BEN SCHROEDER

INTERVIEW BY JIM MURPHY

INTRODUCTION BY LANCE MOUNTAIN

PHOTOS BY CHICKEN

“They don’t make ’em like they used to...” In fact, no one was ever like Ben Schroeder or ever will be. Ben is a mixture unlike any other, with the intelligence to be a bio chemist and the abandoned carelessness to start the third world war just to see the outcome. The mixture is perfect to be the best skateboarder of his time, while aspects of his riding ability still baffle even the most elite skaters of today. There was a time when Ben, as a young skater, seemed to be very skilled at doing all the tricks you needed to do as a top amateur. Then there were days it seemed as if he had not ever stood on a board before in his life. A few hours or days working on something that looked as if he’d not learned to do an axel stall, turned into a blazing 50/50 to fakie that had never been dreamed. Everyone else would soon come to learn it, 50/50 along, then slide your wheels over the coping to a safe four-wheel drift down the wall. What Ben had done slowly got left behind. He started off in an uncontrolled speed burst that could knock unconscious three standing skaters if they were unaware, smashed into the loudest, longest 50/50 ever seen, then he would lift up in the midst of it to a 5-0, and then proceed to stand it up and off the back wheels and see where he ended up. Most of the time, it was the cleanest, prettiest thing that could ever happen, and sometimes it went bad and either the ramp, the spectators or he paid the price. If you were far enough away, you could enjoy it, and know you saw something that couldn’t be witnessed anywhere but in Ben’s skating. Ben had more tricks and ways of doing tricks differently, setting him above what skateboarding of that day had become, stagnant and commonplace. He skated with so much power that ramps broke and layers of masonite were ripped off by his trucks hanging up on the edge, and at the same time, he had such effortless style. He was the one that brought lip tricks to the highest level, winning the only contest held where you did not touch your board. This was all part of the big change in skateboarding where foot control started the new era. Ben began this style on vertical and mini ramps at a time when street skating did the same. Ben had a hard time understanding why everything he had perfected - speed, power and control - was dying off and slowing down for the technical future to come in. (Skaters had white shirts without a spot of blood on them.) Ben was far ahead of his time, as street skating has gotten gnarly and powerful. Ben’s style, the rawest mix of beauty and disaster, has been crafted over time into something that had not been before and will not ever be again. – LANCE MOUNTAIN

Name, rank and serial number?
Ben Schroeder. General of the Gullwing army.

Whoa. You’re a five star general?
Yeah, I’m a five star general, but it seems as if the Gullwing army has dispersed. I’m a general without an army.

[Laughs] Where were you born?
I was born in Hollywood, California in 1969.

When did you start skating?
I started rolling on a skateboard when I was four years old. I didn’t start skating parks until I was nine years old.

Were you skating the ‘70s concrete parks?
No, I went to Wild Wheels Skatepark with my older brother. He used to go skate there.

Where was that?
That was in Azusa, California.

Which brother were you skating with?
My brother, Alec. I have three older brothers.

What are their names?
Nick, Ted and Alec. Alec skated the parks and my other brothers skated down the hills. They used to bomb hills on their little skinny metal boards they made at my dad’s machine shop. They’d follow each other in their ‘70s vans and watch the speedometers to see who went fastest. We would bomb that hill from halfway up when I was five years old.

Did you take some good slams?
Yeah. I got speed wobbles and went down on my face on my first try going from the top. An old lady was driving down the hill and she kept honking her horn at me until I crawled over into the gutter to get out of her way.

After that, were you bummed or stoked?
I walked up the hill with half of my face scraped off, thinking, “This is for me.”

Alec would take you to skateparks?
Yeah. He’d take me and my two little brothers. I have twin younger brothers, Matthew and Nathan. We’d go to the park with the folks and Alec would skate the skatepark while we played miniature golf next door. Then I got to ride the park.

Had you seen any skate magazines at that point?
My brother had all the skate magazines. I remember looking at them and seeing the wheels and trucks. I remember the ACS trucks, the Bennett trucks, the Kryptonics and UFO wheels. I didn’t really get into looking at who was who.

What were you doing in the ‘80s?
My brother quit skating and he started BMXing, so we started BMXing, too. Then we started playing soccer.

