Tommy Guerrero Here and now
The skate legend is back in the groove.
More like this...
Tommy Guerrero has an unusual relationship with the past. On one hand, he can’t escape it. As a stalwart of the Bones Brigade, Powell Peralta’s zeitgeist-defining skate team, the role Tommy played in Californian skateboarding history is too fundamental – too damn important – for him to ever evade being bugged for stories about ‘back in the day’. On the other hand, he embraces it – least not when he’s rummaging for vinyl treasures or dropping solo records seeped in seventies funk and soul.
The former street-skating poster child is now a forty-four-year-old dad who splits his time three ways. Having left the Bones Brigade to start Real Skateboards with long-time friend and Powell Peralta teammate Jim Thiebaud, Tommy spends his days “crunching numbers” as a “computer monkey” (read: head honcho) at Deluxe Distribution – the Baobab tree of radness that Real mushroomed into, with brands like Spitfire, Thunder, Krooked and Anti Hero all doing their thing under the same San Francisco roof.
When he’s not neck-deep in the nine-to-five, or putting out creative collaborations with brands like Levi’s or Vans, Tommy’s either indulging in family time with son Diego and wife Melissa, or skipping off to the studio to get groovy on guitar. But this ain’t no hobby. The master of melody has collaborated with the likes of Prefuse 73 and Money Mark, has a dedicated fan-base that stretches from SoCal to Japan, and has notched up an impressive roster of releases, flying solo on six. Now, having just dropped Lifeboats and Follies - his latest anthology of Latin-soaked sounds – Tommy’s proving once again that there’s way more to his repertoire than just the hill-slashing antics of a kid from San Fran.
HUCK: Your place in Californian skate history is set in stone, but at what point did your love for making music come into play?
Tommy Guerrero: Around 1980. Me, my brother Tony, [photographer] Bryce Kanights and some friends started a band called Jerry’s Kids. Not the [Boston hardcore] one people may have heard of though. We were before them. After a change in members, [the band became] Revenge, with Shrewgy [skateboarder Steve Ruge] on vocals. Then came Free Beer with Mike Cassidy.
How did you balance your time between music and skateboarding?
When I turned pro, I didn't have time to dedicate to a band, so I would get my fix by recording solo tunes on a four-track recorder. I would jam with people here and there, but usually I would just be solo, playing bass. It all started out of the necessity to make music, and here I am.
What is it about skateboarding and making music that means so many people choose to indulge in both?
Hell if I know! They both have a rhythm and fluidity unlike anything else, as well as a Zen-like state of being. Skating can be really rhythmic.
Thomas Campbell [Galaxia Records co-founder] once joked that your dream life would be accompanied by a seventies soft-porn soundtrack. What do you say to that?
Sounds good on paper, but then I'd have to learn how to use a wah-wah pedal. Isn't life like porn anyway? Everyone’s just trying to get laid and paid!
You have a large palette of inspirations, but if you had to pick out one, what would it be?
That's a tough question. Maybe late sixties, early seventies Brazilian music – when bossa nova fused with funk and soul. Guys like Jorge Ben.
There seems to be a healthy interest lately in world music from that era, from sixties African rock to seventies Thai psyche funk. Are you a world music buff?
[I’m into it] but I know very little. It's all released by various labels and I hear it on college radio all the time, but later never remember what it was. Also, I am suspicious of compilations. Often the whole isn't very good, and some shit shouldn't even be released; there's a reason why it's never been heard sometimes. It's interesting how pervasive American funk was at that time, and how short-lived it was. So much was born from protest.
Check out the full feature in HUCK#025, out now.
Subscribe to HUCK for six issues
Only £21 (UK) / £44 (EU) / £59 (Rest of the World).
Tommy Guerrero (text) by Benjamin Deberdt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Add Your Comment...
Please note: Your comment may be held in moderation for approval by an administrator to prevent spamming. This usually doesn't take long, please be patient.