Do Skateboarding Wrong: The Tank Interview
meet the skater splitting atoms out in ABQ
There is a long, proud history of skaters who approach the whole thing with a completely different style/perspective — think your Simon Woodstocks, your Gou Miyagis; your Ragdolls and Boulalas and Blonde Mohawks and the island of Japan. This is, after all, supposed to be the point, right?, the spirit of the fucking thing. We’re told skating is about creativity and individuality, almost more like a constellation than a community, different stars in on one vast picture.
And while there is a large contingent out there who appreciate the skating shambles – love you thank you, Cat – which fray the edges and add flair like Celines at the Super Bowl, there are also on-deck dogmatics out there, adherents to a Code of What Counts straight from the Church of Scientology who cannot watch a video part without tallying, THPS-style, what the skating is ‘worth.’
And there’s nothing wrong with that! You can’t preach ipseity and deny anyone their own, after all; but there’s a distinct difference between you going after a manual again and again because an imperceptible toe touch that you just can’t stand, and someone else breaking down a part like Ed Hochuli under the hood with the intention to hate.
Skaters like Tank are the exact antithesis of this attitude. Channeling the legacy of a long line of — and this is meant lovingly, here — fucking weird ones, he skates like no one else I’ve ever seen, something only decades on the scene could have caused to spring forth, Athena from a Snot hat. He pops, flips, grabs, steps, bouncing along like a ball in a punk song singalong, no surface safe and no obstacle too pedestrian to plant a big board like a tombstone for the ‘proper;’ curbs and sidewalks and parking blocks become trampolines, decks become ramps, hamburgers eat people ... he does, to paraphrase Tank himself, skating ‘wrong’ which is of course exactly what makes it so goddamn right, because creation is the point, and too often we forget that.
So it’s little surprise that Dr. Tank is, to me, at the forefront of The Fun Movement, where shapes and styles and communities bloom like narcissuses from the blood of the jock-aughts age. His appearance in the Blockhead video’s friends section — first trick, no less! — right there next to some serious shredders and putting his own spin on a legendary ABQ spot is pretty much what I’m trying to say in a moment.
[editor’s note: this interview has been edited for length (for real, bb, it was like 14.7k words originally) and clarity.]
only thing getting smoked out here is the rule book
4ts: Alright, the first place that I had to start: the opening trick for the Blockhead Buddies section. I didn't know you were going to be in there, that was super cool to see! And like, how did that come around?
Tank: Yeah, that was kind of a surprise to me too. I knew there was going to be a trick in there because they asked me to film one. I actually filmed that with this guy Dan O'Sullivan, who is old friends with Laban [editor’s note: Laban Pheidias, legend and director] and I think worked in production company with Laban, but he's an Albuquerque local now.
I guess the long story short is, I connected with Chris Lambert ages ago, just on Instagram. I don't even remember why, but we just became friends, which is kind of crazy just being an old 90s kid and being like, oh, there's Chris Lambert — let me follow this guy. And I connected with him for a while. We had exchanged some snail mail, some stickers, and things like that. He had said ‘hey, you got to meet my friend Dan who lives in Albuquerque now,’ and I had kind of just randomly texted him a few times.
My wife was actually out of town this summer, and I randomly just finally reached out to this guy Dan — who is one of my best friends now — after about six months. But I finally reached out to him like, ‘hey, you want to actually get some coffee and go skate a curb on Sunday?’ And he's like, ‘yeah ... I was supposed to reach out two weeks ago, the Blockhead guys are coming out to Albuquerque for 10 days and they want to make sure that we hook up with you.’
It was just kismet. It was just perfect. Anyways, Lambert and Laban both came out to Albuquerque. They had like two full weekends and a Monday just to film old school style. Like Dave Berthold sent them out. They had a couple of things; they had to get an ender, I think a beginning and an ender for Lambert, which was pretty cool. [I’ve been] around some filming stuff before but nothing to that nature, especially with Laban — he's a filmmaker, you know? He knows what he's doing.