Were you big back then?
Yeah, I guess. I was center forward. I used to head the ball into the goal from corner kicks. I could get it up way over everyone else.

What got you back into skateboarding?
We used to ride our boards to school in junior high school. That’s when we found out about the Pipeline Skatepark at Upland. Then we started going up there.

Is that when the Alba brothers and Chris Miller were skating it?
Yeah. Chris Miller owns the combi.

What was it like to see those guys ride the combi?
My mom would drive us there every Saturday. One day, we showed up and there was a contest. That was my introduction to seeing pros skate. Christian Hosoi was doing Miller flips in the square. It looked like a back flip. I was blown away. Neil Blender was stalling Andrechts for four seconds in the round. That really turned me on to skateboarding.

Is that when you started riding the combi?
Yeah. I finally got the nerve to ride the combi. I started out riding the back bowls. I was scared to roll into the combi.

What was it like the first time you rolled into the combi?
It was intimidating. We were riding with guys that really knew how to ride. You had to call which bowl you were going into.

Why’d you have to do that?
Because everyone was trying to snake. Why let someone own the whole pool if they were going to stay in the square?

Right. So you were an Upland local?
Yep, I’ve got the scars to prove it. I dislocated my shoulder doing a backside corner air there when I was 14 years old.

Was that before or after Chris Miller locked up doing that?
I don’t know. It was the same corner, same trick, but mine was only a foot high. I almost locked up, but I pulled it. Then when I got to the tight tranny at the bottom, my board whipped out. I fell and hit my elbow. I fell with such force that it broke my collarbone, my humerous, and dislocated my shoulder. They carried me out on a stretcher and drove me to the hospital in the back of a truck. One of the Pipeline employees drove me there because my parents weren’t due to pick us up till 10pm, when the park closed.

What did your parents say when they saw you in the emergency room?
I don’t remember.

Did they try to make you stop skating?
No. They were always cool about it. They never tried to tell me not to do it.

How long did that injury take you out for?
That one took me out for six months.

Did you travel at all beyond the combi?
The only skateparks left, at that time, were Del Mar and Upland Pipeline. My brother and I built a half pipe in our backyard. It was 11-feet wide and 8-feet tall. That’s where we started learning tricks.

When was that?
This was ‘83. Lance Mountain came over in ‘84 and put us on “Ramp Locals” for our ramp. It was one of the only vert ramps around at that time.

Did you guys know how to build tranny?
When we first started building halfpipes we used 2’ x 4’s for templates. We’d made each 2’ x 4’ get a little steeper, but that made it kinked and not round. When we heard about the Eagle Rock ramp, we went to see how it was put together with templates. Then we came back and rebuilt our ramp.

Who were the ramp locals?
It was my friend Aaron Rettich and Alec’s friend Hank AKA “Mr. ‘70s”. It was my brothers and me and the local kids. Spidey, Lance, Grosso and Nash would come over every once in a while.

Did you think the parks would ever come back?
We still had Upland. Upland wasn’t bulldozed till ‘89. I was just having fun skating.

Were you sponsored then?
No. I didn’t get sponsored until ‘87 when I won an amateur contest out in Phoenix.

Was that a vert contest in Phoenix?
Yeah. We’d drive five hours out there for those contests. I went with my brothers in the “hell van”. I won the contest, and the team captain of Gullwing picked me up.

Who were the locals in the Arizona area?
My competition in 3A unsponsored was Chris Livingston and Orlando Baker. I don’t remember anyone else.

Were you riding Gullwings before that?
No. I was riding Indys.

What was it like going from Indys to Gullwings?
It was weird, at first, because of the groove, but I was getting free stuff, so I was stoked. You just had to make sure the bushings were good.

What’s that like for grinds when you already had the dug-in center pivot going? Did that feel weird or did that work for you?
It’s the ultimate for pivot fakies and frontside pivots. With Indys, as I’m sure you know, a little groove would wear away next to your wheel on the side. You’d lock into that and get used to that. With Gullwings, the groove was already there and it was right in the center. It works for tricks where you go to lock in.

