Pro Skater John Rattray - Epicly Later'd - VICE

JOHN RATTRAY: Jump ramp, jumper clearing the tail. OK. That's always fun. So I'm sorry, right there, fly *** move, and then-- PATRICK O'DELL: What does it say on your shoes? JOHN RATTRAY: Oh, yeah, "the Earth died screaming while I was dreaming," that's Tom Waits. PATRICK O'DELL: Oh, OK. JOHN RATTRAY: I've been studying up on your culture, your people as Americans, I've been studying on your culture, and this man, Tom Waits, I've found to be an exceptional one. Well, if we're at zero, we should skate the rail once. There, that's it. Done. Business taken care of. PATRICK O'DELL: All right, welcome back to the Epicly Latered show. This time, I drove down to San Diego. And met up with John Rattray. I first met John five or six years ago. And he was wearing a Wu-Tang killer bees shirt. And he did the nose one slide down down the clipper ledge-- the first trick he did that really brought him a lot of attention in America. John definitely has a unique way of skating. I think it's because, maybe, because he's so smart or something. I guess this marks the first episode where we have a skater that's not only a high school graduate, he's a college graduate. I think he has a degree in physics of some sort. I don't know. I'm excited to have a non-American episode, a Scotish episode, of Epicly Later'd. JOHN RATTRAY: Wait a minute. I can't drive. PATRICK O'DELL: Why's that? JOHN RATTRAY: Because the Missus has taken the car to go to her volunteer thing at the library. I can drive your car. Oh yeah, I mean, I never pursued skateboarding as a career. I went to university because I felt like that's what I needed to do in order to make a living in this world. And it wasn't until after that, when I came out here and did a 401 thing and all that it became a viable option. Then I had to have some sort of nervous breakdown identity crisis-type thing, where I had to re-figure out who I am and realize that I'm supposed to be a professional skateboarder for a little while. Filippa has this idea that I could be a high school physics teacher. Because I have a degree, so I could do my teacher training. I can't think of anything worse than trying to teach a classroom full of 13-to-15-year-olds. who couldn't care less. JOHN RATTRAY: It used to give me anxiety. Now, I'm just going to wait and see. Now I'm more, kind of, take more time trying to consider exactly what I'm going to do in skateboarding. PATRICK O'DELL: Do you like living in San Diego? JOHN RATTRAY: Yeah. No, it's a beautiful place. I wish I could have all my friends from back home here as well. That would be nice. This is the six man beer boat. PATRICK O'DELL: What, who's that guy? JOHN RATTRAY: Which guy? PATRICK O'DELL: I thought he was this guy Logan that I know from Scotland. JOHN RATTRAY: Oh, I know Logan. Him and Colin Kennedy, man, they were always coming to Edinburgh, like-- they were the only ones that went to college. Nigdy went to college-- no one. DODS: This is from the [INAUDIBLE] ski party this year. JOHN RATTRAY: Oh, Livingston? DODS: It says, don't be chicken-- get your *** out. LOGAN: I saw that. Definitely not glam involved. No glam at all. PATRICK O'DELL: I saw on that skate photo you have on the wall in the bathroom, it says like-- JOHN RATTRAY: Oh, "Aideen thugs kill all visiting fans." PATRICK O'DELL: It seems like a big part of Scotland, is fighting. Is that true or is that false? JOHN RATTRAY: I did head butt someone once. PATRICK O'DELL: Really? JOHN RATTRAY: But he pushed a girl. He deserved it. And these guys turned up all just trying to start some ruckus. And I think one of them pushed Sarah. So I took it upon myself to do the flying head butt maneuver. I keep looking at the camera a little bit. It's kind of weird. I wonder if it will be weird. Because I keep like glancing at it all weird. Nobody, ultimately, says what skateboarding is. We all do in our own way. It's the same in the art world. People try and categorize these different styles of painting and styles of art. But everyone's hanging out together. And certain people, maybe, go and hang out with these people. And they're influenced by that. And so the whole thing kind of overlaps in places. And it makes this one big amazing web of life that is skateboarding. We'll look at the old stuff first or this? PATRICK O'DELL: Yeah, old stuff first. JOHN RATTRAY: Old stuff first. Start at the beginning. This is Aberdeen from 1990 to 1999, a little section Alex put together. Yours truly. PATRICK O'DELL: With the red shirt? That's you? JOHN RATTRAY: Red shirt. As you can see, the classic stylings of the mid '90s. This is around the time when we would probably have watched Eastern Exposure 3 and been influenced by Barley and [INAUDIBLE]. After that video came out. I was living in Glasgow then, I'd go streets skating with my friend Gary Brown. And we'd just pretended we were Ricky and Donny, just cruising the streets. Using the city. PATRICK O'DELL: Is it hard to skate in Scotland? Is there like a lot of cobblestones? JOHN RATTRAY: Yeah, there's cobblestones everywhere. You actually need to be gnarly as *** to skate in Scotland. There I am matching my T-shirt to my board, wearing some rad [INAUDIBLE]. PATRICK O'DELL: Phelps might have something to say. JOHN RATTRAY: Yeah, he would, actually, to call me a ***. Say he thought I was Scottish. There was the most technical