How’s yr day been going Ty?

Ain’t too bad. Just trying to get it all in before tomorrow just in case shit doesn’t go well in court. I got to skate the park earlier today, now I’m working, and trying to drink a beer.

What’s up with the Venue video, that’s coming out?

I don’t know, we’ve been filming for like a year and a half, and it should be out soon. I think it’s gonna be tight, we travelled a shit ton and everybody’s been going in, so it should be good.

Who made it?

This dude Will Rosenstock, he’s my good friend.

Who got parts?

It’ll be me, Jon Rowe, Gilbert, Caleb Ocasio, Daniel Ravenal, and Caleb McNeely. Then I think the owner Maury, and Travis, and there’s a lot of people who are gonna have footage but not like full parts. Pretty much everyone who rides for the shop has a lot of footy.

Is your part done?

Not completely, definitely time to wrap it up and get the shit I wanna get. I think we have like three weeks left of filming.

How’d you get linked up with Scumco?

Well I met a bunch of the dudes a few years ago like Drew and Stan, but I moved to California and was skating for Chocolate at the time. But I got pretty over California and that whole vibe, so I wanted to really fuck with Scumco, so I reached out to him and he was down. Then I went to Pittsburgh and chilled with him and you know, since then.

How long were you in Cali?

I think a little over six months.

What was the worst part of it?

The big thing for me was I feel like everyone you meet on the East Coast remembers you after the first time, like you skate one spot with somebody and you see them six months later and you can go and be like what’s up, you know? Where as in California it would be like a week later, and they’d reintroduce themselves and then that would happen like three fucking times. Nobody gives a shit about anybody else out there. Everyone is just out to make it big.

There’s just way more skaters, that type of vibe?

Yeah and then there’s that. You drive down the street and you pass like six spots and everyone of them has kids hucking twelve stairs. I swear I’ve seen five sessions on one street of kids doing insane shit filming with like crazy cameras or something.

Did you drive to California when you went there?

Yeah we drove across and then I flew back. Drove with Will, and he also made a trip video from that. It was me and Jon Rowe in one car, Jordan Bradshaw, Josh Swyers, Will, This guy Brent O’Donnell
that shoots photos, and that’s it. We stopped in like seven cities for a couple days each.

Are you from Virginia?

Yeah I’m from right outside of Richmond and now I’ve been living in Richmond for like the past nine years.

Is the Dust House still around?

Ha! Yes. I’ve been living there for like four years. We’ve got eleven people in there right now.

Damn, I remember seeing that GoFundMe for it a while back, what was all that about?

Basically the city dropped this huge fucking fine on us, and there was gonna be a hearing and they were gonna smash the house right after. They only gave us a week to come up with a couple thousand dollars and all of us were broke as fuck, so we just had to do the internet thing.

But you guys raised all the funds?

Yeah, we got the money in like two days or something crazy. There’s another difference between east coast and west coast cause we’ve had probably hundreds of people come and stay, or pass through visiting and I’m pretty sure every one of those people threw down whatever they could on that thing.

Do you guys have a sign-in for people who crash there?

Haha, no we’ve had this list as like an inside joke of people we wanted to stay at the house, but we don’t make people sign in and shit.

What happened when the Dust House got raided?

That’s the reason that I might go to jail tomorrow! I stole this cardboard cut-out of a cop from a hospital and we just had it in our bathroom and some kids posted a photo of it on Instagram and location tagged it. I don’t even know how the cops saw the Instagram post, but they used the location from it and they all came through and raided the house, all for a piece of cardboard. Seven cops barge into my house pointing their guns at me while I’m just chilling in sweatpants and no shirt, and they retrieved the cardboard cut out and hit me with a petty larceny charge, haha. They were like, “This man has a family,” talking like the cardboard cut-out was actually the real dude.

What’d you have to do for community service?

Oh, I just worked at this thrift store cleaning shit for like four hours a day. You can pretty much do it anywhere so I did it at this thrift store and help this dude out, I decorated a Christmas tree the other day. I was supposed to take this shoplifting class too, but I didn’t sign up for the class in time so, I don’t really know what the court’s gonna say.