Vert skating was really coming on at that point, and you were already a sponsored AM. Did you get a board sponsor?
Yeah. I skated Pipeline with Eric Dressen one day. I was doing handplants and madonnas in the square, and Eric asked me to ride for Dogtown.

What did you know about Dogtown at that point?
I didn’t know anything about Dogtown. Eric Castro, a good friend of Lance’s, said, “Go for it, man! Micke Alba is on Dogtown.” Micke had just switched to Dogtown from Santa Cruz. I was getting flow from Santa Cruz, but they wouldn’t answer my calls. It was hard to get anything out of them. Then I went for Dogtown.

That was when Muir was running Dogtown, right?
Yeah. Red Dog was cool. I’d drive down to Inglewood on Martin Luther King Boulevard through the ‘hood to get to the factory. Red Dog would say, “Here you go. Knock yourself out.” Then he’d hand me a 10-pack of boards. It was really cool.

The Dogtown team was you, Micke Alba and Eric Dressen. Who else was on the team?
Scott Oster and “Fingers” AKA Aaron Murray. It was the five of us.

Did you tour together?
Yeah. Back then, street competitions and vert competitions were held together in a big arena. We’d bring the whole posse out. Red Dog would rent a big Lincoln town car for the team. We’d just go cruise around.

Do you have any epic road stories from that time?
The first contest I went to was the Savannah Slamma. Julian Stranger was on Dogtown, too. He was the rookie pro with me. At that contest, Julian Stranger got in trouble for throwing stuff from the window of our hotel room onto people below. Red Dog was pissed. I think Julian got kicked off Dogtown after that.

He got kicked off Dogtown for partying too hard?
Yeah. The same thing happened to me.

What happened?
In ‘89, Dogtown was hurting. They sold out to Fausto. Red Dog had Fausto become the financial backer of Dogtown. He moved Dogtown to San Francisco. Micke Alba was off the team and John Schultes was on the team. I was like, “What the fuck? That’s not Dogtown. That’s H-Town Dogstreet.” That’s what we used to call it.

Why’d they kick you off Dogtown?
I wrote Red Dog a long letter. They were selling out, so I called bullshit on them. I was like, “What the fuck are you doing? Josh Shultes is on the team? I’m going to quit if you don’t get back to where it’s at.” Instead of letting me quit, they kicked me off. A bunch of us were in Japan on tour. When we came back to LAX, there was no ticket for me. I called them and they told me I was kicked off the team. I had to fork up $1000 to buy a last-minute trip to Florida for the NSA finals.

There you are with no sponsor?
Yeah, but at that contest, I talked to Lucero and Grosso and they hooked me up with Black Label. That was great. I was riding with my buddies. It was actually called Lucero LTD., when I got on. Santa Cruz was doing distribution for them. Within a few months, they switched to Vision and turned it into Black Label.

You were riding vert. Were you feeling pressured to ride street?
John Lucero did make my board, but, without my consent, he made it smaller. It had a 15” wheelbase and I always ride a 15 1/2” wheel base. The board was only 9” wide, but I always rode a 9 1/2”. Anyway, my board got made smaller than the size of the boards that I ride.

Were you pissed?
At the time, I was, but I understood. At that point, I was running a street skate park in East LA called Transition Skatepark. It was all street skating at that park.

How did you come to that?
My brother Alec had construction skills. He built the park and I got a job there.

What happened to the ramp in your backyard?
We had a fight with the neighbors. There was an old man that lived right behind the ramp. He went to the city and tried to make us tear it down. He hung recorders out the window to show how loud it was. We put up soundproof walls and tried to appease the man. We had the building permit for the ramp, so that saved us. The ramp had eight-foot tranny with six-inches to a foot of vert. Then we decided we wanted nine-foot tranny. We tore it down to start building a bigger ramp, then the city came and shut us down. They wouldn’t give us a permit to build another ramp.

You’re riding for Black Label and running a skatepark.
Yeah. My board had the men’s bathroom sign on the bottom. It said “Ben” instead of “Men”.

How did you feel about being on Black Label?
I was stoked. When it first started, I was living in San Jose with Grosso, Todd Prince and Ross Goodman. I had already hung out a lot with Ricky Barnes from when the Huntington Beach guys used to come up and ride our ramp.

