Tony Hawk Interview
Words by Chris Mitchell
The assignment was absurd. When Jamie from Lifelounge found out I was going to Birmingham, England for the LG Action Sports World Tour, he shot me an email, ‘Get an interview with Tony Hawk!’ As if I could walk up to the single most important figure in skateboarding history and just start asking questions. I deleted the email; Jamie, I decided, was making one of those funny Australian jokes that Americans don’t get. Five minutes later, he sent me another one. ‘Seriously,’ it said.
Tony Hawk, the skateboarder-turned-icon-turned-celebrity, whose Playstation franchise has already made over a billion dollars, who singlehandedly made the X Games a household word, who inspired two generations of angry youth to thrash. He might have asked me to procure a homemade porn tape of Osama and Paris Hilton. That, at least, would have been doable.
And so it happened that I found myself seated in an arena in Birmingham, England without a press pass, a Dictaphone or even so much as a pen, watching Tony Hawk pull flawless 720s, Mctwists and every blunt variation you can imagine on a perfect 14-foot vert ramp.
The style was unmistakable Hawk: fast and precise, limbs sticking out at impossible angles that looked more appropriate for a Balinese dancer than a professional skateboarder. It was the stuff of Animal Chin (1987) and The End (2000) and over a hundred seminal skate videos in between and since, and it was mesmerizing. When he finished the skate session, people swarmed around him, begging for autographs. Teenage boys held out Birdhouse skate decks, mothers proffered toddlers in Hawk brand T-shirts. I had made a mistake when I assumed the man’s fame peaked at celebrity; Tony Hawk was an institution.
After the demo, I went to the bathroom, and that’s when I saw it. Lying on the ground in a puddle of urine was a shiny official Action Sports World Tour staff credential. Was it a trick? A practical joke? I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, it was an opportunity on a lanyard . . . drenched in piss. I snatched the credential off the ground and hung it around my neck where it glistened like bling.
The security guard eyed me suspiciously when I approached. He sniffed the air like he was looking over the edge of a kitty litter box. Finally, he opened the door. ‘Say hi to Mr. Hawk for me,’ he said.
Tony was sitting on a sofa, wearing only a pair of shorts. ‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hey.’
A beautiful blond girl handed him a towel, which he used to wipe the sweat from his face. Against one wall, a table was overflowing with fruit, sandwiches and snack bars. An open ice chest displayed water, soda, ice and beer. The beer was untouched.
Tony stood up and shook my hand. He was dressed in a Quiksilver T-shirt now, his hair streaked with sweat. His face looked a little older than it does in photos, the lines around his eyes a little deeper. I got the impression he was in need of a vacation, but there was still warmth in his smile and a tilt to his head that conveyed he was up for anything.
‘Wanna do an interview?’ I asked.
Tony shrugged. He motioned me to a chair, then dropped into a sofa and kicked his feet up on a coffee table. The blond girl sat down next to him.
‘I, um, can’t seem to find my pen.’ I patted my pockets as if I expected a pen to magically jump out of my pants.
‘It’s right there.’ Tony pointed the coffee table where, sure enough, there was a pen and, right next to it, a spiral notebook of the exact variety an old-timey reporter might use to take notes. ‘That’s yours, right?’
‘Sure is,’ I said, snatching the goods before the real owner showed up to stake a claim.
‘Oh sorry,’ said Tony. ‘This is my wife, Lhotse.’
The blond girl waved. She had huge blue eyes and a brilliant white smile. She looked like an ad for Scandinavia.
‘Looks like you’ve done some research,’ Tony said, nodding at the notepad.
Sure enough, there were questions on the paper. Whoever left the notebook behind obviously didn’t work for Lifelounge.
‘First question,’ I said, reading straight off the page. ‘Would you rather watch your parents have sex every Friday night for the rest of your life, or join in once?’
‘What the fuck . . .’
That last line may have been me. I tried to recover by asking the next question on the paper. ‘What’s your nickname for your winkle?’
Christ.
Lhotse leaned into her husband. ‘Is a winkle what I think it is?’
‘I think,’ said Tony. ‘This interview is over.’
‘Wait,’ I say. I come clean. I tell him about the assignment and the credential, the pen and notebook that I have no right to be holding. He shakes his head, but he’s smiling. I don’t know if it’s the resourcefulness of the plan or the sheer stupidity, but against all odds, I am winning him over.
Lhotse goes to the ice chest and pulls out a can. ‘Do you want an energy drink?’ she asks me. ‘They taste like Red Bull, but without the aftertaste.’
I take the can and thank her. She hands Tony a water. ‘I hate those things,’ he says.
And just like that, the interview is on.
Hawk was born the youngest of three children, his parents already looking forward to their winter years. From all accounts, he was spoiled rotten, or as he describes himself, “a hyper, rail-thin geek on a sugar buzz.” No matter what he tried – tennis, violin, basketball - he threw himself into it completely. He was obsessive and wouldn’t let anything stand in his way.
His parents supported everything he did with enthusiasm and brio. When Tony got into basketball, his father, Frank, became the coach of the Little League. Same with baseball. Whenever the youngest Hawk expressed interest in a new fad, mom and dad were always there to cheerlead.
