|
The Hot Dirt Action on One5's ECar Evan Carlson has been riding all over the US scene for years and here we welcome him to the great remolition interview.. His results in bx and freestyle over time have been enviable, his tours almost legendary, and his commitment undeniable: as proved by his numerable contributions to the mountainboard world... Hi Evan... First off, what were you up to before you turned the computer on today? Eating some cereal and sipping a bit of orange juice. You're a busy guy, involved with the OneFive Media crew, The-Dirt mountainboard news website, and your own design company 'Defiant Dezign'. What other stuff do you do that doesn't involve mountainboards- What's your background? I currently work at a company in downtown Denver called ID Watchdog and manage all of their online marketing efforts and some creative direction, but that's just from 9-5. Outside of that i'm doing a bit of freelance design which is where Defiant Dezign comes in, thinking of changing the name to CNCPTS. I'm an entrepreneur at heart so i am constantly trying to think of things that would be fun to create and make the world better or that are at least create something my friends would get stoked on. The Altitude Cup had a team theme this year, so groups of riders with 4 guys and at least 1 lady got half off of entry but the catch was you needed some team colors or a team shirt, so i had the first run of t-shirt for The Produce printed up and had all the One 5 riders put them on. The t-shirt had a swedish theme, bright blue with bold yellow font that said "hej" which means hi, it turned out great, everyone was getting real hej. Photo By: Dag Larson How did you discover and when did you first start riding off-road wheelie boards? I've been snowboarding since 95' and have been receiving Transworld for almost that long. Over the years MBS had purchased a few ads and that was my first introduction to it. In 1998 I saw the first MBS tv ad and found out they were located in Colorado Springs where i happened to be taking a family vacation that summer, so my father to me over to MBS where I had a chance to try out the Grasshopper. It wasn't until 2003 when I started riding with Jereme Leafe that I bought a board and got hooked. Which crews and peeps were you riding with? I think i've been really fortunate and had a chance to with some of the best cats in the US since i've started. Obviously Jereme was a huge influence, him and I had been competing against each other in snowboard events for years so it was an easy transition on a mountainboard. The ECATB event brought a lot of great riders like Austin Robbins, Akoni, Scott Hunter, Nick Hill, Baron Frieson, Justin Rhodes, Bryan Mahn, the list goes on. Since i've transplanted to Colorado i've been introduced to a whole new crew, one of the first guys is Devin Fritz he was one of first guys I rode with when i moved here and has always been a fun guy to ride with. The One 5 guys are my blood, we've had our ups and downs like any crew, but when were all riding together there's nothing like it. Has that affected which board you ride? Great question and no. I ride what i have, MBS is pretty good about hooking up spare parts when i need it, right now i'm riding the pro 95 and some bright green tread, it's a lot of fun. How have you seen the scene change over time and what do you think of the change? photo by Jason Lee Change happens. I've had a chance to see the money come and go from the sport, not that it was ever extremely lucrative but the Core Tour had some big cash prizes a few grand for first and some solid prizes to go along with it. I think Kody said it best at the end of Hot Action, mountainboarding is great just how it is and as long as you have a board and your friends riding with you, it will always be that way. True. What's the comp scene like in the U.S at the moment? The competition scene is all about the community that surrounds it as i would imagine it is across the rest of the world, we all love riding and love to watch other doing it. Truthfully I hate competitions in the traditional aspects, a set amount of runs, 4 man race brackets, so it's been great to see some new event formats popping up around the US. Do you have a personal favourite trick you just love pulling out the bag? I've always been about big lofty airs but I love front 3's and shifty back 180's. I used to do a lot back rodeos or at least attempted them, i've only landed 3 or 4 but they're a lot of fun. Front rodeo's are fun too. The Twilight Showdown looked like great fun this year. What is it about comps that makes them such fun? Zak Heberly makes it fun, that guy is so dedicated to providing riders with a great venue to ride and its in the middle of Kansas so he's got the land to do it. This year Matty K and Fritz spent a ton of time out there re-designing every element of the boarder cross track and building a whole new freestyle park. The park had a lot of options and some unique features like the cow bell bonk and north shore drop which we haven't seen integrated into a park up until now. But as always it's the people that make an event, your friends standing next to you on the rolling ramp getting you ampped before a run, the locals coming by to watch the event and the relationships you build throughout. Absolutely not. Competitions give you boundaries and when your on top of any grassy hill or in the woods there is none. Last weekend, Benton, Brandon, Mike and I were all out at this great freeride spot call Rampart in the front range of the Rocky mountains, there were a few shots of it in Shralpdown!. Rampart is the purest form of freeride, we grab our boards and walk through the woods and every where you look there is a potential run, weather it's a tight treeline with a small rock wallride at the end or a big rock drop with a natural berm after it. The freeriding is even more than that though it really gets all of your senses