

You had a variety of filmers for the Cult part. 

That was literally just handing homies a camera wherever we were. That's why the filmer list at the end is so long. I forgot my roommate Jay, and he was pissed about it. Thank you, Jay. The Cult part reflects what we're doing all the time. And then the Vans part with Gregson was actually working with a filmer towards something. I think that's why they're such drastically different filming styles. Veesh edited the Cult part. I couldn't look at the footage anymore; I didn't even want to fucking think about editing it. There's something so weird about editing your own shit. Veesh killed it. And then we got to use Broc's band for one song, and that's pretty sick. 

Anything else you'd like to add?

It's just been crazy keeping the DIY bowl off Instagram. We've tried so hard to keep it off the internet just because it is such a renegade project. That's been the craziest part.  I think it is also good for people to see that stuff is being built and there's stoke from it. A lot of people still don't know this thing exists. Go find it if you can.

It's crazy getting to work with Chris on the Vans part. His knee was blown out for the Vancouver trip, and then I blew my knee out also the third day. 

I got to hit a gap I've been looking at for ten years. That park is sick. (Jay) Miron used to ride the shit out of that thing. I was filming this Red Bull one line thing and I went to go do that gap, and I just decided not to. Which now I'm really glad I didn't, because I think it would have been more of a huck since I was a little bit more comfortable doing it this time. I just jumped over the railing a couple times to the deck and then it just worked. It's funny when you go to places and you stare at it for so long, and then finally, your homie's there to film a part that you've been working towards, then you're like, "Well, I guess I'll just hit it."  

The fruits of a lot of a hell of a lot of labor. Photo Rastad