Photos by Luke McKaye

Interview by Marcus Waldron

Where are you from and where are you at currently?
I kind of grew up in a few different spots up the East Coast of Australia and then off the coast a little bit, but originally born in Sydney, moved around, and currently living in Sydney.

Did you say you were working on a skatepark last week?
It’s a random one, but there was a DIY there that got ripped out by the council, and then there was a big community effort to have something reinstated, so the community raised funds and pressed the government, and now we’ve got to refurb the basketball court. It’s all cracked up, and once we fix all that, then they’re pouring new obstacles on top of the basketball court.

What do you do on the day to day normally?
I think super scattered and random. I was doing more skatepark construction, and then I was doing some repair stuff, but honestly haven’t worked much in the last year or so. My mom was really sick. She passed away a few months ago, so I’ve just been around and caring for her and stuff.

Did you used to film skateboarding?
I was photographing it right up until Jamaica, and then that was kind of the real catalyst for change. That was one of the last times I properly shot photos, I would say.

When did you start taking photos?
I think it would’ve been probably about late 2010, early 2011, and shot for about seven years. I was shooting for mags for the last five of that.

What were you shooting mainly? What magazines did you shoot for and how did you get involved with them?
At the time there was two regular Australian magazines Slam, which is still going, and The Skateboarders Journal, so I was contributing a lot to those. There was a regular zine, FUKNOATH, by Andrew Peters that I’d contribute to occasionally. And then just like one-offs here and there in some of the US and Euro mags as well. It was mainly skating and editorial stuff, but then I was also shooting skate events. That was a good bit of bread and butter, it definitely wasn’t as much where the passion was, but doing those comps and events and such comes with that regular pay.

Do you still shoot much now?
It really did peter off. I went to Africa to do a little build, would’ve been like six months in Tanzania after Jamaica, and I shot photos there, and then I maybe wrapped up a little interview or shot little editorial/advertorial pieces for a friend here and there in the years since, but not much.

So Jamaica was the turning point, and you really switched to getting more into concrete and DIY and things from there?
Yeah, I hadn’t really worked with my hands much up until then. There was another DIY that has been going since 2011, that’s based near us. So growing up skating, I’d be around the build a little bit, documented and occasionally helped out, but pretty wet behind the ears. And then maybe a year or so before coming to Jamaica, I was helping my dad do a bit of construction work, just framing a house. And that was at my first taste of really enjoying working with my hands and power tools and such.

What made you want to come to Jamaica? How’d you find out about it?
I mean outside the ignorant tourist attraction of always wanting to go to Jamaica, the main thing would’ve been Albert from Alis in Christiana. He was helping to organize people there, so I guess he posted about it. I just sent him a message. I’d met him once in Christiana, asked him what the deal was, how to get involved, basically. And he suggested that if I booked a flight, that’s kind of all I needed to do, which was real sweet of him. I was coming with no tools, no experience.

How was that experience? Did you know anybody else that was there ahead of time? What did you take away from it?
I guess skating always unlocks that slightly more local experience, you’d like to hope because you’re meeting up with locals and getting shown things. But I think doing construction almost took it to another level because we were working alongside local people and, it just felt even maybe a little bit more assimilating, which was pretty dope. I knew Cody Lockwood before, we’d skated and shot together a little bit. Overall, it was beautiful. It was such a wild juxtaposition between being on a paradise of an island, while doing pretty rad building. I guess it was less restricted by red tape and bureaucracy that you might face in more developed countries. And then just the experience of building skate shit for the first time, learning how to work concrete from Rob Jones and Pasty was rad. I’d never met Rob before, but he really just took me under his wing. He saw that I was keen to do anything I could, so he got me making the concrete pool coping for the skate park, which was rad.

So you said you went to Africa shortly after that build to work on another park?
So I went home, and I was immediately doing DIY back in Australia and just self-teaching, asking questions to as many people as I could. And then ended up in Tanzania, I think in 2019. It was the last time going overseas, before COVID. That one was cool. It was a little bit more organized, I guess. Jamaica, there was a lot of people on the build, which was at times really necessary. It was a pretty big build and pretty chaotic, but I think the Tanzania build was maybe a little better facilitated or at least better funded to the point where, yeah, we were pretty comfortable the whole time. Also, we just had all the materials we needed and stuff. It all went really smoothly. It was a really good team.

So you were doing photography and now building, but also skating this whole time. Are you getting hooked up by Heroin? Have you had any other sponsors or anything?
Yeah, Fos has been flowing me some boards for like a year now. What a legend. When I was a little bit younger, I was pretty thirsty without any direction and maybe even chasing it, I don’t know, I guess it was somewhat fun or motivating, but I ended up with a random hat sponsor and shit before a board sponsor, so I was kind of just going about it the wrong way maybe. I’d say Fos giving me boards is one of the first proper things I’ve been flowed. There’s two distros here that also hook me up. The Project Distro has been sending me some Spitfire wheels for like a year or two now. And then Trap Door distribution hooks me up with Ace trucks. And my good mate, Nello from Melbourne, was flowing me skateboards under his brand Smoke Beer for a few years prior, so that probably would’ve been my first sponsor.

How would you say the skate scene in Australia is different, compared to the states or other places you’ve been?
I’d say that in certain cities like Sydney and Melbourne, it’s developed enough as to where you can spend your whole time skating in the city without a car, within your few mile square radius or whatever. And then outside of that, it’s quite spread out. You’re always going to be driving. It’s more Southern California style. It’s hard to be objective about home, I guess. Is there any cliches or things that you think you’ve noticed that I could confirm or deny?

