“I remember Chris saying, ‘Whoa, this is a cutty zone,’ when we rambled through farm field roads and strange townships to get to the snowmobile trailhead. This was one of his last days of a solid push around Jackson, WY with the Tranny Corp. crew. He’d been holding down the Freedom Frontier all season then stepped into the backcountry and threw down, including this switch backside rodeo 720.” Photo: Ben Gavelda The Snowboarder’s Journal: What was it like growing up in Southborough? Chris Grenier: It’s a smaller town in central Mass with small hills and a small snowboard scene. Pro snowboarding didn’t seem attainable. It’s a classic New England suburb where everybody drops their r’s and has a Boston accent. It’s perfect. People are so blunt and not afraid to tell you they don’t like you. There’s an authenticity to the people there that can’t be replicated. What did your parents do? My mom, Mary Lou, was an English teacher. And my dad, Ray, who goes by “Raymo,” trades stocks and started a financial advising company. Any siblings? I have an older brother named Phil. He is a complete dipshit, but also an incredible human being. And I have an older sister named Andree. They both have two kids. How did you get into snowboarding? The pretty standard story, I guess. I started skateboarding first, then my friend Pete Glenn and I started snowboarding in the backyard on a little plastic Black Snow, building jumps. I was maybe 10 or 11. From there I got a Morrow Model T and we went to Ski Ward. It was my afterschool snowboarding playground, 10 minutes from my house, with 200 vertical feet. Tickets were $12 and the standard look is a Patriots Starter jacket, jeans and a couple Budweisers in your stomach. My parents could just drop me off there after school and I’d stay until closing. It was like going to the skatepark. I mostly rode Ski Ward and Wachusett [Mountain Ski Area], then in middle school my dad got a spot at Mount Snow and we would go up there every weekend to ride. It felt like going to the Alps, just so much bigger. I met you, Scotty Stevens and Austen Granger, and that’s where our crew first formed. You attended Mount Snow Academy? For the last three years of high school I would go to public school in Massachusetts, and in the fall and in the winter, I’d go to Mount Snow. I’m really thankful my dad believed in me. He saw me win some contests when I was a kid and then he was down. If I didn’t go [to Mount Snow], I’d be selling drugs or doing something stupid. But, the fact that I was able to go up there and meet you guys and snowboard all the time shaped my future. Well, mainly your halfpipe riding. Dude, I used to be able to do McTwists Kier [Dillon] style. We would ride tons of halfpipe, even gates occasionally, and jumps. I think it does help growing up to build those fundamentals, but I was in this Green Mountain series with Danny Davis, Michael Gold-schmidt, Niko Cioffi, Lucas Magoon, Shayne Pospisil, Louie Vito and Jack Mitrani. I would never make nationals, they would always beat me, so I rebelled and did rails because I was better at that. Did your head coach tell you that you have no shot at being a professional snowboarder? He pretty much said that to me. Probably. I didn’t have a lot of support from the people there. But I was also a complete dipshit—I smoked, I was partying and doing drugs. It’s good that I peaked early in my partying career. I peaked hard and it’s been a steady decline since. Then you got a Dodge Dakota and started filming. In high school I filmed a video part for It Ain’t Easy , with you, Scott [Stevens], and Granger, for EPI Films. And that’s when we got the squad and started filming. I learned a lot from watching how you and Scott operate. Scott showed me that it’s cool to be a snowboard nerd. He was watching every video that came out, he knew every trick that somebody did, he knew every pro. Through osmosis I started doing that too, and it focused me more on snowboarding than being a dingus. CHRIS GRENIER 073
The Snowboarder's Journal frequency 16.1: Page 73