It just happened to be, my wife was out of the country, she was visiting her family for the entire time. I literally had nothing going on so I started talking to those guys. Anyway, they came out and it was just like skate rat style, just nonstop. Those guys are — especially Lambert — just nonstop, just killing themselves every day.
They left, and the next weekend me and Dan went out and got that trick and I kind of knew it would be in there. But I was pretty surprised that Laban put that in there first, especially since there are some pretty heavy hitters. You really want to start with me? You know I'm an idiot, right?
alt angle of the buddies trick at concussion ditch // dan o’sullivan behind the lens
So the ditch where you guys got your trick at, that's a New Mexico spot.
That's a New Mexico spot. That's actually a super famous spot if you are a skate nerd … everybody here calls it Concussion Ditch, but in that spot it's kind of like a pyramid. There's been a ton of stuff from that … Jason Adams, I think he did a Miller flip over that, like right where I'm standing on that weird thing. [editor’s note: Tank followed up by telling me that the Kid’s also got a cover there — in Concussion Magazine, natch — doing a front rock]
You mentioned to me being a ‘decades long skate nerd,’ so it must have been pretty cool to have this confluence of legendary pros, a well-known OG company at a spot that's been used by so many folks … were you thinking about that at the time, or like has it crossed your mind now how that sort of all came together?
I just almost can't even believe it to some degree.
The other part of that too was just the reaction to it, because I didn't actually see the bit, they premiered it a bunch before I saw it. So for one, I didn't know if my clip would even be in there. And for two, for like a month, people keep texting me like ‘I went to the video last night in Portland!’ and I was like, cool, film it next time, like bootleg it [laughs].
That part was cool, like the community was rad and then the video itself just amazing, but you know, the heaviness of some of the people in that Blockhead buddy section — I’m definitely not in the league of 99% of those people. Helping Lambert with his opening trick, that was pretty fun too.
ditch rides: a desert tradition // suzy q behind the lens
I've been working on this theory that a lot of those video parts that we consider timeless have those ‘violation’ tricks in them already. Where does the hate for these ‘weird’ or unusual tricks come from, when they’ve been there since the beginning?
People will just talk so much shit, you know, like, ‘oh, this trick isn't valid or how dare you do this?’ If you're that worried as a skateboarder, you probably just suck. You probably just are miserable and maybe you're famous or not, I don't know. You get these people that are all hardcore about it.
Pressure flips are the main one. That one for me was a sore spot because I was not a natural at skateboarding, so it took me a while to learn to properly kickflip as a kid but I learned how to pressure flip first. And then all of a sudden, everybody was like, ‘that's not cool. You can't do that.’ And I was like, fuck, man. That's the only thing I can do. I can't do that? I didn't know it was that big of a deal.
But also I feel like there’s less general hating now than there was when I was a kid. Like when I started was right in that Tony Hawk Pro Skater boom and I feel like there was almost a jockey-er mentality to it; people were really policing a lot of stuff.
The reason is because things were gatekept — like it wasn't accessible. I thought it was funny when, it was probably around the time that Instagram got big and the shape boards came back, you know, and it was like the Movement. And it was like oh, there's a Fun Movement in skateboarding.
How fucking stupid was skateboarding before that, that there had to be a Fun Movement, you know? Everything had to be so regulated, you know?
It's a real sports mentality. People who don’t skate will ask me, ‘oh, who's the best skater?’ And I'll be like, I think of it more like music. Like there is no ‘best,’ right? People just do different. There's a guy who's like the world's most amazing technical rapper and there's a band that can only play three chords, and both can be cool.
It definitely was like, I don't know, overly jockey and just genuinely misogynistic and homophobic really too. Just like, you gotta be this tough guy, you know? Like ‘don't be a bitch’ and all this stuff. I think there was a lot of that. I think that there's still so much resentment of fragile, fragile men. You definitely see it in comments and stuff, like ‘how dare this girl get sponsored’ and ‘why does this have more views than me?,’ which the answer is quick — cause you suck.
Lots of times they're probably dope [at skating], but you suck. For some reason that is just exuded in your stuff. Maybe you're the best guy ever, and you just can't get any play, you know, ‘nobody will watch my stuff.’