That’s so fucked.. You ever been to jail before?

Yeah, I had a long history of fucking up when I was younger so it’ll be fine. I was in and out of jail for like two years when I was younger.

What’s some of the craziest times you’ve had at the Dust House?

I mean we haven’t had really crazy parties or anything like that, there’s just a lot of really crazy people on our block, and we definitely know all our neighbors. One time we smoked crack with our neighbor, I guess that was kinda crazy but uhh…

Did the cops ever come through before they raided the place?

Nah that’s the benefit of knowing all our neighbors cause we can do whatever the hell we want. They came one time when we burned this Christmas tree in the backyard cause the fire was like 20 ft. tall in this tiny ass yard.

I heard you got a trick on Roosevelt Island. What’d you have to do to get that?

Yeah that was tough. It was me, Will, Nick from Scumco, and Brian Downey. We took the little skybus thing onto there and then I jumped the fence onto the shore and then I scaled the shoreline all the way down to where I could see the spot over all these boulders and barnacles and shit. Then I had to hop the fence into there and just ran to the top and somehow got lucky and did it first try. When I was riding away some dude was trying to grab me, and then we were just out. It was like an hour long mission each way for thirty seconds of skating. Paul Young showed me a photo of it and I just had to skate that thing. It looks like it’s in Egypt or something. I usually blow it under pressure, somehow it worked out.

What’s the worst haircut you’ve ever had?

Haha, well in recent years I had longer hair on top and shorter on the sides, but I didn’t slick it back or anything, I just looked like a weird bird or something. But when I was way younger I was forced to rock a bowl cut for mad years so that might be the worst one.

What’s up with Inbred Boys?

Hahaaa, well inbred is the younger generation of dudes in Richmond and they kind of adopted all the older dudes, so now we’re all like one big crew. Max Mattoon makes all their videos and shit. I don’t know, a bunch of weird ass dudes that used to be kooks but now are just weird ass adults.

What’s up with Bustcrew Sundays?

For the last shop video we made, Old Dominion, basically Sunday was the only day we all had off so we just made sure to go on a trip every single Sunday and then we just haven’t stopped and it’s been like four years now. Just cause we skate Richmond all week and it’s small and we’ve used it all up so it’s hard to think of shit to do so we just try to take day trips, or weekend trips as often as we can.

How many video parts have you had?

I don’t know, too many.

What was the last one you did?

The last one was this video called Brick, we filmed it this last winter, or the winter before, I can’t remember but we filmed it only in the winter. I don’t know why. I hate that video part.

Do you watch a lot of skate parts that come out on the internet?

Unfortunately, yeah. I just get bored and watch whatever just came out cause it’s there, but I’m not sweating what’s coming out. Just watch it to watch it.

Anything you seen recently that got you hyped?

Can’t think of anything off the top of my head but anything from the East Coast is always sick. New York dudes and that stuff, I like to watch a lot of old shit really.

What’s Trashmasters?

Ha! That’s nothing at all. It’s just a hat that my friend gave me, and then me and Jon Rowe were gonna start a junk removal service with that same name so we made these logos and then we never did anything with them. The hat was fucking sick, we just got inspired.

You ever film or take photos yrself?

Yeah, I’ve been taking photos for a long time but it’s always just kind of been whatever. I’ll shoot a skate photo, but that’s not something I’m looking to do all the time.

Film or Digital?

Oh a little 35mm, I just like fucking with weird ass plastic cameras I find at thrift stores and see how they turn out. Usually they turn out like shit, but I’ve got a regular slr too.

Where did you go last Sunday with the Bust crew?

Last Sunday we went to Lynchburg, VA. And on Saturday we were in Roanoke, Virginia. It was a good trip, everybody filmed at least one thing. We got into a little situation in Lynchburg with this dude though. I don’t know if I can go into details about that right now though.

Last question. Can you explain how you got strep throat from a pigeon?

It was immediately after the Roosevelt Island trick and Downey threw out a half smoked cigarette which then was swooped by a pigeon still lit and it dropped it, and how could you turn down a short from a pigeon haha. Then my throat almost closed up and I had to go to the E.R in Pittsburgh. Lesson learned.