While he was in second grade, his parents had him psychologically evaluated. The results indicated that Tony was ‘gifted,’ an Americanism for any condition that doctors can’t explain. He was advanced to more difficult classes, but he continued to question authority, and he continued to daydream about the world beyond the border of the classroom.
When he was six, Tony’s brother, Steve, gave him a skateboard, a banana board that he could barely kickturn. He loved it from the start. He pestered his parents every day to take him to the skatepark where he would mimic older pros and “collect scabs” until the sun went down and his father had to drag him out of the concrete bowl.
By the time he turned twelve, Tony picked up his first sponsor. Dogtown had just signed Mark “Gator” Rogowski and Christian Hosoi, and they liked what they saw in Hawk. Two years late, they turned him pro.
It was the eighties, and skateboarding was going through one of its notorious recessions. Skateparks were closing, skaters were quitting and shops were shutting their doors for good. Tony was quickly becoming one of the best skateboarders in the world, but the world of skateboarding was disappearing faster than disco. When he was about 17, his high school career teacher told him off in front of his entire senior class about jumping ahead in his workbook. He wanted to make sure everybody understood the dangers of not following directions. In private, he told Tony that he would never make a living as a skateboarder.
The bastard had no idea about Hawk’s tenacious need to prove his naysayers wrong.
Skating picked up its pace again and Tony traveled around the world doing demos and contests. Around this time, Hollywood latched onto the skateboarding craze with feature bombs like Thrashin’ and Gleaming The Cube. But there were cinematic gems too, like The Search For Animal Chin, directed by Stacy Peralta.
Before he turned twenty, he had bought himself a four-and-a-half-acre estate in Southern California, where his father helped him build a dream-skatepark in his backyard.
Tony describes his father in his book Hawk, Occupation: Skateboarder. “He was one of those guys you always see at Home Depot wearing a baseball cap, a toothpick hanging out of his mouth, a worn plaid shirt with small tears in the elbows, and work pants. He was a Home Depot local; the cashiers knew him by name.”
In 1990, Tony married his first wife, Cindy, and the two had a son. In one of skateboarding’s regular sudden death cycles, the sport again came crashing down in the early 90s, and Tony went from a lifestyle of Lexus and leisure to “a daily Taco Bell allowance of five bucks.” He also started Birdhouse Projects with friend and fellow freestyler, Per Welinder, but his timing couldn’t have been worse, and the company went from fledgling to foundering.
His marriage wasn’t doing so well either. In 1994, Jill Schulz (daughter of Peanuts cartoonist, Charles M. Schulz) hired him to do an extreme-themed family show in Northern California, where he met his second wife, professional rollerblader, Erin Lee.
That same summer, ESPN unveiled a new event/ TV show called The Extreme Games. Tony won Vert Gold and Street Silver, and eventually became the poster boy for ESPN2. Skateboarding’s popularity began to surge once again, Birdhouse began making money, and the newlyweds bought a new house, this one with a pool and a waterfall.
In 1998, Activision approached Hawk about putting his signature on a series of video games. Hawk, a lifelong electronics junkie jumped at the offer. The following year, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was released to rave reviews. A sixth version, Project 8, which features full motion capture of every character, is due out this fall.
1999 was a banner year for the Hawk institution. His second son, Spencer, was born in the spring, and that summer, he pulled his Holy Grail, the elusive 900 at the X Games. In 2002, Tony launched the Boom Boom HuckJam, a multi-sport extravaganza featuring skateboarding, BMX and freestyle motocross with some music element (the year I saw it, Devo played).
As skateboarding exploded at an unprecedented pace, Tony found himself swimming way out of his depth, getting requests for demos and signings from the most unlikely sources. He contracted his sister to act as his agent, and soon found that he was able to ask for and receive $40,000 a day for an appearance. The consequent tour schedule took its toll on his relationship, however, and in 2004, he and Erin separated.
In January of 2006, Tony married Lhotse Merriam in a ceremony on the island of Tavarua. “Rancid played!” Lhotse announces excitedly. “I wore Vera Wang and Tony wore Quiksilver.”
In March, they took a trip around the world with the Gumball Rally. Tony rode in a Jeep SRT8 with Mike ‘Rooftop’ Escamilla and Mike Vallely. The trip started in Budapest and went east through Serbia, Thailand, Salt Lake City, Vegas and finally LA where they finished on Rodeo Drive. By the end, Tony was more than ready to get back to his vert ramp.
These days, when Tony isn’t skating, he spends time with his kids in his house or at Legoland, where the family has an Ambassador Pass. “I’ve become a hermit,” Tony laments. “There are only like four guys I skate with on a regular basis: Jesse Fritsch, Staub, Jean Postec and Jason Ellis. I’m not spoiled; I just don’t like to wait to drop in.”
Not bad for a grommet who once loved violin practice as much as skateboarding.
“Here I am,” says Hawk in an NPR essay. “38 years old, a husband and father of three, with a lengthy list of responsibilities and obligations. And although I have many job titles – CEO, Executive Producer, Senior Consultant, Foundation Chairman, Bad Actor – the one I am most proud of is Professional Skateboarder.
|