Like if you wanna be pro, pro isn't some mythical thing; you're pro because somebody's gonna sell some shit you're advertising.
a real ramp deck
Yeah, because you're cool.
It's about being inspiring to other people and like, ‘this is rad.’ I mean, the best example is your shirt, man [editor’s note: I was wearing a There crewneck]. The coolest thing ever, the most punk rock think ever was Antihero basically becoming partner companies with There. Of course, it's not gonna shut everybody up, but it should. ‘Why should I care about this?’ Well, the fucking Antihero dudes do, the real dudes do. They're down. There's your answer.
It's sad to think of it, but when I saw that first Chandler Burton part (Castle Freak), I was like, hey, fucking ripper! awesome!, but I had to think to myself too, like, I'm glad that he rides with these folks because it might shut some of the people on Instagram or whatever up, right? How sad is that, that you can't just enjoy him being fucking sick?
Like it's like progress, but not progress. I don't know.
Well, yeah, that's the most annoying thing because skateboarding as a culture gets to take credit for a lot, you know, like fashion and shoes and music, but I think it gets super pretentious and takes credit for way too much sometimes … I do think there there is at least some sort of loosening going on.
I think it's definitely because of things like Instagram where people can find each other. And people can find a lot of hate but you can find a lot of support too right?
The Fun Movement, man. It's good.
first flip from the parking block to pop up — he earned this one
That's a great way to segue into the heart of this thing, which is just this totally unique kind of skating that you've been doing, especially on the Instagram. And I'm just curious where that idea came from.
I don't know! I mean I think part of it is just having skateboarded for like 30 something years, I’ve been through my little kickflip phase and my like ‘I'm gonna skate this ledge all day’ phase and my like ‘gonna skate a mini ramp all day’ phase, all these things. Part of it's just I don't wanna do the same shit over and over again. I wanna do something different, you know? To keep it fun.
But then the other part too was just being — I think the origin of it was just me and my brother wanting to have fun dorking around and living in the mountains of Colorado … just living in total ski bum towns and snowboarding like 100 days a year, you know, but we're also just total skate rats at the same time so like half of the winter was like or half of the year, all we have available is this one little [spot].
And then the pandemic. I've never not had a skateboard for like 30 years, always been skateboarding. But the pandemic was like ‘oh, I've got my back patio. Yeah, that's all I got.’ New Mexico was way more shut down than other places too. We kept our bubble small because [my wife] was taking care of a hundred year old man, a hundred plus year old. So we were trying to keep things chill. I was purposely skating by myself a lot … I was like, ‘well, I guess I'll film this stupid thing and see what happens.’ And then people actually liked it, which to me … to some degree, I'm almost fucking with people. ‘I'm gonna do the dumbest thing I could possibly do,’ you know, and then I'll put it out there. And people are like, ‘this is amazing.’
And I'm just laughing. ‘Come on, man! That was like so fucking stupid.’
step by step
I mean, I'm loving every minute of it.
And then maybe just the positivity. I've filtered and blocked everything [on Insta] … if I don't like anything remotely, I just block it. I looked on my thing the other day; I have like 2000 blocked accounts. So I definitely live in that vacuum there of positivity, which has been pretty fun. Like people sending me postcards, whatever, you know? That part's been pretty fun, to have some interaction with people and to progress my own ridiculousness, I guess.
Would you say the initial reaction, like was it kinda 50/50? You mentioned getting some maybe surprising love out of it but you also mentioned having to deal with the other side of it too. I'm curious what the sort of ratio was.
I definitely still get some trolling, and I definitely want to put it in perspective. I'm a very white privileged guy, you know, white male, alpha, big fucking dude. But, you know, trolling sucks. It still sucks to be trolled. When it first blew up, I got trolled a lot. Like ‘you're fat, you're stupid, you can't do this, you can't do that.’
It's not like you're obligated to host a bunch of negativity on whatever you wanna do, right? Like it's your channel, it's your thing.
Yeah, totally. It's such a weird … I definitely have my own opinions about everything that are probably pretty strong, but I just don't have that mentality. I just don't understand why you would even open a little bubble to write some shit talking on a comment section. I just don't get that part of it.
