Shaun White interview
HUCK talks to the snowboarding über-celebrity about his skateboarding prowess.
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Shaun White doesn't need much of an introduction. After claiming the snowboard halfpipe gold in two consecutive Winter Olympics, appearances at MTV awards ceremonies and two Rolling Stone covers, he's pretty much become synonymous with snowboarding in the mainstream psyche.
However, the illustrious 24-year-old has also been etching out a career as professional skateboarder too. In 2007, he won gold in the vert at the Summer X Games, becoming the first and only person to have won gold at both the summer and winter competitions. And on this year’s Dew Tour, he won all three events he entered. As much of a brand as a person, he's now set to cement his skateboarding persona into common consciousness with his new video game, Shaun White Skateboarding.
HUCK caught up with the sporting multitasker to find out how he balances this double life and learns that even he occasionally forgets how to ollie.
HUCK: What sets Shaun White Skateboarding apart from the other skate video games out there?
Shaun White: It’s just way better! [Laughs] I dunno, the big thing for me was to make something that was completely different and I feel like we achieved that. The game’s awesome because you skate through a world that’s black and white and as you skate, everything changes. I mean trees shoot out of the ground, buildings crumble into ramps, the big fountain in the middle of the square drains and becomes a skateable bowl. Everything is moving and changing and that’s exiting because the levels look completely different depending on the way you skate. […] It’s exiting for me because it’s a skateboarding game. I like that fact there’s so much more to work with. In the mountains there just are rocks and trees: in this game, there are parks, buildings, cars and people, and so there’s so much more to interact with.
Did you have a lot of input in the game?
Yeah I had a lot to do with the game. It was everything from motion capture to voice over. You know the cartoon Family Guy? Well, we used one of the writers that writes for that cartoon to help us come up with the script for this game. I felt like the snowboarding games didn’t have enough storyline to them so for this game there’s funny jokes and good music. There’s also levels and gameplay that’s never been seen before. I’m really proud of it.
Who do you look up to in skateboarding?
From growing up, I knew all the vert skaters like Bob Burnquist, Kevin Staab and Bucky Lasek. These guys would show up to my local skate park and do these amazing tricks and I was just so blown away. I think nowadays I really respect a lot of the street skaters because the lifestyle is so cool. I get a lot of people asking what sport I would choose if I had to decide, and I would say skateboarding because it doesn’t take as much effort. I don’t have to go to the mountains, I can go to the local skate park. I can skate park or vert. You see me on TV skating vert but I like to skate cement bowls and parks and stuff like that. Not street though, I don’t go session handrails and stairs. I’ll go to Oregon skate park or I’ll go to a local spot and mess around.
Do you feel part of the skateboarding scene?
Yeah, I mean, as much as I can. A lot of guys are on teams and they do this year round and it’s definitely tough. Because I’m the guy that does both sports, I’m not really embedded in either. Even the guys from snowboarding hang out all the time, after the season. But I disappear, I go skateboard and I don’t really see a lot of those guys too much […] It’s kind of like different parents. You’re splitting the time and it’s like, ‘who really gets the most time?’ But I definitely feel like a skateboarder, I mean I’ve been doing it since I was six or seven years old and I never wanted any sponsors, I just wanted to compete […] I could have gone out and got skateboarding sponsors or whatever but I didn’t want it. I skate for Birdhouse but that’s it. I don’t have a bunch of skateboard sponsors, which is cool. I do it because I like to. It’s funny because a lot of the guys that see me at the ramp are like, 'you don’t even need to be here' because of my success with snowboarding. But that’s even more reason to be there I find, just for the hell of it. Just for the fun of it. That’s what I’m all about right now, having a good time and doing what I like.
Would you say you feel accepted at the skate comps when you come in and win out of nowhere?
Yeah, I’m sure it’s frustrating for some of the guys I guess. I dunno, I can’t talk for them […] I mean I hang out with everybody. We did the [Dew Tour Las Vegas] competition and then Pierre-Luc [Gagnon] and I hung out that night, running around Las Vegas, which is pretty cool. Vegas brings everyone together, you know?
How much time would you say you spend skating as opposed to snowboarding?
It depends. I mean most of the snowboarding starts around November when I start looking for mountains to go ride and then it usually ends at what, April? The rest of the time is skateboarding, until it kicks off again. I don’t really find that I can skate that much in the winter because there’s nowhere to go. I would do it but we’re up in the mountains. What’s been nice is that there’s a Woodward camp at Copper Mountain and so I’ll go there and mess around and skate the bowl. During the Olympic qualifiers, I was skating every night at the ramp there, messing around and just having a good time. It’s what I like to do. It’s kind of like how I burn off the stress. I just go skate or I play guitar or I do things like that.
