Interview by Jawn F K.
fs 5-0 p- Elias Parise
What have you been up to today?
I went to the skatepark in Long Beach and chilled on the beach for a little bit. Now I’m just walking my dog around the block. Not too much else, playing my guitar a little bit and hanging out.
Where are you from?
I’m from Tinton Falls, New Jersey.
What do you like about New Jersey? What keeps you there?
Definitely my family, my friends, and definitely all the new skate spots and stuff I’ve been skating recently in the past couple years.
half cab heel p- Joe Bonin
What’s a new spot you’ve been hyped on?
All the places that I’ve gotten to travel to with Fred and our crew. I never realized how much shit we had to skate in New Jersey because I live in Monmouth County. There isn’t too much going on down here but when you get up north there are some pretty rad spots.
When did you meet Freddy?
About two years ago now. I started working at this set design company. I started working there September of 2019 and he kind of took me under his wing and brought me out on some sessions and we’ve just been skating all over since.
Did you think it was crazy to meet him for the first time?
Yeah sure, I didn’t even realize all those dudes like Jordan Gesko, Andrew McLaughlin, a lot of the dudes who built the Newark DIY’s worked there. I didn’t realize how many skaters worked there or even what the job was. I jad just been painting houses for years and I heard about a painting job so I showed up and it’s this badass crew of dudes who all skate or do art. Some good people to work with.
footplant fakie p- Joe Bonin
What’s up with Sweet Lou and the River Rats?
Sweet Lou and The River Rats is a group of my close friends who have all always played together. We would go to bars where they had open mics, so every week we go and just make up a name. One week we came up with Sweet Lou and The River Rats and just stuck with it. It’s just a bunch of the homies, Chris, Gabe, Loui, and Billy. We just like to jam and play some blues, some covers like Grateful Dead, Wide Spread Panic, Allman Brothers and stuff, and every now and then we make up a couple of our own tunes.
Do any of the other guys skate?
Yeah, Chris Anderson rides for 5Boro. Billy is the drummer and he is a really sick skater. Loui “Sweet Lou” is also a great skater, best slash grinds and tre flips in the game. Gabe surfs, he is our keyboard player and plays bass at the same time. The best part is we haven’t had to seek out a bass player or a guitar player or drummer. It all just happened naturally.
I know you’re by the beach, do you surf much or have you ever?
I surf a little bit, like when it’s too hot to skate, but not too much. I try to stick to skateboarding for the most part. I was out there yesterday kinda getting my ass kicked, it was a lil bigger than I’m used to.
jam fakie p- Dylan Holderness
Have you been filming much?
Yeah, I’ve been filming with Paul Gar for the past two years since I met those guys. We’re working on a part. Fred’s also working on a part that he will probably have leftover parts from it all, several if I had to guess. We have been going on a bunch of trips skating all over New Jersey, a little bit in New York, but definitely a lot of New Jersy stuff. All these spots I didn’t know existed. Hopefully, it comes out in the next few months or so. We’ve just been trying to keep stacking.
Do you ever get behind the camera? Do you film much yourself?
Actually, since high school I’ve been filming a video of all my homies I grew up skating with that I have never put out. I have it all edited. I’m just so fried when it comes to computers and technology. It’s called The Sgnarf Video. It’s like almost an hour long, but it’s all this high school footage and stuff. It’s actually pretty funny and it’s a bunch of my good friends, maybe it will come out one day.
Do you guys skate a lot of abandoned shit in Jersey?
Definitely. A lot of abandoned places and old spots that haven’t been skated in a decade that Fred will take us to and I’ll recognize from an old Habitat video or something. We will end up landscaping the whole place and re-concreting shit, putting down bondo. Putting in all this work at these old spots, it’s sick. Like rasta ditch, that half pipe in PA that Brian had an ad on, we brought a chainsaw and fucking chopped a tree out of it. There was like two thousand pounds of rocks in it and we were just going at it, shoveling rocks off forever.
wall bash p- Joe Bonin
You also sell mushrooms, right?
I was working at a farmer’s market like once a week selling mushrooms in the morning. Since work got busy I stopped.
Do you believe in functional mushrooms or magic mushrooms or the power of mushrooms?
Yeah, I believe in magic ones. I think probably not for everybody but I think some people can get some benefits from them. As far as the other mushrooms go, I haven’t really tried many of them. I know I was working at that company but I didn’t really get to eat too many on a regular basis. It’s something I want to get more into like Chaga and Reishi. It seems like there is something going on there that could help some people out.
heelflup p- Steve Berg
If you’re on the road, what’s your favorite fast food, or go-to gas station snack?
I’ve been into these protein cookies, I forget what the heck they’re called but they have a guy screaming on the front. I’ll eat those if I miss a meal and we are skating. Get some protein and eat a cookie at the same time. That’s my go to.
Heard you did some skateboard art. Do you do a lot of drawing or art projects like that?
It was something I wanted to do for a long time, but when lockdown happened I finally started messing around with it. Pretty much I’m cutting broken boards into random shapes like mushrooms or faces, the Grateful Dead symbol, whatever really and just painting them accordingly. My dad is a duck carver so I’ve always had a wood workshop in the garage that I’ve always wanted to mess with. I just use his jigsaw and cut boards into random shapes and paint them.
What would you say to someone to try to get them to come to Jersey that’s never been and doesn’t want to go?
I’d say we got a lot going on for a small state. I mean we are right in the middle of New York City and Philadelphia and then you got the Poconos to your west. I’d say come by, there’s a lot of possibilities in a small place.
