As mentioned at the beginning of part 1, a much edited down version of this interview originally appeared in issue 18 of Pop Magazine. Steve Berra gave up hours of his time to sit with our writer, Steele Saunders, and talk about The Berrics, his history and his opinions on the direction of skateboarding. It’s an amazing interview – the full text is being released in four parts, this is part one. All up it is 17,000 words and I’ve listened to it and read it over a dozen times so far. We’re releasing the audio from the interview at the same time as the text – you can download it from Steele Saunders over here (you can also subscribe to Steele’s Podcast and get all the interviews automatically by going here). Hope you enjoy it – part three will be up next Monday (July 4th).
Photos by: Mike Blabac
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…. You were saying you’re going to get a pay cut.
Yeah, so I’m like, “No you’re not, you’re not going to cut my pay.” He’s like, “Yes I am.” “No you’re not. You can’t cut my pay.” “Well I’m going to cut your pay.” “No you’re not.” And then so he didn’t for about three months and then all of a sudden I got my check and it was cut.
So I sort of dealt with it. And his whole reason was “You’re getting older now.” I was 25. [Laughs] “And we’ll keep you on the team a lot longer, so in the long run you’ll make more money.” And that’s what people had to deal with. I mean, I wasn’t the only person that had dealt with that, but because you had these guys like Per Welinder whose careers were a couple of years he’s thinking, “I better do this, he’s slowing down.” Which I wasn’t. I just sort of operated the way I operated.
I sat there for about a year and a half, knowing right then and there I was going to leave Birdhouse, but I kind of let it go until the time was right. I was talking to Carter and Heath, and Heath and I were going to start our own brand, so we’re thinking about who we would do that with.
At first we were going to do it out of Watson, which was like Maple. They had approached us first and that’s what got us thinking maybe we should do this. Instead, I was at Tampa and had seen Chris Carter from Workshop there and started talking to Carter. I said, “Hey, can I get some advice?” He’s the one who offered “Why don’t you do the company with us?” Rob was getting ready to start Seek and I was like “Okay.”
So we started talking, started coming up with names, and then Rob was working more on Seek and instead of them having four brands, they were just like “Why don’t you and Heath just ride with Workshop? Kalis and Rob are going to leave the Workshop and start Seek.”
We were like, “Okay,” and it made it easier because then we didn’t have to worry about being company owners, just go on with Workshop; they have the best graphics, and so it was awesome. I’ve been there for 10 years now.
What did you think about Heath’s decision to retire?
I get it obviously because I know Heath so well. I totally get it. I think he’s Heath Kirchart. I think he deserves a pro model in perpetuity, and a shoe, just like Ed Templeton does. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what Heath has contributed to skateboarding, to have his name on a product, even if he doesn’t want to film for videos. He still skates, but if he doesn’t want to film for videos, fine. He’s Heath Kirchart, just like Pete Rose – that’s probably a bad example considering his betting in baseball. Like a lot of the baseball players or Chuck Taylor still has a shoe, or Michael Jordan still has a shoe, or a lot of baseball players still have signature gloves and bats and stuff like that. There are certain guys that deserve that forever.
That’s a big shift in skateboarding where the culture isn’t so quick to throw things in the bin.
Which they were during that massive change, they were perfectly fine with throwing Hasoi away and other people. I guess Hasoi had a couple of problems, but even still; it wasn’t until just within the last five or six years where people go “Wait a minute; these people have value to skateboarding’s history.” But in the nineties everyone was like, “Those guys are ancient; get rid of them.”
I think it’s sort of due to cashed up 35 year olds that used to skate and they relate to all that. It’s like collectable Star Wars toys and that sort of stuff that’s your youth and now you’ve got money so that’s what I want to be about.
We went to Santa Cruz the other day and we were driving down the street because we were having a meeting with them about the Berrics. We were driving down the street, me and Joel and there were two other people in the van. I was like I saw Santa Cruz at the end of the block and I didn’t think anything of it until I was a block away going, “Holy shit, we’re going to go to Santa Cruz right now!”