What would you say are the main differences between the snowboarding and skateboarding scenes?
I dunno. They’re the same guys, you know? They’re the same people. There’s definitely not a massive personality difference and what’s funny is most snowboarders can skateboard, which is fun. Nobody tries to compete like I do, but the Mitrani brothers [Luke and Jack], who ride for Burton as well, and my team manager all skateboard. So we would all go from the mountain to the ramp. It’s definitely the same group of guys but the scene’s a little different because we’re stuck in the mountains. That’s what I love about skating is that we’re in cities. We’re in Las Vegas or Oregon or other really cool places. Not to say that the mountains aren’t cool places but it’s definitely nice to be in these fun cities.
Do you think your fans follow you across the two sports?
I’ve met people who didn’t really know I skateboard and are like “hey you skate, cool!” Some people know me from snowboarding and have seen me on the Olympics or something and some people have just seen me from skating. People are beginning to realise now that I do both sports and at the same level. When I go to the Winter Olympics snowboarding and then win three events in a row skateboarding it’s showing that I’m not just doing it for a gimmick. And it’s brutal man, it’s like the most frustrating thing – waking up one day and you don’t know how to do an ollie.
Yeah, if I put the board down for a few weeks and then come back, it’s gone.
Yeah, it’s like one of those things, you know? You had your kickflip down, you could do it every try to all of a sudden somebody’s like, “oh, take a long break and then try to do it in front of a bunch of people on television.” [Laughs] And it’s so frustrating because you have to relearn it. You have to relearn every single time. I’ve found that now that I’m getting older it’s actually gotten easier to switch back and forth, whereas before when I was younger it would take me months to relearn all the tricks before I could do them again. There’s something about the muscle memory and being older that has helped me a lot to get right back into it. But yeah, it’s very frustrating.
Could you tell us a bit about you borrowing Tony Hawk’s vert ramp and skating at the Paramount lot?
We are actually using the X Games vert ramp now. I borrowed Tony’s for a little bit, which was really cool of him, and we had it at the Paramount lot but then we borrowed the X Games vert ramp from this year […] It’s got some roll-ins and extensions and stuff like that, and it’s a bit bigger than Tony’s demo ramp. I moved up to LA and all the ramps are down south so while I’m getting a ramp made we’re just renting the space and ramps […] It’s really cool being up here in LA. It’s more social than what people think. They’re like, 'oh, you’re going to Hollywood!' but I’m like, 'no, I just moved up here because there’s no one to hang out with down south.' All my friends go to work in the morning, they get off in the evening and they go home and I don’t have anybody to hang with, but up here it’s like musicians and actors and people like that, that have a loose schedule like me which is cool.
Are you and Tony Hawk good friends?
Oh yeah, totally, we’re really good friends. He lives right near me down south, San Diego area. He’s the only guy I know who’s going through, or has gone through, what I’m going through. The only one I can relate to in that way. It’s not like we do [American] football or something where a million people have gone through it. Who’s to say what I’m supposed to do or not supposed to do? It’s all over the place and that’s cool. I mean I do two sports so it’s definitely a strange thing to even be in that situation.
Where do you see skateboarding and snowboarding going in say five or ten years time?
I’m really excited to see where they’re going. I know that snowboarding’s just been introduced to double corks in the halfpipe so I assume that’s just the beginning of those new tricks coming out and it’s cool that the halfpipes have got bigger. They’re 22ft now and every single competition will have the bigger halfpipe. Whenever the sport seems like it’s reaching its pinnacle, something else will change. […] I definitely think that skateboarding is so technical in the street that it’s just gonna continue there obviously. What’s nice is that you’ve seen these hybrid contests that are a mixture of vert and street, like transitions, so you’re getting guys that are amazing bowl skateboarders and park skateboarders. It’s so exciting to see a guy do a really cool street trick then blast a huge air out of a quarterpipe. There’s so much more going on. And at high speeds too, kinda Canadian skate park style snake runs and stuff. It’s really cool.
What do you think about skateboarding making it into the 2016 Olympics?
I’m not sure. I mean it’s give and take. It would be really cool, I think, because I’ve been to the Olympics and it was really exiting for me and I think what it did for the sport was pretty amazing. It brought tons of money and tons of exposure and the whole world was watching you know? […] I don’t think that we’re stunt people or daredevils and this, ‘these guys are crazy’ cliché is not it. [Snowboarders] have families and friends and they’re not these weirdos that do death-defying things. It’s a sport. There’s a skill set. We have sponsors. We travel the world. People are starting to understand that.
Shaun White Skateboarding is out now on Wii, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.
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Shaun White interview (text) by Tom Eagar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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