Epicly Later'd: Eric Dressen (Part 2/5)

ERIC DRESSEN: Jay Adams, Marina Skatepark. This is such a *** rad photo. Gyro-- oh, he's on an SMA board, *** all decked out, *** gold [INAUDIBLE] pads, color-coordinated. Sick. My photo. This is a Wynn Miller photo. Wynn Miller shot all the original Alva ads in the '70s. This is a cement halfpipe this guy Steve Open had in the Palisades. This is my favorite summer. The magazine went out of business, "SkateBoarder" magazine. And I think that just caused most of the companies to go out of business. One day I woke up, and skateboarding was dead. I had nowhere to go. I had nobody to skate with. It was a low point in my life. I was in the seventh grade. I wasn't getting good grades. Me my dad weren't getting along. And I became self-destructive. Skateboarding was my favorite thing. I was like, I'm going to show everybody. And I just stopped skating. JEFF GROSSO: What are those kids supposed to do? We gave this thing a shot. It didn't work out. The skateparks are all gone. They're all dying off. We can't make any money doing this. The industry's bottoming out. They already knew it was a [INAUDIBLE] fad thing. It was like, get in, make your money, and get the *** out. LANCE MOUNTAIN: The parks started opening in '77. And the first one built is cool. Then it's obsolete. They build another one. They kind of almost obsoleted themselves. By '83 they're all closed except for Del Mar and Upland. So by '83 all of them are closed. ERIC DRESSEN: I got kicked out of high school. I got this job working at this deli with my friend Zane. He had a Gator board. I'd use it to go do deliveries. Skated a couple pools. We'd go to the [INAUDIBLE] school, right up the street from my house. I remember seeing "Trans-World," Tony Hawk doing Japan Airs and stuff up at Del Mar. And I was like, holy ***. These dudes are doing crazy ***. I could never imagine. -So skating was back. ERIC DRESSEN: It was on its little come back. CHRISTIAN HOSOI: And we took skateboarding into the air. And it became trick oriented. And then all the style took the backseat. All those guys were hot '77 through '80. And they all kind of quit. And it was a change of guard. JEFF GROSSO: A lot of the guys got into punk and rockabilly, and started their music careers and modeling careers, and whatever the *** they parlayed it into, became artists. So all of a sudden there was a whole new crop of pros, Tony Hawk. The last hold out from the original gang was Duane. And then he loses to Hawk. And then he went off into junkie land, junkie punk rock land. JIM MUIR: Around '82, '83, "Thrasher" came back came into the picture. And they started doing their magazine. And it was a do it yourself type of situation, where people were putting on their own contests, and making their own events, and working with shops. ERIC DRESSEN: Once I got off work I went skateboarding. I'd ride my motorcycle up to Upland just to skate the park there. At the same time, they started filming for "Thrashin'." So I was hanging out with Alva. And on the set I met Jesse and [INAUDIBLE]. -Did you audition to be in "Thrashin'?" ERIC DRESSEN: I guess I tried out for a part. But I didn't get it. I worked one day, standing around with a dagger vest on. But we'd show up in the morning. And then by lunch we'd all leave, and just go smoke pot and go skate. I started hanging out down in Venice with Kelly Jackson and them on the weekends. There was a lot of rad skaters around here. Everyone had surf style. And plus everyone had grown up skating at Marina Skatepark. So everyone had little skate park influence, and the backyard, Dogtown influence. Everyone around here was pretty *** good. It used to be a little tougher. When I was a kid, I was like, you skate through here you didn't know if you were going to get your board stolen. The kids were bullies back then. I kind of miss those days, kept you on your toes. SCOTT OSTER: In the mid '80s, Venice is totally different than the way it is now, where it's all yuppified, and it's all people with baby strollers. It used to be like crack addicts and hookers and Venice Shoreline Crips. It was a whole different thing. It was super localized, too. And the forces were like Block and Jesse Martinez, and those people. Luckily, a good friend of mine was really good friends with Jay Adams. So that's how I came in with Jay. So I had a pass to hang out and skate. CESARIO "BLOCK" MONTANO: Dressen was welcomed in Venice because he was introduced to us by other people that remembered and respected him, like Jay Adams, like Hosoi, who remembered him when he was 13, skating Marina Skatepark. I remember that kid. He was the little white kid from the Who's Hot photo. And what's respected around here was that you're a real skater. And you're not a faker. They were like, this dude breathes, lives skateboarding. And he's going to show you guys how to breathe, live skateboarding. JESSE MARTINEZ: He's a pretty quiet guy, at first. I noticed he could skate. I was like, wow, yeah, this guy is pretty good. It was such a small group of skaters that we all just skated together normally every single day. [INAUDIBLE], Oster, Julien Stranger, Kareem Campbell, and Eric Dressen, who became a huge part of it, quickly. ERIC DRESSEN: Jesse, he was the jump ramp king. I never seen anybody go so high off a jump ramp in my life. I seen him go-- I'm not even exaggerating-- 18 feet, and just method crazy. It used to be the quarter pipe was right here, Julien made. And it was crazy. There'd be like 300 or more people on the weekends just watching people skate this quarter pipe. It was a big attraction. SCOTT OSTER: They would go to construction sites, and steal wood, and build ramps. And then we'd have these quarter pipes. It was cool, because we could put them up against all kinds of different terrain, and have them with 10 feet of vert, or put it up where it just had a little bit of vert, and have something you'd grind on. So we had a little skatepark down that we could just move the tranny around. ERIC DRESSEN: Scott Oster, Julien Stranger, and Aaron Murray were going on these trips with Jim Muir, the owner of Dogtown. I was like, that sounds like fun. I think I want to ride for Dogtown. I had a little meeting with Jim Muir. They checked me out skating. And I got on the team. JIM MUIR: When he got back on the board after his lay off, it was like he never got off. And now he went from being the small guy to the small guy with a filled out frame. And he had power and speed. And he was able to apply his transitional surf style approach to that. And I think that gave him an advantage in the beginning of the early street skating period. We were the little company, which started out of my parents' house. And we took over the whole front room, and the hallway, and then the bedrooms. I think there was an inner confidence, a strength that they exhibited, that they wanted to go in and show that we had this style of skateboarding. And this is how we do it. And this is the energy we bring. And we're going to show you how we do it. -You're rad man. You own *** Venice like us. This is your *** town, partner. This is your *** town right here. This is yours. ERIC DRESSEN: In the '80s it was a little bit gnarlier around here, not as much to go around. And everything that Stacy was doing with Bones Brigade was top notch, and top of the food chain. But that doesn't identify with most of the people in our country, in our society. What identifies is people who are struggling, ain't got it made, and ain't got the *** silver spoon in their mouth, and ain't pretty boy blond haired blue eyed. And ain't the kids that are sober. And ain't the kids that are not dysfunctional. So Dogtown, the underdog, that wasn't financially on the same status as Powell-Peralta became rad. These guys were just the raw core.