I don’t know. Giant skateparks.
Yeah, definitely a lot of skateparks. They’ve always been kind of big. There was a weird amount of money being pumped into it in the early 2000s’ and then again now. They’re pretty overrun by scooters and entitled parents and they’re often a little bit more aesthetically pleasing on the internet than they actually are functional.

Is there a DIY scene in Australia?
No, I would say it’s pretty dead and apologies to anyone that is really pushing it somewhere and maybe they’re just not posting about it because they’re sick cunts and they’re just fully underground. But to my knowledge, no, it’s pretty quiet. And that’s not to say that there’s nothing going on, but just to compare it to the scale and passion in Europe and the States, it’s definitely lacking here.

What’s the DIY spot that you seem to be skating at a lot and build at?
There’s a couple. The tennis court one? We named that one Courtside. It’s up on the Queensland New South Wales border on the East Coast of Australia. It’s probably going to get knocked down quite soon. I heard they’ve got a bill for demolition, they’re just trying to find someone to actually do the work. That one’s about a ten hour drive from where I’m living at the moment, but we built that one up over the last year. It was a great spot. It looks super expensive, but honestly we did it all pretty small and cheap. There’s not much above knee high. There’s a lot of reclaimed rails that we just found, bent, and chucked in, so it’s not quite as big a scale as it looks. The footprint of the place is massive, but the infrastructure’s quite small.

Do you have a favorite thing you’ve ever built?
The couch was a concept I’d been sitting on since at least Tanzania when I drew it. So it was maybe eight years in the making, not in the making, but I just had the thought in my brain. Like a Chesterfield or whatever. Sometimes you’ll conceptualize something and then reality, it’s always going to be functional to some extent, but not maybe how you dreamed it would be. Whereas this thing outdid expectations in how skateable it was. And then my friend made an ode to the Max Palmer fountain mini firecracker spot, it’s got a mellow kicker into a micro 19 stair, and that thing was weeks of fun. Love that spot as well as any novelty curb is a great time.

What’s your favorite thing about concrete or DIY?
I suppose just being able to take things into your own hands and shape them. There now can be spots where there wasn’t otherwise. I hate how bad it is for the environment, but it is so versatile and workable and it does really last a long time. I also love the way it feels compared to timber, trying to skate timber shit. I guess just the concept of DIY as well, the whole ethos. People are pretty down to share knowledge, which is rad. You’re just taking it upon yourself to try. It’s like “It’s not what skateboarding can do for you, it’s what you can do for skateboarding” or some shit.

Do you sketch ideas for things to build often? Or do you normally just come up with it when you need to?
More often than not, the spot will dictate the builds. You’ll be trying to build something in an environment, but if it’s a blank canvas, sometimes I’ll go through waves where I’ll be sketching up a few things and then I’ll just have ‘em sitting there. And then sometimes we’ll have a space to fill and then it’s a means to an end of a few people drawing things and bouncing it off each other, but purely conceptualizing stuff on a blank canvas time to time. It’s more something that would just pop into my head and then I need to draw it so that I can explain it to someone.

What makes somewhere a good place for a DIY or a good place to build at?
Preference is to find an abandoned slab because pouring flat is huge and if you don’t have that, then your best bet is going to be to pour a bowl, which is not everyone’s preference, it can be somewhat limiting. So yeah, the canvas of a big slab is the best start, and then other benefits include easy access for your car to get materials in, preferably water nearby, shade is always a fucking huge bonus. And then just removal from anyone that might have an issue with you. If your proximity is too close to certain residencies that it could take issue, then that’s pretty bad.

Do you fuck with your trucks?
I was for years. I was doing my own inverted kingpins. I had the dead stock, old Krux pink labels, I think it was Krux. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was the old stock and I was using those for years. I still have ‘em. But then just recently Ace had done their own inverted and they’re way better. So I haven’t had to fuck with my trucks so much recently. Then a little grip tape riser pad under the base plate. So you never get the slipping of the base plate on the board. I heard Rodney Mullen used to do that.

Do you have any good DIY stories from either doing builds internationally or doing little street jobs or things around Australia?
There was this one time, I was doing a build under a bridge and I needed 60 bags of concrete along with the generator and mixer. At the time, I was just driving a small Subaru station wagon, so that doesn’t all fit in there at once, obviously. So it was a matter of doing three trips to unload all my tools, the mixer, the generator, and then I had to go back and do two loads of concrete because I had my dog, Governor, with me, who I’ve had since she was born, she was eight at the time. I was able to tie her to the generator and the mixer and she guarded it while I did runs to go and get concrete. So I dunno what she would’ve seen when I was gone, but fuck. She’s a good girl. She did a great job.

How long was that pour?
The one under the bridge, it was just me solo, like I said, 60 bags of concrete and the mixer and the generator. It would’ve taken all up probably like eight hours. It was under a bridge, so it was getting no sunlight. It was taking a long time to dry, she probably had to guard tools for three different trips that were half hour round trip each.

You got any advice for somebody who’s trying to get into DIY building or concrete stuff?
If you’ve even had that first thought, that’s the first step. So you’re along your way. And then I’d say just try stuff. Don’t be afraid to just give it a go, because procrastination will prevent you from doing anything. And then just if you do want to know stuff in particular, reach out to people. I’m always happy to answer DIY questions. And then I know basically if you see anyone else that’s having a crack at it, they’re usually willing to share their information for the better of everyone. So yeah, armed with a bit of knowledge and motivation, that’s kind of all you need.