The Berrics - Clinical Research

Where are you from and briefly explain the journey to the Bay area?

I was born in Laurel, Maryland and moved to Berkeley early on. I grew up skating in Berkeley. Later I was living in West Oakland and pretty much commuting in this beat up Honda to SF so I could skate with TG (Tommy Guerrero), Julien and the crew every day. It got to be a haul so I moved to SF so I could be closer to the crew. Stayed there for about 5 years. Skating every day. It was an amazing time. Just waking up and pushing the day away with the best dudes ever. A few years later as Deluxe was starting up I would go in real early, like 7am, do half a day there doing whatever needed to be done, then hit the streets. In like 94 or 95 I wanted to get a ramp going. We didn't have one in the city anymore so I moved back to Oakland into a place that had a yard and the ramp adventure started. It was another amazing block of time. I've been back in Berkeley / Oakland ever since. I don't think I'll ever leave. All I ever wanted to be was an East Bay Skate Punk. Being the oldest guy at Gilman shows sucks and struggling at the new Berkeley ledge park is real hard on my self-esteem, but it could be a whole lot worse.

Powell? I want to hear about it. How were the video shoots? How were the tours? Who were your friends when you toured? How did you get on Powell? Then what happened?

This one could go one forever and I know it could get real boring, real quick.

For me Powell was Lance Mountain, Stevie, TG. They were the fucking stars I used to read about every day. I really wanted to be a part of it and somehow TG fooled 'em into putting me on the team. I quit school, my dad wrote me off and I jumped in head first. Looking back on it being in the van with those guys is totally surreal. They were all about a million times better than me and I was always waiting for a call from George, "Jim, we figured it out, you suck." I figured I could secure my position on the team by doing any demo, take any tour anywhere for however long, any summer camp, whatever it was, just do it. Be the first guy there and the last guy to leave, Lord knows as soon as Tommy or the the other dudes hit the ground they blew doors on anything I was doing. Lance was and remains one of my all time top 5's and traveling with him was the highlight for me. All the other stuff sort of pales to being able to say I toured with Lance Mountain.

Filming stuff as far as I was concerned was crazy. They would call and be like, "We'll be filming you monday and tuesday, be ready." Totally different than now. I think every bit of footage I have in any Powell video was filmed in about 3 days. I never saw it until the premier, was never asked what I thought about how it should look, etc. Stacey was sort of hands off when I was coming in and it just seemed really weird.

My end at Powell came about when they wanted to do my board. I had very, very little say in it. They brought me down one time and showed me a board with some snakes and my name on it. It was a real bummer. I was pretty much devastated. All the work and miles and stuff, and my first deck was just like, "Barf... Here it is." It had nothing to do with me and worse, it really didn't 'say' anything. To this day, I still believe first boards are like monumental things, graduation day, wedding day, birth of a child, getting your first deck, they are huge deals. Tattoo that shit forever. I tried speaking directly to George and he sort of gave me this "thats the way it is" attitude. It fully crushed me. I knew i had to leave before the deck came out.

Our crew was real tight so everyone sort of knew what was going on. Basically, I was having a bit of a nervous breakdown trying to figure out what to do and one night Natas just called and was like, "What the hell are you doing? Lets do this." It was one of the coolest things ever. He basically threw me a life raft and opened a door into one of the most memorable times of my life. Riding with him, Julien, Mic, it was fucking nuts. When we planned tours, worked on graphics and stuff, it just felt fucking amazing. It was like we were directing our shit. I think it really defined for me the way a company should be done. SMA was tight as fuck and Natas was a fucking champ. First person to ever play me Public Enemy, that's how deep he was.

p.s. - Carnie, I never saw the Bones Brigade gay off, but TG and I did cuddle a few times. Does that count?

Tell me about REAL/DLX. How'd it start? Who started it? What is it? You know, all that stuff.

REAL started out of necessity. If we didn't do it ourselves we were fucked. DLX itself was already going, but on a different level. They were distributing Thunder trucks and punk records. I was working half a day selling trucks to shops. Fausto had just put our friend Jeff in there and Spitfire had just done its first half-page ad. For years when TG and I were on tour we always talked about starting a gig and running it the way we thought it should be run, but it just seemed so impossible at the time because skateboarding was dominated by these mammoth companies and run by people who were sort of outside skating even though they were in it. It's almost impossible to describe it because it's so much different now. It's the way it should be now. Anyone can start something, get their message out to the entire world and make a go of it.

REAL started when TG quit Powell. He could have ridden that out securely for who knows how long, but when he stepped out and over, it became REAL. I credit him as really making it REAL. Fausto and Eric put up the capital that neither TG and I had and instead of just helping start REAL, they offered us a small piece of the whole Deluxe if we would help run all of it. It was all done over a bowl of pasta at a small restaurant in North Beach. As time went on more of the crew hooked up, Mic stopped being a cop and started being the law, Julien came on and it was non stop. We all began to figure out how to do stuff.

In skating I sort of think DLX is defined by itself. Sort of like how Band AID or Crayons are. They define themselves with just their name. You know a Band-Aid is a band-aid right? Deluxe is like.... well, Deluxe is fucking Deluxe. It's the thing in skateboarding you can count on to always stand out in one way or the other. Good or bad. The emo side of me wants to define it as the vehicle for us to do what we love and hopefully inspire others through our actions and our products, but Julien would have a field day with that one so screw it. Deluxe is Deluxe.

Who runs the whole shooting match?

First and foremost Deluxe is still directed by the riders. We make, do and find inspiration from those who skate and are a part of the collective gig in any way. Julien and The Anti-Hero guys run their shit. Mark does his thing (Krooked) and TG makes sure it all comes together. The internal parts of Deluxe are run in a sense by everyone. The Art director, Mike, runs the art dept. Shannon runs Purchasing. Mic, Darin and John run the team. Paul does product development. Bill and the crew make sure the stuff gets in and out correct. The sales dept spreads the word. Kirk makes sure the i's are dotted. Eric keeps us on track. I sit in a dark room and just try to make more good decisions than bad ones every day.