The following article was originally printed in the October 2024 Issue of Slush. To access the full article click here.
Back home, are you just fishing every day?
Pretty much, probably a minimum of three days a week. It’s really convenient; the lake I primarily fish at is close to my house. These days, I’m pretty much strictly fishing for muskie, which they say is the fish of ten thousand casts because they’re really hard to target and to catch. Even if I’m not catching fish, it’s just nice to be out there, relaxing, floating around, swimming.
Do you go solo?
Yeah, I go solo a lot. I have a couple of fishing buddies that I fish with, but they’re on their 9-5 work schedule.
Non-snowboard friends?
Yeah.
Did you meet them through fishing?
No, they’re childhood homies. Actually, Aidan Flanagan is one of them, and he’s obviously Triple-OG [laughs]. These days, he’s not snowboarding quite as much, or just snowboarding for fun. Then my buddy Robbie, who doesn’t really snowboard. He’s on the nine-to-five grind, and Flanny does construction, so when they’re available, we’ll go fishing.
That’s probably nice. I know when I hang with friends who don’t snowboard, it can be refreshing. You need that sometimes.
Dude, it’s awesome. I love Minnesota for that. There is such a strong community and snowboard scene here, but I also have a lot of friends who don’t snowboard, or they just snowboard for fun. It’s super refreshing to take a step back sometimes.
For sure. I don’t know if you’re the same way, but I can’t do summer boarding. Or I couldn’t do a whole summer. I need the break.
Totally. And you appreciate it more when you have a little break. I think it’s healthy to take some time, then you don’t get burnt out. I used to go to Hood for four or five weeks every summer. Loved it. It was amazing. I wouldn’t change it for anything. But now I really appreciate the summer—fishing, skating, taking some time off.
True. You were just in the Demo Center those summers. How was that?
Oh, it was so fun. This was kind of pre... pre-Instagram era. Instagram was still a thing, but they had just introduced video to it, and they were fifteen seconds, I believe. No one was really making iPhone edits there. You had some top-tier filmers out there making the recaps. It made it a little more special; you were grinding every week to try and make it into the recap [laughs].
Were you riding Knowbuddy at the time?
Yeah, it was dope. Big shoutout to Dave Massie—he was the best. Even after the Knowbuddy program ended and after I got on Salomon and Adidas, I was still staying at the Burton Demo Center in the summers. The upstairs of the demo center was kind of a flop house. Mattresses in every corner. Dave would always save me a bed, even after the Burton thing ended. That was awesome. It was definitely a special time.
Did Burton offer you a chance to stay on without Knowbuddy?
No, not really. I want to say I tried? That was a goal at the time. I thought it would be cool to be a little bit more involved. I went on one trip with Zak and Ethan around that time. That seemed like a step in the right direction toward potentially getting a contract with them and joining the team officially. That just didn’t happen [laughs]. But it all worked out. Everything happens for a reason, and I’m glad with the way things shook out.
How did Knowbuddy end? Did they just pull the plug on it?
Yeah, which felt better than personally being cut. It was like, this whole program is done. The blessing in disguise was that people had heard the program ended, and at that point, I had filmed a couple of parts. A few companies reached out, showing interest, which was a good feeling after losing a sponsor. It was a relief to have some options. Around this time, Derrek Lever happened to be on a surf trip with Bode [Merrill]. He was chirping Bode like, “You’ve got to put this kid on Salomon.” He kept chirping Bode, and then Bode talked to Kevin, and eventually, Kevin talked to me. I had just gotten on Adidas, so I was talking to Big Ev [Evan LeFavre] a lot, asking him for advice on where to go or how to navigate talking to different companies. Stepchild had reached out to me, and their team was really sick at the time. Halldor also reached out to me about riding for Lobster. I was kind of tripping at the time, like, Halldor Helgason is calling me? This is crazy [laughs]. Stepchild had actually sent me a proposal with three snowboards to try out.
Did you ride the boards?
Yeah, I rode one at Hyland. That was kind of my thing—I wanted to try the boards before signing up for anything.
So you rode a Lobster board one day?
I did.
If there’s a photo, that would be great.
[Laughs] I ended up giving the boards to my cousins. But yeah, I got a proposal from Stepchild, and they were offering, right away, a pro-model board. That didn’t feel right at all. I had only filmed two video parts at the time. I felt kind of strange about that—didn’t feel like I had earned the “pro status.”
It wouldn’t have been as special.
Yeah, it just didn’t really feel right. The whole proposal was a bit strange. I remember seeing in writing that if I got a cover of a magazine, the photo incentive was a case of beer and a pizza party. At that time, I was very naïve to the whole contract thing. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, I guess. But I knew that didn’t really seem right [laughs].
We’ll talk about Adidas later, but just for comparison, what was the Adidas cover incentive?
Uh... I’m trying to remember the cover, but I’m pretty sure that overall incentive capped at like two hundred and fifty grand, which is a lot more than a pizza party and a case of beer. And obviously, there are Olympics and X Games in that, which was stuff I wasn’t necessarily doing. But just seeing that was like, okay, this is more professional. Like, this feels more right than the pizza party over at Stepchild [laughs]. But still, it was cool to get a proposal. And I kind of knew, too. It didn’t totally feel right compared to when I talked to Kevin at Salomon... at Lance Armstrong’s house. I knew that was like, this is the fit. This is where I should be.
Wait, what happened?
We were on the third year of the Dragon Frameless Tour. We were in Aspen, and we were staying at Lance Armstrong’s house. Kyle Martin had a connection with one of Lance’s previous assistants? Something along those lines. So he had lined up us being able to stay there.
