The Snowboarder’s Journal: You’re getting ready to watch some football soon. How much 49ers gear are you wearing right now? Bode Merrill: None. But there is a 49ers helmet and a 49ers poncho on the wall and shelf in front of me. Do you watch the game in your garage? I do. I have two garages. One is a man cave. It’s my second living room. And you’ve got some cats over there? I have two cats. One is named Frank, the other one’s Luna. Their full names are Lunatic Stardust and Frankenstein Cosmonaut. Frank is a black cat and Luna is a tortoise. Frank is very personable. He’s fat, but we’re trying to get his weight down. He lets you do whatever you want with him, he’s super fun. Luna’s a little more skittish, but she’s a princess. She’s way cuter and very loving, sleeps in between my legs every night. But Luna brought a bird into the house the other day, it was traumatic. She’s a vicious hunter. Much like her papa? No, I’m a gentle giant. A giant in his own right, with a long list of never-been-done before tricks under his belt. How many NBDs do you have at this point? I don’t know. I honestly don’t love that question, and here’s why: It’s hard to define an NBD. Everything that’s done on a snowboard has either been done before and wasn’t documented or we’re just adding a twist onto something that’s a staple in the snowboard world, taking parts and putting them together. I don’t think anybody had done the double Miller flip you did in Heavy Mental. Yeah. Another example: Nobody had done a one-foot backside 720 Japan before you. Yeah, but Nicolas Müller tried one in the Air and Style. I just take pieces from snowboard history and try to put my own spin on it. In that regard, I don’t feel like I’m doing things that have never been done before. You got a wildcard spot on the first stop of the Natural Selection Tour in 2021, but you declined your second invitation back to the competition. How did you come to that decision? I’m not a competitor. I choke under pressure. I did the first Natu-ral Selection because I knew I would be kicking myself in the ass for saying “no” to such a big opportunity. I don’t feel like I did well. I don’t think I enjoyed myself very much. I’m competitive in a fun, friendly way, but when it comes to a big stage competi-tion, I don’t enjoy myself and fall apart. So, it didn’t sound like something I wanted to invest my time into. I wanted to enjoy my winter. My plan was to do nothing and float around, link up with friends, different crews and just have a good winter for myself. You ended up shooting with Standard Films last winter. How did that come about? At the beginning of the winter, I was planning on taking the season off from doing a major project and snowboarding for myself, and I got to do that. From the beginning of winter until the end of February, I was snowmobiling, meeting up with different people, different crews, and riding Brighton a ton, which was awesome because it was a powder day pretty much every single day. During the filming of Space Cadet (2022), Shane Char-lebois, Brandon Davis and I crewed up with Teton Gravity Research (TGR) in Wyoming. We were with Todd Jones and his son, Kai, this incredible, phenom skier kid, the nephew of Jeremy Jones. I ended up getting four or five shots in the TGR movie, Magic Hour (2022) and got to be close with Todd. The Standard Films project is a TGR produced movie that they hired Mike Hatchett to direct. So, Todd Jones called me up and invited me to film with them. I was a little hesitant at first. I was having such a good time just freeriding for myself. But at the same time, halfway through the winter, I was feeling like, “Dang, I love producing a video part and filming and having an end goal.” It was perfect timing. I was also hesitant because I didn’t know the crew or the filmers, but they agreed to hire Shane to film me and Jason Robinson for a while. It was comfortable and fitting. Shane, J-Rob and I started filming together, then Mike Hatchett came out and filmed for a handful of trips along with Brad Holmes, an awe-some filmer from Tahoe. It came together naturally; we started to stack clips quick. A big goal of mine was to not travel far from home because I was unsure of my financial status, and we were having the best season. I stayed in Utah pretty much the entire winter, minus one trip to Wyoming. A lot of people talk about the high risk and reward of your snow-boarding. Although, despite it not always translating to the view-ers, you’re not an adrenaline junkie and safety is a major concern of yours. Where do you draw the line in terms of risk? You’re right, I’m not an adrenaline junkie. I’m a trick junkie, and that comes from the last 20 years of obsessing over skate and snowboard movies, trying to emulate what’s been done before me. I have all these tricks in my head and that’s what drives me. As far as progression goes, I think we’ve hit a peak of size and rotation and now it just comes down to creativity. That’s what drives me still. In the past, I’ve tried to take that more creative approach to snowboarding and do it on a larger scale. I’m almost trying to pump the brakes on the large scale and just dive more into the creative process. Nowadays, I don’t really jump that big. 070 THE SNOWBOARDER’S JOURNAL
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