Photos by Thomas Goldman. Interview by Zach Moeller.
50-50
How’re you doing?
Doing good. Worked this morning pretty early, got up at like 7, got off around 3 and just chilled. Not much to do in this snow.
What do you do for work?
I’ve been working for this moving company called “Lou Moves You,” it’s a bunch of skateboarders. The dude Lou is sick, he runs the company. I work with Matt Velez, Brendan Carroll , a bunch of dudes who skate, so it’s fun.
Do you guys get off work and skate together?
Yeah. Sometimes we’ll park the vans over by Cooper Park, so that’s tight It’s sick driving around to random spots and finding stuff too.
Run us through a day in the life.
I haven’t really been able to skate the last week or so just because of the wether. A lot of times I’ll get off work pretty early and I’ll go skate after that if not too shitty outside. I’m kind of taking it easy these days, especially at night. Not going out as much.
Being responsible, you’re like a grown man.
Ben Potter: Nah dude, not partying will keep his knees good. He’ll be skating till he’s 45.
Ha, I’m not that responsible.
50-50
Where are you from originally?
I’m from Richmond, VA. I grew up on the north side, about a five minute drive from downtown. It was in the city, but in a nice quiet neighborhood.
Where’d the nickname Danish come from?
Dude, everyone asks me that but there’s no story behind it. My friend Billy was just saying my name funny and it just turned into Danish. Out of all the nicknames that’s the one that stuck.
How’d you start skating with the Bust Crew guys?
A bunch of friends who are closer to my age starting skating together, our little Inbred crew, and then some time in high school we started skating with older guys and going to their house. They started showing us around and kind of took us under. We started going on trips and filming with them, and the two crews sort of meshed into one.
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Tell us about the Inbred Boys.
Sorta started with my friend Max Matoon making videos, and people started making sick graphics like my friend Rusty. It’s kind of slowed down now, but Max is working another video. It’s probably less than 50% skating and mostly just fucked up footage that he films in the streets. They’re still doing shit, it’ll be good.
Who’s Cousin Dylan?
Cousin Dylan is the shit, he’s the best. He’s my friend Cooper’s cousin, he lived with us for a long time. He was born on a Grateful Dead tour and his parents never took him to a hospital or anything, so he doesn’t have a birth certificate or social security number. He basically didn’t exist. It actually made things hard for him, being 25 and not being able to get a job or anything. He actually just went on a cross country trip to San Francisco where he’s from to finally get his birth certificate. Now Cousin Dylan is a real person.
Did you live in the infamous Dust House?
Yeah. There were so many people in and out of here. When I was living there it was me, Ty Beall, Max, Erich Bielefeldt, Will Rosenstock, Rusty, Dave English, Cooper, John Devine, Jon Rowe and his girlfriend, and a bunch of other people too.
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Best story from living there?
Well it got raided, I think Ty might have talked about this in his interview, but it was fucked.
Wait, what?
Yeah I had gone to the grocery store down the street for five minutes, came back and there was undercover cops climbing over our fence and coming up the front steps, so I just said “fuck” and sat on the ledge across the street and watched. All our friends were on the couch, shirtless with no AC, and the cops bust in with their guns out and shit like, “you know why we’re here?” and everybody had no clue because it could have been so many things. They walked straight to the bathroom and grabbed this cardboard cutout of a cop that Ty had stolen from the hospital, and there’s a knife sticking out of his head and a dildo out of his pants. The cop pulled the dildo out with no gloves and was like, “really? You think this is funny? This man has a family!” Like the cutout was real person or something. They searched the house but did a really bad job because it was so messy, so only Ty got in trouble for that one.
What happened at that spot across from Kanawha in downtown Richmond?
They built this new building with these perfect ledges out front and we were out skating it one night. It’s ironic because I was the only one skating into the street and not skating/destroying the ledge, but the cops came so everyone skated off. I started walking over to my car but I was the one that ended up getting caught. They took me inside and arrested me, charging me with a felony for skating it. They asked me the names of everyone else, but I wasn’t about to rat everyone out, so I ended up having to get a lawyer and go to court, pay a fine, do some community service.
Everything cool with that now?
Yeah it got dropped, everything’s cool now.
Getting hooked up by anyone these days?
Yeah, I get boards from Quasi and shoes from Adidas, they’re sick.
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What made you want to move to New York?
Man I don’t know, a few things. I broke my ankle and got surgery last winter, and was out for about six months. I wanted a change of scenery when I could skate again. My girlfriend and I had broken up so I wanted to go somewhere, and in the Dust House everyone was leaving, meaning I wouldn’t have a house soon. At first I thought I was moving up for the summer, but ended up staying. I’ve been trying to go out filming with Paul Young lately, and skating with a lot of dudes from Richmond who are up here.
What do you miss most about Richmond?
No traffic, and mostly being able to have fires. We used to have a fire in the backyard of Dust House every night. Also having all my friends there.
Your part in Gospel was gnarly. That front crook down Blubba was ridiculous. Was there a trick that stuck out as your favorite?
Damn, thank you. I’m trying to think. I guess to me that one didn’t feel like the one I had to work the hardest for because I didn’t really think about it before we went, it was just kinda like, “oh shit! It worked,” but there were definitely some other ones I thought about a lot and put a lot of work into. There was one where I went down into this skinny bank and grinded this rail that was in Baltimore. We had to rip the rail out of the ground and bondo it before going back another day to skate it, chip the bondo out, and put the rail back in. That one took two trips and a little bit of work.
Best and worst bar in Richmond? I might judge you a bit for this one.
Haha, the ones I would go to the most , I don’t know if they’re the best, but there’s this bar Ipanema right down the street from Dust House we’d go to.
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You about that karaoke night?
Hahahaha no on karaoke night, fuck that. Oh! You know what bar is sick is Babe’s, it’s kinda like a lesbian bar with $1 beers and pool tables. They have a karaoke night, but no one’s in there, so it’s just like one person singing to two people, so it’s pretty funny.
Worst bar?
Dude, I went to this bar that opened up right before I came here called City Beach that was beach-themed with neon walls. It was so weird, but also sick because it was so bad. That was definitely one of the worst bars I’ve been to. Shout out to City Beach.
Speaking of shout outs, do you have any? Let’s wrap this thing up.
Shout out to everyone in Richmond, Bust Crew, Inbred.
Inbred’s the shit.
Hell yeah, let’s close it out with that, Inbred’s the shit.