Yeah, do it with your friends IRL, which is far more fun, right? All get together, get some social interaction out of it.
Yeah, but all in all it is super positive. And I don't know if maybe I just blocked enough stuff, but honestly, we haven't gotten much [hate] in a while, like in a year or two, there hasn't been like even minimal stuff, you know?
miyagi x swank x brittain; who are your inspirations?
I'm curious, what kind of love do you get, what are people excited about? What made me into [ your skating] was that it was obvious that you were kinda like fucking around when you started and that you're having a lot of fun with doing it. And that's what attracted me.
Do you get folks who are like, ‘I'm a big dude too and it's cool to see someone like me doing something,’ or ‘I always wanted to skate like weird stuff and you're being weird with me’? Like I'm curious sort of what people say, the good stuff people say.
I get that all the time and honestly, I still don't even know how to quite feel about it. Just being sort of self-defeating, like, ‘are you kidding me? Do you know how stupid I am?’ But I love it. You know, it's sort of like liking weird music or something. Like being into Frank Zappa — that this is some weird ass shit. So when somebody else is into it … but that part is pretty overwhelming. And I actually have laughed with some people.
Sometimes it's genuinely rad. People text me daily, I get messages every fucking day of like, ‘man, this is so cool. You're so inspiring to me. Teach me how to do this stuff.’ Some of it's pretty fun.
Some of it is like ‘I suck at skateboarding, thank you for teaching me that I can suck at it,’ or they're like, ‘man, I'm so fat and out of shape, thanks for teaching me that I can do this’. So I'm like, damn dude, like I'm a big dude, but like I try to feel in shape, I'm doing my thing here! [laughs]
But yeah, I mean, it's amazing, man. The positivity is just real. That's cool.
Do you love the sound your tricks make in the office carpark?
Yes, the sound at the covered parking is amazing. It's actually a bridge, so the ceiling is super high and crazy.
sounds good, right?
The Tim Olson (aka Bail Gun Gary) and Tony Hawk story: what happened there?
That one was pretty rad, and also I had to do a lot of apologizing to people that I knew.
I just know Tim through the internet, you know, he's just fucking cool. At one point he was working for Tony as his personal photographer. He was like, ‘hey, me and Tony are going to be out there [in NM].’ It was actually Easter Sunday of 2023, I believe. He was like, we're going to be out there for two days. They were doing this skate park opening out on the Navajo Nation. But they're gonna come out a day early and go skate.
Me and Tim hadn't met in real life yet. And he was like, ‘we gotta skate, Tony's fucking down. Let's go bomb Indian School’ and all this. And Tim wrote me, you can't tell anyone. He's like you tell one person and it's off, you know? And I was like, oh shit, okay, I won't tell anyone. And it was three months of this secret that he was coming out.
They came out and it was Easter Sunday and I actually pulled up and Kevin Staab was in the car with them too, which was crazy! Kevin Staab's head’s out the window. [editor’s note: they were also joined by Joe ‘Camera Jesus’ Gall, ripper and Hawk photog]
I was like, holy shit. I get why they couldn't tell. I had to apologize to friends because a couple of days later all these clips are coming out and they're like, ‘what the? you had Tony fucking Hawk up here?’ And I'm like, dude, we couldn't go anywhere! We go into Starbucks, and the Starbucks pretty much closes the front door, and they're like, ‘anything you want is all free for Tony Hawk’, you know, and he's just trying to be normal like ‘I'll pay for my coffee.’ We go to CVS and it's like ‘Tony Hawk is in the building. Tony Hawk is in the building.’
Everywhere we went.
He was even telling me these stories — and I don't think it's a secret because he's written about it before — but there's people that have hacked the FAA and track where Tony Hawk is flying so that they can try to go get a free board from him or something … that’s fucked up.
Yeah, I would never want to be that kind of like Taylor Swift famous. No thank you.
I'm curious: what's the hardest part when you're working on these tricks? I always thought catching the tail so that you landed in the right place on the curb without your wheels going or whatever would be really tricky. Is that one of the hardest parts when you're trying to do a thing? Or what's trickier than people might think?