My heart started to flutter a bit, I got nervous, and then I went inside and saw all these graphics and line art of boards and skaters that were such a massive part of my youth, really meant a lot to me, and I think in particular Santa Cruz’s pros were so iconic. I think the pros suffered a little bit of a brunt of that change in guys like Jason Jessie and Jeff Grosso. Jeff’s kind of being taken care of but these guys were so iconic. I’d like to not see those guys be plumbers.
I remember going to Birdhouse just after the end and they had that giant wall of boards in the warehouse and it was pretty sick. Up to now there’s been the ads leaked of you in the DC Hoodie and all that stuff, is that stuff you’re allowed to talk about?
Yeah
It seems like DC is doing a bit of a revamp and what’s your involvement in that?
Kind of spearheading that revamp, I wouldn’t say spearhead; I’m there to support DC and do whatever I can to bring DC to a point where – no disrespect to any of the people that have been part of DC in the last five years or something but obviously it’s been a little different. I think those are growing pains with any company that grows so big.
The reason I wanted to go to DC is that they value skateboarding so much. They do all these other things. They have rally cars. Ken’s rally car. Talk about a guy with a golden touch. He creates DC, sells it, makes a lot of money from that, decides not to be just some bozo rich guy living in the mountains. He becomes a rally car racer and creates a whole sport almost for himself and is one of the most successful people at it. He is incredible, and just like everything Rob’s done – DC really cares about skating.
To me, there needs to be a brand of that size, that cares about skating. There are a lot of other things they do but that only helps bring more resources for skating. They are at the core of it a skateboard brand that’s become an action sports brand, but they’re a skateboard brand.
After talking to them, they treat their people on a whole other level that I didn’t think was possible. I don’t just mean monetarily, just in general how they operate and stuff. I’ve come on as a pro and also look at things and try to see where we can do better.
I did all their new commercials. I came up with that whole campaign and directed the commercials and stuff. My ex-father-in-law is doing the voice over for the commercials. I’m there to offer my visual ability to come up with ideas and be a pro. But it’s something I’ve always wanted to do and I couldn’t do that at DVS. When DC really wanted me to do that it’s an opportunity I couldn’t say no to. I’m not going to skate forever. I want to do stuff. I want to help build the brand.
It’s interesting with that Chris Cole, they had that interview, like he was talking about DC and stuff, and the history. He sort of all focused on what it was, like five to eight years ago, and it was oh that’s sick but it was like “Oh, but he didn’t talk about anything after that.”
I think that’s where DC sort of just went in a direction that because they were growing so massively things got out of their control. It’s easy for anyone to be critical of that but until you’re in that position where the growth is so massive, you don’t really know what to do or how to handle it, you don’t really know what it was like. I don’t know some of the things that they did before I was there but I know only from our experience here and how critical people, a small group of people have been of the Berrics on certain things that were only because we grew so fast.
Eric and I were sitting there juggling a million things going, “How the fuck?” And we still are. “How the fuck are we going to do this?”
With DC it’s like you’ve got Airwalk, like … You’ve got what can happen if things really go –
True, which it never did. It didn’t get to Airwalk, although Airwalk does probably as much business as DC, just at Pay Less. [Laughs]
So you’re going to keep skating as a pro for DC?
Yeah
I know you’ve sort of suffered. It’s your left ankle you’ve had a problem with?
Yeah, my left ankle.
How’s that going now?
It’s alright. Yeah. You can see the scar here and see how fat my ankle is compared to this ankle. I broke it. I had reconstructive surgery about five years ago and I broke it three times. It’s giving me problems. It’s a bit harder for me to jump down shit like I used to.
Are you skating this month?
Yeah, I skate all the time, I just try not to be on the site because I’m already on it enough and it’s already part my name, that for something like this to exist I want to make sure that it’s going to exist longer than just my pro career. I want to establish and make everyone realize this isn’t just from Eric and myself. We saw an opportunity to create a new media paradigm. There was a void in the industry and this is how we’re going to do it. We simply used our names to get people there.
What about the dots?
I’m still dealing with it. I got them on my face.
I didn’t mean to confuse you with medical terminology there.