Was this pre-doping when Lance Armstrong was the GOAT and everyone loved him?
This was after—it has to be. Because he got outed for juicing in 2012? I actually just watched a Lance Armstrong documentary, so I’m kind of fresh on it [laughs]. That show was crazy because they’re interviewing him, and I’m watching, thinking, I’ve been in that house. But we’re in Aspen, we’re at Lance Armstrong’s house, we’re doing this Dragon Tour—already just an insane time. So sick. Then I get the call from Kevin, and he pretty much said, “We’re down if you’re down.” I was so down.
Did he just cold call you?
No, we had talked before, but just to set up the call. I remember the conversation being so smooth, super transparent about everything. Felt like a great fit. The next day, I got an email with the contract, and I was tripping. Best feeling in the world. I was a huge fan of Salomon already—they had such a bomb team, a bunch of people I looked up to. They were doing cool projects. That one always sticks because that was such a memorable time and place, just being on the Frameless Tour and also being in Lance Armstrong’s house.
Did you guys party there?
Yes, definitely. Actually, I don’t know if we’ll get this to print, but Spenny had sex in Lance Armstrong’s bed.
With who?
I’m not exactly sure, a nice woman that he had met when we were out on the town in Aspen. And yeah, just…kind of a fun fact… Spencer had sex in Lance Armstrong’s bed [laughs].
Damn, talk about a pickup line. Hey, you want to come back to Lance Armstrong’s house?
Yeah, I’m just stayin' at my buddy Lance’s [laughs].
How were those tours though?
Amazing. Such a special time. I’ll remember that forever. I’m so grateful for all the opportunities that snowboarding has given me and everything that has led me to being right here, hanging out by this creek talking to you. But if I could take one thing from snowboarding, I think it would be those Frameless tours.
As your best moments?
Yeah…just everything. It was all so new. I was learning so much and meeting all these friends that I’ll know and be friends with for the rest of my life.
Who was there?
It was Blake Paul, Spencer Schubert, Dillon Ojo, Mark Wilson, Brady Lem, Jordan Smalls, and myself. We did three years of the tour, and as they went on, the crew got a little bit smaller. It was such a cool time. Dragon got all these guys together from all over. We’d pile in a van and go on a month-long tour, going from resort to resort, filming these edits. It was every November, early December, which was such a fun way to start off the year. The camaraderie in the van…eight twenty-year-olds traveling for a month together—so epic [laughs]. The Frameless Tour is also where I really got to know Colton. We hit it off pretty much right away.
You did a European one, yeah?
Yeah, that was the last year of the tour. We went to Stubai in Innsbruck. Again, we were just young. That was my first time going to a resort in Europe, like going to the Alps, and it was so cool. Dragon covered everything. That was my first experience with something like that.
Who was running it at the time?
Kyle Martin, the best. Honestly, the best. The whole Frameless Tour wouldn’t have been possible without him driving the ship. I think that last year—and I could be wrong on the numbers—but I think that last year we had a budget of fifty thousand dollars for this tour, and I think he spent eighty thousand. Like, even when we got to Europe. Night one, we got a hostel booked, and again, we’re like twenty, twenty-one, we’re young, we don’t care, the hostel is fine. We’re just hyped to be here. And we’re in there for maybe ten minutes, and Kyle’s like, absolutely not. Boys, pack your shit. And then he books us rooms at the Hilton in downtown Innsbruck, which was so sick. We were just loving it. Super fun riding the resort, pretty low pressure, but everyone’s having a good time. We’d even hit—we’d call it soft street—we’d try to do more than just the park. We’d try and hit some soft street.
What is “soft street,” like little fuck-around spots?
Kinda, yeah. We’d try to make these edits the best that we could, and to do that, it was nice to try and get—we’d get stuff at the resort but try and get anything else. Maybe not video part-worthy spots, but for the park edit, tour video, pretty cool.
And Homage year was around the time of that first year of the tour, yeah?
Yeah. I got on Dragon at Superpark, which was in May at Mt. Bachelor. At Superpark, I had met and was riding with Derrek Lever, and he had mentioned that I should film with them that winter for Keep The Change. I was a huge fan of all the Keep the Change stuff, so I was hyped at that idea but kinda wasn’t sure if it was going to happen. Then the following fall, I got invited to do the Frameless Tour, and Colton was hired to be the filmer and editor. I don’t know exactly when, but probably sometime during that tour, Colton invited me to film with Keep the Change. I was ecstatic. So hyped.
Actually, just thinking of this, I drove in the Strange Brew van that Ian Daly bought—this is at the start of filming for Homage—with the gang from Minnesota to Boston. They drove the van from Tahoe to Minnesota, met me there, and stayed with my parents. I rolled with Strange Brew from Minnesota to Boston because they were going there for a trip, and we just met up with the Keep the Change crew on the side of the road in Boston. I just went from one van to the other. Pretty sick, but I was mad nervous.
Was it awkward though, just straight up going from one van to the next?
No, it was okay. I was just super nervous. It was my first video part. I knew Colton from the Frameless Tour. Riley, I knew from living in Tahoe at the time, and Derrek a bit from Superpark, but not on the level we’re at now. And joining a legit crew was definitely intimidating. Exciting, but intimidating. And then we drove—we did Boston for like a day or two because it got rained out or something, so we drove to Buffalo. But my first clip was in Boston—did a five-o on a knobbed rail. That was my first clip.
First clip ever?
Mmm, not ever. But first clip for Keep the Change, for my first video part.
That’s kind of sick that that was your first Homage clip.
Bungee back five-o...