I don't know if that's the hardest part, but that's definitely the ‘most likely to eat shit on a very stupid little thing’ part. I have a couple of pretty good slow motion slams … it looks like the Looney Tunes or something. Probably just the patience of it all.
My hands will get fucked up sometimes. I kick the board up and like jam it in your hand, you know, then I'm sitting at work and I'm like, ‘oh, what did I do?’
That's what I call the grip tape manicure. It'll come up and instead of you catching it, you're like, ah, cool. Thanks.
I was actually trying to fuck around with these Qwick Truks this guy sent me, and I was trying to set one on top of the board and flip it up into my hand or something, and first or second try I flip it and it hit me in the face.
I was going to ask if you've ever been wanged by a board, popping it up off the curb or trying to catch it or whatever?
Oh for sure, all the time man.
You got the big boards too.
Definitely – totally big old boards. I've sacked myself with them multiple times. There's definitely been some pretty stupid situations too. There's definitely been times in a [skatepark] parking lot, I’ll kick the board like straight into my nuts or something dumb and some person's standing there like, ‘what are you doing??’
That's the hardest part, maybe. [laughs]
The best is actually putting a board on my head, doing the Gou Miyagi. People have straight-up asked me if I'm okay.
let’s gou (sry)
Do you ever try to name these tricks? I'm curious if there's a naming convention, if so. IMO, if you're wondering wtf a trick is even called, you're doing something right.
No names for any tricks. Hand flip? But even then the board is already flipping and I just guide it back down. I'm open to suggestions, but then again, I don't know if they really need a name.
If someone wants to add some Tank-style moves to their arsenal, what would you recommend to get started? Just find a curb and start fucking around?
Yeah, definitely. And take a decade off, not ollieing for a while. I wasn't like anti-ollie by any means, but I needed something new in skateboarding. I don't know if I have any advice; just try, just fuck around. And sometimes people have asked me before, and I'm like, ‘I don't know, man. Like, waste a decade of your life. Waste 10 years of your life not doing normal skateboarding.’ [laughs]
Which fictional skaters do you think rips hardest?
Bart Simpson! Easy answer.
Not everyone can tail press the surface of a fountain like Bart! [editor’s note: perhaps T-Pud’s inspiration?]
Have any (real) folks we should check out who take a different approach to skating like you? Those souls who aren’t worried about ‘violations’ or is it worth points in Tony Hawk? Skaters that you would recommend for folks to check out if they wanna keep getting stoked that way?
No problem:
– My brother Zach (aka Zeek Da Geek)
– Gou Miyagi, Dal The Handsome, and Chopper (all the way!)
– Tim Olson
– Abe Dubin (aka Orange Man), Milksnake (aka Justis Walton) and all the Fancy Lad guys
– Liam O'Connor (aka Liamboob)
– Ben Koppl (aka Rollersurfer)
– Scott Stevens (aka Sleepystevens), he's pretty much the Deawon Song of profession snowboarding
And there's so many more that I can't think of right now ... I hate that I can't remember.
Are there any people that you wanted to shout out, thank, get out there?
I need to thank KOLOSS Skateboards in Germany for sending me boards, bearings, beer and gear for the last couple of years. Tim and Fos for sending me a big-ass Snot Wheels package, and just Tim in general for being such a rad friend and inspiration. Paul at Give Praise Records and Skateboards for sending me grip tape and music. Jason at Quik Truks for the hook up. All the Blockhead dudes, Dan O, Chris Lambert, Laban and Blockhead Dave.
Old Man Lou in Albuquerque for being the driving force of skating. Noah at Kingswell Nob Hill (formerly of Filter Skate Shop) for making ABQ feel like my home from day one. I will always support whatever Noah is selling.
All the NM and Colorado homies, including my ridiculous brother Zeek and the fine folks at Skate Ratz in Loveland, CO.
And of course, most importantly, my wonderful wife Suzy Q, who puts up with my brand of bullshit everyday and somehow still loves me.
conceptualized for bail gun gary; shown now for you
