He is at tumbling giant I clench fisted romancer, everywhere he goes he leaves a plundered trail of havoc and destruction . Birds screech and take to the skies as he passes women flock to his feet and men cower in fear and envy. His strength is awesome and unsurpassable and no beast will ever overcome his mighty abilities. This does not describe Lance Mountain, the bushy eyebrowed skater from Alhambra, California, they Are merely words on paper. By the time you finish looking at the photos and reading this interview, you should realize it yourself. So laugh and don’t take it so seriously.
So how old is Lance Junior now – and how old are you? 25 years old now. Are you all grown up now? No.. I am grown up, I guess. You have responsibilities? I guess you start getting responsibility when you start growing up like when you get out of high school that’s when you start feeling it. And now that you have a kid you got all the responsibility of that too do you think becoming a father has change you at all. To myself or other people? Both. I don’t know about other people I don’t know what they say but I’ve changed somethings are more important than before now taking care of them is the most important thing ??Are you thinking about having more kids??Not before I’m a millionaire and have a ranch. ?A millionaire with cows and chickens and all of that? (lance laughs) No I don’t know. I don’t know if I have another kid I’m glad I had a boy if I had a girl I would have had another kid. How does Evette feel about it? She says the same right now you know we don’t know about later later on she’ll probably think she wants a girl So is skateboarding progressing for you as a career? Yeah I think so I think it is I mean obviously it has yeah?Some people say that skateboarding is leveling off as far as board sales go have you been affected by that at all and your paycheck or anything? I think maybe it’s leveled off you know that certain people certain companies have taken it and some companies are still getting the same I think a couple of the new strong companies like a lot of the sales that’s where the big main companies maybe didn’t suck off just stayed about the same but for like the last couple of months I’ve had the biggest checks I’ve ever had so for me it’s not been slacking down but yeah I think it leveled out about last year something. What do you think will happen? Nothing. It had to get that big early to stay this big now, I think.
You don’t think skateboarding might die down again like it did last time around? Umm I think skating then, when it slowed down and when the kids stopped doing it or whatever it is because they had nowhere to skate. They were told, you know, they thought skateparks were the only place to skate. They were?nt introduced to just being able to skate down the street and building their own ramps and all that kind of stuff. They didn’t even see that side of it. The majority of kids don’t do? they don’t create it, they just follow it. But there is a lot of kids to do create it around the country, and that you don’t ever see. And those would be the guys that stayed with it last time you know? And now. And now there are videos and magazines and everything showing you that you can create it and build your own scene. It’s just stronger. And now there?s street skating and Mini Ramps Exactly. Plus the kids that are riding street now are learning the basics way better than we learned them. All those guys that skate street now have way better moves. The kick flip allies and step pops, and all of that, yeah so all the way through the riding vertical is going to be so much gnarlier because of that, because they’re going to be able to do freestyle tricks on vert. That’s true a lot of that is already happening . Are there any new tricks you are stoked about lately? Just stuff that I learned years ago. I just learned of lip slides the other day, probably the last person on earth to learn ?em but yeah I’ve been learning some stuff; like on tour. I went on tour with Tony and Mike McGill and when I was gone I learned lip slides and body varials and varials; stuff I usually never do. If you can just have fun doing nothing if you have the will to learn new stuff than you can learn it easy. But if you don?t have the will to do it you just keep skating and.. And doing the same old tricks that’s true with just about anything. It gets hard to learn this stuff because that’s when the real fun that’s real fun and you can just say well I can just do this all day but you can still learn new tricks even after you’ve been skating for 15 years Or stay the same and just enjoy it.. So you just recuperated from a knee injury I broke my ankle but it’s almost been a year now. I did it the day after Christmas What happened? I stepped off the flat bottom of a mini ramp because I was going to run into someone. And I was going backwards instead of stepping pff with my back foot I stepped off with my front foot first. I stepped off with my front foot and my toe caught and it broke my ankle out, I took off and it and dislocated it out and broke six ligaments and a bone ouch how long does that put you out for? I couldn’t skate for six months I had a cast on for about four. Was it hard for you to come back after that? What was hard was my foot wouldn’t work right, it wouldn’t bend and everything/ It made me realize how much more stuff I want to do and skating It kind of motivated you in a way? Yeah, it motivated me because I realize that I didn’t want to not be skating you know? I don’t know. I’ve only entered two contests since then. That contest in Europe, and I actually won. it was street and a vert contest You won first place? Yeah and I blew it I shouldn?t have won the street, first of all. How come I don’t know because I didn’t really do anything.. but it was the first contest I had enterered since I?d been skating again and I won it. I don’t know I just thought I shouldn’t of won and the vert was right after it – the same day yeah like a couple of minutes after it and it was over. It was all mad. You are mad because you had won? No. I don’t know I just was upset because the way things had gone in the contest. And I was bummed out that I got mad. And I couldn’t even settle down for the ramp contest. Then I thought I was getting a hold of it and they said I had won right before I dropped in. I was just gone and I blew that contest. It was the first contest-I hadn’t made the cut in about, I don’t know four or five years or something and I wigged out so now I am all tripped out I havent entered a vert contest since then. You went to Virginia Beach? It rained out though lucky because I would’ve done terrible there. How do you feel about the contents that are coming up Shut up and Skate contest and then the Pro Finals, are in about a month from now. About entering them? Yeah. I want to enter them I wanted to enter that Australian contest but somehow I just couldn’t get a ticket or whatever: I don’t know. What about Japan? Stevie and Tommy are going because I just got back from there. Steve cut his finger or something so I don’t so I don’t think he’s going either. He was supposed to be leaving today but it was depressing in Japan when I was just there – two years ago when we went there for a demo we?d get about 1000 or 2000 kids or something. And we just went there and we did two demos on one day 46 kids showed up the next about 62 kids were there. Is skateboarding dead over there? I don’t know we couldn’t really communicate with the people you know we couldn’t talk to them like that. But they are putting a lot of money into this contest ($50,000 purse) so maybe they’re trying to help it or maybe it?s big. I don?t know it?s confusing. Did you do ramp demos in Japan? One ramp demo and then at the skate park. It was in a pool. I couldn’t even ride the pool because it was too slippery. Tony skated it really good, but it was really slippery and if you went to carve you know if you got off a half pipe line you would slip out. And there as no vert, I really find it ahard to ride within vert at all, its like the worst thing for me to do, is ride right to vert ramps. How come? I didn’t grow up on that. I grew up on our ramp that had 2 feet of vertical on it, and I learned all my tricks off vert And like a lot of the guys from San Diego and Del Mar learned a lot of their tricks at Del Mar (at the keyhole pool) which is like no vert. So , there are different methods to go into things. And you kind of learn the ollie method on no vert, more. So I’ve always had trouble skating on no vert. Like all the Del Mar contests and things, I had to try really hard to do good. You’d find yourself plowing into the cup in because it came up so soon? Yes it seems like you have to get under your board and slow down and concentrate more to do it, and you can’t just cruise through something. And I find it easier to skate that way just more natural for me. (Lance Mountain Part 2 Oct 1, 2016)
