I've Always Been A Bit Of A

One Of My Friends Was A Stage Hand At A Bob Dylan Show In The Mid-90s And I Remember Him Telling Me That Somebody Crowd Surfed During The Gig. And This Friend Of Mine Was An Old Punk Rock Guy - He Was Totally Humiliated By It. But Some Of Bob's People Were There And They Said, "oh, Bob Will Be So Excited! This Is The Kind Of Energy We Want At His Shows." That's Where The Old School Was At.

My Point Of View Is, I'm Just A Person, And There Are Times When I Look At Other People And Think, 'my God, They Spend So Much Time Thinking About Things That Seem So Absurd.' But I'm Sure People Must Think The Same Thing About Me.

Skateboarding Is Not A Hobby. And It Is Not A Sport. Skateboarding Is A Way Of Learning How To Redefine The World Around You. For Most People, When They Saw A Swimming Pool, They Thought, ‘let's Take A Swim.' But I Thought, ‘let's Ride It.' When They Saw The Curb Or A Street, They Would Think About Driving On It. I Would Think About The Texture. I Slowly Developed The Ability To Look At The World Through Totally Different Means.

Let's Say For Instance People Say, "he's A Really Totalitarian, Strict Guy, He's Hard To Work With Or Whatever." I Don't Think It's True, But People's Perception Of Me Leads That Direction, Like I'm A Fundamentalist Person. I End Up Having To Spend Extra Time Saying, "i'm Not A Fundamentalist." I Have Other Stuff To Do.

I'm Not Talking About What Came Later [after The American Underground Punk Scene], Indie Music, Or Whatever You Want To Call It, But The Music That Came Before That - That's An Important Story. So Many Interviews With Musicians Get The Time Or Context Wrong. You Have These Older Bands, Usually Men, Who Tell Stories About "oh, We Got Into This Huge Fight, This Guy Punched That Guy," That's The Wrong Sort Of Story. My View Of The Time Is Truly Pioneering.