going, the natural smells in the woods, the twigs snapping under your wheels and contrast of the trees and rich dirt that you're riding over. I just don't think those are things you find in a competition. What are your nearest freeride spots like? Colarado & the Rockies must be close to mountainboarder heaven.. God Colorado could be mecca for freeriding. I haven't even had a chance to ride half of the epic spots out here, but off hand Rampart, Pingery park, Snowmass, Grand Junction, the Great Sand Dunes. Hopefully i can find some time to get out to those spots more next year. Photo By: Ted Caster In 2007, with Justin Dersham & Michael Herbener (and of course numerous riders), you helped create the first high-def 'snowboard-style' film 'Shralpdown'.. Yup, Justin and Mike are the masterminds behind these films, they both are super talented and it shows. I've done some video production in the past and still work quite a bit in After Effects but Justin is a wizard, you can see it in all his smooth animations in Hot Action, but he's a whore to Bonnier Corporation and editing their films now. Mike's got glasses but there is nothing wrong with his eyes, his shots are so rad and he is really dedicated to getting the shots. There has been numerous occasions where he will be up an hour before sunrise so he can get a shot of fog rising from a valley or some artsy shit. Cool, we love artsy shit. What was the reaction like from riders and the industry when it dropped? Everyone was stoked here in the US. I think for the riders in the film it was tough though because we were all really close to that first film, watching edits and sections come together through out there year so there weren't as many surprise for us. People were definitely stoked on it, and we were proud to show it off. Hot Action got some serious buzz before it's release... Man I was so stoked for it and I was one of the first people to see it. The riding & locations in it is really nice and varied; personally i love the road trip sections, the Mustache tour of Destruction looked pretty fun... The Mustache Tour of Destruction was so rad...... haha actually i think all the road trips we've done have been rad. These trips are about exploration, seeing whats out there and what we can ride and it's been a success every trip. The theme certainly helps and the fact that there are 12 of us packed into a van for 10 hours a day so you make your own entertainment, thats True Grizz much of the time, the dude is straight comedy and a fucking child. There's one in every crew eh! Do you know if there's gonna be a 3rd installment in OneFive's high-def mountainboard film series? Ahhh no comment....... No exclusive there then! ;) Your website 'The Dirt' is coming along, here at Rem we sure understand how tricky it can be to keep things updated! Do you have plans to take it further? As the saying goes, content is king, and it's hard to keep it all fresh. Long term i'd like to get some more international cats involved, right now it's me and AJ but Alex Boswell did a great write up on the WFC so i'd like to engadge him some more. I know there are great things happening in Brazil and Japan and I really don't see much coverage on the things they are doing so it would be nice to get them involved. So if anyone out there has something they would like to write about or has ideas feel free to share, i'll post just about anything. You wrote an article on The Dirt saying why you think mountainboarding hasn't seen massive growth, listing such reasons as no real industry, lack of media exposure, and a stigma of being way too gnarly.. People in our sport are undoubtedly passionate about what we do, but how do you personally see the sport developing as we head into the next decade? God I don't know if i want to open that can of worm, I could write an novel on my opinions about mountainboardings progression but no one wants to read that Drat... Photo By: Amanda Poindexter Positive media exposure and public awareness- showing off what we do well is obviously important to you, and to us. Keep up the good work! Any parting thoughts? This is our generation, so lets mold it into what we want, we have the ability to push a message and an idea to every point in the globe in minutes, take advantage of that. Remolition is doing some real positive things for mountainboarding, thanks! Thanks Evan! feel free to give shout-outs & props to your crew, the Mrs, God or whowever you damn-well like!! Gotta thank MBS for putting together that wheelie board that I love so much. My family, friends, all the Colorado riders, One 5, much love to you all. Tim Berners Lee thanks for the World Wide Web. The new website for The Produce is dropping soon 25% of all shirt purchased will go to a non-profit to support the arts, keep an eye out for it! Will do! Now, the Remolition quick-fire quiz questions.... Metal or plastic? Metal....heavy metal Red or blue tyres? Green How many pairs of shoes do you own? Love kicks, i think 10-12 pairs, the Supra's and Samba are my favorite. How big would a mountain board have to be to be the first ever mountain board bus? 15 feet 5 inches Have you ever been to Shralptown? Nope but i'd like to go. Who'd win: volcano or earthquake? Earthquake What was the last music you bought/downloaded? My friend Johnny D's band, Westbound Train just put out a new album, so i bought this track "Check Your Time", but i steal everything else. Sunrise or sunset? Sunsets Beer or Jagermeister? Beer photo by Justin Dersham Melon or stalefish? Melon Smirk or Grin? Smirkin Burger or Pizza? Burgers Who is J.J.Gittes?! Big fan of old classic movies, Chinatown one of my favorites and the main character is a private eye named JJ Gittes. Evan, Thanks again. Check out editorial, event reports & montainboard news you need at The Dirt.net Find out more about One5 media here. Find more tour tales, photos & some vids on the One5 blog. Interview by Wilz x Related Shizzle
|