[Laughs] I have to take this… this horrible looking stuff –
It looks like the lowest grade cocaine L.A. has on offer.
[Laughs] So I’m on a seven day liquid cleanse to get rid of whatever’s been happening with me for the last two years. I have really bad food allergies, so all this manifested because I think my body was just like “Alright, stop.” This was about as important last year, I had to get all these tests taken, all these blood tests taken and food allergy tests taken. I’ve been kind of working on getting rid of this for two years. I’m real close. I just have a little bit still left on my face.
So I’m basically doing this full – clean out your system. You have to drink all this stuff. It’s not very fun. But that’s what it was, I had really bad food allergies that sort of developed. I think a lot of it was stress, too, because since we started the Berrics, I’ve worked on it every day, anywhere from 15 and 17 hours a day. I’ve had no life whatsoever but the Berrics since we started. I filmed a bit for my Workshop part, but I broke my ankle during it. Basically my whole time has been with the Berrics.
You seem like a guy that takes a lot of things to heart.
What do you mean?
Just everything to heart.
Yes, for sure, I think everything means a lot to me. Want some? [Laughs] I don’t know if it’s the juice I’m mixing it with or if it’s the actual powder, but this is gross.
Do you still have a 540 in you?
You know what’s funny? I say to myself; before I die, I’m going to do another 540. I don’t know if you ever saw the ‘Wednesday with Reda’ where we went down to Colin’s and looked at the ramp and Collin had a Bangin’? And I looked at that ramp and I’m like “I will die 540-less.” I don’t know. I just feel like I’m a little too beat up to handle that. Collin works out every day. He’s so in shape, such a top athlete, and the same with Danny and the vert skaters. They have to really maintain. The street skaters are a little bit more careless, but at this age, having not skated vert for a long time, and seeing how big the fucking vert ramp is, I don’t know if I’ll do a 540 again. I’d like to say I would. There’s a part of me that keeps saying I started my career on a vert ramp, I’m going to end it on a vert ramp. [Laughs]
I think it was in a video for a car or something, with the girl that does the roasts. You’re talking about acting and you’re sort of just got into it because you’re in L.A. and that seemed like the thing to do.
Basically Tony said “Hey, you’ve got to look at skating not as a career but something fun.” What he’d said before, Tony was this massive icon and then wasn’t, and then became – he’s like Travolta who was a massive icon, who skipped a decade and then became a leading – more massive icon.
Travolta, that’s a good one.
I was like “Shit, what should I do? I really have no talents. I had a 1.2 grade point average in high school; I’m not getting in any colleges. I don’t have any money. My family’s poor. Well, I could probably act. Let’s do that. I’ll get some commercials, make some money.” Then I started going to acting class and then I had an acting teacher who’s really passionate about acting obviously, and then I realized – I was like “How can I do something that’s work but not work, like free money?” Then I got everything I do, if I do it I want to be professional. That’s why I don’t do but a couple of takes.
Because you take everything to heart.
That’s right [Laughs], I don’t dabble. And that’s why I really only have three facets to my personality [Laughs]. I really got heavily into acting and then thought about it literally as much as I thought about skating, and understood acting really well, and then started working. And then didn’t really like working.
I hate being the guy that’s like always being told what to do, or can’t make the decision. I think that was always my problem with acting. You’re just a little pawn in the game. The producers in TV the writers are king, and movies it’s the director.
Skateboarding gives you a certain viewpoint of the world. All the stuff in acting was so cheese ball to me, and I didn’t want to be a guy on a TV show. I wanted to create the kinds of movies that I loved. Whether I could or not wasn’t the question but at least I wanted to try.
At the same time I hung up acting I was getting my first pro shoe Adio, and I was like do I want to be a pro athlete or an actor? I decided I wanted to skate. That was when Jason Lee was really cracking too. I just wanted to go a different route.
I started writing and realized I really want to be a filmmaker more than anything. I wrote some scripts and started developing a reputation around town for writing. I met with every studio you could think of an every producer around town and was still – always my skating sort of viewpoint – they’re like “We read your scripts, are you looking for a job? We have this idea,” or whatever. That’s generally how it works.