trick, maybe, I've ever done. The gnarly frontside nose slide on a ledge. I'd like to learn some of these fancy modern tricks. [CHEERING] *** the southeast. *** the southeast. The north is where you want to be. [CHEERING] JOHN RATTRAY: And its Stuart, [INAUDIBLE] who now does this sort of British ***. I think they put the nail through the *** and whatnot. This is Stuart's section, it's really good. Stuart doing some sort of crowd-pleasing maneuver. He likes a crowd. So far this is maybe the best section Stuart's had. He combines hash and bling so well. You could ask him about that, where his influences come from. *** deadly, dude. I'm going to really love that next year. JOHN RATTRAY: I've come to just know and love the true nature of Stuart. He's a classic, classic being. His idea of not drinking and skating is to have eight beers during the session. My idea would be to have some soda water or something, like an iced tea. But his idea of not drinking and skating is just to have just eight. That kind of thing. It's difficult. I was saying the other day that Stuart, he's more of an experience than a skateboarder. You know what I mean? You need to actually witness in real life. Yeah, so we'll go around the left of him. Or you go around the left of him. STU GRAHAM: Aye, I'll go around the side of him. JOHN RATTRAY: By him, do we mean, Patrick? STU GRAHAM: Aye, big Paddie in the [INAUDIBLE]. There you go. Let's we hang here. STU GRAHAM: This is the bridge, AKA Washington Street, VP. Classic. JOHN RATTRAY: This is one of my favorite places in the world to skateboard. STU GRAHAM: Yeah, definitely. So here we are [INAUDIBLE] take you into the the cradle. Whoopty-do. Trunk. Coming up to visit. You pour the tea, I'll get the sugar. Aye, can you hear me even when I'm over there? PATRICK O'DELL: Yeah. STU GRAHAM: That's sick. So don't be fooled by the Tie-dye, either. This is the first day I've worn it down here. See these shoes? (FRUSTRATED) Ahh. It's [INAUDIBLE] all weather. JOHN RATTRAY: Oh yeah? STU GRAHAM: At least 11 years. We met in Livingston, Livingston skate park in Scotland. PATRICK O'DELL: Is it anything like this? Not really. STU GRAHAM: Not really. I mean, it is similar in the fact that it's made of all concrete. That's about as much as we can do. I mean, I'm not a big art fan, but I would definitely say it's an art space. JOHN RATTRAY: But would you not say that in many ways, skateboarding is a form of art? STU GRAHAM: Very much so. JOHN RATTRAY: All right. Would you say you're a performance artist? STU GRAHAM: I'd like to think so. I've been on a Osiris for almost 10 years. I've been Osiris since it was *** [INAUDIBLE] and *** all those cats. It was insane. I came here with that Brandon [INAUDIBLE], no less. JOHN RATTRAY: Yeah? It was pretty funny. First time out here, Brandon [INAUDIBLE] hyped me up to ***. Since then, I've just been *** lurking. Very respectable man, a good friend. Doesn't smoke weed. No. JOHN RATTRAY: No. STU GRAHAM: Well educated man. Complete opposite of me. John stays up in the Granite City, up in the north of Scotland, Aberdeen. And I'm way down, I'm kind of on the center belt. I'm right in between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Livingston's right in the center. Where I'm from, it's completely-- there's *** bags everywhere. [INAUDIBLE] fast for days. Raging little *** with little tracksuits with their socks turned over the bottoms. ***, we were just back there three months ago. And everybody, apart from the people I skate with, everyone I went to school with are either *** smacked out on *** or some ***, or they're in jail. Livingston, as a town, doesn't have a long to offer. And you'll just take the bad *** route straight off the bat. As soon as you leave high school, you're ***. JOHN RATTRAY: Well, if you hadn't left, then you wouldn't have met Chelsea, and you wouldn't have-- STU GRAHAM: No, I wouldn't be a father. JOHN RATTRAY: --or Roxanne, or Olivia, STU GRAHAM: No, no, wouldn't be a dad, have two kids. One, my oldest, Roxanne, she is thirteen months, and my youngest, Olivia, she is three months. That's only 10 months apart. Fatherhood's a good thing, man. I don't really drink a lot. Only on skate trips. I'm not the type of person you want to take to a bar every night. JOHN RATTRAY: No, I've done that before. I took him to a bar once. STU GRAHAM: It's not a good move. JOHN RATTRAY: Didn't work out. STU GRAHAM: Fighting. Classic. I ***, I was-- it's been since I was, like 18. It's like, we all went to a *** strip club. And we left. A bunch of like, pikey, a gypsy *** all started hassling one of my mates. And we got in a big *** fight in Edinburgh, and I lost my teeth. And I've just rocked it ever since, pretty much. Plus, I don't know, I'm just, I don't like the dentist. I like to look at the beach, but I don't, ***, I'm not a big beach fan. JOHN RATTRAY: You're like me. STU GRAHAM: Aye. JOHN RATTRAY: Salty in there. STU GRAHAM: Aye, I tell you. I'm ***, I'm a big guy. I'm not trying to *** strap up my *** and ***, ***, you know what I mean? Man *** at the beach. JOHN RATTRAY: What about Sea World? STU GRAHAM: I'll got to Sea World, man, that place is *** amazing. Dude. He's talking to me about snow falling and ***. JOHN RATTRAY: Well, maybe you'll see him up there. [INAUDIBLE] STU GRAHAM: I *** hope not, that'd be ***. Bro-ing down with my snowboarding homies. *** that.