Saturday, September 21, 2013

White Bread Interview No. 2

Scott Bankey




Photo by Nicolas Williams
I can't pinpoint where or when I met Scott Bankey, but I remember this kid just being on 'the scene' all of a sudden. He wasn't the best skateboarder ever. He was better than me at that point, definitely. Before I knew it, this kid who went from someone who was better than me was a kid that ripped. The thing about Bankey is that he doesn't carry himself as young as he actually is (unless he's drinking) and I was actually shocked when he told me he was about to turn 18 a few months ago. That means that the hungry kid who went from being better than me to ripping to now being a company owner hasn't stopped progressing. He just needs to stop apologizing for not landing his trick first try.
- Allen Dillard




Backside Noseslide --- Photo : Hagelstine


My parents gave me my first board in, like, third or fourth grade. It was actually part scooter, part skateboard. My first skateboard, a Yu-Gi-Oh board, was given to me by my uncle. Somewhere between fifth and sixth grade I actually watched my first skate video, the Emerica video, This Is Skateboarding, and instantly I was hooked. Heaths part was just eye opening to me, along with Andrew and Spanky's as well.

"...actually pushing through the streets."




360 Flip --- Photo : Williams

Skateboarding is mixed with me lately. I love it, but it is growing at an annoying rate. It's picking up people that I don't think really appreciate it.
I started skating at Summer Stevens park, just a park with nice ground. I hung around with a little group and we had Ian Obrien as our "older friend". We would literally do whatever he said, but he helped shape me as a skater. He waxed up ledges for us and let us skate his boxes and rails that his dad built for him. As our friendship grew he actually showed me Michigan Ave and the first spot I skated. It was a ledge over by the starbucks just off of Michigan ave. It was crazy going from a park to a crusty sidewalk with people, cars and actually pushing through the streets.

"Fuck you! Go do something you actually enjoy!"




Ollie --- Photo : Hagelstine

Cory Hagelstein, Ian O'Brien, Jared Howell, and Keegan Rowe were the people I grew up skating with. Later on, I started meeting others; Tom O'Brien (no relation to Ian), Joey Martinez, Ross Babinski, and Ivan Afanasyev came a little later.

"You can miss the falls sometimes."

I skated everyday pretty much back then, now I skate about three days out of the week. Honestly, with only skating three days, you really appreciate being out in the streets and you actually go for more tricks. When I skated every day I looked at stuff, like, "Oh, lets come tomorrow", or "I have all this time to come back", where as now, its not like that. So usually I will take a slam for a trick. You can miss the falls sometimes.

"I don't care how long you grind your park rail... Go to a real rail..."




Kickflip the gap into the street --- Photo : Martinez

I think skating is amazing, but its getting sucked into like the "cool" thing to do, like, "Oh, if i buy a board, I'll get chicks." It's like, "Fuck you! Go do something you'll actually enjoy." Also, I feel like street skating is slowly getting smaller and skatepark rats are growing. After a while, I don't care how long you can grind your park rail or what you can do at the park. Go to a real rail and lets see a blunt or something. Lately, I have been watching the Bronze stuff and it's rad. Those dudes skate like skateboarders should. They have great style on the board as well as having a style of their own. A lot of people wanna all have the same "steeze", it's like, "no, just, no...."

"After I woke up, I was like, 'I wanna do this'..."




Frontside 50-50 Shove out --- Photo : Martinez

I actually had a dream, as tacky as that sounds. All my friends and I were stoked in my dream, and we all skated just to skate, because we had Weird Feet and Antique. After I woke up I was like, "I wanna do this", so right away I started working on it, knowing that I would be able to skate something that I can enjoy riding shape wise as well as graphically. I feel like companies all do the same weed graphics and rip off graphics, and the sort of swag type stuff to keep their shit selling. Honestly, at first I thought I was gonna be rich, but it's harder then people think.
"All my friends and I were stoked, and we skated just to skate..."
I get asked a lot, like, "Oh, can you hand out this and that", and I tried, and luckily I was able to do it. But, damn, compared to having shirts it's hard. In the future, I want to see the company grow, to make videos and put out ads. I want to have sicker, full scale graphics.
Scott Bankey rides for Weird Feet and is the owner of American Antique Skateboards, which as of the posting of this article, just received their second run of boards. Even though Scott thinks that chicks won't be swooned by you owning a board, he's wrong, so go but one and you'll be swimming in pussy. He's filming for childhood friend Cory Hagelstine's video, Recess, which should be out this winter, along with Babanga, which should be out in 2079 or so, but those dudes are blowing it, so only time will tell.

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