So in ‘89, there you are, a burly vert skater. Then you had the crash test dummy graphic. Were you getting paid?
I had the top-selling board on Black Label. I had just busted out at the Raging Waters Contest that I’d won in ‘88. Things were going good. I got a lot of pictures in the magazines and ads with Vans, Gullwing and Skate Rags.

Who was in the Gullwing army?
The generals were me, Chris Miller, Gator, Eric Nash, Danny Way and Jason Jessee.

Did you ever do any of those Gullwing tours?
I did the full Power Trip tour. They made a video out of that. They bought a Winnebago and we went on tour. We went to Milwaukee, Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Did you ever skate the Turf?
Yeah. I remember they made us ride copers, but there were some private sessions where we didn’t have to ride copers.I went out there with Chris Robeson and Mike Cresscini in 1988. We lived with the Broudin brothers in the house in the parking lot of the Turf for a month. Chris Robeson hooked it up. We rode The Turf a lot.

Were you stoked or what?
Yeah, we were partying a lot, too. That was my introduction to drinking. We’d go out on the town in Milwaukee, stay up all night, rage and then watch the sunrise over Lake Michigan in the morning. Then we’d go back and sleep. Then we’d get up in the afternoon and skate the Turf until 10pm. Then we’d do it all over again.

Had you been to the East Coast?
After I’d won $5000 at the Raging Waters Contest, I got a new Blazer and did a road trip East. I’d heard so much about Cedar Crest. I wanted to go skate it. Ross Goodman, Reese Simpson and John Fabriquer and I did the cross-country road trip for two months. We went to skate with Midget in Phoenix first. We skated their local vert ramps. Then we drove 36 hours to St Louis. Then we went to the Turf, D.C. and Cedar Crest. Cedar Crest was amazing with that building structure all around it. It was my first metal vert ramp with pool coping. It was fast. I had a blast on that trip. We hooked up with Blaze Blouin and he took us to the places in Charleston.

Did you ride the Charleston bowl?
No, it wasn’t there back then. We rode this ditch. Then we went to this ramp where this old hick man lived. He had his rebel flag flying. He fed us fish stew. Blaze tore that place apart skating.

How was it touring with Reese?
That was my introduction to pot smoking.

Did you skate stoned?
No. I don’t remember. It was that kind of tour.

What happened next?
Me, the local guys, my brother, Steve Salisian and Randy Janson were resisting the street skating that was trying to get popular. I remember the video premiere of H-Street’s “Shackle Me Not.” We had been at McGill’s Skatepark and Dave Andrecht mistakenly gave us invites. We all went and caused trouble from the second we walked in. Steve Salisian immediately broke the mirror in the bathroom. Within 30 seconds of being there, I heard this smash in the bathroom. I don’t know what he was doing. During the video, we were yelling, “Fuck street skating! Go faster!”

What pissed you off about street skating getting popular over vert?
I was pissed because what they’re doing is mostly falling. They’re doing a lot of attempts at a trick, but they don’t nail it very often. Most of the skating that I see is just push at the rail or the stairs, try a trick, fall and walk back. It wasn’t rolling, flying and riding. It was mostly falling and trying to catch a video bite and make it look like something. Street skating just wasn’t exciting. It didn’t look fun. It looked like something for little kids.

I felt the exact same way. It sucked.
At the H-Street premiere, they stopped the movie halfway through and tried to find out who was heckling. Then they put the movie back on.

You were on a mission.
We were out for blood. I lit a skyrocket out of my hand at the screen during the movie. They stopped the video again. Then they put it back on again. They didn’t kick us out.

Well, they weren’t going to kick you out anyway. You’re 7’10”. No one’s going to fuck with you.
It was funny. Then the next day, I got a call from the owner of Gullwing. He said Tony Magnusson and Danny Way were totally pissed off because of what we had done. I had to go have a meeting with the owner of Gullwing.

What was that meeting like?
He told me I had to be more professional. He told me I had to play the game.

Did you tell him to fuck off?
No, I wore a suit and agreed with everything he said.

What was going through your head?
I don’t care. The meeting is over.

You weren’t going to let the street guys take over?
We had to heckle them. We had to give them a hard time.

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