Frontside 360 on a classic Utah step-up, Spring 2021. Photo: Ethan “E-Stone” Fortier How’d you learn all that? Wikipedia? My best friend in the world, Jeff Perry. When I was in high school, he was kind of like my big brother. He’s 10 years older than me, and he was super into that mid 90s, late 90s emo scene, and he got me into all that type of music. Over the years, I kind of fell a victim to some of that mall emo and was in the scene for a sec. I’m just a super nerd about that type of music. So, I’ve done research, especially about the history, like, “where did this all come from?” You’ve always been very passionate about your interests. That’s why I asked how much 49ers gear you were wearing for the game. Is anybody on their way over to watch with you, or are you going to be screaming at the TV solo? I’ll be screaming at the television by myself. My wife Monica and I are also packing for Spain. We’re going to Barcelona, Madrid and Mallorca. Are you bringing your skateboard? I haven’t decided yet, but I think I have to. It is the number one skateboard destination in the world. It’d be silly not to. Yeah, if you happen to go Macba, who knows? I want to go Macba for the museum as well. I love museums and history and things of that nature. When’s the last time you went on an actual vacation? I’ve done plenty of surf vacations, but this will be mine and Monica’s first overseas vacation together. So that’s exciting. We’ve done a ton of road trips and smaller vacations, but this is going to be special. Most of your trips to foreign cities have been for street trips. You got any more of those lined up? No, I’m fully done with the streets. That doesn’t mean I’m done with rails, but jibbing is going to be more of a backyard board-ing experience for me. At my point in snowboarding, I have no interest in flying to a big city and sitting in a rental van for two weeks, driving around eating junk food and trying to set up spots to evade police officers. The backcountry is so inviting. It’s more of an escape, whereas street boarding is more of an anxiety riddled test. I don’t think people realize street snowboarding is not really snowboarding. I’m not dogging on street boarding or people that do it. I still love street boarding. But when you’re on a snowboard trip for street stuff, you don’t snowboard. You drive around all day, you find a spot and you set up the spot. You drop in, you don’t do any turns, and you try to get your trick. Then you leave, and that’s it. But when we’re backcountry snow-boarding, we get to freeride and turn and powder surf. There’s so much more snowboarding, and that’s what I’ve been more psyched on these days. You’ll likely be neck deep in powder when this interview drops. I’m excited for this winter. I’ll probably be filming with Stan-dard and TGR again. I’m hoping to take a slow approach to it, like last year. In previous years, I’d start filming as early as possible and go until as late as possible, and that really takes its toll on you physically and mentally. Seeing how much we could accomplish in two to three months’ time last winter was eye-opening. I’m excited to keep filming for this major video project, but also take a lot more time to snowboard for myself as well. It’s going to be a good balance moving forward. BODE MERRILL 079
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 21.3: Page 79
