Chad Muska interview
In an extended version of the interview from the HUCK#026 feature, we talk to the long-time pro about style, art and the hustle that skateboarding brings.
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After fleeing Arizona for the sunny beaches of San Diego, California in the mid-1990s, it didn't take too long for Chad Muska to fulfil his dream of becoming a pro skater.
While skating for Shorty's in the late 1990s, Chad became their poster boy with his distinctly urban, hip-hop style becoming synomonous with the brand. Then came the hook ups with éS, Circa, Element and even his immortalisation as a character in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater video game series.
But there was more to Muska than your average street skater, the polymorphous pro has continually experimented with music, photography, art and even dipped his toes into the odd Hollywood hot tub. After a brief hiatus from the skateboarding industry in the late noughties, Muska is back, fresh from a well-received art show in New York and with a new Skytop sneaker with Supra in the pipeline.
On a recent visit to London, this freewheelin' hustler sat down with HUCK to prove that, beyond all else, his love for skateboarding is unshakeable.
HUCK: You have been off the radar for a while, what was up?
Yeah, life was pretty crazy in general. I was focused so hard on skating for so many years, so deep in the industry. [...] I had some things going on with Circa and I started to get a bitterness with the industry. I never stopped skating during that time I just kind of took off and did my own thing for a while. I was a little wrapped up in the Hollywood scene and partying. I needed to separate myself from the industry for a while in order to appreciate it again but the industry and skateboarding is me, you know, it’s in me forever. The longer I was away from it the stronger I felt it pulling me back.
How difficult was it to get back into the skateboarding scene? Did you feel like a stranger?
A little bit, yeah. And of course you’re going to have some insecurities like, ‘Are people going to like me still?’ Or, ‘Will they care what I do?’ Because I hadn’t done any demos, or shop appearances or anything. The world is constantly evolving, like, fast, fast, fast, blog, blog, blog, new, new, new, what’s next, next, next? It’s like continuous new stimulation for people and they’re used to that. You could hide out for six months these days and be forgotten [quickly]. So I had questions, but I don’t really do anything and think, ‘What’s everybody going to think about this when I do it?’ You know? If I believe in something and I want to do it, I’m just going to do it.
How do you see skateboarding today?
I think it has its positives and negatives. With growth, it’s been super cool to see the industry grow and expand, and it’s been so cool to see so many people to be able to be a part of this industry now, make a living off of what they love doing, and to be a part of it. But as it gets bigger there are negatives too, the corporate side of things, it not being in the skater’s control anymore. With the X Games, Maloof Cup and the Street League, it’s very anti skateboarding to me. A lot of things skateboarding is becoming are the reasons I started skateboarding, because it wasn’t those things. It wasn’t a team, there wasn’t rules, there wasn’t ‘you go now, show me what you got’ that’s never been skating to me.
As an ambassador for brands like Supra and KR3W, what do you want to share?
For me, I’ve been a part of this industry for a long time and it’s been a blessing just to stay a part of it. If I can do anything, I obviously want to continue to skateboard and design and create products that I have in my head. And I wanna see the visions become reality and see that people are stoked on the products. And also to mentor, tour the next upcoming pros and help them learn from my experiences, the wrong decisions I’ve made and the right decisions I’ve made, and help them and help mould the next people to be the next superstars in skateboarding. Creating and guiding and just living.
In terms of designing products, what does style mean to you?
I love the fashion industry, I’m fully into it, and as a skater I’m not afraid to say it. Some people may say, ‘Oh it’s cheesy,’ but I love fashion. I think it’s cool and it’s been a part of my life since before I could even afford to buy anything. I have dreams some day of expanding out of skateboarding more and developing products because I feel like a lot of the things I do want to do, are shut down and I need this outlet somewhere. And I think the fashion industry would be my outlet in the future, at some point.
How did you get into art?
When I was younger I was into graffiti a lot, we were just taggers. I was always skating during that time, but graffiti was my passion. And then I had the chance to get sponsored and as I was sponsored, it was full blown skate. I did a lot of art on my grip tape and designed a little here and there, mostly on my computer. It really happened when I hurt my knee and moved to New York. I’m surrounded by art more [there] and I have a lot of friends that are heavily into the art world right now. I’ve been doing photography a lot, shooting skateboarding a lot. I started printing my photos and ones that I didn’t like, I started painting on top of them and then that just sort of led into this craziness. I had this loft in Union Square, like silkscreening, large format printer, photography studio, tons of paint and spraypaint and cement and resin. I was just experimenting in all these different things and it really took over. The cool part was, it was all still relevant to everything I was doing in my industry like my Element board graphics, I started creating those on my own, and doing t-shirt designs for Kr3w and Supra. It was all just connected to what I was doing and allowed me to stay part of the industry and feel like I was adding.
Who inspires you in the art world?
Well my friend Harif, he’s an artist called Haculla, he does a lot of street art stuff. We’ve been friends for years through skateboarding and he’s really heavily into street art and was doing like cool, crazy stuff around New York. A couple times I was out with them and I was like, ‘I gotta put something up with you guys tonight.’ So I made a couple things up and after I did a few things I was like, ‘Ah shit this is dope, I love doing this.’ And it brought back the early graffiti years in me. I was surrounded by graffiti in LA but there was nothing there that made me want to do it there. I feel like New York is a little more free with it.
What about your music?
I haven’t done music for a while but lately I’ve been messing around with some beats. I was doing some video editing projects and I scored some stuff to it, and then Angel, my partner, had this stupid little voice recorder and was emailing me these stupid things he was saying so I started chopping his vocals up and making beats with it.
Is there a thread that ties your work together?
It’s all the exact same thing. Whether I’m doing a trick on a skateboard, drawing a picture, editing a video, producing a beat, designing a shoe, making a t-shirt graphic, it’s the same energy and same feeling I get in my head, and that goes into any of that stuff. And it’s all so interconnected, one inspires the other. It’s all the same shit to me. The common thread is just creativity and manifesting ideas and not talking about things and saying what you’re going to do, but just doing it. Talk less, do more.
Is there anything you haven’t done yet that you’d really like to?
Yeah start my own line! I’ve never had my own thing where I don’t have listen to anyone else and do some crazy, crazy stuff. Hopefully one day that’ll happen.
Read more about Muska's return in HUCK#026, out mid May.
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Chad Muska interview (text) by Shelley Lee Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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