Not that these people were bad or anything but I took one rewrite job where I rewrote a horror film and they had to agree they couldn’t use my name. They paid me a bunch of money and enabled me to get to buy the building where the Berrics is at. This was about 2005.
Are you allowed to say what film it was?
They never made it. They paid me a shit load of money and they ended up scrapping the movie, which happens a lot. I was rewriting a big writer’s script, so I had this heat as a writer and I took that one job. It killed me. I hated it. I sat in these meetings and I didn’t like the producer. He had bad ideas. I’m just thinking, “Oh my God, if this movie had my name on it.”
I remember going to the bathroom and looking at myself in the mirror in the middle of one of the meetings and going “What am I doing? What am I doing? Why am I here?” I was so “This sucks. If some skater could see me now.”
Not to be a snob because I certainly don’t think I’m the best at it in the world but I work really hard and I know my capabilities. I was offered a job to write this movie at Warner Bros and the producer kept asking – I know everyone on the lot, and so many people are like “He won’t take a job. Why?” I said “I skate. I’ve been filming for a video, and I have another movie I want to do that I have a cast for and want to raise the money for it.” He ended up reading it, and got this other producer involved, and they raised five million dollars for me to make it. I made that movie and it went to Sundance.
Is that the one with Zooey?
Zooey Deschanel, and Mark Webber, and Bill Paxton. Bill Paxton had been a big supporter of mine because he’d read a script that I wrote. He read this other script that I made and that’s why he came on board as Executive Producer and helped me get Harry Dean Stanton to be in the movie, who plays this old man with Alzheimer’s.
Is that MacGyver?
No, that’s Richard Dean Anderson. Harry Dean Stanton is from Repo Man. He’s been in a billion movies; Sixteen Candles, and he’s awesome. He was great in my movie. But then Sundance went real sour with the producers and kind of blew every distribution deal.
One more on the film side, of course it’s very well known you had quite a famous ex-wife. How was that being a pro skater, being quasi-famous, you’d go to a demo, autograph, autograph, and then being married to someone –
That’s much more famous?
Wherever you went. Not at a skate demo, not at the occasional – how was that –
It makes you realize you don’t want to be – skate fame is good enough. Anyone who aspires to be famous I think is a little bit off, although there are a lot of perks to being famous. People treat you a lot differently, but I would never want that kind of fame in the regular world. I like kind of having our own kind of secret world.
It does become – it was like how successful Rob Dyrdek has become? When you go out with him it sucks. You really have to hang out with him in the confines of either the Fantasy Factory or here at the Berrics or at each other’s houses. It’s annoying, especially what he’s known for is being very outgoing and charismatic. People think they can just come up to him and he’s going to be the same way he is on his show.
That kind of fame is – Juliette, people were a bit more scared of Juliette because she has always played intense characters. She’s not as approachable because she’s a very strong woman, so it wasn’t quite so bad. I’d say Rob has it much worse than Juliette.
She’s got the image of if you really like her you’d go, “She doesn’t really want people….”
Exactly, a lot of people were very intimidated to come up to her. Then you’d get your kooky people that would come up to her and go, “You look familiar. Where have I seen you?” And they full well know where they’ve seen here. She’s like “I’m an actress,” and it would always bug the shit out of me so I’d be rude to people like that, where she’d be very nice. I’d list off her credits and say “Come on, let’s go.”
It never affected you ego?
No, not at all.
Like the lead singer of the band and the drummer is off to the side. That never –
No way, I mean we split up but we talk four or five times a week. She’s my closest person to me on the planet. I know her really well, and the other way around.
How’d you become skateboarding’s Mark Zuckerberg?
[Laughs] After Sundance I had such a bad time there, and I realized I didn’t want to live in the film world in the way a lot of people live in it. I had an opportunity that no one in the film world had, which was this whole other career where millions of kids knew me. There was this void in skate media. There’s a guy – I started Berrics for a lot of reasons…
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As mentioned above, this is just part one of the four parts to the interview. Come back next Monday (July 